A few days before Thanksgiving, our daughter recommended that we watch a movie titled “Lee”, starring Kate Winslet.
Here is the trailer:
LEE |
Official Theatrical Trailer | In Theaters September 27 - YouTube
Kate Winslet should definitely be on the short lest of Best Actress nominees at the Academy Awards in February, since the movie (which we
watched lost night) was absolutely riveting.
The movie is based on the true story of Lee Miller, who
progressed from being a model to being one of the best photographers of WWII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_%282023_film%29
Lee is
a 2023 British biographical drama film directed by Ellen
Kuras in her feature directorial debut,
from a screenplay by Liz Hannah, John
Collee and Marion Hume, and story from Hume, Collee and Lem
Dobbs, adapted from the 1985 biography The
Lives of Lee Miller by Antony
Penrose.
(Antony Pemrose is Lee Miller’s son).
It stars Kate
Winslet as WWII journalist Lee
Miller. The cast includes Marion
Cotillard, Andrea
Riseborough, Andy Samberg, Noémie
Merlant, Josh O'Connor and Alexander Skarsgård in
supporting roles.
The movie took eight years to make and, at one point, due
to precarious funding, Kate Winslet (who also produced the movie) paid the
entire cast and crew's salaries for two weeks. The film made its world premiere
at the Toronto International Film
Festival on 9 September 2023. It was released theatrically in the
United Kingdom by Sky Cinema on 13 September 2024.
After watching the movie, Sharon and I felt that our current
society (thanks to the election of Donald Trump) is not that much different
from what Germany experienced in the 1930’s.
For starters, let’s review the definition of fascism
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/01/31/the-12-early-warning-signs-of-fascism/
- Powerful and continuing
nationalism
- Disdain for human rights
- Identification of enemies as a
unifying cause
- Rampant sexism
- Controlled mass media
- Obsession with national security
- Religion and government
intertwined
- Corporate power protected
- Labor power suppressed
- Disdain for intellectual and
the arts
- Obsession with crime and
punishment
- Rampant cronyism and
corruption
How do
these apply in the Trump era?
Powerful
nationalism – Trump’s rallying cry is Make America Great Again, and it is closely
aligned with the America First ideology championed by Charlie Kirk and others.
The movement was at its peak in 1939, when 100,000 people attended a rally at
Madison Square Garden.
Trump
did exactly the same thing on October 28 of this year:
In the
1930’s, Joseph Goebbels stressed the belief that Germany should be for Germans
ONLY. Last week, the Nazi in the White House (Stephen Miller) said that America
is for Americans, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the people in our
country are descended from immigrants.
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-nazi-in-white-houe.html
Disdain
for human rights – one of Trump’s campaign promises was to start the largest deportation
program in our nation’s history, and he has even talked of ending the protection
of birthright citizenship.
Identification
of enemies as a unifying cause. When he first announced his candidacy in 2015,
the enemy was Mexicans and other immigrants. After getting elected, the focus
shifted to Muslims, and at the 2017 rally in CHarottesville, marchers changed “Jews
will not replace us”. The latest target is Haitian immigrants in Ohio – a myth
proposed by J.D. Vance.
Rampant
sexism – You would think that the Access Hollywood tape in 2016 would have
killed his changes of getting elected – but it didn’t. Apart from the two cases
involved E. Jean Carrol, he also been relentless on his attacks on Stormy Daniels,
who was forced from her home by the threats that she faced. On top of that,
there are roughly two dozen women who have accused him of sexually impropriety.
Controlled
mass media – Trump was a frequent guess on the Fox network over the years.
During the same period, he also compulsively posted comments on Twitter, and
now uses a program he set up called Truth Social. He also has threated the outlets
that have been critical of him, a list that includes CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. Not
surprisingly, he has now teamed up with Elon Musk, the same man who bought
Twitter, and changed the name of “X”>. Most people are not aware of the fact
that Trump was re-elected largely due a massive misinformation campaign that was
paid for my Musk, to the tune of $45 million
Obsession
with national security - he has long been dismissive of NATO, the Iranian test
ban treaty, the Paris Climate agreement, and other agreements, preferring to being
a “lone wolf” when is come to diplomacy. Mote alarming, he is now on friendly
terms with autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Victor Orban, and Kim Jung Un.
