ariebird
Dr. Brad Rosenheim has moved!
If you get paywalled, the gist of the article is that #DeSantis resurrected a State Guard that is in our Constitution. He told the voters that this would be for helping Floridians after disasters like #hurricanes. Some who joined have quit, though, because they are being trained to be paramilitary and people fear that the force will be used to crack down on people using their freedom to gather and to protest, as well as undocumented workers in the state. And, even some retired military veterans have said that the training is abusive and, like most things Republican, without any meaningful oversight or direction. Reminiscent of the #BrownShirts .
J blue@Brad_Rosenheim thanks for sharing
Chris RealYeah, thanks for this
kaffando
dibi58guantanamo torquemada de santis fuhrer of the 4th reich visiting team ...
make kkkristian filth great again, with the inquisition v2.0 ...
🤣
The Spanish Inquisition - Mel Brooks
Johannes Hentschel@dibi58 Excellent video!
Chuck Darwin@Brad_Rosenheim When #DeSantis announced in 2021 that he wanted to revive the long-dormant #State #Guard, he vowed it would help Floridians during emergencies.
But in the year since its launch, key personnel and a defined mission remain elusive. The state is looking for the program’s third leader in eight months.
According to records reviewed by the Times/Herald and interviews with program volunteers, a number of recruits quit after the first training class last month because they feared it was becoming #too #militaristic.
Weeks into that inaugural June training, one volunteer, a disabled retired Marine Corps captain, called the local sheriff’s office to report he was battered by Florida National Guard instructors when they forcibly shoved him into a van after he questioned the program and its leadership.
DeSantis’ office referred questions to Maj. Gen. John D. Haas, Florida’s adjutant general overseeing the Florida National Guard.
In a statement, Haas said the State Guard was a “#military #organization” that will be used not just for emergencies but for “aiding law enforcement with @riots and illegal @immigration.”
“We are aware that some trainees who were removed are dissatisfied,” Haas said. “This is to be expected with any course that demands rigor and discipline.”
Three former members told the Times/Herald the program veered from its original mission.
Love4ALL@cdarwin @Brad_Rosenheim Everyday, we are each choosing which side we stand upon: the side of selfless compassionate service to one and all, or the side of selfish callous cruelty to only our in-group. There will come a day when we shall each have to stand and testify to the truth of our life's heart's choices, and there will be no hiding our chosen path.
Mary Ann Horn@Brad_Rosenheim . Fight at local and statelevels especially. That’s how #Florida got hijacked by the Rs. Don’t give an inch!
@Brad_Rosenheim I hate to underestimate these fascist bastards, but DeSantis' ultimate problem is the combination of his whiny-ass balls-havent-dropped-yet voice with that dour look on his face while wearing those fancy white boots on his tour with Biden.
Ann McNichol@Brad_Rosenheim I’m beginning to realize that living in Massachusetts may not be enough unless we secede. Why can’t you leave Florida? Family dynamics and economics?
@RadiocarbAnn We can. We don't necessarily want to, but we will if we have to. Drawing that line in the sand is the hard part - harder than many think.
BlackDutchSnark@Brad_Rosenheim Got the brown shirts and everything…
spherulitic@Brad_Rosenheim a shitshow like this is what you expect when civilians cosplay Rambo. Assaulting a disabled vet because he pointed out that the “leaders” don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. That’s Florida, all right. What a crock.
Nazani@Brad_Rosenheim It sure sounds like DeSantis wants a force that will obey his illegal orders to attack protestors, not people with the skills to help Floridians during natural disasters.
Moved to @@Brad_Rosenheim that psycho has a fucking army now???? what the actual fuck
MyOpinion@Brad_Rosenheim You are not crazy the GOP/Nazi party has been going this way for a long time.
@Brad_Rosenheim @CassandraZeroCovid
I've been saying for a long time that Florida is the #GOP testing ground for full #fascism in America. So far, it's working very well.
