www.votenader.org
I personally think nader is the fucking man, who would pwn any of the so called front runners in a real debate.
Quote from: 221 on June 15, 2008, 07:22:46 AM
www.votenader.org
I personally think nader is the fucking man, who would pwn any of the so called front runners in a real debate.
Nader is the reason we have president Bush.
I cannot wait to take a huge shit on his grave.
Quote from: Idem on June 15, 2008, 09:14:12 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 15, 2008, 09:11:41 AM
Nader is the reason we have president Bush.
:mittens: :lulz:
And this election, and the 2000 election, he only joined in after it looked like the Dems had a chance.
169% sell out.
the only reason bush was elected is because of the american publics refusal to vote for a third party..perhaps teh medias portrayal of who should be voted for helped as well... Wouldn't nader be good for the americans?
Look at the canadian government for instance. we have the bloc (LMFAO) NDP...(haha) Liberals, conservatives... and I think we have a few independants who made it into the hosue of commons...
*shrugs I think the conservatives got into power with only 35% of the vote.
Quote from: 221 on June 15, 2008, 06:18:04 PM
the only reason bush was elected is because of the american publics refusal to vote for a third party..perhaps teh medias portrayal of who should be voted for helped as well... Wouldn't nader be good for the americans?
When Nader knew he couldn't get 5% (and thus matching funds for 2004), he should have withdrawn. He didn't, so he split the vote and let the GOP in...while talking shit about the Dems the whole time.
He did that shit on purpose. I hope he dies of anal prolapse.
Fuck him.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 15, 2008, 06:20:15 PM
Quote from: 221 on June 15, 2008, 06:18:04 PM
the only reason bush was elected is because of the american publics refusal to vote for a third party..perhaps teh medias portrayal of who should be voted for helped as well... Wouldn't nader be good for the americans?
When Nader knew he couldn't get 5% (and thus matching funds for 2004), he should have withdrawn. He didn't, so he split the vote and let the GOP in...while talking shit about the Dems the whole time.
He did that shit on purpose. I hope he dies of anal prolapse.
Fuck him.
Troof. Agreed, especially on the prolapse. Unsafe At Any Speed? Good thing. Clean Water Action Project? Good thing. Consumer Project on Technology? Good thing. Handing the goddamn elections to the most paleolithic version of the Republican party ever to make Goldwater look like fucking St. Francis? Unmitigated self-promoting bullshit. He has shit on his own legacy.
Quote from: Contessa_Ugolino on June 15, 2008, 07:54:19 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 15, 2008, 06:20:15 PM
Quote from: 221 on June 15, 2008, 06:18:04 PM
the only reason bush was elected is because of the american publics refusal to vote for a third party..perhaps teh medias portrayal of who should be voted for helped as well... Wouldn't nader be good for the americans?
When Nader knew he couldn't get 5% (and thus matching funds for 2004), he should have withdrawn. He didn't, so he split the vote and let the GOP in...while talking shit about the Dems the whole time.
He did that shit on purpose. I hope he dies of anal prolapse.
Fuck him.
Troof. Agreed, especially on the prolapse. Unsafe At Any Speed? Good thing. Clean Water Action Project? Good thing. Consumer Project on Technology? Good thing. Handing the goddamn elections to the most paleolithic version of the Republican party ever to make Goldwater look like fucking St. Francis? Unmitigated self-promoting bullshit. He has shit on his own legacy.
THREE TIMES. I wonder what they have on him?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 15, 2008, 08:03:16 PM
Quote from: Contessa_Ugolino on June 15, 2008, 07:54:19 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 15, 2008, 06:20:15 PM
Quote from: 221 on June 15, 2008, 06:18:04 PM
the only reason bush was elected is because of the american publics refusal to vote for a third party..perhaps teh medias portrayal of who should be voted for helped as well... Wouldn't nader be good for the americans?
When Nader knew he couldn't get 5% (and thus matching funds for 2004), he should have withdrawn. He didn't, so he split the vote and let the GOP in...while talking shit about the Dems the whole time.
He did that shit on purpose. I hope he dies of anal prolapse.
Fuck him.
Troof. Agreed, especially on the prolapse. Unsafe At Any Speed? Good thing. Clean Water Action Project? Good thing. Consumer Project on Technology? Good thing. Handing the goddamn elections to the most paleolithic version of the Republican party ever to make Goldwater look like fucking St. Francis? Unmitigated self-promoting bullshit. He has shit on his own legacy.
THREE TIMES. I wonder what they have on him?
IIRC, when he was working on the auto industry stuff, some unspecified They hired hookers to try and get him in compromising positions. Maybe he finally took the bait?
Ew. Wrinkly Nader hatesex. I think I need a shower, now. In
lye.
Ugghh. I already have hangover stomach, why did you do that?
Um. Oops. Sorry. I blame Roger and the power of his contagious hate.
Quote from: Contessa_Ugolino on June 15, 2008, 08:15:17 PM
Um. Oops. Sorry. I blame Roger and the power of his contagious hate.
I am a bad monkey. :sad:
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 15, 2008, 09:11:41 AM
I cannot wait to take a huge shit on his grave.
i'll bring the mexican food and coffee and be joinin ya.
Quote from: 221 on June 15, 2008, 06:18:04 PM
the only reason bush was elected is because of the american publics refusal to vote for a third party..perhaps teh medias portrayal of who should be voted for helped as well... Wouldn't nader be good for the americans?
