Cross posted from: https://feddit.de/post/11273444
Here’s the video: https://cdn.masto.host/mastodonuno/cache/media_attachments/files/112/301/095/016/802/084/original/cb26d5e48d238d3a.mp4
In a hearing on Wednesday held by the U.S. House Oversight Committee, historian Dr. Timothy Snyder from Yale University confronted Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Green about her accusations of Ukraine being ‘corrupt’ and a ‘Nazi state’.
"You can be assured that no far-right party has ever crossed 3 percent in an Ukrainian election,” Snyder said. “So, of course, there are bad people in every country, but by any comparative standard, it is a very small phenomenon [in Ukraine].”
Snyder added: "In Russia, on the other hand, the army includes openly Nazi formations … the [Russian]government itself is fascist in character, and it is carrying out a war, which includes deportation of children by the tens of thousands, the open intention of destroying a state, as well as mass torture,” Snyder said.
“So if we’re looking for fascism, and if there is anyone who is sincerely concerned about halting fascism or racism, you would wish to halt Russia.”
Snyder also addressed Greene’s false claims of U.S. tax dollars would be going to support Ukrainian Nazis, saying that “this trope of Ukraine being corrupt with respect for weapons comes from a handful of Russian sources”.
“There is no reason to think it. They [Ukrainians] are fighting for their lives.”
I mean, good for him, but I think it’s pretty clear that she’s not opposed to fascism.
When people like Greene decry Nazis, they mean something different than we do. We mean “Nazis”: violent white supremacist nationalists.
She just means “nazis”: our ultimate national enemy. And her audience understands her perfectly well.
She could be like, ‘We must protect our home-grown historical demographics by any means necessary, and seek out a final solution to do so, or the nazis will make Christians servants by replacing us with inferior people trafficed across the border.’ And her constituents would say, ‘Obviously! Yes, we must.’
It was the academic way of politely expressing that she’s a fascist.
Sadly, Congresspeople ain’t academics.
No, when people like Greene decry Nazis, they are straight-up lying.
Just read my comment again. I think there’s an important point that more people need to internalize.
People joke about how Trump constantly declares himself a lover of “law and order”, but is a flagrant criminal, for instance. But he’s not just being randomly hypocritical: his definition of “law and order” is different from ours. We think of law as immutable rules that apply to all. He thinks of it as state power wielded by those who deserve it. Laws applied against him aren’t laws, and extrajudicial violence by his supporters is. Same with order. It’s not quiet, peace, or calm. It’s a privileged group who the law protects but does not bind and a tier of others who the law binds but does not protect.
Greene isn’t lying, she’s speaking loud and clear in another language, and we need to learn to translate it and listen to what she and the whole Christian Nationalist movement are increasingly saying out loud.
I still consider that kind of doublespeak to be lying; she knows what Nazi means, and is deliberately perverting that.
Trump, on the other hand, I’m not sure knows what ‘law and order’ actually means, you’ve got me there