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Cyrano

(15,035 posts)
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 04:19 PM Jul 2018

The Master Race

This afternoon, I saw a movie that was made in 1988, titled, “Mississippi Burning.”

It was about the KKK murder of three civil rights workers named Chaney, Schwerner and Goodwin. One black Christian and two white Jews who were murdered by the KKK in the summer of 1964 because they were trying to register voters in Mississippi.

The despicable KKK thugs were eventually brought to justice, (of sorts), but America has not lived happily ever after.

Lynden Johnson was the president back then, and, when he got the civil rights and voting rights bills through congress, he said that the South was lost to Democrats for a generation.

Well, it’s been far more than a generation and it’s been far more than the South. Today, it’s the entire Republican Party that is surviving and thriving, in many regions of the country, under the banner of racism and hatred.

And at this moment in history, the Oval Office is occupied by someone who is using the ignorance, hatred and racism of a minority of Americans, to expand and consolidate his own power, and to satisfy his lust for more wealth and his insatiable ego.

Forget that “slippery slope” meme. We’re well down that water slide and accelerating.

It seems that the only power we have left is the vote. But we don’t get to do that until four months from now. And by then, the highest court in the land may well be occupied by a majority of people who have no problem with the current destruction of American democracy.

So is there a point to this recital of history and where we are now?

Yes. The point is that a minority of people with no conscience, morality, or decency, now hold all the levers of power in America. It may already be too late to stop this juggernaut of fascism. But unless we somehow can stop it, or slow it down, it will devour American democracy, human decency and all of us who understand what’s happening.

This is more than a rant. It’s a plea for anyone who has a concept of how to battle this disease to step forward and speak up.

Is there a defensive action we haven’t thought of?

Is there anything that can be done to slow down this horror before we get to vote?

Is there a way to save what is left of the country we thought this was?

14 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Initech

(100,068 posts)
2. I'd say shut down Fox News and the Heritage Foundation.
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 04:24 PM
Jul 2018

Then tell the NRA to go take a hike, banish 4chan, Breitbart, and Infowars to the dark web, kick white supremacists and Neo Nazis off Youtube and then we might be able to get on track, but then you get into the whole free speech thing, and I'm not touching that one with a 10 foot pole.

dameatball

(7,397 posts)
4. Absolutely true. The seeds lay a bit dormant for some decades, but those things you list, Fox, etc.,
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 04:34 PM
Jul 2018

brought them back to blossom. They fertilized the soil......literally.

Initech

(100,068 posts)
5. Yes Fox News is a cancer.
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 04:38 PM
Jul 2018

I have no doubt they were complicit in the election theft. I mean shit, Sean Hannity regularly talks to Trump every night! That no longer makes them a news agency and instead they are a hostile foreign intelligence agency that puts Americans against each other and their own government.

radius777

(3,635 posts)
7. Social media is the biggest issue
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 04:56 PM
Jul 2018

platforms like Youtube, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, etc, where extreme elements infest the space thus allowing them to reach a mainstream audience.

Ultimately it is the fault of such companies, who need to be boycotted/pressured to moderate their platforms properly.

Initech

(100,068 posts)
8. Youtube has a policy against hate speech.
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 05:06 PM
Jul 2018

But there's plenty of neo nazis and white supremacists making money off Youtube advertising. This is extremely scary.

radius777

(3,635 posts)
9. of course, that's where they went mainstream,
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 05:16 PM
Jul 2018

then on facebook and twitter. they were there all through the 2000's, well before Trump came to power, who essentially is a culmination of that process.

these companies don't enforce their policies, and look the other way, to them any traffic is good traffic (iirc, there was a leaked facebook internal memos stating this) making it fertile ground for these groups.

Different Drummer

(7,614 posts)
3. Excellent post! You expressed it better than I ever could have.
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 04:27 PM
Jul 2018

I share your concerns, but I don't know what, if anything, we can do at this point to stop the country's descent into fascism. It is troubling.

Ilsa

(61,694 posts)
6. You should check this out:
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 04:41 PM
Jul 2018

No Twang of Conscience Whatever
http://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/368-no-twang-of-conscience-whatever

This article is dated November 2014, and gives the disposition of the story. It is a long read, but the author is a great storyteller and intelligent author. She has written a few books, too, one on the Klan, which I intend to get. She's a good liberal, too. PM me if you want.

CrispyQ

(36,461 posts)
10. Until we get money out of politics, nothing will change.
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 05:29 PM
Jul 2018

Publicly funded elections at all levels. That's the only way we get our government back. This is not equal representation.




Then we go after corporate personhood. Revoke that shit! Corporations are not people. Yes, they have rights, but not the same or superior rights than people.

Slavery is the fiction that people are property.
Corporate personhood is the fiction that corporations are people.


http://reclaimdemocracy.org


Cyrano

(15,035 posts)
11. At the moment, we have virtually no power
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 05:53 PM
Jul 2018

Getting money out of politics is necessary.

Getting gerrymandering out of politics is necessary.

Getting voter suppression out of politics is necessary.

Getting "lost" ballots out of politics is necessary.

Getting Republicans out of the majority is necessary.

Getting Trump out of power is necessary.

Saving what is left of out democracy is necessary.

But where to start? What to do? How to stop the crazy. That must come first.

CrispyQ

(36,461 posts)
12. It's looking grim.
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 06:10 PM
Jul 2018

Gerrymandering cost us the house for almost a decade. The electoral college & senate are rigged against the blue states & we never address this when we have any power. The state governments are more than half red. The media owners are totally in the bag for the GOP agenda. Fake news has guaranteed a large segment of ignorant but passionate voters. I can't believe the shit my rwnj cousins believe. And the meanness in their tone. I've unfriended one because everything is the violent left or the lying left or the unAmerican left or the hateful left. His hate for Maxine Waters is palpable. I don't need that negative energy.

Cyrano

(15,035 posts)
13. I hear you, CrispyQ
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 07:39 PM
Jul 2018

Maybe, someday soon, sanity will return to this country. All of us who are paying attention could sure use it. Right now, happiness is a day free from the sea of hatred that has engulfed us.

CrispyQ

(36,461 posts)
14. These (mostly) white men think that they are superior to everyone else on the planet,
Sun Jul 1, 2018, 09:06 PM
Jul 2018

as their everything-for-profit policies bring us to an ecological brink.

Ditto on the return of sanity! A little humor to brighten your day.



Oh, look who's protesting . . . a white man.

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