Look at the canadian government for instance. we have the bloc (LMFAO) NDP...(haha) Liberals, conservatives... and I think we have a few independants who made it into the hosue of commons...
*shrugs I think the conservatives got into power with only 35% of the vote.
I'm all for chipping away at the entrenched two-party system. HOWEVER, neither Nader, Perot, or now Barr, have been the proper candidate to lead the charge. I mean, if you're going to give us a 3rd option, give us a 3rd option. Nader adding himself to the election is kind of like when you're at the coffeeshop and they typically have two kinds of muffins. Bran muffins with nuts and bran muffins with slightly different nuts. And then you add a new muffin, bran muffin with extra bran. I mean, for chrissakes, give me a fuckin glazed donut and really shake it up.
Problem is, without some incredible funding, no third party candidate is going to look any better than Nader. And in hindsight, the losing party will always blame the third party. That's how the two-party hegemony works. Anything other than the two appears as a threat to some established "good cause".
And sorry Dems, but Bush won for a zillion reasons other than Nader. Like the Florida debacle.
I didn't vote Nader, but I kinda wish I did since the democrats got so butthurt over it. :p I don't live in Florida, so it srsly wouldn't have made a difference.
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 16, 2008, 02:57:19 PM
Problem is, without some incredible funding, no third party candidate is going to look any better than Nader.
A third party candidate will look good when some issue that enough people really and truly care about shows up. Honestly, as much as I'd love to see a third party based off of the likes of Jesse Ventura, I think the most likely third party at this point will be made up of the religious right, after they break with the GOP. If GWB was unable, unwilling or whatever to get them the power/votes/laws/amendments that they wanted... it should now be obvious to them that the GOP has no plans to push their agenda, except during election time for votes.
This really has the potential to scare the crap out of me. Religion has a pretty good handle on human psychology. Religious leaders have charisma, they can whip a crowd into a frenzy and hold that sort of attention regularly. If shit looks really bad, people want religion (cause it gives them someone to blame). Consider, for example, the free market, wild party land once known as Venice. The Venetians, during the Enlightenment, basically kicked the Church in the face and pulled most of their power. However, once the plague showed up, they all turned back to the Church for salvation. If things get bad here... I could totally see something like this happening. Remember, most Americans still consider themselves Christian....
Think about how well Huckabee did. If he had been on a third party ticket, that would have been enough votes for the debates to have been Obama, McCain, Huckabee. Now, if a lot of Baby Boomers felt threatened by Civil Unions, by Evolution in Schools, by secularization... how many Americans could be scared into voting Huckabee? How many 'moderate' Christians might have thought it was ok, because he was a nice Pastor?
As for the independents (of which I am one), most seem more than willing to decry partisan and two-party, but they are not usually fanatics. Many don't appear to hold strong beliefs on exactly HOW things should go. Sadly, as bad as belief and fanaticism may be for the brain of any given human, it also seems like a major driver for any political party.
I've pissed my vote away on Nader since '96. I vote on issues (I'm a bad voter putting substance before surface, I know) and I've agreed with the Green party on most of their platform, more than any other candidate's/party's. Thus, they got my vote. I live in Mass, and that state has gone Dem. since forever, and none of the last few elections have changed that.
Gore and the Dems' problems in 2000 had little to do with Nader, and LOTS to do with Gore - a block of wood would have had more life and charisma in that election. The unconstitutional halting of the counts was an ACTUAL issue.The fact that the Republicans almost definitely kept a large segment of the black voting block away from the polls in FL in 2000 was an issue. Was Nader to "blame"? No more so than any other candidate that got more than 200 votes in FL. He was just a good scapegoat to cover the fact that the Dems didn't even fight the ballot insanity going on in that election since their candidate might have come up short (or not - who knows?).
Quote from: 221 on June 15, 2008, 07:22:46 AM
www.votenader.org
I personally think nader is the fucking man, who would pwn any of the so called front runners in a real debate.
:boring:
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a95/discordman/bin/nader.jpg)
Quote from: That One Guy on June 16, 2008, 03:38:13 PM
Was Nader to "blame"? No more so than any other candidate that got more than 200 votes in FL. He was just a good scapegoat to cover the fact that the Dems didn't even fight the ballot insanity going on in that election since their candidate might have come up short (or not - who knows?).
QFT. One of my coworkers at the time was a bigtime Dem - she was the personal assistant to McNulty - one of the NY congressman. She was of the opinion that voting third party was basically pissing your vote away and thereby harming democracy. Like WTF - I thought democracy was about voting for who you want to win?
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a95/discordman/bin/the_new_democratic_party_symbol.jpg)
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 16, 2008, 04:04:05 PM
Like WTF - I thought democracy was about voting for who you want to win?
I think I agree. Everyone tries to play according to the rules of the game, but those rules are social fictions that should be broken. The media tells you that Mr. John Independent has no chance, and suddenly... guess what? No chance. Get in line cabbages! Time to vote for who we tell you to vote for! :fnord:
Kind of like how gas will start going slowly down in price, and the forecasters predict it's going up, and then Viola! It goes up. Another excellent effect of television.
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 16, 2008, 03:32:46 PM
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 16, 2008, 02:57:19 PM
Problem is, without some incredible funding, no third party candidate is going to look any better than Nader.
A third party candidate will look good when some issue that enough people really and truly care about shows up. Honestly, as much as I'd love to see a third party based off of the likes of Jesse Ventura, I think the most likely third party at this point will be made up of the religious right, after they break with the GOP. If GWB was unable, unwilling or whatever to get them the power/votes/laws/amendments that they wanted... it should now be obvious to them that the GOP has no plans to push their agenda, except during election time for votes.
