‘Never again’ fascism is about to come full circle

WE are taught that history is linear, but it’s not. It goes around and around in great big stupid circles, repeating itself like a drunk at a party. 

The only difference is each cycle has better technology, rather than better humanity — because here we are again, the global rise of the F word unfolding before our screen-blind eyes. It’s not like it’s around the corner, a possible threat, something to be wary of in the future. No, if fascism were cancer, with genocide being stage four, then we are already at stage two. Aggressive and malignant.

Obviously, it’s far easier to ignore it, the caged children, the drowning brown people, the rescue ships not allowed to dock, because it’s summer and the sun’s out and it’s the World Cup and life — for those of us lucky enough to be born on the correct side of those arbitrary invisible man-made lines we call borders — is good. Even when it’s bad, it’s good — there is no war, no starvation, no absolute poverty, none of the stuff that drives people to leave their homes and families and venture into distant hostile environments. Like Europe and North America.