Is it to distract us from the actual Republican agenda, which bears a much closer resemblance to fascist states like Russia and Hungary than communism in Cuba?
Judy Woodruff on PBS NewsHour has been doing a series, 'America at a Crossroads.' She's been interviewing Republican voters in Iowa; these folks are .... I hate to say it but, pathetic. Brainwashed by Fox News and fear-mongering Republican candidates, they just sound so stupid, regurgitating the crap they hear. It's sad; these are nice people but there's no independent thought, no discernment. Just Blah, blah, blah. I blame our lousy education system. We don't teach Civics or how to diagram an argument. NY Times has a great article on guns and how fear-mongering increases gun ownership and guess what? In the neighborhoods where guns are purchased, crime goes up! People start stealing the guns from each other.
Democrat here, Ginger. An Iowa native too! You are so spot on in your comments here but I would like to add that so very many of the Rebuplicans(especially those in rural areas/small towns) are hard working, honest, ethical, people who just really don't get the bigger picture here with regards to what's at stake here in our nation. They believe that Dems always raise the taxes they have to pay and the propaganda from the NRA , republican politicians, Fox,etc....is that the dems will come take their hunting gun/guns, or the one gun they may keep in their house for an extreme case of having to defend themselves. The propaganda and fear mongering is relentless. Our media is shameless and, I believe, responsible for getting a man like DT elected. I get the media's drive for ratings and increased viewership so absurdity and salaciousness will draw people who, otherwise, would not even pay attention to the news, BUT, this should be out of ethical bounds when it comes to the very serious task of electing a person to be POTUS of our great USA. I mean, really,the former potus, couldn't even string two logical sentences together 99% of the time and our media covered him non-stop as a serious contender for our nations leadership role? I understand though.........Money talks and BS walks, and we got the BS for a POTUS.
Having lived in the south myself, I now that rural America is subjected to a steady drumbeat of fascist bull shit from the pulpit. Those nice people really aren't so nice at all, because they follow along with nary a thought at demonizing the outsider. It is like the good cop myth, so long as cops toe the blue line,, there are no thing as good cops, silence is complicity
You are absolutely correct about the media being responsible for Trump, they gave and give him billions of dollars of free air time, and there is no such thing as bad publicity, so said P.T. Barnum, “There's no such thing as bad publicity,” which is almost as good as Oscar Wilde's version, who put it like this: “There's only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
As you know Les Moonves CEO of CBS said to his board. Trump is bad for America but good for CBS then the board chuckled in agreement.
I add, when I first arrived in the rural southern town, the first question I was asked at school and on the streets, was "which church do you go to". The answer told them all that they wanted to know. They had me pigeon holed. My uncle was a Southern Baptist preacher, but Catholics were ostracized from his and other pulpits. I really got him, because my friends were Cajuns and Catholic.
When I showed up at a Sunday meeting with them, and sitting in the first row, he dropped his lecture for the day, and vented his spleen on my friends, telling them that they will burn in hell, and calling them all sorts of names. He tried to give me a ration of ...... later, but I am immune to bullying and threats. I stood nose to nose with him, and he was much bigger.
As my (southern born and raised) wife used to say, "Southerners, the biggest hearts and the narrowest minds on the planet."
Also it was Zuckerberg who said that Trump gave CNN high ratings when he was accused of giving the Orange Menace free airtime with nonstop coverage of his hatealongs in 2016.
The rich have worked very hard to loot our national wealth the last 60 years or more with the Vietnam war, free trade, buying up both parties, trickle down theory, using immigrants to bust unions legal and illegal, capitalist healthcare, offshore banking, corporate welfare, political obstruction, bank bailouts, interest on the national debt they created and much more. And they sure as hell don't want to give it back! I've got mine and screw you is their motto. It is about what is best for the rich, not for the poor people's common good. Take food away from humans and they will turn into an angry mob. Then you can call them a communist mob! The poor, the old and the disabled will be sorted out and left to die somewhere. So much for being pro-life. The Trump supporters will find out that that includes them as well. Only educating the Republicans to this fact will keep them from voting Republican. We must deprogram and re-educate the non-critical thinkers, real fast, in terms that they understand. The only way to reach them is with television commercials and we better get busy!
Hi Bob, another good comment, but if the climate continues on the path that it is on, with loss of arctic ice, the albedo effect warming the waters and not reflecting back into space, the melting of the Greenland glaciers, desalinating the Atlantic current, our portion is the Gulf Stream, which is shifting the gulf stream away from the East coast, and Europe, and all of this leading to the loss of ice on the Antarctic, and I mean the land bound ice, not the sea ice.
This planet is in for some heard times. I imagine that these billionaires have built their own redoubts in mountains, and I know that there is already a project for floating cities in the Maldives (the country is being threatened by rising sea levels.
The problem is that any "safe house" is going to need a population base, with agriculture, and industry (to make spare parts), and there won't be any.
