BevoAbyss

For those who think the "good people" will never impose ethnic cleansing or genocide in the USA … history has some news for you. It has happened here. Indigenous people were almost annihilated and their lands stolen. Who did it? The "good people,” of course. You know … the God-fearing Christian settlers just looking to “peacefully farm" … the Catholic missionaries just looking for "savages” and souls to save for the Crown and Pope …. the Capitalist miners just looking for "gold and silver" … and it was violently enforced by the soldiers and law enforcement of the federal and state governments. Below are still images from a short video at Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (or another Native American museum) in Santa Fe. From 2017. Just "good people" doing good people things…. since 1776 … in God’s nation of freedom!

The truly tragic thing is: For all the millions of idiot-world MAGA-GQP types that attend Trump rallies … there are millions more Rex-like enablers who will excuse, deny, look away, apologize for, and mansplain away the fascism and theocracy of MAGA-GQP-Trump (which is obvious to anyone who knows the actual history of 20th century fascism). And then take zero responsibility for anything ….. as women flee for their lives to get medical care …. LGBTQIA are shoved back into the shadows … police are cracking heads on liberal protestors …. and the trains are rolling to the Rio Grande and the deportation camps. They will literally accept no blame. They are "good people" after all.

If Rex and other posters here were born 110 years ago in Germany, they would be telling everyone concerned about Nazis and Hitler: “These are good people…. They love their families…. They care about little kids … They donate to charities … These are hard workers.… These people are not Nazis… They are not enabling anything… There is nothing to worry about. You anti-Nazis are crazy, unhinged, paranoid."

It’s not a paradox, at all. See point 5. Nor is it “weird” or “strange” … as many Surly posters seem to think. History shows this is how fascism works in the rise and takeover. 1. There must be a culture amid rapid scientific-technological change, thus creating “chaos” for the existing systems and dominant ideologies and worldviews. — Early 20th century it was industrialization. In science, it was spread of knowledge of evolution, Einstein, etc. — Early 21st century it is widespread use of internet, social media, AI. Massive advances in science in all areas, which only undermines older ideologies. 2. There must a common “enemy“ to blame. In the MAGA case it is Marxist, Woke, Deep State, Immigrant Replacement Theory, Bogus Science ideology. — All “corrupt" and taking away “freedoms” and “way of life." 3. Fringe thinkers/reactionaries rant about this change and chaos, such as Hitler, Mussolini, Trump, Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, etc. — All yearning to return to a mythic glorious yesteryear. Conspiracies and pseudoscience proliferate. 4. The religious types join in soon, always ready to protect their power by glorifying their bogus mythic past. — Just as most were in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (Catholic Church was on-board, see book Pope and Mussolini) — Evangelicals (et al) have been dreaming of the take-down of secular society for decades, since the 60s-70s, personified by landslide wins of Reagan. 5. The rich and upper middle classes get on-board to protect their wealth and status, as did many in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. — Hunt, Elon, and others become the voice and symbol of this. — Most (but not all) industrialists and managerial class in Germany were Nazis or Nazi sympathizers; same in Fascist Italy. 6. The idiot world voters look for a dude who can embody their dreams and take down their perceived enemies. — Hitler and Trump. 7. The media are utterly compliant, with Fox being full-on Fascist, while CNN, NYT, WaPo, and all the others do #bothsides while leaning conservative/traditionalist to not lose their huge mainstream viewer/reader base, who will slide into fascism or quietly look on (and eventually wonder how we got here) — Lame ass weak sauce editorials that fail to identify or call out the darkness that awaits, ie fascist totalitarianism. 8. A largely passive, ineffectual intelligentsia, very much like what we see in much of the American Academy. 9. Non compliant intellectuals, educators, many scientists are marginalized, trivialized, and eventually taken to camps, perhaps after show trials or public cancelling …. then eventually hanged/shot in public spectacles on TV. I can see JerryWorld being a location for this at some point in the future. 10. Full take over and crush any remaining resistance.

