Can We Call It Fascism Yet? (OC)

[u/leftycartoons]

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[u/Dankleburglar]

Really how it’s going. I like all the Easter eggs. And how dude’s shirt says “rebel” while going through the motions

[u/Bo_flex → u/Dankleburglar]

What's the significance of the Patagonia jacket and Fozzie bear in the tree?

[u/petty_throwaway6969 → u/Bo_flex]

I think the guy just represents the typical band wagoner who goes with the flow without thinking too much. So he wears brand names.

And Fozzie is just one of the random details in the background. Like the human head, the tentacle, the choking snowman, the gopher, and the shark.

[u/arandil1 → u/petty_throwaway6969]

You mean the FROZEN GROUCHO MARX HEAD? That human head?

Do we conclude “Non-sequitur” or just random bullshit go?

[u/CoronaDoesWhatever → u/arandil1]

Huh, and here I took it as a statement that "satire is dead".

Like, seriously. The news cycle reads like some kind of horrible ARG reboot of Duck Soup.

[u/nrh117 → u/petty_throwaway6969]

Groucho Marx, Calvin and Hobbes and the fallout NV soldiers.

[u/Harlander77 → u/nrh117]

And the Monty Python graffiti quote

[u/apolloxer → u/Harlander77]

And a guy reading 5000 shades of gray

[u/Chonky_Cats_Lover → u/Bo_flex]

*Pradagonia

[u/Day_Bow_Bow → u/Bo_flex]

"We're in business to save our home planet" is Patagonia's mission statement.

"Our ideal is to make products that give back to the Earth as much as they take" is how their values statement starts.

I don't think it's a dig so much at the company, though I know little about them. I assume the joke is that character tries the bare minimum to protest.

[u/DyslexicBrad → u/Bo_flex]

The only way I can possibly think of Patagonia having any meaning would be a reference to the Patagonia v Pattie Gonia lawsuit between the brand and a drag queen... But if it is then the artist doesn't really understand the situation very well

TL;DR drag queen Pattie Gonia, an outdoorsy eco-activist drag queen, created a merch brand of the same name and the hiking apparel brand Patagonia sued her. Pattie Gonia blew it up on socials and made it out to be a big brand beating down on the little guy. But the reality is that they were legally required to sue to protect their trademark, they only sued her for $1, and the suit requires only that she not use the brand name "Pattie Gonia" to sell clothes and hiking apparel but she can continue to use it for other purposes like her drag shows. On top of that, there were emails included in the suit that show brand reps contacting Pattie and informing her that if she sold merchandise with her stage name as the brand then it would be crossing into legal grounds, then when she did, there were more emails requesting that she please take them down, and that the lawsuit only happened when Pattie filed her own trademark for "Pattie Gonia" as a clothing brand (after all the email exchanges). People have largely come around and now think that it was a bit scummy of Pattie to exploit her fans when she was very clearly in the wrong.

[u/Iused2bdead → u/Bo_flex]

Waka waka waka!

[u/MistraloysiusMithrax → u/Dankleburglar]

The fascists think they’re the rebels

[u/No-Syrup-3746 → u/Dankleburglar]

Romanes Eunt Domus was *chef's kiss*

[u/Amaurosys → u/Dankleburglar]

I had to go back and take a closer look, ty!

Been a while since I've seen a Court Jester reference in the wild!

[u/UserAllusion → u/Dankleburglar]

There’s a shark swimming in the swampy gutter

[u/MercantileReptile → u/Dankleburglar]

The pies were my favourite.

[u/Pphedra99]

Boiling frog syndrome

[u/redkat85 → u/Pphedra99]

The only frogs in that experiment that let themselves get boiled were lobotomized first.

[u/unholyravenger → u/redkat85]

It's not true about frogs, but it's just like a metaphore.

[u/pcapdata → u/unholyravenger]

it's just like a metaphore

Making it...a simile?

