book reviews, condescending twatbags, controversies, religion

Tennessee is the “sophomore” state…

The featured photo is a screenshot from Greg Locke’s book burning video on YouTube.

Last night, I finished reading Maus, the graphic novel by Art Spiegelman that the McMinn County School Board of Tennessee decided to remove from its curriculum for eighth grade students last month. As I have mentioned in several recent posts about Maus, I had not heard of this brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning work until it made the news. It was originally published in its entirety in 1991, having taken Spiegelman thirteen years of work to complete. Portions of the book were published sooner than 1991, with comic strips having been published in the defunct magazine, Raw. I mentioned yesterday that the first volume of Maus was published in 1986. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until Maus was banned by a school board that I finally decided to read it. I’m so glad I did that. I have the good people of McMinn County, Tennessee’s board of education to thank for that, as their decision to ban Maus only made it more attractive to me.

More people should read this… even 8th graders.

Yesterday, my friend Mary Beth commented that she, too, has ordered a copy of Maus to read. She read one of my blog posts about it and discussed book banning with her fifteen year old son. It turns out Mary Beth’s boy is a World War II buff, and Maus is about The Holocaust. When Mary Beth told her son that Maus is a graphic novel, meaning that there are many comic styled pictures, he asked her if he could read it. Mary Beth agreed, and she says they will read the book together.

I passed my copy of the book to Bill, and now he’s just started reading Maus. By my count, that’s already four people who have decided to read a book that school board members in Tennessee have opted to ban. Remember when I wrote about the Streisand effect? Looks like it’s happening. Maus is selling like gangbusters, and lots of people are reading it and passing it on to others. We have Tennessee to thank for that. In a way, those school board members are inadvertently educating people well beyond the borders of McMinn County. In their attempts to quash a remarkable work of literature, the school board has only made it much more popular. Mary Beth says that Maus is still backordered. I see on Amazon.de, it’s no longer backordered, but there aren’t many available copies. It may not be long before Maus is out of stock again.

How did I like the book? I loved it. But it wasn’t just because of the story about The Holocaust. I’ve read a lot of books about The Holocaust, most of which were non-fiction accounts of people who experienced prison camps. What set Maus apart from those books, besides the fact that it’s done in comic strips, was the way Spiegelman managed to capture his father, Vladek, and how his experiences during World War II changed him. First, there was the syntax of Vladek’s speech. Spiegelman managed to capture the broken English that often comes from non-native speakers. One thing I’ve noticed, living in Germany, is that a lot of Germans are quite fluent in English. But sometimes, in spite of knowing English well, their syntax is like it would be if they were speaking German. They use certain expressions and constructions that English speakers don’t typically use. For instance, I notice that a lot of Germans say or write “therefore” and “already” more than Americans do. Or they say things like, “I don’t dare to” instead of “I don’t dare”, or they write “who”, instead of “whoever or whomever”. I remember hearing a German tour guide say, “Who wants to go to the WC can do so now.” A native English speaker would phrase it differently.

Likewise, Art Spiegelman manages to capture the voice of someone who isn’t a native English speaker. He had a lot of experience listening to his father, so he knew just how his dad would put things. He doesn’t write the dialogue the way an American would speak, even though his father spoke English from even before the war. He writes it the way a Polish person would speak English. That technique made Vladek come alive for me. I could practically hear his voice in my head as I read. Not only did I hear his voice, but I could imagine the mood, as if I had him in my head, speaking aloud.

Art Spiegelman also captures many of the quirks that would come from someone who had experienced the trauma of losing everything and being force to live on whatever he could find. As I mentioned earlier, I have read a lot of Holocaust stories. One common thread is that many people who survived the Holocaust could not bear to see things wasted. I read one Holocaust account by a man who used to get furious at his children when they turned their noses up at food that was offered to them. Likewise, Vladek Spiegelman drove his son crazy because he could not throw things away… except things that really were priceless. Vladek throws away Art’s mother’s precious diaries when he has a bad day. But he collects odds and ends– piece of wire, scraps of paper, used nails. He is extremely miserly and doesn’t want to hire anyone to help him with odd jobs around the house, even though he’s not capable of doing the work that needs to be done. Instead, he asks Art to help him, even though Art is busy with his own life and isn’t particularly as handy as Vladek was forced to become. Even as Art expresses annoyance at frustration with his father and his father’s constant demands and idiosyncrasies, his love and concern for Vladek comes through in a moving way.

I think the very truthful interactions between father and son, depicted as mice and rendered in illustrations, are what really touched my heart. There are also elements in humor in Maus that make it less grim than it could have been, even though there are many sad and tragic events in the story. There was so much loss and grief that came from The Holocaust, and yet sometimes there were happy and even humorous moments that kept the human spirit alive. The people who managed to survive the camps and lived to tell their tales were endowed with resilience and luck. Or maybe they weren’t actually the luckiest ones. Art’s mother, Vladek’s first wife, Anja, couldn’t cope. She committed suicide in 1968, and Vladek remarried another Holocaust survivor, Nala, who constantly complained about Vladek’s quirks.

I’m happy that I read Maus. I’m glad others will read it. I’m heartened to know that I influenced at least three people to read the book through my blog, even as I was influenced to read it because some people in Tennessee decided it should be banned. It just goes to show that actions have consequences, but sometimes the consequences turn out to be good things. As I sit here marveling at what I’ve just read, again, courtesy of a school board in right wing Tennessee, I also shake my head at the news that came out of Mount Juliet, Tennessee yesterday. “Pastor” Greg Locke, head of Global Vision Bible Church, is in the news again. This time, it’s because he hosted a massive book burning last week.

I’ve written about Greg Locke a couple of times. A few years ago, when I was still running my Blogspot version of The Overeducated Housewife, I wrote about how Greg Locke cried on camera after he got disgraced in the wake of divorcing his wife after cheating on her with her best friend. Locke called adult film star Stormy Daniels a “hooker”, as he reminded everyone that Trump was still president. I reposted that entry from 2018 last summer, when Locke was in the news again. In July 2021, Locke was in the news again for demanding that his followers attend services unmasked. Locke vowed to kick out anyone in his congregation who showed up wearing a face mask. Then, halfway through one of his videos, Locke launches into an absolutely bat shit crazy anti-liberal rant.

