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Is Fascism Lurking?
Fascism
is one of those words that sounds like it belongs in the past,
conjuring up, as it does, marching jack boots in the streets,
charismatic demagogues like Italy's Mussolini or Spain's Franco
and armed crackdowns on dissent and freedom of expression.
It is a term we are used to reading in histories about World War II--not in news stories from present day America.
And yet the word, and the dark reality behind it, is creeping into popular contemporary usage.
Radical activists on the left have never been hesitant to label their opponents with this "F word" whenever governments support laws that limit opposition or overdo national security or abuse human rights. Government paranoia turns critics paranoid.
One example: writer Naomi Wolf forecast fascism creeping into America during the Bush years accelerated by the erosion of democracy, writing:
"It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here."
Wolf feared Americans couldn't see the warning signs:
"Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognize the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have."
Now, those bells are now being rung by John Hall, an outgoing Democratic Congressman from upstate New York. His fear of fascism has less to do with repressive laws and militarism than the influx of corporate money into politics, swamping it with special interests that buy influence for right wing policies and politicians.
"I learned when I was in social studies class in school that corporate ownership or corporate control of government is called Fascism," he told the New York Observer. "So that's really the question-- is that the destination if this court decision goes unchecked?"
Reports New York's Observer, "The court decision he is referring to is Citizens United, the controversial Supreme Court ruling that led to greater corporate spending in the midterm elections, much of it anonymous. In the wake of the decision, Democrats tried to pass the DISCLOSE Act, which would have mandated that corporate donors identify themselves in their advertising, but the measure failed amid GOP opposition. Ads from groups with anonymous donors were particularly prone to misleading or false claims."
Hall said the influx of corporate money in the wake of Citizens United handed the House of Representatives to Republicans. "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."
Many in mainstream politics who understand that big money can dominate elections although not in every case share Hall's fears. In California, two well-known female candidates from the corporate world raised millions but still went down in defeat.
So money alone is not the be all and end all of a shift towards a red white and blue brand of fascism. Other ingredients are needed and some may be on the way-like an economic collapse, defeat in foreign wars, rise in domestic terrorism and the emergence of a right-wing populist movement that puts order before justice and wants to crush its opponents
Some argue we have just such a movement in the Tea Party although other critics focus on the rise of the Christian right that promotes fundamentalist politics in the name of God.
The Tea Party is not just after Democrats; it has started a campaign against the liberal Methodist Church. It is not internally democratic either with no elected officers or set of by by-laws. It seems to be managed and manipulated by shadowy political operatives and PR firms, financed by a few billionaires who support populism to defang it.
Already militias are forming because of fears of immigration, and there is also concern that if unemployment remains high there is likely to be more violence with police forces understaffed because of government cutbacks. Gun sales went up after the recent violent incidents in Arizona.
The erosion of economic stability with the rise of foreclosures and the shredding of social services is already turning a financial crisis into a social one.
We already have sharp partisan divide and inflation of hateful rhetoric with vicious putdowns of the President and condemnations by members of Congress calling him corrupt, even a traitor.
According to set of the characteristics of fascist nations, there is "a disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
"In place of human rights enemies are turned into scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists." This process is already far along in the USA.
Among the classical characteristics of fascism is a shutting down of debate and a focus on the state--which in our country is controlled by lobbyists and private interests. Wall Street and the military-industrial complex have far more clout than elected officials.
In the past, during the depression, there was a plot to overthrow Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was exposed and neutered. Could something like that happen again?
Maybe it doesn't have to, what with hawks already in control of Congress, major media outlets, the military and poised to slash the power of unions and curb progressive social programs including public education.
Several writers believe that if and when fascism comes to America it will be packaged in a friendly form tied to beneficial advertising slogans and public interest messaging. It will be sold, 1984-style as being unavoidable, even cool, and in our best interest.
Louisiana Senator Huey Long, a mesmerizing agitator, once said, "Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism."
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267 Comments so far
Show AllSounds like Farenheit 451 when the media/police tell all the neighbors to step outside their house to help spot the book reading criminal running for his life from the mechanical hounds.
