Special to Portside: Austrian Election Report

Stan Nadel Portside
Half the voters in one of the richest and most successful countries in the world, one with one of the highest standards of living and one of the best social welfare systems-universal health insurance and a strong safety net - have turned against the parties that have brought them those benefits - and done so in favor of a far right wing party with Nazi party roots that has built its success on promoting fear of immigrants and possible future economic decline....

Israel Today, Germany Then

Uri Avnery gush-shalom
Ya'ir Golan, the deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, made a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day. Some accuse him of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany in that speech. Nothing of the sort. He compared developments in Israel to the events that led to the disintegration of the Weimar Republic. And that is a valid comparison. Things happening in Israel, especially since the last election, bear a frightening similarity to those events.

books

Stefan Zweig's Messages From a Lost World

Scott McLemee Insider Higher Ed
In the period between the world wars, Stefan Zweig was among the world's best-known authors. His books would soon fuel Nazi bonfires. Zweig held that humanity could no longer afford the belligerent nationalism that had led them into the Great War. Yet Zweig was struck dumb by post 1933 events. That failure, the reviewer says, was of imagination, not nerve. Against the Nazis' depredations, all the consummate writer and speaker could muster was nostalgia for a lost world.

Donald Trump: American Fascist

Robert Reich Robert Reich blog
Viewing Donald Trump in light of the fascists of the first half of the twentieth century – who used economic stresses to scapegoat others, created cults of personality, intimidated opponents, incited violence, glorified their nations and disregarded international law, and connected directly with the masses – helps explain what Trump is doing and how he is succeeding.

Germany Has Elections Too

Victor Grossman Portside
Events in Germany are truly alarming - with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) moving up into third place and both the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) slipping. This is connected with the immigrant wave but laden with too many nasty memories - and there is rightward shifts in France, Poland, Slovakia, Denmark and Sweden.

Friday Nite Videos -- March 4, 2016

Portside
The Man Who Knew Infinity. Donald Trump's Fascist Week. Bernie Sanders' Democratic Socialism. Are We Alone in the Universe? John Oliver | Donald Trump.

What Trumpism Means for Democracy

Andrew J. Bacevich TomDispatch
American democracy has been failing for decades, so a disturbing number of us are turning to authoritarianism. Is Trump our Juan Perón? Trump's Atlantic City empire has crumbled. But Trump himself has somehow emerged stronger than ever. The man who sought to lure all aspiring monarchs to A.C. ('welcome to a kingdom where everybody's treated like a king') has whipped up a heady mix of xenophobia, political bromides, and so-light-it-floats policy proposals into a movement

Tidbits - January 7, 2016 - New Threat to Voting Rights; Tonya Pinkins the Real Mother Courage; Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and Oregon Thugs; Left Gains Ground, Can It Hold; Trump and Fascism; Reality Check, Socialism in the GDR; and much more...(long)

Portside
Reader Comments: New Threat to Voting Rights before Supreme Court; The Portrayal of African Americans on Stage and Screen - Tonya Pinkins the Real Mother Courage; Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and Oregon Thugs; Left Gains Ground, Can It Hold; Trump and Fascism; Readers Respond to poem about Berlin Wall - The GDR, A Different Perspective; The Real Northern Student Movement; Shostakovich; Vivian Stromberg Presente.(Sorry for length, three weeks since Tidbits last appeared)
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