#More Hitler parallels

[smonk-wonk]

how are you a holocaust survivor if you're POC?

I'm not a Holocaust survivor I'm 25?

I'm gonna guess you mean descended from Holocaust survivors & victims. In which case it's really sad that you think this way firstly? POC and non Jewish people did in fact die during the holocaust and many were targeted for not fitting the Nazis' idea of the "superior Aryan race".

From The Holocaust Encyclopedia: "When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933, there were several thousand Black people living in Germany. The Nazi regime discriminated against them because the Nazis viewed Black people as racially inferior. During the Nazi era (1933–1945), the Nazis used racial laws and policies to restrict the economic and social opportunities of Black people in Germany. They also harassed, imprisoned, sterilized, and murdered an unknown number of Black people."

Also contrary to what some believe, and this may sound farfetched and I hope you're sitting down but bear with me- some people are actually more than one race. Some people are POC and white. We call this being biracial. Or in grade school, being an "Oreo". A mutt if they really want to dehumanize you

But while my relatives weren't targeted for their skin color as they were white, many people were. Black Germans and other POC did exist, were murdered and traumatized, and have passed down that generational trauma. Just as other persecuted populations even if it was much less it was no less a part of the genocide and ethnic cleansing.

[isa-ghost]

Maybe this is extremely incorrect or narrow of me to think in some way, but

When you learn about Hitler's takeover in school, I feel like you always imagine it being so much bigger, even bigger than it already was, like more... I don't know how to explain it. Like it stopped every single other aspect of life for everyone ever. Because like. Y'know, gigantic historical event. Like unfathomable degrees of impact on a global scale, even if that was only the case after years of damage.

And yet here we (Americans) are, living through something that has terrifying amounts of parallels to the start of all that, and like... Nope. Life doesn't freeze, not everyone feels an instant tangible change for the worst. People are still living out their daily lives, doing whatever their version of mundane life is, whether it's working for less than minimum wage at a shitty retail job, doomscrolling on the toilet at home, seeking out somewhere to stay warm and safe, etc.

Like no matter what life is like for them, everyone is acutely aware one way or another that this is happening and ongoing, but chances are it probably isn't completely derailing their average day (I'm having a hard time wording this in a way that emphasizes there's an element of privilege involved in this and keeps the people who will be impacted ASAP by things like ICE raids and such in mind but the sentiment is there, sorry).

Like. This is the next 4 years of our lives. I'm a poor, queer, neurodivergent woman. And I'm still more privileged than some people despite being quadruple disadvantaged (for a lack of better term). But I feel like I'm living a death sentence despite that privilege. And you'd think that, given I feel that way, what's happening today and will be happening for the next 4 years would feel more real than it does right now? Like I wouldn't be sitting in my home completely objectively fine, casually posting here on Tumblr feeling existential and spending an embarrassing amount of time trying to word what I'm thinking in a way that isn't/doesn't feel ignorant in some way.

But no. We're on the precipice of god knows what and it's not consuming very single American's life including mine in every single conceivable way like how you (or at least I, I guess) imagine it was for every single person back before/during WWII.

I dunno, I guess I'm just really feeling like this meme right now.

And it's all only made worse by the fact that like. The election was rigged (said by Trump himself btw) and there are a million other blatantly obvious reasons this shouldn't be happening. And yet it is. Like not only do we have to endure unimaginable amounts of dread for years to come, but we have the knowledge that this should not be happening to begin with but everything is so fucked up and the people that could do something to stop it are so fucking stupid and only out for themselves that it's happening anyway.

Edit: Can't believe I have to add this, but zionists and neo-nazis get the fuck out of here. Please choke to death, actually.

[qqueenofhades]

I don’t have any words right now for what’s happened. Where in the fuck do we go from here?

I don't know. I really, truly don't know. We can't sugarcoat how bad things are going to get, and we can't pre-emptively give into it anyway. This is going to be an unprecedented time in American history (if, sadly, not world history) and the forces conspiring to make you obey will gain much of their power from you doing so in advance, without a struggle. It seems fair to say that America as it has always been historically constituted is over, and may not return in our lifetimes, but we also do not know that for a fact. If nothing else, the fascists will find it very hard to cancel competitive elections, and we cannot sit back, throw up our hands, conclude that voting is clearly meaningless, and let them do that. There are a lot of other things that we need to do, but that's one.

There are various postmortems to be written and nits to pick, but Harris was thrown into an impossible situation and did the best she could in 100 days. Even her critics agree she ran a pretty much flawless campaign. But this country simply decided that a well-qualified black woman could not be preferred over the most manifestly and flagrantly unfit degenerate to ever occupy the office. They decided this for many reasons, not least because large swathes of the country now live in curated misinformation bubbles that, under Government Czar Musk, will only get much, much worse. They were helped by the cowardice and complicity of the "mainstream media" that could have ended Trump's career exactly like they did to Biden after the first debate, but chose to preserve the profits of their billionaire oligarch owners and did not do so, giving Trump the benefit of the doubt and normalization at every turn. They also hounded Biden relentlessly over the four years of his presidency, never reported on the good things he did, and drove him to the historically bad approval ratings lows for a president who was by any metric, quite successful (and will quite possibly be our last ordinary American president for a very long time). Along with the searingly ingrained racism and misogyny and misinformation, Harris could not overcome that.

Democrats clearly had a messaging problem, but it's also true that the country, quite simply, does not care about "democracy" when the economy is perceived to be at stake. Not to over-egg the Hitler parallels, but yeah. This is how Hitler returned to power in 1933 -- on the backs of widespread economic collapse of the Weimar Republic; voters decided they just didn't care about the overtly fascist stuff, which he then proceeded to you know, do with genocidal vigor. Except the American economy in this case was actually doing well, which makes it even more baffling and indefensible. Enough people simply memory-holed Trump's crimes (aided at every turn by SCOTUS, Mitch McConnell not convicting him after January 6, Merrick Garland being far too slow and timid, the corporate media), liked the racist fascist behavior or felt that it wasn't a dealbreaker, and decided that in this election, he was the "change" candidate. It's insane by any metric, but that's what happened.

The country is deeply sick. We do not know what will happen. It's going to get bad. Barring a miracle, we will not have federalized abortion rights again in my lifetime, and there will be widespread attacks on public health, women's rights, immigrants, transgender people, and other vulnerable people. Even and especially the ones who voted for Trump. Never Thought Leopard Would Eat My Face, etc. Alito and Thomas will swiftly step down and allow their seats to be replaced by 40-year old wingnuts hand-selected from the worst the Federalist Society has to offer. SCOTUS is gone for the next generation at least. There is very little prospect of it being ever fixed in the foreseeable future.

Trump will never face a scintilla of consequences for his previous crimes; all the open federal cases will be closed as soon as he takes office and fires Jack Smith. The best we can hope for is that he dies in office, but then we get Vance and the cadre of alt-right techno billionaires ruled directly from the Kremlin. Putin is celebrating this morning and with good reason; he's gotten everything he wants. Trump will egg on Netanyahu in Gaza and abandon Ukraine. Democracy across the world will remain even more fragile and badly under threat. Authoritarians will be empowered and American withdrawal from international systems will percolate in very dangerous ways that cannot and will not be fixed in the short run. I really hope all the leftists who celebrate this as the "defeat of the genocide candidate" will enjoy all the genocide and suffering that's about to come. And yes, I do think the Israel-Palestine war fucked us in a large way. Jewish voters perceived the Democrats as insufficiently pro-Israel due to the presence of far-left antisemitism, even as the far left attacked the Democrats relentlessly and never targeted the Republicans. Arab voters abandoned them, possibly deservedly. What would have happened without the war? We don't know. You get the historical period that you get. Netanyahu and Trump can now do anything they want. Hope it was worth it.

As I said, I can't sugarcoat it. We are going to be paying for this in some form for the next decade, and probably longer. I'm not as absolutely shattered as I was in 2016, but I am much, much angrier. We all thought, we all hoped, America was better than this. It isn't. That, however, is something that has also happened before. What we decide to do next will shape how the next chapter unfolds.