Well, Greg Locke is in the news again because last Wednesday, he invited followers to burn their copies of Twilight and Harry Potter books. Locke claims that the books, as well as any young adult fantasy books, tarot cards, crystals, and voodoo dolls, are of the occult. Locke said,

“Bring all your Harry Potter stuff. Laugh all you want haters. I don’t care. IT’S WITCHCRAFT 100 PERCENT,” Locke said in an Instagram post Monday. “All you [sic] ‘Twilight’ books and movies. That mess is full of spells, demonism, shape-shifting and occultism.”

Shameful.

Why anyone with sense listens to this hateful moron, I will never know. But again, it’s Tennessee, land of Trump love. I mentioned in previous posts that these are the people who clutch their pearls at the word “God damn” in Maus, but will enthusiastically endorse a man who obviously disdains the poor and brags about sexually abusing women. They claim to love Jesus Christ, and yet they behave in ways that are not Christ-like. And they denounce books about supernatural fantasies and creatures, as they believe in the Bible, which is full of stories about violence and supernatural occurrences, and has led to many people being killed in gruesome ways. See Maus for a lesson on that, as Jewish people died for their beliefs.

I was glad to read that there were counterprotestors who showed up at Locke’s book burning. At least one person threw a Bible into the fire. It’s not that I support burning books of any kind, nor am I an atheist. I just think book burning and banning is stupid, and simply leads to the dumbing down of populations. And as I learn more about what’s going on in Tennessee, I realize that in a way, it’s kind of a sophomoric place. You know that word, sophomore, right? It stems from Greek. The word is a blend of sophos, which means “clever or wise”, and moros, which means “moron or fool”. The news out of Tennessee has made me smarter and enriched my life by prompting me to read Maus. And it’s also making me shake my head as I consider the stupidity of a supposed “man of God” live streaming his event that highlights burning books.

Locke blustered,

“We have a constitutional right and a Biblical right to do what we’re going to do tonight,” Locke said in the livestreamed video. “We have a burn permit, but even without one a church has a religious right to burn occultic materials that they deem are a threat to their religious rights and freedoms and belief systems.”

What a shame.

Indeed… and how interesting that this comes up now, as Tennessee has made news over Maus, a wonderful book about a man’s experiences in The Holocaust. Many people who heard about Greg Locke’s book burning were reminded of Nazi Germany, where books were routinely burned. It’s no secret that Greg Locke is a huge supporter of Donald Trump and his ilk. And it’s not lost on me that Trump works a room much like Hitler did, back in the day.

I know people get offended by the comparison of Trump to Hitler. They think it cheapens the horrors that people like Vladek Spiegelman endured in the 1940s. But dammit, Hitler didn’t start his madness by murdering people. He started by whipping up “us vs. them” sentiments and hatred, promoting other-ism and ignorance, and making people think they had the right to be destructive and divisive. Hitler got his start by throwing a figurative lit match into a seething inferno of disenfranchised people who feared losing power and were pushed to the point of murdering those people they considered “undesirable” in the most vicious, horrifying, and brutal of ways.

I really hope an event like The Holocaust doesn’t happen again, but when I read stories like the ones that have been coming out of the United States lately, it really makes me fear for the future. I worry so much about where our country is going, as obviously terrible people like Donald Trump are put in power. Otherwise decent people ignore how terrible he is, just because they get a few extra bucks in their paychecks and, maybe, a lower gas bill at the pump. They ignore his history of fucking people over and being hateful to anyone who doesn’t do his bidding. But what makes me even more frightened is that even if Trump isn’t re-elected, there is no doubt someone younger, more handsome, and much more intelligent waiting in the wings for the right time to emerge. And people like Greg Locke’s followers will be all too ready to embrace that person.

Don’t believe me? Consider that Adolf Hitler got his ideas about The Holocaust after seeing how the world ignored the Armenian Genocide. Armenia, as you know, also has a place in my heart due to the two years I spent there. I had never heard of the Genocide before I lived in Armenia. I now live in Germany, where Hitler carried out his monstrous plans for world domination. If we don’t learn from the atrocities in history, we are doomed to repeat them. See below:

Keep your eyes open, people. This could happen again. What side of history are you going to be on when it does?

I hope that people will remain vigilant and keep reading good books… and not necessarily the Bible. Resist movements that discourage thought, compassion for others, and personal growth. Book burning is not an activity that kind, intelligent, compassionate people engage in doing. It’s certainly not “Christ-like” behavior. As NBC News points out:

Locke’s book burning event comes amid a growing effort to ban certain books from schools. Books about racism and sexuality are being pulled from Texas school shelves in record numbers — a majority of books targeted feature LGBTQ characters or explicit descriptions of sex. Some of the books that aren’t explicit include picture books about Black historical figures and transgender children.

Why is this happening now? Why are schools being targeted? It’s the movement of so-called Christians who want to take over the country. These people– so-called Christians– are really only Christians in name. They aren’t behaving in merciful, compassionate, and kind ways. They are promoting hatred, ignorance, and violence in order to push their moronic agenda.

I mentioned that I think Tennessee is the “sophomore state”. I think there are wise people in Tennessee who can stand up to this craziness. Unfortunately, Tennessee also seems to be a hotbed of people like Greg Locke, who encourage book burning among those who seriously need to read a lot more. Locke and his ilk just want people to be stupid, so they’re easier to manage. So I would certainly advise everyone to keep reading. And yes, I think you should read Harry Potter and Twilight, if that’s what you like to read… and read Maus, too, while you’re at it. I have provided a handy link below. You’ll learn more from reading almost ANYTHING than you ever could from listening to Greg Locke.

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Germany, history, videos, YouTube

A fascinating video I saw by total chance yesterday…

Today has gotten off to an extremely annoying start. In my travel blog last weekend, I wrote about how I was trying to book our vacation for next week. USAA immediately declined my credit card, which led to my having to call them. Likewise, PenFed allowed me to make two hotel bookings, but then blocked my card when I tried to make a third booking. I will be calling them later today, which doesn’t make me happy, because USAA blocked my debit card this morning when I tried to use it to buy sweaters.

USAA used to send text messages to my phone whenever there were questionable purchases made. Now, they don’t do that, because they don’t want to pay for international texts. So they just decline and restrict the card, causing me to have to call them. It wastes time and costs me money, plus it’s just a huge inconvenience. The real kicker is, an hour after I called USAA, I got an automated phone call from USAA to confirm the charges weren’t fraudulent. Of course, they didn’t go through, and now I am not wanting to use the card because I don’t want to cause another block.

