Dismissing Godwin

Trump supporters have a new rallying cry when he goes on his rambling tirades: "Lock Them Up!" Them who? The media. It's not funny. It's absolutely fucking ridiculous. But it is not funny. The reason they want to lock up the media isn't for some profound universal infraction. Their ire is drawn by repeated condemnations from Donald Trump demanding that the media is out to get him. And the initial response, instead of asking for retractions or correcting any records, is to forfeit journalists' Constitutional rights and toss them in jail. Again, this isn't funny. And this is not an issue to be taken lightly.

I preface to all who automatically cry "Godwin's Law" when someone mentions Hitler - Shut Up. It could be argued that Godwin's Law has become a victim of that which the rule, itself, was meant to address: hyperbolic comparisons (to Hitler/Nazis). Now, of course, it is used hyperbolically to dismiss meaningful conversations where those comparisons are drawn.

In December 2015 Mike Godwin wrote in an Op-Ed for the Washington Post, "If you're thoughtful about it, and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler or Nazis when you talk about Trump." Ok. Thanks.


Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:

Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.

Trump seems to understand the value of crowds of 'human children,' as well. He offers constant reminders of building his wall, banning Muslims, and demanding our leaders use terminology to dismiss billions of 'others' when talking about terrorism. He even insists that our current president is one of those 'others,' and implies that President Obama is in league with the terrorists we are all supposed to fear - that only Trump can save us from. This is all rounded out by telling us, "I love the poorly educated." Yeah. No shit.

Hitler had a very powerful propaganda machine. It was built and perfected over a decade. Trump had little to do with the machine he is using today, but he is exploiting its existence nonetheless.

In Hitler's time, radio and print journalism were the dominant media used to inform the masses. Hitler said of his message, "I will provide a propagandistic casus belli. Its credibility doesn't matter. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth." As with Trump's messages of blaming immigrants for rapes and murders, and blaming Muslims for all terrorist acts in America, Hitler used his propaganda to elevate the Aryans by correlating all evil acts in society to having been perpetrated by the Jews. And Communists (the left).

The first objective of propaganda is to dismiss those who the public is used to getting their information from. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote of his propaganda, "It must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favorable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side." Donald Trump has certainly made the same assessment. So consider that every time you hear him whining about his media coverage or see him tweeting about his supposed vilification. These were just from today:

He has defined his victimhood-by-the-press for over a year now. His rallies have a penned area where the media are kept, and he regularly points them out to the crazed audience for their condemnations. The hysteria has even bled over into the pen where MSNBCs Katy Tur was once afforded a Secret Service escort for her own safety after a particulary nasty tirade against her by Trump.

It might seem like a stretch to suggest that he would round up the press who reported unfavorably about him if he were elected. There really is no telling what he would do, to be honest. He has given us some hints about his own opinions on killing journalists, however.

So there's that.

In 1933, when the Nazi's were rising to power, one of the first acts was to create concentration camps for Hitler's political opposition. Many of those who opposed him were the journalists who had written about him and warned of his rise.

Fritz Gerlich was a German who wrote against the Hitler regime. Early in his career, he was a conservative nationalist until the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. He saw the Nazi movement for what it was, and reported accordingly. In 1929, he started a newspaper to expose the lies the propagandists were beginning to feed the public. By 1932, the paper had a circulation of 40,000 and was renamed Der Gerade Weg (The Straight Path), where he wrote "National Socialism means: Enmity with neighboring nations, tyranny internally, civil war, world war, lies, hatred, fratricide and boundless want." After taking power in 1933, Gerlich was one of the first arrests made. He was transported to Dachau and died a year later during the Night of the Long Knives.

Otto Felix Kanitz, who was prominent in the Austrian anti-authoritarianism movement, wrote a pamphlet, Kämpfer der Zukunft, which was banned by the Nazis and included in the first book burnings in 1933. In 1934, he went into exile but returned to Austria in 1938. He was then captured and sent to Buchenwald where he was executed.

Henry Wilhelm Kristiansen was a Norwegian newspaper editor for a Communist newspaper. In 1940, Norway was occupied by Germany and the newspaper was shut down by the Nazis. Kristiansen was arrested, and later released. He continued his work underground and was arrested again in 1941 when he and his wife, Mirjam, were deported. She died in Auschwitz and he in Neuengamme.