#FallingintoFascism
I've been saying for a long time that Florida is the #GOP testing ground for full #fascism in America. So far, it's working very well.
#FallingintoFascism
xyhhxone volunteer, a disabled retired Marine Corps captain, called the local sheriff’s office to report he was battered by Florida National Guard instructors when they forcibly shoved him into a van after he questioned the program and its leadershipw-what lmao 
@xyhhx That's Florida Freedumb.
@Brad_Rosenheim Remember that when Einstein got out of Nazi Germany in 1933, he said he was "witnessing a mass psychosis". You are not overreacting or crazy; the problem even deeper than the Nazis is that most people are just too unconcerned with morality or anything beyond what they put in the belly or affect their social standing to give a crap, but keep shouting into the void, some of us are listening, dear brother. Peace be with you.
Blake Leonard@Brad_Rosenheim If DeSantis is after the title of Commander-in-Chief, and he's not going to be governor of Florida if he is, why is he creating a state militia? What use would that be for him?
Now, if it were a non-state militia, then I do feel like it could be useful in an armed coup, but there are already a lot of paramilitary entities who legally answer to the President and the Executive branch (as seen when Orange Man cleared a protest to walk to a church for a photoshoot), and a lot of other paramilitary entities (most police departments nationwide!!) who side with TFG and, should he become President, probably DeSantis too.
So yeah, danger agreed. Motivations unclear but definitely in the direction of authoritarian dictatorship.
Now, if it were a non-state militia, then I do feel like it could be useful in an armed coup, but there are already a lot of paramilitary entities who legally answer to the President and the Executive branch (as seen when Orange Man cleared a protest to walk to a church for a photoshoot), and a lot of other paramilitary entities (most police departments nationwide!!) who side with TFG and, should he become President, probably DeSantis too.
So yeah, danger agreed. Motivations unclear but definitely in the direction of authoritarian dictatorship.
CellyBlue@Brad_Rosenheim I said the same thing.
Kyle Rose@Brad_Rosenheim very unsettling
Steve Popovich@Brad_Rosenheim lovely. He's setting up his very own brown shirts, answerable only to him.
George Goodman@Brad_Rosenheim That article in the Tampa Bay Times is worth the read and I agree this is a scary development in the political meltdown of the state where I was born. Are Florida voters drastically under informed or mesmerized by DeSantis?
Jim Goodall@Brad_Rosenheim Retired Canadian RCAF Reserve CIC Officer here. Former instructor. So many red flags seen in this article. No training syllabus, no official direction, no confirmation of instruction retention, no physical fitness training standards, no standards of instruction whatsoever. This is amateur hour garbage at best, and together with the alleged assault in the story, this is a recipe for disaster. Somebody WILL die in this clown show, and Ron DeSantis will deservedly, own this.
get out of florida fast ...
Toni Aittoniemi@Brad_Rosenheim People tend to forget that nazism didn’t start with gas chambers. It started with one party using coercion to silence the others, and people staying silent from fear of ”causing trouble”.
Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs@Brad_Rosenheim What to fuck...
Scraping my jaw up off the floor now.
Elizabeth Alcinoe@Brad_Rosenheim We are getting people moving here to Massachusetts, escaping from those shithole states, and it's looking much like political asylum. Here in my country.
Cat West@Brad_Rosenheim Little Mussolini making a little militia so he can fight the feds, attack immigrants, … it’s as if Republicans all want to be mob bosses, and make their own rules, laws, and tear the country apart.
antipode77Ron's shadow army & police.
☠️
“The program got hijacked and turned into something that we were trying to stay away from: a militia,” said Brian Newhouse, a retired 20-year Navy veteran who was chosen to lead one of the State Guard’s three divisions.
Unlike the National Guard, State Guard members can’t be deployed by the federal government. They answer only to the governor.
They wanted a specialized unit within the guard to have police powers and the ability to carry weapons.
