I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
That is why it is called Creeping Fascism
Please send this around to anyone who still thinks that calling Bush a fascist is "shrill" or "alarmist".
farmer,
good to see you back. i was afraid after all the nitpickers and trolls decided to go for the jugular, you might say, "ah piss on that shit. i could easily be off frolicking or defrocking priests or whatnot."
and all the wingnuts will keep shutting their eyes and going, "uh uh, uh uh, uh uh, uh uh, we have american exceptionalism, we'd never sink into fascist groupthink and start rounding up aliens and putting them in detention centers or excoriating dissenters as treasonous, etc."
Bush "flirts" with a lot fascistic stuff and many of his followers come right up to the line and sometimes cross it..
But a comparison with Hitler is inaccurate. That is not what is going on and it distracts from the very real dangers of the Bush administration and the radical right.
I think tristero is right. however evil the curent ongoings are, there is a difference between wanting to marginalize the "thems" of the world, as opposed to killing and/or experimenting on them. maybe there are elements in fascism in what Wrove does, but the word is so loaded that it ends the conversation and does, indeed, distract.
Guys, we already have secret detentions based on no more authority than the government says it wants to. We've already got a detention camp soon to be complete with death chamber. We've already got the government asserting its right to declare American citizens "enemy combatants" and strip them of all rights. There's no creeping about it.
I think the full impact of two recent events are going to take some time to dawn on all of us.
1) We just went to war with a country that did not threaten us. However we got there, that is a huge change in the nature of our country, and a huge change in the world order. As the world recedes from the fog of propaganda the consequences will begin to appear. I think it still has not barely started to dawn on everyone how big a deal it is that this happened - never mind how we got there.
2) We are only starting to wake up to the consequences of the Bush tax cuts. Before the tax cuts the administration was assaulting everything we care about, on many fronts at once, overwhelming our ability to gather a response. But the tax cuts - they have virtually destroyed the governemnt a few years out. Aside from the international consequences of racking up that much debt there is the effect on the ability to pay for our government -- Social Security is gone, Medicare is gone, even fixing roads is gone! As I said, the consequences of ALL the money being gone are only beginning to dawn on us.
PLAYING THE GAME -- DISHONESTLY: Tapped makes a big deal of the Christian Science Monitor's report (noted here last night) that documents found by the Monitor implicating British antiwar MP George Galloway as a collaborator with Iraq appear to be forged. Tapped thinks that Andrew Sullivan owes Galloway an apology, and adds rather snippily: "It's Sullivan's game. We're just playing it."
Playing it rather dishonestly, though. Because what the Tapped post doesn't mention is that the same expert who found the Monitor's documents probably fraudulent also said that the Telegraph documents were probably genuine:
After examining copies of two pages of the Daily Telegraph's documents linking Galloway with the Hussein regime, Mneimneh pronounces them consistent, unlike their Monitor counterparts, with authentic Iraqi documents he has seen.
Moreover, a direct comparison of the language in the Monitor and Daily Telegraph document sets shows that they are somewhat contradictory.
The trouble is, you can't read this directly from their post because Tapped doesn't link to the Monitor's story. Instead, it links to this AP story about the Monitor's findings, that doesn't include that discussion. That's funny, since Tapped's post is timestamped 12:40 p.m. today, and the Monitor story has been available since last night. So why link to the AP story?
Unless, of course, you're playing games. I think that it's Tapped who owes an apology here. To Sullivan, and to its readers.
But a comparison with Hitler is inaccurate. That is not what is going on and it distracts from the very real dangers of the Bush administration and the radical right. - tristero
I think your right about that too tristero. But what Haffner is talking about and what Weiner is emphasizing is how a society came to be cowed by an authoritarian movement. Hitler specifically, being not the focus in this case.
*
I don't think the Nazi comparisions are out of order. So what if this administration isn't exactly going about their agenda in the exact same way the Nazi mentality did it the first time? The end result is the same. They don't have to start mass death camps for most of us to end up as slaves.
Make no mistake: unless the neo-fascists are stopped, we will have death camps again. They're already making the plans.
You're either against the fascists, or you're a collaborator and should not be surprised when you get your head shaved.
1) We just went to war with a country that did not threaten us.
Wasn't this one of indictments brought against the Nazis during the Nuremberg Trial: waging an aggressive war or "Crimes Against Peace"?
Moronic brownshirt fucks... ignore them.
Afterthought:
Another article which expands on this subject - written by Aldo Vidali who lived in fascist Italy, can be found here: Fascism and America Today
Vidali writes:
"I was raised in fascist Italy until age 17 and will never forget the ugliness of totalitarian control over people's lives."
full article at link above.
*
FOUND,O,D.... you on the right thread or are you just shopping the latest red herring? I mean really, some middle level BRITISH civil servant may only have had one set of incriminating documents forged instead of two, well, now I'm for the invasion, that's fer sher...
On topic, Tristero and Cap'n Dunsel,
any allusion to Naziism really does open the left up to derision; so comparing bush to Hitler is counterproductive (however much fun it is to get the right wing outrage reaction). However, Naziism was a specific type of fascism, and a comparison with the generic (think Italy under Mussolini) definitions of fascism does hold many similarities (and also dispenses with the emotional connotations).
I think the most scary thing that Haffner writes is the shrugging of soulders, and exceptance of the third reichs early policies. Is it parallel to to the U.S. now? No, of course not. Is it strikingly similar? God help us, it is.
Dave Johnson: the US has instigated military action in lots of places that did not threaten us. Just in recent years there was Kosovo, Somalia, Grenada and Panama. You could argue (and rightly) that Iraq was a much larger engagement than any of those, but my point is that the US does not go to war only when we are physically threatened. We usually do it to address some sort of instability in what we see as our sphere of influence, or (gasp!) to help people, a la Kosovo or Somalia. You can have legitimate arguments about the merits of any of those actions, but no one ever argued that any of those countries posed an imminent threat to the US.
Gary Frazier: so anyone who does not oppose Bush vociferously enough is a fascist collaborator? You're beginning to seem more like a dangerous nut than an opinionated high school nerd.
"Many Germans (including some of Hitler's original corporate backers) were convinced Nazism would collapse as it became more and more extreme; "
They were right!
I think tristero is right. however evil the curent ongoings are, there is a difference between wanting to marginalize the "thems" of the world, as opposed to killing and/or experimenting on them.
Hitler certainly didn't start right off talking about concentration camps. The whole point is the incremental approach.
Check out TalkLeft for information about the death row being planned for Guantanamo Bay.
Only one little difference, gw, we control, well supposedly control, Iraq and will reap "some" benefit from being there.
I'm sure Dave can defend his own words, but he said "war" not "instigated military action in", GW. There's a difference (as if you didn't know that) and, besides, we didn't "instigate" in those countries, we joined actions already in progress.
If someone had been able to make the argument before the war that we needed to go in to stop bloodshed, that might have been a legitimate reason. But there was no bloodshed until we got there and there apparently was no threat either.
Gee-Dub.
Your blindness to the danger may be a character flaw, or it may be due to ideological stupidity.
But be warned: the facsists will be defeated, again, perhaps at a very high cost in blood and treasure, and those who looked the other way as it reasserted itself will be held accountable for their failure to heed the warnings they were given.
Merdog: you're right on, and that is a lesson that no one should ever forget. I'm of German ancestry myself, and what's always struck me as most shameful about the Holocaust was the failure of more Germans (and Italians, and French, and...) to stand up and refuse the Third Reich.
If you want to use that as a metaphor for America today, I think the comparison is actually rather good: in this country, lots and lots of people (individuals, cities, police departments, etc) have been standing up for what they believe is right -- saying no to the Patriot Act, for instance. I don't believe Bush has sent the Army into any of those towns yet to force compliance.
If I can remember my college poli sci, fascism is a strategy of political organization in which the political class cements power by allying with the working class against the middle class, usually via nationalism, ideology or religion. This is more likely to happen in countries with a weak middle class (and weak middle-class institutions), like Weimar Germany or late-developer Russia. Countries with strong middle classes (like the US) are organized the other way: the political class cements power by ceding favors to the middle class, at the expense of the working class. (That's a pretty crude summary.)
Now, Bush may be religious, and he may make appeals to nationalism, but I don't think he's tried to use either as a lever against some portion of American society -- certainly not on the scale that Hitler or Mussolini did. Rather, he's pointedly tried to make bridges to people of different faiths. I know that one will get some scoffs here, given all those detentions of Muslims, but if Bush were really trying to ostracize Islam, couldn't he be trying a lot harder than that?
Laslty, I don't think anyone can realistically argue that Bush has tried to make an alliance with the working class, which is predominantly Democratic.
But a comparison with Hitler is inaccurate. That is not what is going on and it distracts from the very real dangers of the Bush administration and the radical right.
Bush is not like Hitler; nobody will ever match both Hitler's bizzare beliefs and his astonishing success at promulgating them.
We aren't talking here about Naziism, we're talking about fascism, of which Naziism is a specific form. But there are other forms of fascism, too; we cannot expect that any American form of fascism will be the mirror image of Nazi-style fascism, down to the uniforms, flag, and Jew-hating.
I would argue in the opposite direction, in fact; the larger danger is that, in seeing all the basic elements of fascism expressed, at least in some primordial form, in the policies of the neoconservative right, that we simply dismiss the idea that the end goal is fascist in nature, simply because, this being America, it couldn't possibly be a serious threat.
The point of the article, and others like it, is that the German people were not pathologically dimwitted. They weren't stupid, and they weren't extremists, and yet they allowed themselves to be led into extremism, of the worst sort. Germany was a first-world nation, with a rich history and a major contributor to human civilization.
Go through the lists of what defines fascism, and I submit that you can find numerous well-known, very influencial persons on the far right that are espousing that exact philosophy, and that you can find elements of Administration policy that reflect that policy.
This is a crucial question, simply because we cannot look at America and say, "it would never get too bad in this country; we could always pull back from the brink, once we recognized it for what it was."
If the policy therefore reflects all of the elements of fascism, is it, therefore, fascism? At what point does it become so? How many followers does it need? How egregious the actions? Where is the line, where we will know when we've crossed it? Is it necessary for the movement to actually be successful, to be defined as fascism, or can a work-in-progress form also qualify?
Again, I ask the collective "you" to find an element of fascism, given, for example, the exceedingly strict definition given by D.Neiwert on Orcinus, that is not represented by the American right. Rather than proving it is a fascist agenda, I ask what should be a much simpler question -- that you prove to me that it is not.
That's true, pie. Iraq is definitely a much larger undertaking (in every way) than any of those I cited. I was just trying to disprove the notion that the US only uses its military to defend itself.
Now that I think about it, that's probably not what he intended to say, but that's what his post ended up looking like.
Here, this might help you with Hunter's challenge:
Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
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.
Identification of Enemies/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, etc.
Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed
to the government's policies or actions.
Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
Obsession wi
...
Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
Laslty, I don't think anyone can realistically argue that Bush has tried to make an alliance with the working class, which is predominantly Democratic.
I strongly disagree; Bush got the votes he got -- nearly half the country -- exactly by pretending an alliance with the working class. The rhetoric is always aimed at the middle class; even though the actions are not. His very demeanor -- "plain-spoken", Texas accent that goes in and out according to need, photo shoots clearing brush on the "ranch" -- is meant to evoke a "working class" background. He ran the campaign as "real people", comparing himself repeatedly to the "stuffy, academic elitism" of Al Gore. And the public bought it, and still does.
Fascists are rabidly anti-socialist; they don't care a flying fig about the working classes. But they promote the appearance that they do, because that is the only way they can gain the required acceptance of those classes.
But a comparison with Hitler is inaccurate. That is not what is going on and it distracts from the very real dangers of the Bush administration and the radical right.
No, it's not inaccurate. Read Hannah Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism" and Hitler's own "Mein Kampf" and you will see uncanny similarities to today. No historical analogy is perfect, but as I quoted before:
"A shrewd victor will, if possible, always present his demands to the vanquished in installments."
You chip away at the rights of people a little at a time, until no rights exist as we know it today. Or as Martin Niemoller said:
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
We must be ever vigilant, and never let any one group be marginalized. No, there are no death camps now, but there were none in 1933. What we're doing in Gitmo, and even within our own borders, however, sends chills down my spine.
Hunter, we are obviously working from different definitions of fascism. Mine is mostly from memory, so could certainly be flawed. Where are you getting your definition?
Not too long ago I looked fascism up in the dictionary, just for grins. I had been under the vague impression that Mussolini had chosen the word because of its roots in the Latin fasces, the bunch of sticks that Romans used as an emblem of authority. But while that's the root, it seems that the modern usage drew upon the sense of "bunch" (ie, to describe the political clubs that spawned the first Italian Fascists) rather than the sense of "authority," although tat sense probably provided some nice overtones.
Again, if you want to analogize with today's America, anybody who organizes in a group to achieve some end can be described as "fascist" in this sense. Not too illuminating.
We just went to war with a country that did not threaten us. However we got there, that is a huge change in the nature of our country, and a huge change in the world order.
I disagree. This war was absolutely wrong, of course, but we are founded on a history of going to war with nations posing no immediate threat. Andy Jackson, Jim Polk, Bill McKinley, Jack Kennedy...all inheritors of our legacy as conquerors. Chalk this conflict up to Manifest Destiny Redux.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini
Welcome back farmer. Thank you.
What I've found effective in getting skeptics to think is telling them that fascism is an in-your-face merger of the corporate and political players, who make use of criminals to advance their agenda.
Some of them mention the Clenis?, I nod and repeat my points.
What concerns me most is a ruined economy. It's short step from random right wing violence to a full blown epidemic.
Heavily armed, unemployed, ignorant, apocalyptic and desperate people are very scary.
Seraph: pretty interesting. At some point I will have to go over that with more care. But I will note that it was written with the express purpose of comparing today's America to a fascist (or potentially fascist) regime. I'd be more interested in a disinterested (or at least pre-Bush) definition of fascism as a social-political movement, to allow the reader to draw his/her own conclusions.
Hunter: a cogent point. But you could argue that every successful politician ought to try to do this -- that is, project a man-of-the-people image. Isn't that part of what made Clinton so popular? That he "feels your pain"?
Yeah, but Clinton was sincere.
The fratboy coward is laughing inside at the serfs stupid enough to believe him.
Actually, gw, that is a list of common threads spotted in seven fascist regimes over the last century, not just aspects of American culture.
NTodd:
Ironically, I think I agree with you, at least in part. A portion of the intent of the Iraq war was to expand the American sphere of influence in the world. However, one can put either a positive or a negative spin on this. One can point either to the death and destruction that we seem to wreak everywhere we go, or to the fact that most of the countries that have fallen within the American sphere of influence (Western Europe, now Eastern Europe, Japan and South Korea, the US itself if you want to go back that far) have done reasonably well for themselves. (Latin America kind of screws up this argument, I will concede.)
" what Haffner is talking about and what Weiner is emphasizing is how a society came to be cowed by an authoritarian movement. Hitler specifically, being not the focus in this case."
This is certainly the case.
Regarding Mein Kampf, I have not read it and don't intend to. I have been told that there are overtly racist statements in it. This is simply not the case with Bush - not to say he's a paragon, he's awful when it comes to race - but the particular danger that Bushism poses is different from Nazism.
Don't get me wrong: Bush and his followers/enablers are very, very dangerous to American values, especially those that treasure tolerance, diversity, merit, and intellectuality (yes, these are American values, too - since when did Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Douglass, Twain, Darrow, Baldwin, Malcolm, Morrison and Russell Baker stop being Americans?).
Bushism is closer to fascism than Nazism and Seraphiel, your list is spot on. The issue is specific examples of each with examples under truly fascistic regimes - Mussolini, Saddam, etc.
Another problem with the Hitler comparisons is that its inaccuracy allows right wingers to attack with both guns blazing. And for people sitting on the edge, who are confused, who aren't following the news as closely as we, the comparison sounds nuts.
But the fascism meme - that's accurate. And scary, even though it's just beginning.
Here's the definition that Sherlock brings up:
fas·cism (f?sh??z'?m) Pronunciation Key
n.
1. often Fascism
a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.
[Italian fascismo, from fascio, group, from Late Latin fascium, from Latin fascis, bundle.]
fas·cis?tic (f?-sh?s?t?k) adj.
Word History: It is fitting that the name of an authoritarian political movement like Fascism, founded in 1919 by Benito Mussolini, should come from the name of a symbol of authority. The Italian name of the movement, fascismo, is derived from fascio, ?bundle, (political) group,? but also refers to the movement's emblem, the fasces, a bundle of rods bound around a projecting axe-head that was carried before an ancient Roman magistrate by an attendant as a symbol of authority and power. The name of Mussolini's group of revolutionaries was soon used for similar nationalistic movements in other countries that sought to gain power through violence and ruthlessness, such as National Socialism.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
fascism
n : a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)
gw -- Hunter, we are obviously working from different definitions of fascism. Mine is mostly from memory, so could certainly be flawed. Where are you getting your definition?
