50 The Blues Brothers had the right idea.Hillsdale County Nazis. I hate Hillsdale County Nazis.Joshua Paladino, a college student in his statesmanship course efforts, and in his capacity as a member of the Hillsdale Community Library board, improperly submitted a proposal to ban books dealing with race, gender, and orientation from the library’s children’s section. He lied and claimed that these books are explicit and age-inappropriate. He lied and claimed that the new librarian (now resigned, along with the children’s librarian, both in protest over this bullshit) brought these books into the library (the books have been here for years — Paladino has not). He lied and claimed that he was not attempting to hide his proposal from the public, despite the fact that he hijacked a separate agenda item at the May 20th board meeting to submit it, and despite the fact that any action taken on his proposal would have constituted an Open Meetings Act violation, because the public was not given proper notice of the proposal under the law.You can watch the video of the meeting embedded below. Paladino is the one with the giant Trump/Pence sticker on his laptop (because, being a Nazi, of course he would). Additional media coverage can be found at the Hillsdale Daily News and WILX. The May 20th meeting of the Hillsdale Community Library Board. Video from Penny Swan.Of course, there’s also the proposed abortion ban that was supported on the Hillsdale City Council by January 6th seditionist Greg Stuchell on behalf of his wife, Hillsdale County Right To Life vice-president Heather Tritchka, and was submitted by city councilmember Tony Vear to cover the impropriety by Stuchell. That was a shameful and embarrassing attempt to fly under the radar, as well — no matter how much they, like Paladino, lie and try to deny it.It’s the only tactic that the Good Ol’ Boy Network has left: try to sneak something in at the last minute, then claim it wasn’t an attempt to hide it from the public when they get caught. They’ve already exhausted all of their other options for underhanded methods; we’ve caught them too many times trying to do it other ways. Aside from outright admitting to the fact that they don’t give a shit about the law or the will of the voters (and sometimes they do that, too), this is all they have left. It’s what has worked most frequently for them in the past (as in the case of changing the city clerk and city treasurer’s positions to appointed rather than elected… which still needs to be rectified, by the way). Lately, we’ve been able to stop them, or at least slow them down. But they still try it.Oh, and let’s not forget Stuchell’s fellow January 6th co-conspirator, Robert Socha, who implored his fellow city councilmembers to criminalize the homeless — much like the City of Fort Lauderdale has repeatedly… been… sued… for… attempting… to… do (and those are just examples from the last seven years; the Fort Lauderdale City Council has been pulling that shit for decades) — because a judge that Socha knows felt “uncomfortable” seeing them around town.All of these efforts are part of the larger Nazi Republican plot to commit genocide against poor, black, female, and LGBTQIA+ people. And if you laughed at that sentence, have a seat and learn something for once in your life.Did you know that Hillsdale County was purple on the 2008 electoral map? It was also purple in 2012. Despite what the false Democrat/Republican paradigm would have you believe, Hillsdale County has always been liberal on social issues. From the staunch abolitionism that was apparent here in the leadup to the Civil War, to voting for Barack Obama in both of his elections in greater numbers than Hillsdale County had voted for a Democratic candidate in most of its existence; this community has historically been a socially liberal one — as the early Republican Party, which was founded some 25 miles up the road in Jackson, originally was. We value civil liberties here. We’re all about individual freedoms. We’re all about inherent rights, welcoming differences, and opening our arms to people who want to be here.The current, Nazi, Republicans — and, in this case, Joshua Paladino and those affiliated with him, many of whom spoke in favor of his proposal despite claiming to not know what it actually said (which is also a lie, they know exactly what it said; they were responding to his direct call to them to defend it) — are the exact opposite of everything Hillsdale County stands for.This is simple fact. The 2016 Republican Party platform — which has not been changed or altered in any way since — is an Americanization of the 25 Point Program of 1920. If you don’t know what that is, look it up and compare the two. You will find that the 2016 document is almost a direct copy — the only changes were the names of the minority groups to be targeted, and a change from direct fascism to the current American default of inverse fascism. Nazism is the Republican platform. The Republican Party is a Nazi Party. The Republicans are Nazis. All of them. No exceptions. If you oppose Nazism, you left the Republican Party in 2016. If you didn’t, then you admit that you accept at least SOME Nazism, and you will never escape condemnation for that.We fought a war to end that hatred and murder. We WON that war. Now we’re supposed to welcome people who embrace that hatred and murder because the ideology has taken hold among our own citizens?Fuck that, and fuck anyone who dares to make that argument.The legal definition of genocide is as follows:In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of GenocideThe only reason that the convention does not include sex, gender, lack of income or lack of housing, or medical condition in its definition of genocide is because many of the signatories to it never would have signed it if it had. Many of them still wouldn’t. That doesn’t change the fact