Bob Shepherd wrote this comment earlier today:
“Terrible things are happening outside… poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” – Anne Frank (Jan 13, 1943)
The horror. The horror. What are we doing? What do we tell our children?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I feel as if I have entered another reality. I had a conversation with my grandkids’sother grandma. She thinks that now the our kids have traveled the world for a year, they will not wish to live here. I have heard my 13 year old grandson take about countries in which he would like to live.
So sad!
We tell them, Resist. Read Diane’s new book, coming in January, for a road map there.
Bob Shepherd A commentator on MSNBC also remarked that people who are working in chicken plants in Mississippi are not working there because they belong to a gang. They are trying to support their families in the way most of us do.
To the Trump “base,” this assault on “family values” is a moral debacle and is on YOU. CBK
Amen
La Migra Gestapo is an apt term for what is happening to traumatized children. These children will carry the weight of this trauma with them for many years. Disgusting!
retired teacher “These children will carry the weight of this trauma with them for many years.” That’s pretty-much a psychological given.
And it’s such an odd thing . . Stephen Miller being in the middle of such “never again” goings-on. CBK
Stephen Miller should go back where his family came from. He came from Palo Alto, his family from Russia. Putin would be glad to have him.
We should place a shroud over the torch of the Statue of Liberty. We are lost in the dark.
If Trump gets reelected through the Electoral College and ends up staying president for life, again, expect The Statue of Liberty to be replaced with the Statue of MAGA Man, that will be at least twice as large and tall as Lady Liberty and it will have an Olympic athlete’s body with Trump’s face and a red MAGA hat covering his whispy orange cotton candy hair.
Lloyd Lofthouse We could bring that Baby-Trump balloon over and fly it over the Statue of Liberty. CBK
Don’t give Trump any ideas. He doesn’t have much of an imagination.
If IQ – (minus) 45 gets the idea from us, he could use an effigy of him as a HUGE blimp to carry away Lady Liberty (he’d dress that effigy like a Navy Seal), while another blimp of him as Uncle Sam with his face, of course, floats in carrying The Statue of MAGA Man and sets it down on the pedestal that Lady Liberty once occupied.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/politics/trump-defends-ice-raid-strategy/index.html
If you can stand it, watch this video–interviews with children whose parents were disappeared by La Migra Gestapo yesterday.
What to tell them…the Christian, religious faithful deny Christ when they vote Republican- ( 60% of white Catholics and, an even larger percentage of evangelicals). Tell them… women who vote Republican deny equal rights. Tell them…Jewish people who vote Republican have forgotten when the claim was, “never”.
Repugnican–this is not just on Jabba the Trump and his propaganda minister, Miller. It’s on all the enablers of and participants in this obscenity.
This group, that group . . . . What it boils down to is the people. The people vote against their interest all the times, and they don’t get it. Some have gotten smarter! Will enough get smart, wake up, and smell the hemlock?
Have you noticed that the people who live in states with low education levels are likeliest to vote against their self-interest? Take Kentucky. No wonder their leaders want to keep voters uneducated.
I agree with you, Diane.
Trump stated months ago that he loves and accepts the poor and the uneducated.
He sure does.
Until we get rid of Trump and take away the GOP majority in the U.S. Senate and U.S. Supreme Court, we live in a country with a split government.
The Red States: Trump and the Trumpian Party (Formally the Republican Party that died and has already been buried under tons of nuclear waste) represent an autocratic, extremist-fake Christian kleptocracy where criminals and frauds rule. There are Blue Americans living in and/or trapped in Red States.
The Blue States that are led by elected Democrats who still remain loyal to the U.S. Constitution even if they are liberals, progressives, moderates, and corporate neo-liberals. And, there are Red Americans living in and/or trapped in Blue States.
“Red States, Blue States: Two Economies, One Nation.”
“The American Human Development Index (AHDI) allows for a state-by-state assessment of critical factors like income, education, and health. When we calculated the average AHDI for the red states — those won by Donald Trump — it was much lower than the average AHDI for blue states. In fact, by way of international comparisons, the blue states won by Hillary Clinton have a human development index similar to the Netherlands, while the red states have an AHDI that resembles Russia’s.”
https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2018/03/13/red-states-blue-states-two-economies-one-nation/
No wonder Trump’s supporters do not care if he is Putin’s Puppet, because they already live in states that are more like Russia than the rest of the country, the Blue States.
Fascinating.
Surprising, yet not.
Example: Kentucky. One of the poorest (and whitest) states in the union. The people of this state routinely go to the polls and vote against themselves and for Moscow Mitch McConnell. So, here’s the big question: How does one reach these people?