Seraphiel's link is a good one, I think. The most objective and complete one I've previously seen is from Orcinus, in the "Rush, Newspeak, and Fascism" series, which draws the definition from several sources.
Fascism is definitely apart from Naziism, however; I think the most skeptical people tend to conflate the two, and simply think you're saying Bush is like Hitler. They're not, by any stretch. It is perhaps more accurate to say that the government proposed by the group surrounding Bush is similar to the government proposed in Germany, by those surrounding Hitler... but that, too, is dubious.
Historians have defined fascism from the handful of countries where it has achieved full force, and so the definition is necessarily vague. Rather than comparing ourselves to movements in other countries, it helps to turn the question on its head: if fascism were to take root in present-day America, what philosophies would it consist of? Are those philosophies present?
That phrasing tends to get to the meat of the matter, while attempting to avoid making inflammatory comparisions to other countries and leaders.
Clinton? Sincere? I'm not one of those people who tries to blame everything in the world on Bill Clinton, but sincerity was never his strong suit.
Seraph, those points may all be perfectly accurate. My point is that the compiler of the list did so specifically to make the closest possible comparison between today's America and past fascist regimes. Just because it's biased doesn't make it inaccurate, of course, but I'd be more peruaded by a non-biased source.
In fact, as I look at this list again, it seems that many of these points (not all) would more closely fit the America of 1944. I don't think you want to argue that we were a fascist state in WWII.
for an intelliegnt discussion of fascism, i highly recommend orcinus, http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/ . he is working on defining fascism, not in simplistic dictionary terms, but in real world terms. his continuing essay is called, "rush, newspeak and fascism". good stuff.
i think frazier has made that little leap into insanity. it would appear he now fancies himself some sort of old testament prophet. up the lithium dosage, gary.
Am i a dick, or just a fucking nut?
Anon, go somewhere else and add your opinion. No one here cares what you say when you say that, so you're definitely wasting your time.
Have a nice night.
Seraphiel -- Oooh, I like it! I like it a lot!
Hunter's Challenge: The polar opposite of Godwin's Law. Hunter's Challenge, when faced with a situation or circumstance similar enough to Nazi Germany, Hitler, or fascism that Godwin's Law cannot apply, is to prove that the situation or circumstance does _not_ represent fascism, by attempting to demonstrate that any one element of fascism, as it is most strictly defined, is _not_ in fact present in the given situation.
Think it'll catch on? God, I hope it doesn't have reason to...
An interesting 1995 definition from Umberto Eco, via D. Neiwert:
-- The cult of tradition.
-- The rejection of modernism.
-- Irrationalism.
-- Action for action's sake.
-- Disagreement is treason.
-- Fear of difference.
-- Appeal to a frustrated middle class.
-- Obsession with a plot.
-- Humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.
-- Pacificism is trafficking with the enemy.
-- Life is eternal warfare.
-- Contempt for the weak.
-- Against 'rotten' parliamentary governments.
-- Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.
From Stanley Payne, 1980, also via Neiwert:
A. The Fascist Negations:
-- Antiliberalism
-- Anticommunism
-- Anticonservatism (though with the understanding that fascist groups were willing to undertake temporary alliances with groups from any other sector, most commonly with the right)
B. Ideology and Goals:
-- Creation of a new nationalist authoritarian state based not merely on traditional principles or models
-- Organization of some new kind of regulated, multiclass, integrated national economic structure, whether called national corporatist, national socialist, or national syndicalist
-- The goal of empire or a radical change in the nation?s relationship with other powers
-- Specific espousal of an idealist, voluntarist creed, normally involving the attempt to realize a new form of modern, self-determined, secular culture
C. Style and Organization:
-- Emphasis on esthetic structure of meetings, symbols, and political choreography, stressing romantic and mystical aspects
-- Attempted mass mobilization with militarization of political relationships and style and with the goal of a mass party militia
-- Positive evaluation and use of, or willingness to use, violence
-- Extreme stress on the masculine principle and male dominance, while espousing the organic view of society
-- Exaltation of youth above other phases of life, emphasizing the conflict of generations, at least in effecting the initial political transformation
-- Specific tendency toward an authoritarian, charismatic, personal style of command, whether or not the command is to some degree initially elective
Some time back I read a long article from Harpers that CommonDreams printed. It was about the group that initiated the Tuesday morning prayer breakfast in DC. This group also owns several houses in Maryland, and Congressmen have been known to "rent rooms" from them.
The article was written by someone who joined the group and lived with them for awhile. They profess to be a Christian group and at any given time several of the sons of the wealthiest people in the US will be living with them. They revere Hitler and talk of him often, right before launching into long prayers, usually.
They revere Hitler for his organizational abiity. He put together a kind of Brotherhood. This is what this group sees itself as. This is a very powerful group working behind the scenes.
I usually don't wear hats, metallic or otherwise. This article scared the daylights out of me. I wish I could give names and cites - I went over to CommonDreams looking, but I couldn't remember any names to do a search with. Maybe someone else out there knows what I'm talking about. This was serious shit.
Hunter: that's a nuanced position, and those are good questions to ask.
Leaving aside the point that there are PLENTY of people who really do claim that Bush is just like Hitler (I live in the SF Bay Area, Berkeley in fact, so it sometimes seems like we are talking about a foreign country here), let me make a serious stab at your question.
I do worry about some of the things the Bush administration is doing, like the secret detention of immigrants, and the Total Information Awareness project or whatever it's called now. But I don't think these are evidence of creeping fascism, for two reasons.
First, the Bushies are not doing these things to try to keep themselves in power, they are doing them because they believe they are necessary in the effort against terrorism. Second, and more importantly, I believe in the ability of America (our society, our political institutions, our people) to keep things from getting out of hand. Social and political power in this country is just to diffuse and decentralized for real fascism.
For evidence, I can point to both the resistance to Patriot 1 that I cited above, and to the resistance that prevented that same law from looking much worse. (Ashcroft is still trying to convince people that he needs more power, but he's not going to get it.)
For the sake of argument, say that Bush & Co really are just interested in using these tools to simply maintain power. They would have to abrogate quite a few longstanding political institutions to do so. First, there are the courts. You can gripe about the drive of both parties to politicize judicial nominations, but no court is going to allow prisoners to be carted off to death camps. We have the death penalty in this country, but we also have due process, however it may occasionally be abused. All those secret detentions? My understanding is that those people do have lawyers (at least they do now), and that the court has allowed them to stay secret only because the government demonstrated a compelling national security interest. There is no Constitutional right to publicity, as far as I know. If there were abuses (as documented in that recent Justice Dept report), I firmly expect that they will be prosecuted. In this country, bad cops go to jail when they're caught.
But most importantly, there's that pesky election in 2004. Can you imagine if Bush really tried to suspend it, in any situation short of a full scale war on US soil? Congress would revolt. There's a Constitutional process for removing a President (as we all know quite well now), and it would be used. Could Bush send in the Army? Perhaps, but in this country we have assiduously cultivated the civilian -- not personal -- control of the military. The President is Commander in Chief only because he holds the office of President; I have a hard time believing that the US military would follow through on orders to dissolve the Federal government. Besides, the sta
Whoops, getting too prolix. Here's the abbreviated version of the rest:
Besides, the states all still have their own militaries, and while they'd be totally outgunned by the full force of the US military, a military takeover would be no walk in the park.
[witty conclusion omitted]
Far be it for me to be a voice of moderation, but I think the fascism meme is the easy way out. Seraph's quote is really, on the most part, a description of just about any group that tries to hang on to, or otherwise influence, power. More Machiavellian than Fascist.
Orwellian? Well, that stuff seemed spooky-real, almost upon us, ringing true, way when it was written -- that's why he wrote it!! (so I've heard; I'm a bit young for that. 
And speaking of being a bit young, I was just a teenager and not politically aware during Reagan. Would anyone who was less self-absorbed in those days tell me if there were similar emotions (nazi-this, newspeak-that)? Or is it really so bad now that we should look back on the Reagan years with a wistful nostalgia?
Seriously, though, any critical thinker is going to be hyper-frustrated by the spin, illogic, and outright cognative dissonance from Karl Rove's mouth, blared at us over the airwaves and in the editorials. Frankly, I found great frustration at the spin during the Clinton years too; the difference being that I trusted his agenda, oh, just a *smidge* more than I do Bush's. 
And I know plenty of gun-totin... err.... everyday folks who felt (feel) that Clinton was Lenin-incarnate and Janet Reno was ready to personally burn down their house.
Jumping to the Facism label puts our discourse at the level of the "you're a communist hippie" troll, of a Limbaughsian "feminazi" screed, and it only preaches to the choir, so to speak (which, sure, needs to be done now and then to get the choir to sing like they mean it).
Yeah, there's a lot over-obvious, inane rhetorical tactics out there pummeling us like a pounding drumbeat; so keep calling them on it. Keep handy a couple of smart, concise one-liner retorts to the latest typical Fox-News memes that your coworkers will unconciously cough up. But please, please avoid the temptation to froth at the mouth with the "other f-word"!
I'm just sayin'...
Tena: The Harpers article you're referring to is this one:
Jesus Plus Nothing; Undercover Among America's Secret Theocrats
by Jeffery Sharlet,
Harper's magazine, March 2003.
*
Fellini8.5 - I think that we're all big boys and girls and know our audiences. And I don't really see how a discussion of what fascism is, and how it relates to our government is putting our discourse at the level you suggested. I like Hunter's Challenge.
farmer - thanks. Did you read it?
Tena: I think I've seen that story too, and it does sound pretty frightening.
Hunter: okay, I know I asked for it, but I'm getting overwhelmed. It would take a while tor ead all that and respond meaningfully.
But just from drifting over what you excerpted, let me say this: you can say that lots of things about Bush resemble the seeds of fascism, and that in time those seeds will grow and blossom. I suppose one could say that about virtually anybody (the modern world does look kinda like the Matrix, no matter who's in the WHite House), but you could argue that Bush differs from everybody else in degree. Fine. But the missing key -- the element common to all truly fascist regimes, and absent from American society -- is authoritarianism. Bush doesn't control the police, or the state militias. He doesn't even control the US military, as I said above. And despite the rather unnerving expansion of domestic spying powers of the TIA, the FBI and CIA do not represent some secret police that will "disappear" any dissenters to the ruling party. My goodness, where I live you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a (very vocal) dissenter.
So until there is real evidence that Bush (or anyone else) would or even could actually use domestic violence to pursue his own ends, these debates about fascism are interesting but academic. It ain't gonna happen. Not in my America.
Don't get me wrong: Bush and his followers/enablers are very, very dangerous to American values, especially those that treasure tolerance, diversity, merit, and intellectuality (yes, these are American values, too - since when did Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Douglass, Twain, Darrow, Baldwin, Malcolm, Morrison and Russell Baker stop being Americans?).
When William Bennett drummed them out of Western Culture back in the 1980s--alongside Dickinson, Henry James, Wallace Stevens, and all the other usual suspects so nobody could accuse him of being a mere aesthete.
Very interesting material to discuss. Here are a few ideas I'd like to add. I am not a native speaker of English, so please bear with my style:
- A problem any fascist-minded or totalitarian person/group has to deal with is, among other things, the collective memory of the Holocaust and Nazi-fascism. In 1933 Germany, I believe, there were no contemporary precedents known to the general public. So nowadays, when people have more information access than ever before in history, any new "Hitler" would have to "creep" a lot more carefully. For example, the extremist right-wing party Vlaams Blok in Belgium never makes comments about jews, officially accepts gays ('as long as they do not openly show their inclination'), never plays the race card straight out ('immigrants are welcome if they integrate'), does not say too loudly that women should be home cooking and taking care of the family (one of their beliefs), etc. The party is trying really hard to show itself as decent and democratic... and it works. They could, and would, be even more successful than they already are if the Belgian economy turned really sour and people lose faith in the current political/social institutions completely.
- What I find more interesting is strategy. Nationalism and communism can be very similar too (flag waving, leader cult, external enemy, etc). Any group that wants to attain power has to manipulate the by and large indifferent masses. If you control the masses, you control everything. You cannot control the masses if they are too comfortable or affluent (another reason I believe neither communism nor fascism has yet managed to regain its former 'glory' in Europe). Religious fundamentalists also know this principle very well. In short, it is best not to focus too much on names like 'fascism' but on the strategies involved and how they can be executed in our times.
- Historic facts are very important, but they are distant and have sometimes acquired what I call 'motion picture status'. Understanding human nature in general and factoring in our present emotional and social conditions can help us understand/guess what is going on now - even if we do not have all the facts (and we do not).
- I read this blog and others frequently, all the stuff about Republicans versus Democrats or America versus the rest of the world. And I have no problem applying the same underlying principles/strategies/games/emotions etc. to any other nation I know. Very often I forget that I am reading about America, the principles are so general (almost like movie formats). Alas, I believe mistakes are equally general. Unless we find a magical way to change human nature for the better, some bloggers in the distant future will, mutatis mutandi, have the same conversations we are having now. And they will have even more history to draw on!
- My point? I am going to buy Haffner's book, maybe I will need it one day where I live (somewhere in Europe, does not really matte
Don't mean to cop out on an excellent discussion, but I have a bus to catch. After having pretty much wasted the second half of my work day.
Later.
"Whole peoples, like individuals, can become irrational on occasion..."
Like those who think Bush is Hitler.
Before going off half-cocked about your freedoms being taken away, look at the facts. We are among the freest in the world politically and economically, not to mention a free...press. And those rankings have not measurably changed over the years.
Bush can't be like Hitler.
Why? Hitler was a decorated veteran of combat.
Bush is a deserting coward.
Tena, yeah I did read it.
*
We are not there yet. There is no unchecked secret police terrorizing the opposition that I'm aware of, though I have my eyes on the Homeland Security Dept.
Bird Dog...Three years ago you had the right to a speedy trial, a right to an attorney, protection against searches and seizures, a right to confront your accusers. These rights have all been taken from you in the name of a war that has as of yet no defined end.
Let's hash this out as adults, while we still have that freedom, and not waste our time saying "It can't happen hear."
Tena: Yeah, I kind of like it too... but still...
Congratulations to Farmer for violating Godwin's Law in his first sentence, thereby terminating useful discussion before it even started. Shrill, mindless denunciations like this just make liberals look like idiots (but then, that's farmer's specialty). Rush is a nazi. OReilly is a nazi. Oh ferchrissakes, cut the crap!
Obviously farmer never read David Niewert's essay Falangism, not Facism
. Bush isn't a facist, he's a falanagist.
Sadly, Godwin's Law has been nullified by the Bush regime.
The corporate "surburban" fascism that threatens now is different in style from that of the 30's. In some ways, it's even easier to be a fascist now. When you have the immense power of television and radio in your pocket you don't need a ministry of propaganda. As long as the populace is drilled to think that to criticize the president is unpatriotic then you don't need jackbooted thugs in the streets. When merely demonstrating against Bush's Iraq war will incite such acts as civilian trucker almost running the protesters over, and the local cops to start firing the rubber bullets, you don't need an S.A. or S.S.
And finally, when someone who, in a more enlightened and civilized time, would have been ignored as a lunatic is writing books called "Treason" that condemn a large segment of the population to sub-human "enemy" status, when a right-wing "entertainer" wonders aloud why a certain anti-war celebrity is "still walking free?", when right-wing plutocrats can fund a legal and media machine that almosts brings down a presidency, when countless right-wing screamers fill the airwaves with constant hate, hate, hate, I'd say the environment is ripe for fascism. By any definition.
I like that Falangism. It does seem to fit better, though it's not any more reassuring.
But I don't think calling these comparisons shrill or mindless is getting you anywhere, unless you think the Nazis and the Fascists were so evil that it's impossible to discuss them rationally.
These rights have all been taken from you in the name of a war that has as of yet no defined end.
Your rights haven't changed or been taken. You may feel that way, but the facts aren't on your side. The freedom rankings speak for themselves.
It's pretty simple, really. If you're a US citizen and you don't want to be detained, don't conspire with al Qaeda to build a dirty bomb or blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, and don't join a Taliban or al Qaeda regiment when the we're in combat against them. Aside from that, pretty much anything goes.
I don't think that anyone is arguing that history repeats itself exactly. But noone can say that there aren't patterns in history that repeat. Bush doesn't have to be Hitler for his handlers to want to handle all of us, as well. And I think there is almost no room for argument, that they want to handle us.
