It’s now been 1-2 weeks or 20 years since he declared war on everything that moved, even Icecreamland and finally the overgrown blob got his final pillar of fascism in this paint by numbers of tyranny. He has his own private army, what a good boy he is, who carry out his whims executing a mother of three from Minnesota because she writes poetry (This was used by his office to disgrace her, I kid you not). His chief of killing Stephen Miller urged ICE to continue to discharge their duties without fear (or justice). Carry on terrorising and attacking black people and those that disagree with his regime in other words.
You may feel that my words are a bit harsh but many think the same. Simon Marks on LBC radio UK (US Correspondent) makes my thoughts appear as harmless as Bambi. But it is true such views are becoming more marginalised. The BBC, ever aware of Trump suing them for millions, tiptoes around, Maduro wasn’t kidnapped but captured like a butterfly harmlessly caught in a net, and invasion of Greenland slowly becomes plans for (Owen Jones, Battlelines 07/01/26). Control of the media and eventually the whole state apparatus is one of the first pillars of fascism. At the moment Trump is only on the baby step, learning to grow up to be a mini-Hitler. Media stations are being silenced with control moving to Trump loving sycophants. It’s all a matter of time, as his best pal Putin would say, he had to start somewhere, now look at the Thug.
The world is being divided up now like it was 100s of years ago. The USA will own the Americas in all but name, soon Russia will be allowed by the USA to reclaim the former Soviet countries, Estonia, Latvia etc. And each block will target Europe, who knows, the continent maybe swallowed up by one or more of these blocks. And China will have control of the far east. As I’m writing this, the last piece of the jigsaw is being put in place. Trump’s Board of Peace which will carve up Gaza and then the remaining regions of the world divided into spheres of influence. Putin has said he will attend, already followed by greed and tyranny. Trump will be leader of this board, forever.
But let’s not pretend that such world leaders are now new, it’s just the above are the big boys and it is usually men and old at that. As the historian Ian Kershaw stated “defining fascism is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.” But you know it when you see it; taking on different forms, Modi in India, Hindu nationalism at the expense of others. All have the cult of the leader who defines what it means to be a proper citizen in the country, the media clap along and opposition outlawed -oh I’m, sorry Putin got 98% of the vote last time, well that seems free and fair-, if they are not outlawed, they are thrown in jail on trump-ed up charges, fear becomes the weapon of choice. But all have one thing in common from Hungary to further afield, seeking to demonise gay relationships equating love and sexuality as a threat, the term LGBTQ banded around and akin to a terrorist organisation (Reuters 22/3/24). Oscar Wilde would have been hung if he was alive today.
Such regimes are financed by big business and/or supported by religious demigods (Iran) and the survival of the fittest. The elderly, the poor and disabled are left on the scrapheap, searching for food in such places. Hopelessness leading to desperation, fear and powerlessness. But maybe there is an answer, YOU. Wherever you live in any of the 60 countries in the world deemed authoritarian (World Population Review).
Otto and Elise Hampel were a working-class couple living in Berlin under the Nazis. They wrote postcards denouncing the Nazi regime, placing them all over the whole of the city, terrifying the authorities as normal people could see them. They were eventually captured and executed by the Nazis.
Their heroic story was recently made into a film Alone in Berlin with Emma Thompson.
Such people died for their country and a belief in humanity, democracy and justice.
In a similar vein, siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, whilst initially supporting Hitler, quickly became disillusioned. At university in Munich, they formed the influential student none violent resistance movement The White Rose. Distributing protest leaflets and causing much disruption. They were eventually executed following a mock trail.
The film Sophie Scholl the Final Days chillingly portrays these events.
People still protest via social media and at rallies but sometimes just voicing your own opinions in local neighbourhoods can be even more effective, as they say, what happens if the net is turned off? In Iran the recent uprising started in a bazaar were people complained about prices. Just pointing out to people in taxis, shops and state institutions can raise awareness and to question the views they are force fed.
Sometimes you have to make a choice, as W. B. Yates so beautifully put it in the poem Second Coming:
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." (DM/VK)
