ATTN: CAIN AND OTHER POLITISPAGS

[00.dusk]

I had a discussion with someone online. It was all exceptionally enlightening, but... I'll just say this, I had to make logs of this part. And you have to read them. It was the "awakening" for me, that this is REALLY REAL, and REALLY HAPPENING, and is a REAL problem. And it's RIGHT NOW.

FTR, at this point in the conversation we had begun to both believe that Capitalism is just Fascism without a gun in it's face. If anyone wants me to lay out the argument that led to that, I'd be happy to do so.

Also, the whole thing is edited into logical order for clarity, so timestamps may be out of order.

[08:06][nulldusk] kren, do you think its possible, given the slide of the right towards fascist/neo-nazi ideals, that we could see a return of the nazi-esque policies that have been taboo for 60-70 years? racial inequality, nationalism, genocide, etc. my pal from that political forum i mentioned (intl relations fellow) thinks we might be going to see a return directly to hard-line nazi-style fascism. ...i dont want to believe it.
[08:07][kren it] i don't know, i want to say there's no way people could be that stupid again. i mean, we ARE at least more sophisticated in the sense that we will start to notice fascism if its blatent... i think it'll be sneakier than that. it'll creep up on people, it's not like these blue collar republicans and democrats really believe they are latent fascists, they don't understand what fascism was, so they don't see how they are basically playing the exact same historical role, but if somebody showed up and put them in uniform, i think the memory of ww II is way too commonly held and known, nbody is that stupid.. i hope
[08:10][kren it] i mean imagine if your boss showed up one day in an american military uniform.  lol.. that's what happened in nazi germany.  they inducted business leaders into the SS.  that's what it was.  all of the sudden your boss is in uniform: ceo's in miltary uniform
[08:10][nulldusk] ...see, i think thatd be accepted. you dont realize how big patriotism is: i have a pal who walks around town in full military gear, despite never joining up and being homeless. he gets salutes constantly, from all sorts of people.
[08:11][kren it] well. in the u.s. we've never had a leader in uniform. he always wears a suit,  the comamnder and chief is supposed to be a civilian, and this is pretty deep in american psychology, it wasn't in german, italian, or spanish in the mid 20th century.
[08:11][nulldusk] true
[08:11][kren it] but you can be a fascist in a suit... but how do you create other fascists? put them in suits... make them profit from imperialism... i mean that's what it was all about
[08:11][nulldusk] ...oh fucking god, thats scary as hell. we're already pretty much THERE, we just have to flip the goddamn switch.
[08:12][kren it] plugging the common joe into the imperialist project and makig him a beneficiary,telling him he is a nationalist hero. actually, maybe that's what private military corporations are.
[08:12][nulldusk] oh my god. thats too scary.
[08:12][kren it] holyshit. that really makes sense. i didn't even think of that till just now, jesus. WOW. corporate militaries, that's exactly how american fascism would look.
[08:13][nulldusk] so... at this fucking point, we're on the very goddamn cusp. its already all but right in front of us. ...i think i can understand what cain is saying now.

Anyone remember those videos of the private corporate military folks? Rednecks driving around the sandblasted wastes and getting shot at.

And then this:

[08:20][kren it] there's a great movie about an american father whose son was killed in pinochet's chile, he goes down there to find him and he keeps gettnig jerked around by incompetent state department and us embassy employees.  it's based on a true story, and i remember watching it and thinkming that it was like mcdonald's fascism.  like fascists who can't remember to hold the pickles. mctyranny, that's how the u.s. would do it.  we'd have concentration camps but they would be staffed by low wage employees
[08:20][nulldusk] ...bureaucratic incompetency meets nationalist maliciousness.

All sounds very, very familiar and very, very true to me. It was a pretty damn big epiphany.

By the way, I sent this fellow over to The Postmodern Prince, because he's exactly the kind of person who belongs there. You'll hear more from him, I'm sure.

All usernames have been anonymized for the sake of the folks who own them. It's a strangely trusting corner of the internet, first and last name are the norm.

[Junkenstein]

The rise of Private military contractors and Private Prison systems support a lot of the arguments. To me, they seem to be control systems that have arisen alongside a certain kind of government ethos. "We've got the troops out" is a great thing for the talking heads to discuss while ignoring the equal/greater numbers of "security contractors" who take over the role.

I think this is leading to a two-tier military essentially. Government goes in first, Corporations clean up, "protect" and rebuild.

Roger's Uniform thread is quite relevant here. The Suit is just another uniform, with all the trappings and mindsets that come from being a cop, nurse or whatever.

