A thought about Italy and Germany

[edhopper]

As I see the Teabaggers and the Corporatist, Oligarchy loving, Theocratic, backward thinking GOP trying to lead this country into ruin, and the MSM and middle America treating them as if their ideas are viable. I think about the people in Italy and Germany before WWII and wonder if most of them thought that things wouldn't be that bad and the Facist and Nazis were not the truly horrible creatures they actually were, until it was to late.


Don't know if I pulled the Nazi card there, but if i did, so be it.

[Overseas]

1. I'd at least like the Tea Parties to be called what they are-- The Koch Parties.

That would be a good start.

All that pretending that The Koch Parties are still the desperate citizens crushed by the Bush Crash and Bush bailouts who wanted to crush all government after those body slams is exhausting. They were co-opted by Koch Brothers and other right wing funded PR a couple of years ago already. May even have been created by the right in the first place, to displace the anger after the Bush Crash and Wall Street theft.

It is disturbing that more of the media have not highlighted this disturbing turn of affairs, that billionaires and other corporate chieftains have manipulated citizens to the extent that they have gotten a whole fleet of right wingers "elected."

When I see a sweep of "tea party candidates" I see The Koch Party making its plays.

Politicians are not legislating in fear of a grass roots Tea Party. They're quaking in fear of THe Koch Party and the many billionaires ready to pour millions into the colorful "grass roots" campaigns to crush the poor and overturn environmental protections.

[JackRiddler]

2. It's bigger than the Kochs. They are the Billionaire Parties, except the billionaires...

also control the Democrats, for the most part.

Pete Peterson spared A BILLION DOLLARS just to wage a war on Social Security. Otherwise he's a CFR/Rockefeller Republican. (You thought it was extinct.)

Gates and Broad are providing the underlying concepts for the war on teachers and attempts to privatize public education, and they're Democrats.

The money and power are concentrated in the top 1%, nay really the top 400 and top 10,000, and the culture has deified them and put them on a separate planet to such a degree that any power-fantasy is acceptable. They are out to establish an open feudalism of capitalist princes. They will be the state.

The gradations and power differentials once you get up there are just astonishing. This is illustrated by the famous l-curve of US income distribution:

http://www.lcurve.org/

[Overseas]

5. True. Sad K&R.

[edhopper]

8. delete

delete

[gateley]

3. Sometimes the Nazi card if valid, and I've often thought that the people of

Germany and Italy were in the same position we are now and viewed those tyrants as their saviors. Remember the poem:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

And I seriously think we and others may look back upon this time and ask "how did the Americans let this happen?" -- unless we make sure it doesn't. WE'RE seeing it, millions aren't.

[Golden Raisin]

4. I vacillate but mostly

feel like I'm living in some sort of weird, conflated timewarp of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and the Weimar Republic. Everything from infrastructure to Constitutional rights seem to be falling apart before our eyes while the rapid descent towards a Fascistic environment increases frighteningly and on a daily basis. There are definite reminiscences of Italy and Germany in the 1930s.

[newfie11]

6. I also wonder about the comparison and it is a scary thought n/t

[lunatica]

7. It happens because people aren't paying attention

Human beings are fundamentally the same the world over. If it can happen somewhere in the world it can happen anywhere, including here. Just like if it happens here it can happen anywhere. Think about the unrest in the Middle East right now. People want to have Democratic governments and they want to be free.

The people of Germany and Italy didn't see it coming until it was too late. Some did, and they tried to warn others, but most people just write them off as fringe reactionaries.

As a teenager I started reading everything I could about the Holocaust and the Final Solution, and I also became aware of our history of violence against Black people and knew this country could easily become fascist if the brutish faction of our population gained power.

[doublethink]

9. I quote you ...........

"I think about the people in Italy and Germany before WWII and wonder if most of them thought that things wouldn't be that bad and the Facist and Nazis were not the truly horrible creatures they actually were, until it was to late." snip .......

You need to read this book .......
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

[edhopper]

10. I also must remind myself

that Hitler and Mussolini had many supporters in this country.