History

The Banality of Evil, A.D. 2026

/ greenpete58 / 12 Comments

This Constitution…can only end in despotism…when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other – Benjamin Franklin

“Banality of evil.” It is a phrase frequently voiced today. What does it mean?

The phrase is from the subtitle of a book by a historian and political theorist named Hannah Arendt. The full title of her book is Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). It deals with the trial of a major organizer of the Holocaust. Arendt herself had fled Nazi Germany in 1933, not long after being imprisoned by the Gestapo.

I haven’t read the book, though I’ve long known who Adolph Eichmann is. I’m certain Arendt’s book is an excellent study. Maybe I’ll read it, but I’m worried about disturbing details beyond what I already know.

But the book subtitle has new meaning today, when truth, justice, and human decency have become unfashionable for many in the United States. They are unfashionable with power-obsessed leaders who confuse cruelty with strength, a hallmark of fascism; and also, in a country struggling with its dying pseudo-democracy, with voters whose all-consuming ideologies now smother everything else.

We all know what evil looks like. We just saw it in effervescent glory in Minneapolis, postscripted by a chilling, cold-blooded response from Washington. Earlier, we saw it in a neo-Nazi-infested Charlottesville, with its horrifying response from the Oval Office (“There are good people on both sides,” he cackled. “My…God,” a very different president later exclaimed in response, in disgust.) We also see it in Supreme Court decisions that permit votes to be discarded that would otherwise sway a national election; that label unlimited corporate campaign donations a form of “free speech”; that obliterate voting rights to favor one political party; and that allow discrimination of employees for “religious” reasons.

We witness evil, on a daily basis now, spilling from the grotesque, mocking mouth of an intellectually vapid, morally vacant tyrant, the horrifying likes of which few societies have ever seen.

And, of course, with a Congress filled with spineless bobbleheads who will cling to power at all costs. Never mind how much suffering they inflict, or how many creative ways they can poison our few shreds of democracy.

So we all understand evil, even if most of us only view it from a distance. But why is evil “banal”?

When I hear that word, I always think of my university creative writing professor, Daniel Keyes (author of Flowers for Algernon). He often warned us against falling victim to banal passages in our stories. “Banal” means commonplace or clichéd. Unoriginal to the point of being trite or hackneyed. Banality is a common pitfall for writers. This essay probably has its share.

Hannah Arendt wanted to make the point that the evil of Eichmann and other Nazis – murdering millions of people based on their birth circumstances – wasn’t precipitated by madness, or even ideological fanaticism. She says it was the ghastly end point of average people whose minds had been conditioned to do what society expected of them. She says Eichmann, like many “average” people, suffered from a “lack of imagination” and an “inability to think.”

By the time of the death camps, National Socialist Germany had become saturated with anti-Semitism, and disappearing “the other” was acceptable as a method of (supposedly) cleansing society. Warped Third Reich principles had been scorched into people’s brains. Therefore, killing Jews (and other perceived threats to the prevailing society) was “no big deal.” Eichmann and others were merely carrying out their mundane duties…then clocking out after an exhausting day of fulfilling the expectations of their employer (i.e. Hitler, and ultimately, society).

The evil behind the violence and mass murder was commonplace. Normalized. Banal.

A while back I mentioned I’m a member of several volunteer organizations trying to fight what Trump and the Republican Party are doing to America. Every day I receive, at minimum, a half-dozen emails alerting me to some new awful legislation, or unfathomable Supreme Court decision, or some new nonsense His Royal Lowness just blurted:

President believes he knows more than scientists, calls climate crisis a “con job”; Supreme Court eviscerates last barrier to race-based electoral redistricting; Trump and GOP request yet more money for ICE and Border Patrol; more public broadcasting stations shut down due to government defunding; Trump weaponizes Department of Justice to indict Southern Poverty Law Center; Big Oil immunity legislation; Trump purges National Science Board; cancer research funding gutted by Trump Administration; Trump tells Pentagon to prepare for Cuba attack; Hegseth quoted as saying “no quarter, no mercy for (Iranian) enemies”; CBS caves in to Trump; late-night comedian faces firing over Trump joke; president indicts FBI director over Facebook photo; book banning in U.S. at all-time high; warrantless surveillance of Americans; Republicans discuss plans to slash Social Security; Trump spews obscenity, mocks Islam, shrugs shoulders over deaths; constitutionally protected birth citizenship now threatened; warehouses now being converted into inhumane “detention centers”; Trump builds another monument to himself; president compares himself to Jesus…

My wife doesn’t receive these email alerts. Legislation is tedious and news is, today, invariably depressing. I fully agree. So while I daily sign one petition after another, and write WordPress articles about how my nation has embraced fascism, and debate whether or not we should make yet another donation to a worthy cause, she laughs over funny animal videos on YouTube, and the low-IQ woman who was courted by a scammer who posed as fucking Elon Musk.

One or two outrages, once in a while, and people jolt upright and scream figurative or literal obscenities, then demand justice. But daily, over many years?

The blitzkrieg of fascism becomes commonplace. It becomes normalized. Truth, justice, and human decency fall out of fashion because people get weary and incessant evil is no longer quite as shocking. The evil – a dose here and a dollop there – has become banal. Just another clock punch at the goddamn office.

But all this raises a good question: if evil becomes so banal that it is tolerated by “We the People” – average people, with an inability to think (or unwillingness, including a news media that has lost its way and looks the other way) – are we complicit?

To echo Benjamin Franklin, I fear the U.S. has now become so corrupted that it is incapable of anything but despotic government.

The Frightening Slide Toward U.S. Media Control

/ greenpete58 / 17 Comments

On March 25, 1933, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels announced that the recently established Ministry of Propaganda would serve as a tool to encourage the “spiritual mobilization” of German citizens. Essentially, it would henceforth control content in both the press and arts.

What transpired was that anything critical of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, or that deviated from Nazi philosophy, would be silenced. Only news, books, articles, plays, paintings, and music that exalted Third Reich nationalism would be permitted. Some 200,000 books proceeded to spread anti-Semitism, eugenics, and German nationalism, and censored or altered any ideas that conflicted with Nazi principles. The propaganda extended to children’s books. Book burnings, bans, censorship, and complete control over the news became standard. And, of course, punishment and death awaited violators.

Now some parallels. According to Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America, which promotes freedom of literary expression in the U.S., “(A) disturbing ‘everyday banning’ and normalization of censorship has worsened and spread (in America since 2021). The result is unprecedented.” She said during the 2024-25 school year alone, there were 6,870 instances of book bans, with the states of Florida and Texas leading the onslaught.

Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide. Never before have so many politicians sought to bully school leaders into censoring according to their ideological preferences, even threatening public funding to exact compliance. Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from so many children – PEN America report, October 2025

People have the right to engage in vigorous discussions over the qualitative value of books being published today. But do they – school boards, libraries, politicians, crusading ideologues, and angry parents – have the right to deprive others of freedom of choice? And while usually associated with right-wing groups, censorship in the form of political correctness also occurs on the left.

Frightening enough, but that’s just literature. There’s also mass media. In 2013, Amazon kingpin Jeff Bezos purchased the historic and respected newspaper, The Washington Post. (For younger readers, this is the newspaper that covered the Watergate break-in and subsequent scandal, which brought down President Richard Nixon.) Since then, Bezos – who cultivates personal and professional ties to Donald Dump – cut one-third of the Post‘s staff and shifted opinion editorials strongly rightward (e.g. paper op-eds have supported Dump’s government cutbacks yet also supported his hawkish military expenditures, and has defended tax cuts for filthy rich people like Dump and Bezos himself). Bezos also forbade the paper from endorsing Kamala Harris in 2024.

