Tag Archives: alt-right

November 29, 2016 · 06:30

Reordering Life under the New Order

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have taken most of the past week off and did little in the way of writing, but I did do much reading and reflecting over the Thanksgiving holiday. We spend most of the holiday out of town with friends near Washington D.C. in a very relaxed environment in which I radically reduced my time on social media to do a lot of reading and reflecting about the future that we are soon about to enter, a future that portends a radical departure from the historic norms of American democracy, polity, and social convention. We are about to enter a “new order” and it is important that we as Americans realize what this will entail.

However, I will come back to that later or in future articles. Today I will talk about what I am doing to keep my balance and to prepare for the difficult times that lay ahead for us. The problem for me is that as a historian who has devoted most of his life to studying the totalitarian Third Reich, and who also has a large amount formal graduate level education in theology, philosophy, and ethics that I see the gathering storm and am doing what I can to prepare personally as well as to be a beacon of rational thinking in a world that has gone mad.

The fact is that in less than two months a highly narcissistic megalomaniac authoritarian who appears to live in a cloud-cuckoo-land of delusional fantasy and paranoia will be the President of the United States. No recounts will change that fact, and unless members of the Electoral College actually do the job that the Constitution demands that they do, that Donald Trump will be President come January 20th 2017. That is a hard fact. One can talk about him not being their President all that they want but he will have the full power of that office in his hands and like it or not he will be making the decisions unless checked by Congress and the Courts. I do hope, probably against hope that those pillars of government rise to the occasion but I fear that they will not.

So over the Thanksgiving holiday I made some alterations to how I do life. First I have pulled back from social media. I still look at my Facebook and Twitter feeds at the posts of people whose intellect and desire to be truthful, but I am much more hesitant to comment on other people’s feeds, including people I dearly value as friends.

Likewise, I have become very selective about what I share. If I share something related to our current political situation I am first reading the article, checking its veracity, and looking at the track record of the author. As such, I am reading longer, more thoughtful, reflective and analytical articles that force me to think as I read them. Even then I will not necessarily share them on Facebook or Twitter unless I think they rise above the banter and chatter that inundates those platforms. Yes I am being more circumspect, but part of this circumspection is the realization that there are people who in the wake of Trump’s election are already are making “enemies lists” of professors, government officials, writers, and others that they would like to silence. Having been trolled and threatened for years I know that I am a potential target.

I am also much more discriminating in where I get my news. I am focusing on well-established newspapers in the United States and Europe where investigative reporting and substance matters while avoiding all American Cable News channels and sites that promote sensationalism or that thrive on unsubstantiated rumor or innuendo. The fake news business that was a fixture of the 2016 election is still going strong and is going to be used more and more to promote fear, distrust, and to pave the way for tyranny. As such I am not taking the bait when I see headlines posted on Facebook or Twitter which are solely designed to inflame passions and lead people respond emotionally without critical thinking or reflection.

As far as news and social media I have stopped looking at them after 10 PM. This is something that I should have done a long time ago. My regular readers know the difficulty I have sleeping do to PTSD and TBI and the memories of wartime and other traumatic experiences returning from war and I have found that many social media posts as well as the constant bombardment of news; real, fake, important, and unimportant only raises my nighttime anxiety and makes it far harder to sleep. Instead, I read or watch my favorite television shows or movies. I probably need to write an article dealing with this in the near future. There is something to be said about disconnecting from the insanity at night. 

I am going to be very careful when listening to politicians, and not just the incoming President, use terms such as “extremist” in describing individuals or groups that they oppose and “terrorist” to describe events that may or may not be terror related. Likewise, I will be careful when politicians using the pretext of an “emergency” describe “exceptional” circumstances to curb civil rights and individual liberties. Such methods are emblematic of authoritarian states and are the death of democratic states. The fact is that the Patriot Act and numerous already existing Executive Orders provide mechanisms for the Executive Branch to suspend civil liberties in reaction to certain emergencies.

I am going to limit what I say in e-mail and social media posts and try to do more through direct personal contact, sharing meals and drinks while discussing important issues. Likewise I am going to get out more, mingle more with real people, and also take time with Judy and our dogs. I really am coning to enjoy spending time with Judy and my walks with our dogs provide me a lot of relaxation and enjoyment, so they are getting longer and more numerous.

