Hi, welcome to Essence of Thought with me, Ethel Thurston, as your host.
Today’s video explores the Cold War’s impact on the West, namely how the Red Scare laid down the groundwork for the modern anti-trans panic in sports. From the media’s open misogyny to literally cartoonish fearmongering, there’s a lot to unpack.
@EssenceOfThought7 hours ago Today’s video explores the Cold War’s impact on the West, namely how the Red Scare laid down the groundwork for the modern anti-trans panic in sports. From the media’s open misogyny to literally cartoonish fearmongering, there’s a lot to unpack.
When I first posted this it was from my phone in bed. I am sorry I did not check but no link or story posted. Thankfully wonderful Ali jumped to the rescue and added the link. Thank you Ali. Hugs. Scottie
This is a repeat of history. 1930s German with an authoritarian leader with a compliant congress with a plan to take over the government functions to end rights and liberty for some people while making others a superior race. Damn it people wake up. We have seen this movie before. The fascist are the bad guys. We had to stop them then, we have to stop them now. They did not have permits yet they marched and paraded anyway. They vandalized public property, costing taxpayer money to repair. They threatened people, rule by violence, by gang thugs, brownshirts, tRump soldiers. Hugs. Scottie
For the second time in just nearly as many weeks, a hate group stationed themselves in downtown Nashville and passed out flyers against those who were Jewish and in the LGBTQ community.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — For the second time in just nearly as many weeks, a hate group stationed themselves in downtown Nashville and passed out flyers against those who were Jewish and in the LGBTQ community.
The group kept passing out flyers that labeled Jewish people as pedophiles and screaming that those who are LGBTQ needed to “get the f—k home.” Their shirts read “pro white” on the front. On the back of the shirt, it read “whites against replacement.” They stood alongside a Nazi flag and a sign that said Let’s Go Brandon, a moniker against President Joe Biden.
“Joe Biden’s cabinet is 80% Jewish,” one of the group told our camera crew.
Men in the group were raising their arms in the same salute as Nazi soldiers did to Adolf Hitler during his fascist rise of power in the 1930s and 1940s.
“The Holocaust never happened,” they told our camera crew.
Justice Kennedy/WTVF
A man holds a flyer in the face of another while a hate group stood at Third and Broadway in Nashville, Tenn., on July 14, 2024.
Those at Third and Broadway identified themselves as the Goyim Defense League, and they are defined as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They are a group that primarily lends their hate to the Jewish community, though the group on Broadway was screaming about the Jewish, LGBTQ and the Black community.
“It’s time for white people to stand up for themselves,” the group told pedestrians walking by.
We captured a woman who was gay screaming at the group for being out there in front of her child. They screamed at her that she shouldn’t have any children.
“My daughter is scared of you!” the woman screamed, who said she had just come out of a restaurant.
Metro Nashville police officers were near the group on Lower Broadway.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville posted on Sunday about hate groups continuing to hand out flyers that show hatred against Jewish people, including Saturday night in Nashville.
“The Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville is disgusted that once again our beloved city has been sullied by antisemitic instigators,” Jewish leaders said in a statement. “Last night, a group of roughly 15 Jew-haters handed out antisemitic literature in downtown while spewing loathsome rhetoric. We condemn this activity in the strongest possible way and denounce the perpetrators. Antisemitism — the irrational hatred of Jews — continues to escalate here in Middle Tennessee and around the country (and world). We are in constant contact with local law enforcement and thank them for their hard work and partnership in ensuring that the hateful words being espoused do not turn into violent actions against our community members or institutions.”
Previous hate groups in Nashville
The hate group the Patriot Front didn’t have a permit to march in the city, but they did so anyway last weekend.
The group went through the streets of downtown Nashville a “Reclaim America” banner, American flags, a Confederate flag and passing out flyers while chanting on their way to the front of the Capitol. Some also held red, white, and blue shields.
They also spray-painted their logo under the Woodland Street Bridge, which is vandalism.
In February, the group defaced the retaining wall in Brentwood on the side of Interstate 65. The Tennessee Department of Transportation had to paint over it.
Other racist flyers were passed out in downtown in February.
On Sunday, once again, a hate group put on a demonstration in downtown Nashville. This time, it was the neo-Nazi “Goyim Defense League,” shouting “Hitler was right!” and other vile words! 1/ pic.twitter.com/CcP59f7mIk
'They see Tennessee as a battleground.' New data points to dramatic rise of hate in Tennessee (From my “Hate Comes to Main Street” investigation) 3/3 https://t.co/23UouVF05H
JUST IN: Video of a fight in downtown Nashville involving the neo-Nazi Goyim Defense League. MNPD was on the scene. It’s unclear if any arrests were made. https://t.co/EOmA1VwGBvpic.twitter.com/PHJdaFYr7m
They want to claim the democrats are the violent ones, the democrats are the ones with gang thugs that threaten everyone. They claim the democrats are the ones using dangerous violence rhetoric. They ignore everything they say and do. Hugs. Scottie
“We are in a battle between GOOD and EVIL. The Democrats are the party of pedophiles, murdering the innocent unborn, violence, and bloody, meaningless, endless wars. They want to lock up their political opponents, and terrorize innocent Americans who would tell the truth about it. The Democrat party is flat out evil, and yesterday they tried to murder President Trump.” – Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, posting yesterday to X.
