During the Bu**sh** years, on a couple of political message boards, I posted a US flag with a black field instead of blue and swastikas instead of stars. People didn’t like it. I wonder what they would say now.
“Lunatic fringe / In the twilight’s last gleaming This is open season / But you won’t get too far ‘Cause you’ve got to blame someone / For your own confusion We’re on guard this time / Against your final solution”
– Red Rider, “Lunatic Fringe” (1981)
And to think they were only talking about Reagan and the “religious right”….
Where do you think we are? I think we’re solidly on the second to the last flag, just waiting for the treason trials to begin.
stroppysays
OK. I’m going to have a bit of a whinge. About Ted Koppel.
He was on Amanpour I think it was, the other night, saying what I thought were some sound things about the current situation and about the news media; he-said-she-said, both-siderism, and so on. Then he turns around and condemns extremism on “both sides.” I mean what the hell is it with these media pundits, they just can’t help themselves or what?
Then he went on and put down the left for using the term ‘resistance’ after Trump got elected — a perfectly apt word whether it resonates with the past or not.
Now this is part of the problem, IMO. So history doesn’t repeat itself and Trump is not Hitler, but history does rhyme. Stultifying the language that way indicates a trapped viewpoint frozen in the past. That’s a problem because it essentially deprecates today’s left as alarmist and serves to further normalize the state we’re in.
And seriously, can you honestly say that if you somehow discovered that Trump learned as much from Hitler and Mussolini as he did from Roy Cohn that you’d be at all surprised? Come on.
lancefinneysays
Do you know the source? I’d like to use it with the proper credit.
christophsays
@Ray Ceeya, #1: Yes, it is dark. But accurate.
nomadiqsays
My thoughts on all this:
The GOP don’t know the difference between ‘freedom’ and ‘adrift’. When you’re adrift, you never know where you will end up. Chances are, not a tropical paradise – at least not for you.
How many Germans were wondering how the hell a maniac like Adolf Hitler got elected president in 1933? Just to reiterate a bit of history, Germany went from Weimar Republic to NAZI dictatorship in less than FOUR YEARS. And this was without the internet or Facebook.
Where is the point of no return for us? I really hope we haven’t crossed it yet, but we can’t keep telling ourselves “there’s still time”, because I’m not sure there is any more. 2020 may be our last chance.
Zeppelinsays
Ray Ceeya @8: Well, Hitler wasn’t elected president, he was appointed as chancellor by then-president Hindenburg in an attempt by the conservative government to hang on to power. He only kindasorta became president when the powers of the president were merged with those of the chancellor in 1934, and he was never called “president” at all.
aronymoussays
I think we’re 2/3 into the last flag. It happened and we’re proud of it.
The public support for witnesses makes me wonder if the Dems can successfully brand the Reps as unpatriotic.
microraptorsays
aronymous @10: Maybe they could and maybe they couldn’t, but I doubt we’ll ever know because I don’t see them trying.
Zeppelin @8
You’re right. I was trying to think of “Chancellor” but having a brain fart when I typed that. I was also remembering a Mini Series called “Hitler: Rise of Evil” from about 12 or 15 years ago and the scene where the German Parliament grants Hitler his chancellorship and unlimited power. So yeah, I guess he was never elected by the population of his country. Wait, population… Popular… That sounds familiar.
mnb0says
@PZ: “just waiting for the treason trials to begin.”
Being a Dutchman I don’t recall the state with that flag holding trials for “traitors” for 11 years, less than 1 year before its downfall. Moreover the traitors who had to face Roland Freisler usually were conservativs. When the parliament was put on hold a few weeks after the Machtübernahme the opposition was send to concentration camps without such fuzz, as far as it had not fled the country. Some members spend the entire 12 years in such camps.
But hey, if Donald the Clown is sloppy about facts liberals don’t have to bother about historical facts either if they get in the way of good feeling propaganda. Am I happy that I’m too leftist for American liberalism (Bernie and AOC are kinda OK, but very moderate from my point of view)..
stroppysays
Germany was a disaster after WWI. The situation in America doesn’t really compare.