Religion
and government entwined – the concert of Christian nationalism has now become
more popular with the MAGA crowd. States like Oklahoma want to have Bibles in
every classroom, but would not tolerate copies of the Koran or the Torah in the
same settings. The link below goes into more detail:
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2022/08/christian-nationalism.html
Corporate
power protected – the largest beneficiaries of the 2017 tax cuts were corporations
and wealthy individuals. In addition, since the Reagan era, the conservatives
among us have pushed for LESS, not more regulation. Very few of Trum’s nominees
for cabinet positions are qualified for the positions they were nominate for, but
they have two things in common:
(1)
Loyalty to Trump and
(2)
Disdain for industry
regulation
Labor
power suppressed – the GOP has been trying to limit the money earned through
overtime, and they also have been hostile to unions, the direct opposite of the
Democrats, who are strong supporters of unions.
Disdain
for intellects and the arts – many states have attacked schools for the curriculums
they teach, and Florida is one of the worst states for the suppression of the
facts. In addition, some college presidents have been forced out because of their
stand on protests of the carnage in Gaza.
Obsession
with crime and punishment – even though our crime rates declined rapidly during
Biden's term in office, Trump and his cronies continue to stay that our nation is under siege
by a variety of criminals.
Rampant
cronyism and corruption – although there are MANY examples of this, one of the
most glaring it Trump’s pick for the secretary of the Navy, who had ZERO experience
in the Navy, but who raised a LOT of money for Trump at a fundraiser at his $38 million dollar Colorado home
- Now more familiar with the levers of power — and his own points of vulnerability — Trump is attempting to insulate himself.
Breaking it down: Trump and his allies have telegraphed unprecedented steps to put loyalists in roles that have historically been apolitical.
- FBI Director: Trump has signaled he will fire Christopher Wray, whose 10-year term would run into 2027.
- Trump sparked a firestorm in his first term by firing James Comey and replacing him with Wray.
- Firing Wray would be norm-smashing yet unsurprising, given Trump's antipathy for Wray and the bureau more generally, particularly after its raid on Mar-a-Lago to recover classified documents.
- Attorney general: The nomination of Pam Bondi, who represented Trump at his first impeachment trial, would put a close ally in a position that by tradition (though not always in practice) has a level of independence from the president.
- "For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans — Not anymore," Trump said in announcing the pick.
- Trump castigated and eventually fired his first AG, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, and later fell out dramatically with his successor, Bill Barr, for not endorsing his claims of widespread election fraud.
- Special counsels: Jack Smith moved to dismiss his cases against Trump after the election and is likely to resign before Inauguration Day.
- In Trump 2.0, we're unlikely to see a repeat of the Mueller probe, with an autonomous team investigating the sitting president — though Trump last year floated the idea of a special counsel to investigate the Biden family.
- Inspectors general: Watchdogs for government agencies could also be on the chopping block, with Trump's allies calling for their removal, Politico reports.
- Project 2025 — which Trump disavowed on the campaign trail before naming some of its architects to his administration — calls for a much wider culling of career civil servants in favor of loyalists.
Between the lines: Conservatives now control all three branches of government, neutralizing many potential challenges to Trump at least until 2026.
- Congress: Republican majorities — albeit slim ones — could prevent a third impeachment, at least until after the midterms. Republicans will also control the committees that would oversee investigations into the president.
- Supreme Court: A 6-3 conservative bench, which has already granted Trump presidential immunity for official acts, could side with him for years to come.
What to watch: Trump's most consistent and reliable target, the media, stands weaker than ever due to declining trust and difficult economics.
- He has filed lawsuits against news organizations, threatened to revoke broadcast licenses and reportedly cited the discrediting of news media as part of his mission.
***********************************
Joseph
Goebbles was a master of propaganda, which is why millions of German people were
very fond of Adolf Hitler. Misinformation is also the main reason that Trump
got re-elected, and it’s also the reason that 95% of the Republican voters are
excited or optimistic about him. This cult-like devotion to their leader is
nothing new, since Jim Jones did the same thing in 1978:
WWI
was “the war that ended all wars” – and it led to the death of between 15 and
22 million people That number includes between 9 and 11 million military
personnel, and between 6 and 13 million civilians.
WWII,
though was in even more deadly, since the totals were between 70 and 85
million. Tragically, WWI could have been prevented entirely if the Allied
powers had done a few things differently – but that is a tale for another time.
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