This would be a great time to stock up on needed medicines, renew your passport online, and anything else you need to do in preparation for next year. Many of us simply do not have the wherewithal, whether financial or otherwise, to leave the country. I don't know what will happen with me. I don't know what will happen to any of us. This was utterly avoidable and yet, America didn't want to avoid it. At some point, there's nothing else you can do. You can point to media cronyism, Russian influence, etc etc., but the fact that two of the most qualified presidential candidates who happened to be women have now lost to Trump twice makes it unavoidable. The virulent rightward shift of young men (of all races) in particular paints a grim picture as to how the reactionary misogyny of the 21st century is going to essentially undo most of the progress for social and gender equality in the 20th. The patriarchy has been a problem for most of human history. Doesn't really seem like it's going to change.

The end result of this, however grim: we're still here. We are still living within our communities. If (and this is a big if) Democrats can retake the House, they can put some checks on the process for the next two years. At this point, we are in full-out buying-time, trying-to-prevent-the worst mode. We could have continued fixing things, but we won't be doing that. We will only be trying to preserve ourselves and our friends and our smaller spheres of influence. It sounds very trite to say that we have to have courage, but we do. There's not much else.

It's going to be an awful winter. We have two and a half months to see this coming and know how bad it's going to be, and... yeah. I don't know how soon the buyer's remorse will inevitably set in, but it will. Tough luck, people. You voted for him. You get the country that you decide to have. But the rest of us are also here, and what Gandalf says is still true. We wish the Ring had never come to us, we wish none of this had happened, but we still have to decide what to do with the time that is given to us.

I don't have a lot more. I'll probably be logging off for a while. I don't need to look at the internet for.... yeah, a long time. (Will I do it anyway? Probably.) I don't know what else to leave you with, aside from again:

Do not obey in advance. Do not act as if everything is foreordained and set in stone. Fascist regimes end. They always do. We are going to have to figure out how, and it will suck shit, but the alternative is worse.

Take care of yourselves. I love you.

[robertreich]

Why Big Money Supports Trump 

Fascism backed by Big Money is one of the most dangerous of all political alliances.

We saw it in 1930s Germany, when industrial giants bailed out a cash-strapped Nazi party right before Hitler’s election, thinking that Hitler would protect their money and power.

We are seeing something similar now. Earlier this year, the GOP was running out of money. So Trump turned to his wealthy backers for help. Many super-rich donors who once criticized Trump for stoking the violence of January 6 have since had a change of heart, deciding their profits are worth more than our democracy.

Trump has promised them that if elected, he’ll extend his 2017 tax cuts that went mainly to the wealthy beyond 2025 when they’re scheduled to expire, and hinting at even more.

He promised oil executives he would scrap regulations favoring electric vehicles and wind energy if they would give his campaign one billion dollars.

The Trump White House is for sale, and the wealthy are buying. 50 billionaire families gave at least $600 million in political donations as of May, with over two thirds going to support GOP candidates and conservative causes.

Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men, who also controls and manipulates one of the world’s largest communications platforms, has committed to spending millions of dollars to elect Trump.

In previous videos, I’ve highlighted alarming similarities between fascist regimes of the past and Trumpism. The alignment of American billionaires with Trump’s anti-democracy movement is one of the most dangerous parallels.

The billionaires want the rest of us to fight each other so we don’t look up and see where all the wealth and power have gone, so we don’t join together and raise taxes on the super-rich to finance childcare, better schools, our health care system, and everything else we need.

They fear democracy because there are far more of us than there are of them.

We need to see through their fear tactics and vote in overwhelming numbers this November.

We can learn from history and spot the danger. We are not doomed to repeat it.

[my-dark-happy-place]

How Hitler dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days. (The article goes into more detail, I highly recommend reading it)

Compare this with what's happening in the USA and pay attention to the parallels!!!

It genuinely took Hitler less than 2 months to put his dictatorship into place, please learn from our history and don't let this happen to your country!

The ICE trucks already being in many cities and Musk openly doing a Nazi salute on the inauguration stage not once, but twice and the crowd cheering should scare the hell out of everyone.

[beifong-brainrot]

I have a question what do you like of final of the Legend of Korra and What do you not like it ? ( S4)

Ah, B4. My favourite season and the season I hate the most at the same time. I have such mixed feelings about it and I think most of it stems from the utilisation of Nazi and Soviet imagery and inspirations in the Earth Empire.

Because it disrupts any sympathy, I could have towards the good Kuvira had done for the Earth Kingdom because of the IRL historical context behind those same pros in the regimes Kuvira was based on.

Technological advancements and modernisation? Made possible by essentially slave labour of the people of the country, particularly the prisoners of gulags, who were in huge part political prisoners (known as biełoruczki, if I remember correctly). I use the term 'political' very loosely because because many of the 'crimes' were just... really stupid. For example having rented a French book from a library.

Kuvira's attack on Republic City is also heavily recontextualised due to this context. Because, in a void, a woman of a county that has been heavily affected by a war trying to regain a former colonised region of her country that hadn't been returned after the end of the war is not a terribly immoral thing. You could even describe it as justified.

But with the context of Kuvira's inspirations it takes on a darker meaning as one of the Soviet and Nazi excuses for invading Poland in 1939. In the words of Timothy Snyder, historian and author:

Hitler saw Poland as the ‘unreal creation’ of the Treaty of Versailles, Molotov as its ‘ugly offspring.

Furthermore, even post-Soviet Russia has a similar pattern of dismissing the legitimacy countries that fall victim to their campaigns. For example, Putin justifying the current genocide and war crimes in Ukraine by claiming Ukraine to be historically Russian lands and that Ukrainians and Russians are 'one Nation'. I have spoken at length on Kuvira's parallels to Putin and length, I believe.

Connecting Kuvira's claim on Repubmic City to these ideologies is counterproductive to any sympathy I could have to her goals. Because, in a void, decolonisation. With the influences assigned to her, it's rather giving 'imperial nostalgia'.

And I know that you could easily make the argument that we should look at the Earth Empire as it's own thing, that it isn't defined by its historical infulences. But I do believe it does. Kuvira's inspirations are glaring, obvious and hard to ignore. Especially the Nazi ones.

Kuvira's Soviet inspirations, which in my opinion, are a far bigger part of the show, are, however, more insidious. Mainly because a Western Audience isn't primed to see the danger and sordid history in the ideologies she presents here.

Because a lot of younger First World citizens seem to have this weird hard on for Soviet Russia, ignoring that it was just as horrific as the 3rd Reich.

Now, I actually really liked Kuvira as an antagonist in the first half of the season. I'd even classify her as my favourite main villain (my fave antagoinst in general being Aiwei's gayass).

I really enjoyed the mix of Nazi and Soviet inspirations behind her character, because while these ideologies may seem different at first, they aren't actually that dissimilar, even being referred to as 'Totalitarian Twins'.

Which is why I mildly push back against people claiming that Kuvira represented simply fascism. I believe Kuvira could've been an almost perfect 'human' commentary on totalitarianism.

I belive that Kuvira is an amalgamation of multiple totalitarian dictators, not just Stalin and Hitler, combining their common traits and behaviours.

We are very quickly shown how charismatic Kuvira is and how she is skilled at social engineering by, for example manipulating Bolin and Korra, as well as strategically putting on displays of power and strength to intimidate opponents and endear allies.

Showmanship is a huge part of a lot of totalitarian dictatorships, particularly as many of them rely on cult of personality, which certainly rings true for the Earth Empire.

We're also quickly shown how fond Kuvira is of ultimatums and total control. This 'all or nothing' mentality is a common theme in totalitarian countries. You're either with the ruling part 100%, or you're an enemy of the state. See my above description of political prisoners in gułags. Kuvira's weaponisation of the context of historical necessity is also a trademark of Soviet regime.

Kuvira's characteristation as manipulative, intimidating and calculating behind her more charismatic and virtuous veneer is a perfect mirror into how irl totalitarian regimes often hide behind friendly faces and utilise sound ideologies to obscure their true insidious intents.

And then the show ruins this excellent villain with a poorly executed sympathy scene and later a shitty redemption arc.

That's not to say I'm fully opposed to Kuvira having a sob backstory and being marginally sympathetic. But I would rather this be used to show off how totalitarianism is inherently a self destructive system. Leaning into Kuvira being an insecure, compensating control freak rather than presenting her as a misguided heroine who lost her way would be a much better use of her character imo.

I liked seeing her cry like a little bitch tho that was cathartic and also sexy.

But you know who actually deserved the sympathy and empathy we were encouraged to give Kuvira? The Beifong family, especially the Zaofu crew! And if you follow me you've probably heard me ramble about this already but they really were the only real ones that season.

