Part 1: The Nazi Conscience Chapter 1 “An Ethnic Conscience”

This chapter begins with a brief history of conscience. Perhaps the most important line is this:

But, although every major culture honors the injunction to treat others as you hope they will treat you, the ideal often collapses in practice because the meaning of “others” is not always clear.

Who are the others we should treat as we wish to be treated? Koonz quotes Freud on the difficulty of loving strangers. And then she points out that “who deserves moral consideration” is defined either by religion or experts. In Nazi Germany, experts did the shaping.

The story of a Hitler Youth member is a klaxon, warning us what happens when those experts place a specific subset of others as enemies of the rest. He’d had the belief that the Jews were an immediate threat to Germany drummed into him. When his Jewish best friend was taken by the Gestapo, he didn’t protest. Despite knowing his friend was a good person and no threat to anyone, he “accepted deportation as just.”

And before we say it could never happen here, we must remember that it already has. We identified an enemy “other” (the Japanese citizens of our nation) and placed them into camps. Had we begun losing the war, had our experts stressed their supposed threat to us just a fraction more, we may have thought killing them would also be just. Continue reading “Part 1: The Nazi Conscience Chapter 1 “An Ethnic Conscience””

Part 1: The Nazi Conscience Chapter 1 “An Ethnic Conscience”
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It’s Up to Us Now

The electoral college has abdicated its responsibility and elected a fascist who is appointing the worst cabinet in history, and has already begun destroying America’s standing in the world. By the end of this – and there will be an end – countless people will be dead, our democracy damaged possibly beyond repair, our rights set back by 50 years or more, racists empowered as they haven’t been since the KKK ruled, the Supreme Court will be ruined for at least a generation, and we may never earn back the esteem we lose in the international community.

It’s not going to be an easy time. Not by any measure.

The next several years, probably the next several decades, are going to be tough, people. We have a hell of a fight ahead. We didn’t ask for this. We didn’t want it, and we tried to stop it, and all we can do now is deal with it.

Image is a screenshot of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. He is facing the camera, but looking somberly off to one side. Beside him is the caption, "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
So I need you to do some things with the last days of this year. Continue reading “It’s Up to Us Now”

It’s Up to Us Now

Did Steve Mnuchin Screw You Over? Tell Senate Democrats

Trump is a garbage fire, and his cabinet appointments are trash. There’s not a single person he’s nominated who’s qualified for their job. They oftentimes don’t even qualify to be out of prison, but of course America certainly isn’t stingy when it comes to giving passes to rich white people.

Steve Mnuchin is a particularly despicable specimen.

From Elizabeth Warren:

After the 2008 housing crash, Steve Mnuchin swooped in to purchase a failed bank with mountains of bad mortgages on its books. He rebranded the bank as OneWest, and led the bank as it raked in billions in profits by aggressively – and sometimes illegally – foreclosing on people’s homes. OneWest also ran a reverse-mortgage subsidiary called Financial Freedom, which serviced 17% of the reverse-mortgage market but was responsible for 39% for foreclosures. Steve Mnuchin got rich off the backs of working families who were hit hardest by the financial crisis.

Donald Trump now wants to hand Steve Mnuchin the keys to the Treasury Department, where he can make big banks even richer at the expense of America’s families. Were you or someone you know hurt by Steve Mnuchin and OneWest Bank’s predatory business practices? The Senate Democrats are asking people to come forward and share their stories.

Do you have a story to tell about Mnuchin? Please do tell it here.

Image is a comic book-style image. It shows a black city skyline against a twilight blue sky. Grayscale letters along the bottom left say The Foreclosure King. There is a white silhouette of a running man with a briefcase beside them. On the right is a black and white drawing of a middle-aged white man with square-rimmed glasses, saying, "You're evicted!"
Image courtesy US Senate Democrats
Did Steve Mnuchin Screw You Over? Tell Senate Democrats

(Repost) “A Harrowing Story” – Escape Chapter 20: Warren’s Rise to Power

It’s 1995, and Warren Jeffs is seizing more and more control within the FLDS. The cult was hideous before; it’s about to get exponentially worse.

