~1919: global pandemic
~2019: global pandemic
~1920: Dr Thomas Tuttle's life is threatened for mask mandates
~2020: Dr Anthony Fauci's life is threatened for mask mandates
~1922: roaring 20s
~2022: we are so back!
~1923: Beer Putsch - attempted coup by fashy Germans
~2021: Jan 6 - attempted coup by fashy Americans
~1920s work on Autobahn begins. Fash hate the infra projects
~2020s Biden's infrastructure bill starts. Fash hate the infra projects
~1924: Hitler indicted
~2023: Trump indicted
I guess what I'm saying is...
1) History doesn't repeat. But it sure does rhyme.
2) A conviction doesn't mean what you think it means. You still have to oppose fascism directly. There is no way around that.
The same way that Trump will claim credit for Biden admin Infrastructure Bill improvements in about 10 years, is how people to this day still think that "Hitler made the trains run on time and fixed the roads." Hitler did not do that.
We are still on a not great path.
Everyone knows Mein Kampf is a terrible book that did, and still does, so much harm. But fewer (US) people know where Hitler was when he wrote it (jail!), or why he was in there (he flubbed his Jan 6th moment too). š¤·šæāāļø
We need to get off this ride. It's not headed to a good place.
We keep thinking we've escaped the danger, but it's like a Final Destination movie. We haven't broken the curse yet.
@mekkaokereke I hear what you're saying, but hitler was like 45. Trump is 77 and in pretty marginal health.
not that I plan to let my foot off the gas on beating these fascists or that Turnip is the only threat, but it's not a straight comparison.
"not that I plan to let my foot off the gas on beating these fascists or that Turnip is the only threat, but it's not a straight comparison."
Right in the post, my dude.
I think it will resonate even better.
Because his writing will be shorter, disseminated faster, people will get it for free, and just like "The Constitution," people that make it their religion and whole personality, won't even bother to read the whole thing. š¤·šæāāļø
@mekkaokereke quite important difference:
hitler 1924: 35 yo
trump 2024: 79 yo
@mekkaokereke Difference is, Adolf was a skinny 30something vegetarian, Donald is an obese 70something who lives on junk food. It took Adolf years to get there and Donald doesnāt have āem.
Pardon my looking on the sunny side.
@mekkaokereke Details aren't important when you are selling a story which is exactly what the system is doing... it's not just one person, it is an institution of them... Trump/Hitler were always interchangeable but the path one takes (this be a bad one) and the system that puts you there is way more important...
Like you said we are in a bad way because once you build it, any interchangeable figure head will come.
There's a large reactionary/fascist regressive-right structure funded by wealthy elites intent on consolidating their political power. That includes undermining democracy and the administrative state.
That structure will continue to spit out new Trump pretenders to follow the likes of DeSantis, JD Vance, Josh Hawley, etc.
https://mstdn.social/@joeinwynnewood/110890860085362542
This is a long piece that is well worth the time to read. It brings to light both the insanity and the danger presented by this batshit crazy, misogynistic, fascist, regressive-right billionaires funded outfit. The Claremont Institute: The Anti-Democracy Think Tank | The New Republic https://newrepublic.com/article/174656/claremont-institute-think-tank-trump
@swilliams @mekkaokereke Please do keep in mind that fascists are never competent.
Hitler wasn't either.
They're all just in it to line their own pockets, the atrocities are basically just to keep their hateful angry middle-aged men voters happy.
Those fucks just love "harsh solutions" for the sake of harsh solutions, espeically for non-problems.
@mekkaokereke Sidebar: FWIW, it was Mussolini who claimed to have made the trains run on time, and tl;dr, they didn't, actually, but no authoritarian worth his (and it's almost always his) salt ever let facts interfere with the narrative.
EDIT: Mussolini was also a major source of inspiration to Hitler, who idolized Il Duce, and the Beerhall Putsch took its cues directly from the March on Rome.
I'm talking about US people.
There is a belief that Hitler's authoritarianism was good for getting large infrastructure projects done on time, and that fascism ensures high productivity of labor.
The US is a car obsessed and freeway addicted culture. Here's our mythology:
* The Autobahn was the first, and still the best freeway.āļø
* It's a visible monument to German engineering.āļø
* It was created by Hitler.ā
So yes, this is of course a trash take. We're good for those.š¤·šæāāļø
Yup.
Americans misconceive how racist Ireland is (not very compared to the USA). So "Irish" people in Boston are *much* more racist than real Irish people in Ireland.
Americans misconceive how Germans feel about Hitler. So American politicians routinely say "pro-German" things that would be illegal in Germany.
