"Democracy is a better idea than fascism, but the liberal international order does not exist because it is a better idea. It exists because the democratic powers built bigger and better guns, killed millions of fascists, overthrew fascist governments, tried and hanged fascist leaders, and liberated or coercively democratized former fascist countries.... The liberal international order rests on a founding act of violence, of which the Normandy campaign was a crucial part. It was justified, of course, because it was also an act of self-defense against the fascists’ attempts to found their preferred world order on the rest of us."
https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/why-visit-normandy-reflections-on-a-birthplace-of-the-liberal-international-order/
Hey, you know those folks who periodically pop up claiming both parties are equally bad and even if voting third party helps Trump win it would just hasten the necessary collapse of neoliberalism?
I have a new answer for them. It's a quote from William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," which I'm currently reading:
"The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 per cent of the vote. But the 63 per cent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out. The Communists, at the behest of Moscow, were committed to the last to the silly idea of first destroying the Social Democrats, the Socialist trade unions and what middle-class democratic forces there were, on the dubious theory that although this would lead to a Nazi regime it would be only temporary and would bring inevitably the collapse of capitalism, after which the Communists would take over and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Fascism, in the Bolshevik Marxist view, represented the last stage of a dying capitalism; after that, the Communist deluge!”
That didn't work then, and it won't work now. Politics in a democracy IS compromise, and the lesser of two evils is less evil.
@RufusJCooter@mstdn.social @stargazersmith@social.linux.pizza @hrheingold@mastodon.social
"'But are there not many fascists in your country?"
"'There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.'
"'But you cannot destroy them until they rebel?'
"'No,' Robert Jordan said. 'We cannot destroy them. But we can educate the people so that they will fear fascism and recognize it as it appears and combat it.'"
-Ernest Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940)
Napoleon returned to power after being imprisoned on Elba.
Hitler returned after being imprisoned for the Beer Hall Putsch.
Trump has returned after being voted out and then convicted of 34 felonies.
Who will be America's Wellington? Our Eisenhower?
The world suffered incredibly under Napoleon and Hitler, but survived Napoleon and Hitler thanks largely to outside intervention, not because of internal insurrection in Napoleonic France or Nazi Germany.
Many of us Americans will engage in acts of resistance, but it's clear that the majority of us, just like the people of France and Germany under those earlier tyrants, are not currently capable of responsible self-governance. I honestly no longer believe we can save ourselves, because too many of us don't want to be saved.
Q: Who will save us, as the British and Americans once saved Germany and France? Can Americans hope, eventually, for a new Wellington, a new Eisenhower? Or are we truly on our own?
@uoou@fedi.drew.monster In the U.S., we're allowed roughly 3.5 years out of every four to fight like hell for progressive change, including working hard to promote progressive candidates. But once we know who the Democratic nominee will be in a presidential election year, that pauses, and our job is to support and elect that Democrat. Period. Because the alternative is fascism.
No one's angry at progressives for pushing hard-left 7/8 of the time. It's when they KEEP pushing AGAINST THE ONLY PARTY + NOMINEE WHO CAN PREVENT FASCISM, DURING AN ELECTION CAMPAIGN, that we get just a wee bit testy.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security today released a new ICE recruiting poster, under the stilted and sexist tagline "which way, American man?"
Why did they use that word language? Because it's a dog whistle, something ordinary humans won't notice but that those attuned to it will respond to. And it's literally a Nazi dog whistle.
William Gayley Simpson was a Presbyterian pastor who decided Christianity wasn't workable and consciously decided to become a racist instead. In 1978 he published a book, "Which Way, Western Man?" – a manifesto calling on white men to defeat all other races. Some nuggets include:
"Let me preface what I am about to say by declaring frankly that I am prepared to accept violence on the part of our people. The Jews’ hold on our throat is not going to be relaxed until we break their grip. Hitler felt that he had to take to the streets. All normal approach to his people was barred. Today, we are confronted with much the same situation here."
"The point is to reveal organized Jewry as a world power entrenched in every country of the White man’s world...."
You might think that 1978 is too long ago for anyone to remember, But this book was republished in 2003 by a neo-Nazi group called the National Alliance, and is a bestseller among neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.
The federal government is recruiting Nazis and other racists to join ICE, which is being deployed in cities across the country and arresting both citizens and non-citizens alike.