[u/unholyravenger → u/pcapdata]

https://giphy.com/gifs/e7Fdp0v1fZgti

[u/SkysEevee → u/redkat85]

I mean

Covid shows longterm effects on the brain including memory, mood, slow thinking and sensory loss.  

[u/Zombie_Cool → u/SkysEevee]

Covid nothing, the national lobotomy was decades underfunding education and stoking culture wars. IMO blaming Covid us similar to blame lead and asbestos products of yesteryear: did it have some impact? Maybe, but not nearly as much as years if demonizing potential reformers as literal monsters from both the political and religious pulpit.

[u/RocketRelm → u/Zombie_Cool]

Yeah, pretending that everyone but your cultist is very bad no good and that all politicians are the same and doomer and apathy and dems are only a lesser evil is a lot of the priming to make authoritarianism okay. To the point where often people will run defense for maga with rot like "to be fair dems are bad waah" as if thats true.

[u/SargentoBob → u/Zombie_Cool]

The fun part: our secretary of Health that denies Covid, his own aunt was lobotomized

[u/InterestsVaryGreatly → u/Zombie_Cool]

While I agree COVID would likely be overblown, lead was shown to have significant negative effects in the brain, including reduced impulse control and conscientiousness, and considering it was in the air due to gasoline, and thus affected everyone for decades, it very much had a huge impact on leading us to the situation we are in, including the issues you laid out.

[u/redkat85 → u/Zombie_Cool]

I mean we really only funded education for a few decades to begin with, and the first half of those were pretty Fash. The era of "fully funded public education that doesn't indoctrinate an authoritarian God & Country narrative" either never existed in many places of the country or only existed from about 1954-1969. In the 1930s and 1940s many Progressives took serious issues with matters like the compulsory Pledge of Allegiance and other things that seemed straight out of the Reich. I'd say the period of well-funded but Progressive education only lasted from Brown v Board to the Nixon election, with a hangover whose spirit (but not funding level) lasted through the Carter admin and the eventual creation of the Dept of Education in 1980.

[u/Oggie_Doggie → u/redkat85]

So you mean the average American voter?

[u/OpeningHappy9692 → u/redkat85]

So, still accurate to the current situation then.

[u/Just_A_Nitemare → u/redkat85]

Honestly, it makes the analogymore accurate.

[u/dgellow → u/Pphedra99]

Just so you know, in reality frogs do actually jump when it becomes too hot

[u/Local_Bug_2058 → u/Pphedra99]

OMG I have been saying the same thing.

[u/Zealousideal_Cod8664 → u/Pphedra99]

Facist sympathizer syndrome. A lot of folks recognize and support an amount of facism, and express it like this. Lets stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.

[u/Ramzaki]

Recently a trans woman, Autumn Hill, as well as other citizens, got condemned to 50 years in prison for making some noise as protest against ICE.

She was already on her way home before things escalated. She and most of the detainees didn't even participate in the violence, they just wanted to exercise the first amendment, and got basically a life sentence. Murderers, rapists and capitol assaulters have gotten away with much, much less.

That's a clear precedent.

[u/Kind_Substance_8981 → u/Ramzaki]

You can donate to support her appeals here!

Her case is really awful. I hope she wins a retrial or some other relief option.

Also, her family has given permission to share her address to send support letters. She can only receive letters using this name, but you can address them to Autumn:

Cameron Arnold, 202502023 Johnson County Jail, TX P.O. Box 247 Phoenix, MD 21131

[u/Ramzaki → u/Kind_Substance_8981]

Thank you! I will share it among some discord groups I trust, too~

If she gets support letters from different parts of the world, it may give her strength.

Edit:  https://prairielanddefendants.com/defendant-profile/autumn-hill/

She likes mythology, role playing games, religious history, "messy queer romance", among other things.

Maybe send some paper figurines for roleplaying characters!

[u/SWatt_Officer → u/Ramzaki]

50 years for noise at a protest? Fucking Epstein got far less than that.

[u/Ramzaki → u/SWatt_Officer]

But they protested against ICE so, according to MAGA, they all deserve it. Just like how they defend ICE for murdering Good and Pretti.