If you list all 50 states by average income, the top half is skewed to the Ds and the poorer half is skewed towards the Rs. This was captured well in ” The Trouble with Kansas” by Thomas Frank.
I do not think there is any way to reach these people.
I’ve read more than once that 80 percent of humans make all their decisions based on emotion and this Trumpish sector of the population has been programmed since the end of the Fairness Doctrine to hate and/or fear specific issues based on conspiracy theories supported by endless, often repeated lies.
This is an example of telling a lie enough that it becomes the truth and this group is a lost cause. Nothing, even bombing their towns and cities like the allies firebombed Dresden and Tokyo during World War II will change their minds.
But, that total destruction did, in the end, change Japan and Germany drastically. I think that is called a pyrrhic victory.
Some of those that vote against themselves are unlikely to vote for a Democrats. Some members of the right wing are in a cult of denial. These are the ones that cling to #45 and wear shirts saying they would rather be a Russian than a Democrat.
retired teacher Oh, yes. Let’s all move to Russia where Putin kills journalists and poisons his political opponents–with impunity. What a minute–maybe that’s not a good idea. . . . CBK
CK, the “retired teacher” did not suggest we all move to Russia.
RT wrote, “These are the ones that cling to #45 and wear shirts saying they would rather be a Russian than a Democrat.”
However, I think it is a good idea for all of Trump’s supporters and his family to move to Russia and then Trump and Putin might become adversaries as Trump attempts to become Russia’s dear leader. Then maybe Putin would poison his new political opponent.
Lloyd Lofthouse I read the Russia comment rightly. CBK
In the past two weeks- a State Department employee and 4 soldiers exposed and punished. Tucker Carlson lost a major sponsor. Think tank personnel should be scrutinized next.
If the Koch’s, Walton heirs and/or Gates are funding the tank where staff are exposed- we can watch to see what happens.
Rule by Screaming Baby.
If other countries issue travel bans on the US for gun violence, Trump will reciprocate, he says.
Thug.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1965898001
Travel warnings, not bans.
The reason white people want guns is perception of potentially revolt revolutionary conditions centered on black/ poor people. Same reason their OS no Medicare and underfunded schools in black and or poor jurisdictions. A white supremacist view that poor (read black) people dont deserve healthcare or quality schools. Other nations established these basic reforms when they were overwhelmingly white. Conservatives have almost no empathy for the poor. It runs to zero or negative when the poor are racialized, black, Hispanic, …
“The reason white people want guns is. . . ”
YEP! ALL white people want guns, especially for the reason you give. Ay ay ay ay ay Que locura.
LOL, the reason I have a weapons safe full of firearms and ammo is because of the neo-Nazis and White Supremacists that love Donald Trump … and the PTSD that followed me home from Vietnam. In fact, most combat vets with PTSD have firearms because of their PTSD and there are more than 20 million military veterans in the U.S. thanks to all the wars: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the 130-countries that Special Forces troops might hit each year in black ops that they can never talk about.
And, if minorities and poor Americans revolt against Trump or someone like him, I plan to fight right alongside the rebels even if I am a caucasian.
Exactly, Doug; well said.
Your friendly neighborhood GOPstapo at work …
Trump’s ICE cold GOPstapo
The original re-posting of the Anne Frank quote implies that we are facing the same existential threat as the German nation faced under the Nazi regime. I think there are real reasons to argue that this is different in several ways, though not really much better. One tremendous difference is that the Nazi rise was juxtaposed with the massive crisis caused by the economic disaster that was the treaty of Versailles. I do not accept that we are in the same straits now. Another distinct difference is that the German nation was very young by comparison to the United States.
All that said, it’s very reality makes the acts of the Trump administration troubling in a vital way. One would think that those living in relative comfort compared to Weimar Germany would not countenance such hatred and inane behavior. It is undeniable that the majority of geographical locations, nonwithstanding the relative paucity of humanity as compared to bovine population, voted in a man who has degraded our political process with hatred and tweet. The age of the United States and its experience as a democratic society apparently was powerless to prevent the election of this man, which is very troubling. Often when foreign nations decide on some clownish individual for a leader, we hear the sonorous intonation that the nation of _________ is suffering from the lack of democratic traditions, and the populace is to be forgiven if they do not recognize corruption.
The United States has a long standing tradition of choosing its leaders, and this apparently did not keep the wolf from our door. We are experiencing a hostility going back into the last administration against refugees. While I do not think that we can adequately house all the world’s refugee population, I do not think that is justification for the systematic rounding up of people who came here just to try for a new life. There must be a way to deal with the indigent of the world without losing the soul of the nation. When Past epochs have sent the tired, teeming people of the world to these shores, at least a few of us have found a way to make peace with this group, and we have been better for it.
