A Nation of Suckers: How a 1947 Film Exposes the Truth about Trumpism

by Nomad

Released in 1947, this 23-minute film, "Don't be a Sucker" was produced by United States Department of War. Its aim was to educate the American public about the dangers of fascism, racism empowered by prejudice and discrimination.

The Guys Who Stay Up Nights

In a real awakening of right-wing extremism, the message of this film has found a new audience. I found it interesting (and timely) how rabble-rousers were portrayed as swindling con artists, rather than just power-hungry politicians. "There are all kinds of games and all kinds of suckers." 

Extolling the beauty of American diversity, the narrator points out that America is composed of..

..all kinds of people, people from different countries with different religions, different colored skins, free people. They can live together and work together and build America together because they're free, free to vote to say what they please go to their own churches, to pick their own jobs.

But, the film reminds us, "there are guys who stay up nights figuring out how to take that away from [us]."

Speaking is Difficult

by Nomad

Directed and edited by AJ Schnack, this short but powerful film is very simple in concept: a catalog of the 911 calls of mass shootings in America since January 2011.  In reverse order, the first call is by a young man from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

"Hate Was Their Handshake"

by Nomad

Recently I stumbled across a fascinating book called "Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld of America." One of the things you quickly learn from reading the book is that the techniques used in politics nowadays were used in the past- albeit primitively, by today's standards. The modus operandi never really changes.

In the years just before WWII, Armenia-American journalist Arthur Derounian (using the alias John Roy Carlson) went underground to investigate and to expose the various organizations that supported fascism and Nazi causes.

When it was published, the book served as a warning that fascism could flourish just as easily in Chicago and New York as it could in Rome or Berlin.

Sanity Sunday- Dulcimer Music by Ted Yoder

by Nomad

Goshen, Indiana resident Ted Yoder has been called "the master of the hammer dulcimer." Although Yoder grew up in a musical family, he received his first dulcimer as a wedding gift only 13 years ago. Yet the talented musician has since grown to become the 2010 National Hammer Dulcimer Champion.

Here are a few of his covers of familiar tunes.

Father Coughlin: How Christian Fascists in the 1930s Perverted the Term "Social Justice"

by Nomad

Last week, Rev. Grady Arnold, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Cuero, Texas, submitted a draft resolution demanding that the Southern Baptist Convention reject various forms of “social justice” philosophy. Arnold called the concept of social justice to be an example of Marxist ideology.

According to Arnold, social justice was an “evil" and not about rights and compassion but about “liberal theology.” In his resolution, he claimed that social justice activism is "a vehicle to promote abortion, homosexuality, gender confusion, and a host of other ideas that are antithetical to the gospel."

“This social justice is creeping down into local churches. If we start down this road today, where will it end?”