They were the literal only ones actively warning everyone about Kuvira and seeing through her bullshit. And it's no surprise, since they know Kuvira. Sure, their grudge against her probably influenced their opinions, but the comics show that there were symptoms of the person Kuvira would eventually become even as a child, like in her anger issues and her destroying Opal's dollhouse as punishment for Opal setting a very rational boundary.

I truly think the Beifong family deserved more screentime and we desrved to hear more out of all of them. As for example, Huan could easily illustrate the irl censorship and control totalitarian governments. Like, there's a reason Polish writer and painter Stanisław Witkiewicz overdosed and slit his wrists after hearing about the Soviets. One of his books also practically predicted the totalitarian control of Nazis and Soviets on Polish art and self expression. But the talk of Huan's wasted potential can wait for another time.

I also liked Wei calling Kuvira out after she was describing herself as a peaceful negotiator by going: You call bringing an army to threaten our city peaceful? After which the conversation was immediately redirected because really Kuvira couldn't maintain her flimsy moral ambiguity if the was answered.

This was his only line in the season and he ATE.

I frankly didn't care much for Toph's inclusion in the season? It felt rather contrived and existing purely for the viewers to get excited and recreate the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at screen meme. This is the same feeling I had about Zuko in B3. Katara is the only cool Gaang octogenarian to me.

I didn't really have an opinion on Lin thsi season. She's.... there? I thought it was sweet that she went to rescue Suyin and that she seemed to have fixed her relationship with her to some extent. But honestly after 4 books her combative nature was overstaying its welcome. Being mean to traumatised teenagers as a middle aged cop is only funny the first few times.

I guess I enjoyed the relationship drama between Toph and Lin and it was nice to see them begin to reconcile. Though, once again it feels repetitive, like a mommy issues reskin of Lin and Suyin's conflict in B3.

Speaking of estranged Beifongs, I particularly liked Baatar Jr's storyline and think he would've made for a much better antag to sympathise with than Kuvira. I like the implications of his inferiority complex and his redeeming moments of trying to stop the spirit canon when Opal was in range of getting hit and the implication that he loved Kuvira much more than he did for the Earth Empire. It's not much, and he's certainly not a good person, but he had more grounds for a redemption than Kuvira.

And I loved Opal's storyline of opposing Kuvira so staunchly and being positioned as Kuvira's primary detractor. I love seeing how Opal had evolved between B3 and B4. How she's visibly more confident and sure in herself and willing to stand up for not only herself but those in need. Her hair growing messy after B3 is also so important to me and wonderful visual storytelling.

I do, however, have a few gripes with the treatment of her character, particularly the minimisation of her concern around Kuvira. Like the rest of the Beifongs, Opal is presented as irrational in her hostility towards Kuvira, which isn't the case at all. She is berated by established characters like Jinora and Korra for her stance, especially after the attempt on Kuvira's life. Actually, I think that: well Su and the twins were the aggressors in this situation, after Kuvira actively threatened military action on your peaceful city could constitute for gaslighting.

Even after Kuvira is proven multiple times to be dangerous and a threat, Opal's despaur over having her family captured and home conquered is treated as inconsequential grumpiness and is pushed aside in order to make room for the plot. Hell, Opal even tags along with Korra and Jinora to help investigate the Spirit Wilds.

(Opal is a better woman than me if someone pulled that shit on me I'd like. Not talk to them for at least a month.)

...And the second half of the season where she gets booted back into the love interest zone is fucking painful. The moment Bolin arrives in Republic City, Opal's very valid frustration and anger is reduced to a lovers' spat and focus is redirected to Bolin "winning her back". And after all is well in obligatory comphet world, I don't think Opal even speaks. It's like after she forgave Bolin and their relationship returned to status quo, she immediately just became an NPC.

Despite my hatred for how Bolin impacts Opal's storyline, I actually adored Bolin's being part of Kuvira's army, and how that was handled.

I liked seeing the continuation of Bolin being easily manipulated by those he looks up to due to his childhood. I liked the portrayal of Bolin's good intentions being used by Kuvira, since it once again parallels the irl inspirations behind Earth Empire .A huge chunk of the Soviets' detractors were actually disillusioned communists, who had joined and given their support, only to be betrayed by the system that they hoped would bring about a positive change.

Sadly, after Bolin deserted from Kuvira, this excellent set up isn't followed up on properly. Instead of any teaching moment or character development, we get Bolin moping for an episode, a few apologies and essentially a fetch quest. And after that, Bolin's honour is restored and he essentially goes back to how he was before B4. Which is dissapointing as hell.

I really enjoyed Korra's recovery arc, it wa svery moving but not to the point of making me too uncomfortable. However, I don't like the notion that she had to suffer to learn compassion and 'become a better person', which is the implication. Because that's an extremely harmful idea and just false. Seeing Korra be constantly beaten down and hurt in the name of "learning compassion" or some bullshit is honestly unsettling.

I also think that Korra's personal arc was ill placed and messed with the main storyline. I think that showcasing Korra's new "compassionate" worldview on Kuvira is the main reason behind the downfall of Kuvira as a character for me. Trying to justify Kuvira's abhorrent actions in service of Korra's personal development is... a bit problematic to say the least

I actually despised Republic City being in the focus of this season. Like, so much is probably going on in the Earth Kingdom but we have to be stuck outside of the Iron Curtain. And meanwhile we have to sit through contrived plots in New York City but make it Oriental. It kinda reeks of USA self-centeredness. And it makes our main characters seem kinda like assholes because they're people with infuence and yet they're just chilling while people die in Concentration Camps so um.

I think the reason I hate B4 is because it's I also love it so much. I love it for the groundwork it set and for what it could've been. It could've been brilliant, but it ended up convoluting its messages and playing into harmful tropes, probably unintentionally.

The worst part of B4 is how good it started off. The begining was excellent and the second half drove it into the ground for me.

....and of course the best thing to come out of B4 was ✨️the weilin face pat✨️. Absolutely iconic scene, best ship in the show, hands down. Though I love that every single Krew Member was given a queer love interest.

Slay. A gaggle of wild bisexuals.

[nothoughts-onlywomen]

Pink Floyd’s The Wall

This BTS photo has really piqued my interest. Not just because it’s clearly a hint at something for season 5, but also because it happens to be one of my favorite albums ever. So, I thought I’d do a deep dive into how it might factor into the next season.

Full disclaimer: All these ideas I’m about to verbal vomit will make more sense if you watch the film here and/or listen to the album here. I truly recommend you seek it out. Far and away, it’s one of my favorite films/albums, and it’s stood the test of time. In fact, there are certain sequences that may be a little triggering in our current US political climate (I’m thinking of the “In The Flesh/Run Like Hell/Waiting for the Worms” sequence).

War. The Wall is about war; namely, the bitter uselessness of it. The film has a lot of anti-war imagery. Young soldiers wounded and vulnerable, doves exploding into crows, a bloody cross, etc. The film ends with a culturally diverse group of children picking up rubble from the war. There’s a beautiful image where a child pours out a Molotov cocktail. The meaning there is that children are taught to hate and kill, and once they are, the joy of youth is smothered by it. Now I can think of a few scenarios where this is relevant to our crew. This could have something to do with the war against Vecna, in that our kiddos are so young to be fighting this war, and that it will inevitably chip away parts of them. For some, it may take limbs, or even lives. There may also be an assertion that Henry Creel was taught to hate, rather than it being an inevitable part of him. El suggested this at the end of season 4, when she asserts to Vecna that Papa made him a monster. The nuance within the anti-war message of The Wall is that the main character, Pink, lost his father in World War II. Henry Creel’s father went to war (the exact same war, in fact) which is an interesting similarity, but I think greater parallels should be drawn between Pink and Henry Creel in terms of how their relationship with their father (or lack thereof) led to their emotional erosion. And when I’m referring to Henry’s father, I’m not necessarily talking about Victor, though their relationship may have been complex. I’m referring to Dr. Brenner as well. Now the major difference between Pink and Henry - at least, so far - is that Pink is shown to have a soft, gentle side to him. This gets smothered as his emotional wall grows taller. I don’t know if Vecna ever had anything of the sort, but we know that Will is nothing if not gentle. And if they’re going to draw parallels between Will and Henry next season, I have to think there’s some meaning in there somewhere.

