Thread by @victor_romano2

This film was made in 1945. I wasn't around then. So why does this look so familiar?

Where have I heard this before?

"You want to know why you are not getting the breaks you deserve? I happen to know the facts. Some of the things I see in this country of ours make my blood boil! I see people with foreign accents, making all the money!

I see negroes holding jobs that belong to me and you! If we allow this thing to go on, what's going to become of us real Americans? What are we real Americans going to do about it? Here is the truth about negroes and foreigners! The truth about the Catholic church!

You'll find out who the real Americans are and who your real enemies are! We'll never be able to call this country our own until it's a country without negroes! Without alien foreigners! Without Catholics! These are the people that are trying to take over our country!

Fight them and destroy them before they destroy us!"

"You see, we human beings are not born with prejudices. Always they are made for us. Made by someone who wants something. Somebody's going to get something out of it, and it isn't going to be you."

It isn't going to be Hunts, the unemployed metal worker. Don't be like Hunts.

There were many political parties in Germany. These, the Nazis destroyed. They were determined to smash every organization where people might band together and resist.

...like those Social Democrats.

...and those Communists.

Maybe he shouldn't have resisted?

"We must never let that happen to us or to our country. We must never let ourselves be divided by race or color or religion. We must guard everyone's liberty or we can lose our own.

If we allow any minority to lose its freedom by persecution or by prejudice, we are threatening our own freedom. So let's not be suckers. We must not allow the freedom or dignity of any man to be threatened by any act or word. Let's forget about we & they. Let's think about us."

The Final Speech from The Great Dictator:
charliechaplin.com/en/films/7-The…

"Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.

Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!"

For a more dramatic version:

The Great Dictator - Full Movie:

open.tube/videos/watch/e…

From Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents:

Really? The Nazis looked to the United States as a model for racial policy?

However, the United States was too harsh for the Nazis.

How did Hitler rise to power?

3:53 - "While his supporters formed paramilitary groups and fought protestors in streets, Hitler raised fears of a Communist uprising and argued that only he could restore law and order."

4:27 - "Many of Hitler's early radical supporters were arrested and executed, along with potential rivals, and when President Hindenburg died in August 1934, it was clear there would be no new election. Disturbingly, many of Hitler's early measures didn't require mass repression.

His speeches exploited people's fear and ire to drive their support behind him and the Nazi party. Meanwhile, businessmen and intellectuals, wanting to be on the right side of public opinion, endorsed Hitler.

They assured themselves and each other that his more extreme rhetoric was only for show. Decades later, Hitler's rise remains a warning of how fragile democratic institutions can be in the face of angry crowds and a leader willing to feed their anger and exploit their fears."

This is the current United Nations definition of genocide:

ushmm.org/genocide-preve…
un.org/en/genocidepre…

Genocide never just happens. There is always a set of circumstances which occur or which are created to build the climate in which genocide can take place:

hmd.org.uk/learn-about-th…
genocidewatch.com/ten-stages-gen…
genocideeducation.org/wp-content/upl…
jewishmuseummilwaukee.org/10-stages-of-g…
museeholocauste.ca/app/uploads/20…

A 2003 study found that fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), & Pinochet (Chile), had all 14 elements in common:

ratical.org/ratville/CAH/f…

Has there ever been a fascist regime that didn't go through the 10 stages of genocide?

Law and order prevailed over the radical left:



10:11 - "Exploiting widespread fears of a communist uprising, they blamed Communists for the fire, and declared emergency rule.

President Hindenburg signed a decree that suspended all basic civil rights and constitutional protections, providing the basis for arbitrary police actions. The new government's first targets were political opponents.

Under the emergency decree, they could be terrorized, beaten and held indefinitely. Leaders of trade unions and opposition parties were arrested. German authorities sent thousands, including leftist members of Parliament, to newly established concentration camps.

Despite Nazi terror and brutal suppression of their opponents, many German citizens willingly accepted or actively supported these extreme measures in favor of order and security."