“The original re-posting of the Anne Frank quote implies that we are facing the same existential threat as the German nation faced under the Nazi regime.”
Did I merely imply this? THEN LET ME BE CLEARER. We are facing the same evil freaking fascist hate mongers that the Germans did in 1933. We fought a war against the purveyors of ultra-nationalism and racism in the middle of the last century, and HERE WE ARE AGAIN.
Trump is not a man of ideas (OK, that must be the most extreme understatement I’ve ever written), but he has one “idea” that he dearly loves and talks about often, his “racehorse theory” of relative human worth. The world is made up of “s–thole” places–cities and countries–and ones that aren’t because they are inhabited by superior people–the winners, not the losers. This is the idiot’s version of the Nazi ideology of Aryan supremacy. And he wants to return us to a golden age when things were so much better, to “Make America Great Again.” This is the idiot’s version of the Nazi ideology of the golden age of Aryan supremacy and maypole dances and beautiful, blonde-haired babies to which Germany was to return, once purified and given Lebensraum. And he exaggerates an internal Other–hordes of invading immigrants from Central America, whom he refers to as an “infestation” of “rapists and murderers” who are destroying the economic security of working people and undermining our traditional culture (as represented by all those monuments to slave owners and genocidal maniacs that he so loves)–big lies, using precisely the same language that the Nazis did, to rile up the ignorant, exactly as the Nazis did. This is the idiot’s version of blaming the economic woes and supposed cultural decadence of Germany, after World War I, on the Jews and the leftists. And he sends out his goons to round up those Others and place them in camps. Sound familiar?
And then there is his history, plain for any to see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump
Never again, we said. But here we are.
So, to summarize, Trump a) believes in eugenicist genetics; b) constantly spews racial hatred; c) preaches nationalist exceptionalism and a return to a mythical golden age of national greatness; d) scapegoats a minority group for economic and other national woes; e) establishes travel and immigration policies targeted against Others; f) employs goons who break up families and separate children from their parents; and g) runs concentration camps.
If this does not sound familiar, then we have not learned THE terrible lesson of the twentieth century.
Bob Shepherd Speaking of mindless goons, this is a democracy. It goes directly back to Trump’s “base.” No vote, no Trump. CBK
I left a few things out of that comment. I hope you will bear with me:
Trump a) believes in eugenicist genetics (his “racehorse theory” of human worth); b) constantly spews racist vitriol; c) preaches nationalist exceptionalism and a return to a mythical golden age of national greatness; d) scapegoats a minority group for economic and other national woes; e) establishes travel and immigration policies targeted against those scapegoated Others; f) employs goons who break up families and separate children from their parents; g) runs concentration camps; h) has made the ultra-nationalist rally a routine feature of his regime; i) fancies that he has restored the nation’s military might; j) demands absolute obedience, subservience, and loyalty oaths from subordinates; k) makes use of de facto state media; l) has politicized the judiciary and national law enforcement and is in the process of doing this with the intelligence services; and m) inspires extreme violence by white supremacist goons against particular racial/ethnic groups.
If this does not sound familiar, then we have not learned THE terrible lesson of the twentieth century.
Yes, his base base. Those people in the streets are what did it for Hitler. That and the Enabling Act.
Trump’s “base” is dangerous. Every time one of Trump’s followers goes on a shooting spree, we can be sure that the rest of them cheer and would dance in the streets if they could keep everyone’s mobile phone cameras turned off.
Trump’s “base” cannot be reasoned with and they do not think the “libtards”, what they call everyone that does not think like them, will stand up and fight back with firearms because they don’t think the “libtards” have any firearms. Ha, ha, ha, I have a big surprise for them when they decide it is time to take over and show the people they call “libtards” who is in charge.
We the people, not Trump’s “base”, cannot trust that Trumpish “base”, cannot negotiate with them, and must be willing to fight fire with fire.
I hope you got my point that the rise of all these ideas you point out is particularly troubling in a country that is extremely stable by comparison to Weimar Germany in the Greatest of Depressions. I do not disagree with any of your characterizations of the Trump policies. I have, given my sieve that masquerades as a mind, forgotten all the Trump policies with which I disagree and all the Trump statements that left me somewhere between bewildered and enraged. You brought many of them back with your list above, but you might have continued deep into the night, only to awaken again and resume the task.