Getting here late, but... comments about domestic violence against the opposition brought back memories of Kent State. Anyone remember that? Or at least the song about it? Four kids shot down in cold blood. And to think we believed the Nixon years were as bad as it could get.
Bird Dog - pretty much anything goes? Well, I suppose that's true if you mean - when an immigrant, a legal one, gets arrested and charged with a misdemeanor that he didn't commit, he still can be deported. And nowadays probably will be. Anything goes as long as that also means that if you are of Middle Eastern descent, you have to register with the government, something no citizen has to do. Anything goes, as long as what is meant is a Lebanese woman trying to pay a parking ticket is asked by the judge if she's a terrorist.
If John Ashcroft arrested you, Bird Dog, today, for conspiring with terrorists, whether or not you got to defend your self would be purely at the whim of the administration.
That's the whole point. It doesn't matter any more whether you actually did the crime. It only matters what they said you did.
In fact, the people that they *know* did something all get lawyers and a fair trial. It's the ones who have no good evidence against them that are languishing uncharged in military brigs.
frabjous - I remember. And I really did think that Nixon was going to go down as the worst president. Imagine my shock.
Any ways, unlike freedom of speech or the right to bear arms, even small cracks in the right to a fair trial can swallow innocent people whole, and can be used by a government to wrongly arrest whomever it desires.
Congratulations to Farmer for violating Godwin's Law in his first sentence, thereby terminating useful discussion before it even started.
>>> But Charles, thats what Haffner's book is about. Life in Nazi Germany. If you think that every historical reference to Nazi Germany is in some violation of some so called "law", well then you can call me an outlaw. I don't mind.
And I have read Niewert's essay on Falangism vs Fascism....but the articles I've linked to here are about people who lived in Fascist Germany and Fascist Italy...not in Franco's Spain. So if you have a problem with the countries those writers grew up in, and the material they wrote on the subject, I suggest you take it up with them. Likewise, Falangism is a close relative of Fascism, if not a direct variation of it, with many similar characteristics. I'm not sure what "denunciations" you're talking about but I'm sure you'll come up with something creative. I also look forward to hearing from you about any spine chilling spelling violations you may recently have unearthed. Keep up the good detective work.
Yours in an imperfect tomarrow.
As so many tomorrows so often are.
*
Nineteen Eighty-Four was written to alter other people's idea of the kind of society they should strive after.
--George Orwell
Not how things were at the time the book was written but how they could be if people don't pay attention.
I like the Nationalism and communism idea.
The "masses" as they appear in modern European History are not composed of individuals; they are composed of "anti-individuals" united in a revulsion from Individuality.
--Michael Oakeshott
Everybody get in line.
Bush is a sock puppet, an empty suite, he could be a blow up doll for all Cheney and his cabal care.
William Kristol, Richard Perle, Richard L. Armitage, Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen, Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, Robert B. Zoellick
Some of those names might ring a bell. They all are or were members of The Project for a new American Century.
If you read through the slanted piles of crap carefully you will see where we were, where we are and where we are going.
If you just want to just glance go to the "Letters/Statements" link
"The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle; and that too few political leaders today are making the case for global leadership."
http://www.newamericancentury.org
Boronx - I like your point that people act as though Hitler and German fascism were so evil as to be anomalies. I think that is a dangerous assumption that people make. As if noone else ever has or ever could act in s similar fashion.
are you still committing those heinous and atrocious acts of buggery, ehrenstein?
'cause it's really creeping me out, what you do to boys.
i mean, fucking 'em up the ass and everything.
you sick, demented arse jockey, you.
i mean, quit fucking 'em up the ass, you twisted sick fucker.
jeebus h fucking christ, how'd i get to be such a fucktard?
farmer - I get the creepiest feeling since the trolling got so low grade. I feel like it's one troll with 2 personalities. It's beginning to worry me. Everytime someone really scores a hit, the trolling goes to obscene phone call level. It's like the troll is a voyeur. Ick
oh, tena, you really are about the dumbest cunt around.
and that's saying something on a comment board with tresy and leah.
Flaming sock cucker,
Turn out the light, it's past your beddy bye time.
School's out! And look, the little darling learned how to spell four-letter words this year! Very nice, sweetheart, now go get into your jammies and Daddy'll read to you from Ann Coulter's new book before bedtime, okay?
Amazing thread, all the more remarkable for the thoughtful writing and research.
It's nice that even trolls get some time off.
Oh, wow...in the five minutes I looked away, the bridge opened up.
Sexual frustration seems to be a common trait in trolls. Social function of blogs: letting trolls vent their frustrations.
Farmer, you aren't intellectual equipped for subtle political analysis. Waving the swastika and whining about Hitler every time you find something you dislike about Bush is self-discrediting behavior.
Tell us something new and useful, or else go crawl back inside your whiskey bottle. And quit pouncing on the board latenights when nobody posts after you, your pathetic attempt to monopolize the top headline on the board is so transparently obvious.
If John Ashcroft arrested you, Bird Dog, today, for conspiring with terrorists, whether or not you got to defend your self would be purely at the whim of the administration.
Again, facts and history don't bear that out, so your assertion is false. The detained US citizens that did not plea bargain got habeas corpus. Their cases were brought before a judge and the decisions have been appealed to higher courts.
Tena,
I was pretty clear that I was referring to US citizens.
tristero
a litle known fact. originally they were interested in 'transfer" . final solution came afterwards. though i am also more inclined to think a better analogy will be italy/facism where state and corporations become one.
"Ignore The Trolls Year" continues unabated.
Once this year's festivities have concluded, we will start again January 1 next year.
Bird Dog - Oh, I knew that. You must not have understood my comment.
Tena. It may be a multiple personality thrill-troll. I've heard of those. In any case, I'm not sure what they hope to accomplish. Kind of like some nut who decides to go stand next to a highway and yell obscenities at passing traffic. As if anyone driving by really cares what they are yelling about.
*
Howard Dean Says Son Allegedly Involved In Burglary
Obviously, Dean's son has been corrupted by the fascist right to derail his campaign.
Anything goes, as long as what is meant is a Lebanese woman trying to pay a parking ticket is asked by the judge if she's a terrorist.
Judge gets out of line...Auschwitz. Sure, we all see the connection. The judge was forced off the bench immediately for his idiotic action, but that doesn't matter in AtriosWorld.
This entire thread is so patently ridiculous - Eschaton since Atrios let the hacks join in has degenerated below DemUndergound level and is rapidly approaching Indymedia.
It's a shame that, contrary to your delusions of grandeur, your opinions are so impotent in the national political arena...because if your delusional conspiracy mongering did become the mainstream for the Dems, their 2004 defeat will be even more crushing. Like only 40 seats in the Senate? Not impossible. THEN things will get fixed in this country rather promptly.
farmer - what wonderful mental picture. Perfectly apt.
ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
My snoring was not for you, Tena...
Yes, Father Coughlin, maybe if the Republicans get 60 seats in the Senate they can make the trains run on time, too.
Mustang Bobby - I think we should all really start to worry when someone starts collaberating with Bush on something like an opera. Oh, wait, that's already happened - Disney, movie themes; made for TV movie. Ok, we can worry a little.
They're called "moronic brownshirt fucks" for a reason - which they are proving right here.
It's always instructive to see fascism in action.
Frist's son arrested for drunken driving
NASHVILLE (AP) The son of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was arrested last weekend on drunken driving charges, a Nashville television station reported Wednesday.
WTVF-TV said Jonathan Frist, 17, was arrested at about 2:30 a.m. CDT Sunday near the Frist home.
The station reported that the teen refused to take a breath test. Frist also was charged with possession of alcohol by a minor, WTVF said
http://oakridger.com/stories/
060...0030605024.html
BTW, is it just me or does Brownshirt W use the word "impotent" an awful lot?
When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?'
That was very true, he thought. There was a direct intimate connexion between chastity and political orthodoxy. For how could the fear, the hatred, and the lunatic credulity which the Party needed in its members be kept at the right pitch, except by bottling down some powerful instinct and using it as a driving force?
1984 - G. Orwell
A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London. It had no caption, and represented simply the monstrous figure of a Eurasian soldier, three or four metres high, striding forward with expressionless Mongolian face and enormous boots, a submachine gun pointed from his hip. From whatever angle you looked at the poster, the muzzle of the gun, magnified by the foreshortening, seemed to be pointed straight at you. The thing had been plastered on every blank space on every wall, even outnumbering the portraits of Big Brother. The proles, normally apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism. As though to harmonize with the general mood, the rocket bombs had been killing larger numbers of people than usual. One fell on a crowded film theatre in Stepney, burying several hundred victims among the ruins. The whole population of the neighbourhood turned out for a long, trailing funeral which went on for hours and was in effect an indignation meeting. Another bomb fell on a piece of waste ground which was used as a playground and several dozen children were blown to pieces. There were further angry demonstrations, Goldstein was burned in effigy, hundreds of copies of the poster of the Eurasian soldier were torn down and added to the flames, and a number of shops were looted in the turmoil; then a rumour flew round that spies were directing the rocket bombs by means of wireless waves, and an old couple who were suspected of being of foreign extraction had their house set on fire and perished of suffocation.
1984 - G. Orwell
1984!
The year we liked so much, we decided to live the book!
Speaking of posters that should appear on every street corner...
Re: the charges of alarmism in comparisons of what's going on in the US today with fascism or falangism (gotta read more Orcinus, methinks).
Suppose I agree that the current way of things is not as bad as the 1930's in Germany and Italy. Still, it is reasonable to rebuff claims that any such comparison is counterproductive and/or -- more chillingly -- anti-American. One of the things that keeps the leaders of a democracy in line is holding their feet to the fire. "Oh, this transgression is a small one, it's not the norm, don't get upset about it." Dammit, I do get upset. You can't let the authorities get away with it. And that goes for even having the eminently abusable laws on the books. "There's no evidence that Ashcroft has misused the powers he has under PATRIOT (I), so don't be worried about v. 2". Simply put, the government shouldn't have that power in the first place. I don't want to have to trust them not to exercise it, I want them to not be able to do it, to have any attempt to do such things be punishable with pretty severe sentences. It's bad enough when it's done illegally and secretly.
Seraphiel,
HA!
WOW!
Amazing discussion. Welcome back farmer.
Seraphiel: thanks for finding and sharing those points. Checking some of the links posted here now.
a
gw: One can point either to the death and destruction that we seem to wreak everywhere we go, or to the fact that most of the countries that have fallen within the American sphere of influence ...have done reasonably well for themselves.
Point well-taken. And clearly, as you say, part of the intent of GWII was to expand our sphere--that's an explicitly stated purpose, at least according to PNAC.
Sorry, had to skim some posts, but:
Bird Dog-
You are pretty much saying with a lot of words, "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear." Which tells me that you haven't been paying attention. With current police powers, your home can be searched without a warrant, as long as you're not there, if law enforcement says there is probable cause. That could theoretically mean posting comments that criticize this administration (who the fuck knows?). Since you would not be at home while a search is performed, no one would actually have to enter your house, if pinning something on you was their aim.
Think it can't happen? That enforcement agencies wouldn't abuse such power? I live in Chicago, where black men have had confessions tortured out of them with electric shocks to their genitals and plastic typewriter covers wrapped around their faces. I've personally witnessed people being stopped and searched by police for no other reason than that they were black. Abuse of power happens all the fucking time. And you trust these fucks?
Here, Tena
http://www.harpers.org/online/je...s_plus_nothing/
The best inoculation is Orwell of course, but how many of the people who need most to read him will? Or indeed can?
Failing that, I agree with others here that David Niewert's blog is doing sterling service, but it too can be heavy going.
For me the best and most concise distillation of the Germany-US comparison re fascism was a little piece by Thom Hartmann:
http://www.commondreams.org/view...s03/0316-
08.htm
Shrill, mindless denunciations like this just make liberals look like idiots (but then, that's farmer's specialty). Rush is a nazi. OReilly is a nazi. Oh ferchrissakes, cut the crap! Obviously farmer never read David Niewert's essay Falangism, not Facism. Bush isn't a facist, he's a falanagist. - Charles
>>>> Huh? Charles, who is obviously off sharpening his blue pencil somewhere, might enjoy reading this 12 part essay by David Niewert; entitled "Rush, Newspeak and Fascism". Of course Charles might have to fire off some email piffle accusing Niewert of being a "shrill" Rush basher or some other so described "mindless denunciation". But well....Charles obviously hain't driving with both hands on the wheel.
"ferchissakes", indeed.
Dave Niewert's 12 part essay can be read in full here.
Essay also available via the left hand margin link on Dave Niewert's Orcinus homepage
Is it just me, or does Gary Frazier sound more and more like a fool every time he posts something?
And you people wonder why the American public is turning more and more away from leftist ideology.
Yep, and we're building those death camps for Jews any day now.
Seriously though, do you guys actually believe half the crap you spew here?
I think the "liberal dictionary" said it best. It's only a democracy for Leftists if the Left wing candidate wins.
This post proves as much.
For a supposed "fascist", Bush is really screwing things up. As someone correctly mentioned the Mussolini quote,
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."
Bush just passed a tax cut for SMALL businesses. If he wanted only huge corporations to expand, why propose such a counter intuitive tax cut?
As for the war, whether you agreed with it, comparing the toppling of a fascist in Saddam to the toppling of European democracies in WWII is completely stupid and morally repugnant. On that note, why would a fascist topple another fascist?
I generally like this site a lot and consider it a good read for a different perspective and for solid liberal commentary, but posts like these definitely make me wonder if this site is slowly degenerating into Indymedia territory. You do not want to go there.
Please keep up the good work and ignore foolish posts like this one in the future.
It's not just you Eugene. These crazies are way out there. For them, fascism is ALWAYS and forever just around the corner. And a detention center with froot loops and Korans is the same thing as Auschwitz. Nevermind that Nazism was a socialist ideology.
That's right Philly G, it's not enough to vote, you have to vote how we say you should! If not, something is seriously wrong with our democracy, and fascism is descending.
Bush just passed a tax cut for SMALL businesses. If he wanted only huge corporations to expand, why propose such a counter intuitive tax cut?
Are you serious? Bush just sold a tax cut as though it were for small businesses. He has done this bait-and-switch several times: sell the middle class on a bill, and then pass a whopper from which the rich reap a huge (and disproportionate) benefit. Ultimately, due to the shortfalls in the federal budget, taxes on the lower- and middle-classes will rise overall, which the rich will (of course) get richer.
As for the war, whether you agreed with it, comparing the toppling of a fascist in Saddam to the toppling of European democracies in WWII is completely stupid and morally repugnant.
Ever hear of the Reichstag Fire? I'm not in the camp that believes Hitler & Bush have a one-to-one equivalence (for starters, Hitler was far more intelligent), but you have to grant the critics of the war some credence when you live in a country that has historically initiated conflicts under false pretenses and with questionable motives.
On that note, why would a fascist topple another fascist?
Fascism isn't like Communism. If a fascist wanted fascism to take root worldwide, it wouldn't be through a fascist revolution, but through empire. Dictators don't possess a natural affinity for other dictators because reason of their form of government.
Please forgive the grammatical errors above--it's late at night.
"For a supposed "fascist", Bush is really screwing things up. As someone correctly mentioned the Mussolini quote"
How's so?
CEOs in this country think Bush is doing an excellent job and why shouldnt they?
CEO compensation rose nearly 17%.
Excellent Year for Executives
By Ben White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 19, 2003; Page E01
After dipping in 2001, take-home pay for chief executives at some of the largest U.S. companies swelled last year, driven by fatter bonuses and bigger payouts from long-term incentive plans, a new study shows.
Among the 1,019 public companies studied, the median bonus for chief executives in their posts in both 2001 and 2002 increased about 9 percent, to $451,000. Long-term incentive payouts, meanwhile, nearly doubled, from a median value of around $500,000 in 2001 to over $900,000 in 2002, according to the study, conducted by the Corporate Library, an independent research group, for release today.
Total cash compensation in 2002, including salary, bonus and other direct payments, rose nearly 17 percent, to a median of about $1.2 million, in 2002. The median figure represents the point at which there are an equal number of chief executives above and below.
Not bad don't you think? At least the uber rich elite in this country is well taken care of.
a
I appreciate the complimentary remarks about the 'Rush' series.
FWIW, I wasn't the author of the post about falangism; that was James R. MacLean of The Watch. I thought it was a useful insight regarding the way the current right-wing phenomenon certainly doesn't have the shape of fascisms past, though I address that elsewhere in the series. However, it's also worth noting that the current GOP hegemony also differs from falangism in at least one important respect: It is aggressive on an international scale, while most falangists are constitutionally inward-looking.