While we are talking about suspicious things, here is a clip from the NYC subways. Notice the announcement in the background. These announcements are constant. Meanwhile, things fall apart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBrJBap6r3w
Joe
abvodvarka: "to put the [highway-wide sign] to good use,
REPORT ANYTHING SUSPICIOUS was displayed with an eight hundred number below"
Did you report the four highway-wide signs you saw,
asking you to embrace paranoia over common trust?
Honestly, this country pulled the wrong lesson out of 9-11
you have the most honest and closest to the truth response on here by far.
Are we trying to get reality to fit our various brand names, or using words to describe reality?
And slow emit gas chambers AKA Fema Katrina Trailers.
I must add to my laundry list of symptoms of fascism I itemized above, one that I neglected to mention and is perhaps one of the most damning of all, that our government imprisons about one percent of our fellow citizens, a gulag archipelago of two and a half million folks, mostly for non-violent offenses, and mostly because they could not afford to buy enough justice for themselves. Tens of thousands are subjected to solitary confinement, a form of torture.
Tony Vodvarka
Actually, reprehensible though they were, most of the actions of Mussolini's fascists looks pretty tame compared to what our own jackbooted thugs have been doing for the past ten years and more. (I'm talking, of course, of the real Italian Fascism, i.e., from 1922 to 1943, at which point the original Fascist regime fell and, after the Nazi occupation of Italy, was replaced by a puppet regime with the disgraced Mussolini as figurehead, after he was rescued from captivity by the Nazis themselves.)
Look at the torture methods, for example. Italian fascists' main vehicle of torture was the use of castor oil, which, unpleasant as it was, did not leave trails of dead interrogation victims, as do "our" current techniques of "enhanced interrogation." Nor did the Italian police, in the course of their everyday work, kill nearly as many innocent victims as the U.S. as our own militarized goons do in the course of a normal year. And, reprehensible though they were, even Il Duce's famous "targeted assassinations" (to use a current term), such as the murder of the famous antifascist intellectuals, the Rosselli brothers (the story of one of which was immortalized in the Bertolucci film, The Conformist, taken from the Alberto Moravia title of the same name), pale in number compared to the victims of the Bush/Obama reign of terror. The percentage of the Italian population in prison under Mussolini is also a mere fraction of current US numbers. And, perhaps most importantly, even with their odious invasions and occupations of Ethiopia and Somalia, the Italian Fascists' version of imperialism looks like a joke compared to the American version the world has to put with these days.
And finally, as was eloquently presented in the 1987 documentary, The Righteous Enemy, by an Israeli Jew named Joseph Rochlitz, and documented in Hannah Arendt's The Banality of Evil, a great many Italian fascists circumvented the orders of the regime to save Jews, especially after the German occupation of the peninsula.
Which leaves the question: Just what sort of Fascism have we got in the US of A these days?
Wine, O Live Oil, Sex and Pasta are a lousy culture for Fascism.
Franco was in power in Spain for decades. Spain is a land of sex, olive oil and its version of pasta. Mussolini and his fascisti were murderous, vicious thugs. Il Duce ha sempre ragione........even when he was wrong. In other words, shut up. Please, let's not whitewah Mussolini and his fascist thugs.
Italian atrocities in it's colonial possessions like Libya and Ethiopia were staggering (nearly half the population of Cyrenaica, a Libyan province, was wiped out):
http://www.amazon.com/Mussolini-R-J-B-Bosworth/dp/0340809884
General Rodolfo Graziani, who went from being called "the butcher of Libya" to the "butcher of Ethiopia" escaped any serious punishment at the end of the war as crimes against humanity, by definition, could only be committed against Europeans and colonial "adventures" were exempt from legal constraints for all Imperial powers:
---
After an unsuccessful attempt to kill him by two Eritreans on 19 February 1937, Graziani ordered a bloody and indiscriminate reprisal upon the conquered country, later remembered by Ethiopians as Yekatit: thousands of civilian inhabitants of Addis Ababa were killed indiscriminately, another 1,469 were summarily executed by the end of the next month, and over one thousand Ethiopian notables were imprisoned then exiled from Ethiopia. He became known as "the Butcher of Ethiopia". Also in connection with the attempt on his life, Graziani authorized the massacre of the monks of the ancient monastery of Debre Libanos and the large number of pilgrims who had traveled there to celebrate the feast day of the founding saint of the monastery.
