#Learning from Nazi playbook

[marvelsmostwanted]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[beauty-funny-trippy]

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker Condemns Trump’s LGBTQ Erasure & Rising Authoritarianism in Blistering Speech (State of the State Address, 2025): "The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame. "I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now — a president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac and suggests, without facts or findings, that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks — arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” "The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here. They point to a group of people who don’t look like you, and tell you to blame them for your problems. "I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities — once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends — after that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face — what comes next? "All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history, then for God’s sake in this moment, we better be strong enough to learn from it. "If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: it took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. "All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control. "Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most."

[possiblyunhinged]

Whatever the British government and media are doing—it’s not working. They can neg at the BBC all they want, and the middle-aged white men with three strands of hair can cry on Twitter about a music festival they’ve never stepped foot in. I mean, their music taste is so bleak and ignorant they think music isn’t inherently political, all while bemoaning that nobody ‘knows their history anymore’…

The issue is—we do, Mark. You idiot.

And the more we learn, the more embarrassing that boot in your mouth and that flag you’re shagging looks. Your worldview is built on a fantasy of big strong men saving the world. You can’t cope with it. You’ve built your entire idea of masculinity around the worship of violent men with good PR. Churchill. The military. The empire. You’ve convinced yourself these were noble projects. But here’s the thing: You can’t let go of the fantasy—because if you do, you’re just an irrelevant pawn. A useless idiot clinging to the scraps of greedy men’s colonial projects. And I don’t think men like that can emotionally survive that reckoning.

The tactics aren’t working. They’re just pushing people off the fence. And frankly, they’re relying on the idea that the British support Israel en masse because of our shared colonial antics… which is fundamentally untrue.

Keir Starmer and co are actively fuelling antisemitism by constantly conflating Netanyahu’s war crimes with protecting Jewish lives. Anyone with even a basic grasp of history knows: Israel didn’t rise from solidarity. It was born out of European antisemitism. Post-WWII, Europe didn’t want Jewish people here. They didn’t want to deal with the refugee crisis. So they pushed Jewish survivors toward Palestine.

And Britain? Britain was steeped in it. We had Oswald Mosley, the British Union of Fascists, the National Front, and the Daily Mail—the same paper that literally endorsed the Nazis. The idea that Britain’s support for Israel ever came from a place of compassion is laughable. It was always about pushing Jewish people out.

As Badenoch said: this is a proxy war with Iran. Netanyahu has lied for years about Iran’s nuclear threat—multiple international bodies have debunked him. But Britain never seems to recognise the pattern: this is the same propaganda playbook we used to justify bombing the Middle East before.

And Starmer’s government? They’re not even convincing the public:

Only 13-21% of people in Western Europe view Israel favourably (YouGov).

63-70% view Israel unfavourably.

Just 18% of Brits think the attacks are justified.

65% of Brits support an arms ban on Israel (Global Justice Now).

41% want the UK to be more critical of Israel. Only 12% want more support.

There’s no public mandate for this. The British government isn’t just complicit—they’re actively working against the people they claim to represent.

There’s this simmering idea that Brits en masse support Israel—it’s a lie.

Fuck Keir Starmer.

[naxalbari1967]

Eugenics by Harvard, Genocide by Hitler

Hitler didn’t pull Nazi ideology out of thin air. He studied it. He looked at history. He looked at policy. And one of his biggest influences was the United States. Not ancient Rome. Not medieval Europe. The modern United States of America. The land of the free gave the Third Reich a playbook on how to structure a racist, authoritarian state using law, science, and policy. The U.S. didn’t just inspire fascism. It laid the groundwork for it.

The Nazi racial laws were modeled directly off Jim Crow. That’s not theory. That’s documented fact. In the early 1930s, Nazi legal scholars studied U.S. segregation laws, state by state. They wanted to know how America managed to legally separate, degrade, and control its Black population while still pretending to be a democracy. The Nuremberg Laws weren’t some radical departure from global norms. They were a calculated refinement of what the U.S. had already normalized. Nazis praised American bans on interracial marriage. They loved how the U.S. used ancestry charts to determine who counted as “Black.” They didn’t even go as far as some U.S. states did when it came to blood quantum laws. Think about that.

