In the Obama years, we have Teabaggers..in FDR's day, America had these folks

[OmahaBlueDog]

The German American Bund









It's interesting to note how the Nazis used the same appeal to the trappings of patriotism. Note the larger than life image of George Washington in the rally at MSG photo. Also note the poster's "appeal to Americanism."

I guess what's old really does become new again

[MindandSoul]

1. I guess that intolerance never goes away. . .it's too threatening to the status quo!

[newspeak]

18. The Bund reminds me of my boss back in the seventies

He once told me that his father every weekend before WWII would go to a park in LA, where you could publicly speak--and stand on his soapbox and tell all who would listen how great Hitler was--what a friend he was to the US and that we should be backing him. My boss told me he was amazed his father hadn't got hurt.

[Jennicut]

2. There was also the KKK....started in 1865.

[OmahaBlueDog]

4. ..and had, literally, millions of members

Someone here had posted the other day that a 60 yo T'bagger was lamenting that Obama was destroying the America he knew as a boy. I thought about the boyhood of someone born in 1950 and thought "segregated schools, redlined property, separate water fountains...it's probably a good thing that America is gone."

[Jennicut]

5. You said it perfectly. That reminds me of my conservative parents.

The America I knew as a little girl was being destroyed by Ronald Reagan at the time...I don't want to go back to that America.

[EFerrari]

6. Our schools are being re-segregated (to the extent they were ever integrated)

and redlining is still around, just a little more genteel (ask Skip Gates). That America is very much with us.

[OmahaBlueDog]

9. ..and yet a black American is now President

You are not wrong, but it is still very different than his (1950) America.

I grew up in the 70's. I lived in a (then) mostly white Maryland suburb of DC called New Carrolton, and I was bussed to a school in Palmer Park (a few blocks from the DC line). I remember many of my friends parents became George Wallace supporters in the leadup to bussing. When bussing began, so did white flight.

You're right.. the schools have largely re-segregated. At the same time, no one would consider lining up police to keep a black child out of a public school today simply because of skin color. Interracial couples were still taboo when I was a boy... today, they are everywhere.

On edit...but make no mistake, the politics of racial fear ...as much as deficits or taxes or any of the other reasons by which the Teabaggers excuse themselves, is the energy that fuels their movement. When I look at their rallies, I see white people... usually 40+. They are terrified of an America that they may no longer control.

[EFerrari]

13. Well, you know, there has been some progress

but people didn't always have to line up to keep a black child out of school. There were no black kids in my schools -- and as a child I thought it was because all black people lived far away in some place called "The South". lol

I'd be interested to go take a look around Sunnyvale today and see what it looks like.

[virgogal]

12. Skip Gates? Redlining? I think not.

[EFerrari]

14. Think again. During the Officer Jim Crow fiasco,

one of his former colleagues at Duke talked about Gates being unhappy there because the community where he bought his home was not "comfortable". And of course, the PD in Cambridge themselves admitted they have a problem that requires study.

[virgogal]

15. Not feeling comfortable isn't redlining.

[EFerrari]

16. You're quibbling. Making someone so uncomfortable that they decide to move

is effectively redlining.

[KittyWampus]

3. and Father Coughlin, who I learned about by reading DU.

[OmahaBlueDog]

7. In the Obama years, we have Rush Limbaugh..in FDR's day we had

Father Charles Edward Coughlin



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin

This struck me (from the WikiPedia article)...

"At its peak in the early 1930s, Coughlin's radio show was phenomenally popular. His office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners, and his listening audience was estimated to rise at times to as much as a third of the nation. Coughlin is often credited as one of the major demagogues of the 20th century for being able to influence politics through broadcasting, without actually holding a political office himself."

...sound familiar, anyone?

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Ah yes Father Coughlin

a man who had a spectacular fall as well...

I can hope that the parallels to Coughlin fulfill themselves, FULLY.

That said, he did not have a right wing noise machine. Haven't they learned a tad?

[tanyev]

8. I was surprised when I read It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

to find out how much of that crap really did go on back then. Just shows you how much gets buried in the sands of time. Hopefully the Teabaggers will someday be only a footnote in a history book.