(Imagine if, instead of Katharine Graham, a White House yes-man like Bezos had owned the Post in 1972-74. But he was still sucking his mommy’s titty.)

Similarly, in 2018, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong bought another respected newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, and proceeded to force the staff to cancel its endorsement of Harris. Most of the paper’s editorial staff quit in disgust.

And just recently, this from MoveOn.org:

Trump and his allies have paved the way for Paramount’s $111 billion deal to take over Warner Brothers, which owns CNN. David Ellison, head of Paramount, told the Trump admin that he’ll bring “sweeping changes” to CNN, a frequent target of Trump’s anti-media vitriol. (U.S. Secretary of Endless War) Pete Hegseth sneered at CNN’s coverage of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran recently, calling it ‘fake news’ and saying, “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”

And there are many other less high-profile examples of news outlets capitulating to the Dump White House.

The educated and intelligent American choice: Kamala Harris

What’s happening here? It’s pretty obvious. In the obsessively capitalist United States, unlike in Nazi Germany, a wealthy, right-wing president doesn’t need a federal Ministry of Propaganda to censor news that might be critical of him, or to gag his political opponents, or to puff him up, or to determine which books are appropriate for people to read. In 2026 America, he has local and state governments and his sleazy billionaire chums to do that for him! (This in addition to enjoying the support of certain fascistic 24-hour cable news networks and similar conservative propaganda outlets, not to mention an idiocracy of voters.)

We’ve seen one nausea-inducing maneuver after another by an egomaniacal clown and his GOP cowards during their second gut-wrenching moment in history’s spotlight. In a healthy society (unlike 21st-century America), starting an unconscionable and unconstitutional war would alone be enough to destroy a presidency.

But mass media control (along with election malfeasance) may be even more sinister than presidents who start illegal wars. The effects are far-reaching and long-term. Government control of media, including by proxy, can permit illegal wars to happen, then be publicly whitewashed, then occur again, because the citizenry is essentially blinded…or forced to wear rose-colored glasses. I majored in journalism, so a free and independent “fourth estate” is very important to me. It was drilled into me by my professors. I’m not sure how many others recognize the importance. Sadly, I’m not sure how many in these unenlightened days are even able to distinguish real news from corrosive propaganda.

Democracy does, indeed, die in darkness, as the Washington Post‘s slogan reminds us. A free and independent press provides the illumination. Once extinguished, a country is like a ship without a rudder, drifting aimlessly like the Flying Dutchman. George Orwell and Ray Bradbury both warned about this. Once speech is curtailed and controlled – for political, ideological, or religious reasons – it could take generations for anything even resembling democracy to return.

And speaking of Orwell and Bradbury, I wonder how they’re faring down in red-states Florida and Texas. I’m almost afraid to find out.

The White Rose

/ greenpete58 / 9 Comments

Last November we returned to the U.S. after briefly living in Spain, and I promised myself I’d do what little I can to help “rescue” my beleaguered country. To that end, I’ve volunteered with several groups.

While protests, petitions, phone calls and donations are all good, the only true progress comes at the polls. But with Republicans now controlling all three branches of government, and most of them cowardly and slavishly crawling on their knees before an unethical authoritarian figure (to put it nicely) – and the Democratic Party more clueless than the Cleveland Browns during playoff season – even election fairness is in jeopardy. Not to mention, even with a fair election, American voters have proven they can’t be trusted to make intelligent decisions.

My consolation is that – whatever the fuck happens – at least my grandkids will know that their “stinky old man” actively fought against this American shitfest.

And I hate to keep harping on 1920s-40s Germany. Today (notwithstanding efforts by certain alt-right groups…cockroaches are indestructible), Germany is one of the most enlightened and liberal countries in the world.

But its history offers many lessons, and the parallels to America’s present plight are just too stark. And getting back to fighting the good fight…there was a group of volunteers in Germany in the 1940s who literally devoted their lives to ending Nazi-style fascism: the White Rose.

Contrary to many perceptions, there existed resistance movements within Germany during the height of Nazism. The Kreisau Circle, led by a lawyer and nobleman, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, contained members with widely different political views but who all opposed Hitler and were “democratic, anti-racist, and internationalist” (Wikipedia).  The Red Orchestra (no association with Soviet red) was the name given to a network of resistance groups and individuals who tried to incite civil disobedience against the Nazis. And many already know about the failed insider plot to assassinate Hitler by army officer Claus von Stauffenberg and others.

But the most poignant anti-Hitler, anti-Nazi organization is die Weise Rose (the “White Rose”).

This was a group of approximately 50 young persons from Munich and Hamburg. The core members were five University of Munich (LMI Munich) students and one instructor: siblings Helmut and Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst, Willi Graf, Alexander Schmorell, and professor Kurt Huber. They founded their resistance group on June 27, 1942 to denounce Hitler and the Nazis, using leaflets and grafitti to incite other Germans into resistance. They distributed six leaflets in total, the second of which (late 1942) condemned the mass murder of Jews.

Top: Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Kurt Huber
Bottom: Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf

Since the conquest of Poland, 300,000 Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way…The German people slumber on in dull, stupid sleep and encourage the fascist criminals – from second White Rose leaflet

Thousands of copies of the leaflets were produced on hand-operated duplicating machines then distributed throughout German cities. Rather than targeting the working class, the group concentrated on the intelligentsia (which Hitler, of course, hated), whom it believed were more receptive to its message. They used quotes taken from Goethe, Aristotle, and the Bible, among other sources.

The White Rose lasted a mere eight months. On February 18, 1943, while the Scholls distributed leaflets at LMI Munich, a maintenance man alerted the Gestapo. Both brother and sister were arrested. Probst was later arrested. The threesome received a show trial – a Sondergericht – with Sophie, on numerous occasions, defiantly challenging judge Roland Freisler, a slavish Nazi. All three were quickly found guilty of treason, sentenced to death, and guillotined. Graf, Schmorell, and Huber were executed after a later trial, with Graf being tortured before his death. (He refused to name names.) At least 18 other White Rose members were later imprisoned.

The sixth and final White Rose pamphlet was smuggled outside Germany by Kreisau Circle leader von Moltke. It reached the attention of Winston Churchill, who reproduced thousands of them and had Allied planes drop them over Germany in the summer and fall of 1943.

Ultimately, the White Rose and other German resistance groups did not accomplish much. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels went into Big Lie overdrive, and too many Germans, by 1943, had been brainwashed by Nazi propaganda and hollow slogans like “make Germany great again.”

Roland Freisler. Over a period of three years, his People’s Court ordered over 5,000 executions

But today the White Rose is well-known and well-regarded amongst Germans. There are memorials to this courageous group throughout the country, as well as in Paris.

Not all remembrances are noble. In 2021, a repugnant conspiracy-theory group appropriated the name “White Rose” to distribute propaganda and lies about COVID-19. Their cloud-based, IM channel also spreads anti-Semitic propaganda and theories about New World Orders.

But I’ll close on a different note:

(The White Rose) is possibly the most spectacular moment of resistance that I can think of in the twentieth century…The fact that five little kids, in the mouth of the wolf, where it really counted, had the tremendous courage to do what they did, is spectacular to me. I know that the world is better for them having been there, but I do not know why – playwright and director Lillian Garrett-Groag, 1993

Here are links to U.S. pro-democracy groups I belong to (plus one environmental group) for anyone wishing to help defy the U.S. wolf:

https://front.moveon.org

https://indivisible.org

https://www.aclu.org

https://www.sierraclub.org

Is America Truly Fascist or Am I Henny Penny?

