The New Civil War (ongoing): The Lesson of pre-WWII Germany

One of the enduring questions from World War II is about how we got to that place. How did Nazism happen? Why didn't anyone put a stop to it before it happened?

We actually know the answer to all of those questions. We know them from an intellectual sense, anyway. We know that normal people, regular people, people just trying to live their lives and get by, people who were not Nazis or Nazi sympathizers, we know that those people didn't do anything to stop it. For whatever reason. Probably mostly because they just wanted to be left alone to live their lives and it all didn't concern them anyway. How can we blame them? They were "good" people, right?

That's not what we decided after the fact. That's not what the world decided, and that's not what they decided about themselves. For decades, the general consensus has been that they were complicit in the rise of Nazism for nothing more than that they stood by and let it happen. None of them spoke out.

Hey, I get it. Speaking out is hard. It messes with your life and, sometimes, there are consequences. And there were consequences in pre-WWII Germany. Some of the people who did speak out just... disappeared. And that served to keep everyone else quiet, as it was intended to.

And that's what happens when you don't speak out against injustice and evil. Injustice and evil not only continues but it gets worse.

So we know what they should have done, all those people in Germany, and, yet, we wonder why they didn't do it. Couldn't they see? And we tell ourselves, "If I was there, I would have spoken up!"

Really? Would you have? Would you?
I think there's a really easy way to know the answer to that question:
Are you speaking up now? If you're not, well, you would have been one of those Germans who just went along because you just wanted to be left alone to live your life. Or whatever.

Yes, we are in that same state as pre-WWII Germany. The state where white supremacists are growing in number and strength and boldness, and the have a man in our highest office #fakepresident who is supporting them. If you are not speaking out against them and what is happening, you are quietly joining them on their side of the line.

And, yes, there is a line.There has always been a line, but Trump #fakepresident very clearly and explicitly drew it when he failed to condemn the terrorist attack in Charlottesville. He made it clear that he is standing with the Nazis, white supremacy, the Alt-Right. He made it clear enough that they knew it and rejoiced. When you have David Duke singing your praises and are not sickened by it, well, something is wrong. And if you can side with the guy that Duke is praising, well, something is wrong.

Because this is where we are:
If you are still in support of Trump #fakepresident, you are explicitly in support of the white supremacy agenda. You are in support of Nazis. There's no waffling around the edges of things any longer as you try to proclaim how you're not really racist and that you just support Trump's #fakepresident economic agenda. [And, by the way, Trump #fakepresident has no economic agenda other than to enrich himself while he's in office. If that's not abundantly clear to you at this point, your ability to support cognitive dissonance is amazing.] If you are still in support of Trump #fakepresident, you are one of the Germans who stood silently by while Hitler committed genocide.

But genocide? Really?
Ethnic cleansing is a goal of the white supremacist groups. What do you think that means?

At any rate, the line has been drawn. This is the time to disavow Trump #fakepresident and step across the line and stand with those who oppose Nazism. In all its forms. If you're still with Trump #fakepresident, your message is loud and clear: You're okay with Nazis and white supremacists running things, which, you know, makes you a Nazi and white supremacist.

Remember:
Today is a good day to punch a Nazi in the face.

I wish I could say I meant that figuratively.

The New Civil War (ongoing): Charlottesville

I know a lot of you out there think I'm going overboard with talking about a civil war, another civil war. Not just talking about it but writing about it as well (that story starts here: "Day One") but, while that story is fiction, the idea that there is a new civil war coming is not.

It's already here.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that in the future, historians are going to look back and say that the Second Civil War began in Charlottesville, VA. In many ways, it's the first confrontation, the first confrontation where the Nazis came in with intent to kill. And I don't just mean the terrorist incident with the car.

If you haven't watched this video, you need to.

Just to be clear, none of what I'm saying is because of that video. The video is just research that backs up what I was already saying.

Look, I am not advocating for a war. The thought of that scares the shit out of me, because there won't be any battle lines this time, not physical ones. There will be no armies that meet and clash in the way it happened in first civil war or in WWI or WWII. This will be a war fought in the streets of our cities all across America, often between regular people. It will be a war of terrorists attacks being performed by Nazis and those on the Alt-right. There will be no safe zones.

Can it be stopped?

I don't know.

The consensus, currently, among historians and military people who study this kind of thing (including civil wars currently being fought in other countries) say we're at about a 35% chance of a full civil war, but one of the leading minds on the subject (I forget his name and am not going to go back and look it up again now) puts us at a 65% chance of a full civil war.

One thing is clear, we can't stop it with Trump #fakepresident in office, and we probably can't stop it with anyone from the GOP in office. In fact, as I'm writing this, Bannon has just  been given the boot by Trump and Breitbart is going to war with the #fakepresident over it. I don't even know if that's figurative or not.

What I know is this:
Right-wing nutjobs have been arming themselves for decades. A huge number of the Nazis at the "rally" in Charlottesville were armed to the teeth. That guy in the Vice video was pulling out weapons as if he were Gimli in Jackson's rendition of LotR. They are prepared for violence and they want violence.

The Nazi faction in America is still growing, still getting stronger, and they want an ethnic cleansing. They want an America for white people. At some point, unless they are put down first, there's going to be a concerted effort on their part to attack minority groups with the goal of killing them.

The Left needs to be prepared and, right now, I don't think that we are. We somehow think this is all going to blow over or that real violence, really real violence, isn't going to happen, not here, not in America. Well, it's already started and it's just going to get worse. I mean, hell, various white supremacist groups are going on and on about how glad they are that they made the first kill and how she deserved it. And she was white! Wait till they start on the people they really want to go after.

If you're going to go to a protest, you need to take precautions. Minimally, I think that involves buying some Kevlar or some kind of body armor and probably wearing a helmet. Yes, I'm being serious. The white supremacists are armed and armored! You need to protect yourselves.

The time for trying to be in the middle is over. This is not going to pass without people taking a stand against it. It's time for those of us who believe in justice and liberty for all people to stand up for it. It's time for those of us who believe in what the nation was founded on to stand up and fight for it.

Most of all, it's time to deliver a message to the GOP that they need to get off of the fence. It's time for them to quit using their mealy mouths to condemn Trump #fakepresident while doing nothing about it and trying to work with him to further their own hate agendas. Either stand with Trump #fakepresident or stand against him. And, if they're going to stand with him, they need the message that they will go down with him.

What I know is this:
If you want to stop this war before it really gets going, it requires strong action now. Strong action NOW. Not more talk. Action. For some of you, that action is talk; it's speaking up. Now. It's time for the first civil war to end, for racial injustice to end, for white supremacy to end.

Loving (a movie review post)

There are times when a completely appropriate title shouldn't be used, usually because it's misleading. Basically, a title should tell you something about the story being presented and, though Loving is appropriate to the story, the word itself is so generic that it tells you nothing about what the story is about. However, that's the worst thing I can say about the movie, which is a pretty minor thing, all things considered.

So what, then, is the film about?
It's about the supreme court case which struck down anti-miscegenation laws in the United States. Except it's not really about the court case, as would be the tendency for films like this. What you would expect is a courtroom drama focusing on the lawyers and the case itself, a movie making the lawyers the heroes. This movie, though, deals with the people: Richard and Mildred Loving. See the reason for the name?

I think, often, we forget about the people. This event in history was about people, brave people, not a court case. A white man who loved a black woman and wanted to marry her. Did marry her. Bought a piece of land on which to build her a house. A piece of land that, at least during the time frame of the movie (which covers many years), remained fallow... because they were arrested for being married then forced to move out of Virginia for refusing to get divorced. It was that or go to jail.

Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton are both great in their roles. Richard, being a white man, is released from jail not too long after being arrested, but they wouldn't release Mildred without holding her for a weekend, first, and they wouldn't allow Richard to bail her out at all. Nor allow him to see her after she is released, not unless they wanted to go back to jail. The distress of Richard during this portion of the movie is palpable on Edgerton. He has no recourse. No money. No education. But he is being denied his wife.

Ruth Negga brings a quiet strength to the movie. She doesn't know what to do anymore than Richard, but, once the bridge has been crossed to take their case to court, Mildred is the one who stands steadfast in seeing it through. Negga brings that determination to the role.

It would be nice to think that the kinds of things, the kinds of racism, in this movie are things of the past, but I think it's clear from what has happened in the politics in the United States over the past year that this kind of racism is alive and well and that there are people who would, once again, persecute a quiet, loving couple like this for nothing more than wanting to be together. In that respect, this movie is very timely and highly recommended. It reminds us that this fight, this fight for racial equality, isn't over.

[And this will serve as my political post for the day, because, even without being so, it is a very political movie.]

Abandoned Places: Vulture Bunker

Travelling back to the Bay of Puck in Poland (remember the torpedo testing base?), we find another World War II era military installation. The Bay of Puck is formed by the Hel peninsula, a sand bar with delusions of grandeur. It actually plays host to several towns and is a popular tourist destination despite the fact that there are times that the peninsula becomes an island, unattached to the rest of Poland. However, it was of strategic importance during World War II, so the Nazis fortified the sucker with the Vulture bunker. Or series of bunkers. Basically, as soon as Germany took Poland, they fortified Hel with these bunkers -- the walls very from four to ten feet thick -- and construction on them was finished in 1939. The bunkers never saw combat.

After World War II, the Polish military put the bunkers to some use, but, at this point, they've mostly been empty and unused for decades.

Photos by Tomasz Jakubowski and used under the linked license.

Your bonus photos today are various abandoned houses in Virginia:

The "Dump House":

The "House of Five Black Doors":

And a church house (okay, a church, so a House of God):

Abandoned Places: Loudoun Castle Theme Park

Once billed as "Scotland's Best Family Theme Park," Loudoun Theme Park has been silent for nearly half a decade, many of its attractions sold or removed. The theme park was built behind Loudoun Castle, the interior of which was destroyed by fire in 1941. The chair-o-plane ride, The Plough,

was one of the largest in the world. In 2007, one of the ride operators of The Rat, a roller coaster, went onto the tracks to give the cars a boost. When it started going, rather than let go, he held onto the rear car all the way up to the top of the hill where he finally let go, plunging 80 feet to his death. The park itself became a casualty of the economy in 2010.

All images used Creative Commons License Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 2.0 Generic. All images by Charles Graham [Clyde_REV / Flickr].

As an added bonus, here are some pictures of another jail: Lorton Reformatory.
Located in Lorton, VA, the prison was built due to an investigation into the horrible conditions of prisons in Washington D.C. It closed in 2001 and is now part of the D.C. Workhouse and Reformatory Historic District. [All photos used by permission from Opacity.