History does repeat itself. We have been through some rough passages in this country before. And it’s not surprising that the pendulum would swing back to Nazism and in the era of Trump. After all, the day after Donald Trump was elected, both the KKK and the Nazis marched in the streets. Hate crimes rose. Pandora’s Box had been opened and evil had seeped out into the world.
It’s an old evil. We’ve seen it before. It never leaves. It never dies. It merely goes dormant for a while, lulling us into believing that it’s been vanquished. But that’s only an illusion. The dark side of human nature will always be with us. It’s merely a question of whether it’s in the ascendant or confined to the underbelly of our culture. This clip is sobering. This was taken in the 1930’s in Madison Square Garden. You will recognize the verbiage and the symbolism.
— DiveDoc🇺🇸🏴☠️🇺🇦 (@LJLMD) November 19, 2023
That was then. Today we saw the frontrunner for the GOP ticket accuse a prominent Jewish congressman, Adam Schiff, of having a “fat ugly face.” (Trump calling anybody fat or ugly is ironic.)
This isn’t a presidential candidate rally, this is George Orwell’s Two-Minute Hate.
— Esports Women (@EsportsWomen) November 19, 2023
This is true. And the road to fascism in America is not being paved with anti-democratic hate. No, it’s being paved with indifference and intellectual laziness. There are people who would rather listen to conspiracy theory and watch Fox News than to find out what’s going on in the world.
Interesting that Schiff and Chuck Schumer were mentioned, both Jews. And Pelosi’s a woman, can’t have that. That’s almost as bad as being a Jew. Worse, actually.
We’re going through another dark passage in our history. I hope that we find our way.
After watching two documentary films on John Kennedy, it’s mind blowing how far our standards have fallen concerning WHO we give power to. Maybe a better word is disheartening. John Kennedy was a war hero, who, at great risk, commandeered a wooden PT boat that was hit by a large Japanese war vessel in the south pacific. He reinjured his bad back, but got his men through shark infested waters after pulling the most injured man with a life vest strap in his teeth across miles of ocean. He, through his leadership, kept the survivors alive and eventually rescued. He could have used his wealth, privilege, and chronic medical conditions to avoid service altogether. Fast forward to a country full of citizens willing to re-elect a fascist rapist thief. The song Eve of Destruction by Barry Mcguire is playing in my head. If you want peace…prepare for war. Hyperbole? If you believe that…you’re a goddamn fool. VOTE!
JFK had medical issues that made him 4-F (medically unfit for military service) but he talked his wealth AND connected father to pull strings and get him into the armed forces so he could fight in WWII. Trump on the other hand was medically fit, so HIS father bribed a hack to invent a case of magic bone spurs to get him 4-F status during Vietnam.
It’s truly frightening. MSM is so focused outward to the I/P war that they are pretty much ignoring this peril. They cover Trump’s ranting but don’t treat it seriously. I’m glad I’m old. Perhaps I won’t have to go thru the worst of it.
An old friend from Carolina and I get together regularly. He’s 72 and I’m 70. We joke that life in prison is a short sentence for us. That makes us a little more dangerous than the youngsters. Ha.
Indeed Sir! I’m 76 and those are my thoughts exactly. And thank you Ursula. This was a beautifully thought out and written piece. Sobering as it needed to be.
When I was hanging out at Johns Hopkins, there was a local.gang from a neighborhood of German Americans where Nazi flags were often seen during WW II. In 1977, their offspring liked to hide in the bushes and mug Jewish students. That was nearly 50 years,ago. Nothing has changed.
Disgusting and depressing.
A couple of years ago PBS had a documentary about Nazis. After the war they let a lot of the german army regulars immigrate into the U.S. to do machine repair in car manufacture and other industries that needed skilled repairman which the germans were good at. They said that the deal was that they would have to be interviewed once a year to stay in the U.S. Then they showed a government worker at a desk with stacks of books with pages with columns of names and addresses of all these guys that had to be interviewed each year. It was a staggering amount.
Most are probably retired by now, but I imagine that they each had several kids and I’m sure that their views would have carried onto the next generation.