Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

“woke” is the new caravan.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / A Day Late, But Not Forgotten

A Day Late, But Not Forgotten

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Two important anniversaries happened yesterday that we should still remark on, even a day late, amid all the hubub. The actual events happened 51 years apart, but both took place, or at least started, in Germany. On November 9th 1938 the series of attacks and pogroms known as Kristallnacht occurred in Germany and German annexed Austria and the Sudetenland part of what was then Czechoslovakia.

The other was the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

These two events – one of humanity lost and at its most depraved and the other of humanity’s desire for freedom and liberty – are important reminders in uncertain times.

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  1. 1.

    Lyrebird

    Thank you for the added perspective.

    I’m likely to comment less than usual for a while… Dunno how Mighty Trowel kept up with work during this week, but I haven’t.

    But perspective is good, and THANKS to JG Cole and Adam S and all o’ y’all, and yes Ruckus if you read this thread, know there are some non-sectarian get-well wishes still coming your way.

  2. 2.

    Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)

    I know the Germans are looking at us right now like, “What the entirety of fucks were you thinking, imbeciles!”

    I don’t blame them.

  3. 3.

    Eric NNY

    So strange the congruence of events by separate motivations, with opposite results, on the same date by the same people.

  4. 4.

    Major Major Major Major

    Huh, I never noticed those were the same date. Weird. Shame we’re closer to the older one right now.

    This seems appropriate:
    “First We Take Manhattan”
    Leonard Cohen

    They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
    For trying to change the system from within
    I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
    First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
    I’m guided by a signal in the heavens
    I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin
    I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons
    First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

  5. 5.

    Brachiator

    We commemorate the fall of a wall, while the damned fool just elected president plots to build one up high.

  6. 6.

    Gin & Tonic

    51 years is a hell of a long time on human timescales. Not coincidentally, in addition to Adam’s example, it is also the length of time between when my grandfather vanished into the gulag and when he was “rehabilitated.” Sucks for him that rehabilitation was a good 46-47 years after he (presumably) died. So while the arc of the moral universe may, in fact, bend toward justice, it is, as MLK said, long. I can certainly hope that 51 years from now things will be better, but I can certainly guarantee that I will not be here to see that. Perhaps my grand-daughter will.

  7. 7.

    Dadadadadadada

    Yeah, that’s what we have to look forward to: a devastating war that leaves us prostrated before 40+ years of foreign domination. We’d have it coming, of course. And only THEN would the pro-Trump pigfuckers (the few of them that are still alive, anyway) pull their heads out of their asses.

  8. 8.

    Dadadadadadada

    Also, I’m heading to a rally in NYC tomorrow. I’ve compiled a list of 2018 Senate races and the likely most competitive House races, which I hope to hand out copies of. If my immigrant wife comes along, we can make it a family thing.

    Also, I know that rallies like that one happen fairly often, but I’m very out of the loop. Are there any NYC Juicers that are more plugged in to the protest scene? I need some guidance.

  13. 13.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    Just reposting since this isn’t getting covered but Megyn Kelly is insinuating someone poisoned her coffee before the debate.

  14. 14.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    Another re-post of sorts.

    The Russian trolling operation is extensive. It is quite possible liberal activism has been infected with saboteurs purposefully turning us against one another.

  15. 15.

    Steve in the ATL

    I’m not a fan of Pink Floyd, but I went to their concert at the Berlin Wall in 1990 (I think) and that was pretty freaking cool.

    Not as cool as seeing Run-DMC (with opening act the Beastie Boys) in Paris on 1987 but still pretty cool.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire): They’re not out of the woods either. They and the French are up next in the Russian funded neo-nationalist/neo-fascist takeover attempt. The French have elections sometime in the first quarter of the New Year and the Germans, I think, just before that. Imagine Le Pen running France, and the ultra-nationalist party leader as chancellor of Germany. I think the former more likely than the latter. And that would be bad enough. Three of the five permanent members of the UN security council either compromised (Trump and May – the latter via Putin’s covert funding and support for Brexit), directly or overtly funded (Le Pen) by Putin and a fourth being Putin’s Russia. That means the fate of the post WW II global order and the free world is in the hands of the People’s Republic of China! Who, I’m sure, are very, very unhappy. They do not like chaos at all.

  18. 18.

    Imonlylurking

    After 2008 when jobs were scarce, my roommate was one of the people with the multiple unemployment extensions. She started doing genealogy research on all of her friends. And that’s when I discovered that my maternal grandfather, a man I vaguely remember as someone who mostly sat quietly and drank himself to death, belonged to a society of Auschwitz survivors.

