“A school district in Tennessee banned the use of “Maus,” a Pulitzer-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, in its middle school classes, citing the work’s profanity and nudity in a 10-to-0 vote.”—Washington Post

The problem of proto-fascist movements as they evolve into full fascist movements is that they ultimately have no limits; in the end, there is them, and then there are victims. There are no “prior agreements” they feel honor-bound to respect. Their normal routine is the extreme acts of personal and the people’s democratic rights disqualification. Their ideology is the full universal expansion of horrific ideas. Book banning paves the way for book burning. Book burning is the rehearsal stage for people burning. Honest historical deniability is linked to economic exploitation and will always lead to some form of human negation. Today it’s the otherization of Mexicans; the next day, it’s the next in line “others” who will be relegated to a place of denigration and dismissal. It’s not a matter of if; it’s only a matter of when your turn will arrive.

The national GOP effort to deny and restrict Black voter participation is a rehearsal to expand those disenfranchisement efforts to those segments of White America who have maintained some ethical concerns about wanting to see their nation “Great” (pre-civil rights era) again. Doing the right thing should not require that the evil being done is being done to you.

There is a reason that history is both a target and tool of depraved and diabolical leaders. They are highly skilled in the art of transforming a real or imagined “grievance” into organized and politically sanctioned self-destructive acts of hateful hooliganism and malicious mob violence, and ultimately, verbal and physical violence as a vehicle to obtain (by legitimate or fraudulent means) elected political power. History will expose them in their earlier historical iterations and could serve as a moral inoculant that could prevent these proto-fascist from philosophically reinfecting us in our own historical periods. But a collective courageous and principled personality is needed as opposed to a “not-my-problem” attitude.

False glorification (a right-wing personality disorder) can, if not countered, be an effective tool of human nullification. The symbols of the southern confederacy are, in fact, symbols of false hope for those who wish to see the official authorization of discrimination, exploitation, and no consequences acts of violence against Black Americans. One then is forced to ask: “What exactly is it that ‘conservatives’ are trying to conserve?”… If it’s an age of exploitation, then the only rational and righteous response of the targets of exploitation is resistance!

The great myth of this world was tragically explained by the words and sacrifices of people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship). The lie we are told and sold is that we can look away from the suffering and pain of the “not me,” not my family, nationality, religious affiliation, community, or nation. That I can somehow strike a separate peace bargain with the human elements of evil. The dynastic nature of evil (did we not learn anything from the history of German Nazism) is not satiated until all of humanity is under the power and pain of its wicked rule. And thus the reason they seek to prevent the positive power of true-history-telling; which provides every one of us with a way into realizing our full compassionate humanity; we only need to read (and be moved to action by) the words of a contemporary and fellow 1930’s German clergymen of Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”