Post #390,591
6/11/14 8:29:38 AM
6/11/14 8:32:43 AM
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Actually, he's right.
The definition of "fascism", in simplistic terms, is a society where the state is more important than the individual. I agree that there's a lot more to it than that, but the essentials - authoritarianism, anti-liberalism, ultra-nationalism, extreme militarism, a political monoculture - are there.
Given the absolute dominion of the military industrial complex (and I include the intelligence agencies in this) over the affairs of the US Government and its organs of state, and given the tendency on both wings of US politics for authoritarianism, I think it's harsh-but-fair to describe the current establishment as "fascist". The ongoing and unceasing militarisation of the police is one bellwether for this. The desire by all of the right-right wing, AKA the GOP, and much of the rest of the establishment (itself well to the right of centre, by any non-US-centric assessment), to take state control of what women may do with their wombs, is another.
The media goes to some trouble, both in its fictional and factual output, to paint the agents of this authority (most notably the police) as noble figures, selflessly devoted to their thankless job of Keeping America Safe.
Despite the wailings otherwise, the US citizen of 2014 lives in a police state where even minor infractions are harshly punished; the irony is that even where the machinery of control doesn't exist, the citizens gleefully create it, in the form of home owner's associations and their analogues, with the power to foreclose on your home if you don't cut your grass just so. Edit: and software patents, and the (RI|MP)AA. And so on. The cognitive dissonance is remarkable.
You folks have got a nice Constitution, but it's clear to an outside observer that it's for display purposes only, these days.
Edited by pwhysall
June 11, 2014, 08:30:56 AM EDT
Actually, he's right.
The definition of "fascism", in simplistic terms, is a society where the state is more important than the individual. I agree that there's a lot more to it than that, but the essentials - authoritarianism, anti-liberalism, ultra-nationalism, extreme militarism, a political monoculture - are there.
Given the absolute dominion of the military industrial complex (and I include the intelligence agencies in this) over the affairs of the US Government and its organs of state, and given the tendency on both wings of US politics for authoritarianism, I think it's harsh-but-fair to describe the current establishment as "fascist". The ongoing and unceasing militarisation of the police is one bellwether for this. The desire by all of the right-right wing, AKA the GOP, and much of the rest of the establishment, to take state control of what women may do with their wombs, is another.
The media goes to some trouble, both in its fictional and factual output, to paint the agents of this authority (most notably the police) as noble figures, selflessly devoted to their thankless job of Keeping America Safe.
Despite the wailings otherwise, the US citizen of 2014 lives in a police state where even minor infractions are harshly punished; the irony is that even where the machinery of control doesn't exist, the citizens gleefully create it, in the form of home owner's associations and their analogues, with the power to foreclose on your home if you don't cut your grass just so. The cognitive dissonance is remarkable.
You folks have got a nice Constitution, but it's clear to an outside observer that it's for display purposes only, these days.
Edited by pwhysall
June 11, 2014, 08:32:43 AM EDT
Actually, he's right.
The definition of "fascism", in simplistic terms, is a society where the state is more important than the individual. I agree that there's a lot more to it than that, but the essentials - authoritarianism, anti-liberalism, ultra-nationalism, extreme militarism, a political monoculture - are there.
Given the absolute dominion of the military industrial complex (and I include the intelligence agencies in this) over the affairs of the US Government and its organs of state, and given the tendency on both wings of US politics for authoritarianism, I think it's harsh-but-fair to describe the current establishment as "fascist". The ongoing and unceasing militarisation of the police is one bellwether for this. The desire by all of the right-right wing, AKA the GOP, and much of the rest of the establishment (itself well to the right of centre, by any non-US-centric assessment), to take state control of what women may do with their wombs, is another.
The media goes to some trouble, both in its fictional and factual output, to paint the agents of this authority (most notably the police) as noble figures, selflessly devoted to their thankless job of Keeping America Safe.
Despite the wailings otherwise, the US citizen of 2014 lives in a police state where even minor infractions are harshly punished; the irony is that even where the machinery of control doesn't exist, the citizens gleefully create it, in the form of home owner's associations and their analogues, with the power to foreclose on your home if you don't cut your grass just so. The cognitive dissonance is remarkable.
You folks have got a nice Constitution, but it's clear to an outside observer that it's for display purposes only, these days.
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Post #390,598
6/11/14 10:08:25 AM
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Certainly as you define "fascism"
...the country is there. It's my understanding that among historians and political scientists the definition is considerably more nuanced and complex. A few years into the Cheney Shogunate, when our tighty-righties were pushing the notion of Islamofascism (I believe that the late Christopher Hitchens was particularly taken with this meme), the noontime NPR chat show did an hour on the subject, and the two guests agreed that, however unattractive Wahhabism might appear to liberal western sensibilities, it did not rise to the proper definition of fascism. A caller then raised the point, "Forget Islam, I say we've got fascism right here in the US of A." One of the guests (a countryman of yours, I believe), somewhat exasperated, told the caller he hadn't been listening. "You do not at present have fascism in this country. You have what I call an Oligarchic Authoritarian System."
Which is not to say we haven't grown ourselves a proper police state. Back in the early/mid 1980s I was at a fish & chips joint in Berkeley. As I waited for my order the proprietress and the single other customer, both English, were lamenting some lager lout-related outrage at a football match, and deploring how bad this was making Old Blighty look in the world's eyes. They agreed that the solution would be the application of some good old-fashioned American policing methods. The brutality of U.S. police methods, they agreed, was well-known, and putting a bit of the boot to these hooligans would go a long way toward restoring public order. Ah, to see ourselves as others see us! But most Americans have had the "freest nation in the world" line fed to us on an intravenous drip the diameter of a fire hose from infancy forward, and cognitive disconnect comes easily to us.
I do not mean by any of this to suggest that we may not drift, or permit ourselves to be pushed, or even march outright into conditions that would meet a more rigorous definition of "fascism," and we are indeed far closer to that undesirable abstract today than I ever expected to find us, but if the compromised/violated liberties of Obama's America in 2014 are "fascism," however shall we refer to today's conditions, what vocabulary may we deploy, to distinguish these from the presumably much harsher political climate to be endured, let us say, eight years hence under President Ted Cruz?
cordially,
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