• WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    What’s funny about this is you’re going a long way to imply the father was a fascist/Nazi, when growing up in Alabama in the 50’s is all that’s needed to turn a child into a racist, fascist piece of shit.

    Heritage foundation isn’t a Nazi respawn. It’s the American born and bred fascists who have been in America all along. Either way it doesn’t matter. They’re fascists through and through, no different to the nazi’s.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      growing up in Alabama in the 50’s is all that’s needed to turn a child into a racist, fascist piece of shit

      Alabama was the birthplace of the modern Civil Rights Movement, from Montgomery to Birmingham to Selma. A little unfair to assert it was a state that just makes people racist. The neo-confederates of the post-Depression Era had to work pretty hard to keep cramming Jim Crow down people’s throats decade after decade.

      That said, Huntsville Alabama circa 1950 was most notable for Redstone Arsenal, home to the Marshall Space Flight Center. The center was founded through Operation Paperclip, a project to export German rocket scientists to the United States and pump them for their expertise in the field.

      A guy with a Nazi mother and White-Russian father who emigrated to a city built around the famous rocketry lab was almost certainly influenced by the German brand of fascist ideology.

      That said, the Germans got their strain of fascism from Fordist antisemitism pumped into the country after WW1. So if you’re going to pick a state to blame for The Heritage Foundation’s brand of white nationalist hate, you’d be better off pointing the finger at Michigan.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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        3 days ago

        Alabama was the birthplace of the modern Civil Rights Movement, from Montgomery to Birmingham to Selma.

        I mean, isn’t that because the core of the movement was persecuted black Southerners? Alabama having enough of thise guys to kickstart the movement feels like more of an indictment than praise.

        • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          It’s like saying the birthplace of antifascism was Fascist Germany or Italy… Like, yeah… It be like it do, because of how it did?

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            It’s like saying the birthplace of antifascism was Fascist Germany or Italy…

            Post-WW1 Italy had one of the largest and most active Communist Parties in Europe. I don’t think it is reasonable to say “Italians are just fascist because of where they grew up” when you’ve got an enormous contrary datapoint. Neither is it reasonable to say Alabama produces racists ex nihilo. In the case of Redstone Arsenal, the federal government effective created a Fascist Reservation System and cultivated European extremist refugees like it was some kind of political petri dish.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          I mean, isn’t that because the core of the movement was persecuted black Southerners?

          You could find persecuted black workers from California to New York to Florida in 1963. Alabama wasn’t notable in that regard.

          The movement that the nascent 50s civil rights movement tapped into in Alabama was a large socio-economic network of majority-minority townships, allied churches, and civic organizations that the white nationalist state was already struggling to control. Much like with Rosewood, Florida and Tulsa, Oklahoma, the problem in Alabama was that too many black residents were doing too well.

          The response to the 60s Civil Rights Movement along the Gulf Coast was to demolish a lot of that black wealth, export jobs overseas, and lynch a lot of those young black leaders.

      • Skua@kbin.earth
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        3 days ago

        A guy with a Nazi mother and White-Russian father who emigrated to a city built around the famous rocketry lab was almost certainly influenced by the German brand of fascist ideology.

        You linked a source saying his mother was German, not that she was a Nazi. His father also did not move straight to Huntsville in 1951 according to this post, he retired there over a decade later after having worked in Florida Jacksonville (thanks to derfunkatron for the correction).

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          You linked a source saying his mother was German, not that she was a Nazi.

          I linked a source saying she was a German refugee from 1945 who emigrated to a township staffed full of Nazi emigres. Also, his father was White Russia - 100% a fascist.

          • Skua@kbin.earth
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            3 days ago

            They did not move straight to Huntsville.

            It’s also absolutely ridiculous to call all White emigres Nazis. Was Alexander Kerensky a Nazi?

              • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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                3 days ago

                I see what you mean (though “explicitly” needs a citation) but not all so-called white emigres were members of the White Movement; “white emigre” is a misnomer. For example Trotsky could theoretically be called a white emigre, and less tenuously anyone fleeing the civil war would count.

              • Skua@kbin.earth
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                3 days ago

                To quote the wiki page you linked:

                The White Armies comprised a number of different groups, who operated independently and did not share a single ideology or political goal.

                  • Skua@kbin.earth
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                    3 days ago

                    I know what the White movement is. Their only unifying factor was opposition to the Reds. If you want to claim that it was “openly and explicitly fascist”, quote the bit you want. The wiki article does not actually use the word “fascist” at all, so I assume that when you say “explicitly” you either do not actually mean “explicitly” or you are referring to something other than what you linked

      • Lucien [he/him]@mander.xyz
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        3 days ago

        I don’t think they were defending him; I think they were saying you don’t need German credentials to be a proper, full-blooded Nazi. Just being American is enough.

        • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          3 days ago

          Uhm… ok just seems like it’s kind of deflecting from the point that this dude’s dad probably got off the hook for commiting crimes against humanity and was allowed to start over fresh without ever facing justice for the atrocities he directly committed.

          I know as an American in many ways, I arguably hold some responsibility for benefiting from an unjust system. Still seems like a distraction in a post trying to call attention to the fact that a man literally trying to overthrow the American government was probably raised by a war criminal, and nobody has ever noticed this or brought it to the public’s attention.

          So like the openly racist son of a Nazi war criminal who escaped justice is equivalent to any other American such as myself? Interesting, I would like to imagine I’m not quite as bad for being part of an exploited working class in an unjust system this guy is actively controlling, but I guess if you see it that way, not much I could say to change your mind.

          • Aqarius@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            You don’t have to be German to be a Nazi, there are American Nazis.

            Are you calling me a Nazi?!?

            Jesus you people…

            • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOP
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              3 days ago

              What’s funny about this is you’re going a long way to imply the father was a fascist/Nazi, when growing up in Alabama in the 50’s is all that’s needed to turn a child into a racist, fascist piece of shit.

              You don’t have to be German to be a Nazi, there are American Nazis. Just being American is enough

              I’m trying to say this is dumb without just coming out and saying this is fucking dumb

              You don’t have to be German to be a Nazi, there are American Nazis..Jesus you people…

              Why bother with acknowledging reality when we can paraphrase and keep distracting from the original point by getting weirdly defensive bc somebody pointed out a fascist’s dad was also a literal WWII Nazi

              Also, this is fucking dumb

              • Aqarius@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                Yes, this is dumb. I intentionally paraphrased the comments to be shorter and simpler, in the hope you will not misunderstand them. Let’s try and dumb this down even further: Nazism is neither an ethnic nor a heritable trait.

          • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            So like the openly racist son of a Nazi war criminal who escaped justice is equivalent to any other American such as myself? Interesting, I would like to imagine I’m not quite as bad for being part of an exploited working class in an unjust system this guy is actively controlling, but I guess if you see it that way, not much I could say to change your mind.

            This guy’s racism was probably influenced by his father’s views, but ultimately separate from his father’s potential nazism. What his father did, said, and believed should have no bearing on an evaluation of his morals. He’s an adult now.

            When I was in high school, I was a big fan of George W Bush, because my dad was. Fifteenish years later, my politics are vastly different from my father’s, and though there are overlaps (gay rights, legality of drugs, and privacy laws, mostly), it would be misleading for a someone to say that I inherited those from him.