Fascism may be here

[neoplacebo]

Holy shit how do these people figure out how to put their own pants on in the morning

/quote]

Yeah, Russian internet trolls and Fox News have done untold damage to this country. But I suppose it's our own fault that so many Americans are so goddamn ignorant and how they believe shit that isn't true. I think it's gone too far to fix.

[neoplacebo]

opps

[Vrede too]

Holy shit how do these people figure out how to put their own pants on in the morning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89aB6SX2y40

Yeah, Russian internet trolls and Fox News have done untold damage to this country. But I suppose it's our own fault that so many Americans are so goddamn ignorant and how they believe shit that isn't true. I think it's gone too far to fix.

If only we had a relevant comparison . . .

Here's A Timeline Of Hitler's First 53 Days In Office — Let Me Know If You Notice Anything Familiar

Recently, some U.S. politicians have pointed out that Adolf Hitler dismantled a constitutional republic in "one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes" as they draw comparisons between Nazi Germany and the current U.S. administration. If you're wondering exactly how things went down in 1933, you're in luck — this timeline will lay it all out for you....

Afterward, the Supreme Court did not challenge the bill at all, instead accepting the majority vote even though Communist and Social Democrat delegates were under arrest. They viewed Hitler's government as legitimate and continued to see themselves as "state servants who owed him their allegiance and support," according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

To sum it up, a minor punishment for a failed coup attempt, the rounding up of political adversaries, and appeasement by those around him helped Hitler demolish the democracy of the Weimar Republic in only 53 days. After President Hindenburg died in 1934, Hitler named himself the leader, or Führer, of Germany, combining the powers of Chancellor and President. From that point forward, he had full control over the government and army until he died by suicide in 1945 during WWII, ending the Third Reich.



So there it is, all laid out. What do you think? Does any of this feel eerily familiar?

Are we being Henny Pennys? Look:

Union Blasts Musk Over Retweet Blaming Holocaust on Public Workers

Early on Thursday morning, Elon Musk, who has led the efforts of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to purge tens of thousands of government workers on behalf of President Donald Trump, amplified a defense of Adolf Hitler on his social media platform, X. “Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people,” reads the post from a pseudonymous user, shared in a screenshot posted by a far-right account Musk follows. “Their public sector workers did.”

It should go without saying that the Nazis carried out the Holocaust that killed millions of Jews and others at the direction of Hitler and party leadership. But for Musk, an ahistorical view on World War II that happens to demonize the kind of labor he’s fighting in Washington is simply too convenient to pass up. The president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the largest trade union of public sector employees in the U.S., wasn’t having it.

“America’s public service workers — our nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians — chose making our communities safe, healthy, and strong over getting rich,” said AFSCME’s Lee Saunders in a statement on Thursday. “They are not, as the world’s richest man implies, genocidal murderers. Elon Musk and the billionaires in this administration have no idea what real people go through every day. That’s why he’s so willing to take a chainsaw to people’s jobs, Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare.”

It is comments like these that have helped to fuel a boycott movement against Musk’s auto manufacturer, Tesla, with some referring to the company’s electric vehicles as “swasticars.” ...

[GoCubsGo]

— Let Me Know If You Notice Anything Familiar

Yeesh.

Ten years prior, Hitler had led an attempted coup on the government, now known as the Beer Hall Putsch. A group of armed Nazis marched on the Bürgerbräukeller, a beer hall where the state commissioner was speaking, and Hitler demanded that leaders get behind their cause. In less than 24 hours, the coup failed — leaving 14 Nazis and four police officers dead. Hitler escaped that night but was arrested two days later

"Hitler’s lesson from the failed putsch was that he needed to pursue revolution through 'the politics of legality' rather than storm Munich City Hall. The Nazis would use the electoral process of democracy to destroy democracy."

Trump is no student of history much less anything else, but there's people around him who are. Half ideas are probably presented to him leading him to obvious conclusions and allow him to think it's his own genius that came up with them.

Spooky.

[Whack9]

Re: Timeline of Hitler's dismantling of Democracy

Here's a couple of really good books I highly recommend. I don't think many people really understand how the slow and steady creep of barbarity takes place. It absolutely can happen here. People are incredibly ignorant of history, especially here in the United States where the average adult reads at a sixth grade level. Not to mention Americans are downright fucking intellectually lazy and lack curiosity about the world around them.


The Death of Democracy

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/592 ... -democracy

A riveting account of how the Nazi Party came to power and how the failures of the Weimar Republic and the shortsightedness of German politicians allowed it to happen.Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power?