Never the less they think money is going to shield them, and perhaps, besides an addiction and social reasons, that is why they have an insatiable thirst for more, even if it kills their golden goose
You're absolutely correct, I try not to sound too pessimistic. About 4 years ago I would have said we've got about 50 years to change things around. Today, I think there's over a 50% chance that it is already too late. But at least let's go down fighting the thugs and the greedy bastards!
I'm 100% with you. If I'm going down, let the thugs drown. According to the polls 43% are for Trump and 43% for Biden, if that is so, then about half of this country is not worth saving, especially when the morons fell for the carbon industry lies. Too bad they are dragging us down with them. Electric cars, well too late, and besides, unless their is a battery breakthrough, the only way to get lithium is through virtual enslavement of kids and folk, it is a nasty business mining lithium
I read a piece yesterday that when the Antarctic ice cap slides off land into the ocean, the sea levels will rise to 197 Ft, my house sits at 220 ft, if the rise is gradual, I'll survive if a tsunami then sayonara, but if I survive it will be without food, electricity, propane and gas, my vehicles will be underwater anyway,. However at 84 and wife at 70 I don't think that i have anything to worry about, but I do have grandchildren and I am concerned about them
This past Sunday 7/30/2023 I wrote a an article that was published on Daily Kos. The headline read; "Blinded by the truth. Why do people keep voting for Trump and the Trump party. Formally the Republican party. My article included information from two books. Milton Mayer's magnificent "They Thought They Were Free." Mayer interviews ten German men to find out how "Decent men become Nazis." And "The Escape Artist" by Jonathan Freedland. The Escape Artist is a true story of two Jewish prisoners- Rudolf Vrba and Fred Wetzler-who escaped form Auschwitz/Birkenau concentration camp. They wanted to tell the world about the horrors within these camps and how the Nazi's were exterminating the Jews of Europe . As I wrote passages from each book, I remembered reading about so many of the horrors that had occurred through out the war.
However; what truly enfolded was the disconcerting fact of how powerful and effective the Fascist propaganda machine had been. That fact I was aware of. I realize how effective that same machine is now working in the U S. What hit me the most was discovering the WHY people keep voting the way they do. Mayer's professor- Heinrich Hildebrandt- and the escapee Rudolf Vrba stories each encapsulate the same meaning and arrive at the same conclusion. People do not believe what is happening. Even when Vrba story was told to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfuter, he said "I do not believe you." Ask to explain; he stated; "I did not say you were lying. I said I do not believe him." "These are different things. My mind and my heart are made in such a way that I cannot except it. NO NO NO." Mayer and Freedland lay it all out in graphic terms. After many years of disappointment, Rudolph came to this conclusion. He understood a more complicated truth: that information is necessary, to be sure, but it is never sufficient. Information must also be BELIEVED, especially when it comes to moral threats...only when information is combined with belief does it become knowledge. and only knowledge leads to action. The French philosopher Raymond Aron would say ,when asked about the Holocaust, "I knew, but I didn't believe it. AND BECAUSE I DIDN'T BELIEVE IT, I DIDN'T KNOW."
Throughout modern history naming has been used to justify the actions of the European elites and their soldiers. The indigenous people were described as noble until they started to oppose their forced removal from their lands and their enslavement and slaughter at which point they became "savages".
Workers who rebelled against the elites were termed rebels and punished severely. In the 1700's when farmers were forcibly removed from public lands with the various enlosure acts, hey were called vagrants and often enslaved to toil in the work houses. In the 1800's those that organized workers against the factory owners were referred to as anachists and enemies of the state. The communists were notable at forming workers alliances and to organize strikes.
The capitalists for the most part supported the fascist states being created in Italy and Germany as they were "anti-communist" in that they supported the industrialists and banned unions. Small wonder that the likes of Henry Ford and King George VI believed in supporting the Nazi Party in Germany. We have seen this more recently with the United States overthrowing democratically elected leaders in the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chile, Nicaragua, Brazil, Argentina, Haiti, Honduras, Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, and Egypt to name but a few places.
Men like the Koch brothers want a simple minded dictator that they can control. For the time being they are happy to own the Congress and the Supreme Court and whichever neoliberal is in the White House, and of course the U.S. military that does their bidding. "It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people." - Gore Vidal
Franklin Roosevelt said it best i 1938:
“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” That pretty much sums up post WW II in the United States.
The government serves to control the population and enable the transfer of wealth from the workers to the elites. Everything else is theater.
Without a maximum income tied to a minimum wage a democracy can become as evil as a dictatorship. It is time for the rich to cut their ties with the common man. Dehumanize them and call them communists! Apparently, vagrants anarchists and enemies of the state does not work as well. Also campaign contributions need to be limited to about $100 and there should be no lobbying allowed. You are absolutely correct on history and the present.
