Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Hail to the Rich; Screw the Poor

The U.S. Senate took its first vote on the budget Thursday night into Friday morning. (see below)

Rejected means voted against. Most of the votes were straight partisan, only Collins and Hawley broke ranks a couple of times.

Republicans voted against stopping prescription drug price gouging, Veterans health care, fertility services (IVF), funding for law enforcement, health care accessibility, funding for school breakfast/lunch programs, staffing to stop avian flu, stopping decreases in Medicare and Medicaid funding, and many other things. Don't believe me, read it for yourself. 52 votes is generally Republican, 48 is Democrats. That's the partisan numbers in the Senate.

Here's a rather sloppy story by the New York Times on it, if you subscribe to that, although this is supposed to be a gift article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/us/politics/senate-vote-budget.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zE4.5Iid.3CV-HbXTZRKM&smid=url-share


If you want a right-wing rah-rah story about it, go find that yourself.

And here's a link to the votes that I've pasted below. Happy reading. 

 
Posted by CountryDew at 12:15 AM 1 comments
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Friday, February 21, 2025

What It Stands For

 “MAGA stands for trying to erase trans people from existence. MAGA stands for resegregation and racism. MAGA stands for censorship and book bans. MAGA stands for firing air traffic controllers while planes are crashing. MAGA stands for firing the people overseeing our nuclear arsenal. MAGA stands for firing military veterans and those serving them at the VA, including canceling research on veteran suicide. MAGA stands for cutting funds to education, including for disabled children. MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy and most importantly, MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement. You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.” - Chris Kluwe, former NFL dude


Posted by CountryDew at 11:00 PM 1 comments
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Monday, February 03, 2025

WARNING * WARNING * WARNING

This is from Heather Cox Richardson:

Billionaire Elon Musk’s team yesterday took control of the Treasury’s payment system, thus essentially gaining access to the checkbook with which the United States handles about $6 trillion annually and to all the financial information of Americans and American businesses with it. Apparently, it did not stop there.

Today Ellen Knickmeyer of the Associated Press reported that yesterday two top security officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) tried to stop people associated with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, from accessing classified information they did not have security clearance to see. The Trump administration put the officials on leave, and the DOGE team gained access to the information.

Vittoria Elliott of Wired has identified those associated with Musk’s takeover as six “engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college.” They are connected either to Musk or to his long-time associate Peter Thiel, who backed J.D. Vance’s Senate run eighteen months before he became Trump’s vice presidential running mate. . . .

Public policy expert Dan Moynihan told reporter Elliott that the fact these people “are not really public officials” makes it hard for Congress to intervene. “So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world,” he said. Law professor Nick Bednar noted that “it is very unlikely” that the engineers “have the expertise to understand either the law or the administration needs that surround these agencies.”

After Musk’s team breached the USAID computers, cybersecurity specialist Matthew Garrett posted: “Random computers being plugged into federal networks is obviously terrifying in terms of what data they're deliberately accessing, but it's also terrifying because it implies controls are being disabled—unmanaged systems should never have access to this data. Who else has access to those systems?”

USAID receives foreign policy guidance from the State Department. Intelligence agencies must now assume U.S. intelligence systems are insecure.

Musk’s response was to post: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” Also last night, according to Sam Stein of The Bulwark, “the majority of staff in the legislative and public affairs bureau lost access to their emails, implying they’ve been put on admin leave although this was never communicated to them.”

Congress established USAID in 1961 to bring together the many different programs that were administering foreign aid. Focusing on long-term socioeconomic development, USAID has a budget of more than $50 billion, less than 1% of the U.S. annual budget. It is one of the largest aid agencies in the world.

Musk is unelected, and it appears that DOGE has no legal authority. As political scientist Seth Masket put it in tusk: “Elon Musk is not a federal employee, nor has he been appointed by the President nor approved by the Senate to have any leadership role in government. The ‘Department of Government Efficiency,’ announced by Trump in a January 20th executive order, is not truly any sort of government department or agency, and even the executive order uses quotes in the title. It’s perfectly fine to have a marketing gimmick like this, but DOGE does not have power over established government agencies, and Musk has no role in government. It does not matter that he is an ally of the President. Musk is a private citizen taking control of established government offices. That is not efficiency; that is a coup.”

DOGE has simply taken over government systems. Musk, . . . is personally deciding what he thinks should be cut from the U.S. government.