Anyway… none of that has anything to do with today’s post. I just needed to get it out of my system. Today’s post is actually about something much more incredible and life changing.

Yesterday, I was watching a brief YouTube video about a Holocaust survivor. It was a very short video, and I was in the middle of something when it ended, so I didn’t immediately turn off the autoplay. I’m glad I didn’t turn it off, for that is how I became acquainted with Eva Clarke and her amazing story of how she was born in a concentration camp the day before Adolf Hitler committed suicide, and just two days after the Germans ran out of gas in the gas chambers at Mauthausen.

This video is about an hour long, but it is SO worth the time. It was taped at the University of California San Diego in 2018.

Eva Clarke is half Czech, half German. Her parents were both Jewish. Her father had moved to Prague to escape the Nazis. He thought that was far enough away from Germany to escape persecution during the Hitler era. It wasn’t, and unfortunately, he was a Holocaust victim. However, he did meet Eva’s mother, Anka, there, and they married, before they were sent to live in a ghetto and were later sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.

Eva’s mother, Anka, was an incredible woman with a tremendous will to survive, as well as great pride for who she was. Against incredible odds, and with many strokes of good luck, she managed to survive the Holocaust and lived to the ripe old age of 95. That fact, in and of itself, is astonishing… but Eva is also a tremendous speaker and storyteller. She is very engaging. I wish I could have had teachers like her. Maybe I would have ended up better prepared for life.

I showed this video to Bill last night. Just as I had when I watched it the first time, I ended up in tears because I was so moved by how Eva and her mom managed to survive and thrive, even though Hitler had wanted to destroy them and anyone else he hated. Also, Eva mentions that the American Army were their saviors, as they were the ones to liberate Mauthausen. Since Bill is an Army veteran, it does my heart good to hear good things about the Army… and reminders of a time when U.S. Soldiers and other servicemembers were truly thought of as heroes.

Bill also got a bit teary listening to Eva’s story. He hadn’t meant to learn more about the Holocaust last night, but he did tell me that he didn’t regret hearing Eva talk about how she came to be. Nine days after Eva’s birth, World War II ended. And now, she is a lovely, elegant, eloquent speaker, who is telling the world about why we can’t ever let someone like Hitler come back into power.

This is why I am so vociferous about Donald Trump and his ilk. While I realize that Trump hasn’t started a genocide, some of his ideas and techniques are very much like Hitler’s. He emboldens people to be divisive and racist, and he craves money, fame, and power. I worry that he will influence otherwise good people to turn a blind eye to the atrocities of racism and we could, one day, have another genocide as horrifying as the Holocaust is. And this is not to say that genocide on a smaller scale isn’t already happening. It is.

Anyway, if you have time and are interested, I highly recommend watching the above video. And if you find any other videos by Eva Clarke, I would recommend those, too. I will probably watch another video by Eva… maybe it would calm me down a bit and remind me that my problems are truly first world problems. At least for now.

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condescending twatbags, politicians, politics, psychology, Trump

If you have to start a rebuttal with insults…

You’ve already lost the argument, as far as I’m concerned.

A couple of days ago, when riots were happening in Washington, D.C., a friend of mine named Chris posted this comment on Facebook.

From what I am seeing, President Trump has incited a riot where protestors have now breached and are inside the Capitol building. This is NOT the America I spent my life defending.

Chris is someone I knew in college. He’s spent most of his adult life as an Army officer. He’s offline friends with one of Bill’s former colleagues from the early days of his Army career. Although Bill hasn’t met my college friend himself, my college friend later friended Bill, because they have the Army and Bill’s former colleague in common, as well as some mutual friends. That old concept, Six Degrees of Separation, works especially well in the military.

Anyway, given my college friend’s military career, he has a lot of Facebook friends and they run the gamut in terms of their politics. Naturally, a lot of the military folks who are friends with Chris are politically conservative. Based on his public thread, which at this writing has over 300 comments, many of my college friend’s contacts are mostly Trump supporting Republicans.

After awhile, someone brought up the fact that Trump’s leadership style is an awful lot like Adolf Hitler’s. Personally, I agree with the similarities. But whenever Hitler comes into the conversation about Trump, many people vehemently deny the comparisons. They think it’s awful to even go there. I guess I can understand why comparing Trump to Hitler makes people squeamish. People don’t want to think they fell for electing a monster, and it’s true that Trump hasn’t committed atrocities on the same level that Hitler did. But I think if people stopped to think about it for a minute– cleared their minds of the obvious distaste most people have for Hitler and looked at the issue critically– they might see why some of us can see how Hitler and Trump have used the same playbook. And even if they still disagree with the comparison, they might have more respect for the opinions of others who do see things in that way.

Interesting thoughts from 2016.

So how is it that some people see comparisons to Hitler and others don’t? I’ve found that conservatives who don’t see the parallels tend to focus on nitty gritty details. For instance, one Trump supporter I’ve talked to about this brought up that Trump (supposedly) isn’t anti-semitic. Others say that comparing Trump to Hitler is hyperbole that is insulting to Jewish people. They all bring up the fact that Trump hasn’t murdered six million people (yet), and comparing Trump to Hitler diminishes Hitler’s evil deeds. They’re looking at specific policies and the actual things that were done during the Holocaust. They don’t consider how the German people got to the point of ignoring the barbaric treatment of Jews and others who were deemed “undesirable”, such as communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gypsies, and homosexuals, to name a few. Trump hasn’t yet managed what Hitler did. It would be difficult for him to do that in today’s world. But he motivates disenfranchised people in a way common to Hitler’s, and he has some very similar behaviors and mindsets to Hitler’s.

Americans are lazy about studying history, much to our detriment. This is pretty cringeworthy.

What these folks can’t seem to understand is that most people comparing Trump to Hitler have never said that Trump is *just like* Hitler, or that he believes in everything Hitler championed. What they’re saying is that he has a similar leadership style. Trump, like Hitler, was a mediocre person before he rose to power. Yes, Trump was wealthy and famous even before he became president, but most of his “accomplishments” came on the backs of other people. He’s definitely not a scholar, and if not for the family business, he probably never would have been regarded as a particularly brilliant businessperson. Trump made his money by screwing over and bullying other people. He is a taker. And although the role of POTUS is the ultimate government position, Trump never had an interest in government service. He had no experience as a politician and never would have been able to get a security clearance. What he is interested in is fame, power, self-gratification, and wealth, not being a leader. And those interests are what make him like Hitler, who was a similarly damaged, mentally ill person who was drunk on power.