I am becoming much more alert to threats of violence and intimidation by some of Trump’s supporters as well as members of the “Alt-Right” which is nothing more than a bunch of rebranded Nazis and Klansmen. I will speak up against such people and organizations at every opportunity as to quote General George Patton “the Nazis are the enemy” and I don’t care where they come from, I will fight them.

I have a lot more to say on this, but that is all for now. Have a great day.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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November 15, 2016 · 16:30

An Uncertain and Foreboding Future: Steve Bannon and the Alt-Right in Government

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Greenville MS 

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In the days leading up to and following the election of Donald Trump as President there have been an increasing number of physical attacks, violence, and intimidation by Trump supporters against all kinds of opponents. A Black Baptist church in Mississippi was burned and marked with pro-Trump graffiti; a sign at an Episcopal church in Maryland which advertised a Spanish language service was defaced by the words “Trump Nation Whites Only.” Another Episcopal Church was vandalized with the words “fag church” and “Heil Trump” and a Swastika. In addition there have been numerous unprovoked acts of violence against individuals across the nation. The KKK is planning victory marches, while leaders of the neo-Nazi, White Nationalists and other components of what is being called by their leaders as “the Alt-Right” are rejoicing at Trump’s victory and his appointment of former Breitbart Media chief Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist and counsel. Bannon’s methods at Breitbart can best be described as similar to Joseph Gobbels, they are not journalism; they are propaganda, not much better than the propaganda of Julius Streicher’s Der Sturmer.

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Silver Spring Maryland

While Trump pointedly told those committing such actions to stop during his 60 Minutes interview Sunday night, the attacks and harassment continue.

Unlike Hitler who believed what he said about the Jews and others that he considered sub-human, as well as his political opponents, I really doubt the Mr. Trump does, despite having encouraged violence at his rallies during the campaign. I could well be wrong, he may really believe such things, but regardless of his motivation, his words during the campaign have emboldened a segment of the population that most people consider a fringe movement. To some extent they are, but now their thought is becoming mainstreamed on the political right through Breitbart and other outlets.

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Bean Blossom Indiana 

As I have mentioned before, I do not know what will happen in the coming months. My hope is that Mr. Trump will back off of some of his more extreme positions and also do what he can to stop the violence before it gets out of hand. However, his appointment of Bannon sent a chill down my spine. Bannon’s words of the past several years make everything that Mr. Trump has said on the campaign trail seem positively tame. Bannon admits his connection to and encouragement of the Alt-Right, but he refers to them as “patriots who want their country back.” But that is not true, Bannon himself is all about destroying the United States government and he has said so, and so do many of his followers. So let’s stop being polite and call the Alt-Right what it really is, a bunch of Nazis and White Supremacists who are not patriots.

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Michael Hill 

As far as Bannon and the neo-Nazis and Klansmen go I know what to expect. They are emboldened and looking for revenge. The day after Trump’s victory, Michael Hill, the head of the League of the South, a White Nationalist organization wrote:

“Once the globalist-progressive coalition of Jews, minorities, and anti-white whites stops reeling in confusion from the results of yesterday’s election, we can expect them to start striking back with trickery and violence. Thus, we as Southern nationalists face both danger and opportunity.

Now, more than ever, we need tight organization and numbers to help drive a stake through Dracula’s heart and keep him from rising once again to menace our people and civilization. No mercy should be shown to the enemies of our God, our Folk, and our civilization….”

Later that day Hill wrote:

“In the immediate aftermath of his victory, Donald Trump offered that olive branch to the left. Let’s hope he’s not serious.

So here is my warning to the victors: do not go back to sleep and think all is well. If you don’t finish the job by routing your enemies and driving them into the sea while you have the chance, they will re-group and be back at your throats in no time! You have been given a reprieve by God (probably undeservedly so); do not give your enemies and His a reprieve….”

A day later he wrote:

“If Trump is smart, he will listen to nationalists in various camps throughout America and then act on their ideas. They are the ideas of the future in the US, Europe, and the entire white world: true nations, based on the organic reality of race and ethnicity, kith and kin, blood and soil. They are the ideas that will permit greatness to re-emerge because of the unleashed genius and capability of the white race….