What Trump is doing, with a lot of malicious help, is manufacturing fake crises — which would be an absolute joke if it weren’t for the fact that his demented, juvenile antics have actually taken root in the fields plowed by alt-right media, and are now showing signs of spreading like kudzu.
So no, it’s not ok for liberals to be sloppy about the facts; But then they don’t need to be. Pedantic old geezers like Koppel and all the rest do need to wise the fuck up, however.
vucodlaksays
@ Ray Ceeya, #8
Where is the point of no return for us?
That’s the fun part, isn’t it? When looking at something as squishy as human political history, we really can’t tell where the point of return is until we’re well past it and looking back. If we’re still around in a few decades, maybe our historians will be able to pinpoint where we really, truly fucked ourselves.
On the one hand, I think we’re probably past the point of no return. I suspect that point was passed when Trump was allowed to take office- by that time it was too late. Now, even if he’s removed, all the damage he’s done will almost certainly take longer than we actually have left to undo.
On the other hand, I don’t think it’s really, truly too late until the missile are flying. Until that happens, we still have a chance to turn things around and save most of humanity. It’s just that I don’t have a lot of faith that we have the stomach to do the difficult, painful things we need to do before we get to the point of Mutually Assured Destruction.
In the United States, for example, fixing this will require (at the very least) a great deal of civil unrest, to the point that much of the legislative branch will be forced to resign in fear of their lives. However, I realize that most of the country has swallowed the lie that the greatest civil rights advancements happened without any violence on the part of those demanding the rights, so I don’t think we’ll be able to do it.
If the Republicans acquit Trump (and they absolutely will), then it’s riot o’ clock. As Dr. King said, the riot is the language of the unheard, and Congress hasn’t listened to the people in a long, long time. If we don’t make them take notice, they won’t. Another peaceful march that won’t get 30 seconds coverage across the major news networks is just a waste of everybody’s time. It’s time to stand up and fight, because the only other option is to lie down and die.
Option 2 is exactly what we’re going to do, of course. Even here there will be people jumping down my throat for even daring to suggest violence (even against property). So, we’re going to lie down and die.
I’ve already started preparing for nuclear war. It’s pretty much inevitable, once the strain on resources reaches a certain point. I don’t imagine I’ll survive, but if I do, I’ll be glad I prepared. I recommend everyone else make whatever preparations they’re able, too.
unclefrogysays
I do not know between which of those flags we fall in for sure. Some have capitulated completely
Like senator Alexander who has given himself over to fear of the image of Trump and his following. I say image because that is what it is an image conjured up out of posturing and lying to crowds of willing people by a con-man. The con-mans power with the electorate owes much to the decades of manipulation of voter suppression by the conservatives.
The leadership of the Liberal politics also believe much of that image as well and will not risk much either in resisting it nor branding it.
His government is standing alone against the whole world his foreign benefactors care only for their own power and interests and will drop him like a hot rock if it suits them because they know he will cheat them if he can. the country is standing on weak foundations and chaos is just behind the next catastrophe with the next economic downturn looming. Yes dark times ahead. When this house of cards falls like many of his other ventures it will take many with it, hopefully the conservatives for a generation or two.
uncle frogy
Zeppelinsays
Ray Ceeya @12: Thanks to his successes prior to the war and the NSDAP’s complete takeover of the media, Hitler definitely had majority support by the late 30s. So presumably he would have received retroactive democratic legitimization if the Nazis had bothered to hold free elections. But it’s still instructive to remember that he was lifted into power by capitalists who figured the fascists would help them stamp out socialism.
I think a lot of this is going to come down to which side first understands what’s up… and murders the people on the other side.
Decent people might need to get a little less decent for a while. Or we can wait for them to kill us.
microraptorsays
LykeX @19: Meaning that it’s going to come down to how quickly white, heterosexual cisgender people start getting threatened with violence.
Pierce R. Butlersays
lancefinney @ # 5 – I’d like to use it too.
