If you have the opportunity, get yourself a physical copy (local public library?) and listen to the DVD commentary. Guillermo del Toro’s discussion of fascism as it relates to the film is fascinating, especially in this day and age.
Hey so remember Anne Frank? The Jewish young girl who hid in an attic and was killed by the Nazis? The emblematic person we think of when we think of victims of the Holocaust?
She did not die in a gas chamber or in a death camp. She died in a ‘temporary’ detention center for the mass deportations which preceded the death camps. She was in that camp because a patriotic neighbor ratted her out to the German deportation force. She died, not of a bullet to the back of the head or choking on gas, but of typhus. She contracted typhus because the Nazis couldn’t realistically deport people at the rate they wanted to, because before the death camps their infrastructure couldn’t handle the sudden influx of ethnic minorities they had decided to imprison, and because they didn’t care about the consequences of that so their deportation detention centers were unhygienic and prisoners were underfed and overcrowded.
And she was picked up by the deportation force not because she was an illegal citizen but because, just like the US is doing with asylum seekers, she was part of a formerly recognized class of citizens who were legally redefined to lack citizenship by a new administration.
Anne Frank is exactly like the children who have already died in the United State’s detention camps. Exactly. Down to the very last detail. There. Is. Not. A. Single. Difference.
So unless you want to fucking tell me that Anne goddamn Frank was not a victim of the Holocaust, y’all can shut the fuck up with that “stop making concentration camp comparisons, you’re diminishing the suffering of the Holocaust” bullshit.
Its also worth noting that her family TRIED to flee to the US and was denied. She was in that camp partly because the US refused to let her refugee family immigrate.
“Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”
—Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951. She was a historian and philosopher who studied Nazism and Stalinism. She was also, very crucially, a German Jew who escaped the Holocaust.
DeSantis is all about malicious posturing. The fascism pushed on young people of Forida, that they must submit to, is the definition of indoctrination.
Kinda weird how you say you’re against fascism yet you shut down anyone just because they share a different opinion than you. You guys are exactly what you say you hate... FASCIST! How come I have never seen any member of antifa actually sit down with someone and have a civil debate? I’ve only ever seen them yell and throw tantrums. Doesn’t look good for you guys, yikes.
Something I heard recently: if you insist on sheltering both lambs and wolves, you will get in the end only wolves. If you insist your safe space is safe for bigots as well as minorities you will have a space full of bigots- minorities will be driven out.
How is it that article from a while back phrased it: “Tolerance is not a moral precept it’s a peace treaty”
It’s not a paradox. Tolerance is an agreement and an exchange and if you break it you don’t get to be protected by it and you will suffer the consequences of breaking it. Period.
Tolerance cannot extend to intolerance and bigotry because they are antithetical to the entire framework of the exchange and exist to destroy the people and things that tolerance/acceptance is meant to build and protect.
So no. It is not hypocritical to be intolerant of your bigotry. I am simply enforcing the boundaries and consequences of breaking the social contract of treating people with compassion and humanity, if you broke the treaty, you don’t get to be protected by it, and enforcing consequences for breaking it is the only way to ensure that it continues to protect those it’s meant to and who contribute to it in good faith.
Fuck fascism. Fuck Fascists.
My (similar) take on it is that my goal is not to practice tolerance. My goal is to help foster a tolerant society. Now many times, most times, the best way to help foster a tolerant society is to practice tolerance. But not all the time. When it comes to bigotry, misogyny, racism, homophobia, fascism, etc., tolerance can go right out the window, because those are all antithetical to a tolerant society.