The aspect of all this I return to is the ascendancy of these ideas in modern America. Historians always laid Nazi Germany on the depth of the depression. Americans of that day were so sure that was the problem that they went out of the way to pump money into the European and Japanese economies to prevent radicalization of politics. That these ideas should be accepted by so many of our states that Trump’s electoral victory might yet be assured in the next election defies all my father’s generation believed. Compared to Weimar Germany, we are doing very well. And yet the racist dialogue of the president does not repel so many of the voters. This is the existential threat to democratic principles.
Every speech that ANY democrat does, and who is criticized for ANYTHING, should start with a list of all of the “passes” that Trump has enjoyed by these same people, since the elevator. What a metaphor–going down, down, down.
Via Trump, the bar for error, and even for deliberate malfeasance, went down the rabbit hole a long time ago. CBK
Sadly, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, we should NEVER make Holocaust analogies. The museum’s stand is infuriating.
Threatened Out West writes: “Sadly, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, we should NEVER make Holocaust analogies. The museum’s stand is infuriating.”
Ironic . . . because calling out the the lead up to the holocaust is the only way to ensure “never again.” CBK
This is an insane stance. We should be continually vigilant to keep such a thing from ever happening again. And how do we do that? By noticing when the same stuff is happening.
The Federal Reserve’s data trends extrapolated 33 years into the future show the richest 10% will have 100% of American wealth. $47,000 is the average amount that families have for retirement.
Prof. Martin Gilens of Princeton conducted research and found the U.S. is an oligarchy. More than 70% of the population want taxes on the rich and want certain types of gun control to prevent single gunmen from mowing down multitudes of people. Americans can get neither passed because of Moscow Mitch.
Here is an example of a Trump party devotee who is also a Republican state representative from Middletown, Ohio (about 25 miles from Dayton).
Her name is Candice Keller and she has blamed the killings in Dayton on ” homosexual marriage, drag queen advocates, the Democratic Congress, former President Barack Obama, violent video games, and the hatred of veterans….” and more.
Keller is the executive Director of a Christian pro-life pregnancy center. She compared Planned Parenthood to Nazis.
Speaking on a white power radio show she also wanted a ban on sanctuary citizens.
The leader of the state Republican Party, Jane Timken, has called for Keller’s resignation. Last word is that Keller will not resign.
See the exact words from Keller at https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/06/ohio-gop-leader-tells-lawmaker-resign-over-dayton-shooting-post/1930213001/
The souls of the dead of the Shoah cry out, “Have you learned nothing?” Not to have learned from what happened to them is obscene.
Read How Democracies Die. Also, watch the (PBS! Which, actually, I just slammed in an earlier post about the Kochs/NAACP) series, “The Dictator’s Playbook” (Franco was just highlighted in tonight’s episode, which was on a cable PBS station; you can probably still see all of them on pbs.org).
There’s a reason this series is on. What Bob just said, 8/9 at 10:10 PM.
BTW–at least two of these chicken factories were workplaces where the workers had actually formed unions. Just saw a discussion of this on the always excellent Democracy Now, & Amy Goodman mentioned asked one of the activist guests (one was the African-American Mayor of Jackson, MS) if she felt this to be in retribution for the workers having dared to form unions (the guest–whose last name, ironically, is Ice, thought so). As you can imagine, the unions were formed to combat harassment, poor working conditions & wages & other such misfortunes foisted upon workers who were not considered to be human beings. How dare they question authority?
another parallel
What may be the case is that the union represented all the workers. It is doubtful in Mississippi that they actually had a contract. But they were behind the harassment law suits that finned that employer millions.
When Swift Food plants were raided over a decade ago only 23% of the workforce was undocumented. Certainly the UFCW was happy to represent all workers. But the undocumented may not actually have been in the union. But this has a chilling affect on all workers as that many of the undocumented were friends or relatives of the other workers. The message sent is don’t start trouble or we will bring down ICE.
fined
Leading Civil Rights Lawyer Shows 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.commondreams.org/views/2019/08/09/leading-civil-rights-lawyer-shows-20-ways-trump-copying-hitlers-early-rhetoric-and%3famp
Thanks for this, Akademos. I was thinking that I could have gone on and on with the parallels. Many years ago, when I first started working for McDougal, Littell as an editor, McDougal’s wife included in the 12th-grade literature text a piece by Hugh Trevor-Roper on what he called “the evil genius of Hitler.” I strenuously objected, for it was my contention that while Hitler was certainly a passable demagogue and displayed some low cunning, he was basically a semi-literate thug. One doesn’t have to be brilliant to rouse a mob. Hitler’s writing is a disorganized, rambling mess, his ideas were crazy, and his rash actions were disastrous for his country and for the rest of the world. Another couple points of comparison between Donald and Adolf. But Trump, ofc, is even further down the literacy scale. Trump speaks at a fourth-grade reading level and is infamous for never doing any reading–a fact that forces his staff to put together picture shows for their toddler boss.