I did a search on tineye.com, which found four matches, all posted at imgur.com on 1/31/20. Three, which look identical, came from a user named Oseo, and the fourth is a collection of dozens of miscellaneous pics, so I think we can tentatively credit Oseo.
Ftr: I haven’t seen imgur.com before, nor do I know how thoroughly tineye.com searches – more digging may yield better results.
unclefrogysays
@20
I would say it will be when they realize that they are one the chopping block as well
because they are just a means to an end and not any kind of end purpose
uncle frogy
Who Caressays
@Zeppeling(#17):
Hitler never had majority support in the late 30s. And the numbers he scored in the election were boosted by threatening people to vote for him.
It was just that two other major blocs in the government thought they could control Hitler for their own purposes. Then a month later the Reichstag fire happened, conveniently a few days before Hitler would have lost the position of chancellor. A year later he managed to become a dictator.
wereatheistsays
@mnb0, #13:
I don’t recall the state with that flag holding trials for “traitors” for 11 years
You’re wrong. The Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group (a.k.a. Rote Kapelle (part of)) was accused, and convicted of, and executed for, Hochverrat. (Some were executed on a rail with butchers’ hooks in the cellar of Berlin-Plötzensee prison. One execution every four minutes)
And I’m positive that some treason processes happened before, but I’m not going to research.
That’s your job now.
This comes from a Kraut :)
wereatheistsays
To myself: It’s trials, not processes, dumbass.
wereatheistsays
And if I’m at it, I could as well take on @Who Cares:
There was a referendum in the Saargebiet in 1935, with about 90% of the votes in favour of re-joining Germany.
About 90% of the Germans in Chechoslovakian Sudetenland voted for the Sudetendeutsche Partei, which was just the Chechoslovakian branch of the German Nazi party.
Of course, this was not a popularity contest for the Führer, but those voters obviously didn’t dislike him enough.
wereatheistsays
Put “these were” insteadf of “this was”.
Who Caressays
@Whereatheist(#26):
I do suggest to do a bit more reading up on the hows and whys before insinuating people were voting for Hitler.
Saarland was a territory carved out from Germany after WW1. The people there didn’t vote for Hitler, they voted to get back to the country they were part of before and were going to use Hitler, who was at that point already ignoring the restriction placed on Germany after WW1, to do so.
Sudetenland was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which collapsed after WW1, at which point the people of Sudetenland were trying to get Sudetenland to become a province of Germany (which the US essentially vetoed based on not sticking people that had that much nationalistic fervor for Germany in Germany). It didn’t help that Czechoslovakia was trying to eradicate the identity of the people in Sudetenland. About the only reason that can be construed as the people in Sudetenland voting for Hitler (instead of trying to join up with the country they considered themselves really part of) would be the depression and that Germany seemed to be getting out of it while Czechoslovakia was still sinking, something that was happening due to Hitlers massive deficit spending and price controls.
That said what you try there is abuse of statistics by slicing and dicing until you get a partial answer that supports you while ignoring the whole.
wzrd1says
@PZ, nope, We’re rapidly spiraling down to Nazi flag.
Welcome to belated news of the world… :(
We trusted an elder generation. Now, even money, given foreign influence to destabilize our nation and enforced efforts of a beneficiary, things will turn into shit.
Thanks for nothing, yet again, cousin.
Now, headed to 1950’s pollution, warfare, authoritarian bullshit
Add in migratory birds are toast in Trumpland of oil slicks or poisons, even money the SOB allows DDT soon.
Frankly, I stopped taking my anti-hyperthyroid medication and anti-hypertnesion medication, my abdominal aorta will soon enough explode and revenge packets get released.
publicolasays
Vucodlak@15: Yeah, I’ve been wondering why the streets are so silent. It may be a lack of a charismatic individual to motivate people to get out there . Even more, you need a plan; a goal. Aimless protesting accomplishes little. The Occupy Wall Street movement was a good example. People milled about for weeks but did nothing. They should have been blocking access to and actually occupying banks and investment houses, big mortgage lenders, getting arrested. They should have been much more disruptive, but they lacked focus and leadership. I’m not advocating violence, but civil disobedience. If we don’t answer this threat to our freedom now, we will regret it sooner rather than later.
publicolasays
By the way, did anyone notice that the Union of Concerned Scientists moved there “Armageddon clock” up to less than two minutes to midnight?
