CLEANSING

 Seems I’m now the family patriarch. In a dream last night, someone asked me to form a short message of hope for the younger set in these troubled times. In the dream, I said, “What I offer is this: When I was born, one of the wickedest governments ever to sour the earth had turned my ancestral homeland into a cesspool of hate, murder, and carnage. In my lifetime, one lifetime, mind you, Germany transformed itself from a fanatical abscess on the body of humanity to a peaceful and prosperous country worthy of emulation. In our country, we now face primal deterioration. Our America is strong. We can learn from history and cleanse our nest. Let’s do so, and let’s not take an entire lifetime."

DEFEAT FASCISM

A Song For The Victors 

One might consider a continuum of justice applied by the victorious to the vanquished. At one end we might find “occupy and govern.” This is a relatively benign situation in which, assuming there is order and tranquility, the defeated peoples go about their business. The Romans often used this, creating the so-called “Pax Romana." Napolean did at times. Even some of the Ottoman conquerors found it efficacious. Within this model, the victors may even contribute to the safety and reconstruction of a ravaged nation.

At the other extreme is the choice of “demolish and destroy.” The defeated are vermin who deserve no modicum of morality or shred of legal equality. The Spanish conquerors found little use for the native inhabitants of a country other than slavery and exploitation. The Nazi hierarchy had determined that Hungary would serve as a vassal state wherein its citizens existed only to serve German masters. Victors “own” the defeated under this concept.

Oddly, America offered a unique path, one hardly mentioned by history. After its Civil War ended, both sides simply went home.

It needs no saying which route America’s current victors have chosen at present. It will be interesting, though excruciatingly painful, to see how it works out.

The Russians have found on two occasions that it is hard to "own" large populations of dissatisfied people.

DEFEAT FASCISM

Overdoing comparisons of modern movements with those of the past can be a dangerous tool. Both sides of binary political thought can use it. Neglecting such comparison, though, can be more dangerous.

I'm reading Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power by Timothy W. Ryback and wanted to share this quote with you.

"It has been said that the Weimar Republic died twice. It was murdered, and it committed suicide. There is little mystery to the murder. Hitler vowed to destroy democracy through the democratic process, and he did. An act of state suicide is more complicated, especially when it involves a democratic republic with a full complement of constitutional protections—civil liberties, due process, press freedom, public referendum. Which leaves one wondering whether any democracy could have withstood an assault on its structures and processes by a demagogue as fiercely determined as Hitler."

We must consider the comparisons.

The grandchildren of America deserve it. 

DEFEAT FASCISM

 This will not end well. Consider the great fall of fascism in 1945. As the allied armies devasted Germany from the east and the west, Nazi commanders refused to cease fighting, help stop the devastation, and save thousands of German lives because, “I took an oath to The Fuehrer to never surrender.”

Though Himmler himself had ordered some concentration camp guards to flee and save themselves, they instead gathered the remaining prisoners and forced them into death marches.

As resistant collapsed, Army commanders still tried to follow Hitler’s orders to counter-attack with divisions that no longer existed from bases in cities that had been leveled.

As the remnants of the Third Reich huddled in Hitler’s bunder, the Gestapo was still applying the death penalty to Germans caught listening to foreign radio stations.

The fruits of moral collapse became evident as thousands of Germans killed themselves and their families rather than live in a world without Hitler. The Russian Army found the bodies of the six Goebbels children poisoned by their parents prior to their own suicides.

How the power of one man is able to poison the minds of so many may be a question never answered by our books or science, only prevented by “the better angels of our nature.”

DEFEAT FASCISM

 The term “chilling effect” refers to the power of evil to influence its aims indirectly, without the need to expend resources. It is much like a dark cloud settling over America now. Honest, conscientious government workers, military leaders, journalists, and even judges are feeling its weight.

A government worker presenting facts that contradict or suggest analysis of a MAGA edict face the loss of their job and employment future.

A person who has chosen a career serving in America’s armed forces must exhibit allegiance not the oath sworn but to the goals of a fascist regime, many goals of which aim toward personal enrichment and not national security.

A journalist presenting facts contrary to party edicts faces being shut out of access to the workings of our country.

Judges making decisions based on the rule of law are seeing their families threatened with public assault through social media and faux-news services.

The long-term result? Resistance can die from lack of will without the use of much direct force, just a chilling cloud that says, “Do the right thing and you are finished.”

 

DEFEAT FASCISM

 We concern ourselves, perhaps irrationally, with causes and reasons. Given some four billion years in forming a life-force and a few million in forming the branches that led to our current species, there may be causes and reasons we’ll never uncover.

But we try. Let's give it a shot.

The best guide presently to America’s current darkness is the one that overshadowed Germany in the 1930s. So far, analysis indicates a predictable path, with some modern tweaks.