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The word fascism is bandied about a lot these black days, and not only on longitudes. But what exactly is fascism? And how can one recognize it?

Some history: the National Fascist Party began in Italy under Benito Mussolini (“Il Duce”) in 1922. It later was called the Republican Fascist Party. It dissolved at the end of WWII, for obvious reasons. The party was characterized by extreme conservatism, nationalism, totalitarianism, and corporate economics. Its proponents believed that men and women have separate, traditional roles, and homosexuality is a social disease. They were strongly Christian (Catholic flavor) and strongly anti-Semitic.

Conservatism, traditional roles, corporate economics, anti-gay, strongly Christian…some whiffs of similarity to the U.S. Republican Party, perhaps?

Since the Italian political party’s dissolution, fascism as a philosophy has persisted and surfaced in various countries around the world. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines fascism as this:

“A political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”

Il Duce and The Douchebag. The arrogant poses are uncannily similar. Among other similarities.

But while all the above is certainly valid, when exactly does a country (like, for example, the United States) slip from liberal democracy and into fascism territory? Might longitudes and others be echoing Henny Penny (aka “Chicken Little”) with unfounded cries of “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”?

A few essays ago I mentioned secular humanist Lawrence W. Britt‘s popular article “Fascism, Anyone?” It was published in Free Inquiry magazine soon after Bush-Cheney convinced a dazed, post-911 U.S. Congress to invade the country of Iraq with an infamous lie about “weapons of mass destruction.” Britt compared the regimes of seven leaders – Mussolini, Hitler, Franco (Spain), Salazar (Portugal), Papadopolous (Greece), Suharto (Indonesia) and Pinochet (Chile) – all right-wing conservative, like Trump – and discovered 14 areas of fascist commonality between all seven.

In bold below are the 14 areas of commonality between the seven…okay, I’ll quit the circumspection…eight:

  1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism (MAGA, bombastic threats against Canada, Greenland, and other vulnerable countries/territories)
  2. Disdain for the importance of human rights (ICE terrorism, violations of due process, anti-LGBTQ rights)
  3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause [hate speech, insults, unfounded accusations, and federal policies targeting practically every demographic other than white, male, heterosexual, conservative Americans (the largest voting bloc)]
  4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism (unconstitutional Executive-branch acts of war, threats of invasions)
  5. Rampant sexism (“Grab her by the pussy”…for starters)
  6. A controlled mass media (authoritarian threats and pressures against FCC, ABC, CBS, Meta, Washington Post to silence critics, free speech violations, journalist arrests, lawsuits against any media outlet deemed a critic)
  7. Obsession with national security (rejection of international law)
  8. Religion and ruling elite tied together (White House prayer meetings, pedophile faith advisors)
  9. Power of corporations protected (Big Oil and coal industry mollycoddling…for starters)
  10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated (ending collective bargaining rights of federal employees, gutting benefits for working families)
  11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts (Kennedy Center and university takeovers by conservatives)
  12. Obsession with crime and punishment (executive orders criminalizing the homeless, National Guard deployment against non-violent protesters)
  13. Rampant cronyism and corruption (Epstein, Musk, Trump himself, Fiore, Santos, Bannon, Navarro, Trump himself, clemency to violent insurrectionists, Trump family crypto cash-ins…the list is endless)
  14. Fraudulent elections (???)

Unless one has been living in a Patagonian cave for the last 10 years, or regularly sniffing airplane glue, it is not hard to recognize how enthusiastically Donald Trump and his Republican Party have exhibited the above characteristics of fascism…so I won’t belabor examples far beyond what’s merely inside the parentheses. My stomach is tied in enough knots as it is.

In longitudes‘ opinion, America’s one last hope before the sky hits the ground with a thud might be point number 14. There is, as of yet…and as far as this blog is aware…no evidence of any serious election malfeasance in election years 2016 through  2024. But voter suppression by Republicans and claims of fraudulence? Is J.D. Vance an Ohio hillbilly?

America’s big problem, however, is the quality of its voters. Even America’s founders wrestled with the idea that a country’s democracy is only as good as the citizens which make up that democracy. Constitutions and laws are devised by humans, and they can easily be violated by humans. And, sadly, they have been.

Information, which the U.S. seems to regularly overdose on, does not equate with knowledge, the absence of which is like a sailor being deprived of vitamin C. And the U.S. now has its gums bleeding and its teeth falling out. Britt himself, at the end of his article – and somewhat sardonically – cited the importance of “a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils.” Americans, indeed, are well-informed. The trouble is, their info is derived from their own echo chambers. And the chamber on the right emits poisonous gas. (This isn’t to excuse the echo chamber on the left).

After Trump’s recent State of the Dis-Union address rant – which, by the way, I didn’t subject myself to – a Facebook friend of my wife’s posted something, in total seriousness, along the lines of Trump being an absolutely perfect leader. Perfect if you love fascism, maybe. Obviously, this airplane glue sniffer was hoping for a reaction. My wife gave it to him.

Facebook and other social mediums abound with such nonsense. Back in the pre-fascist, pre-internet days of newspaper letters to the editor – when people had to write, which required thinking – ideology-obsessed automotons like Trump cultists certainly existed, but they were relegated to the shadows. But the Old Guard is gone. Fascism doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it is cultivated and takes time to grow. The GOP’s decades-long move to the extreme right has produced the monstrous fruit we see now, and the onetime fringe is now the mainstream. Do humans have to periodically shit on themselves before they finally say “Oops”?

I guess so.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty – John Adams

Fascism For Beginners, Part 4: American Ambivalence (Repost)

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(This is the closing essay in a series on fascism I originally wrote in 2017, not long after the start of the first Trump regime. I’m reproducing it here with a few edits. I drew heavily on William Shirer’s massive study, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich…especially the “rise” part.)

The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble…Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. – Adolf Hitler, from “Mein Kampf” (1925)

This is the last post in my series on fascism, specifically the German “Third Reich.” If you dropped in for the first time, you might want to start with the first post. What I’m trying to do here is understand how and why people expressed enthusiasm for Nazism, or were lulled into indifference, both inside and outside of Germany. A few of the reasons I’ve uncovered include post-World War I fatigue, the Great Depression, German Sonderweg, pre-existing anti-Semitism, and Adolf Hitler’s uncanny ability to practically hypnotize people with oratory and lies. The countries I’ve discussed (very briefly) include Germany, Russia, France, and England.

I’d now like to discuss my home country, America.

It’s true that America joined England, France, and, reluctantly, the Soviets in defeating the Nazis and liberating the concentration camps. And we did so, amazingly, while simultaneously waging a war with Japan. My beautiful mother-in-law likes to say (over and over), “If it wasn’t for our boys in that war, we’d all be speaking German.”

But as satisfying as it is to wave the flag, especially when we’ve emerged as victors, the buildup to war with Germany was more complicated.

***

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April 1945, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said “In FDR there died the greatest American friend we have ever known.”

The “Big Three” (Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill) at Tehran Conference in 1943. In addition to being allies, Roosevelt and Churchill were also good friends. Stalin… not so much.

