This letter to the editor from 1961 voices the same diagnosis of the nation's ills and the same solution--to completely obliterate the New Deal state--that animates the MAGA/Project 2025 blitz we're experiencing now. That 1961 newspaper was put out by a fascist who helped found the Posse Comitatus. - ThreadSky

sethcotlar.bsky.social • 19 hours ago

This letter to the editor from 1961 voices the same diagnosis of the nation's ills and the same solution--to completely obliterate the New Deal state--that animates the MAGA/Project 2025 blitz we're experiencing now. That 1961 newspaper was put out by a fascist who helped found the Posse Comitatus.

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faithlessgrace.bsky.social•16 hours ago

📌

wesail.me•17 hours ago

Robert Welch was once viewed as a crackpot. Today's Republican Party is his grandchild.

jalapena.bsky.social•17 hours ago

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launan.bsky.social•18 hours ago

I’m glad you are sharing documentation on how the white supremacy/racist dots are connected from our past to the present. Keep it safe!

tallkim62.bsky.social•17 hours ago

📌

beechandelm.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Koch family via John Birch Society called President Eisenhower, first Republican President in 33 years, "a communist." Unrelenting attacks on US labor relations, wages, govt removal of ordoliberal protections via Cato Institute etc achieved their goal of creating a precariat with 64% of populace.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•18 hours ago

That fascist was Portland, Oregon's Syl Ehr. He'd been a pro-Hitler Silver Shirt in the 1930s. In the 1960s and 70s he was a leading crusader against fluoridation (as seen in this article from that same 1961 newspaper). His printing shop was where the city's fascists met from the 1950s into the 80s.

ubermitch.bsky.social•18 hours ago

not sure how to square the shared taste in eyeglass frames here 🤣

tallkim62.bsky.social•17 hours ago

📌

sethcotlar.bsky.social•18 hours ago

One of Syl's long time political allies was Walter Huss, a white Christian nationalist who became the chair of the Oregon Republican Party in 1978. In 1985, after Huss was informed the FBI suspected him of being a Nazi & a Posse Comitatus member, Syl gave him this handy dandy note saying otherwise.

tallkim62.bsky.social•17 hours ago

📌

sethcotlar.bsky.social•18 hours ago

As we see in this article, Syl and his Posse pals thought that they were the sole determinants of what was legal and what was not. They went around threatening to lock up DAs and judges they didn't like. Because they thought the police had gotten too woke, they bought their own badges to wear.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•18 hours ago

A foundational assumption behind this far right world view was that the media was "controlled" by the radical left and was hostile to "Christian patriots." For Ehr and Walter Huss, they meant "the Jews," but they usually left that part implied so as to provide some degree of plausible deniability.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Lyle Hartzell, the author of the piece in the original post, was a John Bircher who was well known to the editor of his local newspaper. Like many Birchers, he owned sheets of stickers with the phrase "This is a republic, not a democracy--Let's keep it that way!" that he would put on his envelopes.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Lyle also had some hostile opinions about the UN that Senator Mike Lee would likely agree with wholeheartedly. This is the sort of "sovereignty politics" that historian @jenmittelstadt.bsky.social has written about. Letter is from 1962.

richlevine6.bsky.social•16 hours ago

I think today’s MAGA right’s stickers would be more direct and honest about their intentions: “This is an autocracy, not a democracy—Let’s keep it that way!”

sarahspa.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Just for recore: no relation

drgeophysics.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Yup. Mainlined by Goldwater and then used to construct Reaganville.

blueraybluejay.bsky.social•17 hours ago

Not surprising that he came from OR. The KKK was trying to make OR they’re west coast home. There were active groups around Medford near the OR/CA border who would venture into CA where a lot of Italians had immigrated to work in the timber industry.

rachacha.bsky.social•16 hours ago

I had no idea there were fascists from the 1950s into the 80s.

almostfurious.bsky.social•18 hours ago

We were at a turning point…60 years ago?

bro-ken.bsky.social•13 hours ago

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blocksincoming.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Is this the same guy who operated a laundramat?

sethcotlar.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Not that I know of...but could be? It's a pretty unique name. Was it in NE Portland?

blocksincoming.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Actually I'm thinking of a different Posse Comitatus and Silver Shirt from Portland: Mike Beach. Plaigarized Mike Gale's Posse materials and tried to build his own.

sethcotlar.bsky.social•18 hours ago

Yes, Beach was also involved with this and was also a Silver Shirt back in the 30s. I haven't fully figured out the nature of the ties between Beach and Ehr yet.

4quad.bsky.social•9 hours ago

JFK was an inside job.

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