10 Steps To Fascism

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Have been reading some stuf on nationalism and this caught my eye:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html/

What do the people of ILX think? Is this way over the top...a little bit over the top...OTM?

― optimus, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 05:39 (eighteen years ago)

linkee no workee

― bobby bedelia, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 05:40 (eighteen years ago)

Ok...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

is that better?

― optimus, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 05:41 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, it's OTM, but she made up that list while contemplating the current situation. It's not THE ultimate objective "these ten steps, and only these ten steps, in this order define fascism" list. So it won't change anything, chilling though it all is.

― StanM, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 06:15 (eighteen years ago)

lol, "argues naomi wolf"

― bobby bedelia, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 06:20 (eighteen years ago)

According to a 2006 interview with Torcuil Crichton in the Sunday Herald, Wolf claimed to have channelled an adolescent male and had a vision of Jesus Christ in an experience which prompted her to re-explore her own spirituality and her views on what is "sacred" in femininity.

― bobby bedelia, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 06:22 (eighteen years ago)

Why it's so easy to label everyone you don't like a fascist: nobody agrees on what it actually is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

― StanM, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 06:26 (eighteen years ago)

OK. Lets say authoritarian populist. Is that better? Ten steps to America becoming an authoritarian populist state. Discuss.

― The Boyler, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 09:44 (eighteen years ago)

11. Win the support of the middle classes

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 09:49 (eighteen years ago)

i thought it was a bit hypersensitive, although usa has been an elected dictatorship pretty much from day one hasn't it?

also, can't wait for them to wake up and see this. 700 posts by 2pm GMT?

― CarsmileSteve, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 09:50 (eighteen years ago)

"usa has been an elected dictatorship pretty much from day one hasn't it? "
erm, no.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 09:53 (eighteen years ago)

far less so than the british system

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 09:54 (eighteen years ago)

when we will submit to a tolitarianism of ice cream and xbox the only artistic statment that captures our final capitualtion to dull tyranny will be razorlight's lone number one single

― acrobat, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:29 (eighteen years ago)

Quite, Though it's interesting how many of Wolf's points equally could be applied in the UK too. We're a long way off the USA, but there's some reasonably large steps taken down the path in the last few years.

― The Boyler, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:29 (eighteen years ago)

I was just reading this. I would add: 11) Use popular real-life documentary "24" to prove to the unbelievers how increasingly necessary torture etc is.

― Not the real Village People, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:32 (eighteen years ago)

We're a lot closer than the US on the surveillance criterion.

― Alba, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:34 (eighteen years ago)

one thing i wonder about the uk is how close we are to having mainstream ultra-right pundits. we haven't got the limbaugh's and coulter's yet but watching j clarkson on have i got news for you a couple of weeks back with his unique brand of reactionary "comedy" the threat felt suddenly much closer. cf the adoration of boris johnson. i guess thou "right-wing" means different things over here...

― acrobat, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:35 (eighteen years ago)

Actually, I don't see how we differ from the US on most of them.

― Alba, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:35 (eighteen years ago)

Most network US television IS torture, btw.

― SeekAltRoute, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:38 (eighteen years ago)

So is most UK television

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:38 (eighteen years ago)

... tho UK television companies go in more for extortion than torture these days

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:43 (eighteen years ago)

I think if you watch any late night "quiz" show you'll find they do both in equal measures.

― onimo, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:45 (eighteen years ago)

As ever, if it really was a fascist state they'd know all about it, what a load of self important shit.

Also why is this in a British paper? Why are British people presumably keen to read about America descending into fascism, and more pertinently, shouldn't they be more worried about Britain, since they live there?

People love this sort of stuff when written about America cos it's such a romantic narrative, but personally this is about as bad a form of Americanisation as you can have, the Americanisation of politics and political beliefs. Articles like this are why students here can tell you more about America's great decline than who is running for election in their own constituency.

― Ronan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:59 (eighteen years ago)

"Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don't toe the line."

erm...isn't this pretty much what happens in every institution on earth?

― Ronan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:02 (eighteen years ago)

"As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded"

Or listening to the Arcade Fire with a Dr Dre t-shirt on, while looking at child porn.

― Ronan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:04 (eighteen years ago)

Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don't toe the line."

Artists losing their jobs, yes, who among us doesn't lie awake at night, terror-stricken and in a cold sweat, worrying about that

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:06 (eighteen years ago)

Sorry Tom, I'm tuned in to some internet shopping right now.

― Ronan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:07 (eighteen years ago)

fascist isn't a useful word because it gets on people's nerves and they can be like 'oh you're sensationalizing it', where 'it' = 'suspension of habeas corpus' or 'atrophy of cabinet government' or whatever.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:15 (eighteen years ago)

Is there a newspaper version of Godwin's law?

― StanM, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:19 (eighteen years ago)

'suspension of habeas corpus' = "er? you what?"
"FACISM!" = ""shit!"

and hey here's an article on how we (as in UK folks) are losing our liberty too! woo hoo!

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2474442.ece

― acrobat, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:40 (eighteen years ago)

"Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don't toe the line."

erm...isn't this pretty much what happens in every institution on earth?

no one threatens the civil servants in this land of the free!