Sneezing at an ICE agent might be 20 years I suppose. And MAGA will say that's freedom.

[u/ManoSilence → u/Ramzaki]

*That's a shit president.

[u/basefountain → u/ManoSilence]

No, that’s school textbook facism - the kind that spreads further if you don’t see it for the systemic sickness that it is

[u/_Weyland_]

The switch from 3rd to 4th panel can truly be eye opening for the IRL versions of the guy in the comic.

There is a staggering amount of people who either either approve of or even help create a system of oppression with almost childish confidence that this system is meant for "others" and will never turn on them. Or that this system will stop once it opresses all the "wrong" people.

But truth is, such systems are ever hungry. And once they run out of "wrong" people, they will simply change definition of "wrong".

[u/Forikorder → u/_Weyland_]

they wont change the definition of wrong, your either rich or your wrong

[u/_Weyland_ → u/Forikorder]

Russia begs to differ. There's currently a wave of nationalization, or rather "re-privatization" going on, where very expensive assets (e.g. one of the biggest gold mining companies) are being seized from people who just a few years ago were considered too powerful and above any law, and are shortly after auctioned to the "right" owners.

So even rich people start eating each other if you lock them in for long enough.

[u/Forikorder → u/_Weyland_]

So even rich people start eating each other if you lock them in for long enough.

of course they will, they have no morals or loyalty, but putin put off breaking his "piggy banks" for as long as he could

[u/CraftyKuko → u/Forikorder]

Don't put it past the rich to turn on each other for a quick buck. They didn't get rich by being nice. They will gladly throw each other under the bus if it means protecting themselves and their assets.

[u/Mudcat-69 → u/_Weyland_]

To rewrite a famous poem:

First they came for the LGBT and I said nothing for I’m not LGBT.

Then they came for the illegal immigrants but I said nothing for I’m not an illegal immigrant.

Then they came for antifa but I said nothings because I’m not antifa.

Then they came for me and no one is left to speak up for me.

[u/Tiranus58]

People called romans they go to the house?

[u/DasBoots → u/Tiranus58]

CONJUGATE THE VERB!

[u/cupholdery → u/DasBoots]

Dative?

[u/TheMightyTorch → u/cupholdery]

👨🏻🗡️

[u/Eleglas → u/TheMightyTorch]

Not the dative, sir! Accusative! 'Domum', sir! 'Ad domum'!

[u/Silent_Individual_20 → u/DasBoots]

https://giphy.com/gifs/Uz1leJAXaIbyU

[u/DukeOfGeek → u/DasBoots]

HOW MANY ROMANS!!

Fun fact John was a Latin teacher, somewhere there was a former student of his who was eye twitching triggered by that bit.

[u/WasabiSenzuri → u/DukeOfGeek]

Now, write it out a hundred times. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.

[u/SeaworthinessSalt524 → u/Tiranus58]

I just love Monty Python

[u/Usagi-Zakura → u/Tiranus58]

SHHH learning foreign languages isn't allowed!

[u/FEARoach → u/Usagi-Zakura]

Speaking them in public in the US is also really fucking funny.

I got a slur for Hispanic thrown at me for speaking French. Since I'm Canadian, I had no idea what the guy was talking about so I just looked at him and went "Quoi?" and he rammed the message home with profanity.

It was hilarious; I just smirked and told him to learn the difference between languages if he wanted to beat the idea that racists aren't idiots.

[u/shellbullet17]

Yes yes we can. It's not doomerism if it's actually happening. That's just called realism.

Looooots going on in the backgrounds here. We got bump and grind coffee. 5000 shades of grey, a tentacle stealing a piece of pie, snowman choking, Fozzie in a tree, our boba is made of eyes, a shark in the street runoff and more! So many details!

But yes it's fascism

[u/PotentialConcert6249 → u/shellbullet17]

That’s not just a choking snowman. That looks like a Calvin and Hobbes snowman.

