The Age of Trump

 

My Comment: The age of right wing extremism is not just a phenomenon in America.  It is happening all over Europe in Hungary, in France, in Britain and, yes, even in a Germany that once brought you the extermination of 6 million Jews and the murdering of 50,000,000 others in the theater of WWII.  It is happening around the globe I maintain inspired in large part by Trump's capturing the Republican party as a gateway to an authoritarian politic. 

Perhaps this Frontline special will ask the ever present question why.  Why is this happening?  Why in our democracy loving nation, a nation that won WWII against the Nazi menace does this nation find as evidenced by the January 6 insurrection of the Capitol right wing seditionists whose T-shirts read "6MWE" (Six Million Wasn't Enough) worn by the right wing extremist Proud Boys and another shirt which read "Camp Auschwitz."  This was the flavor of the Donald Trump inspired overthrow of our nation complete with Confederate flags and present day American Nazi symbols. 

Have we had enough of the Trump and his Republican choir boys subverting our true culture?   I'd like to think so.  Send this email to all you choose encouraging them to work against any possibility of a Trump victory or for that matter Republican anti-democracy victories in Congress as well as in state legislatures as they try to subvert elections through a second Jim Crow era targeting the voter elimination of Blacks and other persons of color who vote Democratic.  If Trump fails here perhaps Fascism will not gain a foothold anywhere else -- even in Germany.

FRONTLINE:

An attempted massacre of worshipers at a synagogue on Yom Kippur. The assassination of a pro-refugee politician. A mass shooting targeting Muslims. Extremists, many of them ex-military, planning for civil war, creating death lists and stockpiling weapons and body bags.

What has fueled the wave of violence and hate against against Jews, Muslims, immigrants and left-wing politicians in Germany over the past five years?

Decades after the Holocaust, tonight's new FRONTLINE documentary investigates the rise of neo-Nazi ideology and far-right extremism in modern-day Germany — including within the country’s military and police — and why authorities are struggling to confront the growing problem.

From reporter, producer and director Evan Williams, Germany's Neo-Nazis & the Far Right premieres tonight on PBS and online. The documentary is supported by Exploring Hate, a multiplatform public media initiative from The WNET Group in New York aimed at offering an in-depth understanding of the rising tide of hatred, hate crimes, antisemitism and racism.

Gripping and alarming, Germany’s Neo-Nazis & the Far Right is a powerful look at Germany’s efforts to come to terms with its past — and its present.

“Right-wing extremism is the most vital threat that we face at the moment in the Federal Republic of Germany,” Stephan Kramer, the intelligence chief in Germany's Thuringia state, says in the film. “We have 'round about 35,000 considered right-wing extremists across Germany; 13 to 14,000, roughly spoken, considered to be aggressive and violent. But the problem is, it’s like with an iceberg: You see just a small tip on the surface, and the rest is beneath.”

Don't miss the documentary The Wall Street Journal calls “riveting and richly complex" and “a compelling investigation into the rise of extremism in a country that has known its terrors.”

Germany's Neo-Nazis & the Far Right premieres tonight at 10/9c on PBS stations (check local listings) and on YouTube, and will be available to stream starting at 7/6c in the PBS Video App and in FRONTLINE’s online collection of documentaries.

Thank you for watching.

PATRICE TADDONIO

Digital Writer & Audience Development Strategist, FRONTLINE

Nation, heal thyself! A film recommendation

 

Film recommendation: HBO Max --"It's a Sin." I have never seen a better film about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic than this one. It was superb from the first episode to the last it was brilliant. If you get HBO Max I suggest seeing it or if you don't then perhaps you can rent it. Not sure about that. It is surely well worth it.

I am old enough that I remember the beginning of the AIDS viral epidemic when no one knew what it was and how it spread. It spread among a group that was vilified and subjected to an onslaught of ignorance of which this nation had an abundance and still does. AIDS still has no vaccine but it does have treatment which brings the viral load to zero so it does not spread. Moreover, we were taught what to do to avoid getting or transmitting it and no fights broke out when one obeyed the science directive.

I had a male friend then who was gay and even rational me succumbed to that ignorance in silence for a time assiduously washing my hands wherever I could find a sink because we did not know how it spread but when science overcomes ignorance, religious superstition and stupidity which it always does as it has with AIDS and COVID then a nation can heal itself!  Maybe ours will and maybe science will use the COVID mRNA vaccine to finally develop a vaccine that works on AIDS as well.

A virus does not care to whom it spreads.  It merely has to have a vector.  AIDS did not spread easily but was spread by blood and other bodily fluids through sex or blood transmission.  COVID does spread easily and science has taught us how it spreads to the lungs. If unvaccinated through a mere cough the virus can find its home and overcome even the strongest to kill us.

All should get the COVID vaccine and use science to overcome the conspiratorial crazy that has infected our nation.  

 

 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9140342/?ref_=login

Happy Juneteenth -- The Taste of Freedom

The next icon to be changed is the racist face of Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill.  Trump had a picture of the white supremacist Jackson on his desk in the oval office.  According to Wiki "Jackson was responsible for the murder of thousands of American Indians during their The Trail of Tears exile initiated by Jackson as part of a series of forced displacements of approximately 100,000 Native Americans between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government known as the Indian removal.  Thousands died before reaching their destinations or shortly after from disease."

The picture on the $20 will be changed to Harriet Tubman.  According to Wiki "American abolitionist born into slavery. Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad."

The taste of freedom will not be denied. MLK said "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice" and so it will be in our age no matter how many white racists try to subvert it, no matter how many Jim Crow laws they try to reenact and no matter how many votes the seditionists try to take away we will never give in, we will fight them with every breath we take and mount a voting offensive so huge it will stagger the imaginations of lesser men. 

    

Harriet Tubman

The Emancipation--Happy Juneteenth

 

Abolish Filibuster Or you will be thrown Out Of The Senate

 

"Former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods prominently backed Sinema, but he says she now needs to support getting rid of the filibuster."

My Comment:  Good advice. Both she and Joe Manchin should really think about what they are doing or not doing. If the voting rights act HR1 does not pass because of a meaningless filibuster then they are not thinking rationally about what transformation into which our sad nation will evolve.

Sen. Sinema, and Sen. Manchin you may by your obstinacy not realize that you single handedly will be responsible for the catapulting of our nation into an autocracy from which it may never recover and ultimately could mean a loss of both your Democratic seats. Think hard on what you do. The democracy you save may be your own!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/grant-woods-kyrsten-sinema-filibuster-abolish_n_60ba6545e4b0f479d610a23d?fbclid=IwAR2dEKgwF3y1Zf9d4zB8RIYakv78TDIJpWHIjB59q_vWIeXXQCETyDKflGk

Oppose Authoritarian Tyranny

 

The only strategy left if the Supreme Court allows the Republican attempts to axe Democratic and minority groups unfairly out of the electoral process is to marshal ALL of our majority forces and VOTE VOTE VOTE Republicans OUT of state office and VOTE Democrats into both state and federal offices.

In addition, one hopes Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema will vote with their Democratic majority in the senate to preserve fair voting rights and Pass HR1 and HR4 to make voting rights once again the law of the land.

We must comply with it all if it is allowed to stand by the heavily rightwing biased court, and vote Democrats into high office without fail. Otherwise the nation is doomed to authoritarian tyranny!

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/02/politics/voting-rights-supreme-court-arizona/index.html