For those interested, I've actually managed to edit and rewrite the 'Rush' series into a reasonably cohesive whole, and hope to have it available in PDF form sometime next week. It will make a good deal more sense, I think.
about a billion mails ago, someone posted this question re Bush vs. Reagan:
``..And speaking of being a bit young, I was just a teenager and not politically aware during Reagan. Would anyone who was less self-absorbed in those days tell me if there were similar emotions (nazi-this, newspeak-that)? Or is it really so bad now that we should look back on the Reagan years with a wistful nostalgia? ...''
Bush is what a lot of us THOUGHT Reagan would turn out to be. He is definitely much worse because his party has grown much much worse over the years, and they picked him and he's delivering the goods and there you have it. The deflections, the dishonesty, the incessant spinning. the foreign policy bungling alone makes the Reagan years look masterful, which is a pretty awful thought considering Iran Contra, the phony war in Grenada, Latin American assassinations and coverups and whatnot. Bush is actually finishing up the job on social change that Reagan started -- eviscerating environmental policies, incompetent zealots running education, gleeful screwing of the poor while demonizing them and their backers, racist labor policies, union busting, packing the courts with right-wing extremists, demonizing of any but straight white Christian culture....
Yep, these guys are much worse, and what's worse is that while Reagan had the near dead dog of communism to kick around while he was in office, Bush has the very lively and vicious pit bull of Islamic extremism to deal with... Bush stinks and his fans are either stupid, corrupt or blind. At least he has that much in common with Reagan.
I think we won't know just how bad things are right now until Mel Brooks writes a musical about it several years from now.
It's springtime for Hitler, and Germany,
Deutschland is happy and gaaaay...
Mr. Niewart, your article series was quite excellent and I have been passing around the link ever since you started writing it. Unfortunately your message is being diluted by amateurs like Farmer who just aren't capable of clearly elucidating (let alone fully understanding) such an argument.
"For a supposed "fascist", Bush is really screwing things up. As someone correctly mentioned the Mussolini quote"
I mentioned the quote waaay back, and I did so because I think it shows how dangerously close we are getting to fascism. Too bad fascism is an emotionally-loaded word, but there is clearly a merger of State and Corporate power here. Look at the FCC's recent ruling on media consolidation. Look at Cheney's secret energy meetings. Look at the no-bid government contracts to rebuild Iraq awarded to companies this administration has ties to. Thomas White, Richard Perle, Condi Rice...so many people in this administration with conflicts of interest. On the contrary, Bush is *not* screwing things up wrt to fascism--he's doing it exactly right.
When great concentration of wealth allows great concentration of power, you've got fascism. I don't think anybody on this list is saying "we'll be gassing Jews next!" What I and others have been saying is that fascism does not instantly descend upon a nation, but comes gradually if people do not fight the erosion of rights and civil society. Like a frog being brought to a slow boil, if we don't stay alarmist, we'll never notice when we're cooked.
As Arendt notes, the process of "never-ending accumulation of power necessary for the protection of never-ending accumulation of capital...foreshadowed the rise of imperialism". See the current tax cut regime, invasion and "rebuilding" of Iraq. Imperialism has a tendency to evolve into nationalism, which is at the heart of fascism. gw observed that certain areas of the world in our sphere of influence are doing quite well (and he reasonably allows some are not). Indeed, a Pax Americana can bring some stability and prosperity in some places. However, this imperialist attitude goes hand-in-hand with an arrogance and chauvinism which can cause us to overreach, and have the world react against us. Ah, I think it's already doing that.
So we've got an expansive policy abroad, which is troubling in its own right. At home, I look at PATRIOT, TIPS, TIA, Ashcroft's appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on 6/5, the secret "draft" DSEA, and then consider something else Arendt says:
"In the early years of their power the Nazis let loose an avalance of laws and decrees, but they never bothered to abolish officially the Weimar Constitution...there was 'only the constant going ahead on the road toward ever-new fields,' so that finally the 'purpose and scope of the secret police' as well as of all other state or party institutions created by the Nazis could 'in no manner be covered by the laws and regulations issued for them.' In practice, this permanent state of lawlessness found expression in the fact that 'a number of valid regulations [were] no longer made public."
Is Bush Hitler? No, that's stupid. Let's not argue strawmen here. What Bush does represent is a danger to our republic as h
Sorry for the attack of bloggorhea. Here's what the last para would've read had I not exceeded 3000 chars:
Is Bush Hitler? No, that's stupid. Let's not argue strawmen here. What Bush does represent is a danger to our republic as he and Ashcroft and the rest of the cabal take away rights one by one.
You are pretty much saying with a lot of words, "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear."
Nope, that's not it at all. What I'm suggesting is that your fears are vastly, monumentally over-exaggerated. In an earlier entry, I provided four links proving we are among the freest--if not, the freest--nation on the planet. There is a serious lack of perspective here.
A former liberal wrote an insightful piece here. I really suggest that all of you read it and take it to heart. Embrace the reality, folks.
In an earlier entry, I provided four links proving we are among the freest--if not, the freest--nation on the planet.
That's a red herring at best. We are the most free nation today not because of some inherent "free-ness" in our country, but because we defend our freedom. And I don't just mean going to war against other nations. Citizens must continuously guard against erosion of rights at home, lest our rights fade away. If we remain the most free country in the world, it will be by the virtue of our active defense of liberty.
Again, the point is that previous fascist states didn't just happen overnight. They developed over time, as the people allowed more and more accumulation of power and destruction of the rule of law.
" On that note, why would a fascist topple another fascist?"
Wouldn't have anything to do with a) one fascist sitting on top of a whole lot of what the other fascist wants, or b) one fascist looking to cover up his inability to function in office by attacking a less-powerful fascist?
Would it?
I don't think Shrub a Dub (or Rummy, or Crisco Johnny or Wolfenstein or Rakehell Rove) are consciously using Hitler as a role model. I think they're merely stumbling in the same general direction and just aren't clued in enough to realize that there are paralells between the two administrations. Bush doesn't strike me as a student of history. Or if he is, he's a C student at best, aware that there was a bad man sixy some years ago somewhere in Europe but not studious or informed enough to recognise his own potential as the mustache's shriveled shadow.
I don't think Shrub a Dub (or Rummy, or Crisco Johnny or Wolfenstein or Rakehell Rove) are consciously using Hitler as a role model.
I can dig that. They're just really convinced they're right, and their ends justify the means. The ends used just happen to be uncannily similar to stuff some bad people did before.
A former liberal wrote an insightful piece here. I really suggest that all of you read it and take it to heart. Embrace the reality, folks.
Bird dog
Excellent link, Bird Dog...should be required reading for all Eschaton commentators. Although, as a Republican, perhaps the insight into the self-destructive nature of the Dems "letting their inner selves out for a romp" should be kept hidden, lest they come to their senses and mount a rational, effective campaign next year.
You are pretty much saying with a lot of words, "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear."
Interestingly, this is the exact attitude that supporters of fascism are most likely to have; that restrictions on freedom or liberty are "temporary" and "necessary", to deal with an "unusual" threat. What makes the challenge so interesting is that, if you attached another word to the same agenda, people would be much more apt to agree with the central, salient points... as long as the word, fascist, was not actually used. So in explicitly using it, I am hoping to ignite a spark of realization, that fascism in general does not have to be horrific or catastrophic in order to be fascist in nature, though it seems to gravitate towards violence, sooner or later, due to its basic nature.
Also, note; fascism is not Naziism. Those dismissing charges of fascism, because they are loath to make comparisions to Nazi Germany, are presenting a strawman argument. The question is not whether the neoconservative agenda is "Nazi", but whether it describes the same characteristics as fascism, and is therefore a fascist agenda.
We are speaking of fascism in an American form, which must be divorced from the imagery of other instances, in other countries. (Fascism does not require the murdering of Jews, for example; that is a strawman argument.)
Also, note that those who are tempted to make the comparision to 1940's Nazi Germany are, again, missing the point. It would be more appropriate, if you must, to compare with the Germany of the 20's and 30's, where fascism had not yet achieved full power over the state, but was merely a "work in progress". At that point, there were no concentration camps or violence-prone secret police; the agenda was fascist, but not yet to the horrific point that would characterize Hitler's final years. This, if anything, would be the period of German fascist history that would be more appropriate.
The comparisions with Italy are perhaps more apt, especially re: the merging of state and corporate power, at the expense of the general population. But still, I think "American fascism" must be defined in an American context, not a European one.
It's not just you Eugene. These crazies are way out there. For them, fascism is ALWAYS and forever just around the corner. And a detention center with froot loops and Korans is the same thing as Auschwitz. Nevermind that Nazism was a socialist ideology.
Your last sentence indicates a profound lack of historical knowledge. Naziism, and fascism, is a distinctly anti-socialist ideology. The Nazi Party rose to power, and received considerable assistance from American industrialists and bankers, precisely because of its anti-socialist views, at a time when Socialism -- in the form of labor unions and other "worker" reforms -- were making those corporate owners exceedingly nervous.
I have no ready explanation for why so many, on the right, conflate socialism with fascism, when they are completely different, ideologically. Socialism is a leftist philosophy; fascism is a rightist philosophy.
Again, it is difficult to take arguments that "it's not fascism" seriously, when they are coming from people who have not even read the definition of fascism.
If you want to debate that the neoconservative agenda is not, in fact, fascist in nature, than use the general, nation-independent definition to do so, instead of making strawman arguments.
(Though, incidentally, we are getting our first death camp, as we speak; a "death row" is being proposed for Gitmo, so that foreign detainees may be tried, convicted, sentenced, and executed from within the confines of the camp. And, if the "Patriot Act II" proposals are enacted, any citizen suspected of a "terrorist-related" action may be stripped of U.S. citizenship, and detained as one of those foreigners. So, even your strawman argument seems to be somewhat lacking.)
So far, few people have stepped forward to the challenge; to prove that the neoconservative agenda is not fascist, in nature, by identifying a characteristic of fascism that it does not represent.
Instead, people have been arguing that the agenda is not Naziism, as if the two words are identical. They aren't. Or that the situation is not as "extreme" as other, fully-formed fascist states -- a moot point, since we must more credibly compare the situation to nascent, initial stages of a fascist state, not a fully formed extreme condition.
At least three good definitions -- lists of characteristics, that is -- have been posted above -- philosophically, I prefer the Eco definition, Ur-Fascism, but the others are valid as well.
The challenge is to use any one of them to prove that the ascendent neoconservative agenda does not match those criteria. It should be simple to do; if it is not, we should be very, very concerned.
Hunter, this is because the defenders of the fascist filth infesting the federal government are either all for fascism (see Rosie Joe and Bird Dog) or are ignorant dupes (see Eugene White Trash and Homer).
These twits have not studied history; they don't seem to realize that Nazism was a form of fascism honed for one country and based upon the deep bigotry of one man.
Fascism in America will be customized to appeal to American quirks, and is being done so as we write these words.
Many Americans are demonstrated that they are unworthy of the legacy handed down to them as they roll over and allow the fratboy coward and his pack of thugs to have their way with the war of conquest in Iraq and the further concentration of wealth at home that can only eventually lead to massive disruption of the social fabric. People like the aply named Homer will eventually figure this out, right after their TV goes dark and the beer supply runs out. Then they'll something something and The Revolution will arrive.
Then the ducks will be in for a feast.
Bird dog,
I read former liberal now millionaire pundit David Brooks' article "Democrats Go Off the Cliff "
There I go, millionaire pundit. Oh well, the truth is the truth.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Co...02/
820yqhap.asp
"Wherever Democrats look, they sense their powerlessness. Even when they look to the media, they feel that conservatives have the upper hand. Conservatives think this is ludicrous. We may have Rush and Fox, conservatives say, but you have ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times. But liberals are sincere. They despair that a consortium of conservative think tanks, talk radio hosts, and Fox News--Hillary's vast right-wing conspiracy--has cohered to form a dazzlingly efficient ideology delivery system that swamps liberal efforts to get their ideas out."
Brooks says Dems sense and feel that Repubs have the upper hand. Are the Dems senses and feelings wrong?
According to Brooks all the Conservatives have is Rush and Fox. How about Coulter, Savage and the loads of millionaire pundits on cable.
Brooks won't claim Coulter or Savage but he'll be happy to lump anything he can on Dems.
Brooks leaves a lot out. One small example that he doesn't mention is that all major media is owned by a few large corps.
How about Powell at the FCC?
Name two decent sized towns in the US that don't have their own local mini-me rush limbaugh character force fed to radio listeners by clear channel.
Having a business friendly admin works out great for large corps. Just by accident.
"Second, there is the frequent and relentless resort to conspiracy theories. If you judged by newspapers and magazines this spring, you could conclude that a secret cabal of Straussians, Jews, and neoconservatives (or perhaps just Richard Perle alone) had deviously seized control of the United States and were now planning bloody wars of conquest around the globe."
"Secret cabal", no, cabal, yes.
Just another accident that the same people saying "American security depends on oil" over at NPAC also happen to be the same people that are now in power.
Its just a coincidence the same people in power now have been advocating regime change in Iraq for years.
It just so happens the US invaded Iraq on evidence that is now being "reviewed" by several committees.
If its not and accident or coincident than what else could it be?
See project for a new american century.
http://www.newamericancentury.org
Former PNAC members: Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard L. Armitage, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle.
William Kristol, Brooks' boss, master of The Weekly Standard is also chairman of Project for a New American Century just by accident.
See The Federalist Society
http://www.fed-soc.org
American Enterprise Institute
http://www.aei.org
"NOW IT IS TRUE that you can find conservatives and Republicans who went berserk during the Clinton years, accusing the Clintons of multiple murders and obsessing
"NOW IT IS TRUE that you can find conservatives and Republicans who went berserk during the Clinton years, accusing the Clintons of multiple murders and obsessing over how Vince Foster's body may or may not have been moved. And it is true that Michael Savage and Ann Coulter are still out there accusing the liberals of treason. The Republicans had their own little bout of self-destructive, self-pitying powerlessness in the late 1990s, and were only rescued from it when George W. Bush emerged from Texas radiating equanimity."
Repubs had the FBI and secret service chasing Clinton for 8 years and spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars doing it.
Large corps funneled millions of dollars into the effort to prove how bad The Big Dog was.
http://www.salon.com/news/1998/
0...cov_08news.html
Savage lives under a rock at MSNBC. One of the liberal media outlets according to Brooks. He also forgot to mention several other well know jackboots. Oh no, jackboots, nazis, totally discredited!
"And most important, Democrats would have to remain as they are--unhappy, tone deaf, and over the top. "
What a loathsome lot those Dems.
Lets see, a re-formed liberal now millionaire pundint lies, omits, distorts.
Wow, I convinced!
Hunter -
So far, few people have stepped forward to the challenge; to prove that the neoconservative agenda is not fascist, in nature, by identifying a characteristic of fascism that it does not represent.
I'd step up to the challenge, if I knew what the term neoconservative meant. There is no accepted definition of neoconservative, at least among actual conservatives. Jonah Goldberg recently went through several articles showing how there is no general agreement around what the term means. You can find them at National Review Online if you're interested (start with May 16, 2003: State of Confusion, then read the next two articles ending with May 21, 2003: The End of Neoconservatism. Most liberals like to throw the term "neoconservative" around as some type of bogeyman. Look at articles that purport to tell you who is and who is not a neoconservative. Later, you'll find the people that the article describes as neoconservative disagree with that label.
Here is the most pertinent line from one of Goldberg's articles around the term neoconservative
The only remotely useful definition of neoconservatism today is "Whatever Bill Kristol thinks." So in 1996, "neoconservatives" thought Colin Powell should be president. In 2000, they're for John McCain and now they think George W. Bush is the new Reagan. Bill Kristol is a brilliant man, but one could go crazy trying to extract a coherent ideology from his tactical movements within the Republican party.
Ultimately, there's literally no defining attribute one can ascribe to neoconservatism which cannot be easily and substantially falsified with numerous counterexamples. If neoconservatives are hawks who favor democracy, then most conservatives and Republicans are neocons and therefore the term is too broad to be useful. If neocons are Jews, then stop calling Max Boot, Dick Cheney, and Newt Gingrich neocons. If neocons are ex-liberals stop calling Bill Kristol a neocon and start calling the founders of National Review neocons. And so on and so on. If you mean "hawk" say hawk. If you mean "Wilsonian" say Wilsonian. If you mean "Bill Kristol" say Bill Kristol. And, if you mean "Jew," for goodness sake, say Jew.
But if you mean neoconservative, you should know what you're talking about.