  19. 19.

    geg6

    @Dadadadadadada:

    Nope. They’ll be like those Japanese soldiers still holding out on little postage stamp islands in the Pacific. Starved and crazed, with a dirty red trucker hat and an AR-15 with no ammo that he hugs and calls “Precious.”

  21. 21.

    Major Major Major Major

    Related:
    Autocracy: Rules for Survival
    The New York Review of Books
    Masha Gessen

    Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization. This will happen often: humans seem to have evolved to practice denial when confronted publicly with the unacceptable. Back in the 1930s, The New York Times assured its readers that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was all posture. More recently, the same newspaper made a telling choice between two statements made by Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov following a police crackdown on protesters in Moscow: “The police acted mildly—I would have liked them to act more harshly” rather than those protesters’ “liver should have been spread all over the pavement.” Perhaps the journalists could not believe their ears. But they should—both in the Russian case, and in the American one.

    Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality. Consider the financial markets this week, which, having tanked overnight, rebounded following the Clinton and Obama speeches. Confronted with political volatility, the markets become suckers for calming rhetoric from authority figures. So do people. Panic can be neutralized by falsely reassuring words about how the world as we know it has not ended. It is a fact that the world did not end on November 8 nor at any previous time in history. Yet history has seen many catastrophes, and most of them unfolded over time.

  23. 23.

    RaflW

    It’s been a heck of a fall for me. First, I watched the documentary on PBS about Waitstill Sharp and his wife Martha. They managed to help many escape in 1939 from anexed part of Czechoslovakia. He was a UU minister, and I’d known some about him but the Ken Burns treatment made it more plainly heroic and crazy (and tragic, of course).

    Then in Oct I visited both a German concentration camp and Berlin Wall sites. The former was horrifying, and the latter vey stark. I took a picture of the man memorialized as the last one killed trying to cross the Wall, just a few months before it was torn down. Imagine being the last one to die, so soon before others could simply walk freely again.

    Now, here we are. It’s deeply, deeply upsetting.

  24. 24.

    GregB

    Things continue heading in an authoritarian direction. Corporate authoritarian Peter Thiel on transition team. Plus the liklihood of a Giuliani Time Justice Department.

    One Party unfettered rule in the US by wide margins and not with decent men like Obama or Roosevelt at the helm.

    Then a Supreme Court with a likely rubber stamp on executive power.

    I am afraid the foundations of this once might nation are sinking.

    Government has been so demonized that people will cheer out loud for mass firings and show trials.

  26. 26.

    SRW1

    @Eric NNY:

    Nov 9 is a pretty heavy day in German history, it is also the day WW I ended and the country became a republic and it is the anniversary of Hitler’s attempted putsch in 1923.

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SRW1: Thanks, I couldn’t remember when they were. As I wrote, I don’t expect Merkel to loose, but as we’ve just seen…

  30. 30.

    Major Major Major Major

    People on Facebook are sharing documents for what to do in preparation for January that are being compiled by lawyers and activists and stuff. A lot of it is good advice but Jesus, it reads like prepping for the fucking apocalypse in toto. Like, alright, hoarding prescription medicine you need is I guess a good idea in general, but Jesus. Maybe we really are preparing for the apocalypse.

    It feels a little like we’re overreacting, like in the way the right wingers hoard guns.

  31. 31.

    Millard Filmore

    Hi Adam, I sent you a message by the drop down menu, unrelated to this thread. Please have mercy on me and take a peek.

    Thanks.

  33. 33.

    mike in dc

    @Major Major Major Major:
    It would be pretty funny to see the reaction at the gun shop when a bunch of people wearing “I’m With Her” t-shirts come in and say “Hi, we need to buy a lot of guns and ammunition.”

  34. 34.

    cmorenc

    @GregB:

    Things continue heading in an authoritarian direction. Corporate authoritarian Peter Thiel on transition team. Plus the liklihood of a Giuliani Time Justice Department.

    Here’s an even more terrifying thought – Supreme Court Justice Rudy Giuliani. Unfortunately, there’s a realistic possibility the notion to nominate Giuliani to SCOTUS might just occur to Trump.

  36. 36.

    mai naem mobile

    My college student nephew thinks I am overreacting. He thinks the filibuser is going to save us from the worst excesses of President Camacho. Oh, to be young,dumb and naive. I would like some of that right about now.

  37. 37.

    mike in dc

    @cmorenc:
    They still have to hold hearings before voting to confirm. The Democrats would humiliate him with every awful thing he’s ever said or done.

