In 1943 the American government created a film about fascism for home consumption.
It will seem oddly familiar and prescient.
It is just over three minutes: https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/897159152648167424
In 1943 the American government created a film about fascism for home consumption.
It will seem oddly familiar and prescient.
It is just over three minutes: https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/897159152648167424
6 comments:
The rabble-rouser in the film sounded like the warm-up act for a Trump rally. His anger and hatred remain all too prevalent. Thank you for reminding us: It can happen here.
This video expresses a balanced, non-polarized view of the toxicity of identity politics, regardless of which side is promoting it.
Admittedly, my first reaction to this was to reference—and lo, I have!—Joe Biden’s now-infamous Red Sermon in Philadelphia last month, wherein he warned America about a sinister enemy from within, antithetical to the nation’s true and proper values. But no, that dog won’t hunt for me, nor for any readers of Hannah Arendt. What’s reflected in the video accurately captures what has always separated fascism from left-wing authoritarian tendencies, and from Biden’s indictment of “MAGA Republicans”: a focus on aggressive ethno-nationalism. That’s the biggest evil of fascism. (I do share the rabble-rouser’s fear of Freemasons).
Setting aside inflation and the economy for a moment, though, plus abortion rights, immigration as well as street crime really is the rub for the midterms. In my opinion, attempts to conflate opposition to modern Democratic immigration policies with the vicious, race-based nativism depicted fails miserably. The speaker in the video would have wanted Ellis Island shut down. Massive illegal immigration across functionally open borders is something else again, however. Cesar Chavez himself opposed illegal immigration. Latinos are steadily moving to the GOP. They favor law and order, not to mention traditional families and gender roles.
Scary how similar the video clip is to current talking-heads on cable news and dark websites on the internet. There are no town-square moments today but we have the staged and televised reality of fascism seen in Trump's rallies and campaign stomps, up to and including the brutalizing of chanting voices and hecklers at the rallies. (As an aside, hecklers were not brutalized during Bidden's address on the dangers of the MAGA movement. I loved Obama's rejoinder "Don't get mad, VOTE!)
Charlottesville anti-Black and antisemitism chant is prima facia evidence of the real and present danger we face in the next two national elections. It is all too familiar to Hitler's playbook.
As a friend of mine often says to me "History does not repeat itself, it echos!" I hear the echos of the 1930s Nuremberg today.
From Pewresearch.org 3 days ago:
"Latino registered voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party over the Republican Party by a nearly two-to-one margin."
I know fascism from the teachings of my Jewish mother, born in Berlin Germany in 1926. Trumps acceptance speech in 2016 sent chills down my spine, here was fascism in a widely disseminated event in 2016, not some crackpot rally in the wilds of northern Idaho attended by a few fellow crackpots. I like to quip “fascism is fashionable again” and acceptance is growing. The fertile soil is a complex social political and cultural environment which is disturbing to many. Upheavals in politics, environment, and economics drive refugees to our southern border, many who are “peasants “ and agrarian workers. My feeling is that these so called “illegal” Immigrants are the potential saviors for a dispirited decadent nation and deserve a great deal of respect. Without a doubt there are a few rotten apples among them but the vast majority are hard working nice people. My mother and her family were very lucky war refugee immigrants who managed to get into the US in the spring of 1942. We need those immigrants to drive our country back to the can do nation we were in the war years. Fascism is an evil, easily invoked, and ever present. We need to keep it contained.
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