Question - Do Americans really perceive/understand the commander in chief to be essentially civilian? What would the public reaction be if a "wartime" president (Say Bush for argument) appeared in military dress? I have a suspicion that it really wouldn't be a big deal to most, and those who it does bother could be easily shown as "un-american"

Also, look at how language has changed over the past decade or so. Terms like "pre-emptive action" and a whole host of others are now in the common lexicon. They're not new, but it's a lot more common to talk in essentially military terms and not be looked at strangely. To me this is just textbook Orwell. Don't think about people, think about "Enemy Combatants" or "insurgents". Don't forget  "terrorists" are everywhere.

I have another sneaking suspicion that any governmental structure (that works) is essentially fascist, some just have better PR.

[Cain]

Hi.  Was tired and overworked yesterday, not ignoring this.  Give me 10 minutes and I'll get stuck in.

[Cain]

Fascism is a fitness obsessed country's game.

After all, you can't hunt down the untermenschen in your black uniforms if you're getting sweaty and out of breath after a couple of hundred yards.

On that basis alone, the US will never go fascist. 

OK, seriously though now, history isn't going to repeat itself exactly.  Some aspects of fascism, like of any political ideology, are going to be bound to the culture it arose in and the time.  Mass parties were a feature of the 1920s and 30s, as well as lots of marches, spiffy uniforms and extreme ideological positions.  20 years earlier, the world had slaughtered a good number of its population in the stupidest and most pointless and costly war in all of recorded history, a revolution aiming at nothing less than the transformation of the globe had taken power in Russia and the world economy had collapsed.

Things right now are nowhere near as bad, despite the parallels that could be drawn.  Mass parties are a thing of history, the political mood is more "resigned cynicism" than "radical reaction to the failure of capitalism".

Fascism also had significant input from the artistic and cultural scene...in particular the Italian futurists.  There were the crazy aristo-authoritarian cultist types, who mixed anti-Semitism with Jungian archetypes, runes, and a taste for anti-Communist violence.  There was the legacy of the 19th century too, with Napleon, the Paris Commune, the revolutions of 1848, the Socialist Republic of Bavaria and similar issues.

What I'm saying is, you have to strip away the idea that it will result in the same way as it did in 1930s Germany, with the same manifestation.

The thing is this: there is a reliable pattern in how fascism gets its foot in the door.  And this pattern is that centre-right governments invite them in, to offset left radicalism.  Governments are convinced they can put a leash on fascist parties and use them as reliable attack dogs without getting bitten themselves.  Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher were convinced they could play that game with Hitler.  The CIA thought it could play that game with Klaus Barbie.  The Italians thought they'd give it a try with Stefano Delle Chiaie.  The Turkish military did play that game successfully with the Nationalist Movement Party...but only barely.

The US is likely to go down the "man on a horse" route.  The military is the only thing that works, and that most people respect.  It already effectively runs the US intelligence community and overseas foreign policy in a way State only wishes it could.  And more than a few generals have some serious political ambitions (yes, I'm talking about Petraeus). 

Europe will try and manage the sitaution, with selected fascists being put into positions of responsibility.  In Greece, the Golden Dawn Party already have the vote of half the police in Athens.  They assault other members of Parliament and get away with it, and their street level thugs terrorize immigrants and organize attacks on those on the left.  Makis Voridis, who became a Cabinet member in November of last year, was a fascist militant in his youth, organising violent attacks, now .  When Papendreou wavered on going ahead with austerity measures, the whispers started about a coup being plotted: the last time Greece had a coup, it led to direct fascist rule, and many officers in the military are still sympathetic to that kind of thinking.  The threat was so serious that several generals were made to resign not long after the rumours.

And the German bankers imposing austerity on Greece have more than a whiff of fascism about them, too.  Thilo Sarrazin, former head of the Deutsche Bundesbank, penned a book about the "natural inferiority" of Muslims which was a big hit among the German financial jet-set.

In the UK, the BNP, the biggest and most well-organised fascist group for the last two decades, had the good grace to completely fall apart at the start of the financial crisis.  Unfortunately, since then the EDL and the British Freedom Party, an offshoot of the BNP, have stepped into the power vacuum, if not seized the same electoral support.  You may recall that Anders Behring Breivik had links to the EDL, and some of its backers, like Alan Lake, are being investigated to see precisely what role they may have had in his terrorist attack. 

Marine Le Pen was able to get just under 20% of the vote during the first round of the French Presidential election.  French fascists are currently networking with Islamic militants, which may explain why the latter have suddenly been staging attacks in Toulouse - against, of course, Jews.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I think about the saying about Mussolini, that he made the trains run on time. In the US, there's an awful lot of talk about uncertainty and doubt, insecurity regarding a lot of things from employment to gas prices. It wouldn't take much to sell fascism to America. Just dress it up with a bright smile, and do something effective and concrete to eliminate or seriously cut down on uncertainty. Give people a sense that life is, if nothing else, at least predictable and reliable. People will fight for that here, and anyone they think is going to help them sleep easier and have less to worry about is going to get large numbers of votes. In the larger picture in America, things like equality and even freedom will quickly take a back seat to security (and not just military security).