End Quote

This is from me:

This coup - I really don't know what else to call it - means that an unelected immigrant from South Africa now has all of most Americans financial information. If you or your company does any business with the government of any kind - direct deposit of your Social Security payment, your tax refund, your federal pensions, Armed Services benefits, grants, or even purchases the government made from your company - then all of your financial and personal information, including your tax records, Social Security number, address, etc., are now compromised.

We took steps over the weekend and removed most of our money from our account where our tax refunds were deposited and from the accounts where we paid estimated taxes. I suggest everyone do the same to ensure that this new government, which is no longer ours or following the U.S. Constitution, does not reach into your accounts and take your hard-earned money. I don't know that this will happen, but I also don't know that it won't. I'd rather be safe than sorry.

This is not a partisan issue. This is highly illegal and just plain wrong. I'm pretty sure no one voted for Elon Musk. He wasn't on the ballot.


Here are some links to articles about this. Don't take my word for it. Read about it yourself. I imagine some sites have spun it so that it doesn't look like what it is, and I know some people don't trust the media. But you must get your information from somewhere. See what they say about it. There are also other links to many different outlets in the HCR link above.

Warren Questions Bessent Over Musk Access to Treasury Payment System - The New York Times

Elon Musk’s Team Now Has Access to Treasury’s Payments System - The New York Times

Elon Musk’s Friends Have Infiltrated the General Services Administration | WIRED

We do not know what exactly Elon Musk is doing to the federal government - MSN

Senior U.S. official exits after rift with Musk allies over payment system - The Washington Post via MSN


Posted by CountryDew at 7:54 AM 3 comments
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Wednesday, November 20, 2024

The Elephant Won

I have not commented on the November 4, 2024 election, and I'm not going to comment on it now, except to note that Kamala Harris lost. Her opponent took all the swing states and won the election. He won the popular vote by 1.7%, when you combine Harris's numbers with "other" votes, so the winner does not have the mandate he thinks he does. Still, he will claim it. All winners do.

And that's all I have to say about that, except to note that a pile of elephant excrement is a really, really big pile.


Posted by CountryDew at 1:23 PM 0 comments
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Wednesday, November 06, 2024

Untitled


 

Posted by CountryDew at 6:54 AM 1 comments
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Tuesday, November 05, 2024

VOTING TUESDAY

Today is a significant day. It's election day, November 5, 2024, and it's the anniversary of the "Flood of '85," a major event for my community wherein a large portion of many small towns were wiped out by a natural disaster of magnificent proportions on that long-ago election day.

Today is also the day I let it all go, I hope. I hope I write this out here and never think of it again. I hope I am wrong about so many things.

My mother never voted. She's been dead for 24 years, and of all the things I know about her, this one bothers me the most. It bothered me the day she told me she had never voted - and in thinking back, I realized I'd never once gone with her to the polls or seen her show much interest in politics - and it bothers me still, on this day when I have voted to save the life of my nieces (one by marriage), my great niece, and young women unknown to me, should any of them find themselves in need of gynecological care that some states are denying women. I voted to ensure that young women I love do not have fewer rights than I did at their age. I voted to ensure that they could get or keep credit cards, purchase and own property, and not become property.

I have always voted. I have never missed an election, except the one in 1985 when everything flooded, and I couldn't get to the polls. Fortunately, that wasn't a big election year. I know for some folks who suffered from flooding earlier in October, voting might be difficult today. I hope that those people are doing better and that those who want to vote have been able to do that. I hope they get to do the one thing that every citizen of this nation should do.

My mother never voted because she didn't want to serve on a jury, she said. At one time, the jury pools were pulled from the voter rolls, although they've long stopped doing this. But that was her reason. She didn't do her civic duty because she didn't want to do her other civic duty as a citizen of this nation.

I consider serving on a jury to be an honor, and an obligation as part of my role of living in the United States. I've been called a few times but always sent home - journalists aren't people lawyers want on juries. They generally look for people who don't know how to think. I know this because I worked for lawyers once upon a time, too.

My love of country and desire to pay it forward comes from . . . I'm not sure where. Books, maybe? My teachers? My education? It surely did not come from my mother, who never voted.

The other day, someone made fun of me because I am afraid. Because as a woman, I have always been afraid, and I have often been mocked for that by men who do not understand what it is to be a woman in a nation that makes women second class citizens even now, even when we still have some rights but do not have them in the U.S. Constitution. There is no equality for women written into the laws of this land. There are band-aids and coverlets, but there is no law that says men and women are equal in the eyes of the law.