I actually had a copy of this issue of Mad Magazine, myself… it’s rather telling, isn’t it?

Like Hitler, Donald Trump’s “gifts” are his charisma and ability to rile up people. Like all malignant narcissists, he knows what to say to motivate people. He knows how to get people energized and fool them into thinking that he’s working for them. But if you look beyond the surface, you can see there’s very little substance to what he says. And when it comes down to it, he really doesn’t care about anyone but himself and his obsession for power and money. He’s no different than a televangelist who talks people into sending him their grocery money on the promise that they’ll somehow be blessed by the Almighty. Trump ALWAYS blames other people when things go wrong, and he energizes other people, perhaps those who feel disenfranchised by virtue signaling liberals whom they think live in ivory towers, to think as he does. Of course, Trump wouldn’t deign to spend any time with most of the people who champion him. He looks down on the poor.

Hitler, likewise, was very good at riling people up and convincing ordinary Germans that his plan was what they needed to get out of their impoverished conditions. He convinced people to blame the Jews and, little by little, desensitized them to the cruelties and atrocities levied against Jewish people. Germans are, on the whole, very law abiding people, so he passed laws that enabled his campaign of hatred to go on unabated. He enlisted other people– power hungry, ambitious, cruel people– to join him in his campaign against Jews and others he deemed unacceptable or undesirable.

In 2018, Donald Trump refers to certain countries as “shitholes”… and he pushes an agenda about making American “great” again, when for so many people, it was never “great”. He clearly disdains certain people, just like Hitler did, and minimizes atrocities committed against people who aren’t like him. Not unlike Hitler.

Take a look at Trump’s policies and you might see that he similarly dehumanizes people. In his case, it’s the “illegals”. And while the practice of “caging” people didn’t start with Trump, it definitely ramped up on his watch, especially as he insisted on going forward with his idea to build as massive wall to keep out “bad hombres”. Listen to what he says about other people. He views women as objects and values them only on their beauty. But even women he thinks of as “beautiful” are still just objects intended for his entertainment and enjoyment. They are less than human in his eyes. You only have to read some of his comments over the years to see that.

When people compare Trump to Hitler, it’s not because he’s been on a campaign of mass murder. It’s his behavior and his effect on his followers that they’re addressing. It’s Trump’s ability to motivate people to go to Washington, D.C. and attempt to derail democracy that makes him like Hitler. Sadly, a lot of people never think about this and won’t consider it. They only focus on what Hitler managed to do versus what Trump has done.

They hate the media, but they get their bullshit from the media.

Unfortunately, a lot of Americans are easily impressed, particularly by those who make a lot of money. They are blinded by fame and wealth, and equate that to success. Many Americans are big believers in the “prosperity gospel”. They assume that a person’s power, thanks to wealth and fame, are a sign that they are favored by God. Most of them don’t think too hard about how someone would come into that much money, power, and fame. Sadly, a lot of people want to be in the orbit of fabulously rich and famous people. It doesn’t occur to them that a lot of really wealthy, famous people are shallow and selfish. Those qualities are often how they made their money and became powerful. They don’t care about others.

So anyway, a couple hundred comments into the contentious thread my friend Chris posted, another college friend joined the discussion. This friend is a woman I knew in school. She’s very bright and articulate, and she has a degree in history. Longwood University, particularly when we were students, has a very strong history department. Most of the people I know who got degrees in history at Longwood are very intelligent.

My friend brought up the Hitler connection, and she was immediately taken to task by one of Chris’s military buddies. This guy, name of Russ, is an author and a military officer. Sadly, based on his comments to my old friend from college, he’s not much of a gentleman. As the two sparred in Chris’s thread, I noticed that he started most of his comments with sarcasm, insults, and blatant rudeness. Meanwhile, my college friend, who like me, is an Air Force brat, responded to his comments with dignity and basic respect.

I was impressed by my friend’s comments. She’s definitely more patient than I am. I was tempted to jump into the fray myself, but I decided that I don’t like arguing with jerks, especially when I don’t know them and when it’s on social media. To me, it’s mostly a pointless exercise. Still, I was very proud of my friend for standing up to Russ and his obvious disrespect toward smart women. And then it occurred to me that Russ is not unlike a lot of people in the military– usually men– who look down on others. I have been on the receiving end of a lot of shit from people in the military community simply for daring to call my blog The Overeducated Housewife. These folks are usually the type who universally refer to military wives (and it’s always the wives, not the husbands) as “dependas”. A “dependa”, for those who don’t know, is a fat, lazy, parasitical woman who marries a military guy simply to drain his paycheck at AAFES and access Tricare benefits.

But even worse to the people who use the slur, dependa (which is short for dependapotamus), are smart women who feel emboldened to challenge them. Most of the men who act like Russ are the type of guys who can’t stand smart, outspoken, articulate women. And so, instead of treating them like equals, they do their best to try to diminish them with sarcasm, insults, and discounting. Here are a few of Russ’s comments:

He starts with this, after a third person called Trump a “Nazi” (which for the record, I don’t agree with– I don’t think Trump is a Nazi, but I do think many of his behaviors are like Hitler’s)…

Jesus, can we knock off the Nazi nonsense? Have you EVER stopped to think that such language is one of the reasons we’re so polarized? When someone invades the rest of Europe or kills 6 million people in systemic genocide, then maybe the Nazi comparison will be valid. Until then, it’s just a lazy way to tell everyone how much you hate those on the other side.

Then, a few comments later, Russ writes this:

no, it’s not like Hitler’s rise to power. Geez, when did our schools stop teaching actual history and start giving you whatever validates your personal political viewpoint? Hitler used a runaway inflationary crappy economy and hatred of Jews to rise to power and then systemically kill millions of people. Your over the top hyperbole isn’t helping; in fact, it’s part of what is inciting all of this.

You can sort feel his derisive mood in his words. He’s not responding to other posters with respect. He’s being insulting and rude and not even trying to see where the comparisons are coming from. And again, he’s focused on the “nitty gritty” of what fueled Hitler, not the behaviors themselves.