American eugenics was another major influence. Long before the Nazis started sterilizing disabled people and those they deemed racially unfit, California and other U.S. states were doing the same thing. Between the early 1900s and 1930s, thousands of people in the U.S. were forcibly sterilized under eugenic laws written and pushed by elite universities and think tanks. U.S. scientists were publishing in German journals. Wealthy Americans were funding global eugenics conferences. The entire ideology of racial hygiene had an American base. The Nazis didn’t invent it. They took it to its logical conclusion.

The U.S. also gave the Nazis a model for settler colonialism. Manifest Destiny. Westward expansion. The mass murder and forced relocation of Indigenous people. Boarding schools. Reservations. Total war against native resistance. The extermination and then erasure of entire cultures. Hitler saw how the U.S. built its power and saw a map for Germany’s own expansion. He called it Lebensraum. The idea that Germans had the right to conquer the East, take the land, and wipe out the people who lived there. It was America’s frontier fantasy, just pushed across Poland and Ukraine instead of Colorado and Arizona.

Even the Nazi idea of concentration camps wasn’t new. America had already used camps to imprison Native Americans. Later it would do the same to Japanese Americans. The U.S. pioneered the legal and logistical idea that whole populations could be stripped of rights, herded into remote areas, and kept under constant surveillance with the justification of national security. It was all legal. It was all framed as necessary. The Nazis were paying attention.

Immigration policy was another area where the U.S. led the way. The Immigration Act of 1924 openly ranked races. It set quotas designed to keep America white. That law was directly cited by Nazi officials as a model of racial preservation. The U.S. had already decided who counted as a real American and who didn’t. It had already built a system of racial hierarchy into its national identity. Hitler admired that clarity.

None of this was underground. It was all public policy. It was all legal. And it all happened decades before the Nazis took power. The U.S. set the precedent that democracy could coexist with white supremacy. That capitalism could function while entire races were excluded. That the state could be used to police, punish, and erase anyone who didn’t fit the national vision. The Nazis saw that and learned.

People like to treat fascism as something that came from outside, something foreign and un-American. But that’s not true. The roots of fascism were growing right here, in broad daylight. The violence, the control, the lies — they were already built into the U.S. system. Hitler just took it global.

The U.S. loves to point at Nazi Germany as a unique evil. It refuses to see itself in that mirror. But the record is clear. Nazi lawyers studied American law. Nazi scientists admired American eugenics. Nazi generals looked at how the U.S. crushed resistance. The fascist project didn’t begin in Berlin. It was sharpened in Washington, tested in Mississippi, and perfected in California.

[mswyrr]

“As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

“The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

“The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

“As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

“I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

“The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

“I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

“I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next?

“All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

“I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.”

“My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

“If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

“It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

“Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

“Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most."

[baphometsss]

will the haters' patronisation of solas enjoyers ever end

for some reason people feel like hating a character who starts off with a shitty outlook and then has it challenged and unravelled in the story makes them morally superior. it's purity culture at its finest. we're literally at the point of these people accusing solas enjoyers of being racist/xenophobic/manipulative/abusive/insert whatever hatemongering buzzword they can think of as if it somehow bolsters their argument, when it actually just makes them look childish and willing to reduce very real and painful struggles to a metric in point scoring for petty online squabbles

i have actually seen people accuse critics of the veilguard as a game to nazis. i wish i was joking. like this is the point that we're at and it's so unbelievably dumb it's kind of funny

one of the reasons arguments based on this logic don't really achieve anything is because they frame every single thing around victimhood and a false dichotomy of victim/perpetrator. like t/erfs for example. they're a fringe movement within feminism for a number of reasons but one of the fundamental reasons is that they heavily focus on reinforcing victimhood rather than empowerment. they seek out and prey on traumatised women, take their trauma and twist it into hate by validating victimhood repeatedly until there's nothing else left but piss and vinegar for other people who aren't exactly like them. in fact, this formula is straight out of the radicalisation playbook used by neo-nazis, terrorists, and similar pieces of shit

instead of reinforcing self-actualisation, self-belief, hope, communion with other people, and understanding of the vulnerability inherent to all human beings (the things trauma survivors actually need), they focus on biological essentialism and other claptrap to explain why more segregation and hate is necessary. it makes this messy, complicated world more digestible for people with cognitive distortions that are so extreme. all under the guise of 'women's safety/rights'. it's unsustainable, because at some point we become perpetrators too and this ideology doesn't make room for that. hence why there's truth to phrases like 'scratch a terf, find a racist'. they flatly refuse to acknowledge intersectionality, because that requires accountability for oneself and by the time they're radicalised they can't view themselves as anything other than victim. and once you're radicalised, you can't connect with people who haven't also been radicalised, so it becomes a vicious cycle.

