Lessons of History and Trying To Avoid the Same Mistakes

[Sixties Fan]

[ Colorado has learned its lesson ]

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signs bills enshrining abortion and transgender care

Colorado’s Democratic governor has signed a set of health care bills that enshrine protections for abortion and gender-affirming care procedures and medications.

www.pbs.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ Crime mainly happens in big cities, so some GOP members say ]

 

[Dadoalex]

https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16

With all the arguments over whether MAGA Republicans are fascists, I reread William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” to see how much the rise of Hitler and the rise of MAGA smell similar. Conclusion: They do. This thread lists 10 ways. Please take a look.

1. A big lie about treachery is used to foment resentment. Nazis: We didn’t really lose World War I. It was a “stab in the back” by Jews and other "November criminals." MAGA: We didn’t really lose the 2020 election. It was a “steal” by politicians and Blacks in big cities.




2. There’s an obsession with purity of the culture. Nazis: “Racial mixture” was a threat to Aryan culture, Hitler wrote. MAGA: “Great replacement theory” says immigrants threaten white culture.



3. Chaos is something to be exploited, not addressed. Nazis: Economic distress is a great political opportunity. MAGA: Economic distress is a great political opportunity.



4. The super-rich bankroll the right-wing seizure of power. Nazis: Thanks to I.G. Farben, Deutsche Bank, Thyssen, Krupp, etc. MAGA: Thanks to the Mercers, Uihleins, DeVos, Thiel, etc.



5. Some people think the fascist threat is overblown. Nazis: While Hitler posed a major threat, some said he "ceased to be a political danger.” (2 weeks later, he was chancellor.) MAGA: While Trump poses a major threat, many people think it’s “just politics,” no worries.


6. There’s a cult of personality. Nazis: The German army made a pledge of loyalty to Hitler personally. MAGA: Trump’s supporters bill him as “the most moral president” in U.S. history.



7. Christianity is used to legitimize the movement. Nazis: “The party stands for positive Christianity.” MAGA: Trump is described as the “Chosen One” protecting American Christianity.





8. Books are the enemy. Nazis: Any book that “acts subversively on our future” must be burned. MAGA: “I think we should throw those books in a fire,” says a Virginia school board member.




9. An independent news media is the enemy. Nazis: Any newspaper that “offends the honor and dignity of Germany” must be banned. MAGA: The press is the “enemy of the people.”



10. Educators are pressured to be politically compliant. Nazis: Teachers took an oath to “be loyal and obedient to Adolf Hitler.” MAGA: Florida’s DeSantis accuses teachers of “indoctrination” and pressures them to avoid references to America’s racist history and LGBTQ people.



I'm not saying that MAGA will end up as horrifically as Nazism. I am saying that America 2022 feels too much like Germany 1932, and I don't want to take the risk of watching MAGA cultism play out. We have to stop it now.



Why did Twitter put a “sensitive” warning on this thread? Who knows? My only theory is that it has a “hateful symbol”—a swastika on the cover of Shirer’s book about Nazism.

You have hit their nail squarely on it's head.

Prepare for insults, denials, and whataboutisms but no actual discussion.

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ The GOP school of changing elections for their own profit ]


Republicans, who recently passed their bill out of a committee in the state Senate, claim it's necessary because of ballot shortages at some county polling places last year. Local officials, however, issued a report in December that said it wasn't possible to determine whether those issues actually prevented anyone from voting. And while a polling place running out of ballots can be very problematic in many states, Harris and many other Texas counties allow voters to cast a ballot at any polling location within their county, giving them alternatives.

However, the lack of evidence of widespread disenfranchisement hasn't stopped a number of local GOP candidates from suing to overturn their defeats, including Alexandra del Moral Mealer, who lost to Hidalgo 51-49, a margin of 18,000 votes. Mealer has asked a court to declare her the winner or order a new election, but court documents showed that even the county GOP chair has stated that party officials believe only 2,600 voters were "turned away"due to voting problems—not enough to affect the outcome even in the unlikely event that every last such voter intended to cast a ballot for Republicans.

Republicans have also advanced another bill that would let the secretary of state suspend and replace election administrators in counties such as Harris, which in recent years switchedfrom having a partisan elected official oversee its elections to handing those duties to an appointed, nonpartisan administrator. Yet another measure would undo that reform outright by abolishing appointed administrators in counties of 3.5 million people or more—again meaning only Harris County—and transferring their duties to the elected clerk and tax assessor (though in Harris, both of those officials are currently Democrats).

These ongoing Republican attacks on Harris County's elections aren't an isolated development related to its 2022 results. In March, state officials announced their intention to take over the school district in Houston and appoint a new school board thanks to a law allowing such takeovers if even just a single school has a record of underperformance—precisely the case here. Nearly 90% of Houston's 200,000 pupils are students of color, and the elected board's members are likewise mostly Black or Latino, leading civil rights advocates to urge the Department of Justice to investigate whether the takeover violates the Voting Rights Act.

Republican complaints about voting problems and disenfranchisement in Harris County ring particularly hollow, since GOP lawmakers are responsible for passing numerous laws to restrict voting access over the past two decades, including previous measures that have similarly targeted Harris County.

These include a bill that eliminated straight-ticket voting, a popular option that helped reduce waiting times at polling places. And after the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Harris County took several innovative steps to protect voting access without compromising public health, which included drive-thru and 24-hour early voting options. Republicans responded the following year by banning those practices.

Since Republicans firmly control both chambers of the legislature, all of these proposals have a good chance of passing before the current legislative session ends on May 29, and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott would likely sign them into law.

GOP advances bills that could let it throw out future election results in Texas' largest blue county

Texas Republicans are ramping up their long-running campaign to make voting more difficult with a new barrage of legislation that specifically singles out the state's largest county—which just so happens to reliably vote Democratic. Multiple GOP bills...

www.dailykos.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

As the report notes:

At the same time, our country has a "permanent underclass" of working families who are denied their economic rights, trapped in poverty, and unable to accumulate wealth no matter how hard they work. Oxfam data shows that almost a third of the U.S. labor force earns less than $15 an hour; half of all working women of color earn less than $15.14.

The racial wealth gap is actually growing wider since the 1980s, and today is close to what it was in 1950. The average Black American household currently has only about 12 cents in wealth for every dollar of the average white American household.

And while the gender pay gap has barely budged in two decades, the gender wealth gap is much wider. One study found a raw gender wealth gap of women owning 32 cents for every dollar of male wealth. For women of color, the gap is even more profound.

"At a time when the ultrawealthy are amassing historic and dangerous levels of wealth, a federal wealth tax offers a vital and necessary tool for directly redressing extreme wealth inequality, as well as advancing racial justice, tackling the climate crisis, and protecting democracy," Oxfam argued. "It also offers a reminder that today's debt ceiling gridlock is a consequence of giving tax breaks to the ultrawealthy."


(full article online)

Oxfam Shows US Billionaires Almost a Third Richer Today Than When Covid Hit

"At a time when the ultrawealthy are amassing historic and dangerous levels of wealth, a federal wealth tax offers a vital and necessary tool for directly redressing extreme wealth inequality."

www.commondreams.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ Racism does not go away in this country because too many people continue to think like this]

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ MTG and her QUANON conspiracy theories ]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

The Clarence Thomas scandal keeps growing

Campaign Action At this point, the notion that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is anything less than crooked is getting increasingly hard to believe. Thomas has made significant errors and omissions in his mandated financial disclosures for...

www.dailykos.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ The Grifter keeps on Grifting ]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]