They Thought They Were Free

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/978 ... O28Q&qid=1

They Thought They Were Free is an eloquent and provocative examination of the development of fascism in Germany. Mayer’s book is a study of ten Germans and their lives from 1933-45, based on interviews he conducted after the war when he lived in Germany. Mayer had a position as a research professor at the University of Frankfurt and lived in a nearby small Hessian town which he disguised with the name “Kronenberg.” “These ten men were not men of distinction,” Mayer noted, but they had been members of the Nazi Party; Mayer wanted to discover what had made them Nazis. His discussions with them of Nazism, the rise of the Reich, and mass complicity with evil became the backbone of this book, an indictment of the ordinary German that is all the more powerful for its refusal to let the rest of us pretend that our moment, our society, our country are fundamentally immune.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/993 ... iDMQ&qid=1

A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the New Germany, she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition.

What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany

I thought this one was the most fascinating. You can see some echoes in the present day to that of 1933. Especially interesting seeing how there were even some Jews that in the very beginning supported Hitler due to his stance on communism, thinking his histrionics and harsh talk was only for show. Some German jews said they were in denial until they were being loaded onto trains bound for Auswitz.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/547 ... sb_ss_1_13

The horrors of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust still present some of the most disturbing questions in modern history: Why did Hitler's party appeal to millions of Germans, and how entrenched was anti-Semitism among the population? How could anyone claim, after the war, that the genocide of Europe's Jews was a secret? Did ordinary non-Jewish Germans live in fear of the Nazi state? In this unprecedented firsthand analysis of daily life as experienced in the Third Reich, What We Knew offers answers to these most important questions. Combining the expertise of Eric A. Johnson, an American historian, and Karl-Heinz Reuband, a German sociologist, What We Knew is the most startling oral history yet of everyday life in theThird Reich.

[Vrede too]

Re: Timeline of Hitler's dismantling of Democracy

Here's a couple of really good books I highly recommend. I don't think many people really understand how the slow and steady creep of barbarity takes place. It absolutely can happen here. People are incredibly ignorant of history, especially here in the United States where the average adult reads at a sixth grade level. Not to mention Americans are downright fucking intellectually lazy and lack curiosity about the world around them.

Thanks for the suggestions. Example of the "slow and steady creep" endorsed by the ignorant and lazy:

Trump targets lawyers who he says file 'frivolous' lawsuits against his administration

A new memo from President Donald Trump that authorized the attorney general and the homeland security secretary to sanction law firms that file lawsuits they deem “frivolous" is a major escalation of his intensifying assault on law firms, legal experts and former Justice Department officials told NBC News.

The presidential memorandum, “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court,” also ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to recommend revoking attorneys’ security clearances or terminating law firms' federal contracts if she deems their lawsuits against the administration "unreasonable" or "vexatious."

Aww, poor vexed DonOLD.

... Trump ally Steve Bannon said last week that Trump's goal is to bankrupt the firms the administration perceives as enemies.

“He’s going to put those law firms out of business,” Bannon said. “What we are trying to do is put you out of business and bankrupt you.”

A group of 22 civil rights organizations — including the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union — condemned the new memorandum in a statement. They contended that it was intended to “chill dissent, avoid accountability, and weaponize the government to attack opponents of this administration and its lawless actions.”

... David Laufman, a former head of the Justice Department's counterintelligence section who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, called the use of executive branch power to intimidate law firms and lawyers unprecedented....

“If anyone, in any previous White House in the modern era, had ever hatched such an authoritarian plan to silence and punish the legal profession, the Attorney General and White House Counsel would have quietly intervened and the plan quickly would have been shelved,” he said by text message....

A former senior Justice Department official called the move autocratic.

“The president does not appreciate how an adversarial legal system works and the role of an impartial judge in that process,” said the former official, who requested anonymity because of concerns about retaliation.

“That is the best way to expose weak evidence and flawed arguments," he added. "The president rejects that system in favor of one in which he wins and his adversaries lose and are punished. That is not justice; that is autocracy.”

Legal experts also accused Trump of hypocrisy, noting that his own lawyers have violated Rule 11 of the federal rules of civil procedure, which bar lawyers from making false or frivolous claims in court.

The former senior Justice Department official said Trump’s legal claims that Joe Biden had won key swing states in 2020 by submitting fraudulent ballots “utterly failed to meet the Rule 11 standards that Trump cited in his memorandum.”

... A senior lawyer at a law firm that has sued the administration said the stakes are clear.

“He’s chilling the very sector of society that stands between Trump and tyranny," the lawyer said. "Lawyers file lawsuits and they get rulings that adjudicate whether what the administration has done is constitutional or not. And that’s our system of government.

“I don’t think the gravity of this can be overstated,” added the lawyer, a former federal prosecutor. “Law firms like this are a check. And if no one is bringing things to the courts, nothing will be stopped.”

Fascism IS here?

[Vrede too]

Here's A Timeline Of Hitler's First 53 Days In Office — Let Me Know If You Notice Anything Familiar

Yeesh.