it's something that's so insidious but it's made its way into every part of our lives. you're not perfect. no one is perfect. everyone is a clusterfuck of bullshit mixed with beauty and love and the potential for pretty much unlimited evolution. that's why i love solas. he's an absolute fuck up in so many ways, but he's also a victim of eras-long emotional abuse, he's suicidally depressed, he's a monumental failure, he's a sad wet cat in elven form and he's one of the most interesting characters i've ever seen. i would take that over some morally 'pure' but flat, one-dimensional and boring companions who talk in therapy speak all day long.

but while we're on the topic of 'fixing him'... what exactly is that even supposed to mean? people can't be 'fixed'. all you can do is heal. and love is nourishment in its purest form. lavellan doesn't 'fix him', nor do they try. they try to help him because they love him, but they're not trying to 'fix' him. the use of this phrase only reinforces my belief that people are falling for the radicalisation in online spaces even more, because it screams cognitive distortion. if you play a high approval inky, they're trying to help him grow and learn and understand. it's sad that so much of social justice has become divorced from love when love is the most important aspect of any kind of justice. people hand-wave and piss on love as if its a bad thing. it's not. and it's certainly not a bad thing to love a character who's fucked up, because they're the hardest ones to love, and therefore the ones who need it most.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hello! I read through the Wicked Ones rpg and really enjoyed it. Do you have any recommendations for games where you play as the bad guys? Preferably larger books.

THEME: Bad Guys

Hello friend! From monsters to villains to just plain ol’ bad dudes, let’s see what we got. I tried to stay away from one-page RPGs, but I can’t guarantee how long some of these books will be.

SLA Industries, 2nd Edition, by Nightfall Games.

In the World of Progress, the corporation SLA Industries rules all. Employing Operatives to enforce, extend and maintain their power base, SLA controls a multitude of worlds - industrial, franchise and resource - with planet Mort at its core. As Operatives execute the company’s will, new threats emerge through the cracks of the city walls, turning Downtown into a battleground.

You, the SLA Operative, are fighting for fame and fortune against a backdrop of a crumbling reality. Operatives feed the always-on televisions with a gaudy media of wall-to-wall death and dismemberment. Operative life is all about climbing the corporate ladder and earning sponsorship deals and notoriety along the way.

In SLA Industries, you’re not exactly villains, but you’re not good people either. You work for an evil corporation, in a world of evil corporations, and you’re extending their reach for a chance to climb the corporate ladder. SLA Industries is reminiscent of trad games in terms of its complexity; character creation consists of spending points to improve abilities, and you can improve some of your character abilities by introducing flaws in other areas. Because of the roots in its game design, I’d expect a longer book to read through here.

If you want to learn more about this game, you can check out the game review for it on Cannibal Halfling Games!

Seven Deadly Sirens, by Litza Bronwyn.

In this game, you play one of seven types of mermaids and roll with seven deadly sins to power your basic and special moves in order to summon ships, lure men to you, devour their hearts, and collect their treasures. Fun, flirty, indulgent, and a little chaotic, this game is perfect for a night of raucous debauchery or an afternoon of silly adventuring.

This game is definitely on the shorter side, but I really really like the idea of using seven deadly sins as your source of power. This game is Powered by the Apocalypse, so expect something interesting to happen even with every dice roll. Unlike common PbtA games, you pick from a communal list of moves to define your character, rather than picking a playbook. The core loop of this game will involve luring men off of boats, killing them and raiding the boats for treasure.

Here, there be Monsters! By Wendi Yu.

here, there, be monsters! is a rules-lite response to monster-hunting media from the monsters' point of view. It's both a love letter and a middle finger to stuff like Hellboy (and the BPRD), the SCP Foundation, the Men in Black, the World of Darkness games and the Urban Fantasy genre in general. It is an explicitly queer, antifascist and anti-capitalist game about the monstrous and the weird, in any flavor you want, not as something to be feared, but to be cherished and protected.

Play as a diverse crew of monstrous, anomalous or just generally odd beings, fighting against those who would use, abuse or even annihilate you. Create and populate your own supernatural underworld, abnormal gang and extra-dimensional haven. Hunt monster hunters! Punch nazi occultists! Eat the rich! Protect each other! Fight back! Here, there, be monsters!

