Nazi Germany is the closest analogy to what is going on currently. And no I was not calling our side [View all]

[nadinbrzezinski]

Nazi Germany is the closest analogy to what is going on currently. And no I was not calling our side of the candidates nazis.. for that matter, even though Mr Trump reminds me of Hitler, trumpism, is so different from Nazism that I could not call him a nazi either. If you know anything about the rise of Adolph Hitler though, you will know that the media at the time laughed at Hitler. (For the record, they also made fun of Mussolini, but that is a far less known rise to power in the United States)

At the time, this might sound familiar, the German press gave a lot of coverage to that corporal from Bavaria. After he took power, they just outright took control of the media and they took away any protections media might have had. Hmm ok, let me point to this one, from Donald Trump

Donald Trump has been filing and threatening lawsuits to shut up critics and adversaries over the whole course of his career. He dragged reporter Tim O’Brien through years of litigation over a relatively favorable Trump biography that assigned a lower valuation to his net worth than he thought it should have. He sued the Chicago Tribune’s architecture critic over a piece arguing that a planned Trump skyscraper in lower Manhattan would be “one of the silliest things” that could be built in the city. He used the threat of litigation to get an investment firm to fire an analyst who correctly predicted that the Taj Mahal casino would not be a financial success. He sued comedian Bill Maher over a joke.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160301/23422633778/yes-donald-trump-can-create-problems-free-speech-first-amendment.shtml

Now what Trump is doing, and the malfeasance from large corporate media in how they are reporting this race, go straight to the end of the fairness doctrine, that first started to be chipped at by the Reagan white house, but ended in 1996 with the Telecommunications Act during the Bill Clinton administration. During the Bush administration it also became legal to do propaganda within the United States. Did I mention Fairness was passed during the FDR years to prevent precisely what we are watching? I though I should.

This is by the by an aspect of fascism... control of the media, whether directly, or indirectly is indeed a marker, Talk of this was constant here on DU during the Bush administration. This was discussed during the Bush administration extensively.

Now to understand how we are at the historic moment we are, and yes comparisons to Nazi Germany will continue because I told you that some of this looks like oh the Chile of General Pinochet, I am betting a great majority here has no clue what I am talking about By the way, there are parallels to that as well, (thanks Mr Kissinger.) We taught Pinochet how to do it. In fact, our advisers were down there, teaching them how to do it. As they say, those birds are coming home to roost.

So let's take a stroll though history, shall we? Some of this is very recent, some not so much.

The prehistory of this is actually that third rate burglary at the Watergate hotel. The pardon that President Gerald Ford gave Richard Milhaus Nixon, set the first precedent when elites will never face the music. Iran Contra, during the Reagan administration set the next step, and finally the Obama administration taking any investigations off the table for the Bush crime family (seems odd to use that term, but correct) cemented this. I partly understand this, Empires tend not to hold those in power accountable, alas impunity for those in power is also a marker of fascism. There is literally nothing a well connected person in the United States can do. We do have two systems of justice..

Then come things like having supporters beat the shit out of people at rallies. That environment actually started with Bush, Remember the free speech zones? Yeah they were lovely and violated the same exact first amendment that Trump wants to step over. The Reichstag Fire led to the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State. This eliminated that free press that had laughed at the rise of Hitler, It was followed by the Enabling Act which has a few things in parallel to the United State Patriot Act. You would have to read both, and both were ready to go.

Of course that was preceded by this..



And later on we have had a supporter of Rand Paul, well his security man, hit the living daylights out of a protester...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/25/rand-paul-supporter-stomps-head_n_773857.html

And we have had, Clinton's security brutalize Ray McGovern in 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-kall/former-cia-agent-ray-mcgo_b_824433.html

Fast forward to this campaign...

We know what Trump has done with both press and protesters. One of the stories on this is from Salon and there are plenty more

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/29/theres_no_more_denying_trumps_campaign_of_hate_how_he_built_a_coalition_of_americas_bullies_xenophobes_bigots/

We are at a very dangerous moment, that BOTH parties have set the table for. Does this mean the year of flags? Does this means concentration camps? No. at least not yet. We are deep into a transformation of American society from a democracy to a pretend democracy.

