We’re Closer To Nazi Germany Than The Renaissance

The renaissance came about as the result of a rediscovery of Greek and Roman culture. By stepping beyond the restrictive confines of the church/state power structure, European culture and science flourished.

In the 1930’s, Germany cut itself off from outside influences. It burned books and forbid its citizens from listening to foreign radio broadcasting. Correspondence with people from other countries became dangerous. Not only were foreign cultures demeaned and ignored in favor of the current ideology, the very history of their own people was being rewritten. Professors were fired, journalists were jailed, dissenters were deprived of their livelihoods.

I’ll leave it to you to decide which era the U.S. currently compares to. In lieu of book burning we now have people in power insisting those who wrong-speak be banned from their platforms. Joe Rogan from Spotify, Tucker Carlson from FOX, The President of the United States from Twitter. This is not even a left/right issue, it is an issue of the establishment against ANY outsider voices. The people must be told what to think and cannot be trusted to think for themselves.

You think Tucker Carlson was fired from FOX because he was the biggest racist, spreader of disinformation or hatemonger? No, these things will thrive quite nicely at FOX without him. The only thing that will change is that whoever replaces him will know absolute obedience will be required of them. And everyone already working for FOX have had it made quite clear that they can hate and dog whistle all they want, they just better shut up about Julian Assange.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the young progressive who promised to take on both the Republican and the Democratic establishment, now cries out for censorship while staying silent as leaders of the Black Uhuru Movement are threatened with prison for allegedly working with Russia to sow discord. Anyone old enough or with a knowledge of history knows these were the same accusations once leveled against Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X, as if black people needed Russia or the U.S. government to tell them what or how to think.

Thinkers and leaders of the past are no longer spoken about because not merely a few of their ideas but the very language which they used is no longer acceptable. Other nations and cultures are deemed enemies of humanity (when such countries are deemed enemies of the state for more practical reasons) because they may happen to be ten years behind the attitudes we now hold to be self-evident and sacred.

Nazism grew in Germany in large part because the German people were led to believe that they were victims. This claim was not without some truth, because the German people were made to bear sole blame for the First World War. Fascistic practices are being permitted to grow in the United States now in large part because those in power are telling others that people are being victimized. Again, not without a good amount of truth in the claim. But nothing less than the most extreme degree of victimhood should be used to justify giving increased powers to the state to censor and prosecute citizens for things they say or beliefs they hold. This never ends well for disenfranchised groups.

What we witness now is a mad rush to embrace fascistic tactics by those who do not realize that they will be the ultimate victims of them. In order for liberals to benefit from authoritarian ideology, they will need the help of the very people and institutions who will only use them to accomplish their own goals. Right now the intelligence agencies, the establishment media, and the tech giants are seemingly using fascistic means at the command of people like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Adam Schiff. In truth, such people command nothing.

While ostensibly being employed to go after right wing extremists, censorship and threats of legal prosecution are being used against the left. The real left, the left that rejects fascist tactics no matter what the seeming justifications for them are. Fascist tactics are being used against the fighting left, those who are willing to stand toe to toe with fascism and pay whatever cost is necessary to oppose it. But those who consider skipping Sunday brunch to attend a suburban rally wearing a pink hat a sacrifice, don’t know who’s really fighting for them. It’s not in their immediate interest to know. Skipping brunch is about the extent of their sacrifice.

You can’t fight fascism using intelligence agencies, the military industrial complex, or the establishment media that would say whatever is required of them no matter who was in power. This is an illusion, a lie. Those who believe in it, who isolate themselves from other eras and cultures that have ideas that may cause them to rethink their own, are living in a bubble. And we all know the eventual fate of bubbles: they burst.