This is 164 pages of monstrous fun, in which your characters are likely treated like bad guys by the society around them, even if they’re not really villainous themselves. It gives you a chance to revel in your monstrosity, with 100 pre-made character backgrounds for you to peruse. One content warning: there is quite a bit of art revolving about bodies, in various forms (this is a monster game, after all). This isn’t meant to detract from the work - in fact, it perfectly communicates the tone of the game - but it is something you should be aware of before you buy.

Blood and Sacrilege, by Tom Clark.

In a Dark Fantasy setting based on the Early Middle Ages of England (The Dark Ages), you play as a brood of vampires bent on toppling the humans’ reign over Brackenstow. Here you'll find a country ruled by mortals, with vampires lurking in the shadows of society. It wasn’t always this way though; vampires founded Brackenstow and after a hard fought war, lost it to the mortals they once enslaved. 

Nearly a century after the vampires were defeated, legal rights to the kingdom are still squabbled over by the country's self-proclaimed leaders while bishops and ministers fight for their own influential positions. The vampire threat looms on the horizon… But the power vacuum left by a leaderless kingdom has taken it's toll on the stability of the land, leading to civil unrest and the more immediate danger of war. 

Now, with humans on the brink of societal collapse, the vampires peer out from the dark, and the broods that have laid in wait for so many decades start to execute their long-laid plans.

This looks like a game still in the works, but it sure looks promising. As long-defeated creatures of the night, you see a chance to take back a kingdom you once owned. Forged in the Dark games are all about projects that the group has to work consistently at in order to succeed, so expect plenty to read, especially if it’s inside such an established setting.

Villainous Fucks, by Keganexe (@keganexe)

Villainous Fucks is a tabletop roleplaying game designed for 2-6 players, about doing petty crimes as The League of Villainous Fucks, and ruining the day of Superheroes and Cops alike (and truly what's the difference). Villainous Fucks runs on Spencer Campbells incredible LUMEN System, and is inspired by the best Villains across media. LUMEN is designed for quick, tactical combat, and Villainous Fucks dials it up to 11 for the best in zany comic book style action.

If you are interested in ruining the day of do-gooders in over-the-top comic book action, and if you like your combat to be satisfying and punchy, you want Villainous Fucks. Instead of skills, LUMEN uses approaches: how your character does something is more important than what exactly they do. Is your villain Brutal, Cunning or Quick? My favourite little tidbit from Villainous Fucks is the characters’ stance on Cops. Villains believe that All Cops are Bastards, and All Superheroes are Cops. If you like revelling in doing crimes, then this is absolutely worth checking out.

Games I’ve Recommended Before

Monsterhearts 2, by Avery Alder. (Teenagers with great monstrous potential)

Spire: The City Must Fall, by Rowan Rook & Decard. (You’re sympathetic terrorists, but you’re still terrorists.)

This former request that asked about playing mind flayers and similar monsters.

[modern-politics111]

From his speech yesterday. His actions don't always match his words, but he's been pretty good since elected and his recent speech hit home.

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice. 

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

..I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame. The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame. I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems. I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next? All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it. ...My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations. If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control. Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame. Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

[wack-ashimself]

Studying history you realize that almost all of humans didn't study history, didn't learn from it, and repeat it almost verbatim. Simply because, again, they didn't fucking study history. I mean I only recently found out the Nazi's Playbook was taken from Jim Crow laws of the usa. Yes, I am saying America inspired nazis. They took our fucking ideas!!!

[harpygon]

To see a genocide unfold in front of us and all the inaction is sickening. But the blatant anti Gaza and anti Palestinian actions are just as if not more sickening.

I am german and I'd like to talk about Germany's behaviour especially.

The support of the Israeli government from the very beginning was cruel and terrible. Supporting an openly far right government in their on going attacks of Palestine... now their abstinence on the UN-Vote

Telling our teachers that they should inform us about the conflict to make it CLEAR TO US THAT ISRAEL WAS IN THE RIGHT.

Our prominent news sides continue to talk as if this was a fight against the Hamas and the Hamas alone. They mention the dead civilians in a side sentence while spending paragraphs upon paragraphs talking about the hurt the Hamas have caused (which they did). No words of the dehumanizing language used against Palestinians, nothing about the Nazi playbook tactics that every single one of us learned about in school.