I have been abused by men. Before I met my husband, I was abused by many men. I won't go into the details of that, but suffice it to say, I have no reason to trust anyone who is male, except for my husband, who has proven to me time and again that he is trustworthy. But even he has that male privilege thing going on.

Even he doesn't really understand my fears.

My recent fears have been because I have been personally threatened by people in my community. As a news writer for 40 years, I am fairly well known here, though hopefully not so much now since I'm not writing for newspapers anymore. For 35 years I wrote without fear of repercussions because I believed strongly in the law and in the power of the Fourth Estate. I believed in revealing truth to power, that democracy dies in darkness, that shedding the light on what government officials were doing was the right and honorable thing to do.

And then 2016 came and it all went to hell. Suddenly the media was the "the enemy of the people." Two years ago, I made my first call to the local sheriff's office to report a threat to my life. I've made several calls to the local sheriff's office since.

Some people may laugh about this. Who is going to hurt me, the person making fun of me said. Give me names. I gave no names because I could hear the ridicule in his voice. I ended the conversation.

But we have a candidate running for the presidency, the most honorable office of this land, who just days ago said this:



He doesn't mind if the "fake news" media are shot. He basically invited someone to go out and do that. He is a former president, after all. People follow his directions. They fight like hell for him.

While I know there are some who say, "Oh, they're talking about the mainstream media as 'the enemy of the people,' not people like you who write for little publications," not everybody thinks that way.

There are people who think any media is now "the enemy of the people."

And that's why I have had death threats. And why other media people I know have had death threats. They've escalated mightily since 2016.

A hate group on social media found out I was concerned about threats to the local supervisors back in the summer. For that, I got put on a "list" to be given to God knows who. And then there's just the fact that I've been writing about the local government for years, though I think this blog has put me more in harm's way than news writing ever did. On this blog, I think people can see more of who I really am. And they see that I am a strong woman - I've had to be, to survive - and nobody likes a strong woman.

A few years ago, some men went before the local government and asked the county leaders to recognize their "militia." This was a loosely organized group of people who wanted to be soldiers without being in the military, I guess. The leaders here said no, we don't need that, we have a sheriff's office and the state police. However, leaders in an adjoining county said, "yes."

I am 99% certain we have people here locally in a militia; I think it has since combined with the adjoining county but I'm not 100% sure of that. I haven't looked into it because I don't want to be associated with any such thing.

I have watched as a certain candidate recently used the colors of black and gold at one of his revivalist rallies in Michigan. Do you know who else uses black and gold? The Proud Boys. You know who they are? They're a white supremacist hate group. They led the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

If a certain candidate wins or loses, I have no doubt that he will call upon his "militias" to do damage. Either they will go after state government officials, or they will go after federal ones, but I am expecting these people to be ordered to do damage, one way or the other, by taking down the "swamp" or by taking out the "others."

It seems likely they will also go after people on "lists" created by hate groups on social media.

Maybe they will go after bloggers who have not been happy with the former guy. Maybe they will go after anyone who has ever said anything disloyal to the former guy.

Maybe it's all in my imagination, and nothing at all will happen.

Thirty-nine years ago, I did not vote because of a flood. My mother never voted. I think young woman stand to lose their rights if a certain candidate wins this election. I think I stand a chance to sustain grave injury, if not to my physical person, then to my psyche. 

I'm not sure how this all ties in together, to be honest. But here it is. I wanted to lay it all out there before this day is done.

My mother never voted. I missed one vote because of a flood. My life has been threatened. I voted to save the lives of young women.

Does any of that matter? Should it?

What is one life, anyway? What are a few lives?

There are billions of people, after all. Everyone is expendable (see Covid response).

I voted like my life depends on it.

Because I think it does.

Posted by CountryDew at 2:05 PM 2 comments
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Wednesday, July 03, 2024

Silent Running


 

Posted by CountryDew at 7:48 PM 0 comments
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Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Hate Crime Update

Update:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--

SUSPECT IDENTIFIED IN SPORTS COMPLEX SPRAY PAINTING VANDALISM

FINCASTLE, VA – The Botetourt County Sheriff’s Office has been investigating incidents of vandalism and threats to harm. The investigation was initiated on Saturday, April 27, 2024.

On April 27, 2024, Deputies responded to a report of graffiti vandalism at the entrance to Greenfield Elementary School and the Botetourt County Sports Complex. Deputies found numerous words spray painted on the roadway stating, “F**K AMERICA” and “BOTETORT F**KS ITS CITIZENS”. 