You forgot the overthrow of Jacob Arbenz in Guatemala in1954, for the "crime" of wanting to nationalize the land owned by the United Fruit Copmpany (who then-Sec State John Foster Dulles' law firm represented). The overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran (called a "communist" but actually a British Labor Party socialist) precluded any progressive pro-western de-colonization in the Middle East or the rest of the colonized south.
Is there no recompense for these criminal fascists.
I admit to some ignorance as to how this can be legal in our country, founded on freedom and right to assembly.
The Lying Fascist Republicans have grabbed the money and used it to eliminate freedoms for anyone who disagrees with their disgraceful actions.
Thanks Thom for being one ‘ whistleblower’ regarding the Republicans plan to destroy America.
Action needs to be taken against these fascists and their lies.
All we have to do is remember who’s funding this and continuing their criminality against Democracy .
Donald Trump is going down and so are his evildoers MTGreene, Jim Jordan , Kevin Lying McCarthy and all the representatives of Congress who lie daily to turn this country from Democracy to Fascism .
As a matter of fact, the Soviets may have had the "second largest stock" of nuclear weapons, but it was so small as to be nearly non-existent. It's now known from research after the Cold War (before Vlad cut off further contacts) that the USSR had exactly six bombs in 1952, and no effective delivery system other than reverse-engineered B-29s that could have gotten as far as Seattle on one-way "kamaikaze" missions. We on the other hand had 200 bombs and SAC, 250 bombers capable of bombing the whole USSR. But the soviets managed to bullshit the Air Farce into believing they had a massive production line of intercontinental bombers - that each of the limited prototypes they produced in the 50s was in production (they weren't - the "24" Bison bombers seen over Moscow on May Day 1955 were six prototypes that made four passes over the Kremlin) and that there was a "bomber gap" - which led to the U-2 program, which discovered that there were none, but the Chair Farce kept sending them because they knew there was a pony somewhere in the USSR, up to the final mission when Gary Powers was shot down over Sverdlovsk. It was Eisenhower's knowledge of the Air Farce's bullshit PR about the "dangerous Russkie air force" that was why he gave the warning about the military-industrial complex in his 1961 farewell speech. Of course, after the "bomber gap" was disproved, the idiots in Shade 84 blue then bought the bullshit about the (non-existent) "missile gap" after Krushchev said he was launching Sputniks with ICBMs. In fact, the USSR had no capability to launch an effective strike against the US until 1969 - it's why Krushchev took the risk of sticking IRBMs in Cuba in 1962. The Russians managed to get us to spend $5 billion in 1950s dollars for the DEW line, the B-47, the B-52, and the "Century Series" of interceptors, to take on a "threat" that didn't exist!
But the Right Wing in America has always lied about everything and bought every Russian lie right up to this morning.
I agree we need to get the vote out, and help our young voters to know where and how to vote. For example if they are away at college during the election they can decide where best to vote, in their college state, or home state. My daughter will be out of the country, but she will vote. At least I hope I have instilled in her no paper, no exam outweighs the importance of that. Although the fact that we have elections on a school day, whereas in Germany it is on Sunday, so everyone can vote. I can also see that the Repugnicans use a playbook where they are escalating their rhetoric, and trying desperately to tie Hunter Biden to scandal so they can pretend that he and Trump are equal criminals, and by virtue of being his dad then President Biden is too. With MTGs Hunter dick pics escapades the Repugnicans have made it clear that there is no level at which they would not stoop to. All of them are badly raised to believe that it is okay to lie to get your way. They live toiletbowl lives and want the rest of us to join them. Let us flush them down, but keep ourselves and our country out.
Thank you for delving into this massive branding problem.(Rump is a branding Arse) Fascists brand people,and ideas because they are lazy! She's Woke,He's a Commie,They are illegals😞 etc..But I had an epiphany 🤯 Raygun greatly increased military spending in 1981, for his Financial Backers at GE..🤑🤑🤑What it did however was collapse the USSR,who couldn't keep up the spending.Therfore they hatched a cheaper plan to Defeat America,which has worked perfectly..Simply buy the Greedy old GOP Politicians and businessmen dealing with them.Bingo worked like a charm...We are close to collapse 😞 Netflix documentary on Sea power, explained it succinctly..The Navy is super expensive (taxpayers dollars,go mainly to Military) and Trump just sells it all back to Ruskies 👿 Americans are so Dumb😞
There is more than military spending that caused the collapse of the USSR.
From 1982 to 1984,I was working on my MBA with emphasis on finance and accounting.
I wrote off to the worlds major central banks, including the B..I.S, Bank for International Finance in Switzerland. This is the central bank of central banks, and first Monday of each month, the heads of all central banks, or their 2nds, show up to get brief, each occupies an identical office, laid out with identical accouterments. Their 1983/84 Annual report said, to the effect, the Soviet Union is a failed experiment and must be restructured, Then followed Gorbachev, and Raygun who most assuredly knew that the Soviet union was in the process of reorganization, after the reins were passed to Yeltsin, Gorbachev repair to a Dacha on Lake Geneva and was given president of an NGO established just for him, The Green Cross.
