See my post #28 right above yours. If you believe that the statement that Republicans today are flat-out the party of crazy is not fully justified and is just “feel-good” rhetoric, you must seriously not be paying attention.
When Republicans blatantly trample on fundamental civil liberties and seek to gain and retain power by openly thwarting democracy, calling out the similarities to fascist authoritarianism is NOT about “feeling good”, it’s about describing the facts on the ground. There’s only one trick they have up their sleeve that has no parallel in fascism, because it has no parallel anywhere any time in modern history, and that is openly promoting gun violence.
Like all authoritarian propagandists throughout history, they justify the things they do in the name of “freedom”, which to Republicans means the freedom to do things they approve of. It certainly doesn’t mean the freedom to live in a society free of rampant gun violence, or the freedom to be an immigrant or racial or religious minority with equal opportunity and free of harassment, or the freedom to be gay or trans, or a woman’s freedom to exercise autonomy over her own body. What Republicans offer instead, by opposing these fundamental freedoms, is blatant oppression. Their oppression is just about as personally invasive as it’s possible to be while still pretending to have some regard for their warped view of the constitution. Republicans don’t just seek to degrade the qualify of life of their many perceived enemies and their right to participate in democracy, in many cases like their anti-vax and anti-mask rhetoric and general opposition to COVID management policies, and their steadfast opposition to even the tiniest thing that even remotely resembles gun control, they are actively threatening the actual lives of everyone.
Well, that’s the party line, anyway. The reality is that fascist governments like the NSDAP often worked in partnership with powerful industrialists, often granting them virtual monopolies for essential goods and services, while breaking up actual unions and of course persecuting self-avowed socialists or Communists. Fascist governments like the Germany under the Nazi Party don’t really have genuine ideologies deeper than persecuting marginalized minorities and stirring up uncertainty and fear among the populace to remain in power, which you’ll notice is exactly what certain leading Republican figures like DeSantis and Abbott are doing. The GOP has long had authoritarian leanings and has not been too reluctant to quietly embrace white nationalism, Christian Evangelical nationalism, et cetera, but since Trump showed that their is virtually no downside to saying the quiet part out loud as long as you can stir up the crowd they’ve taken a hard right turn straight onto Brown Shirt Drive and are currently trying to outdo one another in showing just how devoted they can be to the cause of trying to subvert faith in democratic institutions and dehumanize immigrants, transgender children, Muslims, et cetera. It’s textbook fascism in all but the title.
IG Farben was the largest and most notorious of those industrial collaborations, deeply mired in the Holocaust. After the war, its directors were tried for war crimes and it was split up into its original six constituent companies.
I wrote registrations programs and over programs for CALS in the 1980s.
I produced a mailing list that got people to vote for the state constitution amendment to fund libraries at a higher rate.
I take this shit personally.
Screw those guys.
Sure, but 4.5 million isn’t even one sixth of the Kansas City library system budget, never mind St. Louis, Independence, Springfield, Columbia, and all the rest of them combined.
4.5 million is a drop in the bucket versus the total amount spent by local governments on libraries. My guess is that the 4.5 million represents grants, etc… not operational funding.
No, that’s Progressivism. The underlying concept of fascism is a return to a mythical golden era through absolute power of the government and vilification of minorities.
While they are a drop in the bucket to the Kansas City library system, if they get any funding at all from the state at all, they are often what keeps smaller rural libraries open.
The point isn’t the amount of funding that is cut or the practical impact it has. The point is performative attack on institutions devoted to free access to information and encouraging literacy, In fact, that it will likely have only a marginal impact is a benefit because it demonstrates that just cutting funding isn’t aggressive enough. Seriously, banning and then burning ‘offensive’ books and attacking institutions that opposed this is straight from the Naziplaybook and it is not as if this is just some unique thing going on with those rubes in Missouri; it is a concerted strategy across the country.
Until Trump it was in the subtext, spoken in code as explicated by Lee Atwater. Now hatred, bigotry, and institutional cruelty are dictated as essentially open policy.
I used to work for CALS in the 2000s and I’m taking this personally too. Prior to working there, I hadn’t been to a library in years and didn’t really appreciate its role in the community. In addition to offer books to read for fun, the library was a place where people could use the computers to apply for jobs, do a little research using the archives and other resources, participate in various community programs, and on occasion come listen to the guest speakers we had.
When I was a kid, worker protectionism was - indeed - a predominantly left-wing, progressive political position. Support for unions still is. And, in general, social conservativism was the territory of the South and Democrats until the parties started their shift. At the moment, we’re looking at about 200 years of it being a left-wing belief and about 30-50 years it it being right wing, in the US. If you compare to the actual philosophies of the two parties - rather than the current grab bag of popular support, that’s basically philosophy free - left wing means a preference for things like collectivism, a focus on farmers and bottom rung laborers, etc. Traditionally, these are the sorts who are least accepting of things like diversity, education, individual freedom, etc.
Mussolini only seems to have added any racist elements to Fascism to placate Hitler. It doesn’t seem to be intrinsically linked to Fascism except through the political necessities of the time, to rope in the masses. As said, in general, if you’re targeting the bottom rung, racism tends to be a good seller.
In general, the idea that fascism was a right wing movement doesn’t bear much scrutiny. Compared to Socialism/Communism, perhaps it was. But their animosity for one another was probably more a factor of targeting the same demographic than being so far apart on the political chart.
Russia probably didn’t go the racist route, under Lenin, because Russia was a fairly diverse nation and the ethnically non-Russian were obligatorily in the bottom rung jobs.
And, likewise, the proletariat loved living under Communism.
I can give you the definitions of words. I can’t do anything about making (historical) political movements stay honest and live up to their stated agendas.