Folks, this literally is fascism. You think I enjoy posting this stuff here all the time? I don't. But this literally is fascism. They're literally following following the Nazi playbook.
Unless we stop them.
Sources: https://share.google/nT0dJ8jYEQYeVoLgA
https://share.google/TTsKfI8dw9ZZAwCo3
Well, fzck HBO Max, then.
HBO Max removes the show from its platform as ‘South Park’ makes news for blasting Donald Trump, other Republicans: Where to find it streaming free on demand online - oregonlive.com
https://www.oregonlive.com/entertainment/2025/08/as-south-park-makes-news-for-blasting-donald-trump-hbo-max-removes-the-show-from-its-platform.html
Just received a breathless, hyperbolic fundraising text from Dem Action. Blocked and reported it as spam.
God, I wish we had a serious opposition party.
"Democracy is a better idea than fascism, but the liberal international order does not exist because it is a better idea. It exists because the democratic powers built bigger and better guns, killed millions of fascists, overthrew fascist governments, tried and hanged fascist leaders, and liberated or coercively democratized former fascist countries.... The liberal international order rests on a founding act of violence, of which the Normandy campaign was a crucial part. It was justified, of course, because it was also an act of self-defense against the fascists’ attempts to found their preferred world order on the rest of us."
https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/why-visit-normandy-reflections-on-a-birthplace-of-the-liberal-international-order/
@delcj@mas.to @ml@ecoevo.social Shhh. Just allow it to flow over you, like floating a river on opium.
There, there.
There, there.
@RufusJCooter@mstdn.social @stargazersmith@social.linux.pizza @hrheingold@mastodon.social
"'But are there not many fascists in your country?"
"'There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.'
"'But you cannot destroy them until they rebel?'
"'No,' Robert Jordan said. 'We cannot destroy them. But we can educate the people so that they will fear fascism and recognize it as it appears and combat it.'"
-Ernest Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940)
Napoleon returned to power after being imprisoned on Elba.
Hitler returned after being imprisoned for the Beer Hall Putsch.
Trump has returned after being voted out and then convicted of 34 felonies.
Who will be America's Wellington? Our Eisenhower?
The world suffered incredibly under Napoleon and Hitler, but survived Napoleon and Hitler thanks largely to outside intervention, not because of internal insurrection in Napoleonic France or Nazi Germany.
Many of us Americans will engage in acts of resistance, but it's clear that the majority of us, just like the people of France and Germany under those earlier tyrants, are not currently capable of responsible self-governance. I honestly no longer believe we can save ourselves, because too many of us don't want to be saved.
Q: Who will save us, as the British and Americans once saved Germany and France? Can Americans hope, eventually, for a new Wellington, a new Eisenhower? Or are we truly on our own?
Napoleon returned to power after being imprisoned on Elba.
Hitler returned after being imprisoned for the Beer Hall Putsch.
Trump has returned after being voted out and then convicted of 34 felonies.
Who will be America's Wellington? Our Eisenhower?
Hey, you know those folks who periodically pop up claiming both parties are equally bad and even if voting third party helps Trump win it would just hasten the necessary collapse of neoliberalism?
I have a new answer for them. It's a quote from William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," which I'm currently reading:
"The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 per cent of the vote. But the 63 per cent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out. The Communists, at the behest of Moscow, were committed to the last to the silly idea of first destroying the Social Democrats, the Socialist trade unions and what middle-class democratic forces there were, on the dubious theory that although this would lead to a Nazi regime it would be only temporary and would bring inevitably the collapse of capitalism, after which the Communists would take over and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Fascism, in the Bolshevik Marxist view, represented the last stage of a dying capitalism; after that, the Communist deluge!”
That didn't work then, and it won't work now. Politics in a democracy IS compromise, and the lesser of two evils is less evil.
@uoou@fedi.drew.monster In the U.S., we're allowed roughly 3.5 years out of every four to fight like hell for progressive change, including working hard to promote progressive candidates. But once we know who the Democratic nominee will be in a presidential election year, that pauses, and our job is to support and elect that Democrat. Period. Because the alternative is fascism.
No one's angry at progressives for pushing hard-left 7/8 of the time. It's when they KEEP pushing AGAINST THE ONLY PARTY + NOMINEE WHO CAN PREVENT FASCISM, DURING AN ELECTION CAMPAIGN, that we get just a wee bit testy.
M.S. Bellows, Jr.