U.S. Holocaust Museum.
A short road to fascism: Experts on authoritarianism are even more concerned about Trump’s dictator-like tendencies in week two than they were in week one. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that this poster from the U.S. Holocaust Museum outlining the disturbingly familiar warning signs of fascism went viral this week.
From This week in Trump’s America: Week 2: The Muslim ban, Neil Gorsuch, and the “worst call yet.”
And my personal explosive Oh Fuck! for the day:
Nawar al-Awlaki. CREDIT: video screengrab.
In the Tiny Dictator’s completely botched “military raid”, this beautiful little girl was killed, eight years old. Unfortunately, hers was not the only death. Young Nawar’s death brings back words of the Tiny Dictator:
In December 2015, Trump said he would kill the family members of terrorists to stop ISIS.
“We’re fighting a very politically correct war,” Trump said during a Fox & Friends interview. “And the other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families. They, they care about their lives. Don’t kid yourself. But they say they don’t care about their lives. You have to take out their families.”
Well, he’s made good on his word, adding baby killer to his less than impressive list of feats. If you’re going to have such an attitude, you really shouldn’t be surprised if those on the ‘other side’ adopt it. All’s fair and all that, yeah? This is fucking devastating, dangerous idiocy, and the military knows that. It’s a fucking pity Donny doesn’t, and thinks slaughtering children is okely dokely.
In a statement released shortly after the al Bayda raid, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group expressed concern about President Trump’s first raid and what it signals about his approach to extremism.
“The first military actions by the Trump administration in Yemen bode poorly for the prospect of smartly and effectively countering AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula],” the statement said. “The use of US soldiers, high civilian casualties and disregard for local tribal and political dynamics… plays into AQAP’s narrative of defending Muslims against the West and could increase anti-US sentiment and with it AQAP’s pool of recruits.”
Via Think Progress.
The “first they came” signs are way off. The Muslims weren’t the first--it was the black and the indigenous that came first. These properties have been central to the Republican party since Nixon, whose “War on Drugs” tore apart impoverished families.
this beautiful little girl was killed, eight years old.
The most unsettling thing about that whole story is that, at this point, the US government has more than decimated Anwar Al-Awlaki’s family -- it’s like some fucked up biblical monarch’s “We will wipe out your bloodline!” The US secret war of assassination is wiping out not just citizens, but their bloodlines.
Marcus:
Yeah. And they are good with that.
It wasn’t botched:
He said he would do it if elected. They elected him. He did it.
Isolationist president, right? I hear next he’ll be taking measures against corporate greed and pushing for stricter regulations.
Rejoice, totally non-racist financially struggling white people!
I need to stop posting immediately before finishing the blog entry…
Whatever. I’m mad… :(
Saad:
Yeah. I am too. Also fucking scared. It’s utterly beyond me how anyone could be okay with that shit.
Same.
And nope, none of this was botched. This is what they want: the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children.
And they see nothing wrong with that.
Fucking hell.
I’m almost completely alone in an office full of Trump voters -- yet somehow now, after he is doing just what he said he would, they refuse to talk about him and the news has been banned at work.
But I’m sure that if put against a wall they’d proudly admit no responsibility.
Yeeeaaah, abortion, oh holy shit, that’s evil! Blowing up an eight year old? Eh, that’s good, really! Fuck.
Why do people who say “we are going to kill children so we can hurt their fathers” think they are on the right side of history?
Because, of course, killing people’s families will make them less willing to use violence against you.
Daz@#11:
Because, of course, killing people’s families will make them less willing to use violence against you.
Yeah, the “sauce for the goose” element of philosophy seldom applies to totalitarians.
In fact, I have long thought Hannah Arendt was wrong in that she focused on the surface details of totalitarianism, the marching the goose-stepping, the groupthink. Really, the origin of totalitarianism is exceptionalism. Either personal or group, it doesn’t matter. Once you think your shit doesn’t stink like everyone else’s, you’ve crossed the line and are headed into the end zone.
I know I’m a few decades behind the times but somehow this is where I got stuck today:
Emphasis added. What a wonderful reminder that is to the bizarre status quo we are enjoying these days with superpower USA benevolently watching
overeveryone. There is ‘concern’ over the first raid by a US president in another nation. Let me just check, when did the US declare war on Yemen again? Hmm, can’t seem to find it. Ah, but there was that Yemeni air raid on New York the other day. Didn’t a Spitfire strafe Trump Tower? No, wait, I’m muddling up actual wars now. And fiction.But hey, I’m really looking forward to the next raid now, just to see how it turns out. There are bound to be some hospitals or schools for the US military to accidentally precision-bomb. They won’t need executive orders but I’m sure they could get them if they wanted to.
P.S.: That facism checklist reads like a list of features of the US. Not new features.
I am sorry to say, but USA has been walking the edge bordering fascism for a few decades now. Even under Obama it did not wander far enough from it.
Most of the points from that first picture were present more or less always:
POWERFUL AND CONTINUING NATIONALISM -- USA #1, american exceptionalism, worship of fossilised constitution.
DISDAIN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS -- only lip service has been paid, POC were quite happily being discriminated against, both overtly and covertly. Indians were not even recognizes as human.
IDENTIFICATION OF ENEMIES AS A UNIFYING CAUSE -- there was always a universal enemy in US history with maybe short pause during civil war. first the English (I no pay no taxes to no queens!) then Indians, then maybe pause, then Nazis (the only worthy enemy to idetify against), then strawman communists and socialists, then muslims and Mexicans -- most, if not all, of these were opposed on jingoism, not on real evaluation of ideas.
SUPREMACY OF THE MILITARY -- when was US not at war with someone and when the veterans and the fallen of these mostly unjust wars were not venerated? In Vietnam USA is seen just as Nazi Germany is seen in east Europe -- an invador remembered for his crimes.
RAMPANT SEXISM -- no comment needed. But as of now this point still applies more or less to most of the world. Only it is often swept under the carpet and not paraded about.
CONTROLLED MASS MEDIA -- afaik this one point might be the that still does not conform. small comfort.
OBSESSION WITH NATIONAL SECURITY -- largest spending on military per capita in the world and enough nukes to wipe the world a few times over says it all.
RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT INTERWTINED -- in US a lot of work has to be done by secularist to untwine those two, not the other way around. Despite laws saying the opposite.
CORPORATE POWER PROTECTED -- the only country that allows lobbying to such a degree, that politicians and policies are essentialy bought and sold wholesale never even really tried in this regard.
LABOR POWER SUPRESSED -- unions in US are weak and whenever they gain a little gound, it is swiftly taken from them again.
DISDAIN FOR INTELLECTUALS & THE ARTS -- this one might actually be only growing in recent years. Again small comfort.
OBSESSION WITH CRIME & PUNISHMENT -- war on crime, war on drugs, mandatory minimal sentences for first offence, no-voting for felons even those of non-violent crimes etc.
RAMPANT CRONYISM & CORRUPTIONS -- political dynasties, for-life politicians, and again unprecedented lobbying.
FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS -- electoral college, gerrymandering, no automatic voter registration, no universal standard for counting votes.
All Trump had to do was to tip the balance just a bit.