Trump seems to be a strange amalgam of Adolf Hitler, Gordon (greed is good) Gekko, Patrick (brainless starfish) Star and Charles (race war) Manson.
We each may be a genius in one particular vein or more, and I don’t think it necessarily means anything about how we think in general, our extra-compartmental, broadly integrated reasoning, awareness of others, the world, ourselves, our beliefs, our abilities and affinities in other veins or fields, etc.
DOJ is going after immigration judges.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.dailycaller.com/2019/08/09/justice-department-naij-union
An AP story posted at Yahoo 9-9-2019-
Calf. AG. Becerra said, “Depriving a child of a fair chance to learn is wicked, warped.”
The Bay Area, which is the hotbed of privatization, was found to have starved funding for the public school the district created for low income minority children. The school district which had a nearby, well-funded charter school for mostly white kids was the target of Becerra’s wrath.
Linda, here is the link:
Thanks.
What to do!?
ICE protesters, NYC
https://www.google.com/amp/s/abc7ny.com/amp/politics/anti-ice-protesters-partially-shut-down-west-side-highway/5458286/
First let me say that the raids and the brutality on display are abhorrent .
Let me also say that few in the Trump base are there because they have been economically displaced by an immigrant documented or undocumented. In fact most of Trump’s base lives and works in communities that have few if any immigrants that they come in contact with.
However the popular meme “the immigrants do the jobs Americans wont do” is also a bald face lie.
Meat Packing used to be solid working class Union Job. It came with healthcare, a pension and a wage that enabled a worker to send a child to an affordable State College. (They did exist when meat packing paid a living wage). And take the family on an occasional vacation.
Construction is another industry where corporate greed has placed undocumented immigrant labor in competition with in this case many skilled workers. Workers in the Building Trades earn as much as a high paid union teachers on Long Island where salaries are even higher than NYC. (they do work more hours to do so) . But it is not the immigrants fault he is being exploited it is the employer. And in the case of High Rise Construction the real employer is not the contractor but the Billionaire Developers who knowingly are hiring Non Union contractors. Those contractors in turn exploit their workers documented and especially the undocumented. You would not want to be me arguing with Trumpanzees many of whom are in the trades least affected by immigrant labor.
As I had the pleasure of pointing out to members of the Trades . The largest real-estate developer in the Country is Related Industries whose CEO is also a principle share holder in Soul Cycle, Equinox and the Miami Dolphins. (they know that you may not) . So while he is exploiting undocumented workers to build the largest Real Estate Developments in the country. He is also holding a 250,000 dollar a plate dinner for the Orange haired treasonous piece of turd in the White House. He certainly is not doing so because he has any expectation of losing his access to low wage workers.
Immigration since the time of the Irish has always been used as a wage wedge against native workers. The Chinese and all Asians were excluded in part because they appeared different. But those same Irish workers who had been exploited and demeaned a few decades before, were placed in competition with a new immigrant group driving native sentiment. . The 1923-24 immigration bills certainly were racially driven. But again native worker resentment was whipped up to pass and enforce them sending millions to their deaths a decade or so later.
It is past time that we link Labor reform that empowers all workers and Immigration reform together. Doing so that workers can not be exploited in an endless race to the bottom. We also have to admit that it is the same corporate greed that is exploiting workers at home and is driving immigration. It drove the undocumented immigration from Mexico starting in the Mid 90s, when NAFTA decimated rural Mexico and drove up poverty by 50% . As it is driving migration from the Northern Triangle , where civil war and death squads in service to multinational corporations; have created much of the dysfunction.
But these are not the jobs Americans wont do., Any more than teaching is a job our college grads don’t want. In both cases it is wage exploitation that causes the shortage.
Piece of turd? Only a piece? Really!
More like a huge pile of orange turds like an elephant would drop.
Listen I am a retired a construction worker, you are an educator. Do you really want me to use the language I am comfortable with. I will leave that to you. I use it enough to describe him elsewhere.
LOL
I might be a retired public school teacher but before I went to college I was in the Marines and fought in Vietnam.
Want to place a bet on who has the most creative profanity – a former Marine and combat vet or a retired construction worker?
Lloyd and Joel,
Don’t demonstrate your profanity here. Do it Mano-a-Mano.
I know I won’t. If Joel wants to practice creative profanity, we can play on one of my blogs.