The Nazis.

 

Portugal, where I was born and raised, had stark similarities with Germany in the 1930s. We had our own “strong man”, the “savior” who would deliver on the promise of our waning Empire. In the late 15th Century, Portugal and Spain were the equivalent of the USA and USSR in mid 20th Century. Bigger even, as in 1494 they split the Earth in two, claiming a half for each. The Treaty of Tordesillas, as it came to be known.

The Portuguese Empire touched all continents, from Brazil to Timor, from Angola to Macau, from the Azores to India. Over the centuries, the Empire lost many of its most precious jewels, but in the 1930s, with the exception of Brazil, the colonies were still in place. The imperial shine had dimmed, however, and the liberalism that had prevailed since the overthrow of monarchy, in 1910, was not doing much to regain its former glory and pride.

The republic was weak and petty, divided and ripe for the coming of the one man who could restore the country to its former imperial glory in the wake of the Futurist movement, to take a nation on the verge of decadent collapse and make it great again. Sounds familiar?

The one man was António de Oliveira Salazar, and his ascension to power was a carbon copy of Adolf Hitler’s. He wobbled his way up in the 1920s. He first was nominated Prime Minister, in 1932, and then proceeded to redesign the nation as a dictatorship, becoming dictator in 1933 as he inaugurated a new chapter in Portugal's history: the “Estado Novo” (literally, New State).

 

Being a fierce Christian Nationalist and isolationist, Salazar managed to not only keep Portugal out of the Second World War (with the exception of a brief skirmish with the Japanese in Timor, inevitably leading to its loss), but to play both sides to his advantage. During the war years, Lisbon was a spy nest, where agents from all sides played their games to the benefit of Salazar.

Nevertheless, Salazar moulded the New State in the image of Nazi Germany. There was a large military, enforcing continental rule overseas with an iron fist, there was a single Nationalist party, patriotic labor organizations, patriotic women organizations, a secret police that kept all dissidents in check, in prison, or assassinated, and, of course, a nationalist youth organization, designed to train and indoctrinate the future, our very own version of the Hitler-Jugend, also expected to denounce any "misbehaving" adults, like their parents. They were called the "Mocidade Portuguesa", Portuguese Young-Folk. And no my parents never enrolled me. But some of my elementary school friends were "Lusitos", as the 7 to 10 year olds were known in the ranks.

Although not as brutal as the Nazi ideology, and missing some of its core values, like strict antisemitism, though sympathetic to it, the New State was a breed of authoritarianism that is better defined as Fascism.

And so, due to a successful isolationist policy, while Nazism fell in 1945, Fascism was alive and well in Portugal, up to 1974. I was 11 years old by then.

When I came to live in the United States, I never thought I would see the signs of the ascension of this kind of beast here. Yet I recognized all the signs from early on. Starting with the backlash caused by the Obama presidency.

Without Obama, there would have been no Donald Trump, it’s as simple as that. The reactionary forces that woke up after Barack Obama became president were longing for their own “one man” to save them all from the perils of the rise of blackness as normal, as equal, dare I say, as superior.

The empire they long for still is not a jewel string of colonies, but the lost supremacy, agonizing in a sea of mixed races, cultures and creeds. Their dying empire is White Supremacy. And they needed a “strong man” to restore its former glory. Among these reactionaries, that range from drunk old uncles to the daughters of the confederacy to the proud boys, there is an undercurrent that slowly, but surely, surfaced with renewed vigor: the Nazis.

By virtue of their strong beliefs, they tend to drown the myriad of other reactionaries in their pool. They seize the limelight and pour the Nazi ideology into all they touch.

Suddenly, the KKK was not enough. They miss the international drive that binds the Christian Nationalists into the Nazi ideal. Purity of race, purity of thought, and a common global enemy: Zion. This undercurrent has surfaced in some European countries, like Hungary, France, Poland, to some extent Italy. It’s really a cross breed between Nazism and Fascism, but one must call the ranks by their standard bearers, and there is no mistake to be made. If the flag has a swastika, the beast has but one name: Nazi.

The Nazi beast is alive and well in the United States, and this, to me that know how Nazis are dealt with in Europe, is astounding.

I knew there were Nazis in America, it already boggled my mind that it was even “a thing”, but from afar, I placed them in the same basket of “deplorables” as the Klan, and wishfully thought them away to the insignificant fringes. When I chose this country as my home, there was a black man running for president and to my absolute delight he made it. 

America was over it, I thought. The future looked bright. But then came those eight years that passed away in a flash, one after the other, and during those years it slowly dawned on me the genius of Barack Obama and what it meant. Why he didn’t go as far as he could have. What stopped him.

And when Trump won the primaries, I was dumbfounded. I just could not believe it. And then, the fall of the liberal republics in Europe, 100 years ago, came to mind. It was happening again. It was happening here, and no one seemed to notice. Because of this volunteer dismissal of such possibility, I admit I pushed away that notion to the last minute.