Following the cookie trail, Reagan, or more exactly his staff, as Raygun was an empty suit and sallow of face, stooped of posture, until handed a scrip to read, read those lines "Tear down this wall", he knew it was coming down anyway, but Repugs gor the credit.
James Garner, who knew Ray Gun when he was President of SAG (when he screwed all the actors of his generation out of residuals for work done before 1961 when he "led" the SAG/WGA strike in 1961) had the perfect two word description of Ronnie: "Amiable Dunce."
I must point out that as kids, the greatest generation taught us Boomers in school to conflate capitalism with democracy. Thanks to McCarthyism, we were also taught to conflate socialism with communism. That paved the way for GOP politicians to paint Democrats as evil commies who want to take away your house, your church, and your money as a way to rationalize support for repealing the New Deal. By and large, it worked. The GOP continues to promote the equation that Democrat=Liberal=Socialist=Communist vs Republican=Conservative=Free-market Capitalist. Sadly, I find this worldview often subconsciously embedded in the minds of many liberals.
"Basket case" Don't think so. I visited Russia in IIRC 98 (just before the dissolution). Many private small businesses. No apparent poverty, contrary to what is endemic here. My host, Rita, needed a Doc.; one arrived quickly to the hotel where we were staying in Leningrad. Very friendly people. Again later visited noticed the destruction caused by the Chicago Boys. Course in Deutsch, in Dresden, tho. sacked by Russia again not a basket case, as I found in traveling to Slovakia and Hungary. Worked last six months in Chile, again not a basket case, though not as well off as the Soviet Union. Got out three days before the CIA engineered coup. Stop lying Hartman. Oh I forgot Hitler had a social safety net, but only for the aryans. I hope to live long enough to visit Cuba and see what the US sanctions have done.
In addition to all of the above, it's worth noting that anti-communist/socialist/leftist rhetoric in the U.S. goes back a lot further than the 1950s, and that it's nearly always served the wealthy and the corporations. It's invariably anti-labor and anti-immigrant, and to no one's surprise it's often violently racist as well. (These came together spectacularly after World War I: think Palmer Raids, the Tulsa massacre, the prosecution and eventual execution of Sacco and Vanzetti . . .)
The most serious damage from all this may have been done to the politically liberal and to labor unions, and much of it was self-inflicted: liberal politicians and union leaders have been bending over backwards at least since the McCarthy era to avoid being called commies -- which of course they were called anyway. No wonder they were sitting ducks for the union-busting and rightward lurch of the Reagan years.
Trump's communist threat lingo borders on accusing others of what he will most likely do as leader. It is a pathetic accusation. Most of the communist governments , certainly the Russian model , are actually fascist in their style of execution. The twisted personality and behavior of the Supreme leader evolves into becoming the deep state. That deep state will not grow the nation.
For the same reason that anyone who tries to inject historical context and the history of American imperialism and hegemony into the Russia's invasion of Ukraine is called a communist or Putin bot by Biden liberals. You yourself shouted me off your show for bringing up the same historical reference discussed by Chris Hedges, Normal Solomon and many other authorities in the field of foreign policy in the region (including those who covered the agreement between Secretary of State Baker and Gorbachev. Now Biden liberals can complain that they are labeled as communists for pointing out the truth in the same way I am, just by different groups hunkering down in their own echo chambers. As for me, I look with utter disdain upon leaders who use cluster bombs and cover up their acts of terrorism (see: Nordstream Pipeline among others). That would apply to Putin and Biden.
But you have proved to be a Putin bot, that or a tankie. There are lamentable aspects about or history, but imagine America without Tex Mex food, tortillas, tequila, or the Spanish Language (smirk)
You aren't posting truths. It is one thing to bitch about our imperialistic past and the Anglo treatment of minorities, and yet another to do it in the context of arguing for Putin.
Fact is that Hitler used similar arguments, When criticized for his treatment of the Jews, he countered with "your hypocrites" in the way you treat "Indians" and "Negros". somebody doesn't lie the words, but I am only quoting Herr Toothbrush, to make my point.
America has changed, our military polices are defensive,even when we deploy special operators in foreign countries. Operators not divisions. Putin, on the other hand is aggressive, a murderer, a war criminal who allows if not mandates his ant army to slaughter, torture and rape women, children and men, when he is not killing them in their beds with missiles, artillery and rockets.
Judy Woodruff on PBS NewsHour has been doing a series, 'America at a Crossroads.' She's been interviewing Republican voters in Iowa; these folks are .... I hate to say it but, pathetic. Brainwashed by Fox News and fear-mongering Republican candidates, they just sound so stupid, regurgitating the crap they hear. It's sad; these are nice people but there's no independent thought, no discernment. Just Blah, blah, blah. I blame our lousy education system. We don't teach Civics or how to diagram an argument. NY Times has a great article on guns and how fear-mongering increases gun ownership and guess what? In the neighborhoods where guns are purchased, crime goes up! People start stealing the guns from each other.
