You and me knew life itself is
I think it was at Lunacon this weekend that I was saying to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch that people don't think about chemical weapons being used in World War II. They are so much a part of the Tarot of World War I, especially the Western Front—Trenches, Poppies, Shells, and Gas—that just because they were not widely employed in combat between 1939 and 1945, in the popular imagination they might as well not have been part of the war at all. Which is one of those weird gaps of definition, I remember saying, because the Nazis used fucktons of chemical warfare, it just wasn't directed against Western Allied troops. It was used chiefly on non-combatants. And being thus compartmentalized off the battlefield, when people around here say "chemical weapons," for many of them I suspect Zyklon B falls into a kind of memory hole. If you have any sense of the Holocaust, however, you think for a minute and the compartmentalization collapses; the memory hole closes. It's not rocket science.
Dammit, Sean Spicer.
(My mother, by contrast, looked at Spicer's remarks and did not think the issue was an unexamined separation of World War II and Holocaust: she thought it was an older problem of definitions. Of course Hitler didn't use chemical weapons on his own people. The Jews weren't his own people. That was kind of one of the key points of National Socialism. So nothing about Spicer's initial statement was wrong, if you take Hitler's word for it. You should just never take Hitler's word for anything. Especially not if you're speaking for the White House.)
So, yeah. I spent most of today away from the internet and then I find out that happened. It does not feel to me as deliberate or as boundary-testing as this administration's earlier omission of Jews from Holocaust Remembrance Day—I think it's more likely that Spicer, who has so far manifested the approximate historical understanding of a turnip, got flustered and tried to bluster his way out of the question and instead just blurted his foot even farther into his mouth—but he's still thrown another bone of garbage to the Holocaust deniers and done nothing to improve the ignorant racist image of the current administration, though truly at this point I believe they are more or less projecting what they intend to, they just don't want to have to get called on it. I'm just amazed that apparently they want to project an image of that level of flailing incompetence.
I'm probably slandering turnips. They're older than Linear B. They're not even unique to Europe. I'm not even going to touch "Holocaust centers." It wasn't like daycare, you know?
spatch that people don't think about chemical weapons being used in World War II. They are so much a part of the Tarot of World War I, especially the Western Front—Trenches, Poppies, Shells, and Gas—that just because they were not widely employed in combat between 1939 and 1945, in the popular imagination they might as well not have been part of the war at all. Which is one of those weird gaps of definition, I remember saying, because the Nazis used fucktons of chemical warfare, it just wasn't directed against Western Allied troops. It was used chiefly on non-combatants. And being thus compartmentalized off the battlefield, when people around here say "chemical weapons," for many of them I suspect Zyklon B falls into a kind of memory hole. If you have any sense of the Holocaust, however, you think for a minute and the compartmentalization collapses; the memory hole closes. It's not rocket science.Dammit, Sean Spicer.
(My mother, by contrast, looked at Spicer's remarks and did not think the issue was an unexamined separation of World War II and Holocaust: she thought it was an older problem of definitions. Of course Hitler didn't use chemical weapons on his own people. The Jews weren't his own people. That was kind of one of the key points of National Socialism. So nothing about Spicer's initial statement was wrong, if you take Hitler's word for it. You should just never take Hitler's word for anything. Especially not if you're speaking for the White House.)
So, yeah. I spent most of today away from the internet and then I find out that happened. It does not feel to me as deliberate or as boundary-testing as this administration's earlier omission of Jews from Holocaust Remembrance Day—I think it's more likely that Spicer, who has so far manifested the approximate historical understanding of a turnip, got flustered and tried to bluster his way out of the question and instead just blurted his foot even farther into his mouth—but he's still thrown another bone of garbage to the Holocaust deniers and done nothing to improve the ignorant racist image of the current administration, though truly at this point I believe they are more or less projecting what they intend to, they just don't want to have to get called on it. I'm just amazed that apparently they want to project an image of that level of flailing incompetence.