---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodolfo_Graziani
---
Fascism of the Italian variety was definitely no walk in the park, as some Italian apologist scholars like Renzo De Felice imply, but it is true that in the barbarity scales, German Nazism was even worse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o2ul-UwOvU
Thanks, JerseyJoe and m156, for the details, but "make no mistake," as Oblahblah would say, I wasn't trying to whitewash Italian fascism, but only to put our current fascism into perspective. Even with the Italian atrocities listed above, how do you think the destruction of, say, Fallujah compares? Before the American destruction of that town, the population was around 600,000. Now estimates are between 200,000 and 300,000. Where did they go? Before the onslaught, US troops were turning back people who were trying to leave. With the legacy of radioactive fallout combining with the untold death-toll, the war crime far outweighs the Italian outrages you list. Which is not even to mention the fairly reliable overall Iraqi death-toll (by the UK Lancet and others) of 1,400,000, and the refugees now numbering close to 5 million, many of whom, you can bank on it, are probably dead.
Or do you really think we're there to bring democracy?
On the home front, the number of people killed on 9/11/01 by the collapse of the THREE towers and the attack on the pentagon, people killed, mind you, by their own government--as the evidence for an "inside job" far outweighs that of any outside authorship of the collapses--far surpasses the number of Italians killed by their own Fascist countrymen, though, admittedly, by the time the war had ended, the "collateral damage" among the citizenry was much greater. But we haven't stopped counting the casualties of OUR fascism yet. It ain't over till it's over, and every Iraqi, every Afghan family and Pakistani wedding party slaughtered adds to the toll, to say nothing of the Yemenis and, let's not forget, the Palestinians, who are also victims of our fascism. Il Duce's fascism was no walk in the park, but it took twenty years to accumulate those numbers, and we're only halfway there. And the Italians, at least, had free health care and education.
Incidentally, to put your Cyrenaica reference in perspective, the pre-US-invasion population of Fallujah was roughly equivalent to the entire population of Libya at the start of the Italian colonization in 1911, eleven years before the Fascists came to power. It's distasteful to compare such numbers, but you'll never convince me that Italian imperialism, fascist or otherwise, was worse than the current U.S. variety. When you consider that between known dead and homeless refugees, the Iraq total is approaching 7 million, out of a pre-invasion population of 25 million, you will begin to appreciate the gravity of the problem. The Italian war and occupation of Libya was disgraceful. The Americans' attempt to take over the world and rule it according to their playbook is worse.
Many historians and scholars now admit that the Nazis and Fascists were not diagonally opposite to liberal, imperialist Europe that preceded WWI and from whose collapse they emerged, but that there was a good bit of overlap there also. You might have noticed, that in the amazon review of Mussolini's biography listed above for the Cyrenaica reference, the actual sentence in the review was:
---
Bosworth points out that Mussolini's colonial atrocities in Ethiopia and Libya (where in Cyrenaica he killed half the population) as well as his opportunistic entry into the second world war was all too much in keeping with "Liberal" traditions.
---
Here is an excerpt from an article Enzo Traverso wrote on the 60'th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz (a theme expanded in his book, 'The Origins of Nazi Violence' whose original French title was 'Nazi Violence: A European Genealogy'):
---
Moreover, the exacerbated nationalism and biological racism of the Nazis were closely linked to the culture and practice of imperialism that had characterized the whole of Europe since the beginning of the 19th century. Germany had not played a leading role in this development. On the contrary, it was a latecomer, a keen pupil following the two great colonial powers, France and Britain. The natural supremacy of the white race and its corollary, Europe's civilizing mission in Africa and Asia; the view of the world beyond Europe as a vast area to be colonized; the idea of colonial wars as conflicts in which the enemy was the civilian population of the countries to be conquered, rather than an army; the theory that the extinction of the inferior races was an inevitable consequence of progress: these central tenets of Nazi ideology were commonplaces of 19th-century European culture.
