I humbly disagree that the Left didn't become fascist until Trump's election. I saw it in my friend group during Obama's second term. Some very sensible and otherwise kind women broke far left, while everyone else stayed the same - centrist to moderate Republican. My leftist friends were posting some really scary things (Christians need to change their ways, or else, that sort of thing.) My Republican and centrist friends were bullied over simple disagreements and shouted down, for things that these folks would never have argued about even just a couple of years before.
It's true. Obama changed the country. For the worse. Racism was almost gone until Obama revived it, for his benefit. He caused race relations to worsen and worsen. BLM was created under Obama. All of the history revision, 1619 Project, etc.
Yes, you are correct: Barack Hussein Obama, the son of Communists and Valarie Jarrett, the daughter of Communists, embedded the DEEP STATE with Marists/Revolutionaries. Furthermore, the racism Obama instilled into the sub-culture (think BLM) is a Karl Marx strategy once known as; "Dialectical Materialism". It is basically "race baiting - social agitation". Which Obama/Jarrett juxtaposed with the Cloward/Pivens strategy of collapsing the Constitutional-capitalism economic system from within, without firing a shot.
It is time to peacefully discuss a "national divorce" before we end up in a bloody civil war. Which is what BHO desires. The Obamas hate America, ask Reverend Wright.
"Political correctness" was fascisim on campus in the 1980s - people were being punished for saying or writing unpopular things. That's boilerplate fascism right there. While the left (such as it is) loves to still fail against McCarthyism, the truth is they've long adopted his methods.
Right, because of the horrible treatment of Trump, and the fact that conservatives aint crazy about Bush, people have near forgotten the HELL they put Bush thru. Bush, the rather mild GOP conservative, was nonetheless a Republican...and they showed their HATE for him at the time.
Indeed. This is why they surround themselves only with people who think like them or agree with them. Tolerance is a characteristic they lack despite their illusions to working for the greater good which is always means for themselves.
The true measure of a cult is whether or not you are able to disagree publicly with either the leaders or the ideas. If you can't, then you're in a cult. Best way to test this is to ask someone to name three good things and three bad things about any President. Those on the left will never name three significant negative things about any of their Presidents.
A related test is to watch what happens in Congress. The party that votes as one block, ALWAYS, upon pain of being expelled from the party (ala Joe Lieberman or Kyrsten Sinema and possibly now John Fetterman), is the cult.
I probably don't remember correctly, but once he announced his retirement, he was free to speak his mind in opposing his fellow democrats. However, that in and of itself is a serious indictment of the political wrath of the DNC if someone crosses them.
Sasha mentions that there was the appearance of fascism during Obama's term and I think she meant to say that it became obvious to all after Trump's election, instead of just having the appearance (of course, if you dug deeper into Obama, how he got elected, some of the things he did - it would've been obvious too).
Also, Part of it is that while we (The Allied side on WW2) rightly condemned the Nazis after WW2, we also didn’t harshly condemn the communists because the Russians helped us win that war. As a result, communism was (and is still) seen as ‘not that bad’, even if Stalin also killed millions of his own people. We did fight ‘the commies’ in wars after that, but there was the living memory of the fact that Russia helped defeat the Germans that people never got over.
Secular people have made Hitler their version of Satan. Religious people haven’t replaced Satan with a false version of Satan. A lot of secular people are also Leftists, which is why they keep banging on about Hitler this and Hitler that. Nature abhors a vacuum. That’s why they can’t understand that anyone to the right of them isn’t actually fascist or anti-democratic. Their political ideology has religious undertones, even if they would deny that themselves. Functionally, they are spouting off the talking points of their religion.
Jonathan Pageau has a recent video describing this phenomenon on YouTube. After I listened to it, so much of what we see out of the Left made a lot more sense.
It’s also time to deconstruct the fallacy that World War II was “The Good War”. That is Studs Terkel-created BS. Germany didn’t start World War II; Britain & France did when they declared war on Germany Sept 3, 1939. Moreover, if it was immoral/wrong for Germany to invade Poland why was Russia’s invasion of Poland 15 days after the German attack given a pass? Moreover their unprovoked attack on Finland in November 1939 also gets a pass.
No serious discussion of World War II or its origins can reasonably be discussed without asking those two questions.
No one but hard core communists give Russia a pass, but I'm guessing because I never heard of such a thing.
I do know that Germany invaded Poland in 1939 thus starting WWII. If you don't believe that you have a most warped and poorly informed grasp of history.
There are plenty who still give Russia a pass; the usual suspects (educrats/leftists in academia/media, etc). They still push Studs Terkel’s meme with vigor despite the fact that it’s a farce. It’s becoming more widely known how much FDR wanted in that war, from waging an undeclared, illegal, & unconstitutional war for example against the German Navy in the Atlantic - by ordering U.S. Navy destroyers to escort British shipping to a pre-arranged demarcation line in the Atlantic where the Royal Navy would take over. The U.S. Navy was under “shoot to kill” orders for any German U-boats detected despite there being no declaration of war against Germany or authorization by Congress. This led directly to the torpedoing of the destroyer USS REUBEN JAMES on the night of October 31, 1941 off the coast of Iceland by U-552 (Kplt Erich Topp, commanding) with a horrendous loss of life. The “shoot to kill” orders needlessly killed survivors of the sinking as the depth charges - already pre-set for attacking U-boats - started cooking off as the stricken ship went down, killing survivors in the water.