This morning, Speaker Mike Johnson called on politicians to “turn the rhetoric down."
“We’re all Americans, and we have to treat one another with dignity and respect.”
Don’t blame US for YOUR violence. Trump was shot at by one of your own, with a military assault rifle that was made readily available to him by your own party’s stance on the 2nd amendment. And stop calling us pedophiles you shrieking bag of pus.
i know this first hand when they tried removing my children, around 2006, because our lifestyle a danger to them. That is exactly what we the papers said. Not that they were harmed in and way, but two women in a relationship was a danger. We managed to fight those charges, but a few years earlier, a mother lost custody to her children, because her mother thought her lifestyle was a unhealthy.
It’s obvious a fucking projection of people like herself. THOSE HATER SPEECH 100% filled with harmful lies from MTG is enough to incite the country to turn into herself. She is the culprit of violence like assassination.
I want thank PERSONNELENTE whose post I got the link from. Link below. I hate the infighting from Democrats tearing Biden apart. He is old, but he has great ideas. The time to get someone else was back a year or more ago. Plus all these drop Biden people can not agree on who should replace him. If they try to pass over Harris then it is an automatic win tRump. We have to remember who we are facing, it is tRump we must defeat, not Biden. Hugs. Scottie
Donald Trump announced Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate on Monday. The following article is composed of direct quotes from Vance about Trump, given in interviews, op-eds, tweets, and text messages.
I don’t know who I’m gonna vote for. I’m definitely not gonna vote for Trump because I think that he’s projecting very complex problems onto simple villains.2 I quickly realized that Trump’s actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd.3
Trump instead offers a political high, a promise to “Make America Great Again” without a single good idea regarding how.4 [His] promises are the needle in America’s collective vein. … Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.5 Whether he wins or not, people are going to wake up and realize these problems are still there.6
Without some recognition that some of these problems in our community are not the fault of other people, they’re not going to be solved by a Mexican border wall or better trade deals with China. Without some recognition along those lines, I don’t believe these problems are ever truly going to get better.7
And if you think, as I do, that Donald Trump doesn’t necessarily have a good message either, that’s maybe not the best approach to politics. It’s not how you win these folks over. And if you’re worried about them being racist now, when you push them away and push them to somebody like Trump, you’re only going to make the problem worse.8
But I’m not surprised by Trump’s rise, and I think the entire [Republican] Party has only itself to blame. We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING (and hell, maybe even expand our appeal to working class black people in the process) or a demagogue would. We are now at that point. Trump is the fruit of the party’s collective neglect. … I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How’s that for discouraging?9
The other big problem I have with Trump is that he has dragged down our entire political conversation.10 [He] is changing the way people think about other groups of people in a very negative way.11 [T]here is definitely an element of [his] support that has its basis in racism or xenophobia.12
A lot of people think Trump is just the first to appeal to the racism and xenophobia that were already there, but I think he’s making the problem worse.13 There are people who are drawn to Trump because he says racially insensitive things.14 [He] still hasn’t apologized for suggesting that a disproportionate share of Mexican immigrants are rapists and criminals.15
People listen to what their political leaders are telling them, and my view is both that Trump is tapping into some racially ugly attitudes, but also that he is leading people to racially ugly attitudes. … [He] is exploiting something but he’s also leading the white working class to a very dark place.16His rallies may be cathartic, as he screams and yells at conjured enemies, but he offers no solutions. His entire candidacy is an exercise in pointing the finger at someone else. In pointing that finger so repeatedly and enthusiastically, Donald Trump has debased our entire political culture.17
I can’t stomach Trump. I think that he’s noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place.18 [He] makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.19
Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.20
“What’s more, the grievance and resentment at the heart of Trumpist nationalism in America is in some ways quite similar to the mentality of Putinist nationalism in Russia: One obsesses over losing the culture war and being disrespected by the “elites”; the other, over losing the Cold War and being disrespected by the West. Perhaps this explains other similarities in the two mindsets, from the penchant for provocation and in-your-face defiance of norms to the affinity for conspiracy theories. Too many American rightists look at the Putin regime and see kindred spirits.”
Justice Kennedy/WTVF
Sen. J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate
Scottie's Playtime 