Conformity. It should be noted that the film takes place during World War II, so the conformity themes were especially prevalent in those days - the days of Hitler and the Nazi regime. Pink attends a school where the children all wear masks and stand on an assembly line, eventually to be thrown into a meat grinder. All very heavy-handed symbolism, I know. But the idea is that society attempts to suppress individuality and corner the youth into becoming part of the mindless whole. Blessedly, toward the end of the school sequence, the kids all rip off their masks and rebel. Now, in reference to our friends in Hawkins, this could be a nod to how the group has never been afraid to be the “freaks,” and that conformity is meaningless to them. Stranger Things has always reveled in the beauty of being yourself in the face of societal labels. The Wall also utilizes hammers in much of its imagery, which is supposed to symbolize the hammer pounding a nail into submission. With the individual being the nail, and the oppressive whole being the hammer. To me, this hearkens back to the “hive mind” idea. The Mind Flayer operates from this hive mind, and so any deviation from this would be quickly and mightily suppressed. I also addressed the idea of the “hive mind” in my theory about the Wrinkle in Time Easter egg, and how the planet Camazotz adopts this same concept (read here if you feel so inclined). Will Vecna be this deviation? If not, who will? One of the kids? Will Dart break away from an army of demogorgons to save Dustin? I can’t see the Mind Flayer being thrilled about it regardless of how it manifests.

Emotional isolation. Pink undergoes a descent into emotional isolation. The wall itself is symbolic of the emotional wall he builds around his heart, insofar each negative event in his life is “another brick in the wall.” Once his emotional isolation is complete, he becomes callous and disconnected with others. He fantasizes about committing atrocities, even becoming a Hitler-like figure in his imaginings. Such emotional isolation is likely present within Vecna as well, as only someone with a real disconnection from their emotions could kill people in the ways that Vecna has. That scary face on the poster, in fact, is emotion, trying to break free of the wall. A scream of agony from within. Perhaps the Duffers will explore this within Vecna. Perhaps Vecna has some small shred of humanity left that the group will try to capitalize upon. At the climax of The Wall, Pink puts himself on trial in his mind with a judge that is a literal asshole (yes, it’s as batshit as it sounds), and the wall is torn down within him. The album ends with a spoken message that loops into the beginning track, suggesting that the conundrum of emotional wall-building will never end. Perhaps the group will attempt to tear down Vecna’s emotional walls. The Duffers are good enough writers to make us feel at least some empathy for Vecna, if we hadn’t already, and this might just be a continuation of this. There is also the possibility that one of our other kiddos starts to emotionally isolate. It could be any of them: Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin, El, or Max. I’m less inclined to believe it would be one of the older kids, though they’ve all certainly got their own demons. None of them will become as twisted as Vecna, of course, but I could see them struggling against their own emotional walls. We’ve seen Max do a bit of this already. It would be a real shot to the heart if the Duffers utilized a deeply sad track like “Nobody’s Home” or a wistful, melancholic tune like “Comfortably Numb” to describe Max’s consciousness literally being absent from her at the moment. I think Will is also an ideal candidate for this concept, especially if (as I suggested earlier), we are going to draw similarities between him and Henry Creel. The ending song on the album, “Outside the Wall,” postulates that those who truly love you will walk up and down outside your emotional wall, banging on it, trying to tear it down and thus forge deeper connection. We’ve seen this happen with Max a bit, and I could certainly see it happening with Will, too.

Mental illness. Pink is suggested to have a mental illness. He’s not particularly easy to slap a diagnosis on (though based on the information we do have, I might have put him in the schizoid/schizotypal/schizoaffective territory. Depression with psychotic features at the very least). Mental illness isn’t a topic that heavily explored in Stranger Things, though season 4 definitely had some poignant things to say about depression. But I’m wondering - if they do decide to touch on this somewhat - if this will hint at a deeper dive into Vecna’s psyche. Killing small animals is generally a precursor to actual murder, and this was certainly the case when it came to Henry Creel, but we have yet to really unpack all of this. We’ve gotten hints. Vecna noting that he “never forgets a kill” and “they are always with me” is a very interesting concept I will be curious to learn more about.

I would love to hear any additional thoughts on this.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Adam Gabbatt and Ed Pilkington at The Guardian:

Anger and vitriol took center stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, as Donald Trump and a cabal of campaign surrogates held a rally marked by racist comments, coarse insults, and dangerous threats about immigrants. Nine days out from the election, Trump used the rally in New York to repeat his claim that he is fighting “the enemy within” and again promised to launch “the largest deportation program in American history”, amid incoherent ramblings about ending a phone call with a “very, very important person” so he could watch one of Elon Musk’s rockets land. The event at Madison Square Garden, in the center of Manhattan, had drawn comparisons to an infamous Nazi rally held at the arena in 1939. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ running mate, said there was a “direct parallel” between the two events, and the Democratic National Committee projected images on the outside of the building on Sunday repeating claims from Trump’s former chief-of-staff that Trump had “praised Hitler”.

There was certainly a dark tone throughout the hours-long rally, with one speaker describing Puerto Rico, home to 3.2m US citizens, as an “island of garbage”; Tucker Carlson mocking Harris’ racial identity; a radio host describing Hillary Clinton as a “sick bastard”; and a crucifix-wielding childhood friend of Trump’s declaring that Harris is “the antichrist”. The Puerto Rico comments, made by Tony Hinchliffe, a podcaster with a history of racist remarks, were immediately criticized by the Harris-Walz campaign. Ricky Martin, the Puerto Rican popstar who has more than 18m followers on Instagram, wrote in a post: “This is what they think of us. Vote for @kamalaharris.” Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez in a statement said “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

But that could prove problematic in Pennsylvania, where the majority of the swing state’s 580,000 eligible Latino voters are of Puerto Rican descent. Both campaigns have been trying to appeal to Latino voters in the final weeks of the campaign, and Harris had visited a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia earlier on Sunday, where she outlined plans to introduce an “economic opportunity taskforce” for Puerto Rico. The pugnacious mood didn’t change once Trump began speaking, as the former president quickly repeated his pledge to “launch the largest deportation program in American history”.

Trump continued his frequent rants about immigration and claimed that a “savage Venezuelan prison gang” had “taken over Times Square”, which will come as a surprise to anyone who has recently visited the New York landmark. The former president also stated, wrongly, that the Biden administration did not have money to respond to a recent hurricane in North Carolina because “they spent all of their money bringing in illegal immigrants, flying them in by beautiful jet planes”. Trump’s usual dystopian threats were on offer, as the 78-year-old expanded on his claims about “the enemy within” – a group of political opponents that he has said he will set the military on if elected. “We’re just not running against Kamala. I think a lot of our politicians here tonight know this. She means nothing, she’s purely a vessel that’s all she is,” Trump said. “We’re running against something far bigger than Joe or Kamala and far more powerful than them, which is a massive, vicious radical-left machine that runs today’s Democrat party. They’re just vessels.”

[...] “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden. And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.” The Trump campaign reacted furiously to the accusations, describing Clinton’s comments as “disgusting”. One of the few people to reference the 1939 rally on Sunday was Hulk Hogan, who emerged to wrestling music, spent several seconds struggling to rip off his shirt, then claimed: “I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here”. After a night of fire and fury, it will be up to the American voters to decide.

The MSG Trump Rally in NYC on Sunday was nothing more than a modern-day Nazi rally for the brainwashed MAGA cultists, as Donald Trump and various MAGA hacks launched hateful racist, unhinged, and bigoted tirades.

See Also:

The Guardian: Racist remarks and playing to the base: key takeaways from Trump’s MSG rally

HuffPost: Fascist At The Garden

[saintsenara]

ooh, what’s your personal outline for grindelwald's rise?

that it much, more more closely resembles hitler's than [my impression, having never seen them, is] it's presented as doing in the fantastic beasts films.

grindelwald - rather than voldemort - is clearly the books' most explicit analogy for nazism. his first introduction - in philosopher's stone - mentions that dumbledore defeated him in 1945 for a reason: any british primary-school-aged child worth their salt would be aware, as they were reading the book, that 1945 was the year the second world war ended in europe. dumbledore - who the reader, although not harry, has already met - being described as the person who defeated grindelwald is narrative shorthand for "this character should be thought of not only as important but as good" and therefore enables dumbledore to be removed from the pool of potential twist villains [it being fairly obvious, given the way these things usually go, that the trio's absolute certainty that snape is the book's bad guy is a red herring] who will turn up at the end of the story.

this analogy is maintained a little in deathly hallows - particularly in the fact that the description of nurmengard, which has "for the greater good" emblazoned over its entrance is so obviously intended to make the reader think of auschwitz [in a way, i must be frank, i find extraordinarily crass], and in the fact that grindelwald's impact in britain was markedly different from his impact in continental europe - but it's mostly dispensed with, in order to make the explicit comparison to the nazis in the text be voldemort's government and to make the revelation about dumbledore and grindelwald's relationship less abhorrent than it would be if the analogy was maintained.