So my friend informed Russ about her background and wrote an explanation of why people compare Trump to Hitler. Below is what she wrote. The only thing potentially insulting to Russ is when she asks him not to question her education when he doesn’t even know her.

As someone who has a degree in history I feel that I have an accurate grasp on historical events and what leads to major historical events to parallel. Don’t question my education when you have no idea who I am or what I know.

Trump inflates the hatred of immigrants. There are camps with inhumane conditions that these immigrants are kept.

He uses the fallacy of America first to incite his followers to do his bidding. He can get a whole room of people to chant whatever party line he wants them to say. The nationalism he has evoked from people is blind to any thought other than America.

Having driven around this America during the pandemic I have seen many pockets of his followers and they are usually the very poor and the very rich. He preys on the insecurities of those who are scraping by and he protects his billionaire friends.

His actions are from a third world coup playbook. He does not have absolute power, there is a thing called checks and balances. He thinks he can tell congress what he wants and it will happen. He thinks he can determine how he wants the supreme court to make decisions. They all said, thank you, next and now he is pouting in the White House, on a twitter time out while people are still protesting in front of the Capitol building for a man who would easily thrust them in front of himself.

Your reluctance to see the parallels are because you just don’t want to be compared to an extreme government that exterminated 6 million souls and disenfranchised millions more. I can understand that, it hurts to have your belief system examined so thoroughly and compared to what has been declared monstrous.

Trumps actions are text book fascist, his hero is the leader of a dictatorship, how can you rationalize accepting this man as your leader?

He lost the election and now you are being asked to get over it like the democrats were told to in 2016.

This was a great opportunity for Russ to enter into a respectful and perhaps illuminating discussion about why some people are reminded of Hitler when they look at Trump. Even if my friend had failed to convince him, he might learn something from the exchange. Instead, he immediately insults and tries to bully her:

ooh, you have a pretty certificate? Well that just settles everything then, doesn’t it?

No, Trump is not inflaming hatred of immigrants. He does say we have a border that should be enforced, and I notice you left the word ILLEGAL out of your diatribe. BTW, remind me again when the cages went into service and who was President at that time…I kinda thought the American President was elected to look after America. Maybe I misunderstand the job.

If you’ve only seen very poor or very rich supporters, you need to get out more. I live among them, and they’re pretty much middle class. Or do you need to categorize them to justify your own opposition?

Which dictatorial actions has he taken? Has he arrested journalists and had their families followed? Oh, wait, that was Barack Obama…Hitler being appointed to the Chancellorship was a move aimed at appeasing his supporters by Hindenburg, so as to try and bring them into the governmental coalition. Hitler never won the Presidency on his own and only assumed it upon the death of Hindenburg. Moreover, he set about rounding up Jews inside Germany who were German citizens, and then he executed them. You conflating with Trump saying mean things is pretty comical.

BTW, remind me when democrats “got over” the election of 2016.

After I read this, I decided to take a look at Russ’s Facebook page. He evidently has a wife and daughters. I bet he speaks like this to them, too. I know the type. This is the same treatment I used to get from my father and my uncle, and other men in the family with military experience who have the erroneous idea that being rude and insulting is motivating. He probably treats the women in his family like trash. And this is a very typical attitude displayed by a lot of men in the military who can’t stand to be addressed by women.

So my friend continued with another comment, which I thought was pretty civilized.

Yes, I have a pretty piece of paper that states I put in the time to research my given field. It is where I met Chris, someone I greatly admire. I didn’t say it to brag, but to let you know I had the ability to read books, such as yours, to come up with my own educated opinion on matters.

And Russ comes up with this beaut…

so you continue your assertions based on your certificate and not on facts? I notice you failed to refute a SINGLE thing presented, instead relying on your degree to hopefully quell others into silence. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to dismiss you.

At this point, I’m pretty sure that Russ is just an asshole. But my friend addressed him again, I think quite respectfully, given Russ’s arrogant and dismissive tone toward her.

no, I don’t need to refute your position or points. This is not a debate. I am not required to defeat your ill informed assertions with a counterpoint to each point you make. My reference to my degree was presenting qualification to my argument like anyone would to demonstrate a mastery in a subject or skill. It wasn’t meant to put anyone down who does not have said “pretty paper” and I acknowledge there are many here more educated than me, some might even consider themselves overeducated.

At the end of the day, Congress ratified the electoral vote and Joe Biden will be the next President baring any actions taking place in Congress this week regarding Donald Trumps role in inciting violence.

It is easy for you, a male, to dismiss me because I don’t immediately defer to your superior opinion because, as a female, I must be stupid and not really understand how all of this works. Your bully tactics will not work on me.

As the daughter of a retired Air Force Colonel, I lived in a divided Germany and in school we were taught many things regarding international affairs, to include the responsibility of the people who fueled the ego of Hitler and how easy it was for him to rise to power.

We are in a poor economic situation. Trump is saying things that resonate in many hearts of like-minded people. Senators and congress-people of his own party support him at the cost of their own careers.

Four years go by fast. Instead of insurrection and sedition, why not form powerful election reform groups to ensure the next election is not “fraudulent.” Oh wait, if the presidential election was fraudulent, maybe the rest of the election was fraudulent and Mitch really isn’t the duly elected Senator from Kentucky? Shocker that the only election that is in question is the presidential election when every state had all offices on the same ballot. No one else on the ballot who lost are protesting like an angry dictator that there was voter fraud. They accepted the loss and said, get ’em next time.

And Russ couldn’t let it go, so he responded thusly:

I see, instead of taking on the points you quite obviously got wrong about rises to power, now it’s all about what is dangling between my legs. Why that’s not sexist at all!

I treated you the same way I treat everyone else. Stop acting all butt hurt b/c you got called out on your hyperbolic nonsense. It’s not about anyone bowing down to superiority – it’s about you being so full of rage and anger that it has tainted your judgment about how you pose historical context.

I went back, and golly gosh gee if I could find anywhere where I said Biden would not be the next President. Wouldn’t that simple fact, which everyone acknowledges, kinda undercut your Hitler assertion? Last I checked, Hitler was pretty unlikely to allow himself to be removed from power. But I get that you are wedded to overblown rhetoric that you somehow can’t see contributes to all the anger in our society today.