I'm probably slandering turnips. They're older than Linear B. They're not even unique to Europe. I'm not even going to touch "Holocaust centers." It wasn't like daycare, you know?
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That remark about Hitler and "his own people" was evil in two ways. The first was the one your mother was talking about--the denial to Jews of the status of Germans. Since that's what fell out of Spicer's mouth, one has to wonder what groups of Americans he's deny the status of Americans. Only wait, never mind: we know. But beyond that, or underneath that, is the tribalism that says that what you might do to others you'd never do to "your own people." There are two standards of treatment: one for people in the tribe, and one for people out of it. If you kill an "us," the punishment is grave; if you kill a "them," you might get a slap on the wrist, or maybe a blind eye turned, or maybe a commendation. Similar with torture, or infringement of rights.
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Thank you for coming to their defense. Then we should replace Sean Spicer with one; it knows more history than he does. And it is not racist—it is a cornerstone of foodways from here to Japan. If we have to staff all significant government positions with vegetables until we can get humans who know how to do their jobs, dammit, then that's what we'll do.
(And the icon is not because there's anything to smile about in the entry or my comment--it's because it's a turnip)
I'm not sure I knew that, actually—it's obviously a jack-o'-lantern, but I may have assumed it was a pumpkin. Nice.
Since that's what fell out of Spicer's mouth, one has to wonder what groups of Americans he's deny the status of Americans. Only wait, never mind: we know.
It's not even that I'm surprised by the sentiment he expressed. I really am surprised by the clumsiness. You feel that people who are going to make statements that are both factually wrong and morally appalling should do so either with skillful dogwhistles or with unabashed openness. Spicer just coughs this stuff out and doesn't even seem to understand what he's given away until it's pointed out to him and then he makes it worse, as if he's trying to backpedal and double down at the same time. It's so weird to watch. I don't want to know that much about his id. I just want him gone with the rest of them before they can cause any more harm to the country or the planet or language or history.
There are two standards of treatment: one for people in the tribe, and one for people out of it. If you kill an "us," the punishment is grave; if you kill a "them," you might get a slap on the wrist, or maybe a blind eye turned, or maybe a commendation.
That is a very good point. This administration's "them" is always changing, but the definition of "us" never broadens.
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That is hilariously, awfully, exactly what it's like. In fact, that's probably exactly what he's doing.
"I didn't mean something stupid, and by the way I'm right, and *you're* stupid, and shut up!"
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Honestly, that may be this administration's default rhetorical position.
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Once, while watching tv, I came in on the ending of an adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand. The part that struck me was when two of the heroes laugh in Randall Flagg's face, saying they'd been bracing themselves for sophisticated arguments and subtle moral temptations, and *death threats* are the worst he can throw at them?
This feels kind of like that, except that it's more enraging than laughable when someone is malicious, and stupid, and *still* has the power to get away with it.
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Yes. You want to be able to laugh them out of history, not watch them do the same thing again next week.
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Exactly what it looks like, I suspect.
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And, not that we need to dwell on this, but with really hardcore Holocaust deniers, a huge thing is "there was no gas, there were no gas chambers," and even "the concentration camps are later fakes," altho from what little I've read about them, saying there is 'no evidence' that nobody was ever gassed in concentration camps is a big, big thing. So when he said "Hitler didn't use chemical weapons" I was like HOOOOOOOOOOOooooooly crap is he saying what I think he's saying?
I'm still not quite sure if it was coded denialism or if he's just.....absolutely fucking moronic. Of course it could be both. Trump certainly is surrounded by enough "alt-right" and neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic asshats that I wouldn't be surprised if members of his staff believed such crap.
And it was the first time since Obama organized a Passover Seder in 2009 that the President (and this one has actual Jewish relatives even!) didn't go, nor did his family, and it wasn't held in the White House, either.
Not a good sign. So many of the signs of this man are so not good.