FWIW,
It could be argued that our response to 9/11 has been the tamest in our country's history, when compared to other times we've been at war.
From the ACLU website
In 1920, when the ACLU was founded by Roger Baldwin, Crystal Eastman, Albert DeSilver and others, civil liberties were in a sorry state. Activists were languishing in jail for distributing anti-war literature. Foreign-born people suspected of political radicalism were subject to summary deportation. Racial segregation was the law of the land and state sanctioned violence against African Americans was routine. Constitutional rights for lesbians and gay men, the poor and many other groups were virtually unthinkable. Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court had yet to uphold a single free speech claim under the First Amendment.
In WWII, we had the Japanese internment camps. It would be pure hyperbole to compare Guantanomo to those camps. During the Cold War, look at the McCarthy hearings.
Hey, I'm no fan of the Patriot Act, TIPs or TIA, but we've responded to previous "wars" with much broader rollbacks of Civil Liberties. After the perceived immediacy of the threat has passed, our Civil Liberties have always been reinstated in a way that makes them stronger than they were before the rollbacks. To understand that reality requires at least as much historical perspective as it takes to conflate fascism with some bogeyman called "neoconservatism".
"In WWII, we had the Japanese internment camps. It would be pure hyperbole to compare Guantanomo to those camps."
Considering the torture going on in Guantanamo, that's a real load of wingnut crap.
"After the perceived immediacy of the threat has passed, our Civil Liberties have always been reinstated in a way that makes them stronger than they were before the rollbacks."
Until the next chance the fascist get - then it's back to square one.
"To understand that reality requires at least as much historical perspective as it takes to conflate fascism with some bogeyman called 'neoconservatism'."
Unless it's the Clenis in a black helicopter with Hitlery at the controls, the MBFs are remarkably naive.
Erik (conservative) ,
I read the articles and...
Oh boy,
I had a headache right up until I closed the window that contained the plate full of poison spaghetti with a large ladle of hate sauce on top.
Here's a gem:
"And then, of course, there's the Jew thing. Neoconservative and Jewish are synonymous for all sorts of people who don't like neocons or Jews or both. But we can get to that later."
Yeah,
It's all like that.
Con and Jews must fight the liberal left.
Liberal. What's a liberal. Hummmm.
Who cares just Hate'em.
On a serious note,
It sounds like the old bait and switch.
If the majority of Americans (Gore Voters) call Cheney's cabal neocons aren't they then in fact neocons?
Even Pat Buchanan calls the present regime neocons.
I'll go along with my buddy Pat.
http://www.amconmag.com/06_16_03...3/
buchanan.html
Hey, I'm no fan of the Patriot Act, TIPs or TIA, but we've responded to previous "wars" with much broader rollbacks of Civil Liberties. After the perceived immediacy of the threat has passed, our Civil Liberties have always been reinstated in a way that makes them stronger than they were before the rollbacks.
This is absolutely true, and I believe proves our point. As long as people stay on top of stuff like this and fight the rollbacks, we're cool. When we take rights for granted, and dimiss real concerns with "you're being unreasonable because fascism can't happen here", that's when it will.
I'd step up to the challenge, if I knew what the term neoconservative meant. There is no accepted definition of neoconservative
Forgive me; you are correct. "Neoconservative" is, itself, an ambiguous term. In general, I define the "neoconservatives" to those who call themselves neoconservatives, and those of the same intellectual bent.
By "neoconservative", I mean primarily those persons in PNAC, along with key administration members such as Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, and Cheney. Also attached are Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter, and a large portion of FOX News; individuals within the public eye whose views are not conservative, but more activist-right. DeLay I would place in this group, through his actions, but individually neoconservative is a particular wing of the Republican party, not the whole party. Grover Norquist is definitely a key member of the movement, as is Rove.
By "neoconservative", I essentially mean this activist-right affiliation; people who are not true conservatives, because they are against the principles of true conservativism, but who have adapted a more aggressive attitude towards the reformation of American government, scrapping many of the old rules, in favor of a "reborn" system.
Hunter,
You typed a post full.
The neocons have hi-jacked the conservative wing of the republican party.
The neocons came pouring out of the closet during The Big Dog's impeachment. Ran around like the keystone cops then crawled back into the crackers when things didn't work out the they had planned. 2000 was their next chance and they took it.
Where are the decent, hard working, American conservatives?
Why don't they expose the neocon thugs for what they are and take their party back?
Cheney ran on a we'll walk softly and carry a big stick platform.
No need to interfere in other countries. No more mogos.
Of course the NPAC that he belonged to spouted a different message.
Cheney said everything changed after september 11.
So much so that invading a country that didn't threaten the US was OK.
Once again,
Where are the decent, hard working, American conservatives?
Why don't they expose the neocon thugs for what they are and take their party back?
hadenough -
On a serious note,
It sounds like the old bait and switch.
If the majority of Americans (Gore Voters) call Cheney's cabal neocons aren't they then in fact neocons?
Even Pat Buchanan calls the present regime neocons.
I'll go along with my buddy Pat.
Invoking Pat Buchanan simply shows how little you know about conservatives. Buchanan is not endorsed by any of the mainstream, or even important, conservative organizations. He's also a racist who makes apologies for Hitler. He is also one of the first people to describe neoconservatives as part of a Jewish cabal. Thus further confirming his rampant anti-semitism. Further when you write "If the majority of Americans (Gore Voters) call Cheney's cabal neocons aren't they then in fact neocons?", you are straying far from the point which is that Hunter challenged conservatives to provide proof that the neocon agenda is not fascist. Well, if the Left gets to choose the definition of what neocon is, then they obviously can say the neocon cabal is fascist. Even when the term neocon has no meaning except as the way the Left describes its enemies.
To refresh our memories, here or here is the definition that Teaflax and Seraphiel presented. It represents a broad definition based on now-defunct fascist states in Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Chile, and Indonesia.
Here is Eco's 1995 definition, via Orcinus.
(Other reasonable definitions will do, as well, but the one-sentence dictionary versions tend to be simplistic. I like these two, in particular, because they are structured to represent a "diagnosis" of fascism, and are thus easy to use for our purposes.)
Hunter -
By "neoconservative", I essentially mean this activist-right affiliation; people who are not true conservatives, because they are against the principles of true conservativism, but who have adapted a more aggressive attitude towards the reformation of American government, scrapping many of the old rules, in favor of a "reborn" system.
Your selection of so-called "neoconservatives" is so broad as to be meaningless. For example, you call Rush Limbaugh a neoconservative, but he has been all over Bush because Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is really just big government. There is nothing neoconservative about Rush, and I don't believe you can find any national publication that has ever used that term to define him. Rush himself has been saying for the last couple of months that the term neoconservative is meaningless. He doesn't self-identify that way. To the extent there is anything that could even be remotely describe as a "neoconservative" strain in the Republican party, it would be defined as conservatives that were for the War on Iraq and are pro-Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. BTW, that is the majority of self-identified conservatives/Republicans in the U.S., not some small offshoot. If you were looking for who represents the small minority of conservatives that ar not pro-Israel or in favor of our actions in Iraq, you'd be talking about Robert Novak and a very small handfull of others.
Now what is this major reformation of the government you say Bush is instituting. For the most part he is pushing for traditional conservative ideas, with the exception being that he is growing the size of the federal government at a ridiculous pace.
Erik (conservative),
If the left, whatever you mean by that, calls the current cabal neoconservative then neoconservative has a meaning. It means that Cheney's cabal is neoconservative.
Use the current cabals actions to figure out what neoconservative means.
You have to try to remember the hate filled thoughts swirling in you head are just that.
hadenough -
You have to try to remember the hate filled thoughts swirling in you head are just that.
What does that mean? What/Who is it that I hate?
hadenough -
If the left, whatever you mean by that, calls the current cabal neoconservative then neoconservative has a meaning. It means that Cheney's cabal is neoconservative.
Use the current cabals actions to figure out what neoconservative means.
I want to make sure I follow you here. The Left defines what neoconservatism is. The Left then says neoconservatism=fascism. Then the Left tells conservatives, who don't believe in the term neoconservatism, to defend themselves. I believe you've just defined a strawman.
oh, tena, you really are about the dumbest cunt around.
Sorely missed are the days when the right was actually able to respond with reasoned, cogent, witty, civilly phrased rejoinders.
I have memories of a grandfather who hated FDR with a visceral passion. Yet if you were to query him as to why, you would receive a nuanced reply, based on actual fact, free from _ad hominem_ slurs, and often leavened with a dry humor.
And try as I might, I cannot recall any instances of the old gentleman referring to anyone as a "dumb cunt".
-
I wondered why decent, honest people I've know for years(I don't know you, you don't know me) have changed into kill'em all let God sort'em nuts.
Here is my theory.
Fear.
The neocons smelled it and used it to gain control of the republican party.
How could 40% of Americans believe Sadam was directly involved in Sept. 11 and that WMDs were found In Iraq?
Why the orange alerts, bridges, tunnels and just about everything is about to be blown up just before the mid-term elections?
Americans are afraid. The neocons are playing'em.
Just my theory.
OK, using the first definition presented, here's a fleshed out version. This represents a position from which we can argue. Does anyone disagree with the following assessments? I'll go through them two-at-a-time, starting with:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
This is obviously true at present; the attacks of 9/11 have unleashed a torrent of patriotism and bumper-sticker nationalism. This is not a bad thing, in moderation.
In questioning whether it may have turned into something negative, however, note the extent to which right-leaning demonstrators have "hijacked" the flag to mean one position -- pro-war, pro-Bush. For many Americans, the flag is used to represent Bush, and a pro-Bush agenda.
2. 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.
The Patriot Acts 1 and 2, and Gitmo, obviously. A common stated position, at present, is that these "extraordinary" times require greater than usual security and, therefore, extraordinary security measures, such that "minor" infringements on our freedom, such as the right to public trial, can be temporarily waived. Ashcroft, in his position as Attorney General, is an exemplary example of this position, and how this position is being actually adopted as American law.
While the other listed elements are obviously present in recent legislation, does torture, in particular, exist at Gitmo? Depends on who you believe. But do members of the neoconservative right -- the public followers, that is -- endorse torture? Yes, many have stated exactly that.
Six(!) more posts to come...
3. Identification of Enemies/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, etc.
The perceived threat has morphed from Al Queda, specifically, to terrorism, more generally, then to those who support terrorism, then to those in the region in which terrorism is perceived to be exclusively based; that is, the Middle East, and Arabs in particular. Bumper stickers with the word "Islam" spelled with a swastika appeared at a rightist convention in which the Vice President was speaking. Eliminationist rhetoric is widespread, on rightist radio and television.
Note, however, that eliminationist rhetoric towards liberals or socialists is, in much of the rightest media, much more prolific than the rhetoric towards terrorists. By the more extreme elements, the two terms are frequently used together. The invective towards liberals, from television or radio pundits, or even many officials within the Congress and Administration, is far less moderate, and far more common, than speech against terrorism. Note how frequently domestic policies -- like the tax cut -- are framed as part & parcel of the War on Terror, and how frequently military imagery, and the issue of terrorism, is used by the administration as a "launching point" for promoting the domestic agenda.
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
While the most recent example of glamorization is, obviously, administration efforts to turn the 4th of July into a pro-war, pro-military celebration, it is fair to say, in general, that military power is "glamorized" by the rightists. Fox News, especially during the live, "embedded" wartime coverage, but even in the present coverage, is an excellent example of the glamorization of war, as opposed to the mere reporting of war.
Note the hostility with which the administration, and the American media, reacted when the bodies of dead American soldiers were shown on foreign television. The bodies of Iraqi soldiers, however, are shown with some frequency; one appears in the latest Newsweek, face clearly visible.
Is the domestic agenda neglected? To the extent that the "domestic agenda" consists of exactly one major element -- tax cuts -- yes. The economic situation is generally downplayed, in favor of the present military agenda.
Note also that the military, under the leadership of Rumsfeld, is branching into areas of policy historically not under their domain. Specifically, the extent that the military branch of government, under Rumsfeld, has moved to set foreign policy, as opposed to
Hunter -
To address your challenge, I'll go through the fascism "definition" from Seraphiel point-by-point.Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
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.
Over to you Hunter, please show me examples of torture, summary executions and assassinations under Bush's watch. I'm not aware of any. As for long incarcerations of prisoners, you can find those under any administration in any era of our history.
Identification of Enemies/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, etc.
Any time we are at war the country will be unified against the enemy. So, I hope this wouldn't include the war on terror. I assume this means perceived threats from some subset of citizens. Please provide me with examples where Bush has made scapegoats of groups of U.S. citizens. And please don't say he's scapegoating liberals.
Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
Please. Our troops are in combat and Americans want them to know we support them. As far as a disproportionate amount of government funding, Bush is about to grow Medicare at a truly phenomenal rate. You simply can't honestly accuse the Bush administration of neglecting all things domestic to fund the military. Bush is spending rampantly even when you remove the military budget from the equation.
Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
Silly. Condi Rice has the highest authority ever given a woman in any administration, just as one example.
Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
Show me government censorship of the media. Show me how Eric Alter
continued from above.
Show me government censorship of the media. Show me how Eric Alterman can't sell his book. Show me how Hillary Clinton's book was suppressed.
I'll get to the others in a minute.
And we happen to be cross-posting here I just noticed.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
This is perhaps because the conservative agenda in general is a male-dominated one, and represents those positions, but it is clear that the rightists espouse all of those positions, and do so with a greater force and frequency than those positions perhaps warrant.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
Again, this one is fairly obvious; the media is not liberal by any stretch of logic, except to the extent that the reporting of "facts" as opposed to "opinion" is seen as liberalism by many within the right. That the largest media outlets, and most prevalent media figures, are sympathetic to the Administration is unquestionable. The size of those outlets has been increasing, and, under FCC guidelines, is being encouraged to further solidify into the hands of the largest corporations.
Note, also, the extent to which rightist think tanks have sprung up, for the explicit purpose of promoting rightist philosophies in the media, rather than research or investigative purposes. More importantly, note the extent to which "pundits" -- that is, figures with no job other than to be presented to the media as experts, but who do no do research or journalism of their own -- are embraced on the right.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated.
This is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of fascism, and perhaps one of its greatest weaknesses. As the Rosenstrasse demonstrations illustrate, fascists have a difficult time countering the power of women:
"According to Nazi theories, women were intellectually incapable of political action. So women dissenters were the last thing the Nazis wanted to have Germans hear about, and turning them into martyrs would have ruined the Nazis' self-considered image as the protector of motherhood."
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
Again, an obvious one. The governmental alert system, coined the "Rainbow of Terror" by skeptics, is now a part of daily life. This may be a necessity, at the present time; whether it is, or is not, is immaterial: what is important is that substantial fear presently exists, in the populous.
Fear of terrorism is extended to justify, for example, the war in Iraq. In turn, dissent is considered by many on the right as "anti-American" or "pro-terrorist"; frequently, those very words are used.
Government figures such as Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, and even Ari F. have made pronouncements about how certain remarks or dissent is "dangerous", in these times.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed
to the government's policies or actions.
Again, obvious. The extent by which the promotion of religious viewpoints by the rightists, and frequent usage of religious "rhetoric and terminology" by the President in specific, has been noted by all sides. Some see it as positive; some as negative.
The invective against the ruling re: "under God", in the Pledge, is indicative of the more general form; religion should not merely be supported by the government, but be encouraged, whether it be through government-sponsored religious charity, modification of existing laws to loosen restrictions on state and church interaction, etc. Note, especially, that by religion the proponents of these views mean a specific religion, namely a form of Protestantism; a request to perform, for example, an Islamic prayer, or even a Catholic prayer, during school would be treated much differently.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
This is perhaps one of the more entrenched philosophies in the current administration, and is largely self-explanatory. The extent to which the current administration has ties to large businesses -- energy-related businesses, in particular -- has been frequently discussed. Upon reaching the White House, the term "CEO Presidency" was used extensively by administration supporters, until economic conditions and scandals made the label less attractive.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
A common refrain among the rightists is that labor unions should be abolished. To say that the administration is anti-union is not, by any stretch, a surprising statement.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
The rightist Presidental campaign, in 2000, was promoted upon exactly these lines; that Al Gore was an "academic", a "stuffy elitist", as opposed to George W. Bush, an anti-intellectual.
Bush is presented as an everyman; the country has become used to photos and televised remarks from his Texas property, clearing brush, wearing jeans. His vocabulary is praised by his supporters as being "down to earth", and not "elitist".
The rightists generally despise academia, and colleges; they are seen as havens of "liberalism".
Also note Rove's remarks re: "if they become too educated, they become Democrats", and the censureship of arts under various rightist leaders, including Ashcroft. Examples abound.