  39. 39.

    Peale

    @cmorenc: well I don’t know how I’d take that. On the one hand…fuck that. On the other, he’s 72. At least that breaks the trend of republicans nominating young skippers. On the other hand, Christ, if they’re nominating an old judge it’s only because they plan t be in power a long time.

  42. 42.

    BlueDWarrior

    As much as I hate “heighten the contradictions” rhetoric, at some point we run out of points to be able to fully block Republicans on. If anything, we need to be judicious about where we pick our hills to die (Medicare privatization would be a good place to start, if you can get the start date to be delayed to people at age 45 or 50 it gives you running room to undo it legislatively in 2020 or whereabout).

    If anything, we need to take advantage of the fact that it takes a long time to spin up or wind down bureaucratic systems, and some of their impulse to kick the can down the road can give us minor reprive when it comes time to unwind their legislation.

    We have been wounded, but we aren’t dead, and so long as that’s true we will have a chance to regenerate and reestablish ourselves.

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Steve in the ATL: I think any Senate resistance to Trump comes from a small group: Sasse, Flake and Graham, maybe McCain or Murkowski, a little less maybe Collins.

    I don’t see any of them blocking Giuliani, or any other Scotus nominee.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    @cmorenc: Would never make it through the Senate. He’s too old. They’ll want someone in their early 50s at the oldest so they’ll sit on the court for 20 to 30 years.

  46. 46.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    Just interjected myself in a coffee shop discussion re: Trump.

    Guy talking about how the filibuster, midterms, etc. will protect us. This what we are up against. Complacency and Denialism will be biggest enemies.

    This was coming from a 20 year old male. Wasn’t around for Bush. Doesn’t even know what is upon us, and he thinks he has the answers. We are true and truly fucked.

  48. 48.

    Lizzy L

    A few of my friends have talked about acquiring guns. (Other friends already have them.) My question to them is: who do you expect to be shooting? If you are expecting to have to defend yourself against professionals, forget it. If you are talking about protecting yourself or your home from vigilante groups or militias, you need to get some training, at least learn how to use your weapon safely and efficiently. You can’t just pick up a gun, point it, and say “Stop.” Are you ready to do that?

    Mostly, they are not.

  52. 52.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Major Major Major Major: I was in Portland last week. If I were there tonight, I would gladly have let protestors torch my rental car as an anti-Trump statement. I am assuming that National and its insurance carrier would be cool with that.

  54. 54.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lizzy L: Depends on the professionals. Most state and local law enforcement are not gun people. They do just enough to qualify every year. This partially explains why you often have several cops dump their entire magazines and hit just about everything but who or what they’re shooting at.

    The US military will not move on the citizenry. The senior leadership has been aculturated over the course of their careers to 1) Civilian control of the military and 2) that they serve the Constitution and through it the American people. Unless the Trump folks purge the vast, vast majority of everyone above the rank of major/lieutenant commander, any attempt to turn the military on the citizenry will not happen. And if they do conduct such a purge, I would expect those senior leaders to lead the resistance.

  57. 57.

    Lizzy L

    @Adam L Silverman: There’s always the National Guard. Remember Kent State?

    I am not worried about the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines. (Or the Coasties, for that matter.) I’ve got friends in the Marines: I know how they would react if they were told to turn their guns on their fellow citizens.

  58. 58.

    Suzanne

    Here next to my bed, I have a small piece of the Berlin Wall that my grandfather brought me in 1990, when I was ten. I love it. It has always filled me with hope. It’s weirdly presented in a plastic box with a little toy car, too. It’s a juxtaposition.

    I had a nice conversation with the new security guard in my office building on my way home today. He is black and Muslim, and came out of semi-retirement to work there. We talked about the election and how awful this will be, but it was great to find a like mind.

    Something crystallized for me today while I was talking to my mom. She has been so upset, literally crying, and she said that she is still so upset and freaked out. I told her to hang on to that. We cannot let this shit become normal. We should not just accept it as the way things are now. We can never normalize this cruelty and suffering. God, white people SUCK.

    I will go to UU church on Sunday, and give myself a few more days to be a smug, judgy bitch on Facebook, and then I will get back to channeling my efforts in some positive way.

  60. 60.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lizzy L: A very, very different National Guard to today’s. And the various state Adjutant Generals get the same education as their Active and Reserve component colleagues. And quite often the Guard leadership started in the Active and Reserve components.