Unlike his boss Woodrow Wilson during the First World War, Roosevelt was committed to assisting England from the moment it was attacked by Germany in 1940 (and even before). In 1937, he proposed quarantining warmongering countries like Germany and Italy. After Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, he extended military aid to Britain and France. And prior to the war’s end, he demanded unconditional surrender from Germany rather than armistice.

Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which changed everything, Roosevelt’s great hurdle in assisting the Allies and bringing down Hitler was an isolationist sentiment that pervaded America. American citizens feared the bloodshed that they’d witnessed in the First World War. Additionally, wealthy capitalists feared communism, and viewed Hitler as a check against its spread. And, just as in Germany, there was an incessant paranoia (and, undoubtedly, envy) about consolidation of power by successful Jews.

The list that follows is just a smattering of groups and individuals that either unwittingly or actively tried to prevent America from assisting the European democracies in putting an end to Hitler and the Third Reich:

Henry Ford: From 1920-22, automobile entrepreneur Ford, one of the most powerful men in America, published an anti-Semitic set of booklets and pamphlets entitled “The International Jew,” warning of an increasing “Jewish menace.” His work caught the notice of a young Hitler.

Ford earned the dubious distinction of being the only American mentioned in Hitler’s 1925 blueprint for Nazism, “Mein Kampf.” And much later, SS chief Heinrich Himmler cited Ford as being “one of our most valuable, important, and witty fighters.” (Ed: fighting for what? Racism? Brutality against anyone considered weak?)

Henry Ford, dressed to the nines, accepting his gaudy Order of the German Eagle award, on his 75th birthday in 1936, the height of Nazism.

U.S. Congress: Even after Germany’s repeated violations of the Treaty of Versailles, politicians from both parties adhered to a policy of non-intervention. Congress passed three Neutrality Acts, from 1935 to 1937, to maintain American isolationism. This was all in the face of Mussolini invading northern Africa, General Francisco Franco and the Falangists (similar to Italy’s Fascisti) revolting against the republican Spanish government, and Hitler’s invasion of the Rhineland.

Charles Lindbergh: Americans adored the aviation hero. He flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean in the “Spirit of St. Louis,” and Americans suffered with him after his young son was murdered.

But Lindbergh possibly exceeded even Ford in both anti-Jewish and pro-Nazi activities. As a member of the isolationist America First Committee, he lobbied against U.S. intervention in Europe and openly defended Hitler’s military aggressions. In one infamous America First speech (60 years to the day before the Twin Towers fell), Lindbergh lectured Jewish groups in America, advising them that U.S. military intervention against Hitler would only hurt European Jews.

Some choice Lindbergh quotes:

(The) greatest danger to this country lies in (Jewish) large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.

(Three groups are) pressing this country toward war: the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration.

We can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood.

Hitler’s destruction would lay Europe open to the rape, loot, and barbarism of Soviet Russia’s forces, causing possibly the fatal wounding of western civilization.

Charles Lindbergh, pushing for non-intervention at an America First Committee rally. Roosevelt was quoted as saying “I am convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi.” (Imagine Trump saying something like this.) After FDR tagged Lindbergh as being a “defeatist and appeaser,” Lindbergh resigned from the U.S. Army Air Forces.

Lindbergh was a staunch believer in eugenics, and after the war, he fathered seven children by several mistresses to prove it. Like Ford, he received the Order of the German Eagle by the Nazi government. He accepted it from Hermann Goering at a dinner in October 1938. Several weeks later occurred Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), the first anti-Jewish pogrom, carried out by Nazi SA troops and German citizens. Even after this, Lindbergh declined to return his award.

Breckinridge Long: Long was assistant secretary of state under Roosevelt. He directed anti-immigrant efforts that effectively barred Jews and others from attaining asylum in the states following their well-publicized persecution in Germany. As late as 1943, when the U.S. government had documented evidence of German atrocities against Jews, Long gave secret testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that attempted to stifle revisions to harsh immigration policies.

(Maybe the most infamous example of indifference to the Jewish plight occurred in 1938, when the passenger ship St. Louis, loaded with over 900 Jews fleeing Europe, was refused entry at every American port. The ship eventually returned to Europe and unloaded these unfortunate exiles at Antwerp, Belgium… which shortly thereafter was enveloped in a swarm of cockroaches wearing jackboots and swastikas).

Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.: The patriarch of the Kennedy family, Joe Sr. amassed a fortune importing Scotch whisky, transacting real estate, merging film studios, and through insider trading on Wall Street. During his Hollywood tenure, he had a three-year affair with silent film star Gloria Swanson.

In 1938, he was appointed U.S. ambassador to Britain by President Roosevelt, an old friend. He must have made Roosevelt chew off his cigarette holder, because his sails definitely lacked the tack of Jack. He was right there with Neville Chamberlain during the Munich appeasement (see previous post). Then he tried to arrange a clandestine meeting with Hitler, about the same time as Kristallnacht. He argued against military aid to England, famously saying that “democracy is finished” there. He also bragged that he knew “more about the European situation than anyone else.”

Kennedy’s biographers cite numerous examples of his anti-Semitism, some of it confirmed in letters between Kennedy and his friend, Charles Lindbergh. After Roosevelt secured the Catholic vote and was re-elected in 1940, he fired Kennedy. (Imagine Trump firing a fellow incompetent racist.) Joe Sr. spent the rest of his life directing his energies toward his sons.

Arch-appeaser and British Ambassador, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.

American Capitalists: Monetary greed is a characteristic of right-wing politics, and Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg aren’t the first corporate titans to align themselves with an extremist leader. As I hinted above, certain American heads of industries were more concerned about Communists than Germans in the 1930s and early ’40s. They ran powerful businesses, and weren’t about to see their successes jeopardized by a “Red Menace,” which they felt a far right fascist like Hitler could help suppress.

But there was an even darker side. Many of these corporations did significant business in Hitler’s Germany. Ford Motor Company’s German branch, Ford-Werke, used French POWs as slave labor prior to the U.S. entering the war. Here are some others who nurtured a close relationship with the National Socialists:

James D. Mooney (President of General Motors Overseas): in 1938, Mooney received the Order of the German Eagle. In 1939 he met Nazi officials to discuss GM’s Adam-Opel facility in Germany. He arranged for a meeting between a Goering employee, one Helmut Wohlthat, and Joseph Kennedy, regarding exchanging loans for more open trading possibilities. Mooney resigned from GM after several leading American publications accused him of Nazi sympathies.

Thomas J. Watson Sr. (Chairman and CEO of IBM): in a book called “IBM and the Holocaust,” author Edwin Black argues that Watson willfully ignored Nazi persecution of Jews in a quest for profit. IBM manufactured a punch-card machine that was used by Nazis to tabulate and track Jews in Germany, and later to track inmates within the concentration camps. Watson’s IBM began its business relationship with the Nazis in 1933, the year the party consolidated its power (and established the first concentration camp, at Dachau). Nazi Germany soon became IBM’s biggest customer, right behind the U.S. In 1937, Watson attended an International Chamber of Commerce meeting in Berlin, where he accepted the Order of the German Eagle.

IBM founder, Thomas J. Watson Sr.

Torkild Rieber (Chairman of Texaco): Rieber illegally lent Texaco oil to Francisco Franco after Franco’s fascist uprising in Spain. He also traded oil with Nazi Germany for tankers. In June 1937, President Roosevelt met with him and threatened him with an oil embargo (imagine Trump threatening an oilman like this), but Rieber continued to do business with Germany in secret. After the start of the war, and despite a British embargo, Rieber arranged for Columbian oil to be shipped to the Nazis.