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David the projectionist called me to tell me; I hadn't checked the internet since I left the house much earlier in the day. He was having a hard time keeping a straight face even over the phone. I couldn't blame him. There are things to which hysterical laughter is the only reasonable response.
I'm still not quite sure if it was coded denialism or if he's just.....absolutely fucking moronic.
Because I have encountered "at least the horrors of WWI prevented the use of chemical weapons in WWII OH SHIT SORRY NEVER MIND" in contexts where people were clearly not trying to be David Irving, in this specific instance I am leaning toward Spicer being an idiot rather than a dogwhistling denier, but it's still going to be taken as White House-endorsed denial by the people who are looking for it and I am quite sure that the background radiation of anti-Semitism in the current administration is higher than I'd even like to think about, so it's kind of the same thing from the perspective of results. I do think that definitions matter and words matter, so it's not exactly the same thing. On the other hand, the distinct absence of "OH SHIT SORRY NEVER MIND" from Spicer's immediate reactions goes some way toward making me not care.
And it was the first time since Obama organized a Passover Seder in 2009 that the President (and this one has actual Jewish relatives even!) didn't go, nor did his family, and it wasn't held in the White House, either.
I hadn't heard that. Ivanka passed up the opportunity to hold the perfect, enviable, have-it-all-without-working-for-it Seder? I guess she would have had to do that pesky "let all who are hungry come and eat" bit and that really isn't in keeping with her politics.
(That is, of course, the most important part of the seder in my family. If you do nothing else, you open your door to the stranger.)
Not a good sign. So many of the signs of this man are so not good.
About the only good sign I've seen is that we're all still here.
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When we were watching Rachel Maddow's segment on it T and I were alternating cracking up and staring in paralyzed horror. I imagine it was pretty amusing.
Because I have encountered "at least the horrors of WWI prevented the use of chemical weapons in WWII OH SHIT SORRY NEVER MIND" in contexts where people were clearly not trying to be David Irving,
DAVID IRVING, that was it. What a pile of human garbage. Altho I was thinking also of that horrible Willis Carto.
it's still going to be taken as White House-endorsed denial by the people who are looking for it and I am quite sure that the background radiation of anti-Semitism in the current administration is higher than I'd even like to think about, so it's kind of the same thing from the perspective of results.
Yeah. I'm sure those Heil Trump idiots are happy. It's the same thing over and over again with this administration -- everything is so fake and they tell such outrageous lies the opposition gets exhausted just trying to establish basic facts, like X happened historically or the sky is blue. It's like the attrition of reality or something.
On the other hand, the distinct absence of "OH SHIT SORRY NEVER MIND" from Spicer's immediate reactions goes some way toward making me not care.
I can't feel sorry for Spicer, but lately he looks like his soul is being sucked out through his eyeballs or something. Talk about being hired above one's capabilities!
I hadn't heard that. Ivanka passed up the opportunity to hold the perfect, enviable, have-it-all-without-working-for-it Seder? I guess she would have had to do that pesky "let all who are hungry come and eat" bit and that really isn't in keeping with her politics.
ZING! No, she and her husband and Trump didn't attend, and it wasn't held in the White House either, and it was limited to WH "staff." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-passover-seder_us_58ecbc8ae4b0df7e20452f26 I actually hadn't known about Obama's Seders, shame on me, but they sounded really nice. Inclusive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Passover_Seder http://forward.com/news/173508/how-is-the-white-house-seder-different-from-all-ot/
Not a good sign. So many of the signs of this man are so not good.
About the only good sign I've seen is that we're all still here.
Yeah, and at least the Pentagon was like "wait whoah no" when he wanted to have tanks and missiles down the middle of Pennsylvania Ave for the inauguration. He and the Republicans are trying their damn best to break the government (!!!!) but at least it's still resisting. Some.
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That's fair. I saw Denial (2016) within the last six months, so I thought of Irving first.
It's like the attrition of reality or something.