They reported that telecommunication cut out, they talk about troops entering Gaza but not a single word about the white phosphor, nothing about the constant bombings.

The government has shown that they are ready to be silent and complicit. Our news coverage has proven itself to be biased propaganda.

It is our job to inform us anyway, even if our news sources won't give us unbiased information. It is our job to do the minimal things we can, not to be silent, inform yourself and take part in the boycotts.

Stand with Palestine. Dont allow genocide ever.

[laresearchette]

Saturday, February 24, 2024 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)

WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES?: SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (W Network) 8:00pm

NEW TO AMAZON PRIME CANADA/CBC GEM/CRAVE TV/DISNEY + STAR/NETFLIX CANADA:

AMAZON PRIME CANADA THE HOLDOVERS

CRAVE TV GUS THE ITSY BITSY KNIGHT (Season 1)

NETFLIX CANADA THE 30TH ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS — Netflix Live Event

ROCK PAPER SCISSORS (YTV) 10:00am (SERIES PREMIERE): When Scissors runs out of money, he tries to become a janitor but discovers that the job involves way more skill than he initially thought; Rock and Paper try to motivate Scissors in an unusual way.

NHL HOCKEY (SN360) 12:00pm: Blues vs. Red Wings (TSN2) 2:00pm: Habs vs. Devils (SN360) 3:00pm: Rangers vs. Flyers (City TV/SNPacific) 7:00pm: Bruins vs. Canucks (CBC/SN) 7:00pm: Leafs vs. Avalanche (SN1) 7:00pm: Knights vs. Sens (CBC/SN) 10:00pm: Flames vs. Oilers

MLB SPRING TRAINING (SN) 1:00pm: Phillies vs. Jays

CURLING (TSN) 2:00pm: 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts: Page Playoff (TSN) 5:00pm: Curling Day in Canada (TSN/TSN3) 8:00pm: 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts: Page Playoff (TSN4/TSN5) 9:30pm: 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts: Page Playoff

PWHL HOCKEY (SN1) 2:30pm: Ottawa vs. Montreal

MLS SOCCER (TSN4/TSN5) 7:00pm: Orlando vs. CF Montreal

W5 (CTV) 7:00pm: Who's at Your Door?; Who Is Dillon Brooks?: "W5" investigates companies that allegedly trick homeowners into signing long-term contracts for items they don't need; why a Canadian is the most-hated man in the NBA.

UFC MMA (SN360) 8:00pm: Moreno vs. Royval 2 - Prelims (SN1/SN360) 10:00pm: Moreno vs. Royval 2

AURORA TEAGARDEN MYSTERIES: SOMETHING NEW (CTV) 8:00pm: Young Aurora Teagarden returns home to Lawrenceton to pursue her post-graduate degree but soon finds herself embroiled in a mystery involving her friend's fiance.

LOVE AT FIRST LIE (Lifetime Canada) 8:00pm: Kate is looking for the perfect match online when she swipes and meets Walker, a jet-setting art dealer. After Kate falls for the dashing dealer, she learns that he is a hustler who cons women out of their money.

SNOW SCHOOL (Nat Geo Wild) 8:00pm: When every day is a snow day, school is always in session; a baby walrus gets a swim lesson from Mom; young stoats' playtime teaches them how to hunt; otter pups take a slide and learn to avoid predators; owlets practice leaving the nest.

THE HAPPINESS PLAYBOOK (Super Channel Heart & Home) 8:00pm: Journalist Amy goes under cover at a happiness retreat run by the handsome Paul. Sparks fly between the two, but when Amy learns Paul is the secret son of a wealthy investor, she must choose between a career-making story and her growing feelings.

NBA BASKETBALL (TSN2) 8:30pm: Celtics vs. Knicks

THANKSGIVING (Crave) 9:00pm: An axe-wielding maniac terrorizes residents of Plymouth, Mass., after a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy. Picking off victims one by one, the seemingly random revenge killings soon become part of a larger, sinister plan.

DEAD MAN'S HAND (Starz Canada) 9:00pm: A gunslinger teams up with a marshal to save his kidnapped wife from a ruthless mayor and his private army.

WOLVES OF WAR (Super Channel Fuse) 9:00pm: During World War II, a decorated British officer leads Allied commandos across enemy lines to rescue an American scientist held hostage by the Nazis.