  63. 63.

    mai naem mobile

    The only thing thing the Democrats can do is to obstruct everything and not so much succeed at the obstruction but to run out the clock. Basically what the GOP did in 09 with the ACA so that not much else could be done. Extend every hearing to its maximum. I also hope Obama leaves some legislative time bombs everywhere. I have absolutely no idea what these can be.

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steve in the ATL: I did so much TDY in the 14 months after I got back from Iraq going to meetings and conferences and organizational planning teams, etc that I accumulated a ton of rental car mileage points (and frequent flyer miles). I was in Newport News for meetings so often that 1) I was on a first name basis with the rental car staff at the airport and 2) they eventually just started giving me the fun upgrades despite having all the miles. Corvette? Check. Mustang? Check. Truck so large you need a tow barge to get it out of a parking space? Check.

  68. 68.

    Gex

    @Suzanne: I have weirdly found myself in a position of having to console straight white friends. It’s an amusing, but sad commentary, on how someone like me is less freaked out than those who are less at risk. I chalk it up to having to had to seriously consider what America really is all along for personal safety while others could be a little more blind to it.

  69. 69.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Adam L Silverman: just got home from Vegas. They gave me the hookers and blow package. Which was nice, because my company per diem is really chintzy.

    Las Vegas scares the shit out of me. I get sensory overload. Also, foot tattoos are the new tramp stamp.

  70. 70.

    Mnemosyne

    @Gex:

    IMO (as a straight white person), it’s that horrified realization that your friends and family really are just as racist as your non-white friends always said they were. It’s a tough thing to accept, but it has to be done.

    I am so, so lucky to live in Southern California and work in a liberal office, because we can vent to each other. I can’t even imagine how much it must suck to live in a red state and have to listen to all of the gloating all goddamned day.

  71. 71.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Gex: My straight white friends are definitely the ones freaking out the most. It’s nice and all, but still kind of funny. It’s kind of the same thing with my Indian-American friends and my Pakistani-American friends. The IA folks are super scared 1), for the PA folks, and 2), of being mistaken for being PA. The PA friends are having more of the sigh, roll their eyes, make sure their bug-out bag is still checked reaction.

    Obviously that’s me doing caricatures but you get the idea.

  72. 72.

    goblue72

    @Adam L Silverman: Only if they send a cleanup crew down to Oakland to deal with the similar Black Bloc types attempting to trash downtown for a second night in a row on the tail end of a Trump protest. Because you know, majority-minority city in a county that went 78% Clinton is totally responsible for this.

  73. 73.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    I must say I believe the protests are a tactical mistake. They never accomplish anything and give chance for anarchists to sabotage their peacefulness.

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lizzy L: After Tuesday, I’m loathe to say something is possible, because almost anything is possible, but its not probable. Or highly improbable. We are moving into uncharted territory and caution will be important, but I think it would take something more than Trump to subvert the senior leadership of the services regardless of component. And if Ghessen is correct and part of the plan is much more war quickly, they simply won’t have the bodies as they’ll be busy elsewhere.

    Like I said, we’re in uncharted territory. And like I wrote yesterday, now it is for us to become true conservatives. To hold the line and preserve as much as possible for as long as possible. It won’t be easy. It won’t be pleasant, especially in the amount of mental and emotional energy it will take. And there will be violence as we’re already seeing. But the alternative is to give up. I cannot speak for you or anyone else, but I’m not willing to give up.

  76. 76.

    Mnemosyne

    Okay, a little something to lighten the mood: this guy decided to troll people on Twitter by pretending to be a really gullible Trumpster, and … well, this is what he did.

    (Just to be clear: it’s not actually making light of Trump. More of a Stephen Colbert-esque impersonation of a Trumpster.)

  77. 77.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steve in the ATL: I’m not a big Vegas fan. Been to two professional meetings there – one criminology, one polisci. Was not impressed, but I don’t gamble, so.

    As for foot tattoos, I’ll update the files.

  83. 83.

    Major Major Major Major

    Ugh, now I’m remembering Mattachine and all the old secret gay organizing. That was in living memory. I actually knew Harry Hay’s partner. I’ll kick, bite, and then flee before it gets to that.

  86. 86.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    @Major Major Major Major: Was in San Francisco yesterday and reading the various placards around the Castro. The community that survived the AIDS holocaust will survive this. We are strong. But damn if we all won’t suffer.

  87. 87.

    Suzanne

    @Gex: I am freaking out, not for myself, but for my daughters and my biracial nieces and my Muslim friends and colleagues and my many, many Latinx loved ones. My mom is also getting up there, and I know she so badly wanted to see a woman president in her lifetime. That now appears unlikely.

