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[OhNo-Really]

This message was self-deleted by its author (OhNo-Really) on Sat Dec 10, 2022, 10:55 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[BSdetect]

1. I fear we closer to some horrible event than we think.

Many of us still wonder how this could even happen.

The time for that has long passed.

Resist with all you can muster.

[OhNo-Really]

2. Knowledge of History also provides answers to ending our problem as well

[Cosmocat]

9. I don't know about one single "event" but

I can say that my entire adult life I have seen this country backslide toward a fascist state, in an exponentially increasing manner, and we are now in a RAPID slide, and I see very little hope of us having the soul to pull out of it.

[Texin]

15. I agree.

tRump was reported to have said to friends at Mar A'Lago he could do anything he wanted to if we had another terrorist attack.

[calimary]

41. That is exactly my fear.

[burrowowl]

46. Yup! We have been heading that way

for a long time and especially since Raygun!

[OhNo-Really]

50. Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld

were possibly trained by The Family. College republican leaders would have been brought yo The Family compound for training. I suspect Grover Norquist, too.

[FarCenter]

3. Were there any billionaires besides John D Rockefeller in 1936?

[OhNo-Really]

6. He was 97 in 1936

https://m.

There were quite a few, fortunes made in banking and the industrial revolution.

Mellon was one.

See partial list here.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_richest_Americans_in_history

[FarCenter]

45. Most of them either were dead or not born in 1936,

Rockefeller was far out front of the other existing millionaires in 1918, with Frick in second with $225 Million.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2017/09/19/the-first-forbes-list-see-who-the-richest-americans-were-in-1918

[Farmer-Rick]

12. But his relatives lived on

As did the Carnegie's, Vanderbilt's and Astor's. Money lives on though people die.

[OhNo-Really]

20. Yes , and David was pure evil. He finally died.

We have dynasties, and no laws to keep their moneynfrom buying Congress,

We have to stand up and stop,this by voting.

We have very low voter turn out.

[geardaddy]

4. The full article is excellent

Thank you for posting!

[OhNo-Really]

8. You are welcome. We are a knowledge of history deprived nation.

[Moostache]

29. We are a knowledge PERIOD deprived nation...

This country is bursting at the seams with academic disasters and failures.

History is just one of the many areas we collectively pale....language arts, math, science, engineering .... pretty much everything outside of entertainment and wasting time on digital media.

You get what is rewarded and emphasized...my kids idolize YouTubers as a legitimate profession. People sitting in a chair in front of a webcam, playing games and talking inanely about nonsense is seen as the pinnacle of "success" today.

Fuck this whole nation already...we are a disgrace and warning to history...Franklin was right, we HAD a republic, we just couldn't keep it...

[dchill]

5. K&R.

[mountain grammy]

7. I'm worried about the 2018 November elections

Now that the thugs are in power, I don't expect peaceful elections. As Dems continues to make gains, I expect suppression with violence. They're not armed to the teeth for nothing. I hope I'm wrong, but from 18 to 64, white men are pissed off and locked and loaded, led by a bunch of elected pyschopaths and the unelected one in the white house. Be ready.

[Texin]

17. You can bet the Kochs and the Adelsons of the American oligarchs are going to be dumping

millions on their candidates. And tRump's best friend, Vlad Putin, and the rest of his FSB will be creating billions of bots to influence the feeble-minded, morally bankrupt rethug voters to boot.

[brush]

10. Any reference to the attempted coup against FDR by the American Liberty League during this time?

[OhNo-Really]

18. The Business Plot coup, 1934 funded by billionaires using veterans to pull it off.

About the coup. NYTimes called it fake news.

Congress refused to call the wealthy conspirators to testify.

Veterans organizations were used at the rime to bust unions.

Our democratic battle of majority vs rich bastards dates back to the New Deal

Hers a snippet about the coup.