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH (CTV) 12:35am: Offered a plea deal by the FBI, William O'Neal infiltrates the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party to gather intelligence on Chairman Fred Hampton.

[teaveetamer]

The Holocaust thing? Re; Vaush? Do you know what that is? He has a problem where a lot of stuff he says is taken wildly out of context by people that don't like him. He's generally a pretty smart and reasonable guy, just.... edgy. Stupidly edgy.

We all agree he was a moron for the JKR tweet, I think even he admits that now. Though mostly he says he wishes it hadn't been blown up so much it took over more important parts of the conversation.

Okay I dug up the clip I saw originally with the holocaust thing. It's from this video (starting at about 35:13. The clip is just a small portion but I recommend watching until about 41:05, or the end of that section of the video. I think Noah brings up some really good points about why this was such an issue).

Now here's how I interpreted this conversation:

Basically I guess Vaush and Noncompete (? I'm not familiar with him) were having a conversation about something relating to enslaved peoples and violence against their oppressors. Vaush, from my understanding, decided to "challenge" the logic of "enslaved people committing violence against their oppressors is justified" by basically saying "well the Nazis thought they were being oppressed by Jewish people so by your logic that makes the Holocaust okay."

He invoked the ol' "Jews controlled the banks" propaganda point as a justification for why Nazis thought they were being oppressed. When Noncompete explained that it wasn't the same thing because Nazis were not aligned with reality Vaush then doubled down and defended his stance that Nazis thought they were oppressed with "a disproportionate number of Jewish people controlled banks in Germany pre-Nazis".

And when Noncompete basically said "okay yeah we're not doing this" Vaush called him "too stupid to have a conversation with".

And here I'm going to recommend another video: https://youtu.be/wmVkJvieaOA?si=DIrWc7ahIbmJO8pq

IMO I think this conversation follows the pattern described in this Alt-Right playbook video to a T. Opponent gives point -> Vaush counters with something only tangentially related, shifting the conversation -> Opponent counters with point -> Vaush again counters with something only tangentially related, shifting the conversation further -> When opponent decides that the argument is not being had in good faith he disengages -> Vaush basically says "he must not want to argue with me because I'm right!" and considers the debate "won".

I'm not saying Vaush is an irredemable person or a Nazi or anything based on this. Like I said I've only watched him a little bit and most of my other info about him is from clips and the like. I'm just saying that even if I take him in the best possible faith this was an idiotic thing to do, and it puts me off his content. I think you're right anon that it comes off as him being unnecessarily edgy and that is going to lead to some pretty unfortunate consequences if he doesn't think before he speaks.

There's like an actually interesting conversation to be had there. Like they could have discussed the historic oppression of Jewish people and how Nazis weaponized the consequences of their oppression against them in the form of propaganda*. They could have related that to modern day problems. They could have talked about how propaganda works, and how the best propaganda usually has a kernel of truth buried in the bullshit. But he uh, didn't.

But still, I don't think it was unsalvageable until he doubled down on the point later. It was straight up negligent of him to not, you know, acknowledge that he was misinformed or actually correct the misinformation he just shared so his audience wouldn't go spreading it around. He has a big platform. He has a duty to ensure he uses that platform responsibly. I think he has some growing to do in that area.

It's good that acknowledged he messed up with the JKR tweet, but like, I hope he used it as a learning experience too. His tweet took over the more important parts of the conversation in part because he doubled down on it instead of just being like "hey guys I was trying to make a joke but I see it didn't land. My bad. Being misogynistic even for a joke was a dumb call. Taking it down now, sorry to everyone hurt by this." If he'd done that then it could have moved the conversation back to what was really important much quicker.

I mean no hate if you like him anon, that's just one of the reasons I haven't sought out more of his stuff. If you have videos or something from him to demonstrate that he's changed since that stuff I mentioned then I'd be happy to look at him again.

*Jewish people did not own a disproportionate amount of wealth in Germany, and if they were over-represented in the banking sector that's in part because previous discrimination pushed Jewish people into banking-adjacent sectors in the first place. The TL;DR of that is that Christians viewed tax collecting, money lending, anything that dealt with cash as sinful and undesirable jobs, so those were some of the few jobs Jewish people could get for a time (because no Christians wanted them). It has nothing to do with greed or a desire for economic control.