Sevachina
Kerri Levine
Army Girl@Brad_Rosenheim that is CRAZY. He's going to send these half trained pseudo "soldiers" to other states? With weapons?!
@ArmyGirl I think it is more likely he will use them against the free citizens of Florida if we don't think the way he and his serfs think. It's to quash any Antifascism movement and to arrest non-USians.
micropainter@Brad_Rosenheim Meanwhile in Canada: Premier of Alberta says "DeSantis is my hero."
#cdnpoli #ableg #yyc #yeg
#cdnpoli #ableg #yyc #yeg
@micropainter Beware of that sort of leader. Beware of the neighbor that likes/votes for that sort of leader.
Margaret Moonshadow@Brad_Rosenheim When I first heard about this state guard, it alarmed me but was somehow reassured---via the news, both print and televised--that it wasn't what I feared it might be. Now I realize that it is exactly as I feared. This reminds me in these times, it's kind of ok to rely more on instinct especially in places like Florida. DeSantis is a rogue governor. Let's just hope it ends there.
Stevens R Miller@MargaretSefton @Brad_Rosenheim
I wonder if his Plan B, if he can't become president of the United States, is to secede and become president of Florida.
@stevensrmiller @Brad_Rosenheim I've been working on a fantastical near future fiction in which the south secedes, grounding the point of view in Florida. I guess anything is possible? ugh. lols.
@MargaretSefton @Brad_Rosenheim
Been working on the same thing. My map has Florida as a republic in a kind of federation with the states to its west, and New England, etc., as its own nation, operating under a free-trade alliance with the nation of the Pacific states. Everything else in the USA becomes a loosely amalgamated set of theocratic territories, governed by a squabbling conference of anointed sheriffs.
We'd better finish our work on these soon, or history will get there first.
@stevensrmiller @Brad_Rosenheim Love it. I haven't worked out how all the states will fall out, only north and south. But I incorporate Civil War ghosts so mine is much more fantastical/region-specific. History informing a near future interests me a great deal, sans slavery although systematic racism is a feature. I've thought the same thing, re: a deadline. My mfa writing group is more literary so I don't know if I can convince them to read this/critique it but I may have to try. 🖤 💀
wauz@Brad_Rosenheim
Historical source:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm
Very important because of its definition of faschism
That's great. Thanks!
"... the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital."
"It is a government system of political gangsterism, a system of provocation and torture practised upon the working class and the revolutionary elements of the peasantry,..."
@Brad_Rosenheim
I heard of a book on the history of WW1 and WW2. The author is most probable a German nationalist, but seems to be very busy searching for documents that proof the active involvement of British and American bank houses in the planning and initializing of both wars.
Unfortunately, I lost some of my notes, but will find out about the title and will hopefully able to buy it.
I only heard about it in a YT video. Maybe, it's crap, but maybe there is enough evidence that matters.
@StillIRise1963
I heard of a book on the history of WW1 and WW2. The author is most probable a German nationalist, but seems to be very busy searching for documents that proof the active involvement of British and American bank houses in the planning and initializing of both wars.
Unfortunately, I lost some of my notes, but will find out about the title and will hopefully able to buy it.
I only heard about it in a YT video. Maybe, it's crap, but maybe there is enough evidence that matters.
@StillIRise1963
High Yasaiō Natsura 
@Brad_Rosenheim shit like this is why I stay the hell out of Florida!! As a white, pansexual, atheistic, trans woman I would have like barely any rights in Florida...Governor DeSantis should be in prison for LIFE
Silk_Flame (she/her) 😷@Brad_Rosenheim can confirm (blue dot in red Florida city and can't just pick up and leave).
The federal government should cut off funds to this entity, since it's function has been corrupted. Dems need to fight back! Laws should have been passed at the beginning of the administration to limit the powers of the fascist governors. DeJoy should have been replaced with a Democrat. Think the MAGAs are going away? Where is the Democratic counterpart to the Moms for Liberty?
I won't be surprised if DiSantis is our next (and last) president.