Democrat here, Ginger. An Iowa native too! You are so spot on in your comments here but I would like to add that so very many of the Rebuplicans(especially those in rural areas/small towns) are hard working, honest, ethical, people who just really don't get the bigger picture here with regards to what's at stake here in our nation. They believe that Dems always raise the taxes they have to pay and the propaganda from the NRA , republican politicians, Fox,etc....is that the dems will come take their hunting gun/guns, or the one gun they may keep in their house for an extreme case of having to defend themselves. The propaganda and fear mongering is relentless. Our media is shameless and, I believe, responsible for getting a man like DT elected. I get the media's drive for ratings and increased viewership so absurdity and salaciousness will draw people who, otherwise, would not even pay attention to the news, BUT, this should be out of ethical bounds when it comes to the very serious task of electing a person to be POTUS of our great USA. I mean, really,the former potus, couldn't even string two logical sentences together 99% of the time and our media covered him non-stop as a serious contender for our nations leadership role? I understand though.........Money talks and BS walks, and we got the BS for a POTUS.
I am inclined to agree with you.
Having lived in the south myself, I now that rural America is subjected to a steady drumbeat of fascist bull shit from the pulpit. Those nice people really aren't so nice at all, because they follow along with nary a thought at demonizing the outsider. It is like the good cop myth, so long as cops toe the blue line,, there are no thing as good cops, silence is complicity
You are absolutely correct about the media being responsible for Trump, they gave and give him billions of dollars of free air time, and there is no such thing as bad publicity, so said P.T. Barnum, “There's no such thing as bad publicity,” which is almost as good as Oscar Wilde's version, who put it like this: “There's only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
As you know Les Moonves CEO of CBS said to his board. Trump is bad for America but good for CBS then the board chuckled in agreement.
I add, when I first arrived in the rural southern town, the first question I was asked at school and on the streets, was "which church do you go to". The answer told them all that they wanted to know. They had me pigeon holed. My uncle was a Southern Baptist preacher, but Catholics were ostracized from his and other pulpits. I really got him, because my friends were Cajuns and Catholic.
When I showed up at a Sunday meeting with them, and sitting in the first row, he dropped his lecture for the day, and vented his spleen on my friends, telling them that they will burn in hell, and calling them all sorts of names. He tried to give me a ration of ...... later, but I am immune to bullying and threats. I stood nose to nose with him, and he was much bigger.
He is growing flowers now.
In other words, he's a "good Republican now" as President Truman pointed out in 1948: "The only 'good Republicans' are pushing up daisies."
As my (southern born and raised) wife used to say, "Southerners, the biggest hearts and the narrowest minds on the planet."
Also it was Zuckerberg who said that Trump gave CNN high ratings when he was accused of giving the Orange Menace free airtime with nonstop coverage of his hatealongs in 2016.
The rich have worked very hard to loot our national wealth the last 60 years or more with the Vietnam war, free trade, buying up both parties, trickle down theory, using immigrants to bust unions legal and illegal, capitalist healthcare, offshore banking, corporate welfare, political obstruction, bank bailouts, interest on the national debt they created and much more. And they sure as hell don't want to give it back! I've got mine and screw you is their motto. It is about what is best for the rich, not for the poor people's common good. Take food away from humans and they will turn into an angry mob. Then you can call them a communist mob! The poor, the old and the disabled will be sorted out and left to die somewhere. So much for being pro-life. The Trump supporters will find out that that includes them as well. Only educating the Republicans to this fact will keep them from voting Republican. We must deprogram and re-educate the non-critical thinkers, real fast, in terms that they understand. The only way to reach them is with television commercials and we better get busy!
Hi Bob, another good comment, but if the climate continues on the path that it is on, with loss of arctic ice, the albedo effect warming the waters and not reflecting back into space, the melting of the Greenland glaciers, desalinating the Atlantic current, our portion is the Gulf Stream, which is shifting the gulf stream away from the East coast, and Europe, and all of this leading to the loss of ice on the Antarctic, and I mean the land bound ice, not the sea ice.
This planet is in for some heard times. I imagine that these billionaires have built their own redoubts in mountains, and I know that there is already a project for floating cities in the Maldives (the country is being threatened by rising sea levels.
The problem is that any "safe house" is going to need a population base, with agriculture, and industry (to make spare parts), and there won't be any.
Never the less they think money is going to shield them, and perhaps, besides an addiction and social reasons, that is why they have an insatiable thirst for more, even if it kills their golden goose
You're absolutely correct, I try not to sound too pessimistic. About 4 years ago I would have said we've got about 50 years to change things around. Today, I think there's over a 50% chance that it is already too late. But at least let's go down fighting the thugs and the greedy bastards!