At approximately 6:26 a.m., on June 14, 2024, deputies again responded to another report of graffiti vandalism at the entrance to Greenfield Elementary School and the Botetourt County Sports Complex.

Deputies observed threatening statements of violence directed toward the Board of Supervisors spray painted on the roadway and other statements expressing discontent with government.

On June 25, 2024, information was obtained by detectives identifying a suspect in these incidents. Preliminary investigation suggests the suspect had become increasingly vocal and more focused on carrying out acts of violence. The suspect has been taken into custody and the investigation is ongoing.

Currently the suspect is not being identified due to the ongoing investigation. There is no immediate threat to the public and more details will be released as the investigation allows.

“As a member of your Botetourt County Board of Supervisors, I am immensely relieved that the potential crisis at our government facility was successfully prevented by the incredible work of our Botetourt County Sheriff’s Office,” said Botetourt County Board of Supervisors Chair Steve Clinton. “Ensuring the safety and security of our employees and citizens is our highest priority, and this incident has underscored the critical importance of our vigilance and preparedness. While I am relieved, I am also saddened that such an incident could have potentially occurred in Botetourt County. I extend my sincere appreciation to our Sheriff’s Department, whose quick and effective actions made all the difference.”

“While I support our citizens right to peacefully protest decisions made by our government, and the constitution protects those rights, it does not and cannot condone or tolerate acts of violence, “said Sheriff Matt Ward.

Anyone who may have information related to the case or who may have witnessed the incident is asked to contact Detective Sergeant Mioduszewski at 540-928-2252.
   
-This information is based on a preliminary and ongoing investigation, which continues to evolve as detectives interview witnesses, review physical and electronic records, and analyze forensic evidence. The Department’s understanding of the facts and circumstances may change as additional evidence is collected and analyzed-
###

Posted by CountryDew at 7:02 PM 1 comments
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Tuesday, June 25, 2024

The Hatred Among Us


In about 3 hours, the county Board of Supervisors meets to pass a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The tax rate will be lowered at least 6 cents, but because of the real estate reassessment, which takes place here every 4 years, most people's tax payments will increase.

I do not ever recall worrying that one of my Board of Supervisors members may not come out of a meeting alive, but today I worry about that. This is because someone threatened them, publicly, with graffiti on the road not far from me.

Also, because I have asked, I know they have received death threats and other threats from the general public via emails from spoof accounts as well as threats via phone calls. People have threatened not just the supervisors, but also their families.

Much of this is being stoked by social media commentary. These are people who want a Christo-fascist nation. They want to tell other people what they can and can't do with their land, what they can read, what type of sex they can have, who they can marry, where they can live. They hate women, even if they are women, and they hate minorities. They seem to be terrified of change of any kind and scared of life. They constantly denounce the true Republicans in the county and call them various names (the worst apparently being "liberal" or "Democrat"). Real Republicans are like Mitt Romney or even George H. W. Bush. Even Richard Nixon was more of a true conservative than some of the folks I see on social media. These people are so far to the right of a true Republican that they are nothing more than Nazis.

They are trying to take over with threats and mob rule. And, I fear, with violence.

Posted by CountryDew at 11:31 AM 3 comments
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Monday, June 03, 2024

Ridin' My Thumb to Mexico

This morning the news comes with the word that Mexico has elected a female president.

More than 100 countries, including the United States, have never been led by a woman.

We're supposed to be the leader in the free world, but that's just poppycock. We're so far behind the times in true freedom and liberty that it's a joke. We have lots of freedoms to do things, but not freedoms from things. Like the freedom to go to the movie theater and know we won't get shot in our seat. Or the freedom to be rid of advertisements we don't want. Or spam phone calls. Stuff like that.

I love my country, but the bass ackwards mindset of its citizens in among the more perplexing and aggravating things about it.

My state has never had a female governor. Other states have, but not mine.

My local Board of Supervisors has had females on it, and currently has one of five. Shouldn't that be more like three of two, when women make up half of the citizenry?

We have a female vice president and that scares a lot of people. Oh no, she might become president! She might do some good in the world! Horrors.

Crickey.


Posted by CountryDew at 10:09 AM 1 comments
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Wednesday, May 29, 2024

The Mailbox

My mailbox
Like many folks here in Virginia, we've had trouble with mail delivery.