Arne Jostein Ingebrethsen was a Norwegian newspaper writer who was determined to write against the German occupation of Norway. He was imprisoned for an article in 1940 and, upon release, continued his work to denounce the occupation. In 1943, he was arrested again and moved to different concentration camps until he died in Melk, just months before the camps were liberated.

I don't spend any of my time imagining that Donald Trump has the intellectual curiosity required to research Hitler's rise to make use of his successess. I believe Trump's methodology comes from having learned through his own career, and secondarily from subconsciously witnessing the rise of the Tea Party, about how to manipulate facts and appeal to the least among us.

Books will certainly be written in the future to chronicle, and compare, Hitler and the Nazis to the rise of the Tea Party and Trump's capacity to hijack their very limited message of nationalism and hating the 'others' to rise to the point where he has. They will compare their prominent egos, questionable sanity and demagoguery. They will note Trump's taking dog whistles to the next level at a time when those who needed to hear them most were at their apex. One of Hitler's greatest draws was his promise to disavow the Treaty of Versailles and rebuild the nations military. Trump has a similar message. Of course, he manages to twist-turn it into a dismissal of our own military greatness and paints his patriotism as dubious, at best.

Historians will show how neither Trump nor Hitler were remotely religious, but espoused Christian 'values' in attempts to build up the simple-minded and define their superiority. Trump's bullshit nationalistic dialogue depicting a country very few can identify will be covered. Trump's nonsensical rhetoric about caring for the nation's poor mirrors a lot of what Hitler said. Of course, to be honest, Hitler actually did see to social welfare of the working class. Trump's tax plan, and long history of only looking out for himself, would surely offer more than a little supposition about who would benefit from any policies he might want to enact.

The good news? The myriad commonalities between Hitler and Trump can be countered with numerous differences. Hitler was an amazing orator and used his skills to rally many people beyond his base. Trump can either stand in front of a teleprompTer and mangle the very words in front of him, or ad-lib an entire speech and leave any thoughtful audience to seriously question his mental stability, but be certain: he thinks of little more than inflating his own ego.

Hitler worked very hard for many years to build his movement. He was passionate in his attempt. Trump is lazy and expects to just hijack a fading movement and take it to the White House. As utterly disgusting and inhuman as Hitler's entire rule was, he completely believed in it. He was a genuine zealot of his own movement. Donald Trump could obviously care less about nearly every issue in the GOP (or any other) platform. Hitler had a large team of people who understood his mission and worked tirelessly for him (many out of fear). Trump doesn't know what he's doing from one minute to the next, and his own 'team' are wholly confused about his end game. Those in the GOP who would gladly kiss his ass and embrace his platform of hate are even being dismissed by the candidate. Hitler had the foresight to make use of the willing parasites around him.

Let me be plain ... Just because he is a goddamned clown, it doesn't mean that, if given the opportunity, he wouldn't absolutely destroy our country. Evidence is found in countless answers he's offered from quickly determining that women who seek abortions should be punished, to his absolute dismissal of the killings of journalists shown above where he says of Putin, "At least he's running his country."

Because we are a democracy, the likelihood of his ascension can be diminished by our own passion and drive to continue moving America forward. Of course, that means all of us have to continue to speak out. Even to those who would really rather not talk about it. And, as hard as the media often makes it for us, we must rally behind their attempts to communicate the truths about the vile self-serving creature who is trying to follow MY President into the White House.


Kiss Kiss.... Mean Progressive

An Actual History Lesson

I have seen this ridiculous meme countless times in the last month. I know that anyone who demands its history of pride and heritage has either been conditioned to believe that or is desperate to be seen as something other than racist trash. I also know, for certain, that the person who posted it is in desperate need of many history lessons. The kind of history lessons that won't be found in the new books Regressive Party politicians across the country are trying to rewrite to create this exceptionalism they try to force feed those who don't think for themselves. The kind of history lessons that don't come from memes, the most common means of far right dissemination of 'facts.' And the kind of history lessons that won't be found in a book written by Bill O'Reilly, a man who calls himself a historian but who the intelligent among us call a propagandist.