DAMN that’s dark.
During the Bu**sh** years, on a couple of political message boards, I posted a US flag with a black field instead of blue and swastikas instead of stars. People didn’t like it. I wonder what they would say now.
And to think they were only talking about Reagan and the “religious right”….
Where do you think we are? I think we’re solidly on the second to the last flag, just waiting for the treason trials to begin.
OK. I’m going to have a bit of a whinge. About Ted Koppel.
He was on Amanpour I think it was, the other night, saying what I thought were some sound things about the current situation and about the news media; he-said-she-said, both-siderism, and so on. Then he turns around and condemns extremism on “both sides.” I mean what the hell is it with these media pundits, they just can’t help themselves or what?
Then he went on and put down the left for using the term ‘resistance’ after Trump got elected — a perfectly apt word whether it resonates with the past or not.
Now this is part of the problem, IMO. So history doesn’t repeat itself and Trump is not Hitler, but history does rhyme. Stultifying the language that way indicates a trapped viewpoint frozen in the past. That’s a problem because it essentially deprecates today’s left as alarmist and serves to further normalize the state we’re in.
And seriously, can you honestly say that if you somehow discovered that Trump learned as much from Hitler and Mussolini as he did from Roy Cohn that you’d be at all surprised? Come on.
Do you know the source? I’d like to use it with the proper credit.
@Ray Ceeya, #1: Yes, it is dark. But accurate.
My thoughts on all this:
The GOP don’t know the difference between ‘freedom’ and ‘adrift’. When you’re adrift, you never know where you will end up. Chances are, not a tropical paradise – at least not for you.
How many Germans were wondering how the hell a maniac like Adolf Hitler got elected president in 1933? Just to reiterate a bit of history, Germany went from Weimar Republic to NAZI dictatorship in less than FOUR YEARS. And this was without the internet or Facebook.
Where is the point of no return for us? I really hope we haven’t crossed it yet, but we can’t keep telling ourselves “there’s still time”, because I’m not sure there is any more. 2020 may be our last chance.
Ray Ceeya @8: Well, Hitler wasn’t elected president, he was appointed as chancellor by then-president Hindenburg in an attempt by the conservative government to hang on to power. He only kindasorta became president when the powers of the president were merged with those of the chancellor in 1934, and he was never called “president” at all.
I think we’re 2/3 into the last flag. It happened and we’re proud of it.
The public support for witnesses makes me wonder if the Dems can successfully brand the Reps as unpatriotic.
aronymous @10: Maybe they could and maybe they couldn’t, but I doubt we’ll ever know because I don’t see them trying.
Zeppelin @8
You’re right. I was trying to think of “Chancellor” but having a brain fart when I typed that. I was also remembering a Mini Series called “Hitler: Rise of Evil” from about 12 or 15 years ago and the scene where the German Parliament grants Hitler his chancellorship and unlimited power. So yeah, I guess he was never elected by the population of his country. Wait, population… Popular… That sounds familiar.
@PZ: “just waiting for the treason trials to begin.”
Being a Dutchman I don’t recall the state with that flag holding trials for “traitors” for 11 years, less than 1 year before its downfall. Moreover the traitors who had to face Roland Freisler usually were conservativs. When the parliament was put on hold a few weeks after the Machtübernahme the opposition was send to concentration camps without such fuzz, as far as it had not fled the country. Some members spend the entire 12 years in such camps.
But hey, if Donald the Clown is sloppy about facts liberals don’t have to bother about historical facts either if they get in the way of good feeling propaganda. Am I happy that I’m too leftist for American liberalism (Bernie and AOC are kinda OK, but very moderate from my point of view)..
Germany was a disaster after WWI. The situation in America doesn’t really compare.