that, on logical and moral grounds, the exact same actions taken against any group on the basis of sex, gender, lack of income or lack of housing, or medical condition also constitutes genocide.Banning abortion is an assault on the inherent right of body autonomy. Without body autonomy, you HAVE NO RIGHTS AT ALL. One of the key things the German Nazis did under their eugenics programs was to ban abortion for all “aryan” women unless the fetus was deemed to have a supposedly hereditary disorder. Jewish abortions, however, were allowed because the German Nazis did not consider Jews to be legal citizens, and therefore, their embryos had no rights under the law.Now translate that to the current effort to overturn Roe v. Wade and the purposes the Nazi Republicans have for doing so — which is not “saving babies.” Exactly the opposite. In fact, it’s the inverse of the German Nazis’ motivation. The rich and powerful will still be given a pass for their abortions, because either A: they have to cover up their extramarital affairs, or B: it would simply inconvenience them to bring a child into the world. Those are exactly the same callous motivations that they accuse everyone else of having… because remember: every accusation coming from the Nazi Republicans is an admission of their own guilt. When they accuse others of something, they’re doing it to deflect from the fact that they’ve done it, themselves. There are no exceptions to that rule, either.No, it’s the poor and minorities who will suffer, being prosecuted for “killing babies,” being forced into vastly unsafe back-alley procedures, being forced to care for children that they cannot afford to support… and that the Nazi Republicans will have no care for, themselves. The Nazi Republicans would rather foist these unfortunate children off into a disgustingly broken — and intentionally so, make no mistake about that — foster care and adoption system. In the environment that the Nazi Republicans want, both parent and child will inevitably end up purposely disadvantaged as a secondary class of citizen, and possibly both ending up dead. All due to circumstances beyond the victims’ control, but wholly at the whim of the Nazi Republican government in power.By logical definition, that is genocide.Banning and burning “obscene” and “objectionable” books — and burnings have already been suggested by other Republicans, so let’s not pretend that that’s not the next step — are HALLMARKS of Nazism. Paladino would be all for burning books if he knew that had public support. So would his supporters. So would all Nazi Republicans.The books that are the target of their ire all have to do with representing minorities — black people, same-sex couples, trans folks — in the light, neither positive nor negative, that they simply exist. Black people still experience racism today due to our history of slavery and racism in the United States. That’s not “critical race theory,” that’s proven fact. Books that state as much are simply stating the reality of life in this country for people of color, most often written by people of color, based on their own personal experiences — which are usually, collectively, very similar. Same-sex spouses and parents exist. That’s not something anyone gets to object to, it is objective reality, and not only are same-sex attractions and parenthood natural, they do not cause any harm to anyone, and are therefore nobody else’s reason for concern. Gender diversity is demonstrable throughout ALL of creation, homo sapiens included. The concept of a strict gender binary is contrary to all scientific evidence on the topic. Transgender, agender, intersex folks… these are all a part of God’s creation, not abominations, nor anything for anyone to be afraid of.And yet, the Nazi Republicans are attempting to not only ban books about these people, but force them out of society entirely. They want to ban trans females from women’s sports (trans women do not have any inherent physical advantages after at least one year of hormone treatment at the elite levels of competition, and none whatsoever without treatment below those levels). Curiously, the Nazi Republicans don’t care about trans men competing in men’s competitions — pure misogyny on display in that contradiction. They want to ban trans females from women’s bathrooms and dressing rooms, despite the fact that no trans woman has ever assaulted a cis woman in such a setting — though trans women have repeatedly been victims of assault in those settings. They want to prevent trans people from even existing altogether, such as attempted bans on access or severe gatekeeping to transition care (especially for children, who know their gender by age 5 in most cases), attempted bans on or severe gatekeeping to changing gender markers or using gender-neutral markers on identifying paperwork, and outright legal discrimination on the basis of gender identity in many sectors of life such as housing, education, employment, and so on.By logical definition, that is genocide.Criminalizing the homeless may not seem like it rises to the level of genocide, but consider this: the German Nazis certainly did their share of rounding up the indigent, also under that same guise of eugenics.What is eugenics? It is a disproven and thoroughly rejected concept of “social health,” which holds that by sterilizing or killing off those who have “undesirable” traits, those traits can be eliminated from the gene pool. The German eugenics movement was based on the American eugenics movement (no, this is nothing new to our country), and while Germany pursued the fallacy in the name of “racial purity,” the original American version was engineered to uphold — surprise, surprise! — existing white-centric power structures by targeting the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, and people of color. In fact, as Wikipedia’s article cites several sources to note:A disproportionate number of those who fell victim to eugenicists’ sterilization initiatives were women who were identified as African American, Hispanic, or Native American. As a result, the United States’ eugenics movement is now generally associated with racist and nativist elements, as the movement was to some extent a reaction to demographic and population changes, as well as concerns over the economy and social well-being, rather than scientific genetics.