In this morning's Letter from an American, Heather Cox Richardson said:
Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a series of pamphlets for U.S. Army personnel in the European theater of World War II. Titled Army Talks, the series was designed “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and women and therefore better soldiers.”
On March 24, 1945, the topic for the week was “FASCISM!”
Heather was right to draw attention to this, but it was not the first time she had done so. She also did so in May 2023, when I wrote the response I share again below.
It's important to note why I wrote in the way I did then. "Woke" was then the favourite term of abuse for the far-right Trump supporter, and being "anti-woke" was how they defined themselves, but as I argued then and will still argue now, "anti-woke" was code for being fascist, which is what they were then, and now.
And let's be clear what being woke means. It can be defined as being "aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)." If you are woke, then you are not only aware of injustice but also want to address it.
So what are you if you are anti-woke and so oppose "important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)"? First, you are a proponent of injustice. Second, you support a society that is based on prejudice, othering, and hatred of the person you define as having that characteristic. That is what the fascist does. This is what being "anti-woke" means.
And that's why being woke is important: those who are woke oppose what fascists do, but they do not just oppose them; they seek to remedy the harm fascists cause in society. The term still has value, as does the clear line it helps us draw.
The US Army knew that anti-wokeism was fascism in 1945. Why don't we acknowledge it now?
I am grateful to today's edition of Heather Cox Richardson's 'Letter from an American' for pointing my attention to an extraordinary publication from the US Army in March 1945. It looked like this:
That is some introduction.
What followed were five pages of discussion on the dangers of fascism, intended to inform US troops on the attitudes that they might meet in Germany, which they were close to part-occupying by then.
Some of the highlights are:
And this:
Then they moved on:
The next section was:
There are reams of thought that flow from that, and the current oppression of wages in the UK.
The paper moved on to:
This is particularly telling:
I have included most of the next section; it resonates so much:
And so the paper moved to its conclusion:
In support, the paper says:
I stress, this is a slightly edited version of the paper.
But what it says is one very clear thing.
Unless we are 'woke', we cannot beat fascism.
And 'anti-wokeism' is fascism.
The US Army did not use that term in 1945, but it might as well have.
We should use it now.
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Jane Fonda put it succinctly in January 2025 when she said “Being Woke just means you give a damn about other people.”
Correct
Fascists not only don’t do that – they hate other people
Its interesting how the US Military both collectively as in this case and individually eg Eisenhower’s valedictory speech as President can be both perfectly correct AND not what you might expect.
I do like these stand off photo’s and the strength of the Fascists opponents
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39804471
Me, too
We had a similar stand off in Birmingham a few years ago. Billy Bragg wrote a great song (Saffiyah Smiles) on his 2017 Bridges not Walls EP about the young Asian woman’s bravery as she faced down the far right thugs in Centenary Square. I think the stand off (which was filmed) may still be available to view on line.
Her picture was in the BBC selection yesterday.
1. Defend institutions, not leaders.
2. Treat truth as non-negotiable.
3. Reject dehumanising language.
4. Protect the right to dissent, before you need it.
5. Watch how power treats the weakest, and work to protect them.
6. Beware of permanent emergencies.
7. Strengthen local civic life. Join a Union, a community group, a faith organisation, even a library!
8. Demand standards, not loyalty.
9. Don’t stay silent. Speak up.
10. Love!
I think Robert Jenrick has used the “can we spot it” section as an instruction manual.
Scary stuff. There’s an old proverb that addresses this issue very clearly:
“There’s none so blind as those who will not see.”
Time to stand up and be counted.
A leading politician Robert Jenrick has a case to answer under the Public Order Act – – a tirade of hate speech on X promoting Islamophobia and racial hatred :
https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/2009898512117575931
At a time when the Palestine Action remand prisoners – convicted of no crime , and not even charged – but imprisoned like political prisoners elsewhere in the world may soon die.
Agreed
In fact, very much agreed
Thank you, Dr. Murphy. God bless you.
Thank you, but actually not Dr. My wife is that. I missed that bit and went straight to Prof. I could submit my academic work as a PhD but have never really seen the point at my career stage.
I only realised that the household budget analogy was total lies around 6 months ago, thanks to your YouTube channel. It was a huge game changer for me. The point at which I felt a sort of call to action.
However, I have yet to encounter anyone else who either knows this already or believes me when I explain that a sovereign nation cannot run out of money. I cite the post-WW2 and 2008 government actions to the different crises. But still, people refuse to believe it, replying things like ‘why isn’t it in the papers then?’, or ‘it’s a lot more complex than that’.
Fascism in the UK is rising fast.
The last government’s Prevent strategy lumped socialism and communism together as characterised by grievances and having extremist positions. Proscription of Palestine Action happened. Justice and care were repackaged as extremism. Polarisation increased.
The current government/reform/tories/big tech are spreading propaganda of false binary choices. You either support the current regime or you are a dissident communist.
So, they have us living in food and energy poverty, living in fear, and believing that we only have 2 choices, and noone wants the evils of communism, right? That’s how they get voted in. Then there will be no more voting, no more democracy.
People NEED to know that there IS another choice. Everyone. It has to become Common Knowledge.
We need, with haste, and at scale, to actively spread the word about the household budget myth. As i said, once I knew that, I realised that there was another way and was motivated to do something. I started trying to educate myself on all things relevant that I had never paid much attention to before, such as political economics (!).
But how to spread this information in the realm of misinformation? I really don’t know. I don’t do social media and couldn’t share anything with 5 people even. But the household budget myth explainer needs to go so viral it gets translated into all languages.
How can we go about doing this right now?
I try jusing my YouTibe channel and social media
Beyond that, I wish I knew.
It is truly amazing to read this.
And then the U.S. dropped everything, and pivoted towards communism as the ‘great evil’. Known fascists were then ignored or allowed back into society the world over.
Talk about taking your eye off the ball and assuming the behaviour of those you once indicted. You couldn’t make it up. What a disaster.
‘Woke’ has increasingly got a bad rap because it has been so often co-opted by dishonest actors as a cover for their disingenuous behaviour.
I remember my FE college putting up inspirational posters about achievement and human dignity like Harry S. Truman’s: “Do your best, history will do the rest.” The man who dropped two weapons of mass destruction on tens of thousands of Japan’s civilians.
Or the Climate change policy makers waxing lyrical about how WE, the plebs, must make difficult sacrifices as they wave on the petro Chemical industries.
Or our leaders talking about the evils of racism or antisemitism whilst supporting openly fascist army units in Ukraine or the mass slaughter of children in Gaza.
People rightly see through this but so often become victims of a false dichotomy thinking.
Woke has been used not unlike the rousing revolutionary language of the Trotskyist, whose rhetoric so entirely divorced from their actions has enabled nothing but that the stats quo remains (why Trotskyist academics and their books are so beloved of the establishment and MI5/6).
The trouble with this language nowadays is it has become highly politicized: Saying, “I’m woke’, can be misread as ‘I’m a self-righteous, pious, lefty prig’, when in reality you’re just deeply concerned about social justice, truth etc.
And saying “I’m anti-woke’ can be misread as “I’m a far-right, white supremacist loon’, when in reality you may just be a socially conservative person who deeply concerned about social justice, truth etc…
We should abandon such loaded terms that will prejudice people before they hear the arguments.
The words ‘fascism’ ‘communism’, ‘woke’, ‘anti-woke’ have become obscured banners to which people are rallying only to be efficiently divided.
Something fascism thrives on.
You can never say you’re anti-woke and not be neo-fascist and utterly uncaring.
I do not buy your logic. You are on troll watch.