This really has the potential to scare the crap out of me. Religion has a pretty good handle on human psychology. Religious leaders have charisma, they can whip a crowd into a frenzy and hold that sort of attention regularly. If shit looks really bad, people want religion (cause it gives them someone to blame). Consider, for example, the free market, wild party land once known as Venice. The Venetians, during the Enlightenment, basically kicked the Church in the face and pulled most of their power. However, once the plague showed up, they all turned back to the Church for salvation. If things get bad here... I could totally see something like this happening. Remember, most Americans still consider themselves Christian....
Think about how well Huckabee did. If he had been on a third party ticket, that would have been enough votes for the debates to have been Obama, McCain, Huckabee. Now, if a lot of Baby Boomers felt threatened by Civil Unions, by Evolution in Schools, by secularization... how many Americans could be scared into voting Huckabee? How many 'moderate' Christians might have thought it was ok, because he was a nice Pastor?
As for the independents (of which I am one), most seem more than willing to decry partisan and two-party, but they are not usually fanatics. Many don't appear to hold strong beliefs on exactly HOW things should go. Sadly, as bad as belief and fanaticism may be for the brain of any given human, it also seems like a major driver for any political party.
They've already started to do this with the ironically named Constitution Party. While they claim a relatively large number of registered voters (more than 350,000 in 2006) they have won exactly 1 election so far.
I can see them getting some traction in the deep South (a few local positions, maybe one or two congressmen) but I don't see them getting enough power to ever be seen as a threat. There is no way they could survive as a national party and I can't see them pulling more than 5% in a presidential election.
Even if they did gain power they would run into that pesky little first amendment that guarantees that the US government will remain a secular institution. One of their planks is to change that pesky little amendment (or reinterpret it through the courts) and there isn't a chance in hell of that happening unless (like you said) a major disaster hits us and everyone turns to fundamentalism. But that wouldn't be the beginning of the end for us, it would be the end of the end.
I admire the attempts to rid the US of the broken two-party system. But you can't get that done by supporting a third party. The culture in US politics is such that every third party is immediately dismissed, even if they've won small elections for local government seats. Ultimately, while democracy should be about voting for your candidate, I don't think we really have that luxury in America. More gets done by pushing the lumbering, clumsy system we have in the general direction of your beliefs, although it's still a negligible amount of progress.
But I could be wrong. I do notice that the facts don't exactly fit the assumptions being made by people on all sides of every issue. For example, lots of people claim America's on the fast track to totalitarianism, like that's anything new. The entire USA was practically under Soviet-style Marshall Law during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was only the 16th president and he was actively imprisoning people (and probably worse) for printing the sorts of things that even Bush just ignores.
The general trend in the USA is toward a more progressive society. Even in the face of the "War on Terror," that is borne out by the fact that the Supreme Court keeps rebuking Bush and his fascist detention policies.
Back to the elections. The simple fact is, if you vote for Nader, you're going to help McCain win. That's just how it will go. And, the next President will appoint at least TWO Supreme Court justices. If it's McCain, SCOTUS will be tipped in the Right-Wing direction for at least a generation. Even if McCain himself doesn't want to do that, he will be forced to do it because of politics.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 15, 2008, 09:11:41 AM
Quote from: 221 on June 15, 2008, 07:22:46 AM
www.votenader.org
I personally think nader is the fucking man, who would pwn any of the so called front runners in a real debate.
Nader is the reason we have president Bush.
I cannot wait to take a huge shit on his grave.
Bullshit.Gore is the reason you don't have Nader.I'm fucking sick of this "useful vote" shit, for it screwed up my shitty country too many times.
"I'd vote the X candidate,but he's gonna lose anyway, so I'll vote someone else"....Yeah, can you imagine why he's gonna lose?
Maybe because his supporters voted some "centrist"...
This always hit the left, anyway..."C'mon,we'll never have social justice,if somebody tells you either way, he's not SERIOUS"
Then you vote somebody who'll do anything he can to make sure that you'll never get social justice..(like that fuckin' Veltroni, here's a guy a would really shit on)
Quote from: vexati0n on June 16, 2008, 06:34:38 PM
I admire the attempts to rid the US of the broken two-party system. But you can't get that done by supporting a third party. The culture in US politics is such that every third party is immediately dismissed, even if they've won small elections for local government seats. Ultimately, while democracy should be about voting for your candidate, I don't think we really have that luxury in America. More gets done by pushing the lumbering, clumsy system we have in the general direction of your beliefs, although it's still a negligible amount of progress.
Yeah, but though a third party will probably never
win, there are numerous points in American history when a third party became a second party. Even the Democrats were on the political "fringe" until they finally knocked out the Federalists.
Voting third party helps those parties get better funding. And adding a third voice to the bichromatic spectrum which is American politics is a better cause (IMHO) than going back and forth on any number of issues.
I think the ballot should have a list of issues on it and you vote for the issues you want resolved.... rather then some fucking person you put trust into.
I would rather have intelligeeant people tackle many issues, and put those issues on the ballot and vote for them...
One issue could be media and the use of it..what's the purpose of mass media and how should we use it to OUR benefit...
another could be... the role of trans-national corporations and how they affect third world nations... i mean do they really deserve billion dollar profits?
the role of the working class.... Have people vote on what exactly is the role of the working class... what is the incentive.. what is the goal? what will make OUR lives more enjoyable lives...
the role of the... "white collar" etc...