Ten years prior, Hitler had led an attempted coup on the government, now known as the Beer Hall Putsch. A group of armed Nazis marched on the Bürgerbräukeller, a beer hall where the state commissioner was speaking, and Hitler demanded that leaders get behind their cause. In less than 24 hours, the coup failed — leaving 14 Nazis and four police officers dead. Hitler escaped that night but was arrested two days later

"Hitler’s lesson from the failed putsch was that he needed to pursue revolution through 'the politics of legality' rather than storm Munich City Hall. The Nazis would use the electoral process of democracy to destroy democracy."

Trump is no student of history much less anything else, but there's people around him who are. Half ideas are probably presented to him leading him to obvious conclusions and allow him to think it's his own genius that came up with them.

Spooky.

The saddest and scariest thing is that none of this is secret. The fascists have been open about their desires and actions and many people see exactly what they're doing:

Canadian Lawmaker Spots 'Something Deeper' Brewing Amid Trump's Trade War

Canadian lawmaker Charlie Angus knocked Donald Trump on Friday after the U.S. president threatened to escalate his trade war with the country should it work with the European Union to cause “economic harm” to America.

Angus, when asked by Ben Meiselas of the MeidasTouch Network if Trump is “scared” by how Canada and the EU have responded to his plans of further tariffs, spotted “something deeper” brewing in America that Canadians are focused on: “watching our nearest neighbor slip into totalitarianism.”

“When we see people being pulled off the streets, when we see people at universities being grabbed, detained, rendered and kidnapped, and when we see Kristi Noem doing this really disgusting video in front of half-naked men in an overcrowded El Salvadoran prison cell,” Angus said.

“We’re looking at a nation that we don’t understand anymore and we don’t want to be like that nation and we’re thinking, ‘If we go down the road with this regime, we’re talking about the disappearance of the rule of law.’”

Angus, a fierce critic of the U.S. president, argued that if America can’t respect the “rule of law” of its citizens then how could people expect the country to respect international law.

“And it certainly doesn’t respect us as Canada,”Angus said.

“So we have no choice, we have to make decisions and we’re going to make decisions that benefit our region and our people first.”



... Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney referred to Trump’s auto imports plan as a “very direct attack” on his country, declaring that the “old relationship” Canada had with America has now ceased to exist....

[Whack9]

Dueling protests at a Tesla Dealership

https://www.nj.com/bergen/2025/03/tesla ... tests.html

Young, 65, said he’s met Trump numerous times and is a longtime fan. He would love a third term for the president, but concedes the 22nd Amendment, which limits the president to two terms, is in the way.

“I would love to see Trump as king for life in this country, but it won’t happen because of the Constitution,” he said, smiling. “Oh yeah, Trump for life. I know it’s not going to happen, but one can only hope and dream.”

Wtf

[GoCubsGo]

He ain't joking.

Anyone who says otherwise has not been paying attention.

[Whack9]

Trump doesn't rule out third term

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... rcna198752

Ought to raise alarms for Republicans as well.

[O Really]

Yeah well he's gonna have to live through this one first

[Vrede too]

Yeah well he's gonna have to live through this one first

Spoiler:

I'll help you. It's good to be old.

[Vrede too]

The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time
In light of recent events, it might be a good time to remember a very simple truth: Nazis are ALWAYS the bad guys.

In the wake of Elon Musk’s Hitler-like salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration — a gesture that sparked outrage and reinvigorated the cultural conversation about fascism’s alarming reemergence — there’s no better moment to revisit cinema’s most compelling examinations of authoritarianism, resistance and the human cost of tyranny. This list brings together films from across the globe, spanning decades and genres, that remind us of the dangers of unchecked power.

While masterpieces like Schindler’s List and Son of Saul profoundly address the Holocaust — history’s most horrific expression of the consequences of fascist thought — and war movies from The Dirty Dozen to Defiance vividly depict military resistance, we’ve chosen to leave them off our list to focus instead on films that explore the ideology of fascism itself: the systems, beliefs and societal impacts that enable authoritarian regimes to rise and thrive.

From Chaplin’s classic satire The Great Dictator to the brutal provocations of Pasolini’s Salo, from the allegorical alien apartheid of District 9 and the mocking militarism of Starship Troopers to the absurdist comedy of Jojo Rabbit, these films are not just stories of resistance — they are bold examinations of power and its corrosive effects on society. Dive in to remember, reflect and resist.

(discussion for each)

American History X’ (1998)
‘Army of Shadows’ (1969) Never saw it
‘Brazil’ (1985)
‘Cabaret’ (1972) I had a gf with a starring role in a local production, great show!
... “The democratic election of an authoritarian figure, the normalization of bigotry, the complicity of the frightened masses. … We have indeed seen this show before,” Joel Grey, who plays the cynical Cabaret Emcee, wrote recently in The New York Times. “History is giving us another chance to confront the forces that Cabaret warned us about. The question is: Will we listen this time, or will we keep laughing until the music stops?”