What Trump is doing, with a lot of malicious help, is manufacturing fake crises — which would be an absolute joke if it weren’t for the fact that his demented, juvenile antics have actually taken root in the fields plowed by alt-right media, and are now showing signs of spreading like kudzu.
So no, it’s not ok for liberals to be sloppy about the facts; But then they don’t need to be. Pedantic old geezers like Koppel and all the rest do need to wise the fuck up, however.
@ Ray Ceeya, #8
That’s the fun part, isn’t it? When looking at something as squishy as human political history, we really can’t tell where the point of return is until we’re well past it and looking back. If we’re still around in a few decades, maybe our historians will be able to pinpoint where we really, truly fucked ourselves.
On the one hand, I think we’re probably past the point of no return. I suspect that point was passed when Trump was allowed to take office- by that time it was too late. Now, even if he’s removed, all the damage he’s done will almost certainly take longer than we actually have left to undo.
On the other hand, I don’t think it’s really, truly too late until the missile are flying. Until that happens, we still have a chance to turn things around and save most of humanity. It’s just that I don’t have a lot of faith that we have the stomach to do the difficult, painful things we need to do before we get to the point of Mutually Assured Destruction.
In the United States, for example, fixing this will require (at the very least) a great deal of civil unrest, to the point that much of the legislative branch will be forced to resign in fear of their lives. However, I realize that most of the country has swallowed the lie that the greatest civil rights advancements happened without any violence on the part of those demanding the rights, so I don’t think we’ll be able to do it.
If the Republicans acquit Trump (and they absolutely will), then it’s riot o’ clock. As Dr. King said, the riot is the language of the unheard, and Congress hasn’t listened to the people in a long, long time. If we don’t make them take notice, they won’t. Another peaceful march that won’t get 30 seconds coverage across the major news networks is just a waste of everybody’s time. It’s time to stand up and fight, because the only other option is to lie down and die.
Option 2 is exactly what we’re going to do, of course. Even here there will be people jumping down my throat for even daring to suggest violence (even against property). So, we’re going to lie down and die.
I’ve already started preparing for nuclear war. It’s pretty much inevitable, once the strain on resources reaches a certain point. I don’t imagine I’ll survive, but if I do, I’ll be glad I prepared. I recommend everyone else make whatever preparations they’re able, too.
I do not know between which of those flags we fall in for sure. Some have capitulated completely
Like senator Alexander who has given himself over to fear of the image of Trump and his following. I say image because that is what it is an image conjured up out of posturing and lying to crowds of willing people by a con-man. The con-mans power with the electorate owes much to the decades of manipulation of voter suppression by the conservatives.
The leadership of the Liberal politics also believe much of that image as well and will not risk much either in resisting it nor branding it.
His government is standing alone against the whole world his foreign benefactors care only for their own power and interests and will drop him like a hot rock if it suits them because they know he will cheat them if he can. the country is standing on weak foundations and chaos is just behind the next catastrophe with the next economic downturn looming. Yes dark times ahead. When this house of cards falls like many of his other ventures it will take many with it, hopefully the conservatives for a generation or two.
uncle frogy
Ray Ceeya @12: Thanks to his successes prior to the war and the NSDAP’s complete takeover of the media, Hitler definitely had majority support by the late 30s. So presumably he would have received retroactive democratic legitimization if the Nazis had bothered to hold free elections. But it’s still instructive to remember that he was lifted into power by capitalists who figured the fascists would help them stamp out socialism.
As a wild-eyed firebrand named John F. Kennedy once said: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
Seems to me that the GOP has expended a great deal of effort to make peaceful/I> revolution impossible…
I think a lot of this is going to come down to which side first understands what’s up… and murders the people on the other side.
Decent people might need to get a little less decent for a while. Or we can wait for them to kill us.
LykeX @19: Meaning that it’s going to come down to how quickly white, heterosexual cisgender people start getting threatened with violence.
lancefinney @ # 5 – I’d like to use it too.