The very first anti-vaxxer I ever met … or even heard of … was at Les Amis Cafe (aka the "Marxist Meat Market") two blocks from UT campus. In 1991 or 1992. Anti-Vaxxer/UT Leftist She was from upper middle class Houston family, in grad school, and was into everything “all-natural.” — Standard “Leftist" ideology: Against corporations, capitalism, and what is now called “Big Pharma.” Said we could not trust vaccines, that they might be worse than the diseases they prevent. When I pointed out that everyone sitting at the Cafe and walking by was likely a UT student and thus vaccinated and seemingly healthy, she basically just shrugged: "Well, you can't trust capitalist medical corporations …” That was essence of her argument. (Obviously, we had a longer conversation, just keeping it brief here). The Left Moves Away from Science… at UT and Around the World In the late 1980s-early 1990s … with the demise of the Cold War and full knowledge of USSR’s bloody totalitarianism … the Leftist ideology began to radically change: Starting to become anti-science, pro-religion, and very very cultural relativist. Rather than abandon Marxism, they decided to abandon science and any universal/objective claims to know empirical realit.y (Yes, I have read Popper, Einstein, and all the major discussions on these topics.) — I read this in books and heard this at UT: “all beliefs are relative and equal except the belief in capitalism, which was inherently bad.” (Of course, this is a huge logical fallacy) I literally heard the following argument stated by 2-3 Leftist grad students at UT: — “science is an extension of capitalism and thus cannot be considered an objective way of knowing the world or finding universal truths.” They literally believed that capitalism was the underlying bedrock of all belief systems and worldviews. If any science was funded by government taxes and/or corporations in a largely capitalist society, then by definition: all science was the tool and knowledge in service to capital … not a means of understanding empirical reality. — Naturally, I asked how Darwin and evolution were bogus ploys by capitalism? How the discoveries of Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton were made in service to capital? I asked how the UT McDonald Observatory was a tool of capitalism? I recall saying I guess Hubble’s discovery of the Big Bang must have been just a capitalist ploy for unlimited consumption of Earth’s resources. — I told the Leftists that they merely brought empirical science down to the level of creationism and fundamentalism and Reagan-Falwell. And this would cause huge problems in society. Astonishingly, to me at the time, these Leftist grad students basically stood by their beliefs. 33 Years Later, Here We Are. These beliefs are central to MAGA-GQP-RFKjr, fueling anti-science and conspiracy, and are helping power the idiot-world collapse of American democracy. And I first encountered them on the Left.

Some great posts above. Sometimes it does not take a huge intellectual grasp of history or fascism. Sometimes, common sense and decency will be enough for a person to make a good decision. Witness my mom, a lifelong Republican. (RIP 2018, my dad passed in 2002). — Grew up on farm in Central Texas, a very poor family. She and siblings worked the cotton fields, sometimes with migrant labor from south of the border. She knew they were honest, hard-working people, looking for a better life. After high school, she left the farm for a better life in Dallas. Married my dad (UT grad), worked very hard to get an associate's degree, and among several jobs, handled insurance/billing in a doctor’s clinic for 20+ years and saw firsthand the needs for Medicare for aging people, for young women to access reproductive care, assistance for poor people, etc. — Mom was not an intellectual and had flaws, like all of us, but had a lot of common sense and was often perceptive about people, including some of my UT friends/girlfriends. For example, she was highly disapproving of a male friend from UT, said he was a smug jerk and not to trust him. Turns out he tried to score my girlfriend in Austin when I was out of town. He avoided me for years. Now he’s a Trumper big-time. A full-on fascist. She always voted R and revered George W. But when Trump appeared on the scene, she said: NO! — She emphatically said: "I am not voting for a man who talks about women like he does.” “He’s vulgar and uncouth, I am not voting for a crook and con man.” Said she would not vote for Biden or the D nominee, but did not vote for Trump in 2016 (Passed in late 2018). Just some common sense and decency. That’s all it takes to say no to Trump. [ Now don’t get me started on my Oil & Gas brother who is voting for Trump “to save the oil industry in Texas." Grrrrrrrr….. ]

The SEC SEC SEC Confederate conference is building a 21st century theocracy. There’s no denying it. And our university and state said “hell yeah” let’s join in... Fuck Abbott, Eltife, Hartzell, BOR, BMD, ESPN and anyone else who engineered that move.