Erik (conservative),
I didn't type "neoconservatism=fascism".
If you looked at the sky and there were no clouds you'd say it's blue. I'd say yup, blue.
Since big biz is controlling the gov and all right headed people are running around waving there hands over their heads screaming "neocons have taken over the gov."
Then neocons are: big biz controlling the gov.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
Ashcroft, and the Patriot Act, 1 and 2. Security is paramount, and therefore traditional American rights must be "abridged", or "suspended", in order to deal with the unusual threat. It has been proposed, by the Attorney General, that the government be able to strip citizens of their citizenship, if they have "evidence" that an individual is a supporter of terrorism; that "evidence" may be kept secret, under the pretense of national security, and may not be disputed by the charged individual.
Are the people willing to "forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism?" Yes, polls indicate substantial acceptance of that view.
While it cannot be argued that there is presently evidence of "a national police force with virtually unlimited powers", the recent alterations to basic Constitutional protections are significant, if not "unlimited". It could be argued, however, that the ability to strip citizenship from an American citizen, after which Constitutional protections would no longer apply to that individual, is, for all practical purposes, "unlimited", in that the first step is sufficient to, in practicality, eliminate all other Constitutional limits.
Skeptics may attribute this provision solely to Ashcroft, and yet we have seen -- for example, in the recent EPA report -- that the Administration has full hand in what their most senior officials promote, and have not contradicted the policy presented by Ashcroft.
Note also the emergence of "Patriot" groups, including heavily armed groups of citizens patrolling the southern border, under the justification of fighting terrorism, and the implicit support of those groups from within the Administration -- even though the patrols intercept and confront illegal immigrants, but have yet to detain a "terrorist", and even though the rate of unsolved homicides -- the murdering of illegal immigrants in remote southwestern deserts patrolled by the "patriots", has grown substantially.
Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
Show me government censorship of the media.
Erik, note the multiple possibilities expressed in this characteristic. The media can by indirectly controlled by gov't regulation, and act in sympathy with the State. Certainly with the FCC's recent decision, consolidated ownership by the Murdoch's of the world is more likely. Further, the rah-rah, uncriticial reporting we saw during the war is testimony to the media's complicity and willingness to spout whatever the WH spun without fact-checking or any semblance of a critical eye.
I'm no tinfoil hat dude, but one can understand why conspiracy theories abound wrt to the FCC and ClearChannel. BushCo did very well with Hispanics in 2000, but the community is feeling a bit betrayed by the administration right now. If the FCC's 6/2 ruling holds up, ClearChannel (their Hispanic Broadcasting Corp) will be able to merge with Univision (announced 6/12) and reach the vast majority of the Hispanic market. Imagine CC's gratitude to Powell and BushCo. Imagine they might put forth mostly pro-BushCo messages. Imagine the fastest growing market/population in the US could be influenced to vote for Bush as Prez in 2004.
Is that truly what's happening? Mmm...admittedly it's likely not the case, but not entirely far-fetched. And the fact that it's possible is what concerns me.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
The Bush Administration has been noted for the rewarding of political "friends" with Administration positions, obviously. (Ted Olson is one example.) Note the extent with which companies with close affiliations to the current administration have profited handsomely from administration policies. The energy policy was crafted secretly, behind closed doors, using solely the input of energy-affiliated corporations. Cynics will note the treatment of Ken Lay, vs. officials in other
Note the recent events in Texas, where the federal Department of Homeland Security was used in a state-based political dispute, despite the fact that the Department had no legal basis for expending resources to do so.
Note, especially, the extent to which Administration-connected companies have benefited from the Iraq War, including hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts, without competitive bid, to those companies.
14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
There are two telling symptoms here; first, obviously, is the Florida election scandals. Dismissing the involvement of the Supreme Court in the matter and the other election-day issues, it is not disputed that the Florida authorities, before the election, removed tens of thousands of voters from the voter rolls, and that the significant majority of those removed were minorities, and Democrats. This purge was found by the courts to be illegal, and the state was ordered to reinstate the voting priviledges of those voters; Florida did not do so, and did not do so through the 2002 election.
As a reaction to the 2000 election, attempts to "modernize" voting procedures resulted in the proliferation of "black-box" voting machines; proprietary voting machines that record votes electronically, and provide no method of verification or other evidence that the count is, in fact, correct. These machines were used in several elections in 2002, with unusual results; in each of them, the Republican candidate won, even though that Republican candidate had been trailing his competitor in pre-election polls. In some situations, heavily-Democratic precincts recorded anomolously Republican-leaning vote totals. Of particular interest is that the polling machines, in this case, were manufactured by a company owned in part by the winning Republican candidate, Sen, Chuck Hagel. (See www.blackboxvoting.com for more information.)
NTodd,
Why is the current regime helping media consolidation in to a few large companies "likely not the case".
It is the case. Powell said he doesn't think that well happen. No facts or figures saying why he thinks massive consolidation won't happen. More Powell paraphrasing: If it does lead to consolidation look how well it worked with radio.
Proof it will happen, Murduch already grabbing at anything media.
How about Calf. energy crisis.
Gray went to Pres. for help. Pres. had Cheney look into it. Liberal whacko nuts were the problem, Cheney says. Also because energy was only partial deregulated. That left holes for corporate chieftains to cheat and steal. Should have been total dereg. Then everything would have been OK.
Translation:
Partial dereg. left holes for cheating. Total dereg means no chance they get caught.
Does anybody wonder what Cheney was looking into? No. Want to see the notes, papers, whatever he gathered regarding Calf. energy crisis. Fat chance.
Oh and,
Turns out Enron and about 30 other companies are now on the hook for having manipulated supply and pricing.
OK, that's the 14 of them. I'll respond to posts later, I have to be off now.
Again, the question is: Is one of these elements not present? Not "is one of these elements not at full, terrifying, horrific fruition", but "do these elements exist in America today, and/or in the policies advocated by PNAC, the rightist punditry, and the administration itself?"
I don't think that anyone is arguing that history repeats itself exactly. But noone can say that there aren't patterns in history that repeat.
Right on. There's a paper at the Air University Center for Strategy and Technology called PERILS OF REASONING BY HISTORICAL ANALOGY - MUNICH, VIETNAM, AND AMERICAN USE OF FORCE SINCE 1945 that I've found instructive:
"Notwithstanding Santayana's famous dictum, historical events do not repeat themselves with an exactitude permitting accurate prediction of what will or will not happen if one chooses that or that course of action. Human imperfection renders misjudgment a permanent and prominent feature of human endeavor.
History nonetheless can teach at the level of generality."
Why is the current regime helping media consolidation in to a few large companies "likely not the case".
It is the case. Powell said he doesn't think that well happen. No facts or figures saying why he thinks massive consolidation won't happen.
Don't get me wrong: I think consolidation will be the rule, just as it will be in the telecom sector. I don't abide by the grand conspiracy theory is all. I can't believe Karl Rove is that coordinated...yet. All the same, I think a ClearChannel-dominated world is dangerous, albeit not officially controlled by BushCo.
A couple of quick notes:
Hunter is certainly on the right track, though I think both Roger Griffin and Robert Paxton do a better job of getting to the core of fascism.
The important thing to keep in mind is that fascism is mutative -- it is comprised of a number of different coalescing forces, and as they come together they change shape into something quite different than how they began. Nascent fascism is quite different in character and shape from mature, empowered fascism. Of course during the brownshirt stage, as they were sill reaching for power, the Nazis possessed none of the police powers they enjoyed when they obtained political control. Likewise, comparing the obviously oppressive environment in Germany in 1935 to Bush-era politics misses the point.
Even though today's political environment cannot in any event be compared to that of life under fascist regimes, this does not mean by any sense that latent fascism -- particularly the memes and motifs that were always in play during fascism's earlier phases -- is not part of the landscape. I think Hunter has amply demonstrated that indeed it is.
NTodd - what strikes me whenever this issue of fascism comes up and WC et al argue that we are making the left look ridiculous, is that it wouldn't matter what we were calling the present administration. They would still argue that we were ridiculous. Erik the C takes issue with neoconservative as a descriptive term. Well, naturally he does. Because what he and the others are arguing is that hey! these are our guys and we like them. We like their policies. We like their wars.
So of course they are going to take the position that calling them fascists is ridiculous. They are buying the fascists' crap.
Again, the question is: Is one of these elements not present? Not "is one of these elements not at full, terrifying, horrific fruition", but "do these elements exist in America today, and/or in the policies advocated by PNAC, the rightist punditry, and the administration itself?"
Hunter: great job. The 14 characteristics is something I've been thinking about quite a bit over the past several months, and I appreciate your treatment here.
Erik's point-by-point comments notwithstanding, I have to say that I see each and every one of these characteristics manifest in our current gov't to some degree. As you observe, none are in their "full, horrifying fruition" as yet, but only because the people haven't completely abdicated their responsibility to uphold the principles of liberty.
I agree with Erik _et al_ to a large extent. America is no Weimar Republic. Our nation is based on revolution against tyranny, our history replete with rebellion. Consider our "alarmism" and dissent on the left today as the ultimate fulfillment of Jefferson's ideal: "A little revolution, now and then, is a good thing." We're ensuring a fascist nightmare will not come to be. The right can thank us later...
NTodd - what strikes me whenever this issue of fascism comes up and WC et al argue that we are making the left look ridiculous, is that it wouldn't matter what we were calling the present administration. They would still argue that we were ridiculous.
Agreed.
And to be true to my liberal, look-at-all-sides roots, can we not also say that no matter what the fascists call us, we'll argue they are ridiculous? I'm not being flip. They call us Marxists or Saddam-lovers or whatever, and that's patently silly. We object to their jibes, and why shouldn't they object to what we call them?
We joke here about Sullivan being "objectively pro-starvation" because Orwell said similar stuff about libs (which he did recant). Is it possible to be objective? Can we really say Erik is wrong and is a fascist?
Sorry, but I majored in Philosophy (and Russian), was raised by Quaker librarians (taught me critical thinking), and have a heritage made up of the oppressed (Jews, Native Americans, Scot-Irish) and the oppressors (mostly Germans). I think I can claim with great confidence that we're sliding down the road to fascism, and we need to resist that trend, but I hestitate to call anybody in particular a fascist _per se_. Well, except maybe for our faux Cronkite. I honestly don't like him.
NTodd,
Nobody at Bushco headquarters calls Powell and tells him exactly what to do.
It's a war on America. Jr. Gen. Powell has a mission. He makes plans to carry out the mission.
Bushco didn't tell the energy co.s to loot Calf. The mission is punish dissenters and you will be rewarded.
Support the current regime or else.
Liberal Calf. must pay.
Take a few hours and listen to the Civilian leaders of the current War on America. How about Rush Limbaugh.
He is all red states good, blue states bad. Fly over country good, coasts bad. South good, north bad.
Ex.
"And it just make everybody proud as they can be, but it illustrates the value of the embeds - these reporters who are seeing these - reporters obviously from the various elements of the culture here that we would call the elite - academians, journalists, and so forth. And they're seeing people from flyover country. They're seeing people from the red states. And they're finding out who it is that really comprises this country."
--Rush Limbaugh
http://www.geocities.com/
rushtra...03.html#N400052
In a few sentences he trashes academians, journalists, so forths, blue states and troops from blue states!
A "so forth" can be anything else you don't like.
He leaves it to his troops to figure out how to deal with unamericans.
Rush didn't tell the troops to rush out to wall-mart to harass people in line waiting to buy Hillary's book. He tells them how bad she is. They no what to do.
NTodd - I certainly don't think that Bush is Hitleresque. I don't trust the cabal around him but don't consider them exactly on a par with Himmler, Goebbels, etc. And of course we object to being called Saddamists, etc.
There are, as you have noted, and have others, too many similarities with what has been happening here and with the definitions of fascism to dismiss the comparison altogether. Vigilance is the order of the day.
And I don't like him either.
Nobody at Bushco headquarters calls Powell and tells him exactly what to do.
Certainly. Powell just puts their shared philosophy in practice. My point is that a conspiracy requires a bit more than everybody singing from the same song book--people have to actively collaborate on writing the hymns. I think we do play into the hands of the right if we yell "consiracy!" at every turn. Let's just call a spade a spade: it's not a conspiracy so much as a bunch of people with what we believe is a morally bankrupt worldview, acting accordingly.
think we do play into the hands of the right if we yell "consiracy!" at every turn.
Rather, make that "conspiracy!"
Vigilance is the order of the day.
Amen.
NTodd,
Can you shorten that "a bunch of people with what we believe is a morally bankrupt worldview, acting accordingly" up a little.
If I tried to tell that to the average, so full of hate at whatever American I'd be strangled before I finished.
NTodd - what it comes down to for me is the complete moral bankruptcy of any philosophy that boils down to: the ends justify the means.
For me, the ends never justify the means. That is the fascist belief. Some of the Nazis were killers, but not all. And those who weren't looked at the Final Solution and said to themselves: "Well, the result will be that we are rid of the Jews. So even if I don't like how we do it, still, it will be a good result."
An extreme example, but when someone follows that philosophy, extremes become easier all the time.
Yep, After we come for the unions, Jews, and communists, we are going to execute all the leftist intelligensia, starting with Gary Frazier. I'm sure they have a cell waiting for you in Gitmo.
Note to Erik the C - something you posted last night - that there isn't sexism in the present governement, using Condoleeza Rice as your example - bullshit.
How can you say that the present Republicans in power aren't sexist, when one of their avowed aims (as you pointed out to me on another thread) is to get rid of abortion?
Can you shorten that "a bunch of people with what we believe is a morally bankrupt worldview, acting accordingly" up a little.
"Bad people"? Crap. That's why I hate labels. I don't actually consider myself a liberal, but nobody wants to listen to my 10,000 word essay on what I believe. My wife says I need to get out more...
what it comes down to for me is the complete moral bankruptcy of any philosophy that boils down to: the ends justify the means.
Me too. I just worry that our camp can fall into the same trap.
I, as well, don't believe there are many among the neoconservatives that can usefully be called fascists at this point, with a few possible exceptions: Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Michael Savage come very close to a textbook definition, like the one cited above. Rush, in particular, would appear to represent all elements of the above definition, wrapped into a single personality, including the intense projectionist tendencies that seem to typically accompany them.
I would also cite Grover Norquist as a likely member of that club, in that he is perhaps the purest example of the "rebirth" metaphor of fascism, and the underlying but inherently violent rhetoric; "drown the American government in the bathtub", "bipartisianship is date rape", etc. And, possibly Karl Rove, simply because he shapes all aspects of policy upon a political foundation, the goal of unyielding, one-party control of all branches of government (rather than on any philosophy or public interest) and the policy he therefore ends up advocating tends, by its nature, towards the definitions provided above.
No one member of the administration meets all the definitions of "a fascist" but, as I have attempted to demonstrate, the resulting overall policy is a fascist one, in underlying philosophy.
As another point; try to divorce the obvious historical power of the word fascism; allow ourselves to suppose that, as a philosophy, perhaps fascism is a perfectly acceptable political philosophy, or at the least one that is "neutral".
Fascism may not automatically imply a "bad" system of goverment; it is simply a political philosophy, or set of philosophies. One that, by its nature, tends to spiral into extremism, but which, at the initial stages, is not much different from an "activist-right" or "nationalistic" agenda.
Certainly, its proponents see it as a good thing, at the time, just as the proponents of communism see that philosophy as a good thing. The more you can divorce the word from the more frequently loathsome historical examples, the more objectively the definition can be analyized.
Yep, After we come for the unions
Manager at Verizon?
Oops, a correction:
No one member of the administration meets all the definitions of "a fascist" but, as I have attempted to demonstrate, the resulting overall policy is a fascist one, in underlying philosophy.
The word "agenda" would be better, in place of the word "policy". The agenda advocated by the neoconservatives in and out of government is considerably more extreme than current Administration policy, although -- as we have seen -- the speed with which that agenda can become actual policy and/or law is, in some cases, breathtaking.
Folks -
I intended to respond further but my wife hauled me away from the computer. If I get time, I'll respond in some detail to the thoughtful responses to my posts. However, here is one response because it's short.
Tena -
You wrote
Note to Erik the C - something you posted last night - that there isn't sexism in the present governement, using Condoleeza Rice as your example - bullshit.
How can you say that the present Republicans in power aren't sexist, when one of their avowed aims (as you pointed out to me on another thread) is to get rid of abortion?
To be against abortion does not make you a sexist. Many pro-lifers are women. The original "Roe" in Roe v. Wade has in fact changed her mind about abortion and become pro-life. She recently tried to file some kind of legal motion around the case. Anyway, it's simply not true to say that a pro-lifer is sexist. Pro-lifers don't want to prevent abortions because they think women are lesser beings. They have other reasons to want to stop abortions.
