ADDED 11/01/2018
FROM 10/30/2018 | GQ
BY Drew Magary
Here are two awful things in a vast timeline of awful things: Over the weekend, Brazilians elected aspiring dictator Jair Bolsonaro to be their next president. You can find plenty of explainers online as to why Bolsonaro is a monster (naturally, President Trump offered him warm congratulations on his victory), but I can go ahead and give you a […]
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ADDED 10/29/2018
FROM 10/17/2018 | Letters and Politics
BY Mitch Jeserich
A conversation with Professor of History Arthur Eckstein about how democracies and republics fell apart into chaos or despotism in the ancient western world. A history that recounts the current state of the rise of despotic demagogy in the White House. Guest: Arthur Eckstein is Distinguished Scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park. He specializes in the history of […]
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ADDED 10/18/2018
FROM 10/18/2018 | Open Democracy
BY Tom Junes
A review of John Feffer’s Aftershock: A Journey into Eastern Europe’s Broken Dreams. On the eve of the 30th anniversary of 1989, one could be forgiven succumbing to pessimism following the news coming out of Eastern Europe. Apart from the alarmism about a resurgent and aggressive Russia, it is the “rise of illiberalism”, for instance, in […]
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ADDED 10/16/2018
FROM 10/12/2018 | The London Free Press
BY STUART DERDEYN
Fighting Nazis is the right thing to do. At least, that was the perceived and often-broadcast consensus across the Western World following the Second World War. Or was it? In this informative and fascinating graphic novel history of fascism and those who fought it, Kwakwaka’wakw writer, artist and activist author Gord Hill (The 500 Years […]
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ADDED 10/15/2018
FROM 10/15/2018 | KPFA
BY Mitch Jeserich
A conversation with Matthew D. Hockenos about the controversial German pastor Martin Niemöller’s evolution from a Nazi supporter to a determined opponent of Hitler. Niemöller is well remembered for his quotation: First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and […]
see sourceADDED 10/15/2018
FROM 10/15/2018 | New York Times
BY Jason Stanley
When fascism starts to feel normal, we’re all in trouble. While calling President Trump a fascist may seem like an exaggeration, it might not be that far from the truth. Should we be worried? Jason Stanley has spent the past decade studying fascism, from Mussolini to Duterte. In this video op-ed, he argues that yes, […]
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ADDED 10/10/2018
FROM 10/10/2018 | Slate
BY Henry A. Giroux
Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation is not an isolated event, and in the current historical moment has dark meaning. Even in the darkest of times we have the right to some illumination. — Hannah Arendt The threads of a general political and ideological crisis run deep in American history, and with each tweet and policy decision Donald Trump pushes […]
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ADDED 10/09/2018
FROM 10/09/2018 | The Wire
BY Prabhat Patnaik
The real obstacle to understanding, or even recognising, contemporary fascism is alas, the memory of the 1930s. The fact that we have fascists in power in India, at the helm of a liberal bourgeois state, is indubitable: their organisation, the RSS, to which they belong and swear by, has made no secret of its admiration […]
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ADDED 10/09/2018
FROM 10/09/2018 | Big Think
BY Timothy Snyder
First, we have to understand the internet. Then we have to understand the audience. Timothy Snyder: It’s normal that when a new medium comes along, a new communications technology comes along, that this is very disorienting to our own hardware. The same thing was true when the book came along. I mean the book, as compared […]
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ADDED 10/03/2018
FROM 09/17/2018 | Truthdib
BY Chris Hedges
This is an excerpt from the chapter titled “Hate” in Chris Hedges’ new book, “America: The Farewell Tour,” published by Simon & Schuster. IT WAS A SWELTERING JULY afternoon when fifty protesters, many dressed in fatigues and wearing shirts that identified them with groups such as Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Bikers for Trump, the […]
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ADDED 10/03/2018
FROM 10/03/2018 | Little Village Magazine
BY EMMA MCCLATCHEY
On March 4, 2018, after following around Richard Spencer and his alt-right entourage for months, Serena Tarr found herself in Michigan for the Foundation for the Marketplace of Ideas conference, organized by Kyle Bristow, the white nationalist attorney who used to sue colleges that rejected requests for Spencer to speak. But due to public pressure and possibly […]
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ADDED 10/03/2018
FROM 10/03/2018 | New Statesman
BY David Winner
Ernst Thälmann, leader of Germany’s radical left in the last years of the Weimar Republic, thought the centre left was a greater danger than the right. We should remember his miscalculation. The leader of the left, adored for his “authenticity” and destined for cult status, saw himself as a fighter for radical change. His transformed […]
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