No, it's like being gaslit. Doesn't make reality go away.
I can't feel sorry for Spicer, but lately he looks like his soul is being sucked out through his eyeballs or something. Talk about being hired above one's capabilities!
A lot of this administration is built on Dunning-Kruger, but Spicer looks as though he knows he's not up to his job. I just wish I thought that meant he would resign instead of trying to flop-sweat his way through.
No, she and her husband and Trump didn't attend, and it wasn't held in the White House either, and it was limited to WH "staff."
Well, that's more Jews than I thought were still employed by the White House. Good job there, I guess, even if the fact that they're comfortable in 45's White House means I probably disagree with them about almost everything.
I actually hadn't known about Obama's Seders, shame on me, but they sounded really nice. Inclusive.
I really liked that they existed; I assumed they were a tradition that would continue, although of course I also assumed that Obama's successor would not be a cruel and incompetent wingjob.
(Is 45 the first U.S. president to have Jews in his immediate family? If so, the seder non-attendance is even more conspicuous.)
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I didn't see that, but I saw, no lie, Leonard Nimoy in Never Forget in 1991 (don't tell me how far long ago that was by now) and read about it a little afterwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Forget_(1991_film)
No, it's like being gaslit. Doesn't make reality go away.
That's true. I need to remember that. It's just bizarre to see them completely DENYING reality and not caring, or laughing, when it's pointed out. Jesus.
Spicer looks as though he knows he's not up to his job.
Would that Jared Kushner also thought the same thing! Since, as Rachel points out, he's now in charge of the internet and peace in the Middle East and tax reform? and insurance and and....
I assumed they were a tradition that would continue, although of course I also assumed that Obama's successor would not be a cruel and incompetent wingjob.
Yyyyyyyyeah. How, how did we get here. (I mean, I know how we got here. In exhaustive detail, I couldn't stop reading analyses at first. But, man. It still really won't sink in.)
(Is 45 the first U.S. president to have Jews in his immediate family? If so, the seder non-attendance is even more conspicuous.)
Yeah, according to Tablet, "the first president to be the parent and grand-parent of observant Jews." http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/207978/trumps-jews
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Never apologize for Leonard Nimoy! I've seen Danny Kaye in Skokie (1981). Of course, I saw The Blues Brothers (1980) first, so some part of me always expects Henry Gibson to turn up whenever "Illinois" and "Nazis" are invoked in the same sentence.
I recommend Denial. It is a dialogue-driven movie to the degree that I'm almost surprised that David Hare didn't just write it as a play instead of a film, but it's an effectively faithful dramatization of a court case that I remember following at the time (David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt was actually decided in the spring of my freshman year at Brandeis, where everyone was paying attention) and it provides a two-hour opportunity for a bunch of very good character actors to share the screen, including Rachel Weisz as one of the intelligent, impetuous women she's so good at and Timothy Spall as an utterly repugnant human being who is nonetheless not a caricature (and horribly more familiar now as a type than he was even in October, when I saw the film). Other members of the cast include Tom Wilkinson, Andrew Scott, Harriet Walter, Mark Gatiss, John Sessions, and Harriet Walter, all of whom I really like; there's a recurring motif with Boudicca that I think is a little heavy-handed, but for the most part the script lets the audience fill in the blanks. I don't know if it would cheer you up or depress you. The historical case had a good ending, but then you want to know why the hell that doesn't happen now.
Yeah, according to Tablet, "the first president to be the parent and grand-parent of observant Jews."
*headdesk*
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....we're all gonna need pillows nailed to our desks, man. Or padded desks. Hopefully not padded walls. I cannot believe it hasn't been 100 days yet; it hasn't even been like THREE MONTHS. I already feel like he's driven me half crazy. I wouldn't say I miss the days when I got upset about stuff like, oh, how we're all gonna die, or I feel I've utterly wasted my life, or whatever, but "He's gutting the country, AND he could decide to bomb North Korea, wipe out everyone living there, and then China retaliates!" is not a great thing to realize on waking every morning. I mean it's like the best case scenario here is not ALL of our civil rights get torched and the economy doesn't dive to the bottom of the sea, AND he doesn't start WWIII on Twitter.
