An essay about political opposition to true fascism

I post this as a companion piece to what Snowflake posted earlier today, The Obsession With Trump is Pathological. 

The April 15 issue of The Economist published an obituary for Traute Lafrenz. Here is some of it:

Traute Lafrenz

 

To look misery in the eye

The last member of the White Rose group died on March 6th, aged 103

The leaflets are called Flugblätter in German: “flying sheets of paper”. And on that February morning in 1943, they did just that. The students had been carrying so many in their suitcase—perhaps 1,800—far too many to deliver safely. And so in high spirits, or maybe foolishness, they had just thrown the rest over the balustrade into the grand atrium of Munich University below. Down fell the leaflets begging their “Fellow Students!” to stand up to the Nazis. Down, like snow, fluttered the leaflets raging against the “godless, shameless” Nazis. Down, down fell the leaflets bearing the cry: “Freedom and honor!”

The Gestapo, when they finally arrested Traute Lafrenz, would ask her about those leaflets. Did she know about them? Yes, she said, now they mentioned it, she did. Her friend Hans had shown her one. And did she understand, the Gestapo asked, that such a leaflet was subversive material? Of course Traute understood. How could she not? Her friend Hans had already been executed for them, as had his sister Sophie and her friend Christoph. Her friends were being picked off one by one. Clearly she might be next. So did she understand, the Gestapo asked? Did she understand that they were subversive? Yes, she did, she said demurely; but it had seemed harmless, really, such nonsense!

And in a way, it had been harmless at first. Later, decades later, when streets had been renamed after the White Rose group, and films made of them, and statues sculpted of them, people would start to call it an “organization” and her a “hero”. No, she said. There was no “organization”. There was just her friend Hans, and his sister Sophie and some other friends. And they had done the leaflets, that was true: six in all, as well as some graffiti (Hans had painted “Down With Hitler!” and “Freedom!” all over Munich). But they hadn’t just done that: there had also been walking and biking and bathing and reading Tolstoy and falling in love. And she didn’t like that word “hero”: she was no hero. Just a witness.

Later, when she was living out her long life in America, Traute would always wonder: why Hans? Why had he started all this? He had been a much better Nazi than she at first. She’d never liked the Nazis: all that “Heil Hitler-ing” and shouting at school had grated on her; when one teacher had cursed her she’d just got on her bike and gone home. But Hans had willingly joined the Hitler Youth; he’d even been a banner-carrier at a Nuremberg rally—the photos show the sort of profile Leni Riefenstahl would have lingered over. But then his unease grew; then he began the leaflets. Then he was sent to the Eastern Front. On the way, the soldiers’ train had gone through Warsaw and they had seen the ghetto. “Misery looks us in the eye,” his friend wrote. “We turn away.” Then they turned back.

For the first run of leaflets, in the summer of 1942, the students had only managed 100 copies. Then they got better, typing them out on an old Remington typewriter then hand-cranking a duplicating machine: in later runs they did 10,000. The tone of the leaflets was uncompromising. They raged at the Germans for being “a shallow, spineless herd of mindless followers”; they raged at the slaughter of Stalingrad and at the “bestial” murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews. And above all they raged at German apathy. No German, the leaflets said, could claim to be free of these “inhumane crimes”. Every German, they said, “is GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY”. And they would not let them forget it: “We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will never leave you in peace!”  

She hadn’t done much, Traute was always clear on that: she’d just helped get paper and envelopes. Though they had to be careful: just buying paper was dangerous. Later, the Nazis would call their leaflets the “worst incident of highly treasonous propaganda” of the whole war. But Traute would always remember how calm Sophie had been: that January the two of them had just strolled through Ludwigstrasse, delighting in the sun and the warmth, to the stationer’s shop. There had been a horse outside and Sophie had stroked his neck. “Hey, Buddy!” she had said; then she’d walked into the shop with that same happy face. They’d cut her head off with a guillotine, too. 

It had all happened so fast. On the Thursday, just before Sophie threw those leaflets into the atrium, she had spotted Traute and called out to her. “Hey!” she’d said. Those ski boots Traute wanted to borrow? She should just take them, Sophie said, “in case I’m not home this afternoon.”

Sophie did not come home. The university’s caretaker had seen her throw the leaflets in the atrium; he rushed up the stairs and caught her and Hans. Their trial began on Monday morning and ended at 1pm. At 5pm, Sophie was led to the guillotine; then Hans. Just before the blade hit his neck, he had shouted out: “Long live freedom!” The whole thing was over in under ten minutes.

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No, we're not there yet. But that's approximately or maybe almost exactly where we could wind up if we don't stand up and oppose the evil that is undeniably trying to swallow us right now.

For people who do not believe such a monstrosity is possible in modern America, you are wrong. Completely wrong. The monster is possible. It did not die at the end of WWII. Fascism never died. Most or all of its intolerant, brutally authoritarian sentiment it probably never will die in view of the human condition.