[tieflingkisser]

It was never about antisemitism

From abducting college students to an attack on a Jewish governor, Trump’s real motivations remain clear.

Selected from the article:

Donald Trump never gave a shit about fighting antisemitism, which is a fact that’s important to state upfront. By his words and by his actions, nothing the current and former president ever communicated with regard to the Jewish people made us safer—and none of it was supposed to. It’s been an obvious power grab from the start, but one to which a broader audience seems to finally be grasping. 

When former MSNBC host Chris Matthews went on Morning Joe Tuesday morning and said that Trump punishing universities and pro-Palestine students in the name of fighting antisemitism, “is probably not the worst move he’s ever made,” journalist and author Molly Jong-Fast responded with a word.

“This is thought policing 101,” Jong-Fast, an MSNBC contributor, said. “This is not ok. The truth is, and I say this as a Jew, they are using antisemitism as a cloak. If this administration really cared about antisemitism, there’s a lot of stuff they could do. This is not about that. This is about targeting universities. This is about targeting speech. This is right out of an authoritarian playbook.”

[...]

The case of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University graduate student here on a student visa from Turkey, has been particularly disturbing. The video of her being violently grabbed in broad daylight by plain clothes, masked officers of an unidentified agency continues to stick with me. 

A ProPublica piece published this week details the timeline of Ozturk’s abduction, and included this chilling detail: Ozturk believed at first she was being snatched by vigilantes from Canary Mission, the organization that put her in their anti-Israel database for co-writing an op-ed opposing her school’s policies with regard to Israel.

“I had never seen police approach and take someone away like this,” she wrote in a statement filed in federal court on Thursday. “I thought they were people who had doxxed me and I was afraid for my safety.”

From Ozturk’s perspective, this was the behavior of extra-judicial thugs—certainly not the handiwork of the US government. But soon she and the rest of us would learn it came directly from the very top, and that it was being done in the name of keeping Jewish people safe. 

[...]

“We’re not looking to just file lawsuits — we want to compel a cultural change in how Jewish Americans are treated on college campuses,” Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi said recently of the administration holding its funding ransom. If they were really serious about this goal,  they could stop defunding universities with large Jewish populations; they could quit fraternizing with and hiring known white supremacists; and they could choose not to hand over the full power of the government to a guy who did a Nazi salute on inauguration day. But the whole thing has always been a farce.

As I wrote for Rolling Stone back in 2021, being an American Jew is a mindfuck. And now we’re in more peril than ever because this destruction of this country’s university life and the lives of university students is being done in our name.

[sufficientgrace]

Antisemitism

I remember learning in school as a child in Dallas about the Holocaust. We had survivors of the Holocaust come to our elementary school in the Richardson ISD to speak to us personally about what they had endured in Europe in the 1930's and 40's. The thoughts of how that could ever have happened, and how people could do those things to other human beings, came to mind.

At Baylor University, I learned about the history of Germany and Europe in the last several centuries. It was difficult to understand how pervasive antisemitism had become over time in Western and Eastern Europe. Jews had been persecuted across most of Europe at one time or another. The German people have produced some of the greatest thinkers in modern history, so the idea that the Nazi Party could gain power in Germany in 1933 was an enigma to me. Teachers and professors throughout my education often repeated that the Holocaust is taught so that those mistakes would never be repeated. As an educator in public schools, I have taught social studies for over 30 years. The Holocaust, antisemitism, and human rights have always occupied a prominent place in the curriculum.

Today, the nation whose soldiers liberated Nazi concentration camps and freed Europe from Hitler's threat is now turning on the Jews. So many Jews fled to America in past decades for freedom and safety, only now to be targeted by angry mobs in major cities and college campuses. You think that it will not get any worse than protests? There are members of Congress who support the angry mobs, and other politicians and much of the media are afraid to challenge the mobs. Now, go look at a history book. That is the playbook that Hitler and the Nazi's followed. Once people fear wrong, no matter how few support it, then the wrong can seize power.

Maybe the saddest part of this is that most of those college students were taught about the Holocaust, saw "Schindler's List," and yet have been prompted to be antisemitic without much effort. Just as Hitler scapegoated the Jews in the 1920's and 30's about Germany's situation, Israel and the Jews today are being scapegoated by radicalized people from the Middle East and from here at home.