Largely due to FDR being hoodwinked by Stalin, the American news media dubbed him “Uncle Joe” @ FDR’s urging & swept many of his horrible crimes under the rug, including - but not limited to - the Holomidor (Ukrainian Holocaust), attacks on Poland, Finland, his outright occupation of the Baltic countries, the Katyn Forest massacre, & his enslavement of Eastern Europe as The Red Army advanced in 1945.
Moreover, two different historians - one a former Soviet Intelligence Officer, the other a senior historian for the Bundeswehr - conducting their own investigations of Soviet archives post-Soviet collapse & came to exactly the same conclusion: Stalin had an attack on the West planned for Spring of 1942. His plan was to embroil Germany in a war with Britain & France (a’la 1914-1918) then attack when Germany was weakened & go all the way to the English Channel. The quick defeat of France (in six wks) & Britain kicked out of Europe 4x (Dunkirk, Norway, Greece, & Dieppe {in 1942} complicated his plans but Operation Barbarossa completely wrecked them on June 22, 1941 when German armies - with allies Finland, Rumania, Bulgaria, & Italy - plunged into Russia in a precipitous attack. At that point The Red Army was assembling in staging areas all along the Western border & as a result would lose 3.5 million men in as many months.
Naturally the usual suspects anxious to keep promoting the Studs Terkel myth have either ignored completely or dismissed these groundbreaking works out of hand as revisionism but they cannot refute the evidence therein. Hoffman’s work received the endorsement by the Federal German Govt which - as you might expect - is loathe to endorse anything that might shed a modicum of light positively on The Third Reich. Hoffman’s work received the endorsement nonetheless.
Those are opinions, just like the opinions blaming everything on Nazi Germany. It is almost impossible to prove the true goals and intent of everyone involved six months ago, much less nearly 100 years.
Thank you for your reference to Jonathan Pageau. I shall watch it. Here is something that I learned from WWII documentary. I watch alot of those because I was born in World War II in 1942. Notice I am not a Boomer. But, I was in charge of four of them at home, because I was seven years older than my sibling next to me. I held this job
for 14 1/2 years, before I became a consultant to their parents at no cost. Actually the parents were still paying my room and board and I loved them very much. But, I had begun to notice that they had switched child rearing tactics on the family long before the 60’s had begun. So here is what I learned on the documentary. The reason we did not harshly condemn the Stalin communists was that Roosevelt, idolized Stalin. Roosevelt persuaded Churchill to give Stalin bigger territorial, financial terms than Churchill
and he had previously agreed upon. Stalin could charm if he wanted to. Churchill was not pleased as he left the summit. You can see it in the body language and facial
pictures. Here is something else that people don’t know. At the beginning of WWII. Hitler and Stalin were allies determine to take over Europe. They co-created and trained
an Air Force to create war planes and the training of pilots. But, they were doing it in Russia so that the British and others would not know. However, when Hitler invaded Poland, without planning with Russia, Stalin and the communist party split with Hitler.
If someone on this blog can shed some light on this period of history, I would like to know if more is known now about Roosevelt’s enamored pull toward Stalin before or after the attack on Pearl Harbor. If you Google Wiki, you can find an extraordinary list of the Communist Spies in high places during Roosevelt’s term. Now we also know,because
some one decided in Britain that we can, there were Hitler sympathizers in high places in Britain before the outbreak of the war. And another question for someone, did
“However, when Hitler invaded Poland, without planning with Russia, Stalin and the communist party split with Hitler. “
Jane - this is in error: are you not aware of the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact of 1939? Germany & the Soviet Union agreed to split Poland between them before the war started. The communists only split with Hitler after the commencement of Operation Barbarossa June 22, 1941.
And I wouldn’t trust Wikipedia; leftist slant abounds.
Jane, I read a book that was published about 10 years ago that focuses on how FDR was influenced by those in his circle who adored Stalin, such as Harry “Harry the Hop” Hopkins (the Soviets’ “Agent 19"). The book is called "American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character," by Diana West.
I disagree with your first comment, but the baby boomers ultimately embraced "here's to the new boss, same as the old boss" mentality that they once protested against as college students. Too much money and power and stature, and influence, and ego, to be had as the "new boss" as Brandon, Diane Fienstein, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Grassley, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, etc., has shown amongst that entire generation. Did they create wealth, yes. Are they hypocrites, yes. Probably too strong of an indictment, but as a generalized statement I think it holds true.
No, it actively began in the Ivy League schools when they imported the Frankfurt School to spread Marxist/Totalitarian ideas. They pounced in the 60's because the ideas had been deeply immersed in our education systems and the time was ripe to use the chaos of the Viet Nam war to bring it more fully out in the open.
Not in my words, but you can take it from Brittanica:
"Most of the institute’s scholars were forced to leave Germany after Adolf Hitler’s accession to power (1933), and many found refuge in the United States. The Institute for Social Research thus became affiliated with Columbia University until 1949, when it returned to Frankfurt. In the 1950s the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School diverged in several intellectual directions. Most of them disavowed orthodox Marxism, though they remained deeply critical of capitalism. Marcuse’s critique of what he perceived as capitalism’s increasing control of all aspects of social life enjoyed unexpected influence in the 1960s among the younger generation."
The irony is that these "intellectuals" are fleeing to Canada, where things are falling apart at an epic pace. Lots of Canadians are contemplating coming here.
I like Elon Musk's diagram, of how he didn't leave the Democrat Party, they left him. They sprinted to the left, hard, leaving many old fashioned liberal Democrats, to the slight right of center. Bill Maher is another one. He can't stomach the hard Leftism that the Progressives have brought to the party.