My advice to President-elect Trump is simple: don’t negotiate with serpents; you’ll get bitten. Listen to the truth, sir: your enemies, if given the chance, will destroy you and everything you purport to represent. Treat them like the danger they are. Serve those who put you where you are.”

I certainly hope and pray that President Trump rejects this “advice” out of hand, but with the appointment of Bannon who embodies exactly Hill and others as his chief strategist and counsel, all bets are off. I expect that between now and President Trump’s inauguration that the violence will continue to rise as racial minorities, religious minorities, LGBTQ people, and liberals are targeted. I have been dealing with their tactics of intimidation as well as death threats for years.

I guess this is what I fear about a Trump presidency, not Trump himself, but those who will use their new found status and positions in government to persecute their opponents in ways never seen in this country. But then there is something else that I fear, maybe even more than the overt racists and authoritarians; the silence of people who should know better. Hannah Arendt said, “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”

The attitude of those who should have known better in Hitler’s Germany was dramatized by Burt Lancaster in the classic film Judgment at Nuremberg. Lancaster’s character, a prominent German jurist, Emil Janning noted:

“There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that – can you understand what Hitler meant to us. Because he said to us: ‘Lift your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.  It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb. What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded… sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows. We will go forward. Forward is the great password. “

I just wonder if the unorganized attacks and intimidation by the White Nationalists and neo-Nazis of the Alt-Right become part of government policy once Trump takes office. That has to be asked, because we don’t know. Will most people go silent or even give their support if immigrants, Muslims, Jews, Gays, and liberals are targeted using the levers of government, or will they speak up. The haunting words of Pastor Martin Niemoller must be always on our mind as we give the new president the benefit of the doubt and wish him success, even as we have legitimate concerns about the role that Steve Bannon will play in the new administration and the potential influence of people like Michael Hill.

This is uncharted territory for us, and I do pray that Mr. Trump rises to the occasion and does not allow his administration to become the servant of the Alt-Right, and I think that there is a good chance that he will back off his more extreme statements and not let them take over, but I could be wrong, but I hope not. 

But those that supported him, especially the huge number that do not share the ideology of the Alt-Right must take time to reflect on what they will do if things get worse. Niemoller, who had initially supported Hitler wrote something that is good to reflect upon:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. 

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. 

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me. 

Have a great day,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 8, 2016 · 07:16

A Thought on Election Eve: Trump’s Genie Won’t go Back into the Bottle without a Fight

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I came back from my trip to Gettysburg yesterday pondering the future of the country and I find little solace in history right now. It seems to me that no-matter what the outcome, whether Donald Trump loses, or by some chance wins, that the country will have been changed for the worse and that no-matter the outcome that the results of this election will continue to divide the country. The seething hatred which has been building for years through conservative talk radio, political preachers, and a Republican Party so devoid of ideas that it has to cow-tow to the raging racists of the Alt Right, Neo-Nazis, the KKK, and paranoid preachers of doom to support Donald Trump is a genie that won’t go back into poisonous bottle from which it came without a fight.

If Trump wins we will have elected an authoritarian with no respect for any virtue other than might and money make right. We will have elected a man who has promised during his campaign to crush the very liberties enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; a man who has promised to jail, prosecute, or sue political opponents and critics; a man who has promised to rule through race and religion not the principle that “all men are created equal.”

Trump has brought out the worst in many Americans and he cultivates hatred and fear. He exemplifies what the late Richard Hofstadter called “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Trump demonstrates a profound sense of ignorance, rabid paranoia, wrapped in narcissism, and bathed in privileged self-pity never seen in a major party nominee for President in this country. Bit his followers don’t seem to mind. 

But then he has tapped into and attracted people who have been immersed in the paranoia of the religious right and the devotees of conservative talk-radio, Fox News, and the histrionic bevy conservative media websites and organizations, especially the Drudge Report, Breitbart News, and World Net Daily. These media organs have long prepared and sowed both anger and hatred toward any and all political opponents which made Trump’s rise a given. This is a group of people who have no sense of the Constitution or the merits of Republican government and democracy. What they want they want now, and they prefer an authoritarian leader who will trample the institutions of government that Americans have preserved for 241 years and endured a bloody civil war in order to protect.