http://mondediplo.com/2005/02/15civildiso
---
Richard Seymour has also written and spoken about a history many would prefer to forget, even as they feel good about themselves for excoriating the Nazis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUWhfuMAWvg
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Liberal-Defence-Murder-Richard-Seymour/dp/1844672409
---
Mark Mazower is also good at outlining the larger history of Nazi rule over "lower grade races", albeit still European ones:
http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Empire-Nazis-Ruled-Europe/dp/014311610X
---
Good stuff, m156. I agree with all, and have always--or at least since I became passably conscious in late adolescence--seen a continuity and direct ideological correlation between the Anglo and Anglo-American domination of the darker races and the Germanic white supremacism of the Nazis. The self-congratulatory "democratic" triumphalism of the victorious allies after the War was no better exposed for the fraud that it was in the massive violence the French colonials visited upon their subjects in the immediate postwar era. And, incidentally, the Frenchies could have done a much better job fighting the invading Nazis, and possibly even succeeded, had they not chosen to leave their vastly numerous fighting forces oceans away in their colonies, where they could continue to exercise the very "superiority" that little Adolf held so dear.
It's interesting how visceral and reflexive the defensiveness of those who stand by the perpetrators of a colonial massacre of tens of thousands a few days after the end of the Nazi Reich turns out to be as you can see in the comments of this movie which still touches a raw nerve in France:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1_opLxdpzE
The key, imho, is to avoid conflating the Nazi and Democracies' empires, but look for commonalities in an almost taxonomic, i.e. clinical sense, otherwise emotional name calling will drown any attempt at coming to terms with this repressed past, which is still poisons relations between vast numbers of people.
Clovis you led me astray, sorry folks, no more will I say a kinder gentler fascism.
Clovis I guess we will have to drink a couple bottles of both Spainish and Italian Red.
Don't underestimate the effects of castor oil.
Without researching to confirm the gruesome details, IIRC administering castor oil in large enough doses in fact causes the victim's overtaxed gastrointestinal system to excruciatingly, and often fatally, convulse and rupture.
The ruthless colloquialism was that the victims would often "shit themselves to death".
I only bother with this cavil, clovis, because I know you don't want to even remotely sound like those who claim that certain potentially fatal methods of torture aren't as extreme as they sound.
Untill the Nazis took over Italy, Jews were an integral part of the fascist movement. Hitler insisted the Jews be purged, which is why some of them may have been protected by their fascist friends. Italy never had the military power of the Nazis - or the US. We're splitting hairs here - corporations control the military in the US, as they have for a very long time. Read a bit of Smedley Butler - and consider that he has no parallel today.
If you want jackboots - just watch what happens with a 'successful' protest - the riot-police are now militarized and showed ordinary people what happens if you dare challenge the State by trying to 'air grievances' a happened in Miami. Isn't it odd that Right-Wing fascist-oriented 'protests' - like the Tea Party, which is being ogled by the American Nazi Party - is lauded on MSM while Left-Leaning protests are confined to 'free speech zone' pens and arrested? Canada found out just how 'free' they were in Toronto and Vancouver - they're headed in the same direction, but probably only at the stage Danny THINKS the US is at this stage. I tried to discuss this with him (and others) years ago - his audience shouted me down.
Now 'liberals' and 'socialists' are the new 'enemy of the State' - which is what happens when the State serves corporations instead of the people. If any 'liberal' or left-leaning 'socialist' ever got the public ear, you can bet they'd be shut down forcibly - the German people didn't realize what had happened in their country either, and some were in denial right up until the Fall. At least those who listened to the propaganda religiously (and religion seems to play a big part in these things, by the way) and closed their ears, eyes, and minds to what was happening around them. (I'm a conservative, but fully aware of what happens when you don't have a legitimate 'Left' to keep politics in balance - traditional conservatives have also watched the country slip into madness.)