And Scott Jennings, pretty much said that it's like Trump has a superpower. He gets Democrats to defend 80-20 positions, on the losing side!! Just because... Orange man bad!
Trump is another who was historically left of center but where the Democrats left him. He won't describe it that way for political reasons, but it is why the GOP did not trust him in 2015 when he declared to run for President on the GOP ticket. Some neoCons STILL don't want Trump in the GOP as he has taken the party left to the middle
Look, this is quite simple. All of the traits most attribute to "fascism" can be found in practically any form of government. The author of fascism defined it as the conscription of private enterprise into the service of a nationalistic, centrally planned, authoritarian government, ostensibly for the purpose of national security. That's it. Fascism is not liberal or conservative. It is a collectivist ideology and could be considered the right-wing of the socialist spectrum. It is intellectually and morally impossible to accuse someone who believes in individual rights, small & limited government, low taxes, the Bill of Rights, and an aversion to foreign "adventures" as being a fascist. Trump is most definitely not a fascist. He is a classic American capitalist with a flair for the narcissistic accoutrements of the Golden Age of the newly rich, New York American Vulgarian. He seeks solutions through win-win negotiations in which both parties co-operate in seeking prosperity. Trump is a ball-buster from Queens. He's a serial exaggerator. That's his style. He can be tremendously generous and philanthropic, but he can be nasty and resort to browbeating in an instant. His negotiating style is always to ask or demand five times what he thinks he can get and then settle at 10% to 25% over the previous deal. He will always over-reach and over-promise, however, he has one great redeeming characteristic: He believes to his core that America can achieve what our detractors think impossible and he always places the interests of America first.
"Trump is a ball-buster from Queens. He's a serial exaggerator. That's his style." Greg Gutfeld said this a few months ago. He said, "Trump's a real estate guy. He exaggerates everything! 'BEAUTIFUL property!' 'You won't find any better deal!'" I see him like the agent who shows you the apartment that says "river view" and when you get there, sure, you can see the river if it's a sunny day and you're standing on a chair at the one window when you can catch a glimpse of the water. He's not necessarily lying; he just wants to negotiate with your perception. I find it often hilarioius and at sometimes maddening, and once in a while, disappointing. But more often than not hilarious.
I wish I had a nickel for every liberal who said “I’m leaving the country if X gets elected!” It’s just like the Democrats to make promises they never intend to keep.
Try explaining fascism to a liberal and you'll immediately see they conflate fascism with "ring wing" ideals. When they go the "But Hitler..." route, it's up to you to explain fascism is a sister to socialism.
That ring wing ideology means less government, more independence, freedom of speech (no matter how insulting it is), and private ownership, baffles them. It's all Trump wants.
Academics and those who fashion themselves intellectuals have generally embraced Leftist ideologies most specifically Marxism and they will like to frame their belief structure as Democratic Socialism. Jean-Francois Revel, author of "The Last Exit to Utopia," has written on these subjects and he found that the mind-set of Western Intellectuals who, living in democracies, found much to admire in gulag countries like the old Soviet Union, Cuba, and China and much to detest in free ones-like the USA. "Why was that?" he asked.
"The Totalitarian phenomenon," he observed, "is not to be understood without making an allowance for the thesis that some important part of every society consists of people who actively want tyranny: either to exercise it themselves or-much more mysteriously-to submit to it."
Here we have, but one example and one of that many of us recognize. Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.
Those who depend on the state will always be willing to submit to the state. Academics and intellectuals along with so-called experts tend to be creatures of the state and without government to mooch from they likely would have to compete and many would fail miserably.
Woke Radical Marxist hive minds in ivy league universities have lost touch with main stream working class American families which are still the backbone of the USA despite the efforts of the left. Woke Radical Marxist hive minds in ivy league universities are the threat to working class American families not Trump. Let these clueless out of touch clowns move to Canada and good riddance.
The rising in Boston was about slavery? How many slaves were there in Boston? Stealing land? The Amerindians were destroyed by smallpox and measles, creating a population vacuum. If Eurasian diseases had not been brought in from the East, they would have been brought in from the West. Would a second Chinese Empire, this one in America, have been better than what we now have? Conquest has, until recently, been historically normal. The Bantus did it in the southern half of Africa. The Amerindians, far from living in harmony, routinely attacked each and inflicted horrible atrocities. The Comanches ran a slave empire in the Great Plains. (Ask the Apaches.) Islam spread by conquest. India has repeatedly been conquered from the NW. The western steppes have repeatedly been conquered by steppe nomads from the East. The Vietnamese, with eyes built to resist glare from snow, cannot possibly be native to Vietnam. And so it goes.
The world-view of Lefties is nothing but a cartoon, fit only for intellectual children.
“All of their best-laid plans for utopia were upended by a citizenry with no other option but to vote them out. That’s not fascism. That’s democracy.” Hear, hear!
I have fought a long-running online battle against that fascism is something limited to the "right", which I take as meaning "conservative". However, conservative to most people means old-fashioned, status quo, orthodox. These are words that do not conjure up the idea of radicalism or revolution but just the opposite: peacefulness and tolerance. The word "fascism" means to change the status quo to a totalitarian, intolerant regime and is most often accompanied by communism. The person who named fascism was Benito Mussolini and his "fascista" party from the Italian / Latin word "fasces" which means power and authority. Modern dictionary definitions always call the idea "far right". But Mussolini was a Marxist. Marxism is considered "far left" today. So those who are in a position to author dictionaries have subverted the word fascism for their own political bias.