I did a search on tineye.com, which found four matches, all posted at imgur.com on 1/31/20. Three, which look identical, came from a user named Oseo, and the fourth is a collection of dozens of miscellaneous pics, so I think we can tentatively credit Oseo.
Ftr: I haven’t seen imgur.com before, nor do I know how thoroughly tineye.com searches – more digging may yield better results.
@20
I would say it will be when they realize that they are one the chopping block as well
because they are just a means to an end and not any kind of end purpose
uncle frogy
@Zeppeling(#17):
Hitler never had majority support in the late 30s. And the numbers he scored in the election were boosted by threatening people to vote for him.
It was just that two other major blocs in the government thought they could control Hitler for their own purposes. Then a month later the Reichstag fire happened, conveniently a few days before Hitler would have lost the position of chancellor. A year later he managed to become a dictator.
@mnb0, #13:
You’re wrong. The Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group (a.k.a. Rote Kapelle (part of)) was accused, and convicted of, and executed for, Hochverrat. (Some were executed on a rail with butchers’ hooks in the cellar of Berlin-Plötzensee prison. One execution every four minutes)
And I’m positive that some treason processes happened before, but I’m not going to research.
That’s your job now.
This comes from a Kraut :)
To myself: It’s trials, not processes, dumbass.
And if I’m at it, I could as well take on @Who Cares:
There was a referendum in the Saargebiet in 1935, with about 90% of the votes in favour of re-joining Germany.
About 90% of the Germans in Chechoslovakian Sudetenland voted for the Sudetendeutsche Partei, which was just the Chechoslovakian branch of the German Nazi party.
Of course, this was not a popularity contest for the Führer, but those voters obviously didn’t dislike him enough.
Put “these were” insteadf of “this was”.
@Whereatheist(#26):
I do suggest to do a bit more reading up on the hows and whys before insinuating people were voting for Hitler.
Saarland was a territory carved out from Germany after WW1. The people there didn’t vote for Hitler, they voted to get back to the country they were part of before and were going to use Hitler, who was at that point already ignoring the restriction placed on Germany after WW1, to do so.
Sudetenland was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which collapsed after WW1, at which point the people of Sudetenland were trying to get Sudetenland to become a province of Germany (which the US essentially vetoed based on not sticking people that had that much nationalistic fervor for Germany in Germany). It didn’t help that Czechoslovakia was trying to eradicate the identity of the people in Sudetenland. About the only reason that can be construed as the people in Sudetenland voting for Hitler (instead of trying to join up with the country they considered themselves really part of) would be the depression and that Germany seemed to be getting out of it while Czechoslovakia was still sinking, something that was happening due to Hitlers massive deficit spending and price controls.
That said what you try there is abuse of statistics by slicing and dicing until you get a partial answer that supports you while ignoring the whole.
@PZ, nope, We’re rapidly spiraling down to Nazi flag.
Welcome to belated news of the world… :(
We trusted an elder generation. Now, even money, given foreign influence to destabilize our nation and enforced efforts of a beneficiary, things will turn into shit.
Thanks for nothing, yet again, cousin.
Now, headed to 1950’s pollution, warfare, authoritarian bullshit
Add in migratory birds are toast in Trumpland of oil slicks or poisons, even money the SOB allows DDT soon.
Frankly, I stopped taking my anti-hyperthyroid medication and anti-hypertnesion medication, my abdominal aorta will soon enough explode and revenge packets get released.
Vucodlak@15: Yeah, I’ve been wondering why the streets are so silent. It may be a lack of a charismatic individual to motivate people to get out there . Even more, you need a plan; a goal. Aimless protesting accomplishes little. The Occupy Wall Street movement was a good example. People milled about for weeks but did nothing. They should have been blocking access to and actually occupying banks and investment houses, big mortgage lenders, getting arrested. They should have been much more disruptive, but they lacked focus and leadership. I’m not advocating violence, but civil disobedience. If we don’t answer this threat to our freedom now, we will regret it sooner rather than later.
By the way, did anyone notice that the Union of Concerned Scientists moved there “Armageddon clock” up to less than two minutes to midnight?