“A reaction to demographic and population changes, as well as concerns over the economy and social well-being.” Gee, doesn’t THAT sound familiar? The Nazi Republicans have relied on hatred of Mexican and South American immigrants to stoke their base for the past 50 years, raising unfounded fears of crime, disease, and a declining percentage of white people among the whole population. That, in turn, has transformed into the current White Replacement Theory panic being spewed today by Nazi Republican mouthpieces and officials like Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert and Elise Stefanik, just to name a few. Even illegitimate Pennsylvania senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz — who doesn’t even live in Pennsylvania, so he shouldn’t even be on the ballot — has embraced this racist fervor, despite himself being a child of two immigrants. These current efforts to eliminate certain groups from American society sure do seem to have the same motivations as the eugenics movement did.Both, by logical definition, are genocide.Nazism’s end goal is always genocide. Whether it’s the German Nazis, who sought to murder or make life completely unlivable for anyone who didn’t fit their “aryan” racial ideal (a race which does not actually exist, by the way)… or the American Nazi Republicans, who seek to murder or make life completely unlivable for anyone who doesn’t fit their white-skinned, cisgender, heterosexual, “Evangelical Christian,” patriarchal societal ideal… the end goal is genocide. That fact is objective and undeniable.Here in Hillsdale County, we WILL NOT tolerate it. WE WILL end it.Here’s the plan of action, and it’s a bold one that takes courage.Show Up at Every MeetingApathy is the primary reason why these assholes have been so able to take control of our local government. I’ve been telling you that for almost a decade now. Attendance at public meetings of government bodies has slightly improved, but nowhere near enough. These Nazis are the minority. If YOU show up to every meeting you possibly can, they will clearly be shown to be outnumbered. Because they ARE outnumbered. But that doesn’t mean anything if YOU don’t get active. Ostracize Them, and Do Not Let Them Control The NarrativeWE control this county, not them. WE must state the terms. WE must define the language. They will lie and twist meanings to their advantage at every opportunity. DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO GET AWAY WITH IT. Shut them down verbally, loudly, and definitively. Decorum be damned. Tone policing is bullshit. Face them with the power of words. Take them down every peg you can. Confront them at every turn, in public, in private, and in all settings. No violence, but strong words, and refusal to allow them to participate in anything. They must not be allowed to feel comfortable ANYWHERE. Use logic and reason, and do not back down. Evidence, evidence, EVIDENCE. Every piece you can possibly find and present, DO SO. And when they start arguing from emotion (as they always do), throw their favorite phrase right back in their pathetic faces: “facts don’t care about your feelings.” VOTEAgain, apathy is our downfall. Engagement is our salvation. More people have voted in recent Hillsdale County elections than have for decades, but it’s still not enough. November 2022 is a crucial election, not only for the country as a whole, but for us here in the City of Hillsdale and Hillsdale County. These Nazis seem to think that they own this place. They do not… but they will control it if we do not force them out. This is not the time for “both-sidesing” or having any doubts that what we’re facing is truly pure evil. Nazis have no redeeming qualities. There is no good in them. They have rejected humanity. WE must reject THEM.I’ve made this call many times before. If you read back through my previous writings, here and elsewhere, you’ll see I’ve been proven correct at every turn. This time is no different, save for one point: this is the tipping point. If we do not stop this evil here and elsewhere, right now, there is only death and destruction to come.Stop them now, or it will be too late.There is a special meeting of the Hillsdale County Community Library Board this Thursday, May 26th, at 6:00 PM, at the library, 11 E. Bacon Street, in Hillsdale. I’ll see you there.EDIT: Due to illness, I will not be able to attend. AbortionBook BansCity of HillsdaleForced BirthersGenocideGreg StuchellHeather TritchkaHomelessnessInherent RightsJanuary 6th 2021Joshua PaladinoLocal PoliticsNazismRobert SochaSeditionThe Good Ol' Boys NetworkTony VearTransgender 0 comments Josh Colletta When he was a kid, everything was a microphone. So they put him behind one, and he started in radio at the age of 8. Now, some 32 years later, Josh Colletta is doing what he's worked toward all his life: talking with you about things that matter, things that don't matter, and life in general. From politics to sports to Star Trek to civil engineering, and plenty of other geeky endeavors, let's have fun keeping the doctors confused! You may also like Bishop Budde Demonstrated REAL Christianity Published: Friday, January 24th, 2025 So You Think You Can Plan Published: Wednesday, January 8th, 2025 No, Climate Change Is NOT Causing Miami’s High-Rises... Published: Monday, January 6th, 2025 The 163rd Street Mall is Dead. Long Live... 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