I would rather have all of these issues and beyond plastered all over the television without pharmaceutical interuption.... issues like these disscussed and debated by intelligeeeeeaant people... groups of intelligeaaaaaaant people, who were gathered from all around the "civilized world"....
then put the issues onto a fucking ballot and have people vote for what they find in their best interest...
I think it is so stupid, so old, so out dated for us to vote for a fucking puppet you want to give supreme power to, do we really need a fucking pharoh these days?... as if they really deserve to control the united states military....
*shrugs..
fuck another obvious issue to be up on ballot... the role of the fucking military.... so it is clear to us and to the world when the military will and sould be used... (when certain principles have been crossed it should be used, imo)
I would be a much happier person if the above was going on on the television today.....
am i wrong, completely out of it or am i onto something here? fuck i hope im not completely nuts because it makes sense to me to do it my way... (my way being a very rough around the edges way, but the general idea at least is where i think society should go)
I thought that you were leaving...
:kingmeh:
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on June 17, 2008, 02:38:53 AM
I thought that you were leaving...
:kingmeh:
Quoteas of tomorrow i wont be posting on this account...
more importantly, am i nuts for thinking what i just stated above? so far that is my ideal political (democratic) society...
Go.
basically the military as an entity is an admission of failure by the human race
Quote from: Faust on June 17, 2008, 03:41:28 AM
basically the military as an entity is an admission of failure by the human race
Bollocks. The military is the ultimate expression of monkeydom.
Quote from: 221 on June 17, 2008, 03:10:05 AM
more importantly, am i nuts for thinking what i just stated above? so far that is my ideal political (democratic) society...
we have a party called D66 that sort of vaguely wants to do what you are proposing via referendums.
they got quite a good amount of votes last election, so we got to learn that:
1. this sort of plan pretty much consistently fails to properly get off the ground (they've been at it since '66, hence their name.. Democrats '66)
2. when you get a referendum, count on the people to make the most stupid choice. there's always people unhappy with whatever irrelevant politics they're unhappy with, and they'll vote for stupid shit merely out of spite.
3. in the same way that you don't ask a crowd of people for a medical diagnosis, there actually
are some topics politicians will make better decisions about than what the majority would pick, believe it or not.
4. it is funny, however, and doesn't actually seem to work much worse than the current type of democrazy we have in NL.
but don't let me keep you, you were leaving.
Jeez, he could've just said that he wants a direct democracy instead of a representative one. All of those ellipsis really fucking hurt my eyes.
While an amusing thought, this has a number of problems. For starters, whatever the majority happens to be would have the power to vote the minority into submission. Another would be the sheer difficulty in organizing this in anything but an extremely small society, it might be well and good for an individual city or town to get together and vote on the issues at hand, but getting national participation would be a problem (in which case the rulership doesnt fall just to the majority, but to the vocal majority.)
Personally, I favor an autocratic rulership, where the ruling part does so by divine mandate, they themselves being incarnations of the sun god Horus.
Quote from: Z³ on June 17, 2008, 12:52:29 PM
Personally, I favor an autocratic rulership, where the ruling part does so by divine mandate, they themselves being incarnations of the sun god Horus.
titcm!
At least you knew where you
stood kneeled back in those days
Quote from: Z³ on June 17, 2008, 12:52:29 PM
Jeez, he could've just said that he wants a direct democracy instead of a representative one.
Ugh. Ask the Athenians how that worked out.
Quote from: That One Guy on June 16, 2008, 03:38:13 PM
Gore and the Dems' problems in 2000 had little to do with Nader, and LOTS to do with Gore - a block of wood would have had more life and charisma in that election.
Rubbish. The margin of victory for Bush was less than the vote total Nader got.
And it wasn't the neocons voting for Nader.
Sucker.
Quote from: Daruko on June 16, 2008, 05:06:44 PM
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 16, 2008, 04:04:05 PM
Like WTF - I thought democracy was about voting for who you want to win?
I think I agree. Everyone tries to play according to the rules of the game, but those rules are social fictions that should be broken. The media tells you that Mr. John Independent has no chance, and suddenly... guess what? No chance. Get in line cabbages! Time to vote for who we tell you to vote for! :fnord:
Kind of like how gas will start going slowly down in price, and the forecasters predict it's going up, and then Viola! It goes up. Another excellent effect of television.
Well, sure. Vote for the shill, and tell yourself you made the world better, while the neocons continue to fuck us up the ass with baseball bats.
Your arse may wind up wider than the Lincoln Tunnel, but at least you can congratulate yourself on how you didn't compromise, even for a minute.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 18, 2008, 03:03:23 AM
Quote from: That One Guy on June 16, 2008, 03:38:13 PM
Gore and the Dems' problems in 2000 had little to do with Nader, and LOTS to do with Gore - a block of wood would have had more life and charisma in that election.
Rubbish. The margin of victory for Bush was less than the vote total Nader got.
And it wasn't the neocons voting for Nader.
Sucker.
Here's a quickie rundown of the election results for Florida via wikipedia (so admittedly take it with a grain of salt) -
George W. Bush Republican Texas 50,456,002 47.87% 271
Al Gore Democratic Tennessee 50,999,897 48.38% 266
Ralph Nader Green Connecticut 2,882,955 2.7% 0
Pat Buchanan Reform Virginia 448,895 0.4% 0
Harry Browne Libertarian Tennessee 384,431 0.4% 0
Howard Phillips Constitution Virginia 98,020 0.1% 0
John Hagelin Natural Law/Reform Iowa 83,714 0.1% 0
Other(b) 51,186 0.1%
Every single other candidate got more votes than the margin of victory, yet only Nader gets the blame. Ignore the republican effort to deny black voters at the polls. Ignore the recount halt and the Supreme Court decision - just keep looking at the numbers of Nader.