I think tenured academics in America are completely unfireable. Untenured - now that is different.

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:48 (eighteen years ago)

Also why is this in a British paper?

You think British papers should only have articles about Britain? This isn't America you know!

― onimo, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:50 (eighteen years ago)

wolf is a bit misguided in her faith in the efficacy of the US academy as a hotbed of activism, but she's not all wrong.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:56 (eighteen years ago)

No, I don't, I just think they should have less articles about America.

― Ronan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 12:15 (eighteen years ago)

wow terrible writing and worse thinking

― gff, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:25 (eighteen years ago)

creeping authoritiarianism and curtailment of real liberty are the centra, but jesus this managed to say really nothing about our moment or um europe 70 years ago. they're not really the same, sorry! way to change america, gaurdian.

― gff, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:30 (eighteen years ago)

the centra??

-l problems of our time blah de blah de blah

― gff, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:31 (eighteen years ago)

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:47 (eighteen years ago)

Sorry, in terms of numbers of PRISONERS

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 13:47 (eighteen years ago)

actually to backtrack a little i think there are common ways in which authoritarianism works wherever it happens, fine. but after reading so much stuff about how this happens, in specific, from all kinds of people (josh marshall, anne applebaum who i'm totally in love with right now), this just seems really, i dunno, undergraduate.

at this very late date let's at least not give the cats in the echo chamber another OMG DEY SED BUSHITLER AGIN!@#!@# yarnball to play with

― gff, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:00 (eighteen years ago)

ffs, how does naomi wolf have any credibility, it's 2007. at least get the other naomi (klein) for this sort of boilerplate shit.

― gershy, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:15 (eighteen years ago)

ANOTHER NAOMI IS POSSIBLE

― gff, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:16 (eighteen years ago)

It's G2, what do you expect???????

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:18 (eighteen years ago)

Marian Wright Edelman, the person who coined the phrase "no child left behind" - subsequently hijacked by Bush - says that the US is in danger of becoming an essentially fascist society. I don't know specifically why she says that, though. It would have made a good article.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:22 (eighteen years ago)

Hurting OTM, but this phrase,

"...each of us might have a different moment when we feel forced to look back and think: that is how it was before - and this is the way it is now..."

I feel has been applicable for several years. The US is not the same place it was in the 90s as this article demosntrates by being a stretch but difficult to dismiss offhand.

― riche, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:43 (eighteen years ago)

The US used to be a "can-do" nation. Ingenuity and stick-to-it-iveness. Now people can barely tie their own shoes without instructions.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:52 (eighteen years ago)

Well OK, maybe they can tie their shoes. I am being too hard.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:57 (eighteen years ago)

More OTM than the Guardian piece are Umberto Eco's 10 "general properties of facist ideology" from "Eternal Facism," quoted in the Wiki article that StanD referenced upstream. I especially like: "Pacifism is Trafficking With the Enemy" because "Life is Permanent Warfare" - there must always be an enemy to fight"; "Appeal to a frustrated middle class" (that one's for you, TomD); and the bit about facism "employing and promoting an impovershed vocabulary." I wonder if any other American presidential administration can approach Bush's for pure volume of catch-phrases absorbed into and perpetuated by the news media? (Viral marketing genius, in its way.)

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:59 (eighteen years ago)

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/147/433020755_cd79c68446.jpg
GM - Tits Ooi

― Dr Pow, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:59 (eighteen years ago)

"Appeal to a frustrated middle class"

Cultivate a resentful majority

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:03 (eighteen years ago)

Crrxn: Wiki article that ~~StanD~~ StanM referenced upstream

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:05 (eighteen years ago)

"Cultivate a resentful majority"

Right. I actually don't think Bush's administration has done a very good job on this one. There seemed to be a pretty strong current of anti-immigrationism going on there for a bit (see Minutemen et al), but not anything new (Prop 187--California uber alles), and Bush hasn't really managed to focus middle class resentment on a particularly useful target--I mean, the affirmative action backlash is pretty pathetic from a fascist point of view. If only he could convince us that the jihadists are after not our LIVES but our JOBS.

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:11 (eighteen years ago)

I would also recommend Chris Hedges' series of columns talking about how this shit happens w.r.t. the dominionist/christian reconstructionist part, with stuff like fundie leaders advocating this fucked up mixed of the worst aspects of american corporatism, nationalism, all soaked thru with violence. Stuff like Blackwater now functioning as a praetorian guard, these guys saying how you don't need health insurance if you're right with God, etc.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:13 (eighteen years ago)

Also, frankly, I think America's hyper-capitalism ultimately works against any movement towards a specifically fascist form of authoritarian gov't. THE MARKET IS OUR GOD, the gov't exists only to serve it. (Not that it can't employ a few tasty tidbits from the fascist bento box in achieving that aim.)

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:14 (eighteen years ago)

Or does capitalism exist to serve the interests of an elitist leadership? Now I'm confused...