Some days we don't get it. Sometimes it is here by noon. Other times it shows up sometime after 5 p.m.

Lately we've been very hit or miss with the mail, but not enough to concern me. I have switched most of my important stuff to online notices out of necessity, since the mail has become rather unreliable. The mail is like newspapers in that they are doing themselves in with their own efforts at downsizing. Video killed the radio star, indeed.

My two senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, have been vocal about reversing any changes to USPS that have affected the reliability of mail delivery. They've been trying to have improvement since 2020.

They don't seem to be having much of an effect on the quality of the mail service.

Yesterday, our neighbor called the local post office to find out why he wasn't getting mail. The postmaster told him that all of us in this area have mailboxes that are too low. She was going to hold the mail until this was fixed.

His response was to ask why we weren't notified so we could fix the problem prior to her holding the mail. According to him, she grew very irate with him, and they exchanged words. She did, however, tell him he had until the middle of June to fix the problem and if it wasn't fixed, she would stop his mail delivery again.

Then he went out and started measuring mailboxes. My husband found him measuring ours when he came in for his dinner.

Rural mailboxes apparently should be between 41" and 45" high. Ours is 36" high, which is what it has been since we installed it in 1987. Maybe that was the required height back then.

The USPS has these new van things, courtesy of expenditures of Postmaster General DeJoy. They sit up higher than a car. I am assuming this is why the height of mailboxes suddenly matter.

It does seem like my neighbor asked a logical question. This is the post office, after all. How hard would it have been to slip a postcard in the mailbox that said, "Your mailbox must be 41" to 45" high. If it is not fixed by X date, delivery will cease."

My husband was quite upset about this last night. He is in the middle of trying to cut, rake, and bale hay, which is very time consuming and labor intensive. He doesn't need anything else on his mind right now.

After dinner, I looked up various pages on the USPS website, such as missing mail, delayed mail, and rural delivery. There was nothing about mailbox height on those pages. Finally, I typed in "how high should my mailbox be" in Google, and way down on the results page was a USPS page about mailbox height.

But before I found that, because I could not easily find anything about mailbox height on the USPS website, I had dashed off a quick note to my two state senators. One of the things I learned when I was a journalist was not to wait. So, I didn't.

My husband rose early this morning and was at Lowes when they opened so he could buy what he needed to raise our mailbox.

At lunchtime, he called the local post office to find out about this problem for himself and to ask for one of those time extensions. He found the postmaster to be pleasant, helpful, and very willing to give him a month to fix the issue. She said the notices had gone out in March, but when at least seven different families around us say they received no notice, I am inclined to think said notice did not go out.

The postmaster was so nice that almost as soon as my husband hung up, she called right back to say that our mail was being delivered today and nothing would be held.

My husband was amused, and he looked at me. "Do you think those emails you sent out last night had anything to do with that?" he asked. "Somebody's said something to her. She sure has a different attitude from what the neighbor said."

I shrugged. "No way to know."

But it wouldn't be the first time I've dropped a line and made a change.

Never underestimate the power of a well-placed word.

Update: I understand several of the neighbors have gone into the post office and had words with the postmaster. It should be clear to her by now that this area did not receive whatever notification she thinks she sent out.

Posted by CountryDew at 3:45 PM 2 comments
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Friday, August 25, 2023

A Sad Day

Yesterday, the former president presented himself to a jail in Georgia to have his fingerprinting and his mug shot taken.

It's been all over the news.

This is his fourth indictment since he left office. While I strongly believe he tried to stay in office illegally and, at the least, incited a riot, I find it sad that this is now what the world sees of America.

The world sees that we are a bunch of haters who elected someone who is a grifter, a con man, and a not-nice person by any stretch of the imagination. 

Hopefully, though, the world also sees that we are a nation of laws, and if one breaks those laws, then one is tried, and justice is served.

I take no joy in knowing that (a) this is the type of person so many people adore and want to follow, for reasons that continue to elude me and (b) that our government and our national reputation has been so wounded by this person and his ilk.

I have always believed in the power of the government to better the lives of its citizens. I have believed it can happen at the local level, and I believe it can happen at the state and federal levels. But the people in charge also must believe that.

The former guy believed, as best I could tell, that the government should only help him. I certainly didn't see much come out of his administration that helped me. Even the monetary loans during the pandemic were giveaways of federal funding to those who didn't need it, for the most part. Maybe they helped out somebody somewhere.