I didn't vote in Florida. If I had voted in Florida I would have voted for Gore. I voted in Mass. where a pig would win if it was running Democrat. Thus, I voted for Nader in the hope that the Green party would get matching federal funds in the 2004 election cycle.
I spend a lot of time examining the platforms of the candidates and place my vote accordingly. Should I ignore the candidate that most closely represents those issues if they're not a Democrat or Republican? Obviously I agree that there are circumstances that I would. However, it's just as damaging to ignore ALL the problems in favor of making a scapegoat out of one candidate.
Quote from: That One Guy on June 18, 2008, 02:18:29 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 18, 2008, 03:03:23 AM
Quote from: That One Guy on June 16, 2008, 03:38:13 PM
Gore and the Dems' problems in 2000 had little to do with Nader, and LOTS to do with Gore - a block of wood would have had more life and charisma in that election.
Rubbish. The margin of victory for Bush was less than the vote total Nader got.
And it wasn't the neocons voting for Nader.
Sucker.
Here's a quickie rundown of the election results for Florida via wikipedia (so admittedly take it with a grain of salt) -
George W. Bush Republican Texas 50,456,002 47.87% 271
Al Gore Democratic Tennessee 50,999,897 48.38% 266
Ralph Nader Green Connecticut 2,882,955 2.7% 0
Pat Buchanan Reform Virginia 448,895 0.4% 0
Harry Browne Libertarian Tennessee 384,431 0.4% 0
Howard Phillips Constitution Virginia 98,020 0.1% 0
John Hagelin Natural Law/Reform Iowa 83,714 0.1% 0
Other(b) 51,186 0.1%
Every single other candidate got more votes than the margin of victory, yet only Nader gets the blame. Ignore the republican effort to deny black voters at the polls. Ignore the recount halt and the Supreme Court decision - just keep looking at the numbers of Nader.
I didn't vote in Florida. If I had voted in Florida I would have voted for Gore. I voted in Mass. where a pig would win if it was running Democrat. Thus, I voted for Nader in the hope that the Green party would get matching federal funds in the 2004 election cycle.
I spend a lot of time examining the platforms of the candidates and place my vote accordingly. Should I ignore the candidate that most closely represents those issues if they're not a Democrat or Republican? Obviously I agree that there are circumstances that I would. However, it's just as damaging to ignore ALL the problems in favor of making a scapegoat out of one candidate.
:mittens:
I can see the argument that citizens have a responsibility to vote, but I reject the idea that citizens have a responsibility to vote for one of the two popular options. Personally, I think the Dems are as likely to fuck us with a baseball bat as the GOP. If a third party candidate showed up that I agreed with (which is not Nader), then I would vote for them, rather than Asshat 1 or Asshat 2.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 18, 2008, 03:05:20 AM
Quote from: Daruko on June 16, 2008, 05:06:44 PM
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 16, 2008, 04:04:05 PM
Like WTF - I thought democracy was about voting for who you want to win?
I think I agree. Everyone tries to play according to the rules of the game, but those rules are social fictions that should be broken. The media tells you that Mr. John Independent has no chance, and suddenly... guess what? No chance. Get in line cabbages! Time to vote for who we tell you to vote for! :fnord:
Kind of like how gas will start going slowly down in price, and the forecasters predict it's going up, and then Viola! It goes up. Another excellent effect of television.
Well, sure. Vote for the shill, and tell yourself you made the world better, while the neocons continue to fuck us up the ass with baseball bats.
Your arse may wind up wider than the Lincoln Tunnel, but at least you can congratulate yourself on how you didn't compromise, even for a minute.
OHHHH I didn't realize that the
popular vote decided the 2000 election. Silly me, I must have mis-remembered all that contraversy in Florida with dimpled chads, undervoting / overvoting, and all that stuff. I'll try to vote with the majority (instead of a "shill") in the future, it's clearly the only way to make a difference and not get fucked with baseball bats.
If we had just all voted for Gore like good little liberals, I'm sure everything would be cool right now. Well I guess we got what we deserved by not playing the 2-man con - apparently its the only game in town. Forget all those other shills -- if they couldn't get the GOP or Dem nomination, their platform must not be that great after all, no?
/sarcasm
you have the play the hand you're dealt. there's plenty of room for campaigning on issues but popular elections don't really that way -- they're games of probability and strategery. personally, i believe in campaigning hard for the best 'perfect world' candidate you can find, in the hopes of growing support for him/her and forcing the mainstream candidates to espouse a few of the policy changes your preferred candidate would make. but when it comes to the general election, you have to be realistic, especially when you're dancing on the line between modest progress and outright fascism.
Quote from: vexati0n on June 18, 2008, 03:55:51 PM
you have the play the hand you're dealt. there's plenty of room for campaigning on issues but popular elections don't really that way -- they're games of probability and strategery. personally, i believe in campaigning hard for the best 'perfect world' candidate you can find, in the hopes of growing support for him/her and forcing the mainstream candidates to espouse a few of the policy changes your preferred candidate would make. but when it comes to the general election, you have to be realistic, especially when you're dancing on the line between modest progress and outright fascism.
