Watch today's hearing and understand what authoritarians do
I’ll try to deliver two editions today because this short one needs to be out early.
At 10 am today, the Congressional January 6 Committee will be airing another public hearing, and I’d encourage everyone to watch it live. Both PBS and C-Span are my recommended stations to watch as they’re more free of the clutter of one person’s take on the news. And the committee’s work is as important as it gets for every American today.
With the War on Ukraine, we’re witnessing how authoritarians operate. Vladimir Putin is trying to rebuild the Soviet Union. For nearly 30 years Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union. While his army was essential to the defeat of Hitler, his policies also led to two famines that killed millions of his country’s citizens. Key to that was the building of a cult of personality that demanded loyalty to Stalin above any who dissented from his policy prescriptions. Whether it was working class farmers, scientists, the well educated or political opponents within and outside of the Communist Party, imprisonment, the theft of property and execution were key features of his authoritarian policies.
Wikipedia: In July 1937, the Politburo ordered a purge of "anti-Soviet elements" in society, targeting anti-Stalin Bolsheviks, former Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, priests, ex-White Army soldiers, and common criminals.[432] That month, Stalin and Yezhov signed Order No. 00447, listing 268,950 people for arrest, of whom 75,950 were executed.[433] He also initiated "national operations", the ethnic cleansing of non-Soviet ethnic groups—among them Poles, Germans, Latvians, Finns, Greeks, Koreans, and Chinese—through internal or external exile.[434] During these years, approximately 1.6 million people were arrested,[435] 700,000 were shot, and an unknown number died under NKVD torture.[435]
During the 1930s and 1940s, NKVD groups assassinated defectors and opponents abroad;[436] in August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico, eliminating the last of Stalin's opponents among the former Party leadership.[437] In May, this was followed by the arrest of most members of the military Supreme Command and mass arrests throughout the military, often on fabricated charges.[438] These purges replaced most of the party's old guard with younger officials who did not remember a time before Stalin's leadership and who were regarded as more personally loyal to him.[439] Party functionaries readily carried out their commands and sought to ingratiate themselves with Stalin to avoid becoming the victim of the purge.[440] Such functionaries often carried out a greater number of arrests and executions than their quotas set by Stalin's central government.[441]
He tried to appease Hitler’s early war aims in 1939 with agreements that sought to divvy up Europe between their two governments. Two years later, Germany invaded Russia, forcing Stalin to seek alliance with Western democracies like the UK and US to stop Hitler.
Of course Hitler also demanded loyalty to himself above service to Germany itself. The cult of personality and loyalism to one person is always a huge flashing warning signal of repression and murder to come.
The subjugation of women is also a dominant feature of authoritarianism.
Wikipedia again: As the Red Army had conquered German territory, they discovered the extermination camps that the Nazi administration had run.[546] Many Soviet soldiers engaged in looting, pillaging, and rape, both in Germany and parts of Eastern Europe.[549] Stalin refused to punish the offenders.[546] After receiving a complaint about this from Yugoslav communist Milovan Djilas, Stalin asked how after experiencing the traumas of war a soldier could "react normally? And what is so awful in his having fun with a woman, after such horrors?"[550]
In Japan, Emperor Hirohito was revered as a divinity, so the cult of personality was absolutely evident there. So was the subjugation of woman.
Wikipedia: According to the United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121, as many as 200,000 "comfort women" [46] mostly from Korea and China, and some other countries and territories such as the Philippines, Taiwan, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, Netherlands,[47] and Australia[48] were forced into sexual slavery during World War II to satisfy Japanese Imperial Army and Navy members. Many of these women — particularly the Dutch and Australian women — were also used for hard physical labour, forced to work arduous tasks in the fields and roads such as digging graves, building roads and hoeing hard soil, in hellish heat while on starvation rations. While apologies have been handed out by the Japanese government and government politicians, including the Asian Women's fund, which grants donated financial compensations to former comfort women,[49] the Japanese government has also worked to downplay its use of comfort women in recent times, claiming that all compensations for its war conduct were resolved with post-war treaties such as the Treaty of San Francisco, and, for example, asking the mayor of Palisades Park, New Jersey to take down a memorial in memory of the women.[50]
In Italy, it was Mussolini.