I see that you want to make this about the election in general instead of your Nazi reference bullshit. Biden won – shouldn’t that be enough for you to let go of this anger? Or are you intent on proving that it’s not Trump per se you dislike, but the Right in general, and Trump is merely a stand-in for that hatred?

He’s not even trying to understand where my friend is coming from. His attitude toward her was belligerent and insulting from the get go. But my friend stays on the high road and writes this:

If you felt any hatred from me toward Trump or the right I am quite surprised. He is not important enough to me to hate.

If there’s anything I hate, it’s when people try to tell me how I feel or what I think. Kudos to my friend for her even-handed response to a guy who did just that. But he couldn’t let it go. He had to lob one more missive.

your words tell a different story.

Nope, Russ. I don’t see it. But my friend offered these last thoughts, again, very classily stated.

I guess as an author you would know? Hate is something that is a visceral reaction. I don’t hate him any more than I hate you. I feel sorry for this country in being hoodwinked by the biggest con man to ever hold office and that is saying a lot because we have had quite a few in our history.

I can call someone a narcissist without hating them. I can describe behaviors as being childish without hating them. I can hold my ground on how I feel without being hateful toward you or anyone else who feels the same.

The feeling I feel is pity. I am unsure you understand why I feel pity without thinking that I am being condescending. This division is not the America I have been brought up to believe in so strongly. It is devolving into an us vs. them and I refuse to play into that role. So while you try to bait me with insults to get me to spew hate, it is not going to happen. I have many conservative friends who both support and don’t support Trump and I don’t treat them any different than any other friends. I will respectfully debate them when they want to debate and I will back off when it becomes uncivil.

What people don’t understand is the language of politics and how it is founded in civility. You explore the concept of hate in your book Schism as well as a fictionalized (which at the moment feels more non fiction given current political events) break of political parties where people are pitted against each other. You have some great reviews and I agree with one reviewer that this genre of literature (modern civil war) will be forthcoming more due to the political and civil unrest in the country. At some point, when courts, lawmakers, and other officials are saying there was no corruption, no fraud, when are the disenfranchised Trump supporters going to believe that? What do people have to do to make this be a settled matter?

I do hope my friend doesn’t mind that I posted about this… but this discussion is on a public thread and I was legitimately impressed by her intelligent and respectful responses to an apparently misogynistic bully (because I truly doubt he would have responded to a man in the way he responded to my friend). I already had a bee in my bonnet this morning on account of a couple of people insulting me on Gary Johnson’s Facebook page. One person called me “a special kind of stupid” and “selfish” because I wrote that the one good thing Trump has done is motivate people who ordinarily don’t vote to go to the polls and vote him out of office. I am delighted that Joe Biden won, simply because he’s a much more decent person than Trump is. But apparently, voting against Trump makes me “stupid” and “selfish” (looks like she deleted her comment after I called her out). Behold:

Granted, maybe I shouldn’t have called the guy an “idiot”, but I hadn’t had my coffee. We all make mistakes.

Anyway… it’s been a long four years and a long couple of days. Even if Trump isn’t entirely to blame for what happened in Washington, DC on Wednesday, he certainly had a hand in its fruition. The whole world is watching this, and Trump has not responded like a real leader should and would. It’s time for him to leave power before even more people get hurt or killed by his terrible policies. Maybe, with a leader who actually cares about others and sees them as more than just objects or weapons, America might be able to repair some of the damage. But I think we could all start by not immediately resorting to verbal abuse and insults, discounting other people’s opinions, and diminishing their accomplishments. That alone, would help make America much better… although we still have a long way to go before we’re “great”.

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condescending twatbags, language, politics

“Christians” who follow Trump. Seems like an oxymoron… emphasis on “moron”.

Apologies to my dear friend, whose page hosted the topic of today’s post. Also, I hope she doesn’t mind that I cursed in a post her Christian friend read.

I got into a short online spat with someone last night. It wasn’t a very serious spat, mainly because I didn’t take the guy’s comments seriously. Unfortunately, I have gotten to the point at which I tune out most people who are staunch Trump supporters. As each day passes, I find myself with decreasing patience for people who still champion Trump, especially when they profess to be Christians.

A very dear friend of mine shared today’s featured photo. Although I agree with it, I wasn’t going to comment. I usually don’t comment on such things on Facebook, because they lead to pointless arguments with people I don’t know or care about, and then I end up getting upset, although I usually end up with a pretty good blog topic for the next morning. But Bill has been away on business and I was bored and completely sober.

So anyway, I came across my friend’s photo and happened to read the responses. The first was by a male Christian friend of hers who supports Trump. He chastised my friend for “painting with a broad brush”. This was his comment:

Be very careful now! You are getting ready to cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed. I support Trump as President. My faith in the Lord is colorblind and non political. You are using a broad brush my old friend and becoming what you say you are against. I know plenty of people that support Trump that are none of those things. I know plenty of democrats that aren’t socialist and believe in the Lord too. You might want to rethink sharing this post. Just saying.

A mutual friend of ours left an astonished and amused response.

Uh, you support Trump and are warning people about “crossing lines”???!!! OMG, that is PRICELESS. 😂😂😂

When I read the first comment, I just felt tired and annoyed. So I wrote, “I’m so tired of Trump supporters.” And I am. I’m just really tired of them. I’m tired of seeing and hearing Trump and reading headlines about his depressing, trolling comments. I’m tired of watching people in the United States cheer on Trump as others languish or die of gun violence, police brutality, and COVID-19. I’m tired of hearing people praise Trump’s non-sensical gibberish. But I am ESPECIALLY tired of so-called Christians who give Trump respect, support, and a PASS on his bad behavior, when Trump is about as Christian as a broken cattle prod.

And I’m really sick of Trump supporters claiming that liberals are “socialists” or even that socialism is a terrible thing. The vast majority of them don’t even know what socialism is and are only parroting stuff they’ve heard from equally ignorant people who also don’t know, as they collect their government benefits and rely on publicly supported entities like schools, fire stations, public health offices, and police departments. They often confuse socialism with communism, which also isn’t in and of itself a “bad” thing. Communism doesn’t work too well, but it’s not evil. It’s just flawed, much like capitalism is.