Hofstadter, a historian who died far to0 young wrote:

“All this is the more maddening, as Edward Shils has pointed out, in a populistic culture which has always set a premium on government by the common man and through the common judgement and which believes deeply in the sacred character of publicity. Here the politician expresses what a large part of the public feels. The citizen cannot cease to need or to be at the mercy of experts, but he can achieve a kind of revenge by ridiculing the wild-eyed professor, the irresponsible brain truster, or the mad scientist, and by applauding the politicians as the pursue the subversive teacher, the suspect scientist, or the allegedly treacherous foreign-policy adviser. There has always been in our national experience a type of mind which elevates hatred to a kind of creed; for this mind, group hatreds take a place in politics similar to the class struggle in some other modern societies. Filled with obscure and ill-directed grievances and frustrations, with elaborate hallucinations about secrets and conspiracies, groups of malcontents have found scapegoats at various times in Masons or abolitionists, Catholics, Mormons, or Jews, Negroes, or immigrants, the liquor interests or the international bankers. In the succession of scapegoats chosen by the followers of this tradition of Know-Nothingism, the intelligentsia have at last in our time found a place.” 

As far as their leader, Trump himself, Hofstadter writing over fifty years ago wrote:

“As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated–if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.”

The style is that of despots worldwide, Trump’s rhetorical devices are much like those of Adolf Hitler. The message of Trump, in his own words is “I alone can fix it.”  

Tuesday, November 8th will be a watershed election, but as I said at the beginning of the article, no-matter what happens with Donald Trump, is that the paranoia and hatred that he has brought into mainstream will not go away quietly, and most likely will get worse, for in victory he and his supporters will take revenge on their opponents using the police power of the government that many so despise; while if he loses, the most frustrated and deluded of his supporters may turn to violence.

Neither is good for our nation, and I would very much like to be proven wrong in my assessment; but that being said and we must be vigilant if our Republic is to survive. 

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 3, 2016 · 06:30

America Burning: The Violent Alt-Right in the Open

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Tuesday night I posted an article about the KKK endorsing Donald Trump. For a long time Trump has courted the vote of White Supremacists, and his staff and advisors include a good number of men with long ties to White Supremacist and other Alt-Right groups. The campaign refused the endorsement, but what is troubling is that that there is little condemnation of the endorsement by GOP leaders, nor of Trump’s tremendous racial baggage.

But even more disturbing in the day since the KKK endorsed Trump an African American Baptist church was burned and marked with “Vote Trump.” Last night a man who has a record of provoking violence against blacks executed two white police officers in Iowa, just a couple of week after being escorted from a high school football game for displaying the Confederate flag during the national anthem in front of a group of black students and parents. I am sure that we will learn a lot more about him soon.

There are increasing numbers of threats being directed against blacks, immigrants, Jews, Muslims and liberals by people in the Alt-Right. Trump’s candidacy and the closeness of the race seem to have given them a green light to come out of the shadows.

I do fear that we are going to see a lot more of these type of incidents in the coming days and weeks regardless of who wins the election. Since I have received threats from White Supremacists for years, including death threats, I do take this seriously and a bit personally.

I hope and pray for the best, but I have a sense of dread about what is going on in the country.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 21, 2016 · 08:39

The Venomous Vulgarian: the Lasting Toxic Legacy of Donald Trump

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

As I watched and listened to Donald Trump before and after the third and thankfully final debate of the 2016 Presidential election, I was struck with just how viscous, vulgar, and venomous this man is. I cannot remember anyone in American politics at the national level, Republican or Democrat, or for that matter even Whig, who ever managed to immerse himself so deeply into the amoral, unethical, and undemocratic sewer that Trump has bathed himself, the Republican Party and this nation. 