The definition of fascist comes from the person who created the term, Mussolini. Liberal historians have later appropriated the term as a slander against other leaders they don't like. It can be debated if Franco was right or left
That's why one of the earlier Executive Orders signed by President Trump, ending government-directed censorship, is fascist, because it provides outlets for those who disagree with us.
A quick note on the three "experts": Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder have each given THOUSANDS of dollars to the campaign of Kamala Harris. Sounds like they've both got a case of sour grapes that their candidate didn't win despite their huge donations. Oh, and that Marci Shore? She's married to Timothy Snyder. Either the NYT didn't reveal these caveats or they intentionally didn't mention them. Is it any wonder that no one trusts the Legacy Media anymore? Turns out ropes and trees weren't needed - the "journalists" wound up hanging themselves.
Fascism is just one of the names that totalitarians go by. The communist version and the fascist version are competitors for power and like to call each other names.
I somewhat disagree. Mussolini was a communist who didn't like the other communist leaders in Italy and so formed his own "fascista" party. But he was still promoting communist ideas as he took Italy into the NAZI axis
Mussolini was a leader in the socialist party who broke with them over the question of whether Italy should participate in WW1. He wanted to fight and collect the spoils. So a national socialist long before Hitler pirated the term. Then when Italy got stiffed by Britain and France, he rode the grievance to power. He was no anti-Semite though and protected Italy's Jews as long as he was an independent player. Fascism, as implemented by Mussolini, differed from Communism in that the state didn't own the means of production but controlled them through industrial councils. Hitler adopted this approach but in a less formal way. He always honored Mussolini as the founder until Italian dysfunction got too bad to ignore.
Great! Thank you for the added detail. Interesting the point on ownership of production. Yes, Karl Marx promoted the idea of state control of production. The USSR proved that pretty unworkable. Hitler (and Mussolini) let the former aristocrat class continue to own and run production, but under firm state control. The USSR evolved from Lenin, through Stalin and later directors to more of an oligarchy that accomplished the same thing. The Soviet oligarchs are really no different in their roles than the factory owners of WW2 Germany and Italy
They are totalitarian for sure but I am not sure you can categorize them as Right in Western terms. Similar to the Chinese. CCP began as a heresy of communism but now it seems like the early Ming dynasty. Or the Yuan dynasty, if you are really paranoid. Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Burma and Indonesia may see it that way.
Tim Fucking Snyder. I went to high school with this cocksucker. Arrogant rich kid despised by everyone whose family worked for a living. Good to see this piece of shit lying bastard has aged in dog years since then. Fuck you, Timmy, you lying sack of shit.
He wasn’t this bad back in school we weren’t friends but we were on the debate team together and got along.
Then he went all in on TDS Substack with the whole 1000% crazy “I’m a scholar of fascism and I’m here to warn you” nonsense and the inevitable “I’m fleeing to Canada to avoid persecution” nonsense piled on top of it. Anyone saying that crap is either ignorant or just begging for attention, and as an expert on Fascism he can’t claim ignorance and get away with it.
I humbly disagree that the Left didn't become fascist until Trump's election. I saw it in my friend group during Obama's second term. Some very sensible and otherwise kind women broke far left, while everyone else stayed the same - centrist to moderate Republican. My leftist friends were posting some really scary things (Christians need to change their ways, or else, that sort of thing.) My Republican and centrist friends were bullied over simple disagreements and shouted down, for things that these folks would never have argued about even just a couple of years before.
It's true. Obama changed the country. For the worse. Racism was almost gone until Obama revived it, for his benefit. He caused race relations to worsen and worsen. BLM was created under Obama. All of the history revision, 1619 Project, etc.
Yes, you are correct: Barack Hussein Obama, the son of Communists and Valarie Jarrett, the daughter of Communists, embedded the DEEP STATE with Marists/Revolutionaries. Furthermore, the racism Obama instilled into the sub-culture (think BLM) is a Karl Marx strategy once known as; "Dialectical Materialism". It is basically "race baiting - social agitation". Which Obama/Jarrett juxtaposed with the Cloward/Pivens strategy of collapsing the Constitutional-capitalism economic system from within, without firing a shot.
It is time to peacefully discuss a "national divorce" before we end up in a bloody civil war. Which is what BHO desires. The Obamas hate America, ask Reverend Wright.
You think Obama acted on his own? He was hand picked, selected, before elected, etc. This goes way deeper than any govt official
What is BHO
Barack Hussein Obama
"Political correctness" was fascisim on campus in the 1980s - people were being punished for saying or writing unpopular things. That's boilerplate fascism right there. While the left (such as it is) loves to still fail against McCarthyism, the truth is they've long adopted his methods.
I saw that in Facebook back in the Bush years. People I knew in meatspace went absolutely nuts. One of the reasons, I left the platform.
Right, because of the horrible treatment of Trump, and the fact that conservatives aint crazy about Bush, people have near forgotten the HELL they put Bush thru. Bush, the rather mild GOP conservative, was nonetheless a Republican...and they showed their HATE for him at the time.
The Leftists don't sound like they were actually your friends. Friends do not attack each other
Leftists don't have friends they have accomplices.
Another great bumper sticker!
And allies but correct, no friends, rather pathetic bunch actually.
Indeed. This is why they surround themselves only with people who think like them or agree with them. Tolerance is a characteristic they lack despite their illusions to working for the greater good which is always means for themselves.