I'm 100% with you. If I'm going down, let the thugs drown. According to the polls 43% are for Trump and 43% for Biden, if that is so, then about half of this country is not worth saving, especially when the morons fell for the carbon industry lies. Too bad they are dragging us down with them. Electric cars, well too late, and besides, unless their is a battery breakthrough, the only way to get lithium is through virtual enslavement of kids and folk, it is a nasty business mining lithium
I read a piece yesterday that when the Antarctic ice cap slides off land into the ocean, the sea levels will rise to 197 Ft, my house sits at 220 ft, if the rise is gradual, I'll survive if a tsunami then sayonara, but if I survive it will be without food, electricity, propane and gas, my vehicles will be underwater anyway,. However at 84 and wife at 70 I don't think that i have anything to worry about, but I do have grandchildren and I am concerned about them
Sounds good, I totally agree. More outreach any way possible!
This past Sunday 7/30/2023 I wrote a an article that was published on Daily Kos. The headline read; "Blinded by the truth. Why do people keep voting for Trump and the Trump party. Formally the Republican party. My article included information from two books. Milton Mayer's magnificent "They Thought They Were Free." Mayer interviews ten German men to find out how "Decent men become Nazis." And "The Escape Artist" by Jonathan Freedland. The Escape Artist is a true story of two Jewish prisoners- Rudolf Vrba and Fred Wetzler-who escaped form Auschwitz/Birkenau concentration camp. They wanted to tell the world about the horrors within these camps and how the Nazi's were exterminating the Jews of Europe . As I wrote passages from each book, I remembered reading about so many of the horrors that had occurred through out the war.
However; what truly enfolded was the disconcerting fact of how powerful and effective the Fascist propaganda machine had been. That fact I was aware of. I realize how effective that same machine is now working in the U S. What hit me the most was discovering the WHY people keep voting the way they do. Mayer's professor- Heinrich Hildebrandt- and the escapee Rudolf Vrba stories each encapsulate the same meaning and arrive at the same conclusion. People do not believe what is happening. Even when Vrba story was told to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfuter, he said "I do not believe you." Ask to explain; he stated; "I did not say you were lying. I said I do not believe him." "These are different things. My mind and my heart are made in such a way that I cannot except it. NO NO NO." Mayer and Freedland lay it all out in graphic terms. After many years of disappointment, Rudolph came to this conclusion. He understood a more complicated truth: that information is necessary, to be sure, but it is never sufficient. Information must also be BELIEVED, especially when it comes to moral threats...only when information is combined with belief does it become knowledge. and only knowledge leads to action. The French philosopher Raymond Aron would say ,when asked about the Holocaust, "I knew, but I didn't believe it. AND BECAUSE I DIDN'T BELIEVE IT, I DIDN'T KNOW."
Throughout modern history naming has been used to justify the actions of the European elites and their soldiers. The indigenous people were described as noble until they started to oppose their forced removal from their lands and their enslavement and slaughter at which point they became "savages".
Workers who rebelled against the elites were termed rebels and punished severely. In the 1700's when farmers were forcibly removed from public lands with the various enlosure acts, hey were called vagrants and often enslaved to toil in the work houses. In the 1800's those that organized workers against the factory owners were referred to as anachists and enemies of the state. The communists were notable at forming workers alliances and to organize strikes.
The capitalists for the most part supported the fascist states being created in Italy and Germany as they were "anti-communist" in that they supported the industrialists and banned unions. Small wonder that the likes of Henry Ford and King George VI believed in supporting the Nazi Party in Germany. We have seen this more recently with the United States overthrowing democratically elected leaders in the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chile, Nicaragua, Brazil, Argentina, Haiti, Honduras, Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, and Egypt to name but a few places.
Men like the Koch brothers want a simple minded dictator that they can control. For the time being they are happy to own the Congress and the Supreme Court and whichever neoliberal is in the White House, and of course the U.S. military that does their bidding. "It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people." - Gore Vidal
Franklin Roosevelt said it best i 1938:
“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” That pretty much sums up post WW II in the United States.
The government serves to control the population and enable the transfer of wealth from the workers to the elites. Everything else is theater.
Without a maximum income tied to a minimum wage a democracy can become as evil as a dictatorship. It is time for the rich to cut their ties with the common man. Dehumanize them and call them communists! Apparently, vagrants anarchists and enemies of the state does not work as well. Also campaign contributions need to be limited to about $100 and there should be no lobbying allowed. You are absolutely correct on history and the present.
You forgot the overthrow of Jacob Arbenz in Guatemala in1954, for the "crime" of wanting to nationalize the land owned by the United Fruit Copmpany (who then-Sec State John Foster Dulles' law firm represented). The overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran (called a "communist" but actually a British Labor Party socialist) precluded any progressive pro-western de-colonization in the Middle East or the rest of the colonized south.