Trump’s toxicity is unparalleled in American politics. Everything and everyone who has ever had anything to do with him is poisoned by his touch. Wives, business partners, contractors, employees, political advisors, and supporters have all been stained by the Mustard Gas that Trump emits on a minute to minute basis. Maybe the most stained are the Evangelical Christian church leaders who have not only endorsed and defended Trump, but  who positively described his character as Christian and said nothing about Trump’s words and actions, which if an opponent had uttered, or had been accused, they would have excoriated with a particularly “Christian” self-righteousness.  Their actions have stained the witness of the church for at least the next generation and it is no wonder that young people are fleeing the church. I specifically use the imagery of Mustard Gas, not just because of its toxicity, but because of its persistence. The battlefields of World War One France and Belgium are still contaminated by it, and the toxic residue still injures people today. 

That my friends is the poisonous and corrosive effect of Donald Trump on this country.  He is a toxic and persistent threat to everyone, even his most devout followers. Race baiting, misogynistic, narcissistic, vulgar, and ignorant, Trump spews his vile venom of conspiracy theories wrapped in fiction, and coated in lies, and buttressed with near pornograpic misogyny in every direction. He has given his supporters in the heavily armed Alt-Right, the neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and White Supremacists the boldness to come out of hiding because he has normalized their hate, something that no Western statesman or politician has done since before the verdicts at Nuremberg. 

I have long felt that Trump reminded me of Nazi leaders, but frankly most of them, while every bit as toxic as Trump were both more intelligent and were better able to cover the darkness of their amoral souls with a modicum of respectability, with the exception of one; the publisher of the infamous newspaper Der Sturmer, and Gauleiter of Nuremberg, Julius Streicher. 

Robert Jackson, the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court who served as the Chief American Prosecutor at Nuremberg referred to Streicher in his summation: 

“Streicher, the venomous vulgarian, manufactured and distributed obscene racial libels which incited the populace to accept and assist the progressively savage operations of “race purification.” 

Is that not exactly what Trump has done during his seventeen month campaign to stir up race hatred against Mexicans and Arabs, not to mention Asians and Blacks? Of course it is, which is exactly why the leaders of the Alt-Right claim him as their candidate, the man who in their perverted minds has made them respectable again and ready to assume their place in Trump’s new order. Anti-Semitism and racism runs rampant in the words of his closest collaborators such as the Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon, as well as Alt-Right Neo-Nazi and KKK leaders like David Duke, Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor, and Peter Brimalow. 

My friends, what you see in Trump is what you get. Unlike Hitler and Goering, but much like Streicher, Trump has no capability of maintaining any sort of respectability. He has been stoking the fires of violence by claiming that the election is rigged and pumping up his followers for violence if he loses. 

Donald Trump is dangerous and will remain an enemy of the American experiment long after he is defeated on November 8th. 

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+ 

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October 20, 2016 · 08:45

Trump and the Alt-Right: it can Happen Here

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I am writing this before the final debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I will blog my comments about the debate later and those observations will be posted tomorrow morning. 

But tonight I have just a thought. Most of my readers know my background in history and the history of the Weimar and Nazi eras, and some know that my primary history professor when I was an undergraduate was an interpreter at the Nuremberg trials. As such I have spent much of my life studying those eras as well as the trials themselves. When teaching ethics at the Staff College I spend a good amount of time on the subject in order that the men and women who will be advising leaders at the operational and strategic levels of warfare and national security strategy will understand just how important it is not just to follow orders, and to weigh ethics, morality, and international law when they propose a course of action to our civilian and military policy makers. 

I just finished reading Robert E. Conot’s book Justice at Nuremberg which was published in my junior year of college back in 1981. That was an era when the people that now refer to themselves as the Alt Right were in full Holocaust denial mode. Not only that the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party were riding a temporary wave of popularity. Conot wrote this as he ended his masterpiece about the Nuremberg trials:

“The begetters of the ultra-right-wing movement that denies the Holocaust and sanitize the Nazi regime and sugarcoat the culpability of its leaders are the successors to the proponents of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In place of the fiction that the Jews are conspiring to dominate the world, they proposed the Big Lie that the Holocaust is a myth, designed by the Jews for ulterior purposes. The new anti-Semites use the same techniques as the old, and their goal is also the same. To denigrate and discredit not only the Jewish faith but all men of liberal and democratic persuasion, so as to pave the way for a rescrudivence of persecution and tyranny…

In lockstep with these pernicious propagandists March new-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating for “Aryan” supremacy, urging the deportation of Jews and blacks, employing Hitlerian euphemisms, and manipulating democratic processes and guarantees in the same manner as Hitler a century ago. Never let it be forgotten thatHitler exploited the freedom granted him by the Weimar constitution to destroy the republic. The rise of a new Hitler in an industrial nation may be remote, but it is not impossible. Given the proper combination of circumstances, no country, including the United States, is immune.” 