The true measure of a cult is whether or not you are able to disagree publicly with either the leaders or the ideas. If you can't, then you're in a cult. Best way to test this is to ask someone to name three good things and three bad things about any President. Those on the left will never name three significant negative things about any of their Presidents.
A related test is to watch what happens in Congress. The party that votes as one block, ALWAYS, upon pain of being expelled from the party (ala Joe Lieberman or Kyrsten Sinema and possibly now John Fetterman), is the cult.
Also Joe Manchin, who was brave and he was great. He didn't go along with the Democrats' bad ideas. The Left couldn't stand him.
I probably don't remember correctly, but once he announced his retirement, he was free to speak his mind in opposing his fellow democrats. However, that in and of itself is a serious indictment of the political wrath of the DNC if someone crosses them.
I'm not sure that I can objectively name three good things about the Biden/Harris administration.
Oh, wait...They blew up the Dem party. They unabashedly revealed the true objectives of their obscene agenda. They've both been put out to pasture.
🤩💯
Unconfirmed, but he and Jill may have voted for Trump. ;-)
In that bright red pantsuit, I’m
certain that Jill did!! A big FU to Obama on her way out.
Sasha mentions that there was the appearance of fascism during Obama's term and I think she meant to say that it became obvious to all after Trump's election, instead of just having the appearance (of course, if you dug deeper into Obama, how he got elected, some of the things he did - it would've been obvious too).
really? Do you have a lot of left wing friends?
Also, Part of it is that while we (The Allied side on WW2) rightly condemned the Nazis after WW2, we also didn’t harshly condemn the communists because the Russians helped us win that war. As a result, communism was (and is still) seen as ‘not that bad’, even if Stalin also killed millions of his own people. We did fight ‘the commies’ in wars after that, but there was the living memory of the fact that Russia helped defeat the Germans that people never got over.
Secular people have made Hitler their version of Satan. Religious people haven’t replaced Satan with a false version of Satan. A lot of secular people are also Leftists, which is why they keep banging on about Hitler this and Hitler that. Nature abhors a vacuum. That’s why they can’t understand that anyone to the right of them isn’t actually fascist or anti-democratic. Their political ideology has religious undertones, even if they would deny that themselves. Functionally, they are spouting off the talking points of their religion.
Jonathan Pageau has a recent video describing this phenomenon on YouTube. After I listened to it, so much of what we see out of the Left made a lot more sense.
It’s also time to deconstruct the fallacy that World War II was “The Good War”. That is Studs Terkel-created BS. Germany didn’t start World War II; Britain & France did when they declared war on Germany Sept 3, 1939. Moreover, if it was immoral/wrong for Germany to invade Poland why was Russia’s invasion of Poland 15 days after the German attack given a pass? Moreover their unprovoked attack on Finland in November 1939 also gets a pass.
No serious discussion of World War II or its origins can reasonably be discussed without asking those two questions.
No one but hard core communists give Russia a pass, but I'm guessing because I never heard of such a thing.
I do know that Germany invaded Poland in 1939 thus starting WWII. If you don't believe that you have a most warped and poorly informed grasp of history.
There are plenty who still give Russia a pass; the usual suspects (educrats/leftists in academia/media, etc). They still push Studs Terkel’s meme with vigor despite the fact that it’s a farce. It’s becoming more widely known how much FDR wanted in that war, from waging an undeclared, illegal, & unconstitutional war for example against the German Navy in the Atlantic - by ordering U.S. Navy destroyers to escort British shipping to a pre-arranged demarcation line in the Atlantic where the Royal Navy would take over. The U.S. Navy was under “shoot to kill” orders for any German U-boats detected despite there being no declaration of war against Germany or authorization by Congress. This led directly to the torpedoing of the destroyer USS REUBEN JAMES on the night of October 31, 1941 off the coast of Iceland by U-552 (Kplt Erich Topp, commanding) with a horrendous loss of life. The “shoot to kill” orders needlessly killed survivors of the sinking as the depth charges - already pre-set for attacking U-boats - started cooking off as the stricken ship went down, killing survivors in the water.
And the oil embargo instituted against Japan was in reality a provocation to goad them into attacking the United States, which of course would give FDR the easy excuse for war, which it did. See Robert Stinnet’s excellent work on this here:( https://www.amazon.com/Day-Deceit-Truth-About-Harbor/dp/0743201299/ref=sr_1_2?crid=31MCF0AJVNNVU&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IfGpD57VQbBIhPw0m3lJh09ZhvtUYmZ7lVy6pJE5fQrGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.tII0CX8X8kTfSNH7XoTARyHo8MMxdqSqVA6kMf5Dhk4&dib_tag=se&keywords=FDR+lies&qid=1748826104&s=books&sprefix=fdr+lies%2Cstripbooks%2C113&sr=1-2 )
Largely due to FDR being hoodwinked by Stalin, the American news media dubbed him “Uncle Joe” @ FDR’s urging & swept many of his horrible crimes under the rug, including - but not limited to - the Holomidor (Ukrainian Holocaust), attacks on Poland, Finland, his outright occupation of the Baltic countries, the Katyn Forest massacre, & his enslavement of Eastern Europe as The Red Army advanced in 1945.