Always while spending trillions on our military defense to protect democracy. More theft by the rich.
Im a little confused.
These un - American edicts from fascist states,
supersede the Federal Governments laws??
Is there no recompense for these criminal fascists.
I admit to some ignorance as to how this can be legal in our country, founded on freedom and right to assembly.
The Lying Fascist Republicans have grabbed the money and used it to eliminate freedoms for anyone who disagrees with their disgraceful actions.
Thanks Thom for being one ‘ whistleblower’ regarding the Republicans plan to destroy America.
Action needs to be taken against these fascists and their lies.
All we have to do is remember who’s funding this and continuing their criminality against Democracy .
Donald Trump is going down and so are his evildoers MTGreene, Jim Jordan , Kevin Lying McCarthy and all the representatives of Congress who lie daily to turn this country from Democracy to Fascism .
Does the national Republican Party have a formal platform?
Besides re-electing Trump? Not that I've detected.
No, they didn't have one in 2020 either. "What Trump Wants" is basically it.
As a matter of fact, the Soviets may have had the "second largest stock" of nuclear weapons, but it was so small as to be nearly non-existent. It's now known from research after the Cold War (before Vlad cut off further contacts) that the USSR had exactly six bombs in 1952, and no effective delivery system other than reverse-engineered B-29s that could have gotten as far as Seattle on one-way "kamaikaze" missions. We on the other hand had 200 bombs and SAC, 250 bombers capable of bombing the whole USSR. But the soviets managed to bullshit the Air Farce into believing they had a massive production line of intercontinental bombers - that each of the limited prototypes they produced in the 50s was in production (they weren't - the "24" Bison bombers seen over Moscow on May Day 1955 were six prototypes that made four passes over the Kremlin) and that there was a "bomber gap" - which led to the U-2 program, which discovered that there were none, but the Chair Farce kept sending them because they knew there was a pony somewhere in the USSR, up to the final mission when Gary Powers was shot down over Sverdlovsk. It was Eisenhower's knowledge of the Air Farce's bullshit PR about the "dangerous Russkie air force" that was why he gave the warning about the military-industrial complex in his 1961 farewell speech. Of course, after the "bomber gap" was disproved, the idiots in Shade 84 blue then bought the bullshit about the (non-existent) "missile gap" after Krushchev said he was launching Sputniks with ICBMs. In fact, the USSR had no capability to launch an effective strike against the US until 1969 - it's why Krushchev took the risk of sticking IRBMs in Cuba in 1962. The Russians managed to get us to spend $5 billion in 1950s dollars for the DEW line, the B-47, the B-52, and the "Century Series" of interceptors, to take on a "threat" that didn't exist!
But the Right Wing in America has always lied about everything and bought every Russian lie right up to this morning.
I agree we need to get the vote out, and help our young voters to know where and how to vote. For example if they are away at college during the election they can decide where best to vote, in their college state, or home state. My daughter will be out of the country, but she will vote. At least I hope I have instilled in her no paper, no exam outweighs the importance of that. Although the fact that we have elections on a school day, whereas in Germany it is on Sunday, so everyone can vote. I can also see that the Repugnicans use a playbook where they are escalating their rhetoric, and trying desperately to tie Hunter Biden to scandal so they can pretend that he and Trump are equal criminals, and by virtue of being his dad then President Biden is too. With MTGs Hunter dick pics escapades the Repugnicans have made it clear that there is no level at which they would not stoop to. All of them are badly raised to believe that it is okay to lie to get your way. They live toiletbowl lives and want the rest of us to join them. Let us flush them down, but keep ourselves and our country out.
Dearest Thom
Thank you for delving into this massive branding problem.(Rump is a branding Arse) Fascists brand people,and ideas because they are lazy! She's Woke,He's a Commie,They are illegals😞 etc..But I had an epiphany 🤯 Raygun greatly increased military spending in 1981, for his Financial Backers at GE..🤑🤑🤑What it did however was collapse the USSR,who couldn't keep up the spending.Therfore they hatched a cheaper plan to Defeat America,which has worked perfectly..Simply buy the Greedy old GOP Politicians and businessmen dealing with them.Bingo worked like a charm...We are close to collapse 😞 Netflix documentary on Sea power, explained it succinctly..The Navy is super expensive (taxpayers dollars,go mainly to Military) and Trump just sells it all back to Ruskies 👿 Americans are so Dumb😞
There is more than military spending that caused the collapse of the USSR.
From 1982 to 1984,I was working on my MBA with emphasis on finance and accounting.
I wrote off to the worlds major central banks, including the B..I.S, Bank for International Finance in Switzerland. This is the central bank of central banks, and first Monday of each month, the heads of all central banks, or their 2nds, show up to get brief, each occupies an identical office, laid out with identical accouterments. Their 1983/84 Annual report said, to the effect, the Soviet Union is a failed experiment and must be restructured, Then followed Gorbachev, and Raygun who most assuredly knew that the Soviet union was in the process of reorganization, after the reins were passed to Yeltsin, Gorbachev repair to a Dacha on Lake Geneva and was given president of an NGO established just for him, The Green Cross.