Outright Fascism? That's as believable as Obama as an Outright Marxist.. or that the Muslim extremists are "Islamofascists". Useful criticism is useful... obvious name calling is obvious... and name calling.
If the party was the BNP, American Nazi or something like that, then fascism would be appropriate. But, I think you'd be hard pressed to provide any evidence that John McCain, Lindsey Graham or most (but not all) members of of the GOP are fascist or support outright fascism. Authoritarian, quite likely (but then so are the Dems).
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 18, 2008, 03:50:39 PM
OHHHH I didn't realize that the popular vote decided the 2000 election. Silly me, I must have mis-remembered all that contraversy in Florida with dimpled chads, undervoting / overvoting, and all that stuff. I'll try to vote with the majority (instead of a "shill") in the future, it's clearly the only way to make a difference and not get fucked with baseball bats.
If we had just all voted for Gore like good little liberals, I'm sure everything would be cool right now. Well I guess we got what we deserved by not playing the 2-man con - apparently its the only game in town. Forget all those other shills -- if they couldn't get the GOP or Dem nomination, their platform must not be that great after all, no?
/sarcasm
(http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g3/goblue5699/oh20snap.gif)
The GOP consistently campaigns on a Fascist platform -- lower/no taxes for business, the economic belief that freeing corporations to do whatever they want ultimately benefits the entire population, the belief that "freedom of speech" should include allowing wealthy companies to dictate government policy on just about every matter, the complete dissolution of social safety nets, a complete reliance on "private business" for all needs, doing away with government regulation (or "interference") in almost every industry. These are the ideas that the GOP campaigns on. They never accomplish any of this because they haven't been allowed to. But the party has gotten some of this done on a local level in some places (it's all pretty much failed horribly, of course) so it's obvious that they genuinely want to.
More recently, the GOP has also begun to espouse the belief that the federal military should be used for domestic police activities, that the people have only a severely limited right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and especially since 9/11 they seem to think that security and liberty are mutually exclusive, and favor security over liberty.
The Dems aren't much better, obviously. But in my opinion they currently propose policies more directly beneficial to the People. They also have a habit of giving good reasons why their policies will work better, as opposed to invoking 9/11 and squawking a bunch of crap to scare people into obedience. Also, their political support is made up of many people who could be easy to profile and persecute -- minorities, the 'fringe,' etc. In the interest of their own survival, the Dems would be loathe to institute the kind of far-reaching authoritarian policies that the GOP could get away with because of its nearly monolithic support base of idiotic hicks.
Quote from: vexati0n on June 18, 2008, 04:16:39 PM
The GOP consistently campaigns on a Fascist platform -- lower/no taxes for business, the economic belief that freeing corporations to do whatever they want ultimately benefits the entire population, the belief that "freedom of speech" should include allowing wealthy companies to dictate government policy on just about every matter, the complete dissolution of social safety nets, a complete reliance on "private business" for all needs, doing away with government regulation (or "interference") in almost every industry. These are the ideas that the GOP campaigns on. They never accomplish any of this because they haven't been allowed to. But the party has gotten some of this done on a local level in some places (it's all pretty much failed horribly, of course) so it's obvious that they genuinely want to.
More recently, the GOP has also begun to espouse the belief that the federal military should be used for domestic police activities, that the people have only a severely limited right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and especially since 9/11 they seem to think that security and liberty are mutually exclusive, and favor security over liberty.
The Dems aren't much better, obviously. But in my opinion they currently propose policies more directly beneficial to the People. They also have a habit of giving good reasons why their policies will work better, as opposed to invoking 9/11 and squawking a bunch of crap to scare people into obedience. Also, their political support is made up of many people who could be easy to profile and persecute -- minorities, the 'fringe,' etc. In the interest of their own survival, the Dems would be loathe to institute the kind of far-reaching authoritarian policies that the GOP could get away with because of its nearly monolithic support base of idiotic hicks.
I disagree, the GOP, particularly the NeoCons, have a strong authoritarian and a pro-business bent, but these don't seem to rise to the level of pesudo-fascism, let alone outright fascism. In most fascist regimes that I'm aware of, the corporations were under the thumb of the government, rather than the government catering to their every whim.
I mean hell, Obama's idea that we would give preferential tax treatment to the companies that did as he asked (in reference to emissions etc) has more of a fascist tone than the government wanting to give tax breaks to corporations just so the corporation can raep the citizens a bit more. While I appreciate Obama's idea much more than the other, it appears, to me, to follow the some of the concepts of fascism more obviously than the GOP.
The GOP, in general has bad ideas, but I really don't think calling them fascist is useful or correct. The Dems, in general have pretty bad ideas, but I really don't think calling them fascist is useful or correct. Both parties appear to me as authoritarian on some subjects... but not fascist.
a couple of relevant excerpts from Wiki:
As a rule, the authoritarian regime confines itself to political control of the state. By contrast, the term "totalitarian" refers to socioeconomic dynamism, the way of life, of a state society. The governmental techniques of a totalitarian regime are necessarily authoritarian. But the regime does much more. It attempts to mold the private life, the soul, the spirit, and the mores of citizens to a dominant ideology. The officially proclaimed ideology penetrates into every nook and cranny of the state society; its ambition is total".[1]
Totalitarian regimes attempt to "atomize" society and destroy all independent nonpolitical institutions. However, neither the Italian fascists nor the Nazis completely "destroyed their respective social structures", for which reason, these countries "could rapidly return to normalcy" after defeat in World War II. In contrast, all attempts to reform the regime in the USSR, "led to nowhere because every nongovernmental institution, whether social or economic, had to be built from scratch.