No one member of the administration meets all the definitions of "a fascist" but, as I have attempted to demonstrate, the resulting overall policy is a fascist one, in underlying philosophy.
Gawd, take it to Democratic Underground, already...better yet, get it into the official platform of the Democrat Party for 2004.
Spiritual Consultants Come to the Workplace
DALLAS — Doug Underhill is an outside consultant for McKinney Aerospace in Texas, but he's not slashing or streamlining production. He's paid to talk to employees about their personal affairs, feelings and spirituality.
...
Supporters of the program say they're not trying to spread a religion or convert anyone and add that the program is completely voluntary.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/
0,2...3,89886,00.html
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association believes:
That all men everywhere are lost and face the judgment of God, and need to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through His shed blood on the cross.
In using every modern means of communication available to us to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world.
what do you call that?
Erik - the original Jane Doe has been grabbed and redoctrinated by a teeth-flashing extelevangelist who now makes his career as an anti-abortion crusader around Dallas. His name is Skip something - I think Skip should suffice.
Most of the women against choice are not feminists. Most of them are Marilyn Quayle wannabes. This is an issue of sexism, pure and simple.
Kerry to Block Court Nominees Who Had No Abortions
(2003-06-20) -- U.S. Sen. John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who's also running for president, said today that he believes so strongly in a woman's right to choose, that he will filibuster any future Supreme Court nominees who have not had at least one abortion.
"This nation needs a combination of legal scholarship and practical experience in the highest court," said Sen. Kerry. "I've always said that it's wrong to apply a litmus test to judicial nominees, but I was talking about liberal nominees."
Sen. Kerry said a Supreme Court nominee would have to show some physical evidence or documentation that he or she personally had one or more abortions.
Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, applauded the so-called "Democrat frontrunner" in a written statement.
"Along with John Kerry, we're fighting to ensure that abortions are legal, cheap and easily accessible," the statement read. "Abortions are a crucial element of a balanced sex life for every American."
I'm not so sure that fascism is a philosophy so much as a force of political nature. In contrast to both communism and falangism, there isn't a body of texts or even ideas that we can debate.
Neither is there a universalized aspect to fascism that would lend itself to a philosophy. Instead, fascism is specifically a nationalist phenomenon (or ultranationalist, if you will) -- its animating force is the claim to represent the "true" identity of the nation in which it arises. This is why the increasing claim of conservatrives to represent "real Americans" is so disturbing.
Of course, various fascists have at times tried to elucidate a "philosophy of fascism," but most of these have been self-serving exercises in aggrandizement and obfuscation, as is fascists' wont.
It's worth remembering the warning of Pierre-André Taguieff:
Neither "fascism" nor "racism" will do us the favour of returning in such a way that we can recognise them easily. If vigilance was only a game of recognising something already well-known, then it would only be a question of remembering. Vigilance would be reduced to a social game using reminiscence and identification by recognition, a consoling illusion of an immobile history peopled with events which accord with our expectations or our fears.
Erik - pro-life=anti-choice. If you or some woman have a moral issue with abortion, neither I nor the government will to force either one of you to have one. But by the same token, you and the government should let the woman who is pregnant make that moral choice for herself.
David Neiwert - the last paragraph with the quote by Pierre-Andre Tagieff is one of the most profound things I've ever read.
Fascism is about Power. The Bush administration is about the same thing.
Hunter –
To try to keep a long back-and-forth coherent, my responses are in blue.
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
This is obviously true at present; the attacks of 9/11 have unleashed a torrent of patriotism and bumper-sticker nationalism. This is not a bad thing, in moderation.
In questioning whether it may have turned into something negative, however, note the extent to which right-leaning demonstrators have "hijacked" the flag to mean one position -- pro-war, pro-Bush. For many Americans, the flag is used to represent Bush, and a pro-Bush agenda.
Every administration uses patriotic symbols. Every single one. People spontaneously latched on to the flag after 9/11 to show the world we believed in what this country stands for. How is that hard to understand? By this definition every time Americans have rallied to the flag throughout our history, we’ve been experiencing creeping fascism. In fact from this definition, the only time we haven’t been creeping towards fascism is when people were burning flags during that Vietnam era. So, this appears to bring no real value to the argument about whether or not we are heading towards fascism.
2. 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.
The Patriot Acts 1 and 2, and Gitmo, obviously. A common stated position, at present, is that these "extraordinary" times require greater than usual security and, therefore, extraordinary security measures, such that "minor" infringements on our freedom, such as the right to public trial, can be temporarily waived. Ashcroft, in his position as Attorney General, is an exemplary example of this position, and how this position is being actually adopted as American law.
While the other listed elements are obviously present in recent legislation, does torture, in particular, exist at Gitmo? Depends on who you believe. But do members of the neoconservative right -- the public followers, that is -- endorse torture? Yes, many have stated exactly that.
First, you write “But do members of the neoconservative right -- the public followers, that is -- endorse torture? Yes, many have stated exactly that.” Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton’s friend and noted Lefty, was the first prominent public person to come out for torture when dealing with terrorists. So, to say that the “neoconservative right” endorses torture
Fascism is about Power. The Bush administration is about the same thing.
Tina, you just surpassed Tagieff with your profundity: such deep truth - presidential administrations are about POWER. What an insight! I guess that's why they've said since 1945 or so that the US president is the most powerful man on earth.
Hmm... the blue text thing failed. Let me test again.Blue
Excerpt from Ian Kershaw's "Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris".
First American edition, 1999.
Following excerpt is Kershaw discussing the characteristics and use of 'heroic leadership' imagery by the Right in Germany following WW1. Which led eventually to the emergence of the "Fuher cult" in Germany.
[begin excerpt:]
A rebirth of the nation was promised through the subordination to a 'great leader' who would invoke the values of a 'heroic' (and mythical) past. The nationalist associations, most prominently the Pan-German League, popularized and disseminated such notions. The Protestant 'educated' middle classes were affected more than most by them. Germanic myths and romantic imagery in the bourgeois youth movement provided a base for their cultivation among the younger generation. Even so, such ideas hardly occupied a central position in German political culture before 1914.
However, war and revolution gave new substance to images of 'heroic' leadership. The subsequent idealization of the 'community of fate' in the trenches, and the 'great deeds' and heroism of 'true' leadership in the struggle for national survival - undermined, according to the legend, from within - provided a mass of new potential adherents on the counter-revolutionary Right to the idea of a coming 'great leader'. Images of leadership varied.
continued....
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Alright anybody know how to change text color? Cause without that ability, it'll be too hard to follow my posts responding to Hunter.
Tena,
Repubs are all "get government off my back."
Apparently my back is ExxonMobile, GlaxoSmithKline, Clear Channel, etc.
Ernst Rohm, whose background we have briefly glimpsed, stands proxy for thousands in his idolization of the leadership of the military 'man of action'. For the neo-conservative Right, the shock of the Revolution and the dominance of the detested Social Democrats, contempt for the 'party system' and parliamentary government, and Germany's international humiliation and weakness meant an evocation of Bismark in the yearning for a great 'statesman'. Literary figures were among the most expressive advocates of 'heroic' leadership. The author Ernst Junger saw 'the great politician of the future' as a 'modern man of power' in the 'machine era' - 'a man of outstanding intelligence', perhaps emerging from a party, but standing 'above parties and divisions', whose natural instinct and will would select the right path and overcome all obstacles. The Bonn writer Ernst Bertram linked his vision of a coming Leader, in a poem compounded in 1922, with notions of 'renewal' arising from the banks of the Rhine and staving off the threat from Asia. Within the Protestant Church, there were those who looked to the coming Leader to bring about spiritual renewal and moral revival. The fall of the monarchy and collapse of 'God-given' authority, the secularization of society, and the perceived 'crisis of faith' in German Protestantism all contributed to a readiness to look to a new form of leadership which could reinvoke 'true' Christian values. The shadings of the various leadership images came together in the tract of the nationalist publicist Wilhelm Stapel, a former liberal turned volkisch enthusiast, member of the Hapsburg group of neo-conservatives associated with the ideas of Moeller van den Bruck, who depicted the 'true statesman' as 'at one and the same time ruler, warrior, and priest'. It amounted to a secularized belief in salvation, wrapped up in pseudo-religious language.
Whatever the particular emphasis, the conservative and volkisch Right juxtaposed the negative view of a 'leaderless democracy' with the concept of a true leader as a man of destiny, born not elected to leadership, not bound by conventional rules and laws, 'hard, straightforward, and ruthless', but embodying the will of God in his actions. 'God give us leaders and help us to true following,' ran one text. Devotion, loyalty, obedience, and duty were the corresponding values demanded of the followers.
[end excerpt:]
excerpt above from: Ian Kershaw's, "Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris" / pages 180-182, chapter 6, 'The Drummer' / copyright 1998 / first American edition 1999.
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BTW, I hope everyone has mercy on Tiernan. He is, after all, our resident living example of Just How Fucking Stupid Republicans Can Be, and that's always a comforting reminder. Besides, inducing him to waste his time here ensures he isn't busy polluting anyone else's life in the real world for at least that period of time, which is a good thing.
Tena -
Most of the women against choice are not feminists. Most of them are Marilyn Quayle wannabes. This is an issue of sexism, pure and simple.
pro-life=anti-choice. If you or some woman have a moral issue with abortion, neither I nor the government will to force either one of you to have one. But by the same token, you and the government should let the woman who is pregnant make that moral choice for herself.
Tena, I disagree 100% that to be pro-life makes a person sexist. Your argument doesn't in any way prove that. Your argument only holds water if you believe that life only begins at birth. If you believe that life starts before delivery, then a person can certainly be pro-life without being sexist.
the farmer,
There was a Hitler in that post. It's completely discredited.
Erik --
Try the "font" tag and set the "color" attribute = "blue". Like this (I hope this shows up):
<font color="blue">Your text here</font>
If that doesn't work, then the font tags aren't allowed.
To be against abortion does not make you a sexist.
We're getting into axiomatic territory here, so perhaps abortions's not the best example. Regardless, many of us believe that an anti-choice (wow, isn't language a powerful means to form reality?) attitude is sexist. But let's leave this aside for a moment.
Take William Pryor. Not only is he an outspoken opponent of Roe v. Wade, he takes what I would consider sexism further. He's also down on protections against gender discrimination. He has argued that Violence Against Women Act provisions for right to action is unconstitutional. He has argued against the Family and Medical Leave Act, which generally aids women given their traditional roles in our society (there's some irony here, but I'm ignoring it for now).
Or take Leon Holmes, who wrote that a "wife is to subordinate herself to her husband". He also said wrt abortion (damn, that keeps coming up) that "concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with the same frequency as snowfall in Miami." A red herring itself, it would seem.
The story of "Roe" and how she changed her mind is certainly interesting, but I think just goes to further our point: that the woman has a right to choose the moral imperative re: her own body. Roe made her choice once, and has made it again. So at least in our view on the left, that axiom is inviolate and anything counter to it indicates sexism. Your mileage may vary. In that case, see the other stuff mentioned above.
People keep demanding that the Democrats in Washington "get off their knees" before the Bush juggarnaut. I think we need to look at it from another perspective.
Anyone with half a brain can see the similarities between the Republicans the Nazis and the fascists. They recognize the unmistakable the slide toward fascism that we are taking. Perhaps the Democrats are actually in fear for their and their family's ultimate safety.
Erik - I happen to believe that the beginning of sentient life is an unanswered question. I happen to find abortion personally morally problematic. I'm a Buddhist, and I take things like that very seriously.
But it is sexist to want to make those choices for all women. It takes away a woman's right to handle her own body. That is sexist, unless you have some strange definition of sexism.
Gawd, take it to Democratic Underground, already...
Must...not...feed...troll...Can't...resist...
Wow, well-spoken. I appreciate how much you add to this debate. That Erik guy sounds smart and everything, but you succinctly get to the heart of each matter, and raise my consciousness every time. Thank you. Thank you so much.
"Identification of Enemies/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, etc."
To read more about the use of this particular form psychological manipulation read Scott Peck's book "The People of the Lie".
NTodd - I strikes me how very much more honest the neocons in power, like Grover Norquist and Tom Delay, are about their motives and what they hope to accomplish than are the self-styled conservatives who are arguing here that those aren't their motives and their aims. There is a large contradiction here.
the farmer, There was a Hitler in that post. It's completely discredited. - hadenough
hadenough: I know, as soon as I posted it I closed the browser and ran to the other side of the room...just to be on the safe side. If only that Kershaw guy had titled his book "That Scary Guy from Germany: 1889-1936", instead.
I'm going to go outside now and pick slugs out of my garden. Night-time is the best time for it. You can sneak up on em real easy at night.
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Ernst Rohm, whose background we have briefly glimpsed, stands proxy for thousands in his idolization of the leadership of the military 'man of action'.
C'mon, farmer, they don't know, so spill it: Rohm was a notorious homosexual. Thus proving that all homosexuals are fascists and leading inexorably to the plain fact that Bush is Hitler. Why can't the right-wing media grasp this?
I'm not so sure that fascism is a philosophy so much as a force of political nature. In contrast to both communism and falangism, there isn't a body of texts or even ideas that we can debate.
D: Point very well taken -- that was an error, on my part. Communism, for example, is easier to define because the end goals are rather simple to define, at least "idealistically".
But in looking at all the various definitions of fascism, it is very difficult to describe a single underlying "philosophy". Perhaps a "religious nationalism"? While the techniques by which fascism is fostered and strengthened are fairly straightforward, the actual end goals of fascism are rather murky, other than the basic retention of power. What would a perfect, fascist state look like? We don't know, and don't have an example to work from, because each of the most identified, clearly-fascist regimes has collapsed in (historically speaking) a short period of time.
But in looking at all the various definitions of fascism, it is very difficult to describe a single underlying "philosophy". Perhaps a "religious nationalism"? While the techniques by which fascism is fostered and strengthened are fairly straightforward, the actual end goals of fascism are rather murky, other than the basic retention of power. What would a perfect, fascist state look like? We don't know, and don't have an example to work from, because each of the most identified, clearly-fascist regimes has collapsed in (historically speaking) a short period of time.
All of your pompous amateur political philosophy boils down to one big error: you are simply conflating fascism with the negative aspects of nationalism.
"Over to you Hunter, please show me examples of torture, summary executions and assassinations under Bush's watch. I'm not aware of any."
http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/12...2/12/
us1227.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/06...06/
us060203.htm
Assassination
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/
ar...1738EDT0724.DTL
"The United States has its own recent record of trying to kill terrorists wherever they can be found, of wanting Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" or with his "head on a platter," and of making Saddam Hussein a personal target at each opportunity during the Iraq war."
--------
"Despite Washington's nearly 30-year-old ban on assassinations, the government has vigorously hunted people it regards as terrorists and has tried to kill them. Vice President Dick Cheney said he'd accept bin Laden's head; Bush wanted the al-Qaida leader in any fashion."
In addition, the administration has stated that it has the right to execute terrorists AND those thought to support them without a trial.
Erik -- your points are well taken. My hopefully short-ish responses:
Every administration uses patriotic symbols. Every single one. People spontaneously latched on to the flag after 9/11 to show the world we believed in what this country stands for.
Absolutely -- and note that this is not a negative thing. It is understandable, and happens at various points in history, and is, in general, Good. My point is solely that this "symptom" exists, in spades. We could debate whether or not the "righists" have lached onto the flag more than the "leftists", but I don't think it's necessary. Suffice it to say, the condition currently exists.
First, you write “But do members of the neoconservative right -- the public followers, that is -- endorse torture? Yes, many have stated exactly that.” Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton’s friend and noted Lefty, was the first prominent public person to come out for torture when dealing with terrorists.
You are correct; there are some on the left who have endorsed torture. I admit to struggling with the issue myself, more than a true "lefty" should. My point is that people currently in positions of power, and those surrounding them, have on occasion endorsed the position. For example, keeping detainees in the care of "friendly nations" that have far less restrictions about the abuse of prisoners than the U.S. does.
Any one of these criteria is not enough to make something fascist. Governments of all stripes, for example, have existed as police states in one case or another, or have engaged in nationalistic tendancies. It is only the aggregation of all of these criteria that is defined as fascist. And note that some aspects of fascism are, indeed, elements of simple, non-belligerent conservatism. Some, but not all; there is a distinct difference between the two.
Again, don't think of any of the criteria as inherently negative things -- some are, some may not be. I am not proposing that, because one or two of them exist, we are in danger of a fascist state. I am instead proposing that, because all of the criteria exist, at the same time, it must necessarily be identified as fascism, by any of the more credible definitions.