Following the cookie trail, Reagan, or more exactly his staff, as Raygun was an empty suit and sallow of face, stooped of posture, until handed a scrip to read, read those lines "Tear down this wall", he knew it was coming down anyway, but Repugs gor the credit.
James Garner, who knew Ray Gun when he was President of SAG (when he screwed all the actors of his generation out of residuals for work done before 1961 when he "led" the SAG/WGA strike in 1961) had the perfect two word description of Ronnie: "Amiable Dunce."
I must point out that as kids, the greatest generation taught us Boomers in school to conflate capitalism with democracy. Thanks to McCarthyism, we were also taught to conflate socialism with communism. That paved the way for GOP politicians to paint Democrats as evil commies who want to take away your house, your church, and your money as a way to rationalize support for repealing the New Deal. By and large, it worked. The GOP continues to promote the equation that Democrat=Liberal=Socialist=Communist vs Republican=Conservative=Free-market Capitalist. Sadly, I find this worldview often subconsciously embedded in the minds of many liberals.
"Basket case" Don't think so. I visited Russia in IIRC 98 (just before the dissolution). Many private small businesses. No apparent poverty, contrary to what is endemic here. My host, Rita, needed a Doc.; one arrived quickly to the hotel where we were staying in Leningrad. Very friendly people. Again later visited noticed the destruction caused by the Chicago Boys. Course in Deutsch, in Dresden, tho. sacked by Russia again not a basket case, as I found in traveling to Slovakia and Hungary. Worked last six months in Chile, again not a basket case, though not as well off as the Soviet Union. Got out three days before the CIA engineered coup. Stop lying Hartman. Oh I forgot Hitler had a social safety net, but only for the aryans. I hope to live long enough to visit Cuba and see what the US sanctions have done.
In addition to all of the above, it's worth noting that anti-communist/socialist/leftist rhetoric in the U.S. goes back a lot further than the 1950s, and that it's nearly always served the wealthy and the corporations. It's invariably anti-labor and anti-immigrant, and to no one's surprise it's often violently racist as well. (These came together spectacularly after World War I: think Palmer Raids, the Tulsa massacre, the prosecution and eventual execution of Sacco and Vanzetti . . .)
The most serious damage from all this may have been done to the politically liberal and to labor unions, and much of it was self-inflicted: liberal politicians and union leaders have been bending over backwards at least since the McCarthy era to avoid being called commies -- which of course they were called anyway. No wonder they were sitting ducks for the union-busting and rightward lurch of the Reagan years.
Trump's communist threat lingo borders on accusing others of what he will most likely do as leader. It is a pathetic accusation. Most of the communist governments , certainly the Russian model , are actually fascist in their style of execution. The twisted personality and behavior of the Supreme leader evolves into becoming the deep state. That deep state will not grow the nation.
An alternative term for a fascist is:
“Anitisocial-ist” (or just Antisocial.)
For those who don’t know, antisocial is another term for criminal, both legally and medically.
For the same reason that anyone who tries to inject historical context and the history of American imperialism and hegemony into the Russia's invasion of Ukraine is called a communist or Putin bot by Biden liberals. You yourself shouted me off your show for bringing up the same historical reference discussed by Chris Hedges, Normal Solomon and many other authorities in the field of foreign policy in the region (including those who covered the agreement between Secretary of State Baker and Gorbachev. Now Biden liberals can complain that they are labeled as communists for pointing out the truth in the same way I am, just by different groups hunkering down in their own echo chambers. As for me, I look with utter disdain upon leaders who use cluster bombs and cover up their acts of terrorism (see: Nordstream Pipeline among others). That would apply to Putin and Biden.
But you have proved to be a Putin bot, that or a tankie. There are lamentable aspects about or history, but imagine America without Tex Mex food, tortillas, tequila, or the Spanish Language (smirk)
You aren't posting truths. It is one thing to bitch about our imperialistic past and the Anglo treatment of minorities, and yet another to do it in the context of arguing for Putin.
Fact is that Hitler used similar arguments, When criticized for his treatment of the Jews, he countered with "your hypocrites" in the way you treat "Indians" and "Negros". somebody doesn't lie the words, but I am only quoting Herr Toothbrush, to make my point.
America has changed, our military polices are defensive,even when we deploy special operators in foreign countries. Operators not divisions. Putin, on the other hand is aggressive, a murderer, a war criminal who allows if not mandates his ant army to slaughter, torture and rape women, children and men, when he is not killing them in their beds with missiles, artillery and rockets.
You are so full of shit it's no wonder your eyes are brown. Go bend over and spread for Vlad. You know you'll like it, you fucking moron.