Who runs the 'justice' system in the US today? Compare that to what happened in Nazi Germany. It took a long time for the Nazis to get total control - but the Americans fascists have been with us all along, slowly rebuilding their power since their failed coup (and I do consider 2000 to have been a 'successful' coup).
I don't think there's anything we can do, not really. The rule of law has been effectively suspended, and the merging of military-corporation-government (of which Eisenhower warned us) is complete. There is no obvious charasmatic leader in this case, but that had been a liability in former fascist States anyway. And there's little doubt - if your read PNAC - that taking over the world (by military force) is the ultimate goal. They boldy brag that they will brook no challenges - from anyone - and I do believe they would willingly burn the planet rather than retreat. It's that single-minded devotion to the cause - the determination of 'true believers' - that unites like-minded people to their side, be they religious, greedy, or nationalist. I think Bush showed us all just how 'nationalist' this country really was, and it's hard to deny the US hasn't always been racist/supremacist (except for that short period before and after WWII when the influx of immigrants made that impractical for the general population).
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Fascinating post Armybrat. But I consider myself a socialist--or perhaps social democrat is the proper American term--and I was taken by the fact that you describe yourself as a conservative, a term embraced by Maggie Thatcher and her ilk along with lots of people of my acquaintance who subscribe to the Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck world view. What does "conservative" mean to you?
Traditional conservatives are anti-war and anti-fascist. We believe in true free trade, with no government manipulation - no thumbs on the scales, so to speak, sound money, and no 'foreign entanglements'. The 'common good' is not an evil - it is a necessity. The Fed, the whole corrupt 'financial' system, anti-social corporations, against racism - we have a lot in common with anyone else who holds to a high moral standard. I am an 'Eisenhower republican' - not a fascist. I don't believe 'socialism' can work - although personally, I believe other countries have every right to try it, if they wish (such as Cuba, or Latin America). There's another article today - 'Progressive Arizona' - that mentions their former conservatives and their accomplishments. The extremists today are not representative of what many conservative - in my lifetime - supported.
I'm a liberal. We have a lot in common.
Your way for people to live together peacefully and respectfully is a universal one based on integrity, ethics and morals. Neither party in Washington is graced with people of such character anymore. They have sold us out. We have to move on the best we can, making new friends along the way.
Thanks for that, armybrat. One more observation to throw in here. The Italian Fascists, and, of course, to a far greater extent, the Nazi Germans, may have had dreams of world conquest, but these were limited to late night strategy meetings and took a pretty severe beating on the battlefield, especially after the invasion of Russia. The American fascists, on the other hand, have an enormous world empire ALREADY IN PLACE. That is, they already have the wherewithal to carry out the plans for complete planetary domination laid out by the Project for a New American Century. How many bases across the globe? What kind of military budget? What kind of worldwide propaganda apparatus? This is stuff Nazis could only dream about, and which the likes of Il Duce couldn't even conceive. Hence the far greater danger, since the rest of the world, which rallied pretty admirably to defeat the Nazi-Fascist menace, can't even get their information straight, in the face of the global onslaught of imperialist-capitalist disinformation, let alone organize on an international level against the threat.
So, yes, to all of the above posters, let us see the evil of the past with eyes wide open and spare none in our judgment, and, learn from it, above all. But let us also therefore see the evil of the present with all the more vigilance as it is OUR present and all too easily dismissable as the reality we live each day, the evil whose banality we too easily miss for seeing it all too often. And unlike those past evils, which are gone and buried, our evil is present, and we CAN do something about it, if only by beginning to see it as the evil that it so very much is.
Wars and military expansion can go on for about 7 years before they start costing more than they contribute to the economy. Franco held on for as long as he did because he was not out to conquer the world - just hold on as long as he could. The Fascist Party still holds on strong in some Spanish states - they're not gone, by any means. Same goes for the rest of Europe, but to a lesser extent, although 'nationalism' is popular in France, less so in countries with divisive populations (Belgium is divided between Wallons and Flemau, for instance). I've lived in most of them.