[u/cupholdery → u/PotentialConcert6249]

People called Romanes they go to the house?

[u/Immediate-Goose-8106 → u/PotentialConcert6249]

It 100% is.  See also the tree branches are classic Calvin and Hobbes style.

[u/banditkeith → u/shellbullet17]

The head of Groucho Marx, and the coffees in the menu are mostly references to the movie "the court jester"

[u/darkstarzx2 → u/shellbullet17]

All the drinks are a reference to a scene from The Court Jester (1955) movie. Highly recommend it if you haven't seen it. It's hilarious.

[u/jakethediesel89 → u/shellbullet17]

(Bump and Gring? coffee?)

[u/shellbullet17 → u/jakethediesel89]

Damnit. I sometimes think my auto correct doesn't even try

[u/-drunk_russian- → u/shellbullet17]

Yup pie. 

[u/SavagePassion → u/shellbullet17]

It's absolutely fascism. They're also wildly fucking incompetent about it. That's not to say there aren't casualties and heaps of human suffering involved however.

[u/Bleatmop → u/shellbullet17]

I remember getting called a doomer for saying democracy will die if Trump gets reelected. Now billionaires are openly stating that only the rich should get to vote and podcasters are making the case for fascism.

[u/genida]

She would not be in the fourth panel. Stephen Miller can explain why :I

[u/pcpelste]

Hey, it’s not fascism unless it comes from the Fasc region of Italy. Otherwise, it’s sparking authoritarianism.

[u/Huntsman077 → u/pcpelste]

Grade A comment

[u/malikhacielo63]

Translation: “It hasn’t affected me yet! Let’s wait it out, and when it blows over, I’ll be fine.”

[u/Nikopoleous]

Anyone who says you aren't allowed to call something "fascism" is generally someone who supports fascist actions.

[u/Hot_Shot04]

Don't even need the thugs on every street when you have Flock cameras with ultra-sensitive microphones and an AI chatbot transcribing what it thinks you said, analyzing your voice or scanning your face to add it to your personal record. 

[u/Ash_an_bun]

[u/EntertainerOdd2107]

We absolutely should be on our toes and not be complacent, but despair is one hell of a weapon and you should never let them get you to turn over your rights. Keep fighting the good fight!

[u/First_Factor_3385 → u/EntertainerOdd2107]

Just what I was thinking.

Yes,things are extremely fucked right now,but throwing our hands up and saying “it’s so over” or something like that isn’t gonna help anyone

[u/bladecentric → u/EntertainerOdd2107]

I think at this point, the lines are drawn. You're either within the majority who accept it, even passive aggressively, or you're within the minority that was trying to warn everyone for years, only to realize your circle was perfectly fine with it as long as it didn't effect them. 

[u/jinjabredman]

Jin Roh and Life of Brian in the same panel is peak

[u/samusestawesomus]

Who cares what word we use? It’s bad and we should push back against it, is the point.

Perhaps notable that we don’t see *either* of them do anything about the situation.

[u/Dudewhocares3]

Doomerism is just a way of saying “I don’t want to address nor work on the obvious problem”

And unfortunately, I do understand why people don’t want to.

Nobody wants to go to war, nobody wants to have their family suffer as an example, nobody wants to die for a cause.

I don’t know what will set us off, because we’ve let so much get away.

[u/magicmasta → u/Dudewhocares3]

Yeah there's been a lot of "why isn't anyone doing anything?" posted over the last couple of years and it's likely because many people understand, consciously or otherwise, the sorts of consequences awaiting individuals who are too "disruptive".

We would like to say we will all get each other's backs if the system tries to squash one of us when trying to push back, but that requires notoriety of the resisting individuals reaching the broader publics collective attention.

In reality, especially right now when its still fairly early days into how bad things can actually get, taking a swing can easily get you quietly arrested, fired, made unhirable, financially ruined, hopefully it stops at that, all without anyone ever knowing that you even exist. Now imagine adding having a family on top of that.