I dunno, it still all feels more than a little unreal, which I know is stupid. But I feel kind of like poor Winston Smith trying really hard to see five fingers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTFV9w4B0eg
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That sounds like an excellent plan. From your lips to Spicer's id's ears.
"He's gutting the country, AND he could decide to bomb North Korea, wipe out everyone living there, and then China retaliates!"
I was going to leave a different comment here, but he just went for bombing Afghanistan instead.
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But hey, nobody's talking about Spicer anymore! Altho I suspect this is the real news that Global Bombing Theatre is intended to bury: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia
They've been furiously spinning an anti-Russia pro-NATO line the past few days so hard even the NYT bought it. I guess this is where the "we should bomb them and taken the oil" part of his Presidency comes in.
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I really hope not.
But hey, nobody's talking about Spicer anymore! Altho I suspect this is the real news that Global Bombing Theatre is intended to bury
I saw that. I will be very interested to see where it leads.
The thing I hate is, it is all real news. The bombing in Afghanistan really happened and will change things, almost certainly for the worse. Spicer like a microcosm of his government is still incompetent to the point of farce except for the damage he does. And the Russia links are still real, no matter what kind of volte-face 45 pulls on his former bestie. And it all needs to be dealt with and that's just the headlines. That's the part that really feels unfair.
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Scalzi had a good bit of snark on that: https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/851873047686647808
I'm still not quite sure if it was coded denialism or if he's just.....absolutely fucking moronic.
It's so hard to tell! On one hand, the flailing and worsening multiple attempts at clarification; on the other hand, the visible lack of OH SHIT INCREDIBLY SORRY.
(Also from Scalzi: https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/851878095745417217 )
(I was checking Scalzi's Twitter last night because OdysseyCon, and then went ... wait wait Sean Spicer a thing?)
My comment to a friend yesterday was:
Counting down in five (four, three ...) to WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM HIM, YOU PEOPLE ARE NEVER SATISFIED ARE YOU, ALWAYS BRINGING UP HITLER, THE HOLOCAUST WAS A LONG TIME AGO YOU KNOW.
I mean, I could honestly buy the possibility that he was thinking about using chemical weapons of the battlefield variety and had a terrible terrible brainfail for a moment. But the reaction isn't OH SHIT SO INCREDIBLY SORRY I'LL JUST CRAWL INTO A CORNER AND DIE OF SHAME, it's basically "you people are so picky, you knew what I meant, anyway yeah the Holocaust was super-bad and all that but my point still stands, which was ... something ..."
I see (this morning my time) he's finally made some kind of apology, so I anticipate that we will be proceeding rapidly to "look, he apologized, what more do you want???"
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Heh.
But the reaction isn't OH SHIT SO INCREDIBLY SORRY I'LL JUST CRAWL INTO A CORNER AND DIE OF SHAME, it's basically "you people are so picky, you knew what I meant, anyway yeah the Holocaust was super-bad and all that but my point still stands, which was ... something ..."
I don't think anyone in this administration really knows how to apologize. I think they know how to go through the most half-assed possible form of the ritual, which they understand as a sop to their ratings, but I don't think the concept of actually being sorry for having done a thing rather than having been caught doing it has any credit with them. Unsurprisingly, this tendency does not play well with continuously doing things a half-decent person would be sorry for. I look at Spicer and I genuinely don't understand existing this way in public all the time. It's not the fact that he opens his mouth and ridiculous things walk out. Depending on how you handle it and what you are otherwise like as a person, you can be a soundbite disaster and people will love you for it—I have basically just described Joe Biden's entire popular persona. It's the fact that Spicer handles it by attempting to shovel his foot even faster down his throat in the juvenile, defensive, transparently unconvincing way I think most of us hope to have blundered our way out of by college at the latest. Result, he spends most of his time in the public eye looking like a fool to the degree that I would feel sorry for him if he weren't engaged in the active process of trashing my country. Instead I have to hope he looks like enough of a fool to trash his career first and get the hell off the world stage. But accidentally tripping and falling into Holocaust denial doesn't do it? Criminy, people. How is this our political life?