As you mentioned, one charismatic leader can be a drawback. Hitlers stupidity stopped Nazi Germany as sure as any ally ever did. First sentementally refusing to crush and occupy the British isles, Big Mistake! left a perfect stageing area for the counterattack.
Secondly not consolidating thee western wins before turning east. Either secure one flank then the other or be prepared to fight on two fronts, a mean trick if you can do it.
Micromanaging the Armys in Russia, stupid even today. You define goals, pick your best generals and turn them loose, you don't call 15x a day, even Lincoln learned that lesson.
Wasting troops on rounding up, guarding, and gassing jews. If you win you can gass everybody you want, But for a country the size of Germany going against the allied powers there wasn't a man to waste!
We've been at our wars for nearly 11yrs now, when do we stop? we have thrown everything and the kitchen sink.
>^^<
Q. We've been at our wars for nearly 11yrs now, when do we stop?
A. When they have bankrupted the country and the panic sets in after people realize how dependent they are on credit which is no longer flowing. We are the frogs in a slowly warming kettle. I believe that the massive tax cut for the rich, two wars, the part D corporate welfare bill and the dubious collapse of the financial system was a deliberate way to skim trillions of dollars out of the economy and assured the Radical right would get another crack at imposing an even more drastic authoritarian regime when the country devolves into open conflict. They will declare martial law and site National Security is at stake. Its closer than you think.
http://apoliticalcommentary.blogspot.com/2010/03/rise-of-fascist-right-and-death-of-our.html
There were already empires in place before WWII - the British and the French. They were fighting to defend their empires and were not even sure until the last moment which side they would be on - fighting the Soviets or the Nazis. The US sided with empire, it had nothing to so with "fighting fascism." The Soviets fought and defeated fascism and by far paid the stiffest price for that. The British and the US fought for their business interests.
The Germans and the Italians were reacting to the existing empires, saw themselves at a disadvantage because of their lack of colonies and possessions and access to resources.
This has all been sold to us as some good versus evil melodrama, with the US and the British being the good guys.
"...and I do believe they would willingly burn the planet rather than retreat. " –(armybrat)
No doubt. The summa. The salient point, unassailable, at which all serious thinking must begin. Lock this dictum, resolve it in a a pure intransigence, and proceed forthwith. It is no longer remotely conjectural or subject to disputation except by sophists, Panglossians and those waiting for that next clusterfuck of incoherence–an American Presidential election.
There is no longer a need to 'mince' words or equivocate by personalizing– or saying or implying– that one merely 'believes' this to be true as a 'private' opinion and not a general, axiomatic truth that is ammune from argument or debate.
"The path of total police control over all human activities and the path of unlimited free creation are one...We are necessarily on the same path as our enemies–most often preceding them–but we must be there without any confusion, as enemies. The best will win."
–(Situationist International)
Excellent stuff here from the armybrat and Clovis. Our appreciations. But to the point: To recognize the inimical and the antithetical and internalize it where it cannot be contravened. Granitic. In stone. It matters little if America cannabalizes itself regressing into feudalism. That is all by the wayside now, a fait accompli.
"In the Final State there are naturally no more "human beings" in the sense of humans as makers of history.The healthy automata are satisfied and the sick one's get locked up...a cog in the machine made by automata for others of their kind."
–(Alexandre Kojève).
"...without any confusion, as enemies." What does it mean to be an 'enemy' of America, whatever you may want to call it?
No more of the historicist drudgery by comparison of is this or is this not Fascism? The post-academic 'definition' without being one, cuts to the chase at the root, existential level:
"Alas, the time of the most despicable of men is coming, he that is no longer capable of despising himself. Behold, I show you the Last Man."
–(Friedrich Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra.")
To the future and the 'wolf' of resistence:The ghostly haunting of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the firmament still informs the present in its afterlife...
“The hour in which–and it’s a space rather than a time–every being becomes his own shadow, and thus something other than himself. The hour of metamorphoses, when people half hope, half fear that the dog will become a wolf.”