‘Casablanca’ (1942)
‘Come and See’ (1985) Never saw it
‘The Conformist’ (1970) Never saw it
‘Despair’ (1978) Never saw it
‘District 9’ (2009)
‘El Conde’ (2023) Never saw it
‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980)
‘Europa Europa’ (1990) Did I see it?
‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ (2014) Never saw it
‘The Great Dictator’ (1940)
‘The Host’ (2006) Never saw it, looks fascinating
‘Ida’ (2014) Never saw it
‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ (1989) The preceding Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of my favorite BBT scenes:


Amy Ruins Indiana Jones | The Big Bang Theory

‘Inglourious Basterds’ (2009)
‘Joint Security Area’ (2000) Never saw it
‘Jojo Rabbit’ (2019)
‘Leviathan’ (2014) Never saw it
‘The Lives of Others’ (2006) Never saw it
‘Mephisto’ (1981) Never saw it
... will make uncomfortable viewing for any Hollywood types who were proud members of “the resistance” after the 2016 election and have now gone suddenly quiet. As Szabó shows, fascist systems are superb at seducing and co-opting artists to make them complicit in enabling totalitarian ideologies.
‘Minority Report’ (2002) I want to hate Tom Cruise, but he makes some great movies.
‘Moffie’ (2019) Never saw it
‘1900 (Novecento)’ (1976) Never saw it
‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ (2006) Never saw it
‘Peppermint Candy’ (1999) Never saw it
‘Persepolis’ (2007) Never saw it, looks good
‘Porco Rosso’ (1992) Never saw it
“Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather be a pig than a fascist.”
‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ (1969) Never saw it, I never knew that it's an antifa film
‘Rome, Open City’ (1945) Never saw it
‘Rosenstrasse’ (2003) Never saw it
‘Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom’ (1975) Never saw it
‘Soldier of Orange’ (1977) Never saw it
‘The Sound of Music’ (1965)
‘Starship Troopers’ (1997) I liked it in spite of the fascism.
‘The Tin Drum’ (1979) Never saw it
‘To Be or Not to Be’ (1942) Never saw it
‘The Zone of Interest’ (2023) Never saw it

I thought it said '10 Films'. Once I got started . . .

I guess I've missed a lot of antifa films.

As I'm posting this heard on MSNBC: The only thing that has kept us from already descending into full-blown fascism is the incompetence of this administration.
That's a helluva thing to count on.

[Whack9]

I highly recommend Come and See. Very bleak

[Supsalemgr]

He ain't joking.

Anyone who says otherwise has not been paying attention.

Don't y'all know he is jerking your chains?

[Whack9]

He ain't joking.

Anyone who says otherwise has not been paying attention.

Don't y'all know he is jerking your chains?

Even if that were the case, he's the President. He shouldn't be joking about such things.

[Vrede too]

Even if that were the case, he's the President. He shouldn't be joking about such things.

If we ignore the childish yet revealing statements, PINO's actions have all been moves towards dictatorship. The GQP and MAGA range from complicit to enthusiastic and just the courts have bravely though only partially stood in the way. For example: viewtopic.php?p=211000#p211000

[Vrede too]

I highly recommend Come and See. Very bleak

Thanks.

Aleksey Kravchenko in 'Come and See'

The one film Musk — or anyone who thinks Hitler puns or Nazi salutes are funny — needs to watch. Forget the campy and pop-culture depictions of fascism, forget all the subtle allegories. Soviet-era director Elem Klimov’s depiction of Nazi atrocities in Belarus is direct and uncompromising, offering neither relief nor respite. It follows a young Belarusian teenager who joins the partisans dreaming of heroism and adventure but finds only devastation and horror. Partially based on eye-witness survivor testimonies, Klimov’s film is shown through the young protagonist’s traumatized perspective. It is nearly unbearable. But no other film reveals so completely the moral bankruptcy of fascist expansion.

[GoCubsGo]

Don't y'all know he is jerking your chains?

He's not.

He also may try to be distracting from all his other fuck ups but he's probably very serious. This is his way, starting three plus years in advance normalizes it. Look at Greenland, he started four years ago and where we are now. The idea of the United Ststes invading or absorbing a sovereign country against their will when they've done us no harm? We need it for national security? WTF for? And most of you boob's are drooling on the sideline going Yeah, Derp, trump's right!

And you are fucking naive as hell.

[O Really]

Just because he likes to jerk people's chains doesn't mean he isn't serious. The fact that he feels comfortable in saying, even in jest, that he wants to be a dictator shows that he believes himself to be well on the way. Goes back to the "shoot somebody...and lose no votes" comment from 2016.