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:15 (eighteen years ago)

There seemed to be a pretty strong current of anti-immigrationism going on there for a bit

More bark than bite. Solid majorities across the US are in favor of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:25 (eighteen years ago)

Or does capitalism exist to serve the interests of an elitist leadership? Now I'm confused...

bit of a distinction to be made that a lot of what goes on in America can more correctly termed corporatism, which _definitely_ serves and controls the authorities

― kingfish, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:36 (eighteen years ago)

A problem for our authoritarian leaders: How can we mobilize the resentment of the middle class, and still encourage their complacent consumerism? The Cold War was excellent in this respect--how lovely when our enemies are also the enemies of capitalism. Our new "enemies of freedom" lack the appealing specificity of the old "enemies of our system of commerce." An American-way-of-life rhetoric can be brought to bear either way, but I think our middle class might be a little confused at this point about what, exactly, we're supposed to feel threatened by. Thus is our paranoia pervasive, but diffuse.

Luckily, the North Koreans are still communists!

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)

how lovely when our enemies are also the enemies of capitalism

Islamic fundamentalists are enemies of capitalism - it's their only redeeming feature!

― Tom D., Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:39 (eighteen years ago)

"Also, frankly, I think America's hyper-capitalism ultimately works against any movement towards a specifically fascist form of authoritarian gov't. THE MARKET IS OUR GOD, the gov't exists only to serve it. (Not that it can't employ a few tasty tidbits from the fascist bento box in achieving that aim.)

-- crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, April 24, 2007 6:14 PM (23 minutes ago)
Or does capitalism exist to serve the interests of an elitist leadership? Now I'm confused...

-- crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, April 24, 2007 6:15 PM (22 minutes ago)"

as she says, rightly, fascism was a corporatist/capitalist response to communism. she goes wrong in suggesting communism was kind of trumped up by hitler to scare the voters. the business leaders who funded him felt it was a very real threat. in practice the US doesn't live up to free-market ideology.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:41 (eighteen years ago)

"bit of a distinction to be made that a lot of what goes on in America can more correctly termed corporatism, which _definitely_ serves and controls the authorities"

Right, this is a good example of a specific way capitalism can be used to promote the interests of a specific elite (and how clever of the authorities to align themselves with that elite); but I think "capitalism" promotes "elitism" in a more general way--even when corporations aren't the elite.

I'm still interested in how capitalism aligns with fascism, though. In a broad sense, capitalism feeds off (at least the illusion of) individualism, whereas fascism encourages explicit conformity to a unified ideal. This seems like a contradiction. One exception that springs immediately to mind is Japan, which is as rabidly consumerist as America, but not at all caught up in American myths of individualism. (Not suggesting that Japan is a fascist nation...but it makes all the sense in the world that they got in bed with the Germans and Italians in 1940.)

Maybe I'm confusing "individualism" with "individuality."

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:50 (eighteen years ago)

"in practice the US doesn't live up to free-market ideology"

Capitalism is a moral system/symbol with great power over the American psyche--it doesn't necessarily accurately describe how our markets work.

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:53 (eighteen years ago)

haha, you haven't been around much, have you? Try to talk to Manalashi a.k.a. Roger Adultery on one of these threads.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:55 (eighteen years ago)

"Islamic fundamentalists are enemies of capitalism - it's their only redeeming feature!"

True. But I don't think the Bush administration has done a good job of getting this across to the middle class masses. They hate freedom! Bush would do better to remind us that when he says, "freedom," he means "freedom to pursue our constant consumer cravings." Instead, I think people have a general idea that they hate us because our women wear short skirts. And because we seem to like the Jews. (Sort of.)

Tangent: When did we start saying "the Bush administration?" Did we really say "the Clinton administration" when Clinton was in office, or did that happen after the power exchange (heh heh)? Didn't we used to have presidents, not "administrations?" (I really can't remember.)

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 16:00 (eighteen years ago)

"haha, you haven't been around much, have you? Try to talk to Manalashi a.k.a. Roger Adultery on one of these threads."

I resent this. I've been around plenty.

Oh, you mean around on ILX? Well, no.

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 16:02 (eighteen years ago)

But why do you ask? Have I wandered into laissez-faire lion's den or something? Are people going to start quoting Ayn Rand at me?

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 16:05 (eighteen years ago)

Hahaha, not so much "people" as like "one or two guys and maybe some random asshole troll googler".

Let's just say that there are bigger supporters of rapacious laissez-faire capitalism out there than this board. Take a look around at some of the other threads to get an idea of where we are.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 16:36 (eighteen years ago)

also something to track, and more and more people are doing this, the dominionist types trying to take over the U.S. military, and what happens when you get the army filled with rightwing authoritarian followers, and of their belief of the righteousness of their violence:

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c219/talk2action/warrior.gif

― kingfish, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 17:24 (eighteen years ago)

don't forget these guys:

http://www.regent.edu/general/about_us/home.cfm

― King Kitty, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 21:55 (eighteen years ago)

Bottom-line: not all bad political situations fit neatly into the rubric of prior bad political situations

― Hurting 2, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 21:57 (eighteen years ago)

Except that all of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.

Like with Cylons.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:02 (eighteen years ago)

lolz @ Britishers (yet again)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:07 (eighteen years ago)

which thread was it where some Brit was asking about why the Constitution can't just be rewritten/disobeyed?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:07 (eighteen years ago)

I never ever ever stop finding it funny when people misspell Fascism as Facism.