–(Jean Genet, “Prisoner of Love.”)
"Is not this rather the place where one finishes vanishing?"
–(Samuel Beckett–"The Unnamable.")
–Vashkar & Kim
medmedude hit the nail on the head! This is exactly what I see when I talk to the sheeple around here.
I can only shake my head in utter disgust.
As a 'nam vet myself-those 58,000 names on the wall continue to haunt me as I see what we have become.
"...blow up your t.v.-throw away your papers..." John Prine
"Among the classical characteristics of fascism is a shutting down of debate and a focus on the state--which in our country is controlled by lobbyists and private interests."
I believe you could use this paragraph to define the last Congress, Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader. and the first two years of Obama's reign.
It certainly defines the Fascist program nicknamed Obamacare.
That said, any comparison to Jack Booted thugs (Nazi Storm Troopers) or the actions of Mussolini's fascists is absolutely hilarious! It displays a complete lack of knowledge as to what these folks really did. Comparing what they did to any actions in our country is more material for a Laurel and Hardy skit than serious comment.
Mightymite, you are wrong. I compared the American military and police actions to the Italian fascists, not the Nazis. And the Murcans didn't come out too well in the comparison.
Nazism is a whole other matter.
And I think I would put my knowledge of history up against yours any day.
Excuse me, but my family lived under Nazi occupation and we know exactly what the Nazis did. Where did your 'knowledge' come from? How many in your family died in the Occupation? How many risked their lives in the Resistance? What did your family discuss at the dinner table - and everywhere else throughout most of your childhood? How much of the post-war carnage did you live in?
Interesting, armybrat. My family, too, lived under Fascism and Nazi occupation, and my grandmother died of a stroke (aged 47) when her husband and two sons were rotting in Fascist prisons (my grandfather for being antifascist, and his sons for being his sons). Therefore let it not be said that I am soft-pedaling Italian fascism. It rather decimated my family, in fact. I do think, however, that the technological "advances" that have been achieved since that time, and the potential for such technologies to dull and blur the human spirit, make today's authoritarian/totalitarian tendencies far more dangerous, as each man's/woman's free will seems more compromised. Most Italians under Mussolini, like most Russians under the Soviet regime, knew they were being lied to as their respective governments rampaged at home and abroad. Can the same be said for most Americans, as their government so actively does the same, on a far greater scale?
When we tried to question that, our parents stopped us short, insisting that people are the same all over, and respond in the same ways to similar situations. Denial is a very powerful force - especially if your survival depends on it.
The only caveat I can offer is that my father often decried the sophisticated propaganda campaigns waged by the US - employing the most advanced psychological warfare techniques and pouring new money into new research (Bernays, Rockefeller). He was quite disillusioned.
Decimated. Yes, an appropriate description of what war brings - most Americans have no idea about what war really is, or how it affects succeeding generations. No one ever forgets that experience. That lack of personal experience is probably why so many Americans are so apathetic - so ignorant - so blind. Even here on CD it is evident.
I think it is incumbent upon you to respond to the several excellent posts that completely demolish your argument here, or refrain from posting these - or any other talking points - that you are unable or unwilling to defend and support.
Mostly, branding has to do with convincing someone that something is very good or very bad. Fascism has particularly dark connotations since World War II. It would be fine to hang that label on our present system, but the mass media will not allow that to happen. Corporatism fits a little better since it does not have the nationalistic flavor of "fascism," though it lacks the power of that word. Still, ordinary people know what corporate America is all about and they don't like it. In time, that word will stick--and that is all for the better. Mussolini is long gone and it is time to create a new word that reflects the realities of today. Corporatism describes the enemy for all to see and does not drag us into the past. One vote for "corporatism."
In reality it is not Corporate America, things would not be so bad if it were, the true perspective is Global Corporate Multinationals, where in the USA is only a tool and fodder.
Very important distinction in comprehending why there is no honest effort to mend the USA, because the USA is irrelevant, or rather expendable, to Global entities.
Thank you for making that point.
The new auto-worker jobs at the new GM plant pay about $12/hr., far less than ever before.
