First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me – Pastor Martin Niemöller
In the 2024 US Presidential elections 46% of Latino’s in the state of Florida gave their vote to Donald Trump.
The Department of Homeland Security now boasts that “In the first 50 days of the Trump Administration, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) has made 32,809 enforcement arrests.” 238 migrants, many people with no criminal convictions, unlike convicted felon Donald Trump, were transported to El Salvador. US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem toured the maximum security jail in El Salvador and filmed herself standing in front of the shaven and partially clothed men.
It was a very different kind of America that liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945.
416,800 Americans were killed in World War 2 with 671,278 wounded.
Trump never served in the military, dodging the draft to serve in Vietnam due to having the inexplicable ‘bone spurs in his heels.’ He received military draft deferments five times — once for his bad feet and four times for college.
Trump has been signing many Executive Orders including his regime’s efforts to erase ‘gender ideology’. It has restricted access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender people under 19. Protections for Trans Gender people were removed.
His directives include targeting transgender students, banning trans Americans from military service, and giving federal agencies the green light to openly discriminate against their trans employees. These orders align with the extremist vision of Project 2025, a sweeping right-wing agenda that seeks to dismantle civil rights protections, consolidate presidential power, and dehumanize transgender people. – ACLU
There are hundreds of words and phrases erased from US Government websites. Words the Trump regime considers ‘woke’. Words such as: gender, inclusion, identity, diversity, inter, intersex, equity, equitable, transgender and trans. Infamously the Gulf of Mexico has gone from Trumpland. PEN America has compiled a list of more than 250 words and phrases reportedly no longer considered acceptable – “Some of these moves seem tragically comical, like the elimination of photos from a Defense Department database of the World War II B-29 aircraft Enola Gay while erasing the recognition of the service of LGBTQ+ Americans who served in the military.
In George Orwell’s 1984, ‘Newspeak’ is a controlled language of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to limit a person’s ability for critical thinking.
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” Syme – in 1984, George Orwell
US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and antivaxxer has turned his attention to people on the Autistic Spectrum. His insulting and ignorant comments included that Autistic people didn’t pay taxes and couldn’t hold down a job. He has told Trump that there will be “a massive testing and research effort” to determine the cause of autism and it will all be completed by September this year.
What would Einstein say ? Many experts today consider that the man with the greatest mind of the last century was on the Autistic Spectrum. Many geniuses share characteristics found on the Spectrum: Mozart; Newton; Beethoven; and H.G. Wells. There are no geniuses in the Trump regime – but there most likely are many on the Autistic Spectrum.
The Autism Society of America released a statement following Kennedy’s comments – it finds the Administration’s claim—that “we will know what has caused the Autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures”—to be harmful, misleading, and unrealistic. Autism is a complex developmental disability shaped by genetic, biological, and environmental factors. It is neither a chronic illness nor a contagion, that qualifies harmful language like “epidemic,” and to do so is both inaccurate and stigmatizing. Autistic individuals are human beings who deserve dignity, respect, and equitable civil rights. Leading disability organizations, the scientific community, and medical experts agree: more rigorous, science-based research is necessary, not speculation, oversimplified timelines, or diminished transparency.
In the UK, political parties like Reform, share these ideologies and champion what Trump has been doing in the States – ignoring constitutional and human rights. Reform UK has 4 MPs and 126 local councillors. At the next General Election Reform UK could do really well because its support, especially in England, continues to grow. The latest polling shows that it could have the same share of the vote , 24% as the Tories and Labour. As both those two are increasingly more right wing – this trend towards policies which restrict rights, target vulnerable groups, and ignore the devolved parliaments, should concern people in Scotland where traditionally more left and centrist views prevail.
The words of Pastor Martin Niemöller quoted at the start of this article have never been more prescient. Initially a supporter of Hitler, and a antisemite, he gradually began to change his views when Nazi ideology began to affect him and his church. Eventually he spoke out and was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945.
Some of those Trump voters are now experiencing first-hand the kind of America they got when they voted for him. – He voted for Trump. ICE detained his Peruvian wife.
On Monday, 21 April, The Orkney News, reported on the demonstration which had taken place the day before where those concerned about the Supreme Court judgment and the impact it will have on Transgender issues met together in Kirkwall. It should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention to the drift into Fascism in the USA that Trans people are feeling very vulnerable, not just in the States, but here too. Reading many of the comments from those who supported the successful appeal to the Supreme Court, they illustrate the divisive nature of the discussions around gender and identity in Scotland. This is the intolerance which sows the seeds of fascism.
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Fiona Grahame
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