In the video above about a blonde harassing immigrant workers building a fence. That Karen is a GQP fascist. … watches Fox … likely was in a sorority ... and likely attends Sunday School sometimes with her hubby (equally entitled to be sure). In the Trump-MAGA future, that Karen will proudly stand by the railroad tracks, wave a US flag, and take selfies … as the trains pass carrying millions of immigrants to the mass deportation camps along the Rio Grande. If that Karen was born 110 years ago in Germany, she could be seen cheering and saluting Hitler's motorcade in Triumph of the Will.

Guess what. You know some fascists. They don't give a shit about the millions American women, people of color, LGBTQIA, educators, medical workers harmed by the cruelty, violence, and wholesale destruction of MAGA policies. That's why they are not good people. And I don't give a crap who they are ... or what companies they work for ... or what their spoiled ass kids do ... or what lame ass McMansion neighborhood they inhabit. They are just as narcissistic and sociopathic as Trump, only under the table. All they care about is protecting and justifying their little slice of White Corporate Capitalist Heaven ... And if fascism is the way to do it, they will do it. Hell, they are doing it. But, please continue to chum and laugh with the "circle of dads" fascists at the golf course and little league game.

And this ain’t no ordinary ledge where the bottom is visible. This is a ledge over an abyss, a bottomless void. It’s kinda like Nietzsche’s famed evolutionary “abyss," except there is no rope to cross the void and evolve into "the future." In fact, MAGA-GQP cut the rope and has us plunging into the abyss, devolving America by decades and centuries into the past. Nietzsche laughs…

As I have said here before: — The New York Times has long been a spin-doctor, propaganda machine that enables/normalizes fascism and theocracy, among other things, in the name of supposedly “objective” and “fair" journalism—#bothsides. It simply does not want to lose corporate advertisers and it’s mainstream (Christian) liberal and conservative readers. — Calling that out in polite company cost me a good friendship with a former business exec at the NYT. We have not talked in over 15 years. Bottom line, the New York Times cannot be trusted on any significant issue.

I'm not worried about it … I don’t hang out with f*cking fascists. PS: Yes, I use the term “fascism” among colleagues, at cocktail parties, dinner parties, art/museum gatherings, family gatherings, and in other public settings/publications/posts where the term fits the topic. I’ve been told it makes some people uncomfortable — including many liberals and my liberal girlfriend. Well that’s just too bad. Boo hoo!

Let me correct that: Right wing Twitter is such a fascist place. I am so f*cking tired of seeing media/social media descriptions of the GQP-MAGA using weak sauce words like “weird”… “strange” … “asshole” … "hard right" … “extreme" conservative … “ultra" conservative ...“fake" conservative … etc. etc. etc. it’s almost like people are afraid to say it and think it… and thus help enable it. Just f*cking man up and say it! MAGA-GQP are fascists!

Indeed. But there is much more. And it will never be taught in Texas schools. After the Alamo and founding of Texas and even after the Civil War, the State of Texas -- populated with all those Christian settlers from Europe seeking "religious freedom" -- enforced a massive ethnic cleaning program (some would say genocide) to annihilate the Native Americans and seize the remaining lands in West Texas. How did UT get the massive lands in the Permian Basin, after all? From the Amazon blurb: "Portraying 19th-century Texas as a cauldron of racist violence, Gary Clayton Anderson shows that the ethnic warfare dominating the Texas frontier can best be described as ethnic cleansing.... Piercing the very heart of Lone Star mythology, Anderson tells how the Texas government encouraged the Texas Rangers to annihilate Indian villages, including women and children. This policy of terror succeeded: by the 1870s, Indians had been driven from central and western Texas." The real history is far different than the Christian version or John Wayne's Alamo Hollywood propaganda.

Nah, I have't ruled anything. Just observing... While sitting on the edge of the abyss and sipping tequila ... as Texas slides inexorably over the edge ... to be followed by the rest of America.