The day after France surrendered to Germany, on June 26, 1940, senior executives from Ford, GM, ITT, Texaco, and typewriter pioneer Underwood – including Rieber and Mooney – met with a German businessman and agent named Westrick at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City for a celebratory dinner.

 ***

Question: Before accepting their precious Order of the German Vulture awards, didn’t these obsessive capitalists bother to read Mein Kampf, written in 1925, which practically laid out everything Hitler and the National Socialists would do in the next 20 years, including extermination by poison gas? And if so, did they conveniently forget it while shaking hands with Hermann Goering?

Conclusion:

Trying to end this horror story appropriately is a struggle. It needs an apt moral, but it begs for someone better equipped than me to offer it. Just a few thoughts before this blog jumps back to 2026 America, and MAGA sloganeering, chest-thumping leaders, Big Lies, spin, nationalism, state-sponsored anti-immigration terrorism, murdering of protesters, invasions, voter indifference, etc, et al.

What happened in Europe from 1933 to 1945 was a horror unimaginable, and the millions who suffered and died deserve more than being a touchstone for today’s reprehensible politics. What happened there and then transcends politics. But while it shouldn’t be exploited, it should never be forgotten, either, and it serves as a dire warning to current events in America (and elsewhere). An understanding of history is extremely important. In my view, far too many people – including America’s current extremists in power – either lack that understanding, or have been corrupted beyond repair. At the risk of sounding like I’m lecturing, I’ll just offer this:

Whatever society, or whatever political persuasion, it’s important we not allow ideology – just as powerful as religion – to cloud our judgment, and that we elect good leaders who will nourish our humanity, not diminish it. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a book called Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The theme is that every human has the capacity within himself for both good and evil. Whether we submerge Hyde, or allow him to poke his head out occasionally… or strut around in broad daylight in full regalia… is up to us.

Sources:

“The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William L. Shirer

“American History: A Survey” by Alan Brinkley

“The Kennedy’s at War: 1937-1945” by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

http://www.wikipedia.com

Fascism for Beginners, Part 3: Torpor (Repost)

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[This is the third of a four-part series on fascism and the William Shirer book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I originally wrote it in 2017, not long after the start of the first Trump regime, but I added two paragraphs (italicized) referencing 2026 events.]

Our local public television station has been airing two excellent films lately, both related to fascist politics. One of them is the 1962 version of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, about American POWs hypnotized by Reds during the Korean War. There is much more to this brilliant movie, but if you haven’t already seen it, I won’t give things away.

The other is the 1961 film JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG. It is loosely based on fact, and it concerns the post-WWII trial of four German judges who, under the tent of Nazism, helped carry out a sterilization program and sentenced innocent people to death.

One of the judges is a rabid Nazi who shows no remorse. Two of the judges are weak and confused. But the fourth judge, “Ernst Janning,” is a tragic figure.

Highly intelligent, respected both inside and outside of Germany for his judicial knowledge, Janning is a man of great ideals who holds himself above his less enlightened peers. But during the Hitler years, he slowly and inexorably became corrupted. He despises what the Nazis did, but he also despises himself. He is tormented by the knowledge that, because of his actions, he’s turned his entire life into “excrement.”

The defense attorney wages an admirable but futile battle to exonerate Janning, a hero of his. At one point, American prosecutors show film footage of liberation of the concentration camps. (This is actual footage, and it’s not for the squeamish.) The defense attorney becomes so desperate, he tries to justify the judges’ actions by blaming other nations and individuals for Germany’s descent into barbarism.

***

Military hegemony and glorification are characteristics of fascist regimes. America’s recent invasion of Venezuela could very well be a taste test of further aggressions, and the megalomaniac in the White House has already – characteristically – dropped hints of further abuses of U.S. military power. Some shortsighted corners of the globe have even applauded the unilateral U.S. invasion of Venezuela, based on the fact that Nicolás Maduro was a repressive autocrat (though, as opposed to Trump, of a left rather than right-wing flavor).

While Trump’s human rights outrages (ICE terrorism, calling neo-Nazis “good people” after Charlottesville, his “Big Beautiful Bill” stripping healthcare for millions, executive orders that criminalize the homeless) may not yet approach the scale of Maduro’s, those who cheer him know not what they do. For, as with everything, there are precedents and consequences. Here, I’d like to discuss some accomplices to Nazi Germany’s military aggressions; they figure largely in William Shirer’s book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Joseph Stalin

Russia: In April 1945, the first troops to enter bombed-out Berlin were the Russians, hated by both Hitler and the Western democracies. (Joseph Stalin was as fascistic as Hitler or Mussolini, just a different political stripe.) Had not the Russians repelled German forces at Stalingrad in 1942-43 – maybe the bloodiest confrontation in the history of man – the war would have had a different outcome. But in August 1939, Hitler and Stalin had signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact. This treaty enabled the two dictatorships to mutually carve up Poland and Eastern Europe.

Stalin was as brutal, cunning, and power-obsessed as Hitler. He just didn’t share Hitler’s pathological theories on race. Stalin’s great mistake was that, like so many others, he trusted Hitler. But Hitler despised Communism almost as much as Judaism, and he ridiculed the Pact from the moment it was signed. Thus, it wasn’t surprising when, against his top generals’ advice, Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941. Stalin’s uncharacteristic coziness with Hitler during the Pact allowed the Germans to build their military and expand their territory for a period of two long years.

The result: hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, Jews, Bolsheviks, and resistance fighters in the East were ultimately rounded up and exterminated by Nazi Einsatzgruppen.

Nazi “Einsatzgruppen” executing a Ukrainian Jewish mother and her child (whom she’s clutching to her chest). This 1942 photo was never intended for distribution, but was somehow smuggled outside the Nazi sphere.

France: France had an opportunity to stop Hitler early on. On March 7, 1936, German forces illegally broke the 1925 Locarno Treaty and entered the demilitarized zone in the French Rhineland. Author Shirer was present when Hitler made the announcement to the German Reichstag, and recorded in his diary the disgusting scene that follows:

All the militarism in their German blood surges to their heads… Their hands are raised in slavish salute, their faces now contorted with hysteria, their mouths wide open, shouting, shouting, their eyes, burning with fanaticism, glued on the new god, the Messiah.

Had the French stood up to this blatant act of aggression, it would have rendered Hitler weak and unreliable in the eyes of Germans, and possibly shortened the reign of the Third Reich. In 1936, the German army was not the juggernaut it later became. Additionally, army Commander-in-Chief Werner von Blomberg had already decided on retreat in case of French countermeasures. But France had been devastated by the previous war and was “paralyzed by internal strife” and “sinking into defeatism.” Hitler’s military coup in the Rhineland set the stage for similar maneuvers in Austria and Czechoslovakia, and ultimately the invasion of Poland.

Neville Chamberlain

Great Britain: under the terms of the Locarno Treaty, Great Britain was obligated to assist France after Germany’s invasion of the Rhineland. Instead, it incomprehensibly believed Hitler when he assured the European democracies that he only desired peace, and that his actions weren’t hostile. Then, in 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain brokered with Hitler the Munich Agreement, which allowed Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia (this after allowing the Nazis to force an Anschluss and annex Austria, creating a “Greater (Nazi) Germany”).

Chamberlain’s continued appeasement of Hitler was greeted with huge approval by British citizens and Parliament, since it prevented outright war (although succeeding Prime Minister Winston Churchill remained highly critical). In reality, it merely delayed the inevitable, for it permitted Germany to strengthen its armed forces and opened the door for Hitler to invade Poland, which officially started World War II. Soon, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France also toppled to the Germans.