On Totalitarianism:
While originally referring to an 'all-embracing, total state,' the label has been applied to a wide variety of regimes and orders of rule in a critical sense. Isabel Paterson, in The God of the Machine (1943) used the term in connection with the collectivist societies of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) and The Poverty of Historicism (1961) developed an influential critique of totalitarianism: in both works, he contrasted the "open society" of liberal democracy with totalitarianism, and argued that the latter is grounded in the belief that history moves toward an immutable future, in accord with knowable laws. During the Cold War period, the term gained renewed currency, especially following the publication of Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). Arendt argued that Nazi and Stalinist regimes were completely new forms of government, and not merely updated versions of the old tyrannies. According to Arendt, the source of the mass appeal of totalitarian regimes was their ideology which provided a comforting, single answer to the mysteries of the past, present, and future. For Nazism, all history is the history of racial struggle; and, for Marxism, all history is the history of class struggle. Once that premise was accepted by the public, all actions of the regime could be justified by appeal to the Law of History or Nature.
Eric Hoffer in his book The True Believer argues that mass movements like Communism, Fascism and Nazism had a common trait in picturing Western democracies and their values as decadent, with people "too soft, too pleasure-loving and too selfish" to sacrifice for a higher cause, which for them implies an inner moral and biological decay. He further claims that those movements offered the prospect of a glorious, yet imaginary, future to frustrated people, enabling them to find a refuge from the lack of personal accomplishments in their individual existence. Individual is then assimilated into a compact collective body and "fact-proof screens from reality" are established.
Sound familiar? I'd add some additional thoughts of my own, but I'm just too damn tired today.
btw, is anyone familiar with this site? Just stumbled across it... looks kinda interesting.
http://www.opensecrets.org/ (http://www.opensecrets.org/)
Modern politics engages in that sort of behavior all the time, across the spectrum. While the GOP claims it is for "small government," it also advocates the idea of America as a society that is culturally, religiously, and at times racially homogeneous. Like Fascism, it elevates the concept of The State to a mythical, almost Godlike importance, and questions not only the loyalty of dissenters but the very human value of anyone who dares to contradict their political dogma.
The Democrats do almost the same thing, but are more global-minded. They elevate other ideas to dangerous importance, but these go beyond the State and include the "Global Community." The sentiment may be essentially the same but I think the implications and consequences of such a worldview are, at this point in history, more beneficial since it tends to diffuse narrow-minded nationalism and emphasize equality among people regardless of origin or culture.
The practical point here, though, is that for the immediate future, the Democrats are in favor of expanding civil liberties, conducting foreign policy with a modicum of restraint and cooperation even with those who don't necessarily agree with us, and recognizing and dealing with domestic and foreign economic problems as they pertain to average people; and they have a vested interest in moving traditionally sidelined groups into political validity, which reinforces the structures of democratic government. I'm not a toe-the-line Democrat. I don't expect to be on the same page with this party forever (I'm not even 100% in agreement right now), but at this moment, this is the party best positioned to enact the kinds of policy I believe to be necessary for my own comfort and security.
The Green Party would probably do a pretty good job of most things too -- but the Green Party isn't an option when I see no indication that they have widespread support necessary to defeat the evil bastards who are practically drooling at the chance to send tanks through downtown San Francisco, and who happen to be in control of the GOP.
Well, if you gonna modify definitions we can call the fascist if you like ;-)
In the end, I find both parties full of shit and focused entirely on themselves. The GOP tries to appeal to the rich, on the basis that money will get votes. The Dems try to appeal to the hoi polli on the basis that there's a heck of a lot of them.
Individual Senators and Congressmen may well have altruistic and optimistic goals... but the parties, as far as I can tell are simply machines designed to garner power for one group of bastards or the other.
For me, I vote for individuals. My election ticket usually has a mix of R and D and I on it. I can't support either party, but I can figure out the least evil of whichever two or three people I get to choose from.
Besides, if I can help keep both parties at each others throats... maybe neither of them will be able to implement their plans.
srsly, though, i live in Wyoming and that's why I'm voting for Obama. I can't wait to see the look on all these rural asstards' faces in November when they know they're about to have a Black president. Or on January 20th, when they actually have one.
Also, I can't wait to tell the Rush Limbaugh fanboys around here, "HEY WE'RE AT WAR! GOOD AMERICANS SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT DURING WARTIME!"
Quote from: vexati0n on June 18, 2008, 06:31:23 PM
Also, I can't wait to tell the Rush Limbaugh fanboys around here, "HEY WE'RE AT WAR! GOOD AMERICANS SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT DURING WARTIME!"
Oh.
My.
God.
I never even thought of that, and now (hoping Obama gets elected!) I cannot fucking wait to do that. Holy crap. I think that just brought a tear to my eye. :lol:
Brilliant.
Quote from: vexati0n on June 18, 2008, 06:31:23 PM
srsly, though, i live in Wyoming and that's why I'm voting for Obama. I can't wait to see the look on all these rural asstards' faces in November when they know they're about to have a Black president. Or on January 20th, when they actually have one.
Also, I can't wait to tell the Rush Limbaugh fanboys around here, "HEY WE'RE AT WAR! GOOD AMERICANS SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT DURING WARTIME!"
