Remember Germany’s 1930’s Weimar Republic and the diminutive, firebrand populist who eventually seized power? Although he sees no problem in quoting Mussolini and at least initially hesitated at denouncing the Ku Klux Klan, Donald Trump is not exactly comparable to Hitler, at least not quite yet, but then neither was Hitler at the beginning. The […]
Stepping over the line
In 1979, I happened to run across Georges Bernier, the creator of the bitingly satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. The motto was “Bête et Méchant,” which translates roughly as “stupid and nasty.” It had started in 1969 as Hara Kiri, but had only lasted a year before it was closed on orders from Charles de Gaulle, […]