Look at what Viktor Orban did to democracy in Hungary in 2010-2012. Look at who the modern radical right Republican Party elites are in deep love with, Viktor Orban. Look at what the modern radical right Republican Party elites want to do to American government, i.e., use Schedule F[1] to force professional bureaucrats out of government, and replace them with loyal fascist thugs, exactly like what Orban did to Hungary's now-dead democracy.

Just some food for thought.

Footnote: 

1. Wikipedia: 

A Schedule F appointment was a job classification in the excepted service of the United States federal civil service that existed briefly at the end of the Trump administration during 2020–2021. It would have contained policy-related positions, removing their civil service protections and making them easy to fire. It was never fully implemented, and no one was appointed to it before it was repealed at the beginning of the Biden administration.

The purpose of the provision was to increase the President's control over the federal career civil service. While proponents stated this would increase flexibility and accountability, it was widely criticized as providing means to retaliate against federal officials for political reasons. It was estimated that tens or hundreds of thousands of career employees could have lost their civil service protections, increasing the number of political appointments by a factor of ten.

Purging government of professionals and replacing them with fascist loyalists is how Orban subverted the Hungarian government as part of his successful effort to establish his dictatorship for life in Hungary.

The Obsession With Trump is Pathological

 Agree OR disagree, the following article hit some obvious notes for me. Are we OBSESSED with all things Trump?

Whenever I post anything on Twitter that somebody disagrees with, I know what’s coming. Predictably, somebody will call me a Trump supporter.

It doesn’t matter what the subject is. I can disagree with the way Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, say I don’t believe in child pornography, or mention inflation and somebody dredges up Trump.

Last week I published an article about adoption that had nothing to do with politics. It was a story about how my son and his wife are planning to adopt a special needs child. Sure enough, somebody responded by bringing up Trump.

The writer’s words regarding my son’s determination to move forward with the adoption were, “That’s the kind of character trait that had people still defending Trump after his supporters tried to burn down the capitol.”

Maybe he disagrees with foreign adoptions, or adoption of special needs children, or bringing them into the United States, and that’s fair commentary. But what on earth does any of this have to do with Trump? My son and daughter-in-law happen to be staunch Biden supporters, for what it’s worth.

After observing five plus years of media and social commentary and seeing responses to my own posts, I’ve concluded that our national obsession with Trump borders on pathology. Rather than driving people away from Trump or driving the former president into oblivion, the obsession is making him into a force to be reckoned with.

Amanda Marcotte wrote in a 2020 Salon article, “Are we addicted to Donald Trump? It’s a question that’s haunting journalists and political commentators, most of whom hate Trump but cannot deny that his name drives traffic and ratings. Even though Trump lost the election and Joe Biden will be the next president, Trump continues to be the big attention draw for political websites and cable news networks.”

Monica Crowley, an opinion contributor to The Hill, said, “President Trump left office seven months ago, but the pathologically obsessed left just can’t quit him. Every left-wing media outlet ceaselessly talks about and curses him like it’s August 2018. Yet their six-year-long, wild-eyed, anti-Trump mania has, in many ways, only made him stronger.”

The far left will continue to vilify Trump and the far right will continue to flock to his rallies. But those groups don’t count when it comes to elections. The swing voters are the deciders. They sit somewhere in the middle, wanting to get on with their lives without the extremism. If they believe one side is more fanatical than the other, they are likely to go in the opposite direction.

People who are so pathologically addicted to hating Trump that they can’t see through any other lens risk appearing fanatical. People in the middle, the swing voters, might start to think, Maybe Trump isn’t the real threat. Maybe it’s this rabid hatred that keeps us from being united.

We can’t have a reasonable political discussion anymore without it degenerating into name-calling if we don’t subscribe to every single opinion the other person is spouting. And swing voters are noticing.

If Trump runs for president in 2024, and it’s beginning to look like a real possibility, I hope people campaign against him based on ideas and convictions rather than hatred. Trump’s name calling and mockery didn’t get him re-elected, and a pathological hatred of him will not get his opponent elected.

My suggestion is that liberals return to liberal values and move beyond the narrowed thinking that has emerged from this singular obsession with Trump. Liberal values, in case you don’t remember, include critical thinking, tolerance, individualism, liberty, democracy and freedom.

In a 2011 article in HuffPost, Geoffrey Stone wrote, “Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that ‘time has upset many fighting faiths.’ Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.”

This 2011 article seems like an echo from a distant, more tolerant time. In our current decade, ignorance and hatred are trampling reason. But I’m an optimist. I believe the one who promotes these liberal values will be the winner in the next election, because Americans in the middle are sick of the hate.

By Bebe Nicholson

https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/the-obsession-with-trump-is-pathological-dd81dd180c2c

Not that I necessarily agree with Bebe, after all there are GOOD reasons to be critical of  and concerned about the influence of Trump, but does Bebe have a point? Are there examples you can think of where conversations have turned to something Trump because someone has to make EVERYTHING about Trump? Just curious.

And the steady drip, drip, drip continues...

Texas Senate Passes Bill Requiring 10 Commandments in Every Classroom

Link here.

The legislature also passed a bill forcing schools to set aside time for students to pray and study religious texts.