Wikipedia: Third, he developed a cult of one-man leadership that focused media attention and national debate on his own personality. As a former journalist, Mussolini proved highly adept at exploiting all forms of mass media, including such new forms as motion pictures and radio. Fourth, he created a mass membership party, with free programs for young men, young women, and various other groups who could therefore be more readily mobilized and monitored. He shut down all alternative political formations and parties (but this step was not an innovation by any means). Like all dictators he made liberal use of the threat of extrajudicial violence, as well as actual violence by his Blackshirts, to frighten his opposition.[92]
Also Wikipedia: Mussolini's foremost priority was the subjugation of the minds of the Italian people through the use of propaganda. The regime promoted a lavish cult of personality centered on the figure of Mussolini. He pretended to incarnate the new fascist Übermensch, promoting an aesthetic of exasperated Machismo that attributed to him quasi-divine capacities.[114] At various times after 1922, Mussolini personally took over the ministries of the interior, foreign affairs, colonies, corporations, defense, and public works. Sometimes he held as many as seven departments simultaneously, as well as the premiership. He was also head of the all-powerful Fascist Party and the armed local fascist militia, the MVSN or "Blackshirts", who terrorized incipient resistance in the cities and provinces. He would later form the OVRA, an institutionalized secret police that carried official state support. In this way he succeeded in keeping power in his own hands and preventing the emergence of any rival.
Mussolini also portrayed himself as a valiant sportsman and a skilled musician. All teachers in schools and universities had to swear an oath to defend the fascist regime. Newspaper editors were all personally chosen by Mussolini, and only those in possession of a certificate of approval from the Fascist Party could practice journalism. These certificates were issued in secret; Mussolini thus skillfully created the illusion of a "free press". The trade unions were also deprived of any independence and were integrated into what was called the "corporative" system. The aim, inspired by medieval guilds and never completely achieved, was to place all Italians in various professional organizations or corporations, all under clandestine governmental control.
We have plenty of examples today. Here’s Bolsonaro of Brazil.
Wikipedia: In an interview with Zero Hora in 2015, Bolsonaro argued that men and women should not receive the same salaries, because women get pregnant, adding that he believes federal law mandating paid maternity leave harms work productivity.[247] Bolsonaro has denied saying that women should receive less than men; he claims it was statistical data by IBGE.[248]
In a public speech in April 2017, Bolsonaro said he had five children, that the first four were male and that for the fifth he produced a daughter out of "a moment of weakness".[249]
Bolsonaro provoked controversy for a series of remarks made to and about Federal Deputy and former Human Rights Minister Maria do Rosário. During a Congressional debate, Bolsonaro said that minors should be treated as adults if they commit heinous crimes such as murder or rape, to which Maria do Rosário responded by calling him a "rapist".[250][251][252] Bolsonaro then stated that Congresswoman Rosário was "not worth raping; she is very ugly".[173]
Regarding homosexuals: In May 2002, after then-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso attended a pro-gay-marriage gathering, Bolsonaro said, "If I see two men kissing in the street, I will beat them."[257] He later publicly defended beating gay children, saying, "If your child starts to become like that, a little bit gay, you take a whip and you change their behavior." He also said, "If a kid hangs out with someone who uses marijuana, he'll end up snorting, and if he hangs out with gay person, he definitely is going to turn into a faggot."[258]
In a June 2011 interview with Playboy, Bolsonaro said, "I would be incapable of loving a gay son", and added that he would prefer any gay son of his "to die in an accident".[259] In the same interview, he said that if a gay couple moved in next door to him, it would lower the market value of his house.
In an interview that same month with Jornal de Notícias, Bolsonaro linked homosexuality to pedophilia, saying, "many of the children who are adopted by gay couples will be abused by these couples".[260] He further argued that Brazil does not need legislation specifically targeting homophobia, because "most homosexuals are murdered by their respective pimps at hours when good citizens are already asleep".[6]
There’s other current examples around the globe but the cult of personality and the degrading subjugation of women in the US is very evident in Trump, as well as last June’s destruction of the 49 year old Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court.
That’s it. The January 6 hearing has begun.