:omg:
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
Quote from: vexati0n on June 18, 2008, 06:31:23 PM
Also, I can't wait to tell the Rush Limbaugh fanboys around here, "HEY WE'RE AT WAR! GOOD AMERICANS SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT DURING WARTIME!"
Damn straight! :evil:
Quote from: vexati0n on June 18, 2008, 06:31:23 PM
srsly, though, i live in Wyoming and that's why I'm voting for Obama. I can't wait to see the look on all these rural asstards' faces in November when they know they're about to have a Black president. Or on January 20th, when they actually have one.
Also, I can't wait to tell the Rush Limbaugh fanboys around here, "HEY WE'RE AT WAR! GOOD AMERICANS SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT DURING WARTIME!"
I've been waiting for the same thing. :lulz:
Quote from: vexati0n on June 18, 2008, 04:16:39 PM
The GOP consistently campaigns on a Fascist platform -- lower/no taxes for business, the economic belief that freeing corporations to do whatever they want ultimately benefits the entire population, the belief that "freedom of speech" should include allowing wealthy companies to dictate government policy on just about every matter, the complete dissolution of social safety nets, a complete reliance on "private business" for all needs, doing away with government regulation (or "interference") in almost every industry. These are the ideas that the GOP campaigns on. They never accomplish any of this because they haven't been allowed to. But the party has gotten some of this done on a local level in some places (it's all pretty much failed horribly, of course) so it's obvious that they genuinely want to.
More recently, the GOP has also begun to espouse the belief that the federal military should be used for domestic police activities, that the people have only a severely limited right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and especially since 9/11 they seem to think that security and liberty are mutually exclusive, and favor security over liberty.
Thats not fascism.
There is a strong proto-Fascist component to the GOP, and often Fascists are unable to seize power without being invited into it by a business/conservative coalition of some sort, but it doesn't immediately follow that such a coalition is necessarily fascist. Its garden-variety autocracy, with a dash of free market theory.
Here are some actual definitions of Fascism:
The idea underlying Fascism is irreconcilably different from that which underlies Socialism. Socialism aims, ultimately, at a world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equality of human rights for granted. Nazism assumes just the opposite. The driving force behind the Nazi movement is the belief in human inequality, the superiority of Germans to all other races, the right of Germany to rule the world. Outside the German Reich it does not recognise any obligations.
- Eric Blair, AKA George Orwell,
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941) 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
- Stanley Payne, in
Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980)Robert O. Paxton,
The Anatomy of FascismFascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal constraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
Paxton's nine "mobilizing passions" of fascism:
-- a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions;
-- the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether universal or individual, and the subordination of the individual to it;
-- the belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against the group's enemies, both internal and external;
-- dread of the group's decline under the corrosive effect of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;
-- the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary;
-- the need for authority by natural leaders (always male), culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group's destiny;
-- the superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal reason;
-- the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group's success;
-- the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group's prowess in a Darwinian struggle.
Fascism: modern political ideology that seeks to regenerate the social, economic, and cultural life of a country by basing it on a heightened sense of national belonging or ethnic identity. Fascism rejects liberal ideas such as freedom and individual rights, and often presses for the destruction of elections, legislatures, and other elements of democracy. Despite the idealistic goals of fascism, attempts to build fascist societies have led to wars and persecutions that caused millions of deaths. As a result, fascism is strongly associated with right-wing fanaticism, racism, totalitarianism, and violence.
- Roger Griffin
1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.
Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but is was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.
This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice;" such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.
Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.
3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.
Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.
4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.
In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.
5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.
Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.
6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.
That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.
7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.
This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.
8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.
When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.
9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.
Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.
10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.
Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people in the world, the members or the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler.
11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.
In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.
12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.
This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.
13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.
In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.
Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the official language of what he called Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.
- Umberto Eco
Cain is teh Awesome.
:mittens:
Most informative thing I've read all month.
Its a handy little list I keep on hand for such times as this.
I think there IS a fascist faction within the GOP, and it does have surprisingly powerful links with the main movers and shakers, but its not going to be found within the NeoCons who, as we know, are in it mainly for the money. More likely its going to be people like Trent Lott, the sort of people who traffic with Neo-Confederate organizations, make speeches for powerful anti-immigration groups that attract racists, the paleo-conservatives that cluster around Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. And, of course, the legion of keyboard warriors from FreeRepublic and various conservative blogs such as Little Green Footballs, or Misha the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, who are desperately trying to slay the liberals and atheists and terrorists with their mad typing skillz. Finally, of course, you have the militias themselves, who espoused a proto-fascist and conspiracy-laden doctrine that was picked up on, modified and then made into "news" and "commentary" by the right-wing media ("Iraq was behind the OK bombings", "Clinton had Vince Foster killed", "The UN is a cover for a socialist takeover of the USA under a Satanic one-world government" etc etc) which has turned America's biggest right-wing party into the sort of place where pseudo-fascist sentiment can grow relatively undetected by the party leadership.
That said, Bush and Co do engage in dog whistle politics when they are up against the wall on something, which suggests to me they know these lunatics are out there and have no problem with using them to achieve their own goals. For example, Cheney suggesting those who protested against the Iraq War were traitors. Soon after that, antiwar protests were being trashed by supposed Bush supporters, mainly from far-right groups or watering holes online. The Swiftboating of John Kerry was followed by vandalism of Democratic Party property all over the mid-west, as the Kerry = unpatriotic quasi-traitor meme spread. So the current leadership are not fascists, however they are part of a wider climate of fascism on the right of US politics, and have no qualms about making alliances with fascists.