Does Hate Have a Home Here?
June 25, 2021
The following letter was published in this week’s issue of the Gazette.
To the editor:
The trendy epithet of choice these days is “racist,” which got quite a workout online here in Croton over the last few weeks. But after last week’s issue of The Gazette hit the stands, one resident commenting on social media reached into history to call one of the letter writers a “fascist.”
Using either term to shut down an opponent (or to discuss the Croton Fire Department) is both lazy and harmful to our community’s social fabric, but at least “fascist” has a link to Croton history.
Croton has a long association with radical causes. There are only three Americans buried in the Kremlin wall, and one of them is a former Croton resident. Dozens of other artists and writers living in Croton over the years were sympathetic to the communist cause.
It was during those decades when Croton was home to numerous pro-communist activists that fascism was the primary counterweight to communism in Europe. For many of those in the thick of politics, there was a mandatory choice between the two camps. This played out in the Spanish Civil War, and then with the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. MORE AT https://www.crotonunited.org/news-views/2021/6/25/does-hate-have-a-home-here
YUP!
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