[harry is - after all - basically told by every other character in the book except aberforth to get over the revulsion he feels about learning dumbledore once harboured magic-supremacist beliefs and influenced grindelwald's later expression of those beliefs...]

i think creating fictional movements which directly parallel real-life ones is a legitimate and interesting thing for authors to do [even if i don't think jkr does it particularly well]. and i think enjoying fictional characters who are direct parallels of real-life ones doesn't indicate any sort of support for the real-life inspiration.

[although i don't think it's something i've got the deftness of touch to pull off, which is why i can't ever see myself writing a grindelwald-centric story which doesn't deviate hugely from canon.]

but i can also certainly see why fantastic beasts would present grindelwald's rise to power quite differently...

[edenfenixblogs]

"Night" is Free if You're an Audible Subscriber

A lot of people's only experience with learning about the Holocaust is Anne Frank's Diary or works of fiction.

Anyone speaking about i/p right now NEEDS to read this first person account of life in a concentration camp.

There is a right way and a wrong way to read this book.

The right way: Sit with the uncomfortable feeling that non-Jewish people did this to Jews. Not just Germans and not just Nazis. The European leaders who aligned with Hitler and fought with him did this. The Russians who distributed and popularized the antisemitic conspiracy theories which informed much of Europe's Jew hatred at the time did this. The neighbors who sat back and watched as government officials carted off people they knew and saw every day or shot them in the streets and buried them in mass graves. The ones who convinced themselves they were good people simply because they didn't pull the trigger or operate a gas chamber. The citizens of nations of the Allied powers who turned away Jewish refugees from Europe. The Nazi sympathizers in the US. The vast ,expansive hatred against Jews that prevented anyone from intervening on our behalf.

Sit with the fact that nobody intervened to protect Jews, ever. The Allied powers intervened to stop German expansionism, not to protect Jews. They did not fight in WWII to protect Jews. That any Jews survived at all is a miracle. The fact that the camps were liberated at all is a miracle. Because it wasn't a goal. It wasn't something that people were fighting to achieve. That's what people don't seem to understand.

Killing Jews WASN'T the thing that the Allied powers had a problem with.

Plenty of Americans and Europeans from Allied nations thought it sure was a shame that Hitler was so aggressively expansionist, because he had some great ideas about how to kill all those Jews.

And unless you're Jewish, there is the extremely uncomfortable but likely chance that someone you loved was pretty OK with killing my family.

Or, at the very least, that someone killing my family was not something they had the emotional capacity or willingness to engage with. Think about what that does to my trust for YOU. And if you don't think that someone you loved passed on that apathy and antisemitism to you, then you're naive.

The only correct way for a non-Jew to read this book is to sit with who they are as people and think about how they treat Jews and try to empathize with how this indescribable tragedy affected and continues to affect Jews worldwide.

If you have never read this book, I want you to think long and hard about how absolutely terrifying it is for Jewish people that, I, a Jewish woman, have to BEG non-Jews to read it. Because your education system failed you. And because Jews are afraid that YOUR BEHAVIOR WILL DO THIS TO US AGAIN.

The wrong way: Making this true memoir about living through an industrialized genocide about ANYTHING other than antisemitism and antisemitic apathy. You don't get to use it to draw parallels to other atrocities or wars or people. At least not during/while processing your first reading of this book. Why? Because until you sit with your own internalized antisemitism, where and who it came from, and are willing to confront your own hate toward us, then you are missing the point. The point is that people can convince themselves they are good and that they care about their fellow humans and they can have empathy for everyone except Jews. Sure, they might think it's sad that bad things keep happening to Jews. But it never really seems to be the priority, does it? It never seems to be a pressing enough issue to be worth addressing. There's always something more important happening.

That's antisemitic thinking too. You do, actually, need to prioritize dismantling your antisemitism in order to, you know, dismantle it. Just because you don't sit around daydreaming about Hitler doesn't mean you're not antisemitism. Ignoring us is part of your antisemitism--one of the most damaging and intrinsic parts of antisemitism actually. The Holocaust did not happen because most people hated Jew enough to kill us. The Holocaust happened because a bunch of people didn't care enough Jews to stop the people who DID want to harm us.

If you can't think of the last time you tried to unlearn something antisemitic within yourself, then people like you are why the Holocaust happened. If you have had to tune out Jewish pain because it feels like a "distraction," then people like you are why the Holocaust happened. If your reaction to reading this is to feel some kind of righteous anger that I've called you a bad person because you have proof you care about other people, then you are the kind of person who allowed the Holocaust to happen. And you're also wrong.

Because I'm not calling you a bad person. I'm calling you a flawed person who has the ability to fix a flaw that has the potential to harm others. I'm not asking you to care about other, non-Jewish, people. And I'm not asking you to STOP caring about the non-Jewish people you care about.

What I am saying is that claiming that you care about Jewish people is not the same as actually caring about us.

I'm asking you to sit and read this book and to remember that it is about JEWISH PAIN and a JEWISH TRAGEDY that happened to JEWISH PEOPLE. You need to actually devote time to caring about Jewish people, because society never taught you how to do that, and it has no infrastructure built to help you do that. Because antisemitism is baked into the infrastructure itself. Take the time. Read the book. Let Jewish pain be about Jewish people. Let us own our own tragedy. Do not take it from us to apply to other situations. ESPECIALLY not when the actual original situation was something that nobody cared about enough to prevent.

Understand this: If you're not Jewish, there is no way I can explain to you how painful it is to watch people be so invested in likening every terrible thing that happens to any other group of people to the Holocaust, when those same people never actually first tried caring about the Holocaust and the people it actually happened to.

[poorrichardjr]

Conspiracies Abound

If you ever spend any time around MAGA individuals you will quickly run into at least three different conspiracy theories before the first twenty minutes of conversation, and even more if you start speaking about politics. The country is doing terribly because of a loss of God, satanic democrats drinking the blood of raped babies they murdered just after they were born, or because of the Illuminati, deep state, or UN. Pick your poison and a MAGA has a conspiracy theory that explains everything. Covid was a Chinese hoax designed to get Biden elected. There is no limit to their madness.

No offense to any of these people. I understand the need to explain things that seem "unusual." The thing is, almost none of these people understand Occam's Razor, which states that the simplest explanation for any situation is often correct. America sucks because we elect bad leaders and don't take the time or effort to do the work to determine who really would be a better politician for us. Instead we descend into tribalism that has determined our entire view of the world.

The thing is, conspiracy theories have a place. It just depends upon why you are using them. Believe it or not, but conspiracy theories can be used to make yourself more aware of things that you should be paying attention to. If a conspiracy theory makes you suspicious of the election process, you "could" spend more time learning about it and trying to understand it. We know that almost never happens, but it is always a way to combat the craziness of some more outlandish conspiracy theories.

Another plus of conspiratorial thinking, not necessarily the theory spinning so popular in America today, is to posit future possibilities. Depending upon how far you take it the "theories" become more and more conspiratorial. However, there is a good reason to sometimes spin these yarns, especially when it comes to dictatorially minded politicians. I am not saying you should take all of these theories so seriously that you see the possibilities of the thinking everywhere, but it can make you aware of situations that are definitely questionable at best.

For instance here is a conspiracy theory to be aware of, simply because it has happened in history and considering our current situation could be a factor in our future. Complain all you want about how many people are drawing parallels between Hitlerian Germany and modern America, but any historian worth their salt will tell you there are many similarities. Hitler complained about Jews and undesirables, Trump complains about immigrants and undesirables. Each divided the people of their nations. Each came to power through election where they did not receive the plurality of the vote.

Here are some similarities that haven't yet come to pass. Hitler placed people into positions of power who had no experience in those jobs but who had a lot of disdain for the functions of those departments. Trump is nominating people to lead departments who fit that mold, though the Senate "might" keep them from those positions (though I doubt it). Hitler deported people, made life so uncomfortable that many "undesirables" left, and eventually put people into camps. We know how that ended. Trump is promising mass deportations for legal and illegal immigrants, removal of citizenship, and massive camps. We can go on, but you get the picture.