Many of those same British who applauded the Munich Agreement would soon be huddling in bomb shelters while the German Luftwaffe roared overhead.

***

There’s one other “accomplice” I’d like to talk about. But I’ll wait until the fourth and final installment of “Fascism for Beginners” to discuss my home country.

(Header image: detail from the “Hell Panel” from “Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymous Bosch)

Fascism for Beginners, Part 2: Feeding the Beast (Repost)

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(The steady stream of lies from the Trump administration continues, after more ICE terrorism in Minneapolis resulting in yet another murder. It’s quite clear by now that America has descended into fascism. In this four-part series repost, I examine William Shirer’s monumental history of Nazism, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. The parallels between Hitler and the National Socialists, and Trump and today’s Republicans, have only sharpened since 2017, when I first wrote this.)

On February 24, 1926, leading NSDAP (aka National Socialist, or Nazi) officials met in the town of Bamberg in southern Germany. Hitler attended. In the crowd sat a skinny young man with blazing eyes and a crippled leg named Joseph Goebbels.

The Bamberg conference would be a defining moment for Goebbels and the Nazis. Until now, the well-educated but impressionable Goebbels had supported a northern German Nazi leader named Gregor Strasser.

Strasser was a typical Nazi: nationalistic, militaristic, and racist. But he was strongly opposed to Hitler’s 25-point Program (see previous post), and he competed with Hitler for party leadership. At the Bamberg assembly, Hitler delivered a withering two-hour speech. Any opposition to his extremist program was quickly smothered.

After Bamberg, Goebbels, like an adoring schoolgirl – and like so many other Germans – began to fall under Hitler’s spell. He would eventually rise to become Nazi Minister of Propaganda, one of Hitler’s most trusted henchmen, and, next to Hitler, the person most responsible for bamboozling an entire country. Strasser would later be executed by Hitler.

Two days after this meeting, just 213 kilometers west of Bamberg, in the beautiful city of Frankfurt, a Jewish girl named Margot Frank was born. Exactly 19 years later she would die of starvation, exposure, and disease, along with her younger sister, Anne, in a concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen.

***

Historians and writers have been scratching their scalps for over 70 years over how a Western democracy, albeit a fragile one, could elect a dictatorship, then permit a bunch of misfits and sadists to start a global conflict, rape their nation, and commit the greatest act of genocide in history. There’s more than one reason, and they’re all very complex. But William Shirer discusses some of them in his book, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH. I lack the space to adequately cover them, but I’ll try to graze the surface:

Margot Frank. Like her sister, Margot kept a daily diary while her family was in hiding. It’s never been found.

Sonderweg: “Sonderweg” is a German word meaning “special path.” It’s a theory that German peoples’ values developed differently from other Western nations due to the nature of their leaders, as well as the writings and teachings of certain German philosophers and thinkers. Before WWII, historians looked at Sonderweg in a positive light. But after the war, they viewed it as having hindered development of liberal democracy, and helping give rise to fascism.

Shirer discusses Sonderweg and proposes that Nazism was a logical evolution of a national character that dates to Martin Luther in the 16th century. Luther is famous for his “Ninety-five Theses,” which broke from Roman Catholic dogma and helped initiate the Protestant Reformation. But Luther also openly hated Jews and advocated violence against them. His anti-Semitic writings, needless to say, were circulated widely in Nazi Germany.

Shirer cites a number of Germans after Luther whose beliefs (Shirer claims) contributed to a rising German nationalism and sense of Aryan superiority. Philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Georg Hegel, and composer and writer Richard Wagner are the most well-known. While these cultural giants undoubtedly influenced 20th-century German thought and attitude, Nazi propaganda skillfully selected only those ideas of theirs which helped promote its cause, then twisted them for its own purposes. For example, although Nietzsche is famous for his philosophy of the “Übermensch” (a superior human who creates new values in the absence of God), he also spoke out against anti-Semitism, and he didn’t intend his humanistic philosophies to imply Aryan racial or German national superiority.

But did many Germans in the Depression look beneath the surface of the Nazi propaganda?

The THIRD Reich: Hitler and Goebbels sold many incredible fictions to the country during their moment in history’s spotlight. One of them was that Nazi rule represented a third realm, following the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806) and German Empire (1871-1918), and it would last a thousand years. It lasted less than a baker’s dozen, but enough gullible Germans became convinced that Hitler followed a line of great rulers that began with Prussian King Frederick II (Frederick the Great), and continued with Otto von Bismarck.

Both Frederick and Bismarck have mixed legacies. They made Germany strong, but they did so through relentless militarism and imperialism. Additionally, Frederick marginalized Jews and despised the Poles, referring to them as “vile apes.”

Frederick II (Frederick the Great)

Hitler kept a miniature portrait of Frederick up through his final days cowering in his Berlin bunker.

Treaty of Versailles: Germany and Austria-Hungary were the aggressors in World War I. After it was defeated by the Allies in 1918, Germany was required to accept responsibility for starting the war, disarm its military, relinquish large tracts of territory, and pay reparations (the equivalent of $442 billion U.S. dollars today) under Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles. Many, including some in the Allied sphere, considered the penalties too harsh (although not the French, who suffered most during WWI).

Every political party in the Weimar Republic, from the liberal Social Democrats to the Catholic Centre Party to the conservative German National People’s Party, railed against the treaty, but none more so than conservatives, nationalists, and ex-military leaders. Many of them – especially the far-right National Socialists – found a convenient scapegoat in socialists, communists, and especially Jews, who had been successful as business leaders and were thought to have benefited from a weakened Germany.

Hitler was very skilled at gaining traction for his extremist ideas by appealing to Germans’ patriotism and racial heritage and demonizing “the other.” Hitler knew that once you can convince enough people of a shared enemy, and create an impression that this enemy is sub-human and has devious motives… it’s extremely easy to get people behind you. Hitler’s most fanatical adherents were young people who could be easily indoctrinated (“Hitler Youth”), and the lower educated, who could be easily duped. Although the Nazis took the tactics of demonization to unparalleled lengths, such behavior has been exhibited over and over throughout history by people in power seeking political gain. The strong preying upon the weak. It happens in dictatorships, as well as democratic republics… including the U.S.

But I digress.

Once the Jews, Bolsheviks, and intellectuals could be purged from Germany, Hitler argued, “Der Vaterland” would be purified. It could then unify its many independent provinces, regain its lost territories, and expand on them (providing Germany its “Lebensraum,” or “living space”). Then, once again, it could bask in the greatness for which it was preordained.

As jobs became ever scarce and German exports slowed to a trickle in the first years of the Depression (1929-1933), citizens hungered for quick and easy solutions… even if some of the solutions made them a little queasy, or might be temporarily “uncomfortable.”

Hitler and the National Sadists provided these solutions with gusto.

***

(Thanks for sticking with me in this unsavory topic. In the next installment of my “Fascism for Beginners” series, I’ll discuss how German citizens weren’t the only ones who contributed to the rise of fascism in Germany).

 

 

 

Fascism For Beginners – Repost

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WWII Map

NOTE: this is the first of a four-part series I published in April 2017, not long after Trump was first elected. The insurrectionist is now threatening to use America’s 1807 Insurrection Act to stifle protesters in Minneapolis after the brutal murder of anti-ICE protester Renee Good. I thought now would be a good time to reiterate what can transpire when a nation turns toward fascist leadership. (And happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.)