I always end any debate regarding that flag with the same question, "Would you expect to see the Nazi flag flying in Germany today?" It is the exact same thing. Nazi descendants live today. They don't leave a Nazi flag on the tombstones of their ancestors. No state or official buildings fly the Nazi flag. In fact, the flag is illegal in Germany as it is such a source of shame. Why demand that American society be less than that of the Germans?

As with all aspirations of the Confederacy, Nazis built their new society by kidnapping, forced labor and genocide. They both had the same agenda: Define, create and maintain a master race. Hitler was actually inspired by Americas treatment of its slaves and the Native Americans when he created his plans. Hitler believed innovation was a marked feature of a leading world power. He used the ideas of free labor to build German industries and believed that The Long Walk of the Navajo was a brilliant means of weeding out the Jews who would be useless to him as they could march to their prisons and if they were unhealthy, they would just die along the way.  His intent to build his ideal society drew directly from the shames America tries to forget.

The Confederate Congress initially adopted a flag which ended up creating a lot of controversy because many believed it looked too similar to the American flag, so it was promptly replaced. The second and third flags adopted both had the symbol we now associate as the Confederate flag as part of the design where only the number of stars would increase based on states joining the Confederacy. The second flag adopted had an entirely white background and the 'X' was where todays American flag has its stars. The man who designed it, William T. Thompson, called it the "White Man's Flag" because it symbolized the "supremacy of the white man." He wrote for Savannah's Daily Morning News in 1863:

"As a people we are fighting [to] maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.

The third flag was barely seen because the war ended as it was being introduced. Debating over which flag was put to use is a wasted exercise in semantics, however, as the objective of its creation was pretty much encapsulated in the quote above. (and in the fucking war itself for Christ's sake)

Hitler proudly designed the Nazi flag himself. He decided to use the traditional colors of Germany because:

"As National Socialists, we see our program in our flag. In red, we see the social idea of the movement; in white, the nationalistic idea; in the swastika, the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work. (from Mein Kampf)

The swastika was meant to represent an Aryan objective to have a racial 'cleansing.' Beginning in the early 20th century German nationalists determined the Aryans of India (many hundreds of years BC) depicted a glorious tradition of superiority and, basically, rewrote their own version of history to support this premise based on Nordicism disturbingly embraced and defined by British psychologist, William McDougall, explaining a 'master race' in 1920:

"Among all the disputes and uncertainties of the ethnographers about the races of Europe, one fact stands out clearly—namely, that we can distinguish a race of northerly distribution and origin, characterised physically by fair colour of hair and skin and eyes, by tall stature and dolichocephaly (i.e. long shape of head), and mentally by great independence of character, individual initiative and tenacity of will.

The invasion was profoundly misinterpreted by Germans to define the glories of Aryan invasion where the intimidating symbol of the swastika would also serve as reminder of the dangers of spiritual and racial mixing due to close proximity of the races.

Both the Confederate flag and the Nazi flag are used today by white supremacist groups all over the world as a means of glorification and intimidation. It is not a coincidence that they have both been adopted by those with such mentalities. The flags are symbols which represent times and places where white supremacy was given a voice and an opportunity to thrive. Germany spends none of its time celebrating either that history or its soldiers. Remembrances of ours should also be left to (actual) history books.

No rational or thoughtful individual would take time with this argument and explain to me the pride they have in their ancestor who fought to enslave people and commit treason. Those who demand otherwise are free to fly that flag in their homes or in their lawns and silently tell the rest of society who they are, as any German would if they projected pride over the Holocaust. And the rest of society will shun them and diminish their voices, as we should. We are the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.' As such, we have no business glorifying those who meant to enslave others and, in a cowardly fashion, tried to secede rather than give up an entitlement to continued atrocities.

The Tea Party Spin Doctor

Good Gravy. As much as I try to figure things out, I haven't had a revelation that will make me accept the Tea Party's existence or relevance in my world. Once my brain gets stuck on trying to understand something, I can't let it go. (Hence my 30 years research on the Holocaust, as if maybe the next book or documentary will ever make it logical). My "why" and "how" circle is still going. Round. And Round. And Round. Poor, Angie ... Indeed!