We have always flirted with the idea of going full fascist.
You know… A nation dreams. But… There’s a bunch of stuff we wanted to do first.
Play the field. Try a black president. Maybe a woman president… Maybe not.
Stuff you wanna do before you settle down with a particular party and leader forever. Or at least til death do you part. Like… Lots and lots and lots of death.
whereas cat promises tend to be broken before nap-time.
Where have I seen this before, oh yes…
Yeah, not actual people. If you asked an Australian to take an oath of allegiance, you’d at best get a condescending stare (and more likely be called a bloody wanker).
The whole American thing of having classrooms put their hands on the heart and recite their little verse always seemed rather unsavoury to me.
I can’t like this post, however I wanted to. It’s snarky, but somehow great. Sinister, grim, really scary if true, it would be great if made into a (cyberpunk) story.
But yeah, ‘we’, ‘the nation’, that is troubling. But that is what you meant, I suppose?
Brrr… Isn’t history, and people not knowing, not want to know, a troublesome thing.
(edit) And I did not know, my excuse: I’m European. Dealing in one country with ‘le Pen’ and ‘friends’ and in the other country with ‘Wilders’ and ‘friends’. Not a friendly sight.
I think Cruz is almost as terrifying as Trump* but he did get a good jab in at the last debate about the “pledge” thing:
“At Donald’s rallies recently, he’s taken to asking people in the crowd to raise their hand and pledge their support to him,” he said. “I’ve got to say … I think that’s exactly backwards. This is a job interview. We are here pledging our support to you, not the other way around.”
*Some people think Cruz would be worse than Trump because he actually has the political expertise to get his horrible ideas enacted. I respect that but tend to agree with Patton Oswalt’s assessment:
Oh wow.
Here’s a movie for you.
I think its quite relevant to today. Because American racism is all about context.
What we did to ourselves as a freedom loving christian nation to be able to justify it to ourselves.
Institutionalized dehumanization.
I read an anecdoe once… from a Fascist Italian diplomat who came to the United States before WWII. He was talking up Fascism. The Americans were talking up freedom. They went to a museum. I think the Smithsonian. He was very interested in a bible that had been made for the ‘Indians’.
The Italian Fascist Diplomat asked where the Indians were now.
The American Diplomat explained they were gone now. They aren’t around anymore.
The Italian Fascist Diplomat smiled slowly until he was just beaming and didn’t say a single word.
Is this really different from other political conventions? I don’t think there is some special kind of fascist look&feel in the image.
(2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver)
Fuck that. That’s animal abuse if I ever heard it.
ETA: Also, the banner on the top right of the stadium appears to read “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian…”
It’s kinda a big deal…
NAZI sympathy ran high in the US.
As did Fascist leanings. Especially since it was a hedge against the growing communist movement in the US.
http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/6-things-may-known-nazis-america/
I understood that @grimloki meant a fascist aesthetics, not specific details (it’s not totally shocking the the US Nazi party used a swastika as symbol).
The overall impression of the 1939 image is imo still not especially fascistic.
So the swastikas, the “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian…” banner and the fact that the rallygoers SELF-IDENTIFIED AS NAZIS isn’t enough? What WOULD it take to make it fascistic?
it would have helped if you made clear that you meant the US-wing of the Nazi party in particular - I misinterpreted your intention. sorry!
I don’t think an image of a convention is in itself enough to declare something fascist.
The additional informations (like the link grimloki provided, with text and all!) are much more helpful to categorise.
@grimloki was pointing out that America has flirted with full-on fascism in the past. In support of this statement he posted an image of an actual, well-documented American fascist rally from 1939, complete with fascist slogans and Nazi symbols.
I frankly do not understand what point you are arguing here.
see two comments above. I misunderstood grimloki’s intention.
Apparently Cruz was going on about Ayatollah Khomenei yesterday (as opposed to Khameini, I think), which is odd, because I was thinking the other day he reminded me of him. Does that make Trump Saddam or the Shah?