Americans misconceive a lot of things. Most of us don't even know our own history, let alone anyone else's. š¤·šæāāļø
@zeemeermin @mekkaokereke That aphorism is not a joke about Hitler, though, it is a variant of a serious comment made about Mussolini's Italy, as a _net positive_ of fascism; Hitler, meanwhile, was still in short pants chasing people around Munich with his chicote:
@zeemeermin @mekkaokereke I literally posted a link to the origin of the saying.
And it's a weird take on Mussolini -- by definition, Europe's first fascist leader, a man Hitler revered, and a source of inspiration to Mosley, Pelley, and the rest -- as "not big enough".
It may not have been as brutal as the Nazis, but fascist Italy was the template for authoritarians everywhere, and even today, Mussolini-style fascism still sometimes gets a pass! (I guess by not being as rabidly antisemitic?)
@klausfiend @mekkaokereke You posted wikipedia.
But it is always great to have foreigners from overseas telling us how our language and culture works.
Thank you.
@zeemeermin @mekkaokereke You are not the only person on social media whose immediate family survived the atrocities of Europe under the Nazis.
But do yourself a favor, and check the citation:
https://archive.org/details/blackmagic00kenn
It's right at the bottom of pp. 109-110, where Roberts discusses the "miracles" of Italian fascism, including its ability to get the trains to run on time.
Yeah. The giant flu pandemic left a lot of people disabled, a lot like Long Covid. The Nazis were promising to get rid of that burden on society.
Not just the politicians, but also the voters, saw a chance to get rid of a lot of "dead weight" carrying people who were damaged by a pandemic.
The punishing agreement after WWI didn't do Germany any favours. But I think global Fascism was probably coming either way.
@akareilly @mekkaokereke To be fair, the politics of eugenics were pervasive until the end of WWII. Even "good liberals", like Canada's Tommy Douglas (founder of the socialist party and father of the national health care system) were proponents: Douglas' Master's thesis, "The Problems of the Subnormal Family", endorsed it.
Eugenics was an organic outgrowth of Darwin for thinkers like Malthus, and it took the Holocaust to disabuse most people of ideas like forced sterilization.
@klausfiend @mekkaokereke and of course the causes and results of disability are entwined with racism. Environmental racism causes disabilities, people with disabilities and Deaf people are abused by teachers and police. Surveillance, the amount and the consequences, is worse when youāre disabled.
Then the activist communities you turn to about these issues? No masks, no ramps, no access. Unless youāre talking about the Black Panthers.
HEARD has been working tirelessly to bring an end police brutality against deaf/disabled people. HEARD created this English & Spanish Log of Police Violence Against Deaf People, and we are looking to collect more stories of police brutality against deaf/disabled people. If you want to add your or another person story to this list, please email us
https://disabilityhistory.org/2021/12/19/the-504-protests-and-the-black-panther-party/
and mentioned in Crip Camp, delivering food to protesters despite police interference was just one way the Black Panther Party sustained disability activism.
@akareilly @mekkaokereke Yeah, I heard some of that language from family members, and it was unbelievably revolting. FWIW, Canada is a "better" country, but as you note, not without its dirty secrets; it was also still forcibly sterilizing people (mostly indigenous women) into the 1970s.
And that's not even getting into the failure to implement really any of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission's recommendations, or the ongoing, comprehensive inaction regarding the MMIW crisis.
@reay @mhoye @klausfiend @mekkaokereke
ādisability rights immigration $country_nameā in a search will bring up more.
itās important to note that the family member exception is tricky in case of marriage - disabled people donāt have marriage equality because of loss of life-sustaining benefits.
@klausfiend @akareilly @mekkaokereke
Malthus's ideas on overpopulation actually influenced Darwin, not the other way around.
I think it's important to note that the pseudoscience (Malthus) did not grow out of actual scientific discovery but out of desire.
Liberals and fascist alike were grasping for ever greater levels of control over society and people.
Also just the mainstream acceptance of eugenics in the era cannot really be overstated. Compulsory sterilization was upheld by the US Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision. No dissent was written, and Pierce Butler, the lone dissenter, was dismissed as holding to Catholic superstition.
@akareilly I appreciate and understand the sentiment. Eugenics (supremacy in general) definitely plays a role in the rise of the Nazis, but it had more to do with the failure to prosecute (war) crimes by fascists (particularly Ludendorff, but really a great deal of Germanyās ruling class) than the pandemic.
When we look the other way when people in power commit crime they get the signal that they have the right to commit crime.
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