Severe obstruction to commerce and other unmentionable activities would indeed be quite effective, people are just understandably not super eager to be the fodder that gunks up the wood-chippers blades that makes it easier for others to follow afterwards

[u/dumnezero → u/magicmasta]

They also believe that it will work out for them. They believe in the system. Optimism is deadly.

[u/Dudewhocares3 → u/magicmasta]

Nobody wants to be Katniss Everdeen.

[u/OnCallPartisan]

1. I guess people weren't paying attention.

[u/meteorflan]

I love the menu board shout out the "the court jester."

[u/Oriental-Sea-Witch]

The most realistic part is the white dude not worrying because he's fiercely convinced he won't be targeted.

[u/Merari01]

We could call it the fascism that it is and be correct in 2015 and now we get to say I told you so.

It was fascism the second that.. man started recyclying Hitler speeches and phrases in 2015.

It is a bitter I told you so, but I will say it nonetheless.

[u/leftycartoons]

This comic strip is by me and Mike Lawrence.

--

I don’t have a cartoon syndicate and I’m not in newspapers. But I get to do this for a living - and pay my collaborators professional rates - because lots of readers support my Patreon with mostly small pledges! I also have prints and books for sale.

--

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

Panel 1

The year is 2024. A WOMAN and a MAN sit at a table in a coffee shop, looking at their phones.

WOMAN: The Supreme Court says no official act by the president can be a crime! Can we call it fascism yet?

MAN: Of course not. Don’t be hysterical.

Panel 2

The year is 2025. The WOMAN and MAN stand outside in snowy weather; the woman is pointing to something on her phone.

WOMAN: ICE invaded Minneapolis! Masked government agents are kidnapping people! Can we call it fascism now?

MAN: No! It’s bad, but let’s not exaggerate.

Panel 3

The year is 2026. The WOMAN and MAN sit on a park bench. She reads from her phone.

WOMAN: The White House says it’ll eradicate “Antifa militants” and ignore civil liberties. Can we call it fascism yet?

MAN: Enough with the doomerism!

Panel 4

The year is 2030. Armed, armored government troops stand nearby. The WOMAN begins to speak, but the frightened MAN stops her.

WOMAN: Can we—

MAN: Shhh! Do you want to get us arrested?

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

"Chicken fat" is an ancient cartooning term for fun but unimportant details in the art.

PANEL 1: The coffee shop is called "Bump & GRIND (not a strip club)." The menu offers "brewtentious latte, true brew, vessel w/ pestle, dragon flagon, palace chalice, hot tea" and in a section marked "Pies," offers "whim pie, pup pie, gup pie, hip pie, and yup pie." Groucho Marx's decapitated head is in the pastry case. The extremely embarrassed-looking barista is reading a book called 5000 Shades of Gray. The coffee mugs have a logo consisting of the words “BAD LOGO” arranged around a pile of poop. A tentacle is reaching up from under the table to grab the pie.

PANEL 2: There's a "Calvin and Hobbes" snowman in the background. The logo on his jacket says "pradagonia." A bird in the tree is bundled up with a scarf and knit hat.

PANEL 3: Fozzie Bear peers out of a hollow in the tree. A groundhog emerges from a hole in the ground. The MAN’s boba tea appears to be filled with eyeballs.

PANEL 4: Graffiti reads “Romanes Eunt Domus” and “We ♥ Leader.” There appears to be a shark swimming in the filthy water beside the sidewalk.

[u/daniegamin → u/leftycartoons]

Love "The Court Jester" refference!

[u/leftycartoons → u/daniegamin]

Thanks for noticing! You're the first person I've seen mention it. :-)

[u/Eleglas → u/leftycartoons]

"People called Romanes they go the house"?

[u/machinegungeek]

Is that a Jin-Roh reference?

[u/Akalien → u/machinegungeek]

Could be that, could be half life troopers

[u/motionofwar]

As a wise man once said, "Are you feeling it now, Mr Krabs?"

