Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

benfranklin1776

(6,647 posts)
Sat Jan 25, 2025, 02:50 AM Saturday

Nuts!! A reminder from Heather Cox Richardson of what we're fighting for and what we've overcome to get here.

We owe all those brave men and women of all races and creeds who sacrificed so mightily at the Battle of the Bulge, and indeed in every conflict that pitted the forces of tyranny against those of liberty, human rights and democracy in our nation’s history to fight with the same resolve and determination to beat this evil abomination of fascism that is threatening us, our country, and democracy throughout the world at this moment in time.

That was the official answer Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe delivered to the four German soldiers sent on December 22, 1944, to urge him to surrender the town of Bastogne in the Belgian Ardennes.

* *.*

The Allied soldiers fighting in that bitter cold winter were fighting against fascism, a system of government that rejected the equality that defined democracy, instead maintaining that some men were better than others. German fascists under leader Adolf Hitler had taken that ideology to its logical end, insisting that an elite few must lead, taking a nation forward by directing the actions of the rest. They organized the people as if they were at war, ruthlessly suppressing all opposition and directing the economy so that business and politicians worked together to consolidate their power. Logically, that select group of leaders would elevate a single man, who would become an all-powerful dictator. To weld their followers into an efficient machine, fascists demonized opponents into an “other” that their followers could hate, dividing their population so they could control it.

In contrast to that system was democracy, based on the idea that all people should be treated equally before the law and should have a say in their government. That philosophy maintained that the government should work for ordinary people, rather than an elite few. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt inspired the American people to defend their democracy—however imperfectly they had constructed it in the years before the war—and when World War II was over, Americans and their allies tried to create a world that would forever secure democracy over fascism.

The 47 allied nations who had joined together to fight fascism came together in 1945, along with other nations, to create the United Nations to enable countries to solve their differences without war. In 1949 the United States, along with Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the U.K., created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a peacetime military alliance to stand firm against aggression, deterring it by declaring that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all.

At home, the government invested in ordinary Americans. In 1944, Congress passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, more commonly known as the G.I. Bill, to fund higher education for some 7.8 million former military personnel. The law added to the American workforce some 450,000 engineers, 180,000 medical professionals, 360,000 teachers, 150,000 scientists, 243,000 accountants, 107,000 lawyers, and 36,000 clergymen.

In 1946 the Communicable Disease Center opened its doors as part of an initiative to stop the spread of malaria across the American South. Three years later, it had accomplished that goal and turned to others, combatting rabies and polio and, by 1960, influenza and tuberculosis, as well as smallpox, measles, and rubella. In the 1970s it was renamed the Center for Disease Control and took on the dangers of smoking and lead poisoning, and in the 1980s it became the Centers for Disease Control and took on AIDS and Lyme disease. In 1992, Congress added the words “and Prevention” to the organization’s title to show its inclusion of chronic diseases, workplace hazards, and so on.

Congress invested in the nation’s infrastructure with projects like the Interstate Highway System, funded by the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act, which fueled the economy not just by providing jobs and tying together the states, but also by creating a market for new cars and for motels, diners, and gas stations along the new roads.

Americans also worked to put the racial segregation that had inspired Hitler behind them, using the federal government to level the playing field between white Americans, Black Americans, and people of color. As Chris Geidner wrote yesterday in Law Dork, that impulse had gained traction in 1941, when labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph told President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that Black Americans weren’t being hired at the factories working in defense industries. He urged Roosevelt to issue an executive order requiring that factories that received federal contracts must hire Black workers.

As Geidner recounts, a week later, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, saying it was “the policy of the United States “to encourage full participation in the national defense program by all citizens of the United States, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin, in the firm belief that the democratic way of life within the Nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups within its borders.“

After the war, President Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948, and as Black and Brown Americans claimed their right to be treated equally, Congress expanded recognition of those rights with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Shortly after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, translating FDR’s 1941 measure into the needs of the peacetime country. “It is the policy of the Government of the United States to provide equal opportunity in Federal employment for all qualified persons, to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and to promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity through a positive, continuing program in each executive department and agency.”

This democratic government was popular, but as the memory of the dangers of fascism faded, opponents began to insist that such a government was leading the United States to communism. Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, along with the deregulation of business and cuts to the social safety net, began to concentrate wealth at the top of society. As wealth moved upward, lawmakers chipped away at the postwar government that defended democracy.

* * *

Trump has undertaken to dismantle the postwar democratic government *** He has stopped the funding for repairing roads, bridges, airports, and ports that passed Congress in a bipartisan vote in 2022, as well as taken away funding for new solar manufacturing plants and other new systems to address climate change.

He has frozen all travel and communications at the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” one researcher told Dan Diamond, Lena H. Sun, Carolyn Y. Johnson, and Mark Johnson of the Washington Post. “This is like a meteor just crashed into all of our cancer centers and research areas.”

And, of course, Trump has declared a war on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. In his revoking of LBJ’s Executive Order 11246, itself based on FDR’s Executive Order 8802, he explicitly rejected the principles for which the Americans fought in World War II.
* * *
January 25, 2025, marks eighty years since the end of the Battle of the Bulge.

The Germans never did take Bastogne.


https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/january-24-2025?r=lo5ex&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
5 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Nuts!! A reminder from Heather Cox Richardson of what we're fighting for and what we've overcome to get here. (Original Post) benfranklin1776 Saturday OP
Yes, the resurgence of the nazi's calls for... Think. Again. Saturday #1
Well by one demanding our party speak out forcefully as the urgency of the moment requires... benfranklin1776 Saturday #3
Well said. Thank you. Think. Again. Saturday #4
You're welcome! benfranklin1776 Saturday #5
excellent read markie Saturday #2

Think. Again.

(20,767 posts)
1. Yes, the resurgence of the nazi's calls for...
Sat Jan 25, 2025, 05:16 AM
Saturday

...the resurgence of an anti-fascist effort.

How do we begin?

benfranklin1776

(6,647 posts)
3. Well by one demanding our party speak out forcefully as the urgency of the moment requires...
Sat Jan 25, 2025, 09:41 AM
Saturday

No money unless they stand up forcefully against this. And that means publicly calling out each and every one of these power grabs as abhorrent and against the core principles of our country. And reminding at each and every opportunity how these naked dictatorial power grabs are harming ordinary people. Clamp down on medical information? Your loved ones will die. Put his puppets in charge of regulations and you’re going to get screwed at the grocery store, at the hospital and in your community by the harms they will perpetrate.

And we do likewise by organizing ourselves and joining together with the many others who feel as we do and engage in furious opposition .

This is a great organizing platform run by people who know a thing or two about getting those things done:

https://indivisible.org/

And boycott any corporation like x or meta that is funding these neoNazis. No reason to subsidize the destruction of democracy.

These are but a few things. As FDR said when tackling the Great Depression: we try something until it works and if it doesn’t we try something else until it does. So strategizing and mobilizing is the order of the day. That’s where Americans are at their best: when confronted with an existential crisis we figure out ways to get it done-together ✊🏼 But let’s work on adding to the list!

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Nuts!! A reminder from He...