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which – George Orwell

I’m reading a very good book right now. It’s called THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH by William Shirer. I bought it a few years ago in honor of the 50th anniversary of its publication, but until recently it’s been sleeping on my bookshelf. I’m reading it now because, like many people since the November election, I’m pretty deflated, and I’m thinking this book will be a good antidote. Maybe it will put things into perspective. As low as America is right now, it would have to claw a lot more dirt out of the pit to reach the depths of 1930s-40s Germany.

RISE AND FALL is considered the definitive history of the Nazi Party. It’s a 1,150-page book of small print, so reading it is a long haul. I’m just past the rise and starting on the fall. Churchill has replaced Chamberlain in England. Germany’s vaunted army has finally been repulsed, on the icy Eastern front, by Russia. The U.S. has reluctantly been pulled into the war following the sneak Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

I’ve never been much of a WWII buff. As far as historical conflicts go, I’ve always preferred the more antiquated and seemingly altruistic slaughter of the American Civil War. My wife loves the Second World War. Any time one of those black-and-white newsreels about WWII is broadcast on television, she grabs the remote. I can’t watch them. Inevitably, there are clips of that shrieking madman with the greasy hair and Charlie Chaplin mustache. I usually leave the room. The sight of him makes my skin crawl.

So until recently, I was probably like most Americans, in that my knowledge of Nazi Germany was limited to a few names, dates… and one monumental atrocity. But Shirer’s book has made it abundantly clear that Nazi philosophies and practices were aided and abetted many years prior to the war and the Holocaust. The war and the Holocaust were just fascism brought to its logical and horrifying conclusion.

 Charlie Chaplin spoofing Adolf Hitler in “The Great Dictator” (1940). Hitler was considered a big joke in the beginning. After the clown makeup came off, the world saw something else.

What’s the definition of fascism? The “Merriam-Webster Dictionary” defines it as follows:

A political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

That’s a mouthful. But let’s look at the first part: “…exalts nation and often race above the individual.”

The Nazi Party was founded by a man named Anton Drexler and three other far-right Germans in Munich on January 5, 1919. At that time, it was called the German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or DAP). By 1921, a onetime vagabond and former Austrian colonel named Adolf Hitler had, through boundless energy, skillful oratory, and not a little fanaticism, wrested control of the party.

 Anton Drexler, founder of the Nazi Party

Hitler added the words “National Socialist” to the name, making it NSDAP, or “Nazzy” (Note: the word “Socialist” here was merely used rhetorically and had little to do with the philosophies of various leftist parties in Germany at the time, which Nazism eventually extinguished). Hitler and other party leaders also delivered a 25-point manifesto. Two of the manifesto points were as follows:

Point Number 4: “Only a member of the race can be a (German) citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently, no Jew can be a member of the race.”

(This ignorant stipulation mistakenly assumes that precious “German blood” equates with race, when Germanic heritage is actually an ethnicity. And note the casual singling out of one particular group for discrimination: Jews. Evidently there were few Arabs in Germany at the time – at least, any that had social or economic significance).

Point Number 8: “Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to leave the Reich.”

(August 2, 1914 is the day Germany mobilized for WWI, which it ultimately lost. The 1918 Treaty of Versailles required the country to make reparations for its aggression, including a substantial loss of territory. This left a lingering bitterness throughout the prideful nation. The date of August 2, 1914 was probably significant to the most nationalistic Germans, but totally arbitrary to most immigrants).

Nation and race. Nationalism and eugenics. Always choice ingredients in a recipe for disaster. Remember, this Nazi “Program” was drawn up in 1921: eighteen years before Germany invaded Poland to start the next world war. Although NSDAP was still only a radical fringe group in Germany, the party principles had already taken root. Hitler and his henchmen would adhere to these two points, and all 23 others – and expand on them – until their empire of sadism finally toppled.

My stomach’s starting to churn, so I’ll break off. But please check back for the second part of my “Fascism for Beginners,” where I’ll be examining how citizens allowed a political party and its leader to turn their country into a pigsty.

Could Someone Please Kidnap OUR Dictator?

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(Breaking news: Trump’s ICE just murdered a peaceful protester in Minneapolis. Trump and his yes-men and -women have, of course, worked their usual spins and lies.)

The latest black comedy out of Washington is that the U.S. just bombed Caracas, Venezuela – minus congressional approval – and “kidnapped” Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and plans to now “run” his country (shoeshine boy Marco Rubio currently manning the controls). America’s most powerful insurrectionist and convicted felon, Donald Trump, has threatened he won’t rule out “boots on the ground,” and he’s recklessly brushed aside the possibility of a prolonged military entanglement.

Maduro was vice-president under late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. A socialist, he has been condemned as a corrupt autocrat guilty of crimes against humanity. Therefore, few tears are being shed at his “removal.” But some leaders are so fearful of Trump’s use of punishing tariffs, they are actually applauding one fascist merely knocking off his alter-ego. I call their chickenshit behavior “the Neville Chamberlain Syndrome.”

A few brave souls have condemned Trump’s actions, criticizing them as yet another attempt at regime change by a U.S. Republican president, similar to George W. Bush‘s invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“Venezuela is not a security threat to the U.S.,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut. “This is about making Trump’s oil industry and Wall Street friends rich.” True, Chris. But I would add it’s also about an easy way for him to look like a badass and nourish his megalomania.

Trump has, in his typically grandstanding, vague, and simplistic way, also made veiled threats against other countries in the Americas, notably Mexico. On his personal right-wing propaganda mouthpiece, FOX News, Trump claimed Mexican president Claudia Scheinbaum is powerless and “frightened” of Mexican drug cartels, and that “something is going to have to be done with Mexico.” Like I said: grandstanding, vague, simplistic, and reckless. Just the catnip that his base loves.

Prior to Maduro’s kidnapping, Trump held a 60 percent disapproval rating. In the U.S., military actions are often used to stoke patriotism (i.e. nationalism) and spike poll numbers.

***

Some of you may be familiar with secular humanist Lawrence W. Britt‘s oft-cited article “Fascism, Anyone?,” published in Free Inquiry magazine in Spring 2003. Britt compared the regimes of seven fascist leaders – Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar (Portugal), Papadopolous (Greece), Suharto (Indonesia) and Pinochet (Chile) – all right-wing conservative, like Trump – and discovered 14 areas of commonality between all seven.

Trump has repeatedly exhibited all 14 fascist characteristics except one: “Supremacy of the Military.” Trump’s ascent to power was partly fueled by his criticism of decades of bloody American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. So this Venezuelan attack is a reversal. But egotistic bullies are egotistic bullies, and Trump is infamous for his disdain for pesky things like truth and morality.

His recent incursion into Venezuela is undoubtedly a next step. He’s conquered America, so why not the world? How about invading that terrible island Greenland? (Not joking, people.) There is absolutely no doubt in this writer’s mind that Trump will continue using America’s military might “whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.” (Britt, Fascism, Anyone?).

(At a later date I hope to discuss how Trump has wholeheartedly embraced the other 13 characteristics of fascist leaders.)

In the title of this essay, I asked a question. Since American citizens have proven woefully inadequate in preventing their country from rollicking down the road of fascism, perhaps we could enlist the assistance of another nation (or nations)? One a bit more enlightened, maybe? Perhaps those of us who still value this dying concept of democracy could arrange a small kidnapping ourselves…except the victim would be our own elected leader!