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:09 (eighteen years ago)

fecism

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:10 (eighteen years ago)

"lolz @ Britishers (yet again)

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, April 25, 2007 1:07 AM (23 minutes ago)
which thread was it where some Brit was asking about why the Constitution can't just be rewritten/disobeyed?

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, April 25, 2007 1:07 AM (22 minutes ago)"

hmm, dunno, but naomi wolf is american.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:31 (eighteen years ago)

we have our share of idiots, yes

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:38 (eighteen years ago)

Facism is the new racism.

[i]"Do Pretty People Earn More?"[i] (CNN)

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:53 (eighteen years ago)

1. Cut a hole in a box.

― Spencer Chow, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:54 (eighteen years ago)

I know who Naomi Wolf is. I am aso cognizant of what country the Guardian is published in, and the nationality of various posters on this thread.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 23:08 (eighteen years ago)

(anyway vahid OTM as usual)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 23:08 (eighteen years ago)

it's kind of an undirected 'lolz @ britishes' then since the britishes were not alll of one voice. most were, however, critical of the american writer wolf, so i'm still not seeing your point.

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 23:12 (eighteen years ago)

okay then lolz @ British publishers of this article, lolz @ British readers who find it somehow illuminating or engaging, and lolz @ Carsmile Steve for general misconception about US political history

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 23:15 (eighteen years ago)

I don't know, none of that seems very funny

― admrl, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 23:17 (eighteen years ago)

Eh, she's got some points but there are all kind of stretches and false parallels made in her arguments. Guantanamo and the secret prisons are really bad but they're not exactly on the scale of gulags in terms of numbers of prisons. Private security contractors are really scary in their own way but I don't see the analogy to brownshirts one bit.

-- Hurting 2, Tuesday, 24 April 2007

The point of the article was to suggest that the U.S. is taking steps toward fascism, not that we're already there. I can't see the use of secret prisons declining anytime soon, and since the Guantanamo scandal didn't result in enough public outrage, they know they can pretty much get away with it now.

I agree, the private security contractor/thug caste connection was a stretch. I can, however, see the local-level police being turned into a mindless government enforcement branch. Lots of them already are.

― Z S, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 00:13 (eighteen years ago)

wait this is 2007 not 2003 -- way to go

― JW, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 00:23 (eighteen years ago)

9. Dissent equals treason

Cast dissent as "treason" and criticism as "espionage'. Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalise certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of "spy" and "traitor".

Democratic leaders are acting like traitors by opposing the Iraq war, and President Bush must answer with a toughened stance, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Monday.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "are getting very, very close to treason," DeLay said in a meeting with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

― M.V., Wednesday, 25 April 2007 00:24 (eighteen years ago)

haha quoting a wingnut former politco with nothing left to loose

― JW, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 00:28 (eighteen years ago)

I think most people with any sense throughout the political spectrum know that Tom DeLay is a fucking lying shitbag.

― the table is the table, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 00:39 (eighteen years ago)

Also, not to get into this, but the US definitely loves the Jews and the state of Israel. Our support of Israel is still one of the biggest sticking points for the Arab world. Not a maybe, in other words.

― the table is the table, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 00:40 (eighteen years ago)

(When I say 'not getting into it,' i meant, 'let's not talk about the validity of Israel.')

― the table is the table, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 00:42 (eighteen years ago)

wait this is 2007 not 2003 -- way to go

huh

― Z S, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 00:43 (eighteen years ago)

"Also, not to get into this, but the US definitely loves the Jews and the state of Israel. Our support of Israel is still one of the biggest sticking points for the Arab world. Not a maybe, in other words."

My "sort of" was only meant to acknowledge the existence of anti-Semitism in the U.S., despite our political support for Israel. (And I agree plz definitely no "Israel: Classic or Dud")

― crazymonkeyfromjapan, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 04:45 (eighteen years ago)

"Also, not to get into this, but the US definitely loves the Jews and the state of Israel. Our support of Israel is still one of the biggest sticking points for the Arab world. Not a maybe, in other words.

-- the table is the table, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 00:40 (7 hours ago)"

muslims are the new jews y/n

― That one guy that quit, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 08:07 (eighteen years ago)

the bush administration is pretty bad but ppl who write articles like this seem to have a pretty hazy grasp of american history. it's been WAY worse than it is now. at least we're not sending movie directors to prison for making movies that make our allies look bad.

a better sign of growing fascist tendencies than anything in that list is that no one makes movies or tv shows making fun of the military anymore.

― J.D., Wednesday, 25 April 2007 08:54 (eighteen years ago)

fascism will not be vanquished until the 'hot shots' franchise returns to our screens.

― That one guy that quit, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 08:58 (eighteen years ago)

which thread was it where some Brit was asking about why the Constitution can't just be rewritten

I think it was on one of the gun control/Virginia shooting threads where people were discussing the 2nd Amendment.