Things are changing, and not for good. Read your history, and be aware that if this is not stopped now then the very thing that the world never wanted to happen again, will happen again. It might not look exactly the same, but it will be tragic nonetheless.

[cosmicjoke]

No, you're right. I'm just saying that this was inevitable. Hamas is a democratically elected group inside of Gaza, and the reason for that is because the Palestinian's have been pushed too far, so now they're supporting this sort of group out of desperation. This wouldn't have happened, and the Palestinian's never would have supported this sort of group if they hadn't been pushed to the brink. A group, by the way, which Israel itself and its leaders are on record as having wanted to take over Gaza because they thought it would give them a continued excuse to keep suppressing and denying the Palestinian's their human rights. There's countless examples of this shit throughout history, but these moron's never learn. Germany in the 1930s is a great example. The world kept kicking and humiliating and torturing Germany after they lost WWI, and as a result, the Nazi party gained immense power and support. It's the height of irony that Israel, a Jewish state, act just like Nazi's in their policies and treatment of Palestinian's. They've murdered whole families, men, women and children by the hundreds, injured thousands, etc... terrorized and stolen from and denied basic human rights and dignity to an entire, indigenous population, and nobody ever says a word about it. And now they want to cry about the same happening to them. You reap what you sow, basically. They did this to themselves. It's the same BS playbook that the United States constantly goes by, arming and aiding and funding terrorist groups when it's convenient for them or when they want to use them to overthrow some foreign government or deplete a so called enemy, like Russia, only to have it come back and bite them in the ass. This is always what happens. They create their own worst enemies. Israel is no different. I don't condone the murder, rape or torture of any civilians, but the narrative being pushed by the propaganda machine that is the Western media is laughable, trying to make it look like this attack came out of nowhere and is entirely fueled by Jewish hate. It's not. It's a direct result and consequence of Israel's own, racist policies. It galls the hell out of me that they're comparing this shit to what happened to the Jews in Germany and across Europe during WWII, as if there's any comparison. It's the Israelis that are and have been acting like Nazi's since Israel was established in 1948. Like you said, the whole thing is just a massive, but predictable tragedy all around.

[conodeleezzaricecake]

versus happening about the ISRAEL PALESTINE conflict, there is a recurring theme that Israel is losing the PR war. And a big part of that is because a lot of young people, especially young Americans are so overwhelmingly pro Palestine. And a very interesting Zionist talking point is that many of us are pro Palestine are uneducated. But in fact, many young Americans are pro Palestine because we are very educated on Jewish history. So if you're educated in the US like that Jewish history has been a constant response to having classes dedicated to genocide, the Holocaust in high school, and it's because of education that many of us are able to recognize what's going on in Palestine. Genocide, has been ethnic cleansing and the mass displacement of the Palestinian people, especially in districts in Gaza. Because we learned about the mass displacement of Jewish people in Nazi Germany creation ghettos, we recognize the white supremacist propaganda language of the Israeli government. Because we were doing DBQ or Nazi propaganda posters that use similar language like the children of darkness. We are dissatisfied with our governments and corporations lack of acknowledgement and support and the hyper securitisation of the Palestinian people. Because we saw the higher securitisation of Jewish people lead other countries to leave and it was only an interim security issue within the country and that bystander effect was one of the reasons the Holocaust could happen. It was sustained so many years without their actual understanding conceptualized like Hamas came into existence having learned about the purging of Jewish paramilitary groups, direct response, military action, we've already read the playbook which is the big difference because I have an ordination. Jewish people were oppressed in this conflict a Jewish ethno state of Israel. It's a poignant example of a single feature that can one day become the oppressors themselves. They share the same supremacist nationalist attitude that their oppressors did. And that's really what we taught difference between the Jewish community especially the Orthodox Jewish community, in the science community, because Zionism is not a religious identity. It is a colonialist imperialist movement that is fueled by the similar nationalist ideals that led to urging

2:01

people to sign up they are inundated in conditions with oppressors, ideologies, people. And so when they're seeking freedom or liberation, from that oppressor and so often those same beliefs, like appearance of liberation and freedom is becoming your precedent instead of breaking the chain of oppression so that that becomes your presser and they start forming similar ideologies and beliefs as they are for presser just continues the cycle when the difference is recognition, because we have repeated on this form of oppression before we can see the cycle continuing in the ISRAEL PALESTINE conflict among all the discourses happening about the ISRAEL PALESTINE conflict. There is a current theme that is