[Canuckistanian]

11. Don't forget William Dudley Pelly

And his "Silvershirt Legion"



In 1933, when Adolf Hitler seized control of Germany, Pelley, an admirer of Hitler, was inspired to form a political movement and founded the Silver Legion, an extremist and antisemitic organization whose followers (known as the Silver Shirts and "Christian Patriots") wore Nazi-like silver uniforms. The Silver Legion's emblem was a scarlet L, which was featured on their flags and uniforms. Pelley founded chapters of the Silver Legion in almost every state in the country, and soon gained a considerable number of followers.

Pelly once said that he and Hitler were "birds of a feather in everything".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Legion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dudley_Pelley

[troubledamerican]

20. + 1

[bleever]

17. Interesting image, that guy with the shield stabbing the snake.

It's an enemy-centered worldview, just like their modern counterparts.

[OmahaBlueDog]

19. 15,000-18,000 people die in America every year because of lack of health insurance

...and until now, their recourse was holding spaghetti feeds and pancake breakfasts for fundraisers to offset their medical expenses. (I am fond of referring to this as the GOP health plan).

Meanwhile, the GOP is obsessed with the 3000 Americans who died a decade ago on 9-11. 9-11 was horrible - make no mistake. However, if 15,000-18,000 people were dying in terror attacks, not one person would give a damn how high the deficit ran to solve the problem, or how much of that debt was held by China.

...but a plan to get insurance to every American, reduce that 15,000 to 18,000 that die EVERY YEAR (not just in 2001) and reduce the deficit at the same time? OH GOD NO..COMMUNISM...ANYTHING BUT THAT!!!

on edit...but back to the point I was trying to make. You are correct, both the Nazi and Teabagger movements depend on outside enemies and demonizing their opponents to survive. The snake, of course, has biblical connotations as well, and plays to the conservative religous sympathies of those groups. The Teabaggers demonize Socialists and Terrorists (and label Obama as both) much as the American Nazis demonized Jews and Communists, and would cite FDRs links/sympathies to both.

[bleever]

32. That's

a righteous rant, right there.

[OmahaBlueDog]

38. I think I'm guilty of hijacking my own thread

I'm sure the mods will act accordingly.


One more point to add to my rant. The Teabaggers (and winger fellow travelers) are now ranting about how this bill has gutted Medicaire by stealing $500,000,000,000....so let me get this straight: you are arguing that you are opposed to government run healthcare, and you are upset that it has been paid for by cuts to another government run healthcare program.

[Capitalocracy]

34. We're so tough we stab snakes with our eyes closed.

sign me up:nuke:

[bleever]

36. Welcome to DU, Capitalocracy.

:hi:

[troubledamerican]

21. Wikipedia: American Liberty League

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Liberty_League

The American Liberty League was a United States organization formed in 1934 by conservative Democrats such as Al Smith (the 1928 Democratic presidential nominee), Jouett Shouse (former high party official and US Representative), John W. Davis (the 1924 Democratic presidential nominee), and John Jacob Raskob (former Democratic National Chairman and the foremost opponent of prohibition), Dean Acheson (future Secretary of State under Harry Truman), along with many industrialists, and members of the Du Pont family. Also members were Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors, Jouett Shouse (later Chairman of the Democratic Party), Jay Cooke II, Captain William Stayton, and about one hundred thousand other members.<1>

The League stated that it would work to "defend and uphold the Constitution" and to "foster the right to work, earn, save and acquire property." The League spent between $500,000 and $1.5 million in promotional campaigns; its funding came mostly from the Du Pont family, as well as leaders of U.S. Steel, General Motors, General Foods, Standard Oil, Birdseye, Colgate, Heinz Foods, Chase National Bank, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. It reached over 125,000 members and supported the Republicans in 1936, though it did not make a formal endorsement at the request of the Alf Landon presidential campaign.

In the year of its founding, 1934, the League was accused by Smedley Butler of being involved in a fascist Business Plot to overthrow President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Butler was a retired Marine Corps general and strong supporter of President Roosevelt. Butler said that he was approached to lead a group of 500,000 veterans to take over the functions of government. Butler speculated in his congressional testimony that the League was somehow involved with a plan to found a para-military fascist veterans organiztion, an 'American version' of the 1930s French Croix-de-Feu. The final McCormack-Dickstein Committee report refused to include this "hearsay" material. No prosecutions or further investigations followed, and historians<2><3> and contemporary journalists<4> largely rejected the idea that any such plan was near execution.<5>

The League labeled Roosevelt's Agricultural Adjustment Administration "a trend toward Fascist control of agriculture." Social Security was said to "mark the end of democracy." Lawyers for the American Liberty League challenged the validity of the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act), but in 1937, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the statute.