I see (this morning my time) he's finally made some kind of apology, so I anticipate that we will be proceeding rapidly to "look, he apologized, what more do you want???"
Not having him as a press secretary would be a good start.
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//shrieks
Also, Rachel is best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iPQ9ZQvuns&list=PLDIVi-vBsOEyETRGoRP9y8zhyu6bHl6iK&index=3 "White House Ineptitude Shown In Its Spokesman Sean Spicer | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC"
(carefully enunciating "Turn-bull" is now a joke around the house)
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Where the deniers get a lot of material is essentially in blurring certain definitions, and making use of popular misconceptions about things. The best lies are built on truth.
Technically speaking, there wasn't much in the way of facility for gassing people at concentration camps. Most of that was done at extermination camps like Treblinka, and the extermination camps were largely dismantled before the end of the war, because doing so was quite easy, because they didn't have any structures for containment or imprisonment, and most of what remains now is a lot of ash.
Some was done at hybrid locations like Auschwitz, but not that much. Holocaust deniers also make much of the fact that Auschwitz's facilities couldn't have processed the numbers the Holocaust involved, which is true, but not really relevant.
But the surviving prisoners of the camps only had stories about Auschwitz and the concentration camps, because the extermination camps didn't have survivors. (Notably, a lot of information was nonetheless recorded via Franz Stangl, erstwhile commandant of Treblinka.)
So I could almost - almost - see it as kind of an end-run around deniers, since "Holocaust centers" does implicitly acknowledge the Holocaust definitely happened and avoids referring to concentration camps and thereby allowing the "but technically that's wrong!!" argument, but at the same time, it's awful and sounds too dismissive and the whole thing was such an amazing display of idiotic incompetence that I can't give it that much credit.
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Pleased to meet you! History nerds are always welcome here.
So I could almost - almost - see it as kind of an end-run around deniers, since "Holocaust centers" does implicitly acknowledge the Holocaust definitely happened and avoids referring to concentration camps and thereby allowing the "but technically that's wrong!!" argument, but at the same time, it's awful and sounds too dismissive and the whole thing was such an amazing display of idiotic incompetence that I can't give it that much credit.
Yeah. I don't have a lot of faith in Spicer's capacity for subtlety on either side of this fence, really.
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If someone made a comedy TV show about an incompetent White House, Spicer would, at this point, be ruining it with how implausible it is that someone could be White House Press Secretary this badly.
My actual read on the whole thing is that he probably isn't consciously anti-Semitic and he may not have any actual hostility towards the Jewish, but he *is* at least somewhat susceptible to the idea that Jews are resident aliens.
Because if I, personally, were invoking Hitler because somehow I felt the need to make the case that Assad is a bad person - which I can't imagine myself doing for several reasons, but let's get hypothetical - the closest I'd come would be to say that Hitler's use of chemical weapons was against people he didn't think were his people. (But I have no idea how Assad categorises his people versus not his people and oh, I could write essays about how stupid this was.)
If anything, the reason this worries me is mostly because of what it says about the people Spicer's hanging around with. I don't think he's very bright, and I think he's easily led, and what worries me about the Trumpalos with regards to anti-Semitism is that they've been making clumsy use of excerpts from Goebbels' Greatest Hits for some time now, and I'm not happy about hints that some of them buy into it.
I take comfort from remembering that they're really not very good at it, their official leader is terrible at delivering the speeches and they have no-one at all who possesses an appreciable fraction of Hitler's charisma, and it is abundantly clear they cannot muster the organisational competence or loyalty necessary to do what the Nazis did.