So, here is where I will give you a conspiracy theory to ponder. Hitler had power when he got his Chancellorship, but that wasn't enough. Similar to how Trump being president isn't quite enough to turn him into a dictator. What really gave Hitler power was the moment he was able to remove his oppositions ability to interfere with his plans. Enter the Reichstag fire, the pretext the Nazi's used to seize total power and jail and make illegal opposition parties.

Yesterday all I heard from some people was that the people Trump was nominating for power were being targeted with bombings and swatting threats. I expect tons of protests when Trump takes office, especially if he gets his way and starts deploying the military and police to go through cities. Here is where the conspiracy comes into play. Some event is going to happen in the future that causes the right wing talking heads to demand Trump crack down on the opposition. Whether that is the death of a possible head (even if it isn't caused by liberals or immigrants) or a riot by the "liberals."

Where that goes is anybody's guess, but if history repeats itself it will be the fundamental issue that gives Trump the power he needs and craves to do everything he wants. As I said, it is a conspiracy theory, but one based in some semblance of reality. As reactionary as our republican "friends" are, I wouldn't put it too far past them to try something like this. Care to take bets now?

[olderthannetfic]

Apropos of world building.

No one is this whole wide world is allowed to say Harry Potter has good world building.

Always hated how people are super fascinated by this parallel society, but the only reason it works is because "Magic fuck you" until it apparently doesn't. It's so cheap and wishy washy. If literally every issue is just waved away with "magic" that's just cheap, because even problems that can't or shouldn't be fixed with magic, get fixed with magic. But then we still constantly hear about rules and that magic isn't a fix all, but only when it's convenient. It works for children's books maybe, but the moment it went beyond that, and then the entire "Extra lore" that happened later, it just started getting real stupid.

How do they keep their secret? -Magic.

Ok but obviously they are living somewhere so... -Magic expanding alleyways and areas.

But how does that work that literally no one notices, even from aerial shots? -Magic.

What about all the creatures that aren't normal? -Magic.

What if someone finds one of them or the plants? -Magic.

Ok, what about cross-cultural exchange? Even if you live in your gated community you gotta know some stuff about tech. Nope, magic.

Huh... -Also everyone is chronically stupid when it comes to tech, and even just normal "muggle" things, it's an entire field of education to figure out what human stuff does, that's why everything has this weird medieval vibe. And no, they couldn't "literally just go out and check it out." For some reasons the Wizards like dying out and being stupid, and pooping on the floor and magicking it away. Magic.

What about the schools? -Oh you mean the like 5 schools for millions of students? Eh forget about them. Hogwarts is the only one that makes any lick of sense in terms of size. You'll love to hear that the entirety of Asia has like 1-2 schools, and it's called something like "Magic castle" in real bad google-Japanese. Btw, don't expect any effort having been put in the names or places of other Wizard places, the author didn't give a shit to hire some editors to make sure she didn't just write some pointlessly dumb shit in that regard. And btw, please ignore other tensions because clearly Wizards would not have any kind of social tension across borders.

What about big events in the human world? -They don't care, they dealt with Wizard Hitler conveniently at the same time as WW2.

What about deadly sicknesses and their cures? -... yeah nah fuck the muggles. Magic. Also always hated how absolute braindead every thing is. Spells exist to find out what someone's last spell was. Is that used when some dude gets accused of murder? Of course not! How absurd.

--

HP has magnificent sense of place.

Personally, I care far more about that than about internally consistent world building of the type SF fanboys jerk off to, at least in most genres.

(EXCEPT FOR AGE OF SAIL! TACTICS, BABY! HOW DARE PEOPLE ADD ANACHRONISTIC OR FANTASY TECH!!!)

But yes, when people try to say HP has good "world building", they mean that it has good vibes and that it feels good if you don't look deeply. They do not mean the economy makes sense.

[mcsm-confessions]