― onimo, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 10:02 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1557850/20070423/sum_41.jhtml

"That line is a metaphor for how Bush is so ineffectual and incompetent as a president," Whibley wrote, in reference to the song's opening line. "It's the worst way I could think of to describe how bad he is as a leader."

Cue right-wing outrage. And, rather surprisingly, a fair amount of message-board outrage as well. When a link to Sum's MySpace page appeared on the punk news site AbsolutePunk.net, reaction was varied — although more members than you might think took the band to task for the lyrics, which some saw as irresponsible, and others saw as the work of a group of outsiders (Sum are, of course, Canadian) who don't have the right to criticize Bush.

"Am I the only one who thinks that talking about killing a president is going too far?" one post read. "I am so sick of the hyperbole in politics. Does he honestly want to kill the president? It's just taking it too far, in my opinion."

"Does he really say 'the president of the United States of America is dead' at the beginning, and then later say something like 'I know the president's dead, 'cos I shot off his head?' " another read. "Isn't that illegal?"

"When I heard they were going back to the sound of the first couple CDs, I was psyched," a third wrote. "But after hearing that first line, f--- that. They shouldn't have the right to talk about our president if they aren't from the States."

― and what, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 14:38 (eighteen years ago)

a better sign of growing fascist tendencies than anything in that list is that no one makes movies or tv shows making fun of the military anymore.

seen the new Larry-the-Cable-Guy-in-Iraq movie? Or do sub-Gomer Pyle jokes not count as making fun of the military (TS: MASH vs. Hogan's Heroes)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 15:53 (eighteen years ago)

i dont think ripping off stripes & the 3 amigos in the same movie really counts

― and what, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 16:04 (eighteen years ago)

who are the other two guys?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 16:06 (eighteen years ago)

11) Superintelligent robots!!!

― M.V., Wednesday, 25 April 2007 17:58 (eighteen years ago)

[Removed Illegal Link]

― I know, right?, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 18:03 (eighteen years ago)

http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/65/Is_RightWing_America_Becoming_Fascist.html

― I know, right?, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 18:03 (eighteen years ago)

I think this is a really good essay on this.

― I know, right?, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 18:04 (eighteen years ago)

Or maybe it's the song's third verse, which goes "And now the president's dead/ Because they blew off his head/ No more neck to be red/ I guess to heaven he fled."

Whatever the case, it's a pretty strong statement. And suddenly — and perhaps, intentionally — Sum 41 have gotten a lot more interesting.

man that is a bad rhyme scheme

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 18:07 (eighteen years ago)

The kind people
Have a wonderful dream
Margaret On The Guillotine
Cause people like you
Make me feel so tired
When will you die ?
When will you die ?
When will you die ?
When will you die ?
When will you die ?

And people like you
Make me feel so old inside
Please die

And kind people
Do not shelter this dream
Make it real
Make the dream real
Make the dream real
Make it real
Make the dream real
Make it real

― deeznuts, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 18:09 (eighteen years ago)

feh - more alarmist malarkey ref'ing an old bogeyman (20th century fascism) in the interests of shoring up support for the left.

I've never heard of this "KKK invented fascism" argument, that seems ridiculously specious.

and please bear in mind I am a hardcore leftist, I just find this kind of self-congratulatory navel-gazing really unnecessary (ooh aren't we smart we can identify the hidden but growing threat of fascism)

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)

Haha yeah, it's totally outrageous for North Americans to talk about executing the leaders of other countries!

― nabisco, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 18:14 (eighteen years ago)

*TREASON THREAD ALERT*

― M.V., Wednesday, 25 April 2007 18:37 (eighteen years ago)

12) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v4y3tzQty8

― M.V., Thursday, 26 April 2007 02:16 (eighteen years ago)

so that Scahill book on Blackwater seems interesting

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=domestic+operations+blackwater&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/21/1340210

JEREMY SCAHILL: Blackwater has an aviation division, and they have at least twenty aircraft. And one of the things that I did in the book was to look at the commonalities between the extraordinary rendition flights, the patterns of the aircraft that are engaged in extraordinary renditions, and Blackwater’s aircraft. And several of Blackwater’s aircraft, as I document in the book, fit the pattern, the flight patterns, of these flights that were engaged in extraordinary rendition.

Now, I have to say, I’ve tried to get all of Blackwater’s contracts. Some of them are classified. In fact, Blackwater’s president, Gary Jackson, has said that some of their contracts are so secret that Blackwater can’t tell one federal government entity what it’s doing for the other.

― Milton Parker, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:10 (eighteen years ago)

bush's shadow army

In just a decade Prince has expanded the Moyock headquarters to 7,000 acres, making it the world's largest private military base. Blackwater currently has 2,300 personnel deployed in nine countries, with 20,000 other contractors at the ready. It has a fleet of more than twenty aircraft, including helicopter gunships and a private intelligence division, and it is manufacturing surveillance blimps and target systems.

In 2005 after Hurricane Katrina its forces deployed in New Orleans, where it billed the federal government $950 per man, per day--at one point raking in more than $240,000 a day. At its peak the company had about 600 contractors deployed from Texas to Mississippi. Since Katrina, it has aggressively pursued domestic contracting, opening a new domestic operations division.

