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Joined 29 days ago
Cake day: January 25th, 2025
  • anon593839@lemmy.worldOPtopolitics @lemmy.world•Read Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s full State of the State address – NBC Chicago
    36·
    3 days ago

    Last part of his speech hits hard.

    There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

    “I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

    “As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

    “The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

    “The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

    “As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

    “I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

    “The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

    “I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

    “I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

    “All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

    “I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor … according to the best of my ability.”

    “My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

    “If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

    “It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

    “Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

    “Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

    “Thank you.”

  • anon593839@lemmy.worldtopolitics @lemmy.world•Joe Rogan dethroned by anti-Trump podcast in the charts
    4·
    3 days ago

    You make a really excellent point.

    Something similar is playing out with DOGE finding “waste” and “fraud.” Very little in the say if of evidence, much in the way of waving around papers at a press conference / shitposting on Twitter and screeching “Woke DEI spending has been slashed.”

    Tbh, I get it. I understand why it works. Most people aren’t political junkies. Most people don’t really follow the news. They’re busy just trying to get through their day.

    That said, I read a good comment once- “You might not care about politics, but politics cares about you.” I only wish more people understood that. Unfortunately, our economic system works against it.

    Random aside, I wish we had strong labor unions in the US. They’d be very beneficial at this time.

  • anon593839@lemmy.worldtopolitics @lemmy.world•Joe Rogan dethroned by anti-Trump podcast in the charts
    6·
    3 days ago

    100%.

    When I think about it for a while, my thoughts always come back to “What is truth? What is a fact? Why do I think my news consumption is more factual than this person’s news consumption?”

    I’m not a philosopher, and I think it’s a tricky question to answer. I’ve found myself on the Stanford Philosophy Wiki. There’s a ton of good stuff in there.

    Of course, on a practical level, you’re rarely going to be debating “what is a fact?” when you’re arguing with your MAGA relations. My “normal” answer is that I try to get my news from sources that have reputations for fact-checking / rigor (AP / Reuters etc etc).

    However, if you’ve spent all your time consuming Fox / Newsmax / AM Radio in the late 90s / aughts, your mental model of AP / Reuters is not my mental model. Anything outside of your right-wing bubble is to be shinned. To you, AP and Reuters do not have a reputation for rigor. They’re part of a liberal conspiracy funded by the government and George Soros to demonize conservatives / brainwash the libs.

    It’s a tricky problem. I feel like we’re in an era where the Dawn of the Internet / Social media is analogous to the advent of the printing press. We just don’t know how to handle the firehose of information.

    There’s a huge part of me that thinks that recommendation algorithms need to be regulated.