Concerns about proshippyness aside for romesse (I know the fandom is young but come on we're not all 15 and have never had a relationship), I find it one of the less interesting ships mainly because Romeo is a character is meant to symbolize a lost and tainted past that can never be brought back to what it was. Him and his friend group are a sad 'bad ending' parallel to Jesse and her friends (and Petra as per the reference) and I feel like there is more emotional and logical impact if you also place any Romeo-related ships in the past too. Romeo and Xara takes on a whole awful and toxic layer. Romeo and Fred IS preventable tragedy the relationship. That's the whole point of his character apart from being the antagonist. The redemption arc forcefully shoved on the player if they pick a certain choice (and fanbase extensions of this) feels so hamfisted and inherently 'fanficcy' in this regard because of this. I find it hard to believe that normal people would be raring to forgive Minecraft Hitler because he had a sudden whimsical change of heart when he was finally defeated.

~~~

[mariacallous]

Anxious to find precedents for the frightening and ultimately deadly white nationalist, “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, some media outlets have likened the images of the recent mayhem in Virginia to the chilling ones of theGerman-American Bundrally that filled Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939, with 22,000 hate-spewing American Nazis.

That rally, the largest such conclave in U.S. history, shocked Americans at the time. They had seen the press accounts and newsreel footage of the Nazis’ massive Nuremburg rallies; they had read about Kristallnacht, the murderous, two-day anti-Semitic pogrom of November 1938, which the Bund — the fast-growing, American version of the German Nazi party, which trumpeted the Nazi philosophy, but with a stars-and-stripes twist — had unabashedly endorsed.

But that was in Europe. This was America. New York City. For Americans wondering whether it could happen here, the Bund rally provided the awful answer.

“22,000 Nazis Hold Rally In Garden,” blared a front-page headline in theNew York Times. Inside, photos captured the restless throng of counterprotesters outside the arena and the Bund’s smiling uniformed leaders.“We need be in no doubt as to what the Bund would do to and in this country if it had the opportunity,” the Times opined in an editorial later that week. “It would set up an American Hitler.”

Some 78 years after the Bund rally at Madison Square Garden, a new generation of hectoring troglodytes descended on Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1939, Brown Shirts at Madison Square Garden felt emboldened to seize a Jewish protester who had rushed the podium where the Bund’s German-born leader, Fritz Kuhn, was speaking, and beat him near-senseless.In 2017, members of the so-called alt-right held a torchlight rally in Charlottesville, and the next day, one of those white nationalists went even further and allegedly used his car to mow down anti-Nazi protesters, killing a young woman, Heather Heyer.

Those who have studied the Bund’s rise and fall are alarmed at the historical parallels. “When a large group of young men march through the streets of Charlottesville chanting, ‘Jews will not replace us,’ it’s only steps removed from chanting ‘death to the Jews’ in New York or anywhere else in the 1930s,” said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee. “When those young men chant ‘blood and soil,’ it conveys the same meaning as those decades before who chanted ‘blut and boden,’ referring to the Nazi glorification of and link between race and land.”

“I don’t see much of a difference, quite frankly, between the Bund and these groups, in their public presence,” said Arnie Bernstein, the author of “Swastika Nation,” a history of the German American Bund. “The Bund had its storefronts in New York, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles — today’s groups are also hanging out in the public space, but in this case, they’re on the internet and anyone can access their ‘storefronts,’ or websites, and their philosophy, if you can call it that, is essentially the same.”

For the Bund, the unnerving 1939 Madison Square Garden rally was at once the organization’s high point and—as a result of the shock and revulsion it caused—its death knell. It’s too soon to know exactly what effect Charlottesville—which was smaller, but more violent than the Bund’s 1939 demonstration—will have on white nationalists or how the American public, which is still processing the horrific event, will ultimately respond to it.Will Charlottesville be the beginning of the end of this reborn generation of American Nazis? To foretell where we could be headed, you need to know how the Bund’s version of it all played out 78 years ago — and how this time is different.

The rise and fall of the German-American Bund in the late 1930s is essentially the story of the man behind it: Fritz Julius Kuhn.

A German-born veteran of the Bavarian infantry during World War I, Kuhn was an early devotee of Adolf Hitler who emigrated to the United States for economic reasons in 1928 and got a job as a factory worker for Ford. After a few years in the U.S., Kuhn began his political career by becoming an officer with the Friends of New Germany, a Chicago-based, nationwide pro-Nazi group founded in 1933 with the explicitblessing of German deputy führer Rudolf Hess.

At the time, imitation Nazi parties were sprouting up throughout the world, and, at least initially, Hess and Hitler hoped to use them to incorporate new areas, particularly in Europe, into the Greater Reich. But soon, FONG’s low-grade thuggery—coercing American German-language newspapers into running Nazi-sympathetic articles, infiltrating patriotic German-American organizations, and the like—became a nuisance to Berlin, which was still trying to maintain good relations with Washington. In 1935, Hess ordered all German citizens to resign from FONG, and he recalled its leaders to Germany, effectively putting the kibosh to it.

Kuhn, who had just become a U.S. citizen, saw this as his chance to create a more Americanized version of FONG, and he seized it. With his new German-American Bund, Kuhn had a vision of a homegrown Nazi Party that was more than simply a political group, it was a way of life — a “Swastika Nation,” as Bernstein calls it.

Although Kuhn dressed his vision in American phraseology and icons — he approvingly called George Washington “the first American fascist” — the Bund was, in fact, a clone of its Teutonic forebear, transposed to U.S. soil. In deference to his Berlin Kamerad, Kuhn gave himself the title of Bundesführer, the national leader. Just as Hitler had his own elite guard, the SS, Kuhn had his,the Ordnungsdienst or OD, who were charged with both protecting him and keeping order at Bund events. Although the ODwere forbidden to carry firearms, they did carry blackjacks and truncheons, which they had no compunctions about using on non-fascist heads, as they did at an April 1938 Bund meeting in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan, when seven protesters were injured by members of the OD.

Like the German Nazi Party, the Bund was divided into different districts for the eastern, western and midwestern sections of the country. The Bund also had its own propaganda branch, which published a newspaper as well as the copies of “Mein Kampf,” Hitler’s testament, which all Bund members were required to buy. Kuhn also oversaw the establishment of a score of gated training and summer camps with Teutonic-sounding names like Camp Siegfried and Camp Nordland in rural areas around the northeast, where his card-carrying volk could be indoctrinated in the American Nazi way, while their dutiful fraulein polished their Germancooking skills and their brassard-wearing kinder could engage in singalongs while practicing their fraternal Seig Heils. Every so often, Kuhn would pull up in his motorcade, bless the proceedings and deliver himself of a sulfurous Hitler-style harangue — in English.

In effect, the Bund was its own ethnostate, as today’s neo-Nazis would call it. And it worked: By 1938, two years after its “rebirth,” the group had become a political force to be reckoned with. Its meetings each drew up to several thousand visitors, and its activities were closely followed by the FBI. With the anti-Semitic radio broadcaster the Rev. Charles Coughlin having faded from the national scene following FDR’s landslide second-term win, Kuhn was now the country’s most vocal and best-known ultra-right leader and anti-Semite.

It was just as the Führer would have wished. Except that the Führer didn’t wish.

One year ahead of the outbreak of World War II, Berlin still hoped for good relations with Washington. The Reich refused to give Kuhn’s organization either financial or verbal support, lest it further alienate the Roosevelt administration, which had already made clear its extreme distaste for the Nazi ideology. Berlin went so far as to forbid German nationals in the United States from joining the German American Bund.

The Führer’s brush-off didn’t deter Kuhn and his volk, who continued to sing the Reich’s praises.

Nor did they mind the Kristallnacht of November 1938, the nationwide German pogrom set off by the assassination of a German diplomat by a Jew in Paris, which led to nearly 100 deaths, scores more injuries and the decimation of what remained of German-Jewish life. Comparing the assassination to the attacks on Bund meetings by anti-Nazis—the spiritual predecessors of today’s so-called antifa — its propagandists claimed the Kristallnacht massacre was a justifiable act of retribution. The Bund’s endorsement of the horrific event increased the American public’s hostility toward it, while causing the most prestigious German-American organization, the Steuben Society, to repudiate it.

That didn’t discourage Kuhn either. Now, he decided, as the sea of opprobrium rose around him, was the moment to step into the spotlight and show just how strong the Bund was.

That’s what the Madison Square Garden rally was about. On the surface, the conclave, billed as a “Mass Demonstration for True Americanism,” was supposed to honor George Washington on the occasion of his 207th birthday. But the unprecedented event was really intended to be the German-American Bund’s apotheosis, proof positive to America and the world — as well as Berlin — that the American Nazis were here to stay. “The rally was to be Kuhn’s shining moment, an elaborate pageant and vivid showcase of all he had built in three years,” Bernstein wrote in his 2013 book. “Kuhn’s dream of a Swastika Nation would be on display for the whole world, right in the heart of what the Berlin press called the ‘Semitized metropolis of New York.’”

Although the mass demonstration was intended for Bund members, walk-ins from sympathetic Nazi-minded American citizens were also welcome. Kuhn had big dreams: One of the posters that adorned the hall optimistically declared, “ONE MILLION BUND MEMBERS BY 1940.”

Skeptics wondered whether the Bundesführer would be able to fill the massive arena. Any doubts on that score were quickly allayed, as the 20,000 Nazi faithful who had driven or flown in from every corner of Swastika Nation filed into the great hall. Meanwhile, an even larger crowd of counterdemonstrators, eventually estimated at close to 100,000, filled the surrounding midtown Manhattan streets.

New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Police Commissioner Lewis Valentine were prepared for both the Nazis and their adversaries, wrapping the Garden with a security cordon of 1,700 policemen — the largest police presence in the city’s history — including a large contingent of mounted officers to keep the two sides apart. LaGuardia, an Episcopalian whose mother was a Jew, loathed the Bund, but he was determined to see to it that the Bundists’ right to freedom of speech would be respected. Americans could judge the poisonous result for themselves.

Inside the Garden, things went pretty much according to Kuhn’s faux-Nuremberg script. As drums rolled, an honor guard of young American Nazis marched in bearing the flags of the U.S. and the Bund, as well as the two fascist powers, Nazi Germany and Italy. One by one, the various officers of the Bund stepped forth to extol America (or their version of it) and condemn the “racial amalgamation” that had putatively taken place since the good old unmongrelized days of George Washington. Anti-Semitism, naturally, was a major theme of the venomous rhetoric that issued forth as the newsreel cameras rolled.