  89. 89.

    Wallis Lane

    @Major Major Major Major: McCain will be 86 at the end of this new term, so this was probably his last election. Maybe with zero fucks to give, he’ll let his freak flag fly. We know he despises Il Douche, so this could get entertaining.

  90. 90.

    goblue72

    @Major Major Major Major: Won’t come to that. At least not in California. The one slim bright spot has been a pretty quick reaction by California political leadership to take an “oh HELL no” position on Trump, with the attitude of “if California needs to be the vanguard of the opposition, we will gladly embrace our duty to lead”.

    Joint statement of California Senate Pro-Tem Kevin De Leon and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon –

    Today, we woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land, because yesterday Americans expressed their views on a pluralistic and democratic society that are clearly inconsistent with the values of the people of California.

    We have never been more proud to be Californians.

    By a margin in the millions, Californians overwhelmingly rejected politics fueled by resentment, bigotry, and misogyny.

    The largest state of the union and the strongest driver of our nation’s economy has shown it has its surest conscience as well.

    California is – and must always be – a refuge of justice and opportunity for people of all walks, talks, ages and aspirations – regardless of how you look, where you live, what language you speak, or who you love.

    California has long set an example for other states to follow. And California will defend its people and our progress. We are not going to allow one election to reverse generations of progress at the height of our historic diversity, scientific advancement, economic output, and sense of global responsibility.

    We will be reaching out to federal, state and local officials to evaluate how a Trump Presidency will potentially impact federal funding of ongoing state programs, job-creating investments reliant on foreign trade, and federal enforcement of laws affecting the rights of people living in our state. We will maximize the time during the presidential transition to defend our accomplishments using every tool at our disposal.

    While Donald Trump may have won the presidency, he hasn’t changed our values. America is greater than any one man or party. We will not be dragged back into the past. We will lead the resistance to any effort that would shred our social fabric or our Constitution.

    California was not a part of this nation when its history began, but we are clearly now the keeper of its future.

  91. 91.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @Major Major Major Major: when I first read your comment I didn’t understand what PA(Pennsylvania) and IA(Iowa) had to do with South Asians.
    Anyhow,kind of OT – I am IA. My dad had a small big ticket retail business in the 80s and 90s. He had one racist competitor in particular who during the 80s would called him Iranian when they were competing on the same bid. In the 90s during the first Gulf War my dad suddenly became Iraqi.

  93. 93.

    Suzanne

    @Steve in the ATL: I am also a loudmouth, nasty woman. Like, I am opinionated and sarcastic and snarky and mean. So I am often pissing people off. That makes me a bit afraid for my safety in this gun-humping hellhole.

  94. 94.

    goblue72

    @Major Major Major Major: True enough. My wife and I will be limiting our travels outside the state for awhile, at least anywhere there isn’t solid Blue inside solid Blue places like Seattle or Portland or Boston. Already dreading our first “gook” comment by some Trumpian hee-haw.

    My periodic travels to DC for work are going to suck. Though I expect for everyone I know who lives and works in the District, its going to feel like Paris during the Occupation.

  95. 95.

    EBT

    @Major Major Major Major: For some of us it is. I have to leave the last person I have felt safe around long term because we can’t afford to be together and her parents don’t like anything queer. I had a home in California and I legitimately believe it will be taken away by shit lords who are angry they can’t leave me bleeding to death on a fence.

  97. 97.

    EBT

    @Lizzy L: If you don’t learn how to use and maintain a tool, and practice the skills required to use it effectively what is the point?

  101. 101.

    ruemara

    @Dog Dawg Damn: Hmm Jill Stein at an RT dinner with Putin; Hartmann & Democracy Now on RT; Katherine van de Huevel and the Nation with an almost incredible proRussia slant; the mystery of WikiLeaks’ funding; Snowden et al.

    Gosh, I have no idea where you’d get the idea that lefty sources are as compromised as right. It might be that blind faith leads you into dead ends.

  102. 102.

    Betty Cracker

    @ruemara: Yeah. I kinda hope we don’t lose sight of the rather alarming fact that Russia and the FBI had thumbs on the scale during the election in our rush to herd Donna Brazile and the Clintons onto an ice floe.

  103. 103.

    debbie

    @Suzanne:

    In real life, I’m meaner, nastier, and more of a loudmouth than you (likely because I’ve got a few years on you), but because I’ve got no kids, I’m not afraid. As the self-styled locker-room aficionados like to say, “Bring it on.”

    What shames me the most is how many Jews support Trump.

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