When the glass ceiling didn’t break, I felt betrayed. The promise of a more perfect union was shattered in its place. And as I watched that ill-assorted group of buffoons waddling along the stage to be recognized as our future first family, I felt sick to my stomach. And the memory of the Obamas family perfect image eight years before seemed like a dream. A dream unfulfilled. A dream denied.

It was this horrible man’s nature, his lack of standing, his utter lack of charisma, the repugnant aura that emanated from him, that kept me from understanding not who he was, but who he was meant to become. 

This was America’s version of the champion that would restore her glory. An orange colored, ignorant slob. It was like a horror show. And it was just starting.

 

I cherish the sacrifices made by the greatest generation to free Europe from this type of beast, and to have watched how scores of its descendants had flocked to the polls to vote for such a despicable man was something I needed time to wrap my mind around. To be honest, I still haven't completely come to terms with it.

I grew up going through World War Two era propaganda news magazines, like "War Illustrated", "Neptune", and others, and also the infamous "Signal", the German propaganda publication. As I mentioned, Portugal was a breeding ground for all sides at the time, and all these propaganda publications were readily available, printed in Portuguese. I would go through them at my grandparents place, eager to learn, already realizing in spite of my tender years, that it was propaganda I was looking at, but it sure was History, and I devoured it as such.

I became a WW2 nerd, and collected books and articles about it. It was a fascinating subject. I also mentioned on a Threads post, sometime back, how I came to know about the Holocaust, not through propaganda, but by seeing and reading about it on a serious photographic book my parents allowed me to read when I was very young. It helped me to offset the fascination the Nazi paraphernalia insidiously planted in my child's brain. Yes, I was fascinated by it. The uniforms, the rituals, the discipline, the drive, the architecture. Especially the architecture. I was in awe of Albert Speer! And, inevitably, I was introduced to Leni, and by God I was mesmerized! Leni Riefenstahl. The first time I watched "Triumph des Willens" I just paused, and foreboding John Locke, I said to myself "We're gonna need to watch that again." In all honesty, it was the Holocaust, more than anything else, that snapped my immature brain out of it.

 

In time, I learned how to appreciate the aesthetics and the art, analyze it dispassionately, study it for what it was, and learn from it. But I realize I have the upper hand that comes with a classical education, and the access to serious and reliable sources of Historical information. I was damn lucky.

This fact, however, does not justify or explain the fascination that remains in the minds of so many regarding Nazism, regardless of their disadvantages when compared to my upbringing. There is this thing called humanity, and this other thing called common sense, that should be more than enough to make up for any lack of knowledge, or unfortunate circumstances. And yet...

After World War 2, in Germany but also all around Europe, the Nazi ideology, its symbols and documents, were placed in museums, and the public AND private display, dissemination and adoption of such heinous relics was severely punished by strict laws, designed to ensure such a catastrophe would never happen again.

Try walking around with a swastika blood flag in Berlin today, see how far you go.

And yet, in the one nation that made possible the complete defeat of the Nazi beast, this is protected by the first amendment, of all things! Excuse me?

 

The way Nazis parade themselves in America is mind boggling for anyone who has ever traveled the world a little bit, let alone someone who lived in Europe for over 40 years. It is a monstrous exacerbation of the right to free speech and expression, and it is way past time to penalized it by law, with extreme prejudice. I know we have a lot to think about before we can tackle this issue, even when (not if) we manage to regain control of Congress with comfortable majorities, keeping the presidency, but this has to be right on top of the list.

The damage caused by merely allowing this obscenity is incalculable. Why it's never been done is not beyond me. I know why. But it's time.

 

The answer is not punching them in the face every time they surface; although I acknowledge it is fucking satisfying, it's just a game of whack-a-mole that leads only to more violence. The answer is making it illegal to display, disseminate or parade Nazi symbols and ideology, in public AND in private, by legislating the shit out of these shameful excuses for human beings who feel emboldened by the likes of Donald J. Trump to crawl from under the rocks they were hiding all these years and shove their hate in our faces, like it's just "free speech".

So next time you are wondering what to call your representative about, local or federal, why don't you tell him/her that you just about had enough of this shit and something must be done about it, before it's too late. And time is running out.

I look at these pieces of shit flying Nazi flags outside Disneyland like they are announcing some ball game and I just can't believe my eyes. It's so surreal it actually takes a minute to process, like it's an anomaly you hope will disappear if you blink. Where were these people until now? How is this even possible, in America?

Well I have news for you. These people have always been with us, like an undercurrent, deep in the sewers beneath our streets; and when the flood of hate and racism swept over our land, they surfaced with it, along with all sorts of other shit that we conveniently chose to pretend it was not down there, but for the occasional stench we quickly disguised with a few squishes of Febreze-like liberal wishful thinking. Now it's out in the open for all our senses to recognize for what it is. If it dresses like a Nazi, talks like a Nazi and acts like a Nazi, it is a Nazi.

Do something about it, before they do something about you.

And trust me on this, they will.

Fight Nazism. Fight Fascism. Fight for our right to exist.

[finis]

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