1934
During the first half of 1934, MacGuire traveled to Europe and mailed postcards to Butler.[32] On March 6, MacGuire wrote Clark and Clark's attorney a letter describing the Croix-de-Feu.[33]

On August 22, Butler met MacGuire at a hotel, the last time Butler met him.[34][35] According to Butler's account, it was on this occasion that MacGuire asked Butler to run a new veterans' organization and lead a coup attempt against the President.

On September 13, Paul Comly French, a reporter who had once been Butler's personal secretary,[36] met MacGuire in his office.[37] In late September, Butler told Van Zandt that co-conspirators would be meeting him at an upcoming Veterans of Foreign Wars convention.

On November 20 the Committee began examining evidence. Journalist Paul Comly French broke the story in the Philadelphia Record and New York Post on November 21.[38] On November 22, The New York Times wrote its first article on the story and described it as a "gigantic hoax".[2][39]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

[brush]

28. It was no hoax though. Seems the Times tried to cover for the prominent industrialists involved.

3 du Pont brothers, Alfred Sloan (GM), E.F. Hutton, Prescott Bush (yes, that family) and others were active in it.

Once hero Gen. Smedley Butler exposed it FDR used their treason against them by threatening to expose them if they tried to stop his New Deal programs.

The repugs have been trying to get rid of the New Deal programs ever since.

[OhNo-Really]

35. Same old Shit, different century. Citizens United was helpful.

[blue-wave]

63. Smedley Butler, a real American hero.

It should be required of every citizen in our country to learn of the plot to destroy America.

[kairos12]

11. Those who say it can't happen here and bury their heads in the sand should

remember that in Germany in 1938 the pessimists fled to NYC and the optimists went to Belsen.

[blue-wave]

64. They tried before and

they obviously have not given up trying.

[bunt homer]

13. I wonder what Prescott Bush was doing at the time

Just sayin'

[OhNo-Really]

32. Prescott Bush was a war criminal and had assets seized by Congress

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

A few of the Death Camp survivors sued the Bush family.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

51. A fascinating read...

... this has also been hosted in the Texas University computer systems in the past.

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography [link:http://tarpley.net/online-books/george-bush-the-unauthorized-biography/|

An excellent outline that includes bibliography, footnotes, sources, etc...

[PatSeg]

14. I highly recommend Erik Larson's book

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin about William Dodd's time in Germany. It paints a very clear picture of how fascism took root and grew in Germany. The depiction of the "brown shirts" clearly resembles the extremists at Trump's political rallies.

[Texin]

19. Fabulous book! I never dreamed when I read it, it would begin to develop here - and so soon.

[PatSeg]

23. Same here

I read it in January 2015, before the rise of Trumpism. Then when the Trump rallies started, I recognized the brutish, low intelligence Brown Shirts from the book. Clearly, this could happen almost anywhere, if the conditions are right. Right now, there are fascist movements all over the world.

[OhNo-Really]

36. Interesting, the original DKOS article warning us was written in 2012 fighting Mittens

[Sophia4]

39. Reagan's election was the beginning of the movement to the extreme right.

In Germany, the reaction that became Hitler's movement was born of the desperation that followed the loss of WWI. A terrifying amount of inflation occurred in the 1920s in Germany. And that set off the right-wing reaction of the 1930s and ultimately WWII.

These movements start slowly and as reactions to economic despair. Joblessness, debt, hopelessness all contribute. Those who are excluded from prosperity and fear for their families blame others -- quite naturally.

In our country, I notice that fewer and fewer people seem able to buy and pay for houses. When I was growing up, you got a job, you kept that job (companies did not fire people so easily and quickly because they needed good employees), you bought a house (maybe with the FHA or VA loans) and worked until you retired. Nowadays, the companies hire and fire with impunity. They move or simply close their factories or production facilities, even stores, leaving individuals and entire communities to deal with the changes that their abandonment leaves in their wake . . . and then Democrats are surprised that so many people vote for heartless Republicans like Romney and Trump.