Hunter - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/wtc/
...813military.htm
US Considers Assassination Squads
I'm a Buddhist
We know, Tina, you've told us at least once for each of your past lives.
Now if you'll only immolate yourself like the Iranian protestors, we'll admire you even more.
Oops, I forgot, the left is required to ignore the Iranian protests, lest it validate Bush's "liberation of Iraq" propaganda...
http://www.rense.com/general28/exe.htm
A little comment below a copy of the story on it's sudden elusiveness.
Spinning Tops -
Thanks. Unfortunately that was what I was trying to do. Bill Rehm managed to get color into his posts, so maybe there is yet one more way to try.
Tena -
I happen to believe that the beginning of sentient life is an unanswered question. I happen to find abortion personally morally problematic. I'm a Buddhist, and I take things like that very seriously.
But it is sexist to want to make those choices for all women. It takes away a woman's right to handle her own body. That is sexist, unless you have some strange definition of sexism.
Respectfully Tena, I don't believe your argument is logical. You say that, for you, when a life becomes "sentient" is an unanswered question. But of course that is your opinion. If another person has a different opinion of what constitutes life, one in which they may say that the idea of sentience is irrelevant, then that person can morally say that they believe no abortions should be allowed because a human being is killed in the process.
You say it is sexist to make those choices for women, but that is untrue. First of all, some women, like my mother-in-law for instance, feel abortion is murder, but it's not because she is sextist. She simply believes life begins at conception. Since she believes that she believes that the mother has no more right to kill the baby in her womb than she does to kill the baby after delivery. It's simply not a sexist position that my mother-in-law is taking. It's a moral position based on her belief of when life begins.
Hunter -
I'd like to give you a complete response, and I will if I can find a way to structure the post so that it is cogent. We're tying together a number of posts and thoughts here, and it's getting rather cumbersome. If Bill Rehm is out there, I'd sure appreciate you refreshing me on how you accomplished that color magic with the fonts.
has anybody checked the Bushivics china cupboards for swaztika's?
and just ignore that broken nazi plate on my wall. it was a estate sale bargain and i am keeping it out of fascist hands.
Walter; I don't think Bush is a Hitler by any means. I don't think hes ambitious enough.I think Bush is a logo. Hes a sales rep. that the GOP uses to hawk their wares. I don't even think that most of the people (aside from perhaps some of the evangelical nutters) who run the Bush administration would like to see a "one great heroic leader" in absolute control because I think they see a future consisting of a kind of ruling confederacy of star chamber oligarchs and neo-fuedal corporate lords and party loyalists who then are essentially become the government. Which in many respects has fascist and falangist elements to it as well, but of a more subtle less in your face variety. I do think that the Right-wing in the US down through the years has used a good deal of political marketing ploys, come ons and appeals that are characteristic of past fascist rhetoric to attract the foolish and misinformed to their porchlight.
And thats what bothers me about some of the rhetoric they employ lately. Some of that same rhetorical chanting and ideological hocus pocus (anti-liberalism, anti-moderism, anti-feminism, anti-gay, appeals to racism, anti-intellectualism, appeals to extreme nationalism and Christian Nation supremacy, etc... were also common to, for instance, the KKK and other Right-wing pre-fascist nativist/nationalist movements in the US prior to fascisms emergence in Italy and Germany and the US. So many of those so defined fascists characteristics we point to today are not just characteristics of German or Italian fascism or Falangism per se. Fascism simply made itself famous by its own rise to power in Europe and its consequential actions and agenda. And became the categorical definition for many of those characteristics now associated with it. If you go into a music store and look under the category rock-n-roll, you're gonna find a music with similar characteristics...called rock-n-roll....but each CD or record isn't going to sound exactly the same. But its still called rock-n-roll and it carved its own legacy all by itself.
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There is one glaring difference between prenazi Germany and the present movement toward that kind of politic: By 1933 the people had suffered greatly, from harsh war reparations to a great depression.
This country, by contrast, had just experienced one of the greatest economic booms in its history. Except for the mean little circus the rightwing nuts spitefully put the country through it was a golden time.
All I can attribute the sudden slide toward fascism to then is unquestioning acceptance of conservative agitprop and good 'ol American attitude.
Suppose one day I am remarking to my neighbor that I am worried about how vulnerable, say, the Golden Gate Bridge is. Within a few days I am seen to take a pleasant stroll across it. While in the city, I stop at a donut shop run by a middle-eastern clerk, and purchase a donut.
Maybe I irritate my neighbor in some way - perhaps I cut a tree back too far, or a guest of mine parks in front of his house. He calls the FBI and tells them about the bridge.
As I understand the Patriot Act, the FBI can pick me up and detain me indefinitely, without a lawyer. Even though I'm a citizen, if I'm locked up "because better to be safe than sorry" - how can I prove it? No one outside has my name, so they can't verify my status, either.
If, unknown to me, the donut shop was in fact a terrorist drop point, I'd be cooked.
We've already forgotten this story from February:
http://
www.informationclearingho...article1689.htm
An Indian born Canadian citizen with a stopover at O'Hare on her way home to Toronto had her passport confiscated and was put on a plane for India when American officials suspected she had a fake passport. No phone call, not even to the Canadian consulate...
BTW, I lived under Reagan, and I detested him. Bush worries me more than Reagan ever did... and I say this as someone who found the first Bush acceptable, if not my first choice.
Anonymous:
The key to the similarity between the 1990s America and 1920s Germany was not in their relative prosperity, but in the comparative health of democracy as an institution in each of those two countries at the end of the respective decades.
The widespread economic suffering of Germany was obviously responsible in many regards for undermining democratic institutions, particularly as embodied by the Weimar government.
By contrast, the damage inflicted upon democracy in the 1990s was the product of the conservative movement's attempts to unseat by other means a democratically elected president, culminated by a fraudulent election ruling in which the Supreme Court, in concert with the Bush faction, nullified the democratic process in Florida and simultaneously abrogated the constitutional separation of powers.
Whether that damage will prove as deep or as permanent as that wreaked in the 1920s will prove out in time. I remain optimistic that they will be defeated in the end.
There is one glaring difference between prenazi Germany and the present movement toward that kind of politic: By 1933 the people had suffered greatly, from harsh war reparations to a great depression.
>>> But to add to that...that suffering, in Germany for instance, really helped fuel the nationalism and resemtment and violence that followed out of those post WW1 years, especially the resentment toward Jews who became an easy scapegoat for nationalist and far right gripes. Afterall, Hitler didn't invent anti-semitism. He simply emerged from that boiling stew.
This country, by contrast, had just experienced one of the greatest economic booms in its history. Except for the mean little circus the rightwing nuts spitefully put the country through it was a golden time.
>>> That economic boom to a good extent being fueled at the expense of post war Europe, and especially Germany which was forced to lick the boot of the Versailles Treaty. And, as many point out, writing from the period, WW1 was to some extent a war for steel and gold, eventhough the reasons for war weren't sold to the public as such. It sure made a lot of industrialist in the US very rich. And a lot of people elesewhere miserable. The "golden time" however wasn't shared by all in the US and the roaring twenties was confined to certain parts of the country and those who could afford to play wild stock market and real estate speculation games. The waves of anti-immigrant sentiments, anti-Catholicism, racism, prohibition, bizarre social laws and codes of conduct and segregation, the rise in popularity of rabid Christian fundamentalism, labor strikes, on and on.... it was no picnic for a whole lot of people ----all that was going on while the roaring 20's roared away. The KKK itself reached high points in popularity during this period. (early to mid twenties) Even NY State counted 88 thousand KKK members at one point.
And of course there later came the emergence of the German American Bund, Silver Shirts, Order of the Sons of Italy, Christian Front and dozens of other nazi and far right groups as the 1930s rolled into town.
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All of your pompous amateur political philosophy boils down to one big error: you are simply conflating fascism with the negative aspects of nationalism.
Um, no. Not even close: of the 14 points in the example definition, only four can generously be attributed to nationalism. Does nationalism imply anti-intellectualism? Anti-labor? The use of religious rhetoric and terminology by movement leaders? No.
However, given that you are one of the several people to recently assert that fascism is a "socialist" movement, and with your own complete unwillingness to meet the terms of the debate, I am not particularly impressed by your arguments.
Why, exactly, do my arguments represent "pompous amateur political philosophy"? Because they are intellectual in nature? Because they attempt to be objective? Because I attempt to be precise?
To date, there has not been a single point, of the fourteen, refuted. People are arguing that individual elements within the definition are not unique to fascism -- which is certainly true -- but have not disputed the more critical notion, that all aspects of that definition are indeed present, in at least nascent form, in the current situation.
In other words, we have taken a fairly detailed definition of fascism and demonstrated, point by point, the same specific traits in the current rightist movement., have we not?
In other words, we have taken a fairly detailed definition of fascism and demonstrated, point by point, the same specific traits in the current rightist movement., have we not? - Hunter
Hunter: I find this bothersome -- with respect to why the Right-wing today often employs all of this characteristic old time fascist and even pre-fascist rhetoric in the first place. This right wing rhetoric today, of the mass marketed kind, isn't coming from any pool of extreme economic hardship or any kind of post war turmoil as was the case with some of the right-wing rhetoric in the past. Its simply re-manufactured for political stage by rich think tanks and media network showbiz hucksters. Political moonshine. If thats the case, and I think it is, and if they are employing all this far right retro hocus pocus simply for political party gain and to make a buck and to whoop bewildered yokels into a lathery buggy eyed state...thats even more sinister to me than any natural nativist backlash that emerges from hard times and ignorance and the bellowings of hillbilly evangelists or the local Klan mongo spouting off from atop a milk crate.
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Tena, I disagree 100% that to be pro-life makes a person sexist. Your argument doesn't in any way prove that. Your argument only holds water if you believe that life only begins at birth. If you believe that life starts before delivery, then a person can certainly be pro-life without being sexist.
However, you should make some effort to distinguish between "pro-life" and those who are simply "anti-choice."
There are some who truly believe that all life is important, who insist that abortion is wrong, and who also oppose wars and the death penalty. These people could truly be considered pro-life.
There are others who oppose abortion, but are avid proponents of the death penalty, and sometimes indulge in warmongering. These people are not pro-life. They're simply anti-choice.
Don't lump them together, because it does the actual pro-life people a severe disservice.
Hunter: I find this bothersome -- with respect to why the Right-wing today often employs all of this characteristic old time fascist and even pre-fascist rhetoric in the first place.
I honestly don't know, either. It was most visibly demonstrated, on the national scene, by the sheer contempt for Clinton among the right. Not the typical disapproval that we on the left would have for, say, a GHW Bush, or Reagan, but absolute, seething hatred of the man, even before he took office. I honestly still find it baffling; he was hardly a leftist, by any stretch.
I sometimes muse over whether or not the current environment is, in fact, simply a continuation of the cold-war, anti-Communist days, and a need of many individuals for a visible enemy, even if it is a manufactured one. Having defeated communism without a shot, the far right began to seek out "communism" and "socialism" in more and more unlikely places, and grow more and more alarmist at any hint of "leftist" philosophy -- such as most of Europe, for example. It is the only war they know how to fight, and, indeed, many seem to be still fighting it.
I suspect it may also be related to rampant anti-intellectualism. The current crop of rightists are very certain that "intellectuals", especially "liberal intellectuals" are somehow trying to put one over on them, or that the "Hollywood elite" is controlling the shots. It would appear to be a feeling of insecurity, or pervasive oppression. In any event, the matching of Gore and Bush was this very battle, in miniature form -- and the loathing contempt of Gore, very specifically as an "intellectual", was quite remarkable.
I would go so far as to say that this is a defining characteristic of the current movement -- fear of academia, of intellectualism, of science in general. Anti-globalization concerns evolving into nationalism, maybe? Anti-technology underpinnings? Y2K stresses and fears, re-expressed? (Keeping in mind that many of the people most convinced of catastrophic Y2K failures were far-right extremist groups.)
But I don't really know what is driving the movement, and that bothers me, too. I think we could answer the question better if we could first answer a more basic question; why are "liberals" currently the target of such passion? The hatred of neoconservatives towards the left is apparently equal or greater to the hatred of Islamic extremists towards the West. Are there similar forces at work?
I don't think the most cynical answer -- that the neoconservatives are just playing the game, for the hell of it -- is correct; they clearly have an agenda, and very emotionally charged anti-liberalism is a central part of it.
"There is one glaring difference between prenazi Germany and the present movement toward that kind of politic: By 1933 the people had suffered greatly, from harsh war reparations to a great depression.
This country, by contrast, had just experienced one of the greatest economic booms in its history. Except for the mean little circus the rightwing nuts spitefully put the country through it was a golden time."
Farmer, I think that you misunderstood what I was though I appreciated your comments. I was comparing the economic conditions that preceded the rise of naziGermany and those that preceded the present descent into fascism. Economic bust i.e. the great depression vs economic boom, i.e. the Clinton years.
Thus I find no good reason, or excuse, for the present slide toward fascism other than effective rightwing agitprop and uniquely American cussedness (or assholeness).
"I don't think the most cynical answer -- that the neoconservatives are just playing the game, for the hell of it -- is correct; they clearly have an agenda, and very emotionally charged anti-liberalism is a central part of it."
Look no farther than Big Business (I'm not refering to all the small businesses which are being swept along). They are the secret puppeteers. Their motives are to grab as much money as they can any way they can and the Republican party and all those willing patriotic dittoheads are the means to achieving that end. Thus the push to deregulate, the monumental efforts to overturn environmental protections, the striving to crush the unions. Thus the proliferation of right wing agitprop "think tanks" all bought and paid for by Big Business.
Cynical yes, but true
Anonymous, please see my post above. I think the similarity between those periods lies not so much in the economic conditions but in the damage done to democratic institutions by contemporary political forces.
"Anonymous, please see my post above. I think the similarity between those periods lies not so much in the economic conditions but in the damage done to democratic institutions by contemporary political forces."
I agree and in fact I think that's what I am saying as well. The distinction I am making however, if I am making myself understood, is that as you said in your first reply "The widespread economic suffering of Germany was obviously responsible in many regards for undermining democratic institutions, particularly as embodied by the Weimar government." We had no such (during Clinton's years at least) economic suffering in this country which might give rise to the kind of unrest that led to naziGermany. In fact it was a golden time economically speaking (the Repugs hated that a Democrat could bring it about and had to "get him".
Again "I find no good reason, or excuse, for the present slide toward fascism other than effective rightwing agitprop and uniquely American cussedness (or assholeness)".
To add a few words in agreement:
Again "I find no good reason, or excuse, for the present slide toward fascism and the 'undermining of democracy' other than effective rightwing agitprop and uniquely American cussedness (or assholeness)".
Well, they certainly are assholes. But I think that particular quality is a product of their base, power-craving Stalinist orientation as a movement.
That's what makes them so virulent. They have proven they will do anything to achieve power, will do anything they want once they achieve it, and will do anything to keep it, including the utter betrayal of their supposed ideology. They are power-mongers for its own sake.
That, in my mind, gives them an especially dangerous quality that extends well beyond their assholishness.
I was comparing the economic conditions that preceded the rise of naziGermany and those that preceded the present descent into fascism. Economic bust i.e. the great depression vs economic boom, i.e. the Clinton years.
Anonymous: Ooops, yer right i did misunderstand which time period you were speaking of. Sorry. Thanks for clearing that up.
Other than that I think what you and David Neiwert are saying about right-wing agiprop and power for the sake of power is exactly what it boils down to.
As for the neocons....they seem to be playing right along, for a purpose, for real stakes, and they are using the cloak of past, more traditionally far right wing emotionally charged mantras (carefully marketed to a wide audience) to get where they want to go. The neocons have simply snuck into town behind a noisy parade of paleocons and Christian Right-wingers and old Reagan New Right types (of which they are an old partner) and dittoheads. And they seem to have no shame in exploiting any old fascistic far right themes as long as it suits there means, and ends.
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Also---- are the so called "neocons" really neocons anymore....or have they mutated into something else entirely. Patrick Moynihan was considered an old time neo-con at some point....and I personally didn't care much for Moynihan for various reasons on various matters but he was nothing like these so called neo-cons today. (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz etc...) These guys are another animal. Maybe someone needs to come up with a new taxonomy ID.
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To cap it off (and repeat myself ad naseaum - sorry) "I find no good reason, or excuse, for the present slide toward fascism other than effective rightwing agitprop"
How else could they convince nearly half of the voting public to choose a change from boom to bust?
For those interested I found this rather long description of "neoconservativism" in Wikipedia. I didn't read it though. Believe it or not I can't stand politics.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne...(United_States)
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