One morning during first period, a male friend of Sam’s mentioned a meme whose suggestive name was an inside joke between the two of them. Sam laughed. A girl at the table overheard their private conversation, misconstrued it as a sexual reference, and reported it as sexual harassment. Sam’s guidance counselor pulled him out of his next class and accused him of “breaking the law.” Before long, he was in the office of a male administrator who informed him that the exchange was “illegal,” hinted that the police were coming, and delivered him into the custody of the school’s resource officer. At the administrator’s instruction, that man ushered Sam into an empty room, handed him a blank sheet of paper, and instructed him to write a “statement of guilt.”
and thats just the start. its fucking unbelivable.
Am I the only one who finds the Washingtonian article just a bit too neat?
Did I just read some sort of allegorical piece?
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Towards the end the author is recommended a book which “was like discovering a diary I could have written myself.” Or it was the other way around, that the idea for the article started when the author read the book? The wholesome ending to the article, where far right extremism was defeated by leaving a pile of news clippings on the kid’s bed, would have been entirely her own contribution I suppose.
I think it’s also important to note that not a lot of people at the time saw it as fighting Fascism, necessarily. They saw it as fighting for America and “the free world”. I say this because 1) America was doing some pretty fascist things, especially to the Japanese at the time. 2) I’ve seen several examples of “public service announcements” where they remind people that fascist views (without calling it fascism) are un-American.
So IMO, it isn’t that WWII vets are dying off, it’s that there has ALWAYS been a set of people who gravitate towards the message of finding and demonizing an other and wanting a system where the “good guys” have enough power to do what needs to be done. And with Trump in office, they finally have someone who won’t condemn their actions and even condones some of them.
You know, I have only dipped my toe into her stuff, but I have to say what I have seen was both entertaining and informative, and I really appreaciate her ability to address complex, controversial subjects while not being condescending, willing to acknowledge counterpoints and refute them, and do so with a pretty rational demeanor.
People write lots of alternate histories where the Germans won the war, subjugated Europe and sometimes the US. When I read about America at that time - that picture of the Nazi rally in Times Square - I wonder if a more realistic alternate history isn’t one where the Americans joined the war on Germany’s side and the Nazis and Americans subjugated Europe together.
In the novel, Lindbergh’s “America First” administration comes to an understanding with the Nazis that allows the latter to pursue their expansionist aims in Europe without interference. That storyline, as well as other plot elements, make the 2004 novel prescient in regard to today’s situation.