Content Note for racism, spiritual abuse, physical abuse, miscarriage due to injury

Warren Jeffs is one of those people who knows how to use those around him for his own gain. He knows how to manipulate his elderly father, the current prophet, and get him to proclaim that Warren speaks for him. He knows how to push the fear buttons. And he knows that making something scarce and exclusive can increase desire for it. This is how he gets his awful recorded racist rants to spread. He tapes his sermons talking about how “the black race had been put on earth to preserve evil,” and how God’s gonna destroy everyone in North and South America except those who do this huge list of stuff, and then he releases a limited number of those tapes. Well, of course, not being able to have them means everybody wants a set.

Carolyn manages to find a set to listen to. She’s not so impressed. Continue reading “(Repost) “A Harrowing Story” – Escape Chapter 20: Warren’s Rise to Power”

(Repost) “A Harrowing Story” – Escape Chapter 20: Warren’s Rise to Power

(Repost) Adventures in ACE XI: Tommyrot About Topography

We are, at last, almost at the end of the breathtaking inanity that is ACE Science* PACE 1086. So far, we’ve seen a really inept drilling project, watched them mutilate Mount St. Helens and other volcanoes, suffered through their igneous ignorance, had to spend two posts on their sedimentary nonsense, and dealt with their metamorphic misconceptions. At times, it’s seemed like we’ll never get through debunking this unfathomable ignorance. But we’ve only eight pages and two topics to go! Racer and his dad are finally flying home! Stick with us and we’ll get there – if the Loyaltons’ plane doesn’t crash. Continue reading “(Repost) Adventures in ACE XI: Tommyrot About Topography”

(Repost) Adventures in ACE XI: Tommyrot About Topography

(Tier 1) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLI: Wherein There is Ungodly Static

Geez, if I were a fundamentalist Christian parent reading this chapter, I’d be getting pretty concerned that the Science of the Physical Creation writers are just phoning the creationism in. I mean, yeah, they’ve paid some lip service to God, but nothing really meaty. And now that we’re on to Transferring Charges, a quick glance through the pages turns up no obvious God-talk at all.

The first couple of pages is just straight-up talk of how inducing electrical charges works. Then they talk about detecting electrical charges, and pretty much my only complaint is that it might have been nice if they’d told us a bit more about Sir William Gilbert, who is one of those fathers of modern science who were doing fascinating things and bringing a branch of science into being. He happened to be doing so while Shakespeare was coining words and phrases and entertaining the masses. He’s one of the fathers of electrical engineering, and has a unit of magnetic force named after him. He also figured out that the earth is magnetic and has an iron core.

Neato. Continue reading “(Tier 1) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLI: Wherein There is Ungodly Static”

(Tier 1) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLI: Wherein There is Ungodly Static

Resistance is Not Futile: Easy But Important Actions For Opposing Trump

I’ve had to retreat into a bit of a cocoon to build up my mental and emotional strength for the battles to come, but I’m still paying attention to what’s going on with this shitshow of an election. I’ve found some easy but important actions for us – some of which don’t even involve using the phone! Here are a few ways you can oppose Trump without leaving the house.

Hamilton Electors

A simple action: In a live Facebook session yesterday, a couple of the Hamilton Electors said that at this point what’s needed aren’t more letters and emails to the electors, but to:

(1) Contact your representatives and governors to ask that they demand that the electors be debriefed on the CIA information on Russian interference prior to Dec. 19, and to delay the electoral vote if that’s not possible, given the time-frame.

(2) Contact the U.S. Attorney General and ask that the Electoral College vote be postponed until a full investigation of Russian interference and the Trump campaign’s potential coordination with Russia is complete.

You can reach the Attorney General’s office at 202/514-2000. Comment line…press 4.

(Via Alexander Chee)

Calling your state’s Secretary of State could also help, as they oversee electoral votes.

Support the Audit of Trump’s Finances Continue reading “Resistance is Not Futile: Easy But Important Actions For Opposing Trump”

Resistance is Not Futile: Easy But Important Actions For Opposing Trump

The Nazi Conscience: Prologue

Would it surprise you to learn that the Nazis had a conscience? It shouldn’t. Most people do. The murderers who shoot abortion doctors have a conscience – a mis-aimed one, but in their minds, they’re heroes saving babies. They are heroes, and we are monsters.

This is important to understand. Even people on the wrong side believe they are right. Continue reading “The Nazi Conscience: Prologue”

The Nazi Conscience: Prologue