For decades, the obvious goal has been crystal clear, at least since W was running things. -- To completely undermine the public secular schools to empower Christian-Evangelical-Fundamentalist domination, with all their idiot world creationist anti-science, bogus BS history, faith-based fact-free worldviews. -- What's eventually left of the public schools will be little more than educational work camps with massively overworked, underpaid teachers, trying to educate poor frustrated students ... with hallways and playground patrolled by armed guards. -- Meanwhile, the Christian schools will be rolling in $$$, with Bible "education" for the future frat boy fascists to run the state, while the sorority girls raise the kiddos just like Joel Osteen and all the preachers say it should be ... with the poor kids working as wage slaves at the Starbucks drive through serving the sorority moms in their monster SUVs. I'll say it again: Christianity gets a free pass in America, no matter how much the insanity and hypocrisy. And that unlimited free pass will be the death of democracy, sanity, and secularism in Texas and this country. Those who voted for W enabled all this stupidity.

And the 1970s film The Stepford Wives saw it coming decades ago: the subservient sexy robot wife … created for wimp-ass men threatened by emerging female equality. Only now the wife is modified with 21st century cosmetic surgery and brainwashed at the megachurch. That’s the evangelical MAGA-man dream goal. 21st Century Stepford Wives. Looks like Clark’s billions bought his model, a former Miss Kansas. Perfect couple for Highland Park.

How about we add to that: Christian Fascist Theocrat … who is 100% itching to violently repress women and LGBTQIA … reject vaccines and general science … and herd millions of immigrants and brown people on trains to the border. Fuck that guy and his pseudo-macho beard. And guess what, you gotta know he ain’t the only one in the NFL or Chiefs organization with similar beliefs … or he would not be so open.

History shows no surprise Maggie Haberman was/is spewing Trump propaganda for the New York Times. After all, the Nazis/Hitler had writers, artists, hacks, and propagandists all over the German newspaper, radio, and film industries in the 1930s-1940s.

Of course, the New York Times is full of bullshit. #bothsides. Has been for at least 35 years … at least since I first read the Times on a regular basis in the Perry-Casteneda Library newspaper room. (Anyone else recall that room lined with newspapers, ground floor, on the right just past the security desk.) The Times has enabled damn near every fucking major political problem in this country with their “bothsides” editorial policy and supposedly “objective" reporting. They have enabled fascism and theocracy for certain. Yet, almost every liberal I know reads it like a sacred text. “All the News That Fits” …. that’s what should be on the front page.

This is damn cool. Instead of a wall dividing the cities, the Binational River Park connecting Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. I hope it happens. https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/binational-park-texas-mexico?utm_medium=social&utm_source=grow.me&utm_campaign=grow_share_widget&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0tlADH44neZWzpiFX5_0am4uPU3DNhd8hLpt4naf8VwvcBDOGrRY_1sWs_aem_Ab6Pso6vWF2OI4gXwWa1JjawVtaavNBTBf1KQCXoWgKAMRizVc_FhP4M0EFw0jtxJ9BH1ZTq26PrEPjO3xX--8Bs

Owning great is not necessarily a signal of enlightenment. So did a lot of Nazis. They stole art and pillaged museums all across Europe. And, yes, some Nazis even liked some of the more modernist stuff. Check out the great documentary The Rape of Europa or the fantastic film, The Train (directed by John Frankenheimer). Both are powerful treatments about art stolen by the Nazis.

I submit that if Harlan Crow has supported or voted for Trump, he is a f*cking fascist …. or 100% fascist enabler, like the German industrialists who stood by and profited as the Nazis seized power in 1930s Germany. F*ck Trammel Crow and all those rich GQP assholes in Highland Park. They know what they are supporting: fascism and theocracy. History is clear on all this BS.

Time to sell the Tesla. No way would I show any support for Musk. He’s a fascist, traffics in hate and conspiracy, and is a poseur futurist.

I’m with you Troph! I’ve been 100% against it since Day 1. It was so obviously an Abbott-MAGA-BOR move to align UT with the fascist South, to get the confederacy back together as much as possible. “Big Boy” football was the smokescreen. And here we are in MAGA America, going backward into the future—the 19th Century overtaking the 21st Century.