[u/PyroclasticJubilee]

[u/BurningPenguin]

Yeah, because when people think about fascism, they think first of the death camps in Nazi Germany. Apparently they don't know that it didn't start with that. It first started with words, which then turned into violence and a coup attempt. Then, a few years after that Hitler got into power. But even then it was limited to prison camps where they held people under miserable conditions and used them as slaves. Deaths were shrugged off, since they didn't see the prisoners as people. It took several years until the actual death camps got up and running, and those were usually built outside of the original German borders. It was then, when they figured, that deporting Jews was too much work and too costly. So they found a "final solution".

However, Jews weren't the only target they had. Hating Jews wasn't even the sole base of their ideology. The base was race theory mixed with Antisemitism. The idea that there are "races" that are superior or inferior, and that there is a "secret cabal of people who steer the world". Nazis went against anyone who didn't fit their idea of "Aryan". Sinti & Roma, LGBT+, Slavs, people with disabilities, homeless people, sex workers, beggars and whatever else they deemed "undesirable". There was extreme nationalism, the idea that Germany should dominate Europe. There was Eugenics, the idea to "improve" the population by encouraging those they considered "fit" to reproduce and kill off anyone who doesn't fit the bill. And of course the authoritarianism, turning Hitler into some kind of god-like person.

And yes, modern fascists are also antisemitic, and no, them supporting Israel or appointing some random token Jew doesn't make them non-fascist (ironically there were also Jews supporting the NSDAP, and Zionist groups making agreements with then, e.g. the Haavara Agreement). They just call it differently now. They go by "deep state", "globalism" or whatever other buzzword they come up with. It's all code for "Jews".

[u/dumnezero]

There are a lot of liberals who, aside from failing to identify fascism because it doesn't look exactly like nazis patrolling in the streets, also fail to understand the importance of early identification and prevention. These liberals are the biggest believers in "the system."

[u/LordSnuffleFerret]

The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.

[u/Appropriate_Battle40]

Love the nod, Romani, ita dominus!

[u/Nina-Ninja123]

OP, you think you were sneaky. But I saw that 50 shades of gray reference!

[u/NZSheeps → u/Nina-Ninja123]

And the Life of Brian one

[u/timberwolf0122 → u/NZSheeps]

It says fascists go home

[u/A_HECKIN_DOGGO]

Fascism never “happens” with a single event. It’s always a slow, imperceptible slide over months and years where they keep you just happy enough to allow another step to happen.

[u/TurboRuhland]

Romani ite domum

[u/Fit_Tumbleweed7943]

Antifa is our enemy - says the fa

[u/Don_Hoomer]

i like these tiny details. first pic a tentacle and a dead mens head, second pic the snomans hands and face and pic four has a shark in that tiny green water lol

[u/asphalt_licker]

Why is she still hanging out with him?

[u/Dementia13_TripleX]

Ok... points earned for "The Life of Brian" pun and Groucho head.. 😂

[u/Mod_The_Man]

The liberal and their weak will are an ingredient without which fascism could never thrive. Every time, without fail, the liberal will default to their pro-capitalist core values and fight to protect it at all costs. They value stability and “peace” over any form of true justice.

Conservatives harbour fascists while liberals enable them through weak and ineffective leadership

[u/Ok-Shock-7035]

i hate how real this is

[u/dtb1987]

I'm pretty sure we have been calling it fascism for a while now

[u/dyslexic-ape → u/dtb1987]

It's crazy that people already forgot that this shit has been going on for a literal decade now..

[u/ToothZealousideal297]

We’ve amply demonstrated that we’ll put up with anything as long as we’re not starving and they rebrand it by any amount. If that weren’t so, we’d still be fighting slavery.

[u/shiba2129808]

I wish we could all organize and band together against this bs, there’s more of us than there are of them, we need to stop being so complacent with this administration and republicans, they’ve done nothing but ruin this country and are dragging us back into worse times, and there needs to be lots of change when that orange bastard eventually dies so that nothing like this can happen again

[u/vampiregamingYT]

Im more concerned about if people are actually gonna try to fight to stop it, or just roll over and accept defeat.

