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Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor
It would take some doing, and I don’t have the time today, to pull quotes from a few (mostly !@#$%!) who have wished me ill. You can look on this page where !@#$%! posted a picture of the Nazi-elite with Santa Claus. You can go to the “post something completely irrelevant” thread and after I wished _slavo_ Happy Birthday, !@#$%! replies with: Nazi Punks Fuck Off. |
Those instances (the ones pointed out here) are someone voicing their discomfort with far right talking points seeping into this forum and being repeated ad nauseam. I see no actual ill-wishes concerning your personal well-being in them. They are harsh indictments of the type of stuff you're posting here. And as I will lay out in detail below the next quote, there's a whole bunch of legitimate concerns those two as well as others have no doubt tried to communicate to you. It's not like this whole thing started yesterday. Context certainly does matter.
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Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor
I’ve said it before and I’m repeating it now. I’m not a Natzi racist and I’ve never posted anything here at SYG supporting that. Today I’m telling !@#$%!, just like I told guest last month, PLEASE report any racist comments (or pictures) by myself to the SYG Moderators so they can delete said content and confront me about my actions.
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Things are not quite that simple. But a certain rhetoric, certain sources and talking points carry connotations. Just a random example: Putting repeat emphasis on Obama's middle name for instance implies that whoever does that has some issues with that middle name. It instills an image of the "other". And it's been a favorite of rightwing pundits that sought to discredit him.
And more broadly, spreading false information, using the lingo of the current president and so on and so forth displays a large amount of devotion to that machinery.
At this point, so much is known about the person in question, one Donald Trump. There are several instances that put some of the Nazi-comparisons into context. And I'm by no means the first one to point these out, but here are just a handful of incidents, behavioral patterns and pieces of information that should serve as a little refresher:
*Trump has retweeted a
quote by Mussolini and didn't distance himself from said fascist dictator when it was pointed out to him.
*Trump has claimed there were "very fine people" on both sides in the wake of a counterprotester being killed during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017. And this year, his reflections on said remark included him praising Robert E. Lee, even going so far as to state the following:
"I have spoken to many generals here, right at the White House, and many people thought of the generals, they think maybe he was their favorite general."
*Ivana Trump mentioned in her testimony that Donnie had a copy of "My New Order" - a collection of Hitler's speeches in a
cabinet by his bed - an anecdotal account you may say, but I'm inclined to believe her; Trump constantly labels mainstream media as "fake news", disavowing pretty much anything that doesn't stroke his ego - which draws eerie parallels to Hitler's strategy of discrediting any media critical of him and calling it "Lügenpresse" ("lying press"); there are plenty more instances that draw some parallels - all of them, as well as those already mentioned in this bracket are also summed up
here in this op-ed.
And there is plenty more, but it's kind of late around here and I guess I'll call it a day for now. Not quite done speaking my mind though.
So what am I trying to say here? Am I saying Trump is Hitler 2.0, a carbon copy of WWII-era Nazism? Well, not quite. All things considered, the amount of power National Socialists wielded and their widespread influence over the masses was much bigger. And then there's the harrowing scope of their atrocities: The Holocaust, the invasion and oppression of then Chechoslovakia, Poland and France, the most destructive war in human history, an abhorent ideology that had poisoned many minds and has produced sociopolitcal aftershocks that can be felt even today. Those are under no circumstances to be minimized and should serve as a tragic reminder of what unchecked fear-mongering, nationalism and sheer hatred can lead to. Hence, I won't say one is exactly like the other. However, not being able to see some similarities with all that information at hand is just being willfully blind. An admin does not have to check all the same boxes to fish in the same toxic pond as those power structures. Evil may take on many different forms - National Socialism, Jim Crow, The KKK, Stalinism etc. - but they tend to make use of a specific set of patterns, a common language if you will. Not all of them apply to each one of them, but all of them include at least a few of those: Cult of person; "Us" vs. "Them" - The construction of a mindset that emboldens a certain group and singles out those that supposedly don't belong in that group; Suppression of dissent, whether it may be in the form of systematic rhetoric or actual threats of violence; Violent rhetoric and violent actions in general; An emphasis on nationalism; Trying to play into people's fears and frustrations to gain their approval and to manipulate them; etc.
Trump checks pretty much all of those boxes. And he surrounds himself with people that like to swim in that pool. He's mostly out for his own gains and fortunately his approval ratings are quite low. And he does have a vocal opposition that gets a platform, so fortunately, some of his most vile policies/attempted actions were thwarted. Plus, he's quite incompetent as he's proved time and time again. But that doesn't mean he isn't actively trying to be one of the most despicable human beings out there right now. And I must say, if you don't mind me quoting one of his similarly atrocious predecessors: Mission Accomplished!
We need to be careful with what we surround ourselves with. Hate begets hate. Everyone can potentially be deceived by the powers that be. It takes some self-reflection to see the systems that surround you for what they are. And it's on each person to not feed into those systems, because that makes them grow. This is what I've been meaning to say here. I have no illusions this will make huge ripples, as others have surely tried to communicate similar things, possibly in a more eloquent way. And still here we are. But whatever, I spoke my mind.