― Milton Parker, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:11 (eighteen years ago)

I wondering, what is the measure of when things get a bit too fascist for comfort: when radical powers are granted to the authorities, or when the authorities decide to use them?

If an internment camp is built next door, but they call it something else, like a happy camp or emergency center, is there no problem until one actually finds oneself being bussed thru the gate?

And do things have to get as bad as the worst case in recorded history in order to categorized similarly?

― kingfish, Friday, 27 April 2007 20:38 (eighteen years ago)

we already had internment camps once, remember?

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:02 (eighteen years ago)

And we got them again, but before, we didn't have them at the same time as all the other shit that's going on. There wasn't a move to destroy an independent judiciary or the concept of judicial review, for example.

― kingfish, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:05 (eighteen years ago)

And more to the point, such camps are pointedly unAmerican and undemocratic things.

― kingfish, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:06 (eighteen years ago)

well circumventing judicial review isn't necessary when the Supreme Court is authorizing the detentions like they did in '44. kinda like they are now with Guantanamo.

UnAmerican shit is totally American, sorry to say.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:08 (eighteen years ago)

(I mean why would FDR need to "destroy an independent judiciary" when he'd already packed the courts with sycophants eager to follow his lead? Just like Dubya...)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:09 (eighteen years ago)

His attempt at packing the courts was partially blocked, wasn't it?

― kingfish, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:12 (eighteen years ago)

this country vacillates between its best and worst tendencies - it always has and it always will. Right from the beginning we were for great things like freedom and equality and oh yeah slavery.

I am loathe to subscribe to any notion that the country is moving irreversibly towards some end-goal - whether its fascism or a utopian democracy. It just is what it is (i.e., a mess of contradictions)

x-post

partially blocked in the sense that he was not allowed to expand the number of judges on the court. but he still "packed" it with politically motivated appointees.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:14 (eighteen years ago)

I think I'm just irritated by attempts to separate the term "fascism" from its historical context. No one goes around calling anyone a "whig" or an "anarchosyndicalist" anymore, because those terms belong to specific historical and political situations that are no longer extant. But the term "fascist" has maintained some kind of currency because its a term that still resonates as both an insult to paint your opponents with, and a bogeyman to scare people into agreeing with you. But its usually used in a manner that is totally devoid of any actual understanding of fascism as a political movement, and a distinctly European one at that, which was rarely exported to other countries (Peron and a handful of other "populist strongman"-type examples).

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)

I mean there's nothing inherently fascistic about rounding up and expelling/imprisoning/executing a minority group. Every political system in the history of mankind has done that at one point or another.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:23 (eighteen years ago)

I'm an engineer by training, so I think in terms of systems. The thing about our history of oscillating between a high point and a nadir is that there's is a point in any system here you can drive it past a certain threshold and the system breaks down; there's no vascillating back because the feedback control mechanism has been broken.

The feedback control mechanisms that have corrected previous authoritarian grabs for power have been deliberately and systematically disabled: a broken media, fucked voting, a justice system filled with cultist apparatchiks at all levels, an education system designed to kill off any school not run by a church or a company.

Not all of them have gone, of course, but plenty of quite powerful, quite determined, and quite well funded people are continuing to work away at it.

It is only these feedback control mechanisms that return the system/nation to a state of stability, but it's entirely possible to break these mechanisms down.

― kingfish, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:32 (eighteen years ago)

*toke toke*

― JW, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:47 (eighteen years ago)

that's very true, and the system analogy is a good one - historians are fond of trying to pinpoint when the Roman Republic reached the point of no return as well. But determining where that point is with any accuracy is nigh impossible - particularly when you have no perspective and are in the middle of it (as we are now). Take the examples you list:

- "a broken media". When was the media NOT broken in US history? The media isn't under any serious government censorship at the moment, certainly not any worse than it's ever been under (its arguably FREER than ever thanks to the relatively unregulated internet). You can complain about Fox, but how is their particular brand of "yellow journalism" worse or more detrimental to the country than, say, William Hearst's?
- "fucked voting". Women couldn't vote AT ALL until the beginning of the previous century. Black people were basically entirely disenfranchised in large swathes of the country up until the 60s. Presidents have "bought" the office before (JFK springs to mind), and we've had political dynasties before (the Adams'). There is a long, long LONG history of voter manipulation, fraud, dead people voting, "ward heels", ad infinitum.
- "a justice system filled with cultist apparatchiks at all levels." This is kinda too complex to get into but the struggle for civil rights is illuminating in this regard and basically involved the removal of an entire generation of the judiciary.
- "an education system designed to kill off any school not run by a church or a company." The public school system is a relatively recent phenomenon. I applaud it and believe its the best way to run it, but we shouldn't pretend like it was ever the norm in this country. It had a hot run in the middle of the 20th century, but it began to break down on a lot of levels (primarily because most people in this country don't agree on the GOAL of education - is it to churn out automatons that can parrot answers to specific test questions? or is it to "enlighten the mind" in a more general sense? or is it to train people to be diligent workers?). Even so, I'm not sure how the privatization of education = fascism. The fascists didn't care who did the educating as long as everyone swore fealty to the state.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:48 (eighteen years ago)