[troubledamerican]

22. Support for Hitler in the U.S.>

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Support_Hitler_US.html

[upi402]

23. accused by Smedley Butler of being involved in a fascist Business Plot to overthrow Roosevelt

Jumped out at me. It's what the media is doing to Obama now. I'm going to keep saying that we need to lift the taboo on the rise of the Nazis.

[troubledamerican]

24. Today's Smedley Butler

at least as far as writing "War Is A Racket" is John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". Basically an updated, contemporary kiss-and-tell.

But who will be the "traitor" to the Pentagon plot that is now being organized?

http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2010m2d1-Barack-Obama-in-the-Crosshairs-Is-the-military-threatening-to-kill-Obama-over-US-war-policy

[upi402]

25. Fascism watch

is a job for many hands I bet. All kinds of people are concerned for America. But the tide is powerful and on its way out by now here.

[troubledamerican]

26. One-stop-shopping

http://www.spitfirelist.com

Thousands of hours of anti-fascist mp3s, up-to-the-minute articles, etc.

[upi402]

29. Tiger Woods

On it's face, I chuckled. Then I read about the media painting Obama with a Tiger brush to discredit him. Both rose to the top of a white dominated field and the media GOPers are trying to taint Obama with this. Good site, bookmarked -Thanks!

[Historic NY]

27. Maybe thats why I cringe at flag waving 24/7. Its like those stupid ribbon magnets.

[OmahaBlueDog]

31. They may be stupid, but I do proudly sport one on my car

I may disagree with the justification for the wars (especially in Iraq), but I steadfastly support the men and women of our military who have volunteered to do a job a very dirty job.

At a complete tangent - I sometimes think we would have all been better off if a .04 national war sales tax had been imposed at the outset of the invasion of Afghanistan and (shortly thereafter) Iraq to pay for the wars. One of the key differences between the World Wars, as opposed to the wars that followed, is that Americans have not been forced or asked to make sacrifices (such as buying bonds or rationing resources). It is easy to see sending troops as the answer for everything when it requires no perceived cost on the part the vast majority of citizens.

[RamboLiberal]

28. I always laugh at the analogies Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck

used trying to paint Obama and other Dems as appeasers equal to Chamberlain and acting as if we had a guy like Bush in charge in WWII we'd have gone after Hitler in the late 30's or even prevented his rise to first.

They forget that like many have pointed out here that there were many admirers of Hitler in the conservative ranks. You had an "American Hero" in the stature of Charles Lindbergh campaigning against FDR in the belief he was taking us to war. And you also had America Firsters. BTW,Pat Buchanan praises this movement.

Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan has praised America First and used its name as a slogan. "The achievements of that organization are monumental," writes Buchanan, "By keeping America out of World War II until Hitler attacked Stalin in June of 1941, Soviet Russia, not America, bore the brunt of the fighting, bleeding and dying to defeat Nazi Germany.

Amazing cast of characters as well in America First movement from both Right, Left, Republican and Democrats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee

I read this book - The Illustrious Dunderheads -- a collection of isolationist, anti-WWII and pro-Nazi statements and votes by sitting Members of Congress -- after listening to Thom Hartmann talk about it. Amazing how most were Republicans.

[OmahaBlueDog]

30. This just jumped out at me

"AFC was established September 4, 1940 by Yale University law student R. Douglas Stuart, Jr., along with other students including future President Gerald Ford, Sargent Shriver and future Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart. At its peak, America First may have had 800,000 members in 650 chapters, located mostly in a 300 mile radius of Chicago."

I always knew about Lindbergh. I had no idea about Ford, Shriver, or Stewart.

[condoleeza]

33. We all need to read the history of SS in this country

Truly it is one of the most shameful periods of our history. We ALL need to read the testimonies of those opposed to SS and we really need to ABSORB the fact that domestic workers were eliminated and why until fairly recently.

Religion teaches you NOT to think, these nimrods have been trained not to think or question since birth, they are simply ignorant and afraid. Been there, perhaps saved by a rebellious nature.

[whathehell]

37. All religions

are not the same and they do NOT all "teach you not to think".

I'm sorry for whatever bad experiences you had...I'm not religious myself, but I know enough to know that you can't paint them all with a broad brush.

[Capitalocracy]

35. Always good to get a historical perspective, thanks for posting nt

:thumbsup: