In 1933, the Nazi Party took power in January. In two months 50,000 opposition leaders were arrested and the first concentration camp, Dachau, built. By July, all political parties other than the Nazi party were dismantled and outlawed.
Yes, once he was named Chancellor, AND the Reichstag Fire, AND the Enabling Act that followed, the rest was history. All because the German Conservatives were afraid of the Communists.
If you're interested in what happened in the six months before January, you might want to check out "Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power" by Timothy Ryback. I'm reading it now and it's a page turner. If yuou prefer video, that's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-9JOyxO5xU.
To help Kamala win, we need to encourage millions of moderate and undecided people to register and vote Blue. Some voters in battleground states have had their registrations illegally cancelled– extremists are submitting fake death certificates! So even voters who have registered/voted in the past now need to check their status.
Registration deadlines vary: in Georgia it’s Oct. 7, but check your state. I don’t text or phone bank because these days, so few people answer a phone number they don’t recognize – it’s a waste of time. So I’m sending postcards to voters in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and North Carolina. Postcards with the voterizer.org/ QR code lets people quickly learn if they’re (still) registered, they can easily register if needed, and request an absentee/mail-in ballot. Absentee voting is important because many people won’t feel safe going to vote in person, with the unrest we are bracing for.
Postcarding purists entirely hand-write each card for a personal touch. But how many cards can you send that way? If you order pre-printed cards you can add a sentence to personalize the card. You can download addresses by state - it comes in an Excel file, you can do a mail merge and print stick-on labels at home. Doing it this way enables me to mail hundreds of postcards!
If you buy cards that don’t have the printed voterizer QR code, you can print it yourself on a sticky label and affix it to the card. Or write this web address - “Can I vote?” https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote
You can buy pre-printed cards from either of the following:
Sandy, with all due respect, have you not followed the Twitter files? Both Biden and Trump pressured social media companies to censor. They used the FBI and DHS to sit with employees at Facebook and Twitter to make sure they were censoring speech (1,000s of regular Americans expressing their political opinions) they didn't like.
Hank, as I'm reading, I'm noting how the situation in Germany is different from the US today. The Weimar Constitution didn't have the checks and balances ours does, and it didn't have a 235-year history. The radical right press generally got a free pass. The 192Os were full of paramilitary violence, both left and right. And the primary precipitating event was the 1929 crash. That, plus the violence, pushed the voters to the Nazi Party.
Slovakia is also a central European country without a long tradition of constitutionalism.
I'm saying those situations are not completely parallel. Am I worried what happens if Trump wins? Yes. All bets are off in that case. If Harris wins - it'll only take about 1OK votes in PA - it's still gonna be a rocky road, but the Constitution will be preserved.
Just curious: Why do you think most Americans hear the threat?
I agree with you, but aren't you worried (at all) about Kamala Harris saying social media platforms need "monitoring and oversight?" She points out (with emphasis) that social media is speaking to millions of people - as if the number of people changes 1A. In other words, she seems more worried about public opinion (politics) than 1A. Does this concern you? https://www.tiktok.com/@grand_ole_evan/video/7410811338596961578
It doesn't concern me. She can't censor anything. She can't do anything by herself. Only Congress can. So far, the Senate Judiciary Committee has held hearings on the failure of CEOs of Discord, Meta, Snap, TikTok, and X to protect children online in January. And in April, Sen. Brian Schatz [D-HI] introduced S.4213 - Kids Off Social Media Act "to prohibit users who are under age 13 from accessing social media platforms, prohibit the use of personalized recommendation systems on individuals under age 17, and limit the use of social media in schools." This will eventually happen because parents are demanding it.
This is monitoring and oversight, for children. They haven't done anything on adults.
Mr Gillis, "social" (they're really antisocial) media do their own censoring. Twitter/W and facebook are notorious for blocking free speech.
"Social" media are also widely recognized as toxic. They lead to misery and suicides among some groups. They are dangerous. They are a public health problem, even though they are structured simply as people communicating.
In my opinion, they don't need "monitoring and oversight." They need to be illegal. Clearly, no one is assertive enough, or cares enough about the public, to enact that, so I, for one, would take monitoring and oversight. You sort of understand that. You know that there are limits on "free speech." A common limit is if someone speaks in ways that incite riots. Did you listen to the debate this week? Donnie claimed that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio. He merely said it. The moderator pointed out that this assertion had been checked and found not to be true. Donnie claimed he heard it on TV (Fox News? MSM? cartoons?) Do you know that Haitian immigrants in that area have been attacked because of what Donnie simply said, without foundation?
Fred: if you can't see the contradiction in the fact that you are using your free speech to voice an unpopular political opinion (outlaw social media) on a social media platform – there is nothing I can say to help you. Best of luck.
Jim, I wasn't looking for help. And thank you for the well-wishes.
I suppose you and I are probably talking about different things when we use the term "social media." I think everyone would classify facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram as "social media." Is a book, or a magazine, or a newspaper "social media?" Or does it depend on whether the general public can contribute? What if someone gives a speech to other people? Is that "social media?"
In any case, no, I don't see a contradiction. My experience of Substack posts (at least the ones I follow) is that they are erudite, well researched, and supported presentations, some of which include some component of opinion or leaning. My contribution is often enough my opinion, and certainly free speech.
But you're confusing political opinion with "social media." And you've taken the liberty to declare my opinion as unpopular. Unpopular with whom, apart, seemingly, with you?
There are lots of things that are outlawed, because they're dangerous. Do you think nothing should be outlawed, no matter if it's dangerous, or how dangerous it is? I'm a psychiatrist, and I will tell you that "social media" are dangerous. They cause misery and death (generally by suicide, and especially among young people). It's a topic of considerable concern in my field. It has never been clear to me what advantage they confer to anyone, except people who make money from them. And as I said, even "social media" don't object to censoring. They do it themselves. They just do it in an idiosyncratic and partisan way. They're not concerned with the public. So the public government should be.
So, since I don't consider Substack to be "social media" (and you're welcome to disagree with me), and in my experience and opinion, "social media" do harm, but not good, then yes, I think "social media" should be outlawed.
Alcohol abuse did a lot of harm. All access to alcohol was outlawed under the 18th Amendment. That didn't work out too well (see the documentary, "Prohibition [https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/]. Drinking continued and the law resulted in unintended consequences, including bribes corrupting law enforcement. Acess to it was thereafter controlled by the states' laws, including an age requirement and how long bars and liquor stores can remain open.
Better for social media to be regulated as tobacco and alcohol are than to outlaw it all together.
Agree Substack is not social media for at least two reasons: 1. Social media is free; the user's data and attention to ads is the product. Substack is not. 2. Substack is moderated based on the author's standards. If a subscriber violates those standards, their subscriptions are dropped. That doesn't happen on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest and most access to Twitter (X).
I would also propose that Substack is the highest quality of news and commentary, although I would not disagree it has a left slant. But since in my opinion, a left slant is correct, and since most Americans slant left, then Substack is as good as it gets.
Mr Raderstorf, you're right, but 1) you're missing something, and 2) you're "spitting into the wind."
Donnie complained of "cheating and skullduggery." Good. If he thought, or even if he just told himself, there was cheating and skullduggery in 2020, he should have complained. So he took the matter to court, over 60 times, looking for a conclusion that he and the public had been robbed, and he lost EVERY case. A number of the judges who ruled against him were judges he himself had nominated, and who had been confirmed by a Rep Senate. (I would suggest that as a recommended talking point.)
But 1) he's still going on about this nonsense, and 2) he has an amazing amount (more than zero) of support. If you told all of his supporters what you advise your readers here to tell people, you wouldn't dissuade them. Many of them would agree with you, and say that's just what they want. And that's where I think you're missing something, and spitting into the wind. The public are not as worried that Donnie is hoodwinking them as they are appreciative of having someone they think is a tough, focused, and unrelenting authority figure and even protector. That's Donnie's shtick. That's your Orban reference. That's Hank Siegelson's Hitler/Nazi reference. Way too many people are weak followers, and they want someone they can tell themselves is a strong leader. It's just human nature.
If we keep in mind Hank Siegelson's Nazi reference, maybe another effective talking point becomes Niemoller's famous poem about how you don't complain when you don't feel vulnerable to mistreatment, but by the time you yourself are mistreated, it's too late to complain, because no one is left to protect you. But the problem is that Donnie has been very effective at convincing his followers that he's protecting THEM from something (most commonly immigrants), and no one is being forceful about combatting that trope. In the recent debate, even Harris (and very many other Dems) express agreement that we need a border we can control, and Harris even made the horrifying mistake of reassuring that she and Biden still consider the Israelis victims who are entitled to defend themselves. The Israelis have annihilated tens or hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent Palestinians (including very young children and babies), and aid workers, and journalists, and now American citizens, and she claims this problem started on 10/7/23, and Biden still won't cut them off. Donnie sways way too much of the general public, and he even sways people who oppose him. It's insidious and powerful. Explaining that is not a bullet point, and that's part of the problem.
You and I and everyone else get e-solicitations all day, every day, looking for campaign money. The come-on is very commonly that whoever has more money is winning. What's unsaid is that the underlying theory, which I do not consider wrong, is that the public/voters are so stupid and lazy that they will respond more to lots of exposure to a candidate than they will to a believable argument. Remember Donnie's response to the question about Haitians eating people's pets in Ohio. The moderator said he had called Springfield's manager, and there was no evidence, or even complaint, of such a thing. Donnie responded he'd heard it said on TV. TV? Is he talking about Fox News, MSM, cartoons? But that was his idea of a good enough explanation. And the polls, for whatever they're worth, are still showing him and Harris about tied.
I'm sorry to say it, but if you start in with your four suggested talking points, way too many people are going to shut the door in your face. They "can't," as Jack Nicholson's character said in "A Few Good Men," "handle the truth," and way too many of them don't have the patience and intellectual capacity, not to mention emotional independence, to try, or even to listen.
In 1933, the Nazi Party took power in January. In two months 50,000 opposition leaders were arrested and the first concentration camp, Dachau, built. By July, all political parties other than the Nazi party were dismantled and outlawed.
Change can happen quickly.
Yes, once he was named Chancellor, AND the Reichstag Fire, AND the Enabling Act that followed, the rest was history. All because the German Conservatives were afraid of the Communists.
If you're interested in what happened in the six months before January, you might want to check out "Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power" by Timothy Ryback. I'm reading it now and it's a page turner. If yuou prefer video, that's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-9JOyxO5xU.
I think most Americans hear the threat but are not aware how quickly things can change. See Slovakia. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/12/world/europe/slovakia-robert-fico.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb&ngrp=mnp&pvid=6CF9C708-F122-4402-8996-3791D8A3095A
To help Kamala win, we need to encourage millions of moderate and undecided people to register and vote Blue. Some voters in battleground states have had their registrations illegally cancelled– extremists are submitting fake death certificates! So even voters who have registered/voted in the past now need to check their status.
Registration deadlines vary: in Georgia it’s Oct. 7, but check your state. I don’t text or phone bank because these days, so few people answer a phone number they don’t recognize – it’s a waste of time. So I’m sending postcards to voters in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and North Carolina. Postcards with the voterizer.org/ QR code lets people quickly learn if they’re (still) registered, they can easily register if needed, and request an absentee/mail-in ballot. Absentee voting is important because many people won’t feel safe going to vote in person, with the unrest we are bracing for.
Postcarding purists entirely hand-write each card for a personal touch. But how many cards can you send that way? If you order pre-printed cards you can add a sentence to personalize the card. You can download addresses by state - it comes in an Excel file, you can do a mail merge and print stick-on labels at home. Doing it this way enables me to mail hundreds of postcards!
If you buy cards that don’t have the printed voterizer QR code, you can print it yourself on a sticky label and affix it to the card. Or write this web address - “Can I vote?” https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote
You can buy pre-printed cards from either of the following:
https://shop.bluewavepostcards.org/pages/write-postcards
https://fieldteam6.myshopify.com/collections/post-cards/products/north-carolina-pre-printed-100-packs
WHO WILL JOIN ME IN GETTING PEOPLE IN BATTLEGROUND STATES TO REGISTER AND VOTE BLUE?
Sandy, with all due respect, have you not followed the Twitter files? Both Biden and Trump pressured social media companies to censor. They used the FBI and DHS to sit with employees at Facebook and Twitter to make sure they were censoring speech (1,000s of regular Americans expressing their political opinions) they didn't like.
https://youtu.be/FNj_asppG98?si=El0iKzeWKPuYl_iD
Hank, as I'm reading, I'm noting how the situation in Germany is different from the US today. The Weimar Constitution didn't have the checks and balances ours does, and it didn't have a 235-year history. The radical right press generally got a free pass. The 192Os were full of paramilitary violence, both left and right. And the primary precipitating event was the 1929 crash. That, plus the violence, pushed the voters to the Nazi Party.
Slovakia is also a central European country without a long tradition of constitutionalism.
I'm saying those situations are not completely parallel. Am I worried what happens if Trump wins? Yes. All bets are off in that case. If Harris wins - it'll only take about 1OK votes in PA - it's still gonna be a rocky road, but the Constitution will be preserved.
Just curious: Why do you think most Americans hear the threat?
I agree with you, but aren't you worried (at all) about Kamala Harris saying social media platforms need "monitoring and oversight?" She points out (with emphasis) that social media is speaking to millions of people - as if the number of people changes 1A. In other words, she seems more worried about public opinion (politics) than 1A. Does this concern you? https://www.tiktok.com/@grand_ole_evan/video/7410811338596961578
It doesn't concern me. She can't censor anything. She can't do anything by herself. Only Congress can. So far, the Senate Judiciary Committee has held hearings on the failure of CEOs of Discord, Meta, Snap, TikTok, and X to protect children online in January. And in April, Sen. Brian Schatz [D-HI] introduced S.4213 - Kids Off Social Media Act "to prohibit users who are under age 13 from accessing social media platforms, prohibit the use of personalized recommendation systems on individuals under age 17, and limit the use of social media in schools." This will eventually happen because parents are demanding it.
This is monitoring and oversight, for children. They haven't done anything on adults.
Mr Gillis, "social" (they're really antisocial) media do their own censoring. Twitter/W and facebook are notorious for blocking free speech.
"Social" media are also widely recognized as toxic. They lead to misery and suicides among some groups. They are dangerous. They are a public health problem, even though they are structured simply as people communicating.
In my opinion, they don't need "monitoring and oversight." They need to be illegal. Clearly, no one is assertive enough, or cares enough about the public, to enact that, so I, for one, would take monitoring and oversight. You sort of understand that. You know that there are limits on "free speech." A common limit is if someone speaks in ways that incite riots. Did you listen to the debate this week? Donnie claimed that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio. He merely said it. The moderator pointed out that this assertion had been checked and found not to be true. Donnie claimed he heard it on TV (Fox News? MSM? cartoons?) Do you know that Haitian immigrants in that area have been attacked because of what Donnie simply said, without foundation?
Agree social media is a public health problem, but making them illegal? No.
Fred: if you can't see the contradiction in the fact that you are using your free speech to voice an unpopular political opinion (outlaw social media) on a social media platform – there is nothing I can say to help you. Best of luck.
Jim, I wasn't looking for help. And thank you for the well-wishes.
I suppose you and I are probably talking about different things when we use the term "social media." I think everyone would classify facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram as "social media." Is a book, or a magazine, or a newspaper "social media?" Or does it depend on whether the general public can contribute? What if someone gives a speech to other people? Is that "social media?"
In any case, no, I don't see a contradiction. My experience of Substack posts (at least the ones I follow) is that they are erudite, well researched, and supported presentations, some of which include some component of opinion or leaning. My contribution is often enough my opinion, and certainly free speech.
But you're confusing political opinion with "social media." And you've taken the liberty to declare my opinion as unpopular. Unpopular with whom, apart, seemingly, with you?
There are lots of things that are outlawed, because they're dangerous. Do you think nothing should be outlawed, no matter if it's dangerous, or how dangerous it is? I'm a psychiatrist, and I will tell you that "social media" are dangerous. They cause misery and death (generally by suicide, and especially among young people). It's a topic of considerable concern in my field. It has never been clear to me what advantage they confer to anyone, except people who make money from them. And as I said, even "social media" don't object to censoring. They do it themselves. They just do it in an idiosyncratic and partisan way. They're not concerned with the public. So the public government should be.