I could make references to things you do not understand. The handy recognizable, we can all agree we more or less understand is the rise of Hitler. There are aspects to what we are seeing that have a lot more in common with both Argentina and Chile. For example, the Seattle WTO march and the suppression of Occupy have a lot more in common with early dirty wars all over Latin America. But that is alien to most of you. Yet, Hitler is somewhat familiar.

This year we also have another thing in common actually with the Third Reich. We literally have a radical right candidate, running against a center right candidate (that be Clinton) and a center left Candidate, (that be Sanders), No I am not playing the stupid games that Americans tend to play. The range of acceptable political discussion almost excludes Sanders from that discussion. This also happened in Germany, and unlike Germany though, we do not have an organized left. No we do not have one, not in your most feverish imaginations. That part of the story was taken care off starting with the Turner Raids of the 1920s, why the red baiting is far from working. Also the cold war has been over for a generation, but the dreaded left, is not even close to a sack of cats on the way to the river.

What we also have in common is the race baiting and hate. That was a daily occurrence in Germany and we are starting to see these incidents in the US. Oh and before you scream Trump, he has increased and emboldened them, but he is far from alone and it did not start this cycle

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2005/white-supremacists-unleash-hate-crime-backlash-against-minorities-california%E2%80%99s-inland

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/white-374363-orange-county.html

These are just two examples, from before the campaign.

So what form will our new fascist state take?

History never quite repeats itself, but the echoes do. Professor Woolin has already described it in Democracy Inc. The illusion of freedom will be maintained, as all your devises continue to be piped into NSA. The illusion includes places like this where I can post this. I can already hear the retort, but fascist states...

When needed, there will be moments when you will be asked to report on stuff. If you see something, say something. (It has somewhat of a value in certain conditions, but), We will continue to condition populations to not make waves. This ranges from TSA checks at the airport, to inner city schools that look more like prisons.



And yes, given the role of the media these days. and it is no longer hidden, we will have pretend elections.

One of the escapes from the Panotpicon is actually the web, This is why younger kids have a very different view of the world than regular evening news watchers. And we will continue to play the cynical game of divide and conquer. And why the web will be closed down... nothing can challenge the official view. Yeah, you will be able to go on it, but they will find a way to control it. They know that Sanders would never be where he is, if we only had TV and papers. That is a fact Jack, take it to the bank.

And if you get the idea to get out of the prescribed areas of behavior, we will bash your skull in.

Is this dystopia, yes... but Shadowrun references are appropriate at this point...



Carry on.

One edit, thank you DU'er. oh the irony. Drescher endorsed Trump. Again, that does not shock me, Many in the intellectual class will before long...

Some of the questions asked before... it is important to note that the intellectual class is not the talking heads on TV, They are part and parcel of the problem. We are talking writers and philosophers, who will have a to male a choice. Support the regime, or in the end become political prisoners or refugees.

The other comment I would like to address, the elastic moment is an interesting comment, but I do not thing we will pull back from this dark night, unless a lot of people wake up pretty damn fast. We are talking millions here... and they do not become afraid once they wake up.

Finally Greece. It is a truism in Europe that when bad times come, the Right rises from the ashes. Unfortunately, Americans generally speaking cannot find the US on a map, let alone Greece. I could show the data on this. So we go back to a single model that people are more or less familiar with. And for god sakes they are not familiar with hours. During the same period we had a pretty healthy
US Nazi party.



This is not Germany, this is Maddison Square Garden. So what we are seeing is also a resurgence of that way of thinking that has been around for a long time. This is why the KKK and every other white power organization, starting at a well known site, I will not mention here, have endorsed Trump.

So this is what is going on at a very deep level. I understand this discussion might make some folks very uncomfortable. But it is what it is, a necessary discussion, Edited out...

Oh and for previous discussion on this, see this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511409254

And this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511411520

And the note from the last lock for the hosts of GD, since there are references to the two presidential candidates in the Primaries

etherealtruth (18,143 posts)
16. I am sorry LOCKING, GD: P is for discussion of DEM candidates/ dem primaries

This edited version of the post may be reposted in GD, if you so choose. It is not within the SoP for GDP

I am tempted to reach for the tinfoil at this point.