*toke toke*

my rants are fueled by caffiene, and little else

(okay, boredom, too)

― kingfish, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:49 (eighteen years ago)

yeah dude I am disappointingly sober

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 27 April 2007 22:52 (eighteen years ago)

[url=[Removed Illegal Link], boiling water, slow steady heat etc[/url

― The Boyler, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 17:24 (eighteen years ago)

bah

frogs, boiling water, slow steady heat etc

― The Boyler, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 17:24 (eighteen years ago)

given that its the LAPD its more surprising that they didn't just shoot a bunch of people (another time-honored American tradition that is not specifically fascist in any way)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 17:31 (eighteen years ago)

capn save-a-blackshirt

― and what, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 17:50 (eighteen years ago)

I prefer cap'n-read-a-history-book

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)

WHAT

jesus

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)

i prefer cap'n crunch. sweeter, less conflict.

― latebloomer, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:02 (eighteen years ago)

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/31M3X3T5EBL._SS500_.jpg

― and what, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:03 (eighteen years ago)

haha, that's the one that's yet to be published, right? the one he's been putting off for 3 years?

― kingfish, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:05 (eighteen years ago)

he's waiting to see if he has to change it from Hillary to Obama

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:13 (eighteen years ago)

http://i20.ebayimg.com/01/i/000/8f/92/9645_2.JPG

― and what, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:14 (eighteen years ago)

At what point does:

- Excessive militarisation of civilian life
- Extremely large military
- Incredible traction of flag-waving patriotism as argument winner
- Extremely closed political class, in terms of recruitment and access
- Media in hands of small coterie of corporate interests
- Media very antipathetic to anything looking left of centre
- Very handy pariahs within state and without with added value of actually having had pariahs having done something with USA (as opposed to being people who might do something)
- general decline of political language and general acceptability of some awful things
- general decline of ability to stop gross violations of human rights by the state

stop being things you can identify as common strands of US political life and start to be worrying?

It seems to me like saying something isn't a bolognese, because although it contains meat, tomatoes, wine, basil, garlic, onion etc, all those things have been seen before in meatloaf, wine bottles, chilli etc, which whilst true, doesn't get around the fact that right now, they've all come together and made, er, bolognese.

PS - this is not a thread for discussing bolognese recipes. There's another thread for that.

― The Boyler, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:38 (eighteen years ago)

since almost all of your qualifiers for fascism are dependent on modifiers ("extreme", "very", "excessive", "incredible", etc.) seems to me some definite goalposts need to be set by which those measurements can be made. American history provides those goalposts. Compare the past to today.

Its just tiresome to see "fascism" flung around carelessly because people are distressed about the current political situation, without any in-depth understanding of what constituted the political movements that delineated and defined fascism.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:44 (eighteen years ago)

Don't forget a burgeoning "cult of masculinity", where all those uptight white guys going on about how "Jesus wasn't a pussy"

― kingfish, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:50 (eighteen years ago)

most of your qualifiers are so vague I don't even know what they mean. and you leave out several of the key aspects of fascism - its basic ethnic/racial/nationalist character, its populism and appeal to the "lower classes", etc.

and btw fascism was definitely not constituted by a "closed political class, in terms of recruitment and access" - Hitler was a failed painter, Mussolini an journalist, etc.) Nor does the size of the military have anything to do with fascism (America has long had the biggest military in the world - are you implying its been fascist since, oh, WWII?)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:52 (eighteen years ago)

Shakey I kind of agree with you insofar as the second the word comes up, the conversation becomes way too heated and it becomes impossible to focus. Let's just agree that whatever America ends up doing is going to require a whole new word and stay alert to the developments.

And I actually think that Wolf article wasn't that bad at tracking those developments -- its concluding point wasn't that we are now actively fascist, but simply that laws and workflows have been implemented and and actively put into practice, and that given a precipitating event (like another moderately successful attack), whatever the government decides to move forward with will _already_ be perfectly legal and it'll be too late to dismantle the machine. Steps need to be taken now.

― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:56 (eighteen years ago)

- Very handy pariahs within state and without with added value of actually having had pariahs having done something with USA (as opposed to being people who might do something)

I don't know what you're saying here.

- general decline of political language and general acceptability of some awful things

A decline from what? The lofty political language of the "Know Nothing" party at the turn of the century? This is so vague, and predicated on their being some mythic point in the past when our political language was more high-minded and eloquent. This past does not exist.

general decline of ability to stop gross violations of human rights by the state

This is also super-vague. Decline of whose ability? The "people's"? Reigning in human rights abuses by the state requires the participation of people WITHIN the framework of the state, to reshape it so those things don't happen. Problem is, in the current political climate of the US, the majority of the people are actually A-okay with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and torturing people in the name of stopping terrorism. No excessive legal obstacles have been placed in their way - these laws are open to being challenged by the courts (and they ARE being challenged in the courts), the problem is that the majority of the country DOES NOT CARE.

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 18:58 (eighteen years ago)

laws and workflows have been implemented and and actively put into practice, and that given a precipitating event (like another moderately successful attack), whatever the government decides to move forward with will _already_ be perfectly legal and it'll be too late to dismantle the machine. Steps need to be taken now.