People say a lot of unkind things about the Nazis, and in fairness, I've studied them in some depth and I did come to the conclusion that their leaders were not good people.
But I would always point out that - barring later breakdowns in military strategy which I could go into some depth about but won't at this juncture because I have a sprained wrist and have already typed too much - what they did tend to be was competent.
If Spicer worked for Goebbels he'd have quietly had him killed by now.
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Seriously!
(I am honestly surprised he's kept his job. He makes his boss look bad. His boss doesn't handle looking bad in public any better than Spicer himself does. Maybe they can't find anyone else who wants the job. I mean, I wouldn't.)
My actual read on the whole thing is that he probably isn't consciously anti-Semitic and he may not have any actual hostility towards the Jewish, but he *is* at least somewhat susceptible to the idea that Jews are resident aliens.
Agreed. He's picked up the othering. I don't even know that he got it from his work environment: I've taken it as read for some time now that the people who gravitated toward 45's campaign in the first place were at least sympathetic to the vibes of white nationalism, even if most of them who didn't come out of Breitbart or the following of the highly punchable Richard Spencer would have protested mightily at the label (since being called a racist these days is worse than actually being one). In any case, I don't credit any of these people with a lot of empathy for anyone who doesn't fit their particular demographic and maybe not even then.
Because if I, personally, were invoking Hitler because somehow I felt the need to make the case that Assad is a bad person - which I can't imagine myself doing for several reasons, but let's get hypothetical - the closest I'd come would be to say that Hitler's use of chemical weapons was against people he didn't think were his people. (But I have no idea how Assad categorises his people versus not his people and oh, I could write essays about how stupid this was.)
To be honest, I thought he went for the Hitler comparison simply because this administration sleeps, eats, and breathes hyperbole and if they're going to have enemies, then those enemies are going to be the worst ever and who's worse than Hitler? Well, since we're about to fight him, obviously Assad! And it was thought out no more than that—plus contributing factors of historical ignorance and/or casual prejudice—before Spicer opened his mouth and did what apparently he does best, which is national embarrassment.
and what worries me about the Trumpalos with regards to anti-Semitism is that they've been making clumsy use of excerpts from Goebbels' Greatest Hits for some time now, and I'm not happy about hints that some of them buy into it.
I'm pretty sure a number of them do. I suspect they still view Muslims as the principal enemy, but that doesn't make me feel better. What I continue not to understand are Jews who support this administration, but we established months ago that I have different priorities.
I take comfort from remembering that they're really not very good at it, their official leader is terrible at delivering the speeches and they have no-one at all who possesses an appreciable fraction of Hitler's charisma, and it is abundantly clear they cannot muster the organisational competence or loyalty necessary to do what the Nazis did.
Oh, yeah. They are crap fascists. They don't even have the visual style. And I agree that's a good thing! But just because they can't achieve the second coming of the Third Reich doesn't mean they can't hurt a lot of people—including people who don't even exist yet—and I want them out of power before they get any farther in their demolition of this country and destabilization of the planet than they have already.
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That's a really good point. Although they managed to do that implausibly badly too, what with the barrel bombs thing and stuff.
They are crap fascists. They don't even have the visual style. And I agree that's a good thing! But just because they can't achieve the second coming of the Third Reich doesn't mean they can't hurt a lot of people—including people who don't even exist yet—and I want them out of power before they get any farther in their demolition of this country and destabilization of the planet than they have already.
I do wonder how they are so bad at this. They use so much thinly-or-not-at-all-veiled material lifted straight from history, but they also use it really incompetently.
I suppose the intelligent, historically literate people also already know how this ends, and aren't going to sign on with the Keystone Klan.
Did you see the text of Richard Lugar's address? I disagree slightly with some of his arguments, but I thought it was overall an interesting and solid critique of the record so far on foreign policy.