Jobs will only return to the U.S. when the corporations can pay us less than elsewhere. They don't need us as a market. They don't even need us as paid workers. Policies are in place that ensure slave labor for corporations through prisoner programs.
Slave labor, starvation, escape...or death.
These seem, unfortunately, the only options for tens of millions.
This is part and parcel the problem we face. It's classic doublespeak. Words don't have meanings anymore. Fascism, the melding of state and corporation, is no longer suitable. A more genteel version must be invented. Something without history. Corporatism. That doesn't sound so bad does it? When debating, you can use all the historical information humanity has accumulated regarding corporatism. People can look puzzled when you talk about corporatisms, maybe think you are talking about corporate lingo. What's the take away?
Capitalism is capitalism, and the results are the same, with or without this vague notion of "corporatism." People want to hang brand names on things - as though reality were subservient to the brand names rather than the other way around - and the purpose of that is often to avoid looking at reality. The Capitalists use corporations - always have - but to say that we should "call it corporatism" is to promote the discredited and unsupportable idea that Capitalism is a good thing, that if we had "true" Capitalism we would not be having any problems.
Right from the beginning Capitalists created monopolies, controlled governments, and formed associations and investment schemes and formats of various kinds.
My rich acquaintances have been telling me for years that education is a privilege - not a right.
Seems their money didn't buy them much brains now did it.
education is an excuse
I had watched Democracy Now! this morning which had a segment on Frances Fox Piven and how she was constantly and irrationally being attacked by that demagogue Glenn Beck. Since I do not watch Fox "News" I was not that aware of how fascist someone like Beck is and how so many Americans in this country might be so susceptible to his emotional rantings.
But as a journalist on Democracy Now! pointed out, Beck makes sure that he does not specifically call for violence against individuals. Byron Williams, who had been arrested by the California police for attempting to murder a politician stated on DN!, Beck says just enough to induce people to believe that it would be a good idea if violence was used against Beck's perceived enemies [perhaps Beck was channeling Henry II when the king inquired in the film Beckett if anyone would rid him of this meddlesome priest]. This is then carried over when it was shown on the program how messages left on Beck's web site by Beck's disciples promised to carry out overt acts of violence against Ms. Piven.
In a true democratic society people like Beck who believe that they have something instructive to say would welcome a debate between themselves and someone like Frances Fox Piven. But this is something that the demagogues would seem to be quite terrified of and that is that their fascist messages would be quite easily exposed and punctured by any reputable person on the left.
I've long ago accepted that the corpora-fascists have control of our government (an other as well) and have been called a 'conspiracy theorist' or been ignored by family and colleagues.
In my mind the question is not whether the current state of affairs (or affairs of the State) in the US and other countries can/should be called fascism, but what recourse do the citizens have to stem the tide of our slide into neo-feudalism??
Neo-Feudalism good point, did the Nazis have a social safety net for the Aryans?
Yeah, they pillaged the countries they conquered - sound familiar? And after Hamburg was bombed, they started giving Jewish homes and businesses to dislocated Germans...
It´s not lurking... USA IS ALREADY a fascist police state.
But the propaganda has succeeded to keep the masses duped with cheap talk diverting internal terrorism into blaming the "other" and the fear of a downward spiral into Thirld World status blaming overpopulation.
Wake up people, people go hungry because the ruthless capitalist cartel-mafia dumps TONS of surplus grains every single day in all parts of the world.
And African farmers complain that whenever prices rise enough for them to make a profit the USA dumps free food making it impossible for them to prosper.
thus creating ripe conditions for aquisition of African land by multinationals for biofuels and GM crops.
Bring America Back !!!!
Agreed it jumped us ten years ago and has been riding we
the sheeples ever since 9/11. In the name of Homeland
Security created against faux fairy tales of Osama and
his merry band of cave dwellers.
Right in accord with right radical PNAC criteria that
nobody on the Left can overcome. Kucinich is given up,
Nader too old they say; Feingold now a weak sister with
no seat to sit in.
We are and have been under the thumbs of the big F.