Finally, after being introduced as “the man we love for the enemies he has made,” the jackbooted Bundesführer himself stepped up to the microphone to deliver one of his trademark jeremiads, scoring the “slimy conspirators who would change this glorious republic into the inferno of a Bolshevik Paradise” and “the grip of the palsied hand of communism in our schools, our universities, our very homes.” When he paused, he would be greeted with shouts of “Free America!”—the new Bund greeting that had replaced “Seig Heil!”but with the same intonation and raised arm salute.

According to Kuhn, both the federal government and New York City government were Jewish agents. Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose antipathy for Nazism was a matter of record — “Nazism is a cancer,” he said — was actually“Frank D. Rosenfeld.” “Free America!”District Attorney Thomas Dewey was “Thomas Jewey.” “Free America!”Mayor LaGuardia was “Fiorello Lumpen LaGuardia.” “Free America!” And so on.

Of course, Kuhn’s followers had heard it all before. Now it was time for the world to listen. The people would rise up, and as Kuhn’s role model, Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich’s minister of propagandaput it, the storm would break loose.

The storm was certainly rising, both inside and outside the Garden.

The only alteration to the script took place when, halfway through Kuhn’s speech, a young Jewish counterprotester by the name of Isadore Greenbaum decided that he couldn’t bear Kuhn’s diatribe anymore and spontaneously rushed the podium and attempted to tackle him.

He almost made it. On the newsreel footage of the rally shown in movie theaters throughout the country the following weekend, viewers could see Kuhn’s shocked visage as the Jewish kamikazeshakes the podium. Next, they saw the hapless Greenbaum set upon by a gaggle of furious OD men, who covered him with blowsbefore he was finally rescued by a squadron of New York policemen. It was all over in a moment—but it was a moment that horrified America: A bunch of Nazis beating up a Jew in the middle of Madison Square Garden.

The Bundesführer took the interruption in stride. Kuhn proceeded with his speech.

And then it was over, and the thousands of Nazi faithful dutifully exited the arena. As far as the Bund was concerned, the rally was a success — a shining moment for America’s most prominent fascist. But the rally further angered Berlin, which was then preparing to go to war with the Allies — a war Germany still desperately hoped the U.S. would steer clear of.

LaGuardia was proud of the way his city and his police force had handled the Bund’s rally. At the same time, the orgy of hatred at the Garden sealed his determination, along with that of Thomas Dewey, to take down Kuhn, and the Bund along with him, by investigating his suspicious finances (the married Kuhn liked to party and kept a number of mistresses, evidently, at the Bund’s expense).

A subsequent inquiry determined that the free-spending Kuhn had embezzled $14,000 from the organization. The Bund did not wish to have Kuhn prosecuted, because ofFührerprinzip, the principle that the leader had absolute power. Nevertheless, with the implicit blessing of the White House, Dewey decided to go ahead and prosecute.

On December 5, 1939, Kuhn was sentenced to two-and-a-half to five years in jail for tax evasion. On December 11, 1941, while he was locked away in Sing Sing prison, Germany declared war on the U.S. Kuhn’s support for a government now actively hostile to America gave the federal government the pretext to revoke his citizenship, which it did on June 1, 1943. Upon Kuhn’s release from prison three weeks later, he was immediately re-arrested as a dangerous enemy agent. While Kuhn was in U.S. custody in Texas, Nazi Germany was destroyed, its quest for global domination permanently halted, and Hitler was dead. Four months after V-E Day, the U.S. deported Kuhn to war-ravaged West Germany. His dreams of a Swastika Nation had been smashed to pieces. He died in Munich in 1951, a broken man, in exile from the country he had sought to “liberate.”

To be sure, historical comparisons are, to an extent, folly. For all the similarities between the Bund’s 1939 rally and the white nationalists’ Charlottesville demonstration, there are substantial differences.

Fortunately, no one with Fritz Kuhn’s particular demagogic skill set has emerged to lead his neo-Nazi descendants, though there are those attempting to play the part. “I am worried that a Kuhn figure could marshal the disparate alt-right groups,” said Arnie Bernstein, “be it a Richard Spencer, David Duke or someone of that ilk.”

Another difference is while the Bund’s rally and the violence that spilled from it was denounced forcefully by America’s top political leaders, President Donald Trump’s half-hearted condemnation and shocking defense of the Charlottesville mob as including “very fine people” has no antecedent, at least in modern American history. “We have a president blowing dog whistles loud and clear,” said Bernstein. “You never saw that with FDR.”

The Bund’s rally was at once the group’s apex and its death rattle. But it’s only in retrospect that one can make such pronouncements; nobody yet knows exactly what Charlottesville — and Trump’s response to it — will mean for the alt-right. “The striking ambivalence coming out of the White House” could help to galvanize Nazi sympathizers, said David Harris of the American Jewish Committee.

But much as the Bund–generated images of Nazi barbarism and violence drove everyday Americans from apathy 78 years ago, “Charlottesville will also mobilize anti-Nazis to stand up and be counted,” Harris said. Much as the Madison Square Garden rally did on the eve of World War II, said Harris, “I choose to believe the net effect will be to marginalize the ‘blut and boden’ fan base.”

[nekropsii]

VERY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I am saying this as someone who has Vriska as one of my favorite characters. She is a deeply complicated, very well written character who, yes, has done a lot of fucked up things... But she was ultimately a severely troubled 13 year old girl who grew up on Alternia who, in being completely disabled from the ability to heal from abuse and trauma, perpetuated the cycle of abuse because it was all she ever knew. I love how she is written. I think she is a very good character.

With that out of the way...

A major reason why the position of "Vriska did nothing wrong" provoked such a harsh reaction from fans back in the day doesn't just have to do with how controversial she was as a character. It doesn't just have to do with people already hating her, or thinking she's irredeemable. It's not irrelevant by any means, but there's a lot more to the reaction than just "Vriska Bad, and I disagree with you" than I think a lot of younger fans especially do not realize. The online culture in and around the 2000's and 2010's was rife with extremism and bigotry. Yes, it still is, but it's genuinely hard to compare how things are in the online political landscape right now to how they were in the 2000's and 2010's. It was fucking severe. Naziism was a substantially more open and honest part of meme culture, and shockingly bigoted phrases were parroted left and right like it was a serviceable punchline. A major part of what contributed to this culture was 4Chan, particularly /pol/- these were back in "the glory days," when 4Chan was considered an internet giant that wasn't to be trifled with, rather than just... A bunch of anonymous nerds on an imageboard.

This exposition is necessary, but I won't keep you here all day. Onto the main point.

"Vriska did nothing wrong" is a troll position. It has a lot of... Political charge behind it. Intentional political charge.

A part of why it invoked such a nasty response was that it was directly and intentionally echoing an oft-repeated phrase at the time, born directly from 4Chan's /pol/: "Hitler did nothing wrong."

Again, I need to stress this: This parallel is intentional. It was literally part of the bit. That was the entire meme, that's why people said it- it was extremely shocking to say, not just because of how contrarian it was, but because it was literally parroting Neonazi Rhetoric. I see a lot of people using that phrase as a defense still, or saying it as a joke, but from the way people talk about it, it seems like the history behind it has been forgotten.

This post is a reminder. This is not an attempt to stir the pot, this is not an invitation to start more Vriscourse, nor is this post Vriscourse in itself. I am reminding everyone that this phrase is loaded for reasons that have nothing to do with Vriska being controversial. Tread a little more carefully. At the very least, be aware of what joke you're making.

[youngerfrankenstein]

Popping in briefly because I finally watched Transformers ONE!

It. Is.

OKAY! It’s pretty fun. Thoughts under the cut.

I was not wrong about a lot of the humour being quite bad. Not that there weren’t also moments that made me laugh but enough made me eye roll to not mention it. B-127 did get the worst of it, with perhaps one joke near the end that had me losing it while mostly wishing he was mute in this movie too.

It also really fell into the trap of what seems to be a lot of modern Transformers media trying to cram in as many iconic catchphrases as possible. It gets exasperating. Make a new one. That said there were a lot of little referential moments that made me smile! Like Wheeljack’s one major contributing factor to the story being accidentally blowing something up.

Story was alright, but felt really rushed to me. Like I get that they had an hour and a half to get everyone at least adjacent to their starting positions, and they did the best they could. But it still felt off. Particularly D-16 given his fall felt less like a descent and more like finding out one awful truth and plummeting off a cliff to become turbo-Hitler. Though I will say they do a decent enough job given the parameters. Things like Orion immediately going “okay how do we help everyone else?” and Dee going “I want personal revenge.” Highlights the main differences between them and why one of them is cut out to be a leader. Also things like Dee being the one to always stick to protocol and will be the leader whose style is very much “do as I say or die.” I will say they did a good job of actually making D-16 and Orion feel like friends with the limited time. Which is good, because I don’t know if the movie could have worked otherwise.

Nothing particularly surprising either. Though it’s kinda to be expected. Guessed Sentinel sold out Cybertron to the Quintessons well before the movie came out. And fortunately they don’t really expect you to care about robot politics besides “Sentinel Sucks”, though looking back I’m not sure why I was worried. Also I think he’s my favourite character. I’m a real sucker for fun villains as is probably very clear by now, and he is very fun. Even if the engineered confession was cliché. Part of this is probably also because I tend to like Jon Hamm. Which I guess brings me to the cast.

If I’m being totally honest the voices for none of the main four really work for me? Brian Tyree Henry is definitely the one who works the most to his credit. Hemsworth is… fine. He’s fine. He could be a lot worse. Though other than them most of the cast works well for me. Though I do still wish there was more respect for voice acting as an actual career by Hollywood. That said Soundwave’s voice was done well and that is all I ask.

As for things I just straight up enjoyed the animation is REALLY good. And I really like a lot of the designs! The bots, the train, THE QUINTESSON SHIP!!! Also kind of like the whole Fisher King thing Cybertron seems to have going on

[Cinematic Parallels]

And the fact it’s constantly transforming. The ACTION! So well done. All I really wanted was a thrilling punch-up between Optimus and Megatron and I GOT IT! There’s also the frequent use of blatant irony which is MY cringy dialogue trope! Favourite of course: “No more false prophets!” <- False prophet seconds before robot Jesus shows back up.

(Perhaps irony is not quite right but it did make me smile.)

And the most minor one, Oppy getting the Castlevania axe subweapon.

All in all I do hope we get a Transformers TWO. I think there’s more story to be told in this universe, it feels somewhat fresh. And I think with a bit more space to flesh things out it could be quite good! Also I just want to see the gang fight the Quintessons. (Big Quintesson fan here. #bringbacktheG1origin)

Was it the best Transformers film? No. That’s still Bumblebee, and by a country mile.

But was it a good time for the kids?

Yeah, I would think so! Mission accomplished.