Just a hypothetical…but s’pose we could hire a country…like, say, Canada…to invite dickhead up north, maybe for a golf extravaganza at a resort near maybe Banff. Isolated near the 13th hole, he would there have only a small posse of security goons, and said goons could easily be smacked over their skulls and rendered unconscious with a few hefty nine irons. Maybe Canada could knock dickhead over his head as well, just to keep his bombastic trap shut while his turbo-charged, gold-plated golf cart is hijacked to the Canuck helicopter awaiting in a grove of evergreens.

Dickhead could then easily be whisked to an existing underground compound high up in the Northwest Territories. (Actually, doesn’t matter where, long as it’s really, really cold.) Since he’s now 80-something years old (why would a loving God allow a virus like this to live so long?), he could remain there until he finally dies of natural causes, hypothermia, or Viagra withdrawal. ‘Course, if our Canadian friends choose to speed up his demise – maybe through a steady diet of Hostess Twinkies while his bullet-proof diaper is chained to a large gold-plated “T” ripped off one of his skyscrapers, and while subjected to endless reruns of Obama inauguration celebrations – that would be fine.

This wouldn’t of course solve the problem of a dumb American electorate permanently incapacitated by decades-worth of fermentation in conservative propaganda media (like FOX News), crappy public education, and American football.

But it would feel so good to finally and irrevocably drag a selfish pig and bombastic  bully off the world’s playground.

The good news about climate change is that if it gets us first, Trump won’t have time to build his death camps – Joan Baez, June 2025

A Conversation with God about Identity, Environment, and Sports

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On CBS News Sunday Morning yesterday I saw a startling statistic: three out of ten Americans believe God determines the outcome of sporting events.

This is appalling.  What is going on here?  Why is it only three?  I would have expected at least nine, if not ten.  Just shows you that religion is on the decline here in Lilliput, I mean America. 

I’ve done several interviews with religious figures here on longitudes, including the Pope and Donald Trump.  Both were very enlightening.  The Pope informed me that sexual harassment is no big deal, and Trump told me that Hawaii is not a United State (among other curious things).

I met with God later that day—his day off—and we had a wonderful discussion about sports while pounding Miller Lite and watching the Jets-Steelers game.  In the course of our meeting I discovered God isn’t really an old man with a white robe and long, flowing white hair and beard.  God is actually sexless, dons a New York Yankees jersey, and looks more like Truman Capote.

I was anxious to get his/her take on the above startling statistic.  I also wanted to know why God hates the city of Cleveland. 

Here, then, is my conversation with The Almighty:

longitudes:  Thanks for meeting with me, God.

God:  You’re welcome, my tiny speck of white sand.

longitudes:  Pardon me for saying this, sir…I mean ma’am…I mean ma’am-sir…but most of us down there think you’re a man.  Especially Mormons.

God:  Yes, well, you folks down there have baffled me since I sent my son to straighten things out.  Endless wars, murders, torture, greed, hypocrisy, stupidity, and GEICO commercials.  And you keep adding letters.

longitudes:  What do you mean that we keep “adding letters?”

God:  You’re already up to six: LGBTQ and I.  Actually, now it’s seven, I forgot the ‘A.’ Okay, I make gender mistakes once in a while, but you don’t need to rub it in.

longitudes:  What should we do?

God:  Try consolidating into one letter.  Maybe, like, an ‘O’ for “Other.”  I realize you’re having fun, but you’re stressing me out with the alphabet soup.

longitudes:  God, I just learned that only three out of ten Americans think you determine the outcome of sporting events.  Why is that statistic so low?

God:  Yeah, that shocks me as well.  I think it’s because organized religion is on the decline in your neck of the woods.  I blame those damn atheists Christopher Hitchens, George Carlin, and Frank Zappa.  It’s why I pulled them up here sooner than their time.

longitudes:  Oh.  Do you think if more people attended church, that statistic would rise a little?

God:  Absolutely.  Back in the days of Puritanism, and before that the Spanish Inquisition, you had to go to church to worship me.  If not, you were burned at the stake or had your limbs torn off on what I affectionately called the “Wheel of Death.”

longitudes:  But those things occurred long before soccer, Major League Baseball, and Jim Nantz.  How were you able to determine sports outcomes back then?

God:  Jousting duels.  Gladiatorial contests.  Chariot races.  You know, garden-variety sports like that.

longitudes:  I see.  I remember watching Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd duke it out in Ben-Hur.  That was real exciting.

God:  Sure was.  I hope you put your money on Heston.  I pre-ordained him.

(Suddenly, the Jets quarterback is sacked.  God lets out an audible “Oooh.”  It is now obvious to me he likes New York.)

longitudes:  Yeah, I figured Heston might win.

God:  Right, but it’s a shame he became obsessed with guns later on.  Maybe I should’ve given that movie role to Paul Newman instead.

longitudes:  God, is there anything I can do to push that statistic up a little?  Maybe get it up to forty instead of thirty percent?

God:  That’s very kind of you, my shiny pool of phlegm.  Well, let’s see.  My records show you vote Democrat.  Might wanna shift to Republican and encourage others.  Also, I see you have three grandchildren.  Try to convince their parents to forego the university education.  Ignorance breeds superstition, after all.  Lastly…why the hell are you a Cleveland fan?  (Oops, pardon my language.)

longitudes:  Actually, God, I wanted to ask you about that.  You’ve been pretty harsh on the Browns, Indians/Guardians, and Cavaliers winning championships.  Except for that one year when LeBron James helped the Cavs.

God:  Yes, I have a special place in my heart for King James.  Well, truth be told, the reason I’ve been harsh on Cleveland is because of that fire incident.

longitudes:  “Fire incident?”

(At this point God offers me another Miller Lite, but I politely decline.) 

God:  Yeah.  I’m talkin’ ‘bout the burning of the petroleum-soaked Cuyahoga River.  That infamous incident came soon after the Browns won their last championship.  That was no coincidence.

longitudes:  So all these years you’ve been blaming the citizens of northern Ohio for an industrial-related environmental debacle they may have had nothing to do with?

God:  Yes.  Do you think I’ve been too rough on them?

longitudes:  Well, yes I do, sir.  I mean ma’am-sir.  Heck, I lived near Cleveland and was only ten years old when it happened.  Why should I have to suffer?  I mean, I hope I’m not being disrespectful.

God:  No, not at all.  You have a good point, Peter.  (By the way, I like your name.)  Maybe I should loosen up on Cleveland.  Not a bad city, despite producing Drew Carey.

longitudes:  We Cleveland sports fans would appreciate any assistance, ma’am-sir.

God:  It’s done.  You can expect a Guardians World Series victory or Browns AFC Championship win any day now.  (I can’t very well grant you a Browns Super Bowl win.  That’s asking too much of me.)

longitudes:  Thank you, thank you!  And I’ll do my best to keep my grandkids away from higher education.  But—and I hope you understand—voting Republican is a bridge too far.  One last question, God.

God:  Ask away, my insignificant fleck of wet clay.

longitudes:  We screwed up with, er, your son.  But why all the grief since then?  I mean, it’s been a total horror show for two-thousand years.

God:  That’s your doing, not mine.  But it might help if you stopped worshipping the messenger and concentrated more on his message.  And stopped living in the past.

longitudes:  Good points.  Thanks for meeting with me, God.

God:  No problemo.  And thanks for bringing the pizza, but I prefer coal-fired New York over Chicago deep-dish. 

NOTE: This is not a real interview. God—if there is one (or more)—has never spoken to me verbally, and I’m okay with that.