History Is Repeated

We are reliving the Red Scare, the Lavender Scare, and the Holocaust all at once.

In 1935 Germany passed Paragraph 175 criminalizing LGBTQ people. Florida and Texas banned anything LGBTQ or Black history. Germany passed laws banning LGBTQ book, Florida and other states have passed laws banning books on LGBTQ and Black history. In the 1930s they did it to divide the country and in 2023 the Republicans are doing it for votes and campaign donation!

Conservatives wants to bring back the anti-sodomy laws…

Analysis: Will Sodomy Laws Return?
Philadelphia Gay News
By Victoria A. Brownworth
July 6, 2022


Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton want to bring back anti-gay sodomy laws. 

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s reversal of the 49-year-old reproductive healthcare statute, Roe v. Wade, other long-time Supreme Court decisions are being revisited by both the Court and the states. As Texas led with the abortion ban, so too could it lead on reversing the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. That case invalidated sodomy laws across the U.S., making same-sex sexual activity legal in every state and U.S. territory.

Thomas isn’t so sure that Lawrence has constitutional merit. The Court’s longest serving justice wrote in a concurring opinion that the SCOTUS should now “reconsider” rulings in several past decisions, including those on sodomy and gay marriage. 

As PGN reported, Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, is likely the next case to fall. Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the Roe decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, has, with Thomas, been vocal about his continued opposition to marriage equality. In a speech to the conservative Federalist Society in 2020, Alito asserted that opposing same-sex marriage is now “considered bigotry.” 

It is a wedge issue that the Republicans are trying to divide the nation and to focus people attentions away from the real issues. Dividing the nation making scapegoats of LGBTQ+ children, Blacks, non-Christians, and immigrants. They Republicans are using fear of people who are different to drive a wedge between us. Just like the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party did in Germany in the 1930s with the other marginal peoples.

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Is history repeating itself in Germany?
That history should serve as a reminder why it might be a mistake to dismiss lightly the far-right plot foiled in Thuringia (Germany) last week.
The Statesman
By Mahir Ali
December 15, 2022<


Nearly 100 years ago, a bunch of radicalised, extreme-right Bavarians launched an audacious attempt to capture power locally, with a dream of subsequently extending it across Germany. The November 1923 plot, which has gone down in history as the Munich beer hall putsch, was partly inspired by Benito Mussolini’s successful march on Rome a year earlier.

Newly fascist Italy offered a role model, but the Bavarian authorities foiled the coup attempt. Among the nine men arrested was their ringleader, a World War I corporal by the name of Adolf Hitler. He was sentenced to five years in prison, the most lenient sentence possible given the charges against him and served merely eight months during which he began dictating Mein Kampf to his secretary, Rudolf Hess. His other key associates at the time included Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler.

Fewer than 10 years later, they were all in power in Germany, not just Bavaria. Hitler remained chancellor for arguably the most tumultuous dozen years in modern European history.

That history should serve as a reminder why it might be a mistake to dismiss lightly the far-right plot foiled in Thuringia [My link] (Germany) last week.

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Thuillier: History is repeating itself — right before our eyes
The Daily Northwestern
By Marcus Thuillier, Columnist
May 2, 2019


History has a tendency to repeat itself. As memory fades, events from the past can become events of the present. Some, like author William Strauss and historian Neil Howe, argue that this is due to the cyclical nature of history — history repeats itself and flows based on the generations. According to them, four generations are needed to cycle through before similar events begin to occur, which would put the coming of age of the millennial generation in parallel to the events of the early 20th century. And if recent events are any indicators, American society is inching dangerously close to mirroring events of a century ago.

Hate crime reports increased 17 percent in the United States in 2017 according to the FBI, increasing for the third consecutive year. I talked about this a little last week when mentioning a rise in LGBTQ+-driven hate crimes, but this rise in crime also marks a return to a dangerous reality. It is not just LGBTQ+ hate crime that is on the rise. 2018 saw a 99 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents versus 2015, according to the Anti-Defamation League. When it strictly came to race/ethnicity/ancestry motivated crimes, the increase was 18.4 percent between 2016 and 2017. It is a dangerous time if you are not a cisgender, white, Christian in America, but that is not new.

A hundred years ago, in 1920, the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party was founded in Germany. It started a generation of Germans that came of age around World War II, meaning they were young adults in 1939. I raise that point because this is where the generational theory and the recent hike in anti-semitic crime connect.

[…]

White nationalism and white supremacist groups have made a push in recent years in the United States. Even here on campus, “it’s okay to be white” stickers have been appearing. The violence and disgusting ideas that these groups promote have no place in a country that fought fascism the 1930s. But we forget, and history repeats itself.

Recently, a group of white nationalists in Washington D.C. interrupted a book reading by Jewish author Dr. Jonathan Metzl by chanting “this land is our land.” Even in non-violent demonstrations such as these, these groups refer to events that changed the landscape of the world and caused massive casualties. Those events took so many lives, led to a collective awakening to the plight of the Jewish people and now, 80 years later, we are falling back into old patterns.

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The RTE reported…

The UN secretary-general has warned of social media's role in spreading violent extremism around the globe as he marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, urging policy makers to help stop online hate.

Antonio Guterres said parts of the internet were turning into "toxic waste dumps for hate and vicious lies" that were driving "extremism from the margins to the mainstream."

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With anti-LGBTQ laws proliferating, older activists say history is repeating itself
Activists say they hope the younger generation will maintain LGBTQ equality.
ABC News
By Kiara Alfonseca
October 1, 2022


Despite major progress in recent years in the fight for LGBTQ equality, older LGBTQ activists say the country is seeing increased political pushback against the LGBTQ communities, reminiscent of past anti-LGBTQ movements they lived through during the 20th century.

History repeating itself, is something of which they say everyone should be aware.

[…]

"It's fearmongering, which I think is really very dangerous," said Green [A 71 yo lesbian]. "They want to take us back ... I have to say -- confidently -- I don't think people are gonna go for it."

[…]

"We're definitely seeing history repeating itself in frustrating ways because we've been through it before so many times," said Andrew Shaffer, the director of development and communications at the GLBT Historical Society.

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Found on Facebook.

One of my friends told me about a powerful lesson in her daughter's school class recently. They're learning about the Salem Witch Trials, and their teacher told them they were going to play a game.

"I'm going to come around and whisper to each of you whether you're a witch or a regular person. Your goal is to build the largest group possible that does NOT have a witch in it. At the end, any group found to include a witch gets a failing grade."

The teens dove into grilling each other. One fairly large group formed, but most of the students broke into small, exclusive groups, turning away anyone they thought gave off even a hint of guilt.

"Okay," the teacher said. "You've got your groups. Time to find out which ones fail. All witches, please raise your hands."

No one raised a hand.

The kids were confused and told the teacher he'd messed up the game. "Did I? Was anyone in Salem an actual witch? Or did everyone just believe what they'd been told?"

And that is how you teach kids how easy it is to divide a community.

Shunning, scapegoating and dividing destroys far more than they protect. There's plenty of it going around.

Do not allow the ruling elite to divide and destroy us. We must remain united against those who would do so..‼️

Unknown Credit:

PS. I rest my case.