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Well, to me, this is indoctrination of the most presumptuous kind; pushing a particular religion, Christianity, on the masses of such a culturally diverse country as the U.S.

Children are in their formative years when in school.  Such religious imposition is an attempt to formulate their/a lifelong outlook on life, as it relates to religious beliefs.  It’s shutting their “freethinking/critical thinking box” up tight!  I, for one, don’t like it. 

If a child eventually comes to their own personal philosophies on life, or is indoctrinated with them at home, that’s one thing.  (I do believe parents/caretakers have their right to impose their beliefs on their kids, though I might not agree with those beliefs one tiny bit.)  But to impose such religious beliefs on the masses is quite another, IMO.

And you?  What do you think of this bill that now moves to the Texas state House of Representatives for passage?  Good, bad, indifferent, other?

Science: Droplets of Primordial Soup, the nearly perfect liquid at the time of the big bang

A Scientific American article writes about recreating a Primordial Soup (PS) that existed for less than one microsecond beginning at about 10 microseconds after the big bang. Counterintuitively, it turns out that the PS is an almost perfect liquid where the ingredients flow freely. 

This has never been observed by humans in nature before. The PS, also known as quark-gluon plasma, is made of quarks and gluons, not Susan. Quarks and gluons are what protons and neutrons are made of, which, along with electrons, is what atoms are made of. Physicists make PS by smashing heavy atom nuclei (electrons stripped off) into each other in huge atom smashers. 

PS from atom smashers exists for a very short period of time, far less than one second. PS has not existed in the universe since about 10 microseconds after the big bang. This is probably about the closest to re-creating conditions in the universe that existed near to the instant the big bang commenced.  

The main goal of this research is to better understand the strong force, which is what holds protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei and subatomic particles in protons and neutrons. The strong force is the strongest of the four known forces. It is 100 times stronger than the electromagnetic force (which binds electrons into atoms), 10,000 times stronger than the weak force (which governs radioactive decay), and a hundred million million million million million million (10^39) times stronger than gravity.

SciAm writes:

3 minute video about PS

A technician installing cables on the new sPHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Long Island's Brookhaven National Laboratory. Inside sPHENIX's cylindrical interior, atomic nuclei will collide to make droplets of a plasma that existed at the beginning of the cosmos.

Inside [the] proton you'll find a simple triad of three fundamental particles called quarks—two up quarks and one down quark. But the reality inside a proton is so much more complex that physicists are still trying to figure out its inner structure and how its constituents combine to produce its mass, spin and other properties.

The three quarks in the basic picture of the interior of a proton are merely the “valence quarks”—buoys bobbing on top of a roiling sea of quarks and antiquarks (their antimatter counterparts), as well as the sticky “gluon” particles that hold them together. The total number of quarks and gluons inside a proton is always changing. Quark-antiquark pairs are constantly popping in and out of existence, and gluons tend to split and multiply, especially when a proton gains speed. It's basically pure chaos. The strong force—the most powerful of the four fundamental forces of nature—keeps this mess confined to the insides of protons and neutrons. Except when it doesn't.

PS research is a window into the strong force, the least understood of all nature's forces. This force is described by a theory called quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which is so complicated that scientists can almost never use it to calculate anything directly.

Scientists predicted quark-gluon plasma long before they discovered it—although they expected it to take a very different form. .... Physicists expected that quarks and gluons, when freed from nuclei, would take the form of a uniformly expanding gaseous substance. “Usually fluids turn to gas as they get hotter,” says Berndt Mueller, a physicist at Duke University. It was a reasonable assumption: quarks and gluons aren't released from nuclei until they reach temperatures of trillions of degrees.

Instead of an expanding gas, the quark-gluon plasma looked like a liquid—a nearly perfect one, with almost no viscosity. In a gas, particles act individually; in a liquid, particles move cohesively. The stronger the interactions among particles—the more they can pull one another along—the “better” the liquid is at being a liquid. The RHIC observations showed that quark-gluon plasma exhibited less resistance to flow than any substance ever known. This, Mueller says, “was very much unexpected.”

In 2010 RHIC [Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider] researchers announced the first measurement of the quark-gluon plasma's temperature. It was a scorching four trillion degrees Celsius, far hotter than any other matter ever created by humans, and about 250,000 times hotter than the middle of the sun.

One of the biggest open questions about quark-gluon plasma is when, exactly, the quarks and gluons break out of their confinement. “Where is the boundary between usual matter and quark-gluon plasma?” physicist Haiyan Gao asks. “Where is the so-called critical point where the nuclear matter and the quark-gluon plasma coexist?”

Answering these questions could help with a larger goal: understanding the strong force, the most confusing of nature's fundamental forces. .... “You can write down the theory essentially in two lines, but actually solving it has not been really achieved,” theoretical physicist Bjoern Schenke says. “The process of confinement—how gluons and quarks are being trapped in the proton, for example—has not been solved.”

Inside RHIC's tunnels “stochastic cooling kickers” push the particles within the rings closer together to correct for their tendency to spread out as they travel. This ensures that as many particles as possible will collide inside the detectors.