Moreover, two different historians - one a former Soviet Intelligence Officer, the other a senior historian for the Bundeswehr - conducting their own investigations of Soviet archives post-Soviet collapse & came to exactly the same conclusion: Stalin had an attack on the West planned for Spring of 1942. His plan was to embroil Germany in a war with Britain & France (a’la 1914-1918) then attack when Germany was weakened & go all the way to the English Channel. The quick defeat of France (in six wks) & Britain kicked out of Europe 4x (Dunkirk, Norway, Greece, & Dieppe {in 1942} complicated his plans but Operation Barbarossa completely wrecked them on June 22, 1941 when German armies - with allies Finland, Rumania, Bulgaria, & Italy - plunged into Russia in a precipitous attack. At that point The Red Army was assembling in staging areas all along the Western border & as a result would lose 3.5 million men in as many months.
Historian Victor Suvarov’s “The Chief Culprit”: https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Culprit-Stalins-Grand-Design/dp/1591148065/ref=sr_1_1?crid=GNTM19UX03EQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.zNCJ1jcseQnmR0rcs6BkoyUTc6OwB_exu3V2hOk9hAk.H-gY1rOc2ES3Wu8pTTuW5F8nxRh_PvDqwbU_3aj30Uk&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+chief+culprit+suvorov&qid=1748827150&sprefix=The+chief+culprit%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-1
Historian Joachim Hoffman’s “Stalin’s War of Extermination:1941-1945: Planning, Realization and Documentation”here: https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-Extermination-1941-1945-Documentation/dp/0967985684/ref=sr_1_1?crid=20009HAOBBR3O&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.zRdDYC7D7WxVbxRG2pO1z100eenOSZYH1Sm0O5qcX_cxiZggVeB8sXQVw3xwcQFFnUZbwW7NYU6zVyamiMOJ5IS-42xZZgMwJlCxVmJZjKg.Z7VI_oXuau44u86YmpTkX5uXMznZbpnTXdNM8A8yayM&dib_tag=se&keywords=stalin%27s+war+of+extermination&qid=1748827210&sprefix=Stalin%27s+war+of+exte%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-1
Naturally the usual suspects anxious to keep promoting the Studs Terkel myth have either ignored completely or dismissed these groundbreaking works out of hand as revisionism but they cannot refute the evidence therein. Hoffman’s work received the endorsement by the Federal German Govt which - as you might expect - is loathe to endorse anything that might shed a modicum of light positively on The Third Reich. Hoffman’s work received the endorsement nonetheless.
Those are opinions, just like the opinions blaming everything on Nazi Germany. It is almost impossible to prove the true goals and intent of everyone involved six months ago, much less nearly 100 years.
Thank you for your reference to Jonathan Pageau. I shall watch it. Here is something that I learned from WWII documentary. I watch alot of those because I was born in World War II in 1942. Notice I am not a Boomer. But, I was in charge of four of them at home, because I was seven years older than my sibling next to me. I held this job
for 14 1/2 years, before I became a consultant to their parents at no cost. Actually the parents were still paying my room and board and I loved them very much. But, I had begun to notice that they had switched child rearing tactics on the family long before the 60’s had begun. So here is what I learned on the documentary. The reason we did not harshly condemn the Stalin communists was that Roosevelt, idolized Stalin. Roosevelt persuaded Churchill to give Stalin bigger territorial, financial terms than Churchill
and he had previously agreed upon. Stalin could charm if he wanted to. Churchill was not pleased as he left the summit. You can see it in the body language and facial
pictures. Here is something else that people don’t know. At the beginning of WWII. Hitler and Stalin were allies determine to take over Europe. They co-created and trained
an Air Force to create war planes and the training of pilots. But, they were doing it in Russia so that the British and others would not know. However, when Hitler invaded Poland, without planning with Russia, Stalin and the communist party split with Hitler.
If someone on this blog can shed some light on this period of history, I would like to know if more is known now about Roosevelt’s enamored pull toward Stalin before or after the attack on Pearl Harbor. If you Google Wiki, you can find an extraordinary list of the Communist Spies in high places during Roosevelt’s term. Now we also know,because
some one decided in Britain that we can, there were Hitler sympathizers in high places in Britain before the outbreak of the war. And another question for someone, did
Hollywood ever make a movie on the McCarthy era?
“However, when Hitler invaded Poland, without planning with Russia, Stalin and the communist party split with Hitler. “
Jane - this is in error: are you not aware of the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact of 1939? Germany & the Soviet Union agreed to split Poland between them before the war started. The communists only split with Hitler after the commencement of Operation Barbarossa June 22, 1941.
And I wouldn’t trust Wikipedia; leftist slant abounds.
Jane, I read a book that was published about 10 years ago that focuses on how FDR was influenced by those in his circle who adored Stalin, such as Harry “Harry the Hop” Hopkins (the Soviets’ “Agent 19"). The book is called "American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character," by Diana West.
What's the title of the Pageau video?
They do think they have the moral high ground tho, that's mine boggling to me.
Yeah - the ‘60’s generation was all about “standin’ up to The Man!” Until they became “The Man” then demanded unfettered obedience.
I disagree with your first comment, but the baby boomers ultimately embraced "here's to the new boss, same as the old boss" mentality that they once protested against as college students. Too much money and power and stature, and influence, and ego, to be had as the "new boss" as Brandon, Diane Fienstein, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Grassley, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, etc., has shown amongst that entire generation. Did they create wealth, yes. Are they hypocrites, yes. Probably too strong of an indictment, but as a generalized statement I think it holds true.
Permanent Washington infilitrating media, Hollywood, and academia with the religeon of centralizing state power played its part too.