While seeing our country diminished makes me sad, I think it is important that the former guy be charged with conspiring to defraud the American people out of their choice for president. It is how we move forward from this and defend democracy and maintain the rule of law. I do not see this as a failure of the legal system, nor do I see these charges as political. I see them as necessary if the republic is to continue to function under the U.S. Constitution.

If these charges had not been brought, then the U.S. Constitution may as well be, as the former guy has suggested, tossed out the window. I would be less confident in the judicial system had charges never been brought, and even now I have concerns about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and what role it will ultimately play in all of this. Because you know eventually, that is where some, if not all, of these indictments will end up if the former guy is found guilty. Maybe even if he is found innocent, I don't know.

I look for calmer days sometime in my lifetime. Preferably they would be ones where I don't have to look at the mug shot of a former president.


Posted by CountryDew at 2:48 PM 3 comments
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Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Roy G Biv

"How will the kids learn their colors?" That was my husband's reaction as we watched a local news story about a parent who objected to a rainbow motif in a classroom.

He, like me, remembers learning our colors via the rainbow and the familiar acronym of Roy G Biv. That's red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, for the uninitiated.

 Bing generated image.


Fascism has come to the Roanoke Valley dressed up as "concern for the children," as book banners and school patrols go after what they consider items and persons who "groom" or "indoctrinate" children, ostensibly trying to "turn" young people into homosexuals or transgenders or whomever it is these folks are afraid of.

Ban one book, and where does it end? Is the next one to go some beloved story like Little Women, which is, after all, about strong young girls (and we can't have that). Remove one rainbow, and the next thing to go will be unicorns and leprechauns, I suppose. And why do these people - some of whom do not even have children - get to say what can and can't be happening in a library, a classroom, or any other place? And if they're so hellbent on protecting children, where were they when some were murdered this weekend by gunfire in Florida? Are they protesting for gun control? No. They seem pretty content with letting a child bleed out in the street.

We watched the first two hours of FDR on the History channel last night, and I highly recommend it. We are taping the remainder of the series and will watch it before the week runs out, I expect.

It really brings home the issue of fascism, which I consider any effort to ban a book to be, so I will end with this rather long quote that I am borrowing from Heather Cox Richardson, who borrowed it from an Army pamphlet from 1945. I looked up the original but it's easier to copy and paste. Yes, I can be lazy.

Keep this in mind and then determine who is really a Democrat, a Republican, and a Fascist. I know what I think. I think the people who keep calling Republicans Rinos are really the fascists. Real Republicans know better and are trying to keep our Republic strong. Anyway, this is worth the read:
Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, “is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.”

“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said.

Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”

Fascists understood that “the fundamental principle of democracy—faith in the common sense of the common people—was the direct opposite of the fascist principle of rule by the elite few,” it explained, “[s]o they fought democracy…. They played political, religious, social, and economic groups against each other and seized power while these groups struggled.”

Americans should not be fooled into thinking that fascism could not come to America, the pamphlet warned; after all, “[w]e once laughed Hitler off as a harmless little clown with a funny mustache.” And indeed, the U.S. had experienced “sorry instances of mob sadism, lynchings, vigilantism, terror, and suppression of civil liberties. We have had our hooded gangs, Black Legions, Silver Shirts, and racial and religious bigots. All of them, in the name of Americanism, have used undemocratic methods and doctrines which…can be properly identified as ‘fascist.’”

The War Department thought it was important for Americans to understand the tactics fascists would use to take power in the United States. They would try to gain power “under the guise of ‘super-patriotism’ and ‘super-Americanism.’” And they would use three techniques:

First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races, religions, and other groups.”

Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. “In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations.”

Third, fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices—either fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to support them.” (Emphasis mine)

It is “vitally important” to learn to spot native fascists, the government said, “even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.”

The only way to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, the document said, “is by making our democracy work and by actively cooperating to preserve world peace and security.” In the midst of the insecurity of the modern world, the hatred at the root of fascism “fulfills a triple mission.” By dividing people, it weakens democracy. “By getting men to hate rather than to think,” it prevents them “from seeking the real cause and a democratic solution to the problem.” By falsely promising prosperity, it lures people to embrace its security.        -- Heather Cox Richardson


Which do you want to be? The book burner or the book saver? The person who admires rainbows or the one who denigrates them because of their own personal insecurities and hang-ups? Just who do the children need to be saved from? 

I really have to wonder.

 



Posted by CountryDew at 6:15 PM 1 comments
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