That is where we stand today. Donald Trump makes the same threats against political opponents as did Hitler. He singles out liberal Jews, hispanics, Muslims, African Americans, women, Gays, Democrats, and even Republican opponents as he launches his vitriolic Twitter tirades at all hours of the day. His strongest supporters seem to be the members of what is now called the “Alt-Right” which is little more than a polite and politically correct term for Nazis and Kansmen including the former head of the KKK, David Duke. Armed Alt-Right Trump supporters are already menacing Democratic offices, threatening all opponents, and preparing to create havoc at polling places. 

Like Hitler before him, Trump is working to discredit the democratic process from within, and providing his most strident and potentially violent and already hate-filled supporters with the argument that the election is fixed and that he is opposed by the liberal media. It is an old and tired argument, not at all dissimilar to those of Hitler and Goebbels in the 1932 German Presidential election which Hitler lost to Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, and which they used to destroy their political opponents after Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933. 

Trump and his Alt-Right supporters are truly dangerous, and not just to those who oppose them today. They are equally dangerous to those who for whatever reason chose to support him now, just as they were to the German conservatives who initially supported Hitler and then found out that they had supported a criminal. 

We can never forger the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller, who wrote:

“I found myself wondering about that too.I wonder about it as much as I regret it. Still, it is true Hitler betrayed me. I had an audience with him, as a representative of the Protestant Church, shortly before he became chancellor in 1932. Hitler promised me on his word of honor, to protect the church, and not to issue any anti-Church laws. He also agreeed not to allow programs against the Jews, assuring me as follows: “There will be restrictions against the Jews, but no ghettos, no programs, in Germany, at that time… I hated the growing atheistic movement, which was fostered and promoted by the Social Democrats and Communists. Their hostility toward the church made me pin my hopes on Hitler for a while. I am paying for that mistake now; and not mine alone, but thousands of other persons like me.” 

Unlike so many of the “conservative Christians” who now wholeheartedly support Trump, I will not be deceived. I know the price. I have been to Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. I have been to Nuremberg. As a historian I know exactly who Trump is and what he promises, and I will not stop speaking out. 

Until tomorrow, or maybe even later tonight, 

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 30, 2016 · 06:00

Munich, the Bier Hall Putsch and American Parallels

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This is another one of my pre-posted articles for while we are traveling in Munich.

I have spent a total of about four years of my life in Germany. I enjoy the country and the people and I love traveling here because for me it is relaxing. When I have a car I enjoy driving on the Autobahn, and I find the mass transportation more than effective and convenient but a great way to travel.

I am a historian who for many years specialized in the study of the latter years of the Kaiser Reich, the German revolution and civil war, the Weimar Republic and the Nazi period. I always find visiting Munich intellectually stimulating. Munich is a very interesting and sometimes contradictory city, rich in culture, music, art, literature and scientific-technological achievements. Likewise it has always been a more cosmopolitan center of a very conservative state, especially religiously conservative as Bavaria is the heart of Catholic Germany. Thus there has always been a tension in the city, between the local more religious conservatives and business leaders and the more secular and progressive inhabitants, and the immigrants from Eastern Europe, especially more traditional and conservative Orthodox Jews.

This tension continues today with the large numbers of foreigners that live and work in the city. Many are Turkish guest workers and their descendants that have been in Germany almost half a century. But many are new immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, some who have embraced German life in a secular state, but many who have not and stand out in the crowd. In particular I think of the number of Moslems who retain their traditional dress and ways, which in many ways is reminiscent of the Eastern European Orthodox Jews, who likewise stood out as they attempted to maintain their cultural and religious identity.

