Europe is a fucking joke

[Musk Ox]

Edit... don't argue about politics on the internet.

[mca80]

You continue to ignore any sources cited, even when as mainstream as possible like 60 Minutes, the most popular US news program of all time, and the Associated Press. You continue to ignore a whole lot else as well, including the well documented calls for Jewish extermination and actual violence against them by the Muslim immigrants who evidently get a pass when it comes to "free speech." I too am Jewish, and I may hate myself, but I am not a self-loathing Jew like you.

You "turn people in" who have differing opinions like a good brain-washed Karen. I am sure you would lock them up if you could, just like with the Covid vax shit. Any source that you don't agree with is propaganda. No conversation is possible with people like you, and actually you personally embody many, many elements of fascism and Naziism. And as is part of the Leftist playbook you engage in projection, calling everyone else who disagrees a fascist and Nazi (very old strategy, or mental illness, efficacy of which was discovered by CIA long ago). But I am supposed to just trust you. Because well you KNOW. Despite anything to the contrary. Fuck this, little man, I have had enough of you and the other fascists.

[Lhartley]

Some pretty debatable statements were made, but they seem to have disappeared. Some spectacular historical revision has occurred regarding the National German Socialists Workers Party. It's very nuanced. Nothing to do with any North American education system. There's massive amounts of disinformation on the subject, including Wikipedia.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/09/05/ ... ocialists/

Not that Snopes is a good source, but it's near impossible to weigh through info online

If a party is developed with a fundamental group of ideological beliefs, which then developed into something different, should that party not share in the credit for the end result? If the liberal party of Canada transitioned into an ultra nationalist party, it would be tough to forget it's leftist roots, unless you had 80 years of propaganda and historical revision to create an alternative history. Fact is, it was developed on specific ideas

[Musk Ox]

@mca80 for the love of all things holy, dial it down.

[Inspiredcapers]

Jeez- I was gonna toss out the ‘History is written by the Victors…’ quote then I read this article-

https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/histo ... rigin.html

Honestly though, I think history is becoming ridiculously fluid and is rewritten almost daily by clueless influencers and instant media types with too much power at their disposal. The truth of our past (and our present day for that matter) is quickly eroding.

[Lhartley]

Yup for sure, the problem being that Germany was just a whole mess of ideologies that were used to control narratives, populations, conflicts, etc. And now these same ideologies are being used in modern times by all sides of the political spectrum, so events get reinvestigated and explored, and abused. The most glaringly obvious being "anti-zionism". The claim is that anti-zionism does NOT equal antisemitism. Yet Jewish schools and religious buildings are attacked, common Jews attacked. And this is NOT coming from groups associated with Nazism

[CwmRaider]

[Lhartley]

Ok got it. No rational discussion allowed

[telerat]

Adding mca80 as a foe made this forum much more enjoyable.

It is hard to defend free speech when it is misused to spread hate. Respect for all is essential, even when others disagree with you.

[RandomDude]

Robert Reich

What is occurring now in the United States has very little to do with making the government more “efficient,” or rooting out “incompetence," or “depoliticizing” parts of government that should be nonpartisan.

Nor is it motivated chiefly by Trump’s desire get rid of “D.E.I.” and “woke,” or “weaponize” law enforcement, or establish white Christian nationalism, or wreak vengeance on his enemies.

The real story is this.

In every part of the government that involves the use of force — the military, the investigation and prosecution of crimes, the authority to arrest, the capacity to hold individuals in jail — Trump is putting into power people who are more loyal to him than they are to the United States.

He has purged (or is in the process of purging) at the highest levels of the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Inspectors General, and the FBI, anyone who is not personally loyal to him.

Trump is rapidly gaining a personal monopoly on the use of force. This is his most fundamental goal. This is the essence of tyranny.

On Friday, he fired Air Force General CQ Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, as well as the principal military adviser to the president, secretary of defense, and National Security Council.

This was followed by the firings of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Jim Slife.

The media sees the firings as “part of a campaign to rid the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.” This may be part of Trump’s motivation, but it is not the major driver. The firings are part of a campaign to purge the Defense Department of leaders who are not totally loyal to Trump.

For Brown’s replacement, Trump has nominated retired Air Force Lt. General John Dan “Razin” Caine — a career fighter jet pilot.

Caine has not served in any of the positions — Joint Chiefs vice chairman, chief of staff for one of the branches of the armed service, or head of a combatant command — that nominees are legally required to have held in order to be nominated. By law, a president may waive those requirements if he “determines such action is necessary in the national interest.”

Trump isn’t putting Caine in this pivotal position because of the national interest. He’s putting Caine there because of Caine’s unequivocal personal loyalty to Trump. Trump boasted to an audience at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference that Caine had told him, “I love you, sir. I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir.”

The same is occurring at the Justice Department, where Emil Bove, Trump’s former criminal lawyer who’s now the chief enforcer there, is imposing a Trump loyalty test on prosecutors — demanding they comply with Trump’s demands, however unacceptable and incompatible with norms, or leave.

It’s no accident that Bove has targeted the Justice Department’s most powerful officials and divisions — shaking up the national security division, insisting that the FBI’s acting leadership turn over a list of agents who worked on the Capitol riot investigations, and targeting the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (the most prestigious U.S. attorney’s office in the country, known for guarding its independence).

Trump says he’s “depoliticizing” law enforcement in response to Biden’s supposed bow to partisan politics. But Biden’s actions had nothing to do with partisan politics. And, ironically, neither are Trump’s: His are about personal loyalty.

On Sunday night, Trump announced that MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino will be deputy director of the FBI, alongside newly installed chief Kash Patel. Bongino is a former cop, Secret Service agent, conspiracy theorist, and Fox News commentator who joined Trump’s MAGA world in the 2010s and now hosts a popular podcast.

The media sees this as another example of Trump embracing Fox News (Bongino is the 20th ex-Fox News host, journalist, or commentator to bag a senior job in the new Trump administration).

But that’s not it. Bongino’s most important attribute is the same as Patel’s — unswerving personal loyalty to Trump. As elsewhere, Trump is turning the FBI into an extension of his personal will.

Every tyrant throughout history has gained a personal monopoly on the use of force so he can impose his will on anyone, for any purpose. Tyrants achieve this by delegating power only to people personally loyal to them.

Trump is even testing the personal loyalty of federal judges.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump recently posted on social media (a direct nod to Napoleon and other dictators), attached to a headline that his administration refuses to obey a district court order unfreezing billions of dollars in federal grants.

All this is happening just as Trump is effectively handing over large swaths of the world to Putin and Xi — the only world leaders he respects and understands, because they, too, are tyrants.

Yesterday, on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and 14 other authoritarian Moscow-friendly countries against a U.N. resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for the return of Ukrainian territory. The resolution passed overwhelmingly nonetheless.

Why am I telling you this when you’re probably already feeling rage and despair over what’s happening? Because seeing the whole for what it truly is — rather than being upset by this or that part of it — is essential for fighting back.

We — the vast majority of people in the United States — do not want to live in a dictatorship. Yet we now have a president and a regime bent on an authoritarian takeover of America and on joining the other major authoritarians of the world.