No, it actively began in the Ivy League schools when they imported the Frankfurt School to spread Marxist/Totalitarian ideas. They pounced in the 60's because the ideas had been deeply immersed in our education systems and the time was ripe to use the chaos of the Viet Nam war to bring it more fully out in the open.
Not in my words, but you can take it from Brittanica:
"Most of the institute’s scholars were forced to leave Germany after Adolf Hitler’s accession to power (1933), and many found refuge in the United States. The Institute for Social Research thus became affiliated with Columbia University until 1949, when it returned to Frankfurt. In the 1950s the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School diverged in several intellectual directions. Most of them disavowed orthodox Marxism, though they remained deeply critical of capitalism. Marcuse’s critique of what he perceived as capitalism’s increasing control of all aspects of social life enjoyed unexpected influence in the 1960s among the younger generation."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Frankfurt-School
The ISR is alive and well and pumping bilge from its comfy nest at the Univ. of Michigan, and undoubtedly being funded by the likes of you and me.
The irony is that these "intellectuals" are fleeing to Canada, where things are falling apart at an epic pace. Lots of Canadians are contemplating coming here.
I like Elon Musk's diagram, of how he didn't leave the Democrat Party, they left him. They sprinted to the left, hard, leaving many old fashioned liberal Democrats, to the slight right of center. Bill Maher is another one. He can't stomach the hard Leftism that the Progressives have brought to the party.
And Scott Jennings, pretty much said that it's like Trump has a superpower. He gets Democrats to defend 80-20 positions, on the losing side!! Just because... Orange man bad!
Trump is another who was historically left of center but where the Democrats left him. He won't describe it that way for political reasons, but it is why the GOP did not trust him in 2015 when he declared to run for President on the GOP ticket. Some neoCons STILL don't want Trump in the GOP as he has taken the party left to the middle
Trump is also not a war monger president. Neocon branch of both parties don’t like that.
Look, this is quite simple. All of the traits most attribute to "fascism" can be found in practically any form of government. The author of fascism defined it as the conscription of private enterprise into the service of a nationalistic, centrally planned, authoritarian government, ostensibly for the purpose of national security. That's it. Fascism is not liberal or conservative. It is a collectivist ideology and could be considered the right-wing of the socialist spectrum. It is intellectually and morally impossible to accuse someone who believes in individual rights, small & limited government, low taxes, the Bill of Rights, and an aversion to foreign "adventures" as being a fascist. Trump is most definitely not a fascist. He is a classic American capitalist with a flair for the narcissistic accoutrements of the Golden Age of the newly rich, New York American Vulgarian. He seeks solutions through win-win negotiations in which both parties co-operate in seeking prosperity. Trump is a ball-buster from Queens. He's a serial exaggerator. That's his style. He can be tremendously generous and philanthropic, but he can be nasty and resort to browbeating in an instant. His negotiating style is always to ask or demand five times what he thinks he can get and then settle at 10% to 25% over the previous deal. He will always over-reach and over-promise, however, he has one great redeeming characteristic: He believes to his core that America can achieve what our detractors think impossible and he always places the interests of America first.
Excellent summary- you nailed it!
Yes!
"Trump is a ball-buster from Queens. He's a serial exaggerator. That's his style." Greg Gutfeld said this a few months ago. He said, "Trump's a real estate guy. He exaggerates everything! 'BEAUTIFUL property!' 'You won't find any better deal!'" I see him like the agent who shows you the apartment that says "river view" and when you get there, sure, you can see the river if it's a sunny day and you're standing on a chair at the one window when you can catch a glimpse of the water. He's not necessarily lying; he just wants to negotiate with your perception. I find it often hilarioius and at sometimes maddening, and once in a while, disappointing. But more often than not hilarious.
Yep. Good way to put it.
I think that is one of the best explanations of Trump I have seen.
I wish I had a nickel for every liberal who said “I’m leaving the country if X gets elected!” It’s just like the Democrats to make promises they never intend to keep.
Try explaining fascism to a liberal and you'll immediately see they conflate fascism with "ring wing" ideals. When they go the "But Hitler..." route, it's up to you to explain fascism is a sister to socialism.
That ring wing ideology means less government, more independence, freedom of speech (no matter how insulting it is), and private ownership, baffles them. It's all Trump wants.
Academics and those who fashion themselves intellectuals have generally embraced Leftist ideologies most specifically Marxism and they will like to frame their belief structure as Democratic Socialism. Jean-Francois Revel, author of "The Last Exit to Utopia," has written on these subjects and he found that the mind-set of Western Intellectuals who, living in democracies, found much to admire in gulag countries like the old Soviet Union, Cuba, and China and much to detest in free ones-like the USA. "Why was that?" he asked.
"The Totalitarian phenomenon," he observed, "is not to be understood without making an allowance for the thesis that some important part of every society consists of people who actively want tyranny: either to exercise it themselves or-much more mysteriously-to submit to it."
Here we have, but one example and one of that many of us recognize. Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.
How true. It's hard for the self-sufficient to understand anyone who easily relinquishes personal freedoms to the state.
Those who depend on the state will always be willing to submit to the state. Academics and intellectuals along with so-called experts tend to be creatures of the state and without government to mooch from they likely would have to compete and many would fail miserably.
Hitler may have been a fascist, but he was also a Democratic Socialist (otherwise known as communist). His definition. Not mine.