I wasn’t going to comment again, but the original poster’s Christian Trump loving friend came back and left a “polite” response. Well, I suppose it was polite. He’s above using cuss words.

that’s what I mean! Very careful how you batch folks into groups. I never said anything negative about anyone and the only thing you had to come back with was negative. Now let’s talk about character here? Be very careful because we are all being judged. I care for A. I don’t know who you ladies are but I would suggest some soul searching. This time think a little before you come in to our conversation with a snappy comeback. It sounds as though you are not being very receptive to other people’s opinions and you are casting stones when you yourselves live in glass houses. Isn’t that one of the things you say you don’t like about President Trump? I’ll pray for you both.

Sigh… Seriously guy? Save your prayers for the country. The country needs your prayers much more than I do. Many individuals who are out of work, homeless, facing deportation and separation from their children, sick and dying, or drowning in debt need prayers more than I do. I’m doing pretty well, mainly because I am not living in the United States right now. Against my better judgment, I left a response.

I don’t like Trump because he’s a wannabe dictator and a rapist. There is ample evidence of it that dates back from before A, E, and I were born. And I’m tired of Trump supporters because they refuse to see what is right in front of them. He is not your garden variety conservative, you know.  

As for your prayers, you should save them for the country and the many people who are suffering and dying under Trump’s cruel, self-serving, and downright stupid policies. It’s going straight down the toilet.

The Trump supporting Christian wrote this in response:

America will never go down the toilet. The troubles we are having are because we the people have allowed the liberal, progressive politicians run our country for far too long. We are taking it back and that’s with President Trumps help. He knows he works for us and that’s the difference. Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Schumer , etc. think we work for them. We will see where we stand in a few weeks and what the next step is in taking our country back. I will continue to pray for you and thank you for your thoughts👍

I thought about telling him, again, to save his prayers for people who want and need them. Thoughts and prayers don’t do jack shit for people who have lost their homes to uncontrolled wildfires, wind damage wrought by tornados, and flooding caused by hurricanes. Trump doesn’t care about those people, either, nor does he care about those who are giving their health and even their lives to help people in crisis. Trump would rather golf and eat a fucking cheeseburger… and then maybe fuck someone, other than his wife, that he thinks is pretty, although he may not be able to get it up as well as he once did.

But I did leave our Trump supporting friend a comment. It was a provocative one. I don’t usually go this low, but I just felt frustrated and irritated, especially by the guy’s patronizing tone toward me. I’m beyond tired of it.

you have really drunk the conservative KKKool-Aid, haven’t you? Well… we’ll see what the future holds. I am sure many Germans had similar love for Hitler.

Another friend from our hometown, a Black man I’ve known since the fourth grade, was pretty shocked and (I suspect) delighted by that comment. And he left me a hearty response which made me laugh.

Damn! It is not necessary to put both feet in his ass when one is sufficient! You are straight vicious!😂

Then our Trump loving Christian friend came back with this…

For goodness sakes! Another Hitler reference. ? Now listen, Hitler would have never support Israel. Israel was under attack but it wasn’t by this President. Further more, Hitler was a socialist. He was driven by hatred and discontent. Trump is a competitor and wants to win. That’s getting old and tired. Look, no true Christian puts his faith in any person. I have as much Faith in President Trump as I do any President. When you look at the proof. He’s is getting done what he said he would do. That means he deserves another chance. If he wasn’t get it done then there wouldn’t be so many upset with him. No, I just think this is because he wasn’t supposed to win and the losing side is still angry. As for Religion and President Trump, the Lord has done his works through many people who weren’t perfect. None of us are.

I apologized, mainly to my dear friend, whose page was hosting this spectacle…

Sorry… I am just really fed up with willful ignorance and “thoughts and prayers”. I happen to live in a place where people have seen this very same shit happening. More than a few of them have mentioned the similarities. Watching the decay of the United States from afar is heartbreaking and scary, and I am tired of condescending platitudes from people who profess to be followers of Christ, yet support a racist rapist who doesn’t give two shits about anyone but himself.  

Generally speaking, I am not vicious at all. I really try to be open minded. But Trump is not like any other leader I have seen in my lifetime.

Then the Christian came back and complained about the language being used. SIGH… I really think God cares about things more important than swearing, like young women being shot by the police while sleeping in their beds. But this was his comment…

let’s not talk about feet and asses. I was trying to keep this above board. Opinions differ and that’s healthy. Why is it when someone hits a nerve foul language and courage through grammar starts? I know I’m right in my thinking because I’m living proof. I have a worked hard my entire life and achieved my wisdom through experience and hard knocks. I don’t get my facts through the liberal media and the lies they spread or some half wit professor paid to spread their socialistic nonsense. Where do the references to Hitler, KKK, etc. come from? Do you have actual proof of those things? Why is it that before he became President all of the liberal media morons worshiped him and we’re giving him awards? The reason I commented to A was because you can’t lump Trump supporters as racists and hypocrites just like I can’t lump you in with thugs and criminals because you haven’t spoke out against the riots and attacks on the police. That would be right for me to do now would it?

My Black friend apologized for his “ass” comment and commended me for my “passion”. Then he asked me not to apologize because people like me give him hope. That made me feel good. But I also wanted to add a clarification, for the Christian guy, just to explain my references to the KKK and Hitler. In fact, if I thought it would do any good, I would also supply links to a couple of blog posts I wrote last year that illustrate why I think of the KKK and Hitler when I see someone doggedly and mindlessly supporting Trump. But I think I’ll just link them here for the curious, since I doubt he’d take the time to read.

Anyway, this was my latest post, and probably the last one I’ll write about this, since I have other things to do, like pluck the weird hairs from my chin and upper lip and clean the lint from my butt crack.

To be clear… I don’t think that we’re mimicking the Holocaust yet, nor do I think Trump is just like Hitler. I think he shares many leadership and personality qualities with Hitler and many people are reacting to him in much the same way Germans reacted to Hitler. Trump has also surrounded himself with charismatic toadies like Hitler did, and they are doing his bidding. And those who have read about history will be able to note the similarities. However, to my knowledge, there isn’t an actual genocide going on, which is a very good thing.  

People who support Donald Trump may call themselves Christians and they may not say or do the horrible things Trump has done. But by supporting him publicly and voting for him, they are telling the world that Trump’s reprehensible comments and actions toward women, minorities, disabled people, unattractive people, poor people, fat people, and anyone else who can’t do anything for him are totally okay. And that, in my book, makes his supporters very poor followers of Christ.

