One thing to remember is that we are still in the phase of blitzkrieg, shocked by the paper battalions show of strength. But, like a Ponzi scheme, blitzkrieg is an unsustainable strategy, it has to be continually refreshed with new blood, with victory. Look at Europe, 1940. The Nazis had taken control of Poland, France, Austria, Czechoslovakia--of all Europe with the exception of the UK. Their propaganda was spectacular. They rolled over these countries seemingly effortlessly, with shock and awe, with blitzkrieg. The Nazi war machine seemed absolutely unstoppable.
And then the Battle of Britain began, the Nazis met real resistance and it all started to go wrong for them. Hitler said, "Fine, I'll take Russia instead." Russia and Russia's winter had another idea about that.
We all know that on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US Navy at Pearl Harbor. What we aren't always aware of is that on December 8-10 the Japanese continued their blitzkrieg and attacked or seized the Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya, Thailand. The Japanese Imperial Navy seemed unstoppable. But six months later, the story was entirely different, when at Midway the Japanese ability to launch their blitzkrieg attacks was crippled with the sinking of Japan's three major aircraft carrier groups. If war were a chess game, Japan would have resigned. But fascists are stupid, at root, and they chose instead to sacrifice million upon million of their people's lives to sustain their delusion of limitless power.
My father once told me that the great weakness of fascist/authoritarian regimes is two-fold.
1: Movie villains aside, fascists are not generally smart people. And they surround themselves with yes-men.
2: Fascists over-reach. Their eyes are bigger than their tummies. Like Hitler desiring the lands and resources of Russia, like Mussolini attempting to seize North Africa, like Japan seeking to dominate all of Asia... Fascists over-reach. And when they do, they lose.
Trump is over-reaching, the unavoidable stench of his corruption has mobilized millions if not billions against his gang of smirking thugs, and gradually even the simplest among us are beginning to realize that we are in a fight for our children's lives, for simple decency, and for what remains of our civilization.
This awareness will only grow, and each defeat of these gangsters; in the courts, in the streets, in the offices of our bureaucracies, in the bedrooms of fascists, everywhere, destroys their central myth, the myth that they're in control. They are not in control.
“The Americans sit, redrawing the map of the world — but only on paper, as it has no basis in reality,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said at an Iranian Air Force event in Tehran. “They make statements about us, express opinions and issue threats. If they threaten us, we will threaten them in return. If they act on their threats, we will act on ours. If they violate the security of our nation, we will, without a doubt, respond in kind.”
Every kitchen table a general's desk, every outing an ambush. Sand for every gear, and sugar for every fuel system.