None of these people objected to Covid tyranny or the censorship industrial complex
Woke Radical Marxist hive minds in ivy league universities have lost touch with main stream working class American families which are still the backbone of the USA despite the efforts of the left. Woke Radical Marxist hive minds in ivy league universities are the threat to working class American families not Trump. Let these clueless out of touch clowns move to Canada and good riddance.
Canada must pay for harboring US draft dodgers......
When they say "indisputable", we should dispute.
The rising in Boston was about slavery? How many slaves were there in Boston? Stealing land? The Amerindians were destroyed by smallpox and measles, creating a population vacuum. If Eurasian diseases had not been brought in from the East, they would have been brought in from the West. Would a second Chinese Empire, this one in America, have been better than what we now have? Conquest has, until recently, been historically normal. The Bantus did it in the southern half of Africa. The Amerindians, far from living in harmony, routinely attacked each and inflicted horrible atrocities. The Comanches ran a slave empire in the Great Plains. (Ask the Apaches.) Islam spread by conquest. India has repeatedly been conquered from the NW. The western steppes have repeatedly been conquered by steppe nomads from the East. The Vietnamese, with eyes built to resist glare from snow, cannot possibly be native to Vietnam. And so it goes.
The world-view of Lefties is nothing but a cartoon, fit only for intellectual children.
“All of their best-laid plans for utopia were upended by a citizenry with no other option but to vote them out. That’s not fascism. That’s democracy.” Hear, hear!
I have fought a long-running online battle against that fascism is something limited to the "right", which I take as meaning "conservative". However, conservative to most people means old-fashioned, status quo, orthodox. These are words that do not conjure up the idea of radicalism or revolution but just the opposite: peacefulness and tolerance. The word "fascism" means to change the status quo to a totalitarian, intolerant regime and is most often accompanied by communism. The person who named fascism was Benito Mussolini and his "fascista" party from the Italian / Latin word "fasces" which means power and authority. Modern dictionary definitions always call the idea "far right". But Mussolini was a Marxist. Marxism is considered "far left" today. So those who are in a position to author dictionaries have subverted the word fascism for their own political bias.
I’ve read that Franco more closely met the definition of Fascist than Mussolini or Hitler
The definition of fascist comes from the person who created the term, Mussolini. Liberal historians have later appropriated the term as a slander against other leaders they don't like. It can be debated if Franco was right or left
Fascism is when people disagree with you ...
That's why one of the earlier Executive Orders signed by President Trump, ending government-directed censorship, is fascist, because it provides outlets for those who disagree with us.
And men can get pregnant too...
Not really the definition, but ok
A quick note on the three "experts": Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder have each given THOUSANDS of dollars to the campaign of Kamala Harris. Sounds like they've both got a case of sour grapes that their candidate didn't win despite their huge donations. Oh, and that Marci Shore? She's married to Timothy Snyder. Either the NYT didn't reveal these caveats or they intentionally didn't mention them. Is it any wonder that no one trusts the Legacy Media anymore? Turns out ropes and trees weren't needed - the "journalists" wound up hanging themselves.
Great point. I guess that's how they all become multi-millionaires on a government salary...
Fascism is just one of the names that totalitarians go by. The communist version and the fascist version are competitors for power and like to call each other names.
I somewhat disagree. Mussolini was a communist who didn't like the other communist leaders in Italy and so formed his own "fascista" party. But he was still promoting communist ideas as he took Italy into the NAZI axis
Mussolini was a leader in the socialist party who broke with them over the question of whether Italy should participate in WW1. He wanted to fight and collect the spoils. So a national socialist long before Hitler pirated the term. Then when Italy got stiffed by Britain and France, he rode the grievance to power. He was no anti-Semite though and protected Italy's Jews as long as he was an independent player. Fascism, as implemented by Mussolini, differed from Communism in that the state didn't own the means of production but controlled them through industrial councils. Hitler adopted this approach but in a less formal way. He always honored Mussolini as the founder until Italian dysfunction got too bad to ignore.
Great! Thank you for the added detail. Interesting the point on ownership of production. Yes, Karl Marx promoted the idea of state control of production. The USSR proved that pretty unworkable. Hitler (and Mussolini) let the former aristocrat class continue to own and run production, but under firm state control. The USSR evolved from Lenin, through Stalin and later directors to more of an oligarchy that accomplished the same thing. The Soviet oligarchs are really no different in their roles than the factory owners of WW2 Germany and Italy
They were much more independent during the Yeltsin years but Putin brought them to heel and now it is as you say.
They are totalitarian for sure but I am not sure you can categorize them as Right in Western terms. Similar to the Chinese. CCP began as a heresy of communism but now it seems like the early Ming dynasty. Or the Yuan dynasty, if you are really paranoid. Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Burma and Indonesia may see it that way.
CCP has actually created a fascist country. If Leftists are looking for true fascism, Xi Jinping is the one.
Tim Fucking Snyder. I went to high school with this cocksucker. Arrogant rich kid despised by everyone whose family worked for a living. Good to see this piece of shit lying bastard has aged in dog years since then. Fuck you, Timmy, you lying sack of shit.
He wasn’t this bad back in school we weren’t friends but we were on the debate team together and got along.
Then he went all in on TDS Substack with the whole 1000% crazy “I’m a scholar of fascism and I’m here to warn you” nonsense and the inevitable “I’m fleeing to Canada to avoid persecution” nonsense piled on top of it. Anyone saying that crap is either ignorant or just begging for attention, and as an expert on Fascism he can’t claim ignorance and get away with it.
When you’re good, you’re good. Well done Sasha. Safe travels:)