So, since I don't consider Substack to be "social media" (and you're welcome to disagree with me), and in my experience and opinion, "social media" do harm, but not good, then yes, I think "social media" should be outlawed.
Alcohol abuse did a lot of harm. All access to alcohol was outlawed under the 18th Amendment. That didn't work out too well (see the documentary, "Prohibition [https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/]. Drinking continued and the law resulted in unintended consequences, including bribes corrupting law enforcement. Acess to it was thereafter controlled by the states' laws, including an age requirement and how long bars and liquor stores can remain open.
Better for social media to be regulated as tobacco and alcohol are than to outlaw it all together.
Agree Substack is not social media for at least two reasons: 1. Social media is free; the user's data and attention to ads is the product. Substack is not. 2. Substack is moderated based on the author's standards. If a subscriber violates those standards, their subscriptions are dropped. That doesn't happen on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest and most access to Twitter (X).
I would also propose that Substack is the highest quality of news and commentary, although I would not disagree it has a left slant. But since in my opinion, a left slant is correct, and since most Americans slant left, then Substack is as good as it gets.
"most Americans slant left"? I don't think so. If they did, the race wouldn't be this close. What are you basing that on?
Every publication has a bias.
Mr Raderstorf, you're right, but 1) you're missing something, and 2) you're "spitting into the wind."
Donnie complained of "cheating and skullduggery." Good. If he thought, or even if he just told himself, there was cheating and skullduggery in 2020, he should have complained. So he took the matter to court, over 60 times, looking for a conclusion that he and the public had been robbed, and he lost EVERY case. A number of the judges who ruled against him were judges he himself had nominated, and who had been confirmed by a Rep Senate. (I would suggest that as a recommended talking point.)
But 1) he's still going on about this nonsense, and 2) he has an amazing amount (more than zero) of support. If you told all of his supporters what you advise your readers here to tell people, you wouldn't dissuade them. Many of them would agree with you, and say that's just what they want. And that's where I think you're missing something, and spitting into the wind. The public are not as worried that Donnie is hoodwinking them as they are appreciative of having someone they think is a tough, focused, and unrelenting authority figure and even protector. That's Donnie's shtick. That's your Orban reference. That's Hank Siegelson's Hitler/Nazi reference. Way too many people are weak followers, and they want someone they can tell themselves is a strong leader. It's just human nature.
If we keep in mind Hank Siegelson's Nazi reference, maybe another effective talking point becomes Niemoller's famous poem about how you don't complain when you don't feel vulnerable to mistreatment, but by the time you yourself are mistreated, it's too late to complain, because no one is left to protect you. But the problem is that Donnie has been very effective at convincing his followers that he's protecting THEM from something (most commonly immigrants), and no one is being forceful about combatting that trope. In the recent debate, even Harris (and very many other Dems) express agreement that we need a border we can control, and Harris even made the horrifying mistake of reassuring that she and Biden still consider the Israelis victims who are entitled to defend themselves. The Israelis have annihilated tens or hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent Palestinians (including very young children and babies), and aid workers, and journalists, and now American citizens, and she claims this problem started on 10/7/23, and Biden still won't cut them off. Donnie sways way too much of the general public, and he even sways people who oppose him. It's insidious and powerful. Explaining that is not a bullet point, and that's part of the problem.
You and I and everyone else get e-solicitations all day, every day, looking for campaign money. The come-on is very commonly that whoever has more money is winning. What's unsaid is that the underlying theory, which I do not consider wrong, is that the public/voters are so stupid and lazy that they will respond more to lots of exposure to a candidate than they will to a believable argument. Remember Donnie's response to the question about Haitians eating people's pets in Ohio. The moderator said he had called Springfield's manager, and there was no evidence, or even complaint, of such a thing. Donnie responded he'd heard it said on TV. TV? Is he talking about Fox News, MSM, cartoons? But that was his idea of a good enough explanation. And the polls, for whatever they're worth, are still showing him and Harris about tied.
I'm sorry to say it, but if you start in with your four suggested talking points, way too many people are going to shut the door in your face. They "can't," as Jack Nicholson's character said in "A Few Good Men," "handle the truth," and way too many of them don't have the patience and intellectual capacity, not to mention emotional independence, to try, or even to listen.