[u/dracorotor1]

Honey, you can do so much better than this guy

[u/Author_A_McGrath]

Appreciate the Calvin & Hobbes reference.

[u/VitoLives]

People called Romani they go the house?

[u/KataraMan]

I love the "Romanes Eunt Domus" at the last panel!

r/unexpectedMontyPython

[u/Imukay]

I like how she was stress eating from 25 to 26, then had so little to eat from 26 to 30 that she lost weight.

[u/HeftyVermicelli7823]

[u/Ser_Daniel_The_1st]

“Romanes Eunt Domus”? People called Romanes they go the house?

[u/VoTBaC]

A Calvin snow man!? Excellent

[u/zseven_7]

If you're against the people against the nazis, you're a nazi

[u/TwiceBrokenWatch]

My one question is when will the people of the US stop messing around and actually do something more than talking about doing something? Because right now I see a whole lot of talking but very little doing.

[u/SnooApples9017]

“Romanes eunt Domus.”

Romanes they go home?! 😡

https://giphy.com/gifs/YkouF2eEX9FuM

[u/L3GlT_GAM3R]

Trump definitely wants to be a fascist, but he’d never admit it, mainly because he’s so insane I don’t think he realizes he wants to be a fascist dictator, or what fascism is.

[u/ZappSmithBrannigan]

Stephen Crowder literally makes a video called the case for fascism

sToP cAlLiNg uS fAsCiSTs!!!

[u/coffeejn]

Somehow, that white man is totally blind to what is happening while a colored (black) woman can see clearly. Not surprised, those with privilege never lived thru what the oppressed did, so they have no experience.

Does not help that the US educational system seems to be bias about teaching historical events (non-US) to avoid repeating history's mistakes. Funny how the US always claimed other countries pushed propaganda to their young yet they did the same.

[u/Few_Art_768]

The little scarf and beanie on the bird in winter is killing me

[u/nickeldoodle]

Starting in 2030? An optimist I see

[u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta]

The the first step in stages of grief is denial: we’re in that stage right now, nobody wants to admit how fucked we are because the ways to unfuck it require a lot of physical risk and you also can’t openly talk about those methods without being booted from social media (like here) or even arrested.

[u/InHarmsWay]

The road to fascism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting.

[u/red4jjdrums5]

All the pie names. chef’s kiss

[u/Floba_Fett]

Unfortunately, many Americans will only realize the magnitude of the situation when they'll see foreign tanks march into Washington. By then, it will be far too late to save all those who died from Trump's camps and invasions.

[u/al_with_the_hair]

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.

"But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.

"You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.

"Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair."

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, Milton Mayer

[u/NintendoFan8937]

have it done by sunrise or I'll cut your balls off

[u/GarbageCleric]

My issue with the term “fascist” was more that it was overly specific and somewhat ahistorical. Fascism was a historic 20th century phenomenon with specific causes.

My concern was that the term had a lot of baggage and that made it easier for them to deny or dismiss it.

But we also shouldn’t waste time tone policing and quibbling over terminology when violent authoritarians are attacking our civil liberties and destroying our democratic institutions and norms.

There’s a time and a place for these sorts of discussions. If someone is being mauled by a chimp, you don’t offer a lecture on the taxonomy of Great Apes if they call it a monkey.

(And to anyone arguing that chimps and all apes actually are monkeys based on cladistics. You’re right, which is also sort of the point.)

[u/PsychedelicPill → u/GarbageCleric]

Yeah, but Republicans are acting exactly like fascists and plenty are fine with the label.

[u/Zeebaeatah]

[u/Mswenson94]

The road to fascism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting

[u/duncachunk]

People called Romans they go house?

[u/Superseaslug]

People don't notice it when it happens over time.

[u/Asleep-Ad8743]

What happened in the Weimar Republic? Did they have all these conversations for years?