-         Fictionalize the reasons for a defeat in a war. Modern tweak: We won. This press just didn't report it that way.

-          Capitalize on any unfair resolution to a war, including a civil one, and use national catastrophes as a tool for spreading hate. Modern tweak: when there is no catastrophe use the modern advances in thought control, i.e. “social media” to convince the weak-minded that there is one.

-          Publish plans so the public can see progress.

-          Use hate to gain power.

-          Use power to defuse constitutional safeguards. Modern tweak: Infiltrate the apex of constitutional justice.

-          Demonstrate invincibility to reduce resistance.

Let’s stop here for today.

How does the power elite stop and consolidate gains? The Nazis used Kristallnacht. That’s when: “Nazi leaders unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany and recently incorporated territories. This event came to be called Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) because of the shattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes.” (Holocaust Encyclopedia)

The current regime used what would have normally been an unimaginable attack on the most prestigious and sacred seat of American government, the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The message gained further power when the perpetrators were pardoned for any demonstrated participation and may now even serve in the American version of the SS.

Why is this step important?

Simple. It delivers the message that “We are in power now. We can do anything we wish. You are powerless to resist us.”

That message sinks and rots the very roots of the tree of justice upon which America depends.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 As if a dark sci-fi film is playing, America has left its home, passed through a portal, and entered a dark world. As hard as one might try, no happy journey’s end appears, at least not for the immediate future. The leaders of this tragic journey now own the three legs of our governmental stool and a majority of its wealth. The press, that much ballyhooed "Fourth Dimension" loses more prestige each day while chasing distractions.  Little friction remains to hinder the achievement of the evildoers' goals.

This does not bode well for those who will spend their productive years under the dark regime.

A large cohort will not live to pay the ultimate price. Some, having served their country and taken an oath to continue, will resist with the powers they have remaining. Some wiggle like maggots in a pile of ignorance. Some have served the agents of hate and now wait for their reward.

Will it come?

It is hard to say.

But in searching for that answer, one might assess the benefit to the agents of evil that would accrue to them should they halt in their march for domination and expend resources on rewarding the misguided.

Our most recent historical guide, the Germany of the 1940s doesn’t support the assumption.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Thoughts on tipping points. As it stands now, the orders to hate center on a relatively small cadre of usual suspects: the different, the disabled, people of color, librarians, and teachers. At some point, the hate-field will grow, and continue to grow. The movement will reach a tipping point.

When the tipping point is reached, the impacts of fascism will spread to the hitherto unmolested. Those who voted to install the fascism will begin to feel its wrath. The surprise on a supporter’s face will resemble that of a famous painting.

Will this create resistance? Perhaps.

Will this resistance overcome the worst impulses of those in power?

Not if the experience of Germany in the late 1930s is any guide, and history is sometimes our most reliable guide.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 SURVIVING

If The Cult prevails, I may survive. They will only come after me after they come for the people of color, the sexually different, the morally righteous, political opponents, and the librarians. I may last until their energy dissipates.

I only hope that the arc of the moral universe will bend toward justice as a great person once said. If so, the eventual victors may someday force The Cult survivors to march past the remains of the struggle, as General Eisenhower forced the inhabitants of villages near the camps, to march past the corpses of European Jews.

What will sustain me during the crisis?

The thought that I will never have to be in this line.

A New Epiphany

 PASSWORDS

Yesterday’s Epiphany: It can’t be the economy. Most folks are doing well enough, and many are doing quite well. The job I first went to work for earning $400 per month now starts at around $65,000 per year. No, I just think there’s an uneasy feeling pervading America, a sense that something is wrong, and disaster is imminent.

As the Nazis rose to power, there had been major hard times in Germany: inflation, stagnation, poverty, and even starvation. They felt Hitler had led, and would continue to lead, the country out of the mess.

In America today, they don’t have a past crisis to build upon. But wait, what if they could convince people that there are, indeed, hard times upon us and worse times to come? Then they could march out a charlatan who only had to babble about blaming others and making things better. A mindset built on lies is as firm as one built on truth. People are malleable.

Take the Baby Boomers for example. (I’m not technically one. I was a “don’t draft me” baby but the BBs accept me.) Now what upsets me and my cohort?

Passwords.

Yes, passwords. I’m suffering a primal despair over them. I’ve suffered from demands for them for years and I’m even running out of ideas. I must even furnish one to pay a bill when I would rejoice at the thought of a hacker paying it for me.

So, I hate passwords and suffer a love-hate relationship with modern technology.

Passwords. Damn them.

I don’t, though, blame Joe Biden for them.

But wait.

Say I watched Fox “news” for seven or eight hours per day. And what if that deplorable institution used the time to pound it into me that Joe Biden invented and promotes, even mandates, passwords.

Soon, I’d be speaking neo-German with the rest of The Cult.