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I know it's not a complete answer, but I really do believe that when contempt for intellectuals and education is one of the cornerstones of your political platform, you are not going to end up with the best strategists in the world.
I suppose the intelligent, historically literate people also already know how this ends, and aren't going to sign on with the Keystone Klan.
That, too. At least I hope.
(If "Keystone Klan" is your coinage, I hadn't seen it before and it's good.)
Did you see the text of Richard Lugar's address? I disagree slightly with some of his arguments, but I thought it was overall an interesting and solid critique of the record so far on foreign policy.
I did not, thank you! "But we cannot bomb our way to security." Well, that's relevant.
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The inability to bomb your way to security is, it seems pretty clear, one that the current decision-makers don't recognise, given that what the hell they just used a MOAB, but I choose to share Lugar's hope that maybe they're going to learn it soon.
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I... am ashamed at how my immediate gut reaction was "oh god if only!" Yuck. I think this administration is rubbing off on me.
:: shivers, runs for the shower ::
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And then Trump won, and everything since has been more-or-less exactly what we expected.
Sean Spicer calling Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull "Prime Minister Trumble", was kind of funny; President Trump being rude to him wasn't as funny, but neither of those things outraged Australians nearly as much as detaining and traumatising Mem Fox. (It helps that Australia, as a nation, doesn't care about the minor details on this kind of thing. And overall, Australians like Americans, so we can cheerfully hold the current American government in contempt without forming a grudge.)
I will say that it's bordering on the archetypal expression of "be careful what you wish for" to predicate an "oh if only" thought on the idea of Goebbels being in charge of the White House press operation. Goebbels was actually good at this. If this lot were competent at fascism we would be in serious trouble.
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Permission to
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Of course!
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Yay!
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I tend to trust her when she hears these things.
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Thank you! Yours on Facebook was great.
Is there an actual WWI tarot deck, or is that a metaphor? (Either way, I approve.)
It's a metaphor. (I wish it were a deck. It would be terrifying.) I got the idea from David Jones and In Parenthesis (1937):
One other thing. It is not easy in considering a trench-mortar barrage to give praise for the action proper to chemicals—full though it may be of beauty. We feel a rubicon has been passed between striking with a hand weapon as men used to do and loosing poison from the sky as we do ourselves. We doubt the decency of our own inventions, and are certainly in terror of their possibilities. That our culture has accelerated every line of advance into the territory of physical science is well appreciated—but not so well understood are the unforeseen, subsidiary effects of this achievement . . . We who are of the same world of sense with hairy ass and furry wolf and who presume to other and more radiant affinities, are finding it difficult, as yet, to recognise these creatures of chemicals as true extensions of ourselves, that we may feel for them a native affection, which alone can make them magical for us. It would be interesting to know how we shall ennoble our new media as we have already ennobled and made significant our old—candle-light, fire-light, Cups, Wands and Swords, to choose at random.
That last part stuck with me for years (and eventually got into my own poetry) because I think, if not quite the way Jones envisioned, it happened. There is an agreed-on symbol-set of the First World War, even if it's heavily biased toward the Western Front. You say "trenches," you need to specify if you mean anything else. I thought there was one for WWII, too, but I'm starting to think it's breaking up.
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Okay, I am normally not in favor of making fun of people's names, but I stand in awe.
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I don't want to give 45 that much credit!
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Yeah. I feel very strongly that these people rely so heavily on hyperbole, we should deny it them whenever we get the chance. Which is why I hate that so many of the historical Nazi comparisons are apt, because they don't deserve it. I don't want them to be cataclysms. I want them to be embarrassing and brief.
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(I went to the Vel d'Hiv memorial today, because I felt like I had to and someone had put flowers in the statues' hands, which made me feel better.)
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Oh, God damn it, it doesn't need to be an international competition!
(I went to the Vel d'Hiv memorial today, because I felt like I had to and someone had put flowers in the statues' hands, which made me feel better.)
I'm glad you went and I'm glad the flowers were there.
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