I'm not surprised at all. I have read a lot about the history of the Third Reich and what led up to it. It could happen here. It would be different because we have a different history, but it could easily happen here. We have a long history of racism and hating others that we don't deal with very well. It could happen here and may be happening here as we write.

[OhNo-Really]

43. Great comment. May I add that inflation and stagnant wages breed discontent, our reality

I expect the mortgage fraud boom to launch shortly. Trump Co has killed the Dodd Frank protections.

Goldman Sachs rules the world.

https://m.

https://m.

Donald Trumps Goldman Sachs Problem, top jobs given to Gold an Sachs top Executives


https://m.

The right wing would have pilloried Hilliary if she had done this.

[Ligyron]

47. So Ben Mankiewicz is progressive.

Didn't know that.

[OhNo-Really]

48. Maybe men with conscience on both sides?

[peggysue2]

24. I second that recommendation

Larson's book is a horrifying account of Hitler's Germany and its quick slide into fascism. What looked bright and shiny at the start took a U-turn into dark and sinister. And yes, Trump's over-the-top rallies, even the USA, USA, USA chants, are all too reminiscent of the sheer madness that gripped the Germans. Good reminder, too, on how many American industrialists and financiers approved of Hitler, discounting his excesses, minimizing Dodd's reports.

Excellent but scary read!

Can't say we weren't warned.

[PatSeg]

30. Yes

So many warnings over the years and there are many who still cannot see it. I have also found that many futuristic science fiction books are often prophetic, showing us the direction we have been moving for a long time - a corporate run dystopia. Movies, TV, and books have given us a glimpse of what could happen if we do not take care, but somehow in the U.S., people think we are immune to all that.

I had heard that Tom Hanks bought the movie rights to In the Garden of Beasts and he intends to play Dodd. I wish he had gotten started on the project sooner.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

27. Yes. Everyone should read that book.

Not to mention everything else Larson has written.

[PatSeg]

31. I agree

It is hard to make history so readable, but he manages to pull us right into the story.

[OhNo-Really]

33. I loved this book. The actual letters were a real look

into the hearts and minds of the German people

[PatSeg]

34. So often people ask

"How could that have happened?" Larson explains it so well and it is as intriguing as a good novel.

[dhol82]

37. Excellent book!

That was a book club choice and we all found it sobering.

[calimary]

42. Thanks for the recommendation. Sounds like a worthy warning.

[Leighbythesea]

55. Was thinking of this book

Need to reread it. Excellent.

[CrispyQ]

56. It's at my library.

I'm going to get it tomorrow. Hubby is getting "It's Even Worse Than You Think" by David Cay Johnston. He's been moving up the hold list. He started at 27. People are paying attention.

[PatSeg]

61. Oh, that is good to know

I read David Cay Johnston's book, The Making of Donald Trump. Few authors, if any know Trump better. I've been a big fan of Johnston for years now. Let me know what he thinks of the book.

[ancianita]

16. The original speech offers a history lesson on "economic nationalism" imposed on North Carolina

by the Duke of Albemarle -- Albemarle County, North Carolina, is the original site of "the swamp" that has fired up common folks' imaginations about draining for over two centuries.

This is what Charles II's austerity economics looked like ( I've paragraphed for readability):

In 1660-1673 ... the aged Earl of Clarendon, a politician and a master histor-

ian, aided by the uscrupulous Duke of Buckingham, the canny

Lord Arlington and the profiteer Duke of Albemarle, worked

out a marvelous system which was to save England and fit all

the trans-Atlantic colonies into a water-tight system.

It was unlawful to ship a pound of gold out of the country. No

foreign goods were to be imported except upon a sort of quota

system. A monopoly market was created for sugar, tobacco and

ship timber, produced in the colonies. All "quota" imports

from the colonies were taxed at two to four times their

producers' value to enable to government to ignore public

opinion and collect taxes without the consent of the peo-

ple. Merchants and manufacturers were authorized to sell

their goods to the public at prices fixed by themselves.

And surplus products were to be dumped upon the continen-

tal market at half the prices paid at home.