I totally agree with this assessment. I just don't find the deliberate misuse of terminology helpful. Its actually detrimental - cuz it makes the speaker sound like a shrill alarmist (and thus more easily dismissable).

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 19:00 (eighteen years ago)

another key thing about fascism is its inherent reliance on the cult of personality - the veneration of the leader as the embodiment of the country's ideals. Unless presidential term limits are repealed, its kind of impossible for this to happen in America. Our love affair with Dubya barely lasted 6 years (obviously 6 years WAY TOO LONG but still - its not comparable to the idolization of Hitler, Peron, Mussolini etc.)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 19:03 (eighteen years ago)

well that's always been Wolf's problem before, but goin' all LOL at her article seems an overreaction as well. I see your point though, discussing these things in a thread with _that word_ in the title helps things gets lost, I should probably move that domestic-operations-of-military-contractors stuff to a Blackwater thread

x-post

― Milton Parker, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 19:04 (eighteen years ago)

Blackwater is just the best name ever for that kind of company - so evocative (the River Styx ie the passageway to hell, oil, etc.)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 19:06 (eighteen years ago)

Also, it can be true that the current bunch of chuckleheads have been busily putting things into to place that perhaps things aren't a fascist state now, but are certainly setting things up for the next time round. As guys like Chris Hedges write, religious totalitarian types need a moment of crisis to come to power. These guy have just been stacking the deck: attacking the notion of an independent judiciary, discrediting science, journalism, and narrowing everything down to an authoritarian set-up. They've been remarkably competent at this; actual governing, no, but setting up this shit, which was their actual goal since they don't believe in public services or representative government, hell yeah.

― kingfish, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 19:09 (eighteen years ago)

well they're obviously obsessed with consolidating power in the hands of the executive, which is certainly a move towards fascism. combine that with the handy repeal of a couple of amendments and voila Uberfuhrer Schwarzenegger. You know we're in agreement on the current admin's penchant for totalitarian fantasies.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 19:13 (eighteen years ago)

By pariahs, I'm referring to the Islamic other; US politics, like most countries, have a long history of using some vague ill-defined and overblown threat to justify a more repressive set of policies. Unlike previously, these people have more traction with US voters because they've done something in the US. Instead of being a phantom, they're more 'real' and so more durable and more amenable to being a justification for some bad shit.

By failure to stop human rights abuses, I'm saying that regardless of who has failed - the media/supreme court/congress/people, it doesn't really matter. They've happened and continue to happen, indicating a failure of really quite important counterbalances to actually do anything at all about a quite dreadful state of affairs.

As for language, I wasn't positing a golden age back in the day, merely saying that from where we are know, you notice an astonishing vacuity and vapidity of US political discourse. Fights seem to take place over the most inconsequential points of linguistic definition whilst the bigger picture never gets a look in. The normalisation of this weird hybrid of martial language and management textbook shite looks pretty entrenched with no-one seemingly able to challenge this and find a new way of talking about things.

― The Boyler, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 20:33 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.mises.org/TRTS/18.jpg

― braveclub, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:40 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/3/102322/7962

― M.V., Thursday, 3 May 2007 17:28 (eighteen years ago)

eight years pass...

Has anti-fascism lost its urgency in the eight years since this was published? I grew up with World War II veterans for relatives. My own father was a WWII buff. "Don't be a fascist" was a big thing in my family. Might seem quaint to a younger generation? My own mother was a big proponent of "never forget". Yet on the Internet, I encounter many people -especially younger people - for whom it is more like "never even considered it". Even with a black man in the White House, I think it's important to "never forget".

― Fake Sam's Club Membership (I M Losted), Tuesday, 7 July 2015 16:54 (ten years ago)

thread title sounds like the evil self-help shadow of

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419KZWFeBcL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 18:02 (ten years ago)

http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Fascist

― jmm, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 18:03 (ten years ago)

thread title sounds like the evil self-help shadow of

Seven Steps to Heaven

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 18:05 (ten years ago)

modern states' complete fealty to global capitalism makes fascism look p quaint and outdated

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 7 July 2015 18:06 (ten years ago)

eight years pass...

Our mission statement is the same as it is on the podcast: that people should be able to understand complex ideas and have fun at the same time. All the knowledge. None of the pain.
— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) May 22, 2024

― xyzzzz__, Friday, 24 May 2024 08:57 (one year ago)

'people should be able to understand complex ideas', muses the man who discovered for the first time only months that neoliberalism is a political ideology and not just a slur leftists attach to people they don't like

― katy perry (prison service) (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 24 May 2024 11:49 (one year ago)

only months AGO

― katy perry (prison service) (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 24 May 2024 11:49 (one year ago)

Blimey, the person who wrote the article cited at the top of the thread though...

― your mom goes to limgrave (dog latin), Friday, 24 May 2024 20:04 (one year ago)

Oh, buddy. Ooooof.

― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Friday, 24 May 2024 20:06 (one year ago)

never forget

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3GORdkXEAskO9P.jpg

― katy perry (prison service) (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 24 May 2024 20:55 (one year ago)

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