By the way, I highly doubt that God cares if H writes “ass” or I write “shit”. They’re just different words for things that everyone has and does. That’s another thing that bugs me about so-called Christians who support Trump. They’re much more concerned about policing other people’s language than they are about demanding decent behavior, competency, and proper decorum from elected officials. Trump also uses filthy language, including a well-known euphemism for vaginas. That’s keeping things above board, right?

Sigh… anyway, I think I’m done with that little online fracas. We have bigger fish to fry. Next weekend is going to be a whirlwind. We are planning to go pick up our new pooch. This was going to be a somewhat leisurely trip down to Slovenia and back by Monday. But a couple of days ago, Bill got a summons to court to serve as a witness. The hearing is taking place on the day we were planning to come back to Germany, and it requires travel to another state. So we’re going to have to rush back, and it’s going to be very exhausting and potentially frustrating, depending on traffic and border stops. With any luck, it will go off without a hitch, and we’ll have something to focus on besides politics, plagues, and police brutality.

However… I will admit that I enjoyed this little clip from yesterday’s news.

It was a little challenge to the protective bubble of followers who usually surround Trump. I got my ballot and voted ALL BLUE for the first time ever. Fuck Donald Trump.

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politicians, religion, Trump

Rick Wiles: Batshit wingnut of the week…

Not long ago, I noticed a hit on a post I wrote on my old blog. The hit came from South Carolina. I think the person who read the post was probably reading up on the follow up I wrote on a young woman who tried to crowd fund her law school education. I got curious as to whether or not she finished school. I looked her up, saw that she’d finished law school, then congratulated myself for paying off my own student loans.

The second part of the post was about Christian TV host, Rick Wiles, who has a show called TruNews. I had never heard of Rick Wiles before last July, when I saw a video he did about how God will destroy America because of “pro-choice” people. He also claimed that Democrats are stalking Trump’s “people” with the intention of killing them.

I see that I was mightily taken aback by Wiles’ vitriol. It’s scary that men like him have a platform and a significant following of brainwashed people. But, even though Wiles’ rhetoric seems absolutely crazy to me, I soon forgot about his crazy tirades… until this morning. Rick Wiles is back with a new claim. He says, “We will impose Christian rule in this country, whether you like it or not!”

Wiles continues with an anti-semitic rant about how the United States has allowed the Jews to take over everything and turn our country into “Zionists”. He claims Jews, whom he says make up about 2% of our population, are running everything. He goes on to praise Alabama’s insane new law against all abortions and promises that Christians will soon be taking over and running things the “right” way… if you know what I mean.

Uh… yeah… I’m all for free speech and all, but this guy comes off as a complete and total lunatic to me. Trump has a lot of people believing that undocumented immigrants are the cause of evil in the United States, but Wiles just comes right out and blames everything on the Jews. Who else does that remind you of?

Yikes!
This lady was a regular person who came to believe that Hitler had the answers. She worked for him at his “Berghof” from 1943-45.

Wiles isn’t just against Jews. He’s also homophobic. Last year, after he accused TV journalist Rachel Maddow of trying to stage a “bloody coup” against the disastrous Trump administration, Wiles said this:

America, you’ve been homosexualized. You’ve been Jewdy-ized. I’m just telling it how it is. She (Maddow) was spewing out, last night, calls for revolution. She was telling the left, ‘Take a deep breath, we’re at the moment, it’s coming, we’re almost there, we’re going to remove him from the White House.’ We’re about 72 hours — possibly 72 hours — from a coup.

Be prepared that you’re going to turn on the television and see helicopters hovering over the roof of the White House with men clad in black rappelling down ropes, entering into the White House. Be prepared for a shoot out in the White House as Secret Service agents shoot commandos coming in to arrest President Trump.

That is how close we are to a revolution. Be prepared for a mob — a leftist mob — to tear down the gates, the fence at the White House and to go into the White House and to drag him out with his family and decapitate them on the lawn of the White House.

Um… of course, this never happened. But Wiles still said it, and he probably had a lot of people cheering at home, behind their television screens. Notice he says America has been “homosexualized”. Who else was against homosexuals?

Hitler and his followers believed homosexuals were carriers of disease, which “weakened” the nation… They spoke of wanting to “morally purify” Germany.

I find it rather scary, but not too surprising, that a guy like Rick Wiles would use the term “homosexualized” in a way that implies that America has been morally degraded by the left. The more I listen to Trump cheerleaders, the more I’m reminded of the Holocaust and the many thousands of innocent people who were tortured and killed simply because of who they were. We don’t need people like Rick Wiles spreading the same vile hatred in today’s world. Those years of hell should stay far in the past.

You see… back when Trump started his campaign, I saw him much like a lot of people probably saw him. He was a flamboyant reality TV star and former beauty pageant owner. He was a real estate mogul and sometime pitchman for companies like McDonald’s. Like all malignant narcissists, he was charming. I was never a “fan” of his at all, but I didn’t really take him seriously. Little did I know, so many Americans were duped into voting for a morally bankrupt man who encourages hatred and divisiveness.

I can’t believe he’s the president.
Steven Anderson… yet another “Christian” asshole who wishes death on people who aren’t like him.

I know guys like Rick Wiles and Steven Anderson have been around forever. What I don’t remember ever happening before in my lifetime is guys like them getting so much airtime. Too many people are lapping up their rhetoric and cheering on the same kind of fervor that led to Hitler’s uprising.

Yeah… Trump says all children “born or unborn, are made in the holy image of God”… except for the ones with brown skin he separates from their parents and incarcerates at the border. And guys like convicted felon and televangelist Jim Bakker are cheering him on.

Folks, these are some truly scary times. Maybe they’re even scarier than they seem. It’s easy to laugh at wingnuts like Rick Wiles, Steven Anderson, and Jim Bakker, but their messages are still coming through loudly and clearly to the unhinged masses who want to blame people who aren’t like them for everything wrong in their lives. It seems like these people want to blame everyone but white men– and they have declared war on women, non-whites, homosexuals, and anyone else who’s different.

I am truly scared of what will happen if Trump isn’t defeated in the next election. You want to talk about “bad hombres”? Well, they’re coming out in droves now, completely uninhibited as they share their messages of hatred. Maybe these people have always been there, and now it’s a lot easier for them to reach the masses due to the Internet. But for those who know history, these messages convey something we’ve heard before and should never want to go back to.

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