It was a marvelously perfect scheme under which workers on the land

were to have no return at all for their labor, landlords

somehwat more and industrialists and traders princily pro-

fits. His Majesty, Charles II, was to be autocratic master

of the system and make war upon Holland, the one rival and

free-trade advocate which might upset the scheme.

These economic practices were set centuries ago. They've been practiced continually under different names -- "trickle down," "conservativism," "austerity," etc.

But the result is the same -- maintaining the elites' control over landbase resources across countries and continents and lying to the inhabitants about what they're doing while conducting productions of news "stories," dramatic "events," bread and circuses and, of course, making war on "inferior" peoples in the way.

So here we are.

[Grins]

20. Dodd - one of the key characters in the book: "In the Garden of Beasts"

Ambassador Dodd was a key character in Erik Larson's* great book, “In the Garden of Beasts”, about his time as US Ambassador to Germany, and those in the State Dept. who fought him. If you have not read it, it's worth the read. In the first 100-pages he gives another view of daily life in Germany in the late 1930's and it's pretty grim; eye-opening grim! And then it goes downhill.

The other key character was Dodd's daughter, Martha who, at age 24, was dating a member of the Gestapo, and another working out of the Russian Embassy who was actually in Stalin's KGB.

Yeah; this is pretty much a great book.


(* Larson has been described as a historian who writes like a novelist. He makes history fascinating. No argument from me!)

[PatSeg]

25. Have you read

The Devil in the White City? I am from Chicago and I found his writing about the World's Fair and Chicago architecture fascinating. All of that was a backdrop for the extraordinary story of a serial killer. Yes, he writes history like a novelist, such a talented writer.

I also read Thunderstruck and plan to read Dead Wake next.

[area51]

44. I loved "Devil in the White City". n/t

[Grins]

65. Yes, I have! Another fun read.

And my first Larson book was "Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History."

Another book you could not put down. Read it at the beach in 2000. His historian-like attention to details, woven into the real characters, made it great. I still have it, somewhere...

[PatSeg]

66. Maybe I'll go with that one next

I love how he writes.

[ancianita]

38. Thanks. I'll order this one. Nothing today isn't connected to old relationships and events.

It seems to have mixed reviews, but I'll give it a try, anyway.

[elmac]

22. and there on some right here on DU

that claim capitalism, big money has nothing to do with fascism. When they bitch to me about it they go straight to my ignore list.

[LAS14]

26. K & R

[SayItLoud]

40. Old Old man Koch was

A founding member of the John Birch Society.

[OhNo-Really]

49. True read here

scroll to find Koch links
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/2/27/1745196/-Nat-l-Prayer-Breakfast-Origin-Anti-New-Deal-Fascist-Business-Titans-of-the-1930s-and-2018?_=2018-02-27T11:58:05.574-08:00

[YOHABLO]

52. I would suggest that most Americans have no desire to know the lessons of history.

[red dog 1]

53. K&R...Thanks for posting

[poboy2]

54. thank you for this post. -eom

[appalachiablue]

57. K & R Great post. "It Can't Happen Here" 1936 political novel by Sinclair Lewis.

[pangaia]

58. "I am horrified to discover that the whole gang is nothing but a horde of criminals and cowards"

DODD---

"I had no delusions about Hitler when I was appointed to my post in Berlin, but I had at least hoped to find some decent people around Hitler. I am horrified to discover that the whole gang is nothing but a horde of criminals and cowards"

[pangaia]

59. Why is it so difficult for world leaders to learn, adjust policies.........

Why is it so difficult for world leaders to learn, adjust policies, and avoid the disasterous outcomes repeated innumerable times?

Intelligent leaders who care often/usually do adjust policies.

It is the fascist types who just don;t give a shit and want it all for themselves, just like always...

[dlk]

60. History Repeats Itself, in Part, Because

there's never a shortage of people with no conscience who will do anything to get their way and enrich themselves. Studying history is part of the solution.

[lordsummerisle]

62. k&r n/t