Hitler-Putsch, M¸nchen, Marienplatz

Munich is the capital city of Bavaria, or as it is known here, Bayern. It was ruled for centuries by the Wittelsbach dynasty, which included “Mad King Louis” who built the amazing Neuschwanstein and Linderhof castles. That dynasty, with the rest of the German royalty was overthrown at the end of the  First World War. It was replaced for about three months by what was known as the Bavarian Soviet led by Kurt Eisner, an “independent socialist.” Eisner could not hold power and resigned in February 1919 and on the way to his resignation he was assassinated by a right wing extremist who held the views of the racist Thule Society. Eisner was replaced by a Majority Socialist leader who could not form a government and then by an Independent Socialist and Communist government. This government was both inept and brutal, it took hostages from the elite of the city as well as conservative reactionaries and had them executed. This brought a response from Berlin which sent a force of 30,000 Weimar Government employed Freikorps troops, including many Bavarians from rural areas, under the command of Ritter Von Epp to crush the Munich Soviet. After hard fighting against the Communist troops Epp’s men crushed the opposition and executed hundreds of the Communists and Independent Socialist fighter and leaders.

stosstruppe

The city was still rife with revolutionary and reactionary elements and in 1919 a new political party was established. This party became the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany, or the NSDAP. Adolf Hitler joined the party and quickly became its head. He along with General Erich Ludendorff led a coup, or “putsch” against the government on the 8th and 9th of November 1923. The putsch originated at the NDSAP headquarters and Hitler led about 2000 armed members of the party to the Burgerbrau Keller beer hall where the Gustav Von Kahr, who had been appointed with dictatorial powers due to the unrest, was making a speech.

himmler-bier-hall

Hitler took Kahr and other members of the government hostage and declared a revolution and enjoined those present to “join in this grave eleventh hour for our German Fatherland.” While many present were turned by his speech, the revolt did not gain momentum and in desperation Hitler ordered a march to overthrow the government. At Odeonsplatz at the bridge over the Isar River near the Feldherrenhalle his group of nearly 2000 followers including future Nazi Leaders Hermann Goering and Rudolf Hess were confronted by about 100 Bavarian police, and defeated. Hitler was arrested and tried, spent nine months in prison during which he wrote Mein Kampf. The Burgerbraukeller and the Feldherrenhalle became Nazi shrines which after Hitler’s takeover became places where Hitler would return yearly to mark his failed putsch.

All of these events took place in a small area of the Munich city center. Sadly most people who come to Munich are aware of the events that occurred here, and many fail to realize how easily a city know for so many cultural and scientific achievements can become the locus of evil for a man like Adolf Hitler.

While I love Munich my love is tempered by how many events which still affect us today occurred here just eight to ninety years ago. To use a German expression, that amount of in the sense of history is merely an “augenblick” or “blink of an eye”. It is hard to believe that so much has happen here, and just how few people understand just how easily such events can happen again.

neo_nazis_in_north_dakota-si_

When I look at my own country I see parallels between some of the more deplorable of Donald Trump’s supporters, the White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, Racists, and members of the so-called “Alt-Right” which is nothing more than a cover for its member’s Nazi ideology with the people that followed Hitler to the Burgerbraukeller. The hatred that they express towards liberals, racial minorities, immigrants and Moslems is so similar to the words of those precursors to the Nazi party rule in Germany that it is frightening. Comforting myths are substituted for history. Race, ideology and xenophobic nationalism, often clothed in the language of tradition “Christian” beliefs are used to demonize those who are different. Sadly too I see some of my fellow progressives inflamed with such a hatred of conservatives that they cannot see the dangers inherent in such polarization. As a historian, I find the parallels disturbing.

But despite that we are here to have fun, and that I am. After all, I choose to believe in the power of acceptance, tolerance and inclusiveness. Those are found in the words that are imprinted on the modern German Army belt buckles and in the German National anthem “eingekeit, recht  und freiheit” or “unity, Justice and freedom.” Those words are also implicit in our own Declaration of Independence which states that “all men are created equal.” Thus for me, not believe that good can overcome evil is central to who I am.

And from Munich, I am your friend,

Peace

Padre Steve

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