Mass murder isn't the only form of genocide. From 1929-1974, North Carolina’s eugenics program sterilized close to 7600 "genetically unfit & unproductive" men & women, targeting black Americans.

A eugenics 1930s pamphlet, Univ. of N Carolina:

newsobserver.com/news/state/nor…

Besides mass murder, other genocides include physical/mental harm, inflicting poor conditions, preventing births (eg forced sterilization), or separating children. All responsible rulers, officials, and individuals are tried by tribunal and punishable.

The justice department of the united states labeled NY city, Seattle and Portland as anarchist jurisdictions. This is how they plan to legitimize mass arrests of perfectly innocent people and incarcerate them and just strip them of their rights.

There's a segment of American society that would clap while this happens. It can enable the federal power structures to crack down on anyone who remotely descends against el presidente Trump. Everyone still wants to think it can't happen here but it can and it is.

All these people are calling for in these protests is equality and justice and they're being met with literal fascist tactics. More pushback and serious action needs to happen before the American experiment with democracy ends.

03:31 - "Nearly all fascist regimes were democracies before they became fascist. The very first people that the fascists locked up in Italy, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal… were those who could effectively organize which were communists and anti-fascists.

We don't want to talk about how that's how it starts because... if you're 50 percent of America: "my political enemy and others so therefore I don't care what happens to them. I don't identify with them or their ideology"…

If anyone can be labeled a communist, anarchist, or antifa, …that gives the Federal government power to make a political enemy out of anyone they want. But no one talks about that."

Legalism is not a precedent for moralism or righteousness. We all know someone who would use the premise of law and order and legalism to commit unspeakable acts.

@BotheredBoy tells us this story of Sophie Scholl.

Sophie Scholl was arrested by citizen's arrest at age 21, along with others, by Jakob Schmid for distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets at the University of Munich. After a show trial, they were beheaded 4 days later.

Jakob Schmid got a cash reward and promotion, and hundreds of students cheered for him at a thank-you ceremony. While Jakob Schmid did what was legal, and appealed he just "did his duty", he went on American trial years later, and served 5 years at a labor camp.

3:11- "Just because something is legal doesn't make it right, just as something that is illegal doesn't necessarily make it wrong. It was illegal to hide Jews, but it was morally right. Legalism is not a precedent for moralism or righteousness.

It's important that we remember that in these dark days ahead.

When we think of fascists, we think of the Nazis and Hermann Göring and Goebbels… It's worth remembering… that there were everyday people who supported the Nazis and the fascists…

They were average people like you&me, who found justification to do terrible things. Whether it was a tsk of you're not protesting the right way, or tsk you shouldn't be out after 7pm or sunset or whatever, tsk they say you shouldn't be harboring or helping these terrible people.

There's so much that can be justified under the bounds of legalism, and it is incredibly important to remember that just because something is legal does not make it right."

5:23- "While we all don't know someone who would flip the switch on the proverbial gas chamber, we all know someone like Jakob Schmid. Someone who would use the premise of law and order and legalism to commit unspeakable acts on the grounds that it's a legal thing to do."

Sophie's last words:

Sophie's testimony:

These are the 6 leaflets distributed by the White Rose Society:
holocaustresearchproject.org/revolt/wrleafl…

For more on the White Rose Society:
smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the…

About the White Rose:
"The White Rose: The lost voices of Germany"

A short biopic "The White Rose Hans and Sophie Scholl". This includes an interview with Franz Josef Müller, one of the survivors of the White Rose at 11:25:

Sophie's story is a true story of dissent & serves to remind us we have a responsibility to ensure that we never sleepwalk into darkness again.

A tribute to Sophie Scholl by Reg Meuross: "For Sophie (This Beautiful Day)"

A full length (2 hour) film:

. @NeuSummits How do we come to think somebody else is not human? The Pres rhetoric is used to justify violence. El Paso attacker's manifesto contains language similar to this admin. We see embracing of that violent ideology bc it supports the Pres.