fascism in America?

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Skip
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Skip »

promethean75 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:41 pm "It's a few sheets of crumbly old brown paper. How's it gonna stop thugs with guns?"

c'mon skip you're not thinkin it through. any paramilitary or militia uprising would be countered by the U.S. military. similarly if a citizen uprising happened the sitting president would command the U.S. military to handle it. but never could a fascist dictator president perform a coup, illegally oust the sitting president and immediately afterward lock everybody down just for the hell of it. the executive branch of government is still held in check by the other two branches and you can't just evoke the power of the military and declare a gestapo state for no reason.
Yeah! Never in the history of the world has such an event taken place, as long as the country had crumbly pieces of brown paper saying it shouldn't.
...oh, wait...
but really all that is neither here nor there because the real reason there would never be a coup of the sort in the U.S. is because the wealthy handlers won't allow it to happen. it disrupts economy and you can't make any money if all the workers are carrying guns instead of clip boards. so you don't wanna piss the working class off and you'd end up making more money anyway if you just let them continue doing what they're doing in an inflating economy.
So... civil war is impossible, because there isn't enough money to be made in armaments and troop provisioning, let alone the land-speculation and profiteering that follows? That's a relief!
no but think about it. who are these 'thugs with guns' you're talking about? like a jan 6 job? you're kidding, right?
The fringes of a largish disaffected, increasingly right-wing, increasing violent, [“I am armed. I am dangerous. And I know where you and your staff are.” https://rollcall.com/2022/01/20/rise-in ... h-threats/ increasingly anti-constitution https://www.businessinsider.com/constit ... urt-2022-7 right-wing Republicans, Libertarians, 'independents' and organized militant groups https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-fr ... urrection/
Two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they would like to see former President Donald Trump continue to be a major political figure for many years to come, including 44% who say they would like him to run for president in 2024, according to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted Sept. 13 to 19. [url]ttps://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/0 ... n-in-2024/[/url]
Yeah... I didn't think that through.... just kidding!
commonsense
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by commonsense »

promethean75 wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 2:41 pm no but think about it. who are these 'thugs with guns' you're talking about? like a jan 6 job? you're kidding, right?
No—exactly like a Jan 6 mob of thugs.

BTW, you should know that the u.s. military is forbidden to be employed against u.s. citizens.
Last edited by commonsense on Sun Aug 14, 2022 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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iambiguous
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by iambiguous »

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/opin ... e-fbi.html

Maureen Dowd at the NYT

'WASHINGTON — It was inevitable that the Scofflaw and the Law would clash.

Still, it is one of the most bizarre loop de loops in Donald Trump’s dark, crazy reign over Republicans that he turned a party that was pro-law and order and anti-Evil Empire into a party that trashes the F.B.I. and embraces Vladimir Putin.

It is the greatest con of the century’s greatest con man: hijacking his own party.

The Republicans are echoing “unhinged leftists from 1968,” Tom Nichols, The Atlantic writer, noted Friday on “Morning Joe.” “‘The F.B.I. is the enemy, the F.B.I. is the Gestapo, the F.B.I. is the enemy within.’”

President George H.W. Bush resigned his N.R.A. life membership when the N.R.A., just before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, sent out a fund-raising letter, calling federal agents “jack-booted thugs.”

It’s Pavlovian now. Republicans don’t even hesitate before protecting Trump, even though he’s being investigated for possibly violating the Espionage Act.

His casual attitude toward classified material is nothing new. The Times’s Mark Mazzetti wrote that “officials who gave him classified briefings occasionally withheld some sensitive details from him” because they saw him as a security risk.

The lord of Mar-a-Lago assumes that whether he’s in or out of office, all top-secret papers are his, to tweet, wave around, declassify or deploy as political weapons. He didn’t think he would appear as a traitor — the word he used to describe Edward Snowden — when he stashed classified material in his Florida Xanadu, with its approximately 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms.

As an autocrat at heart, Trump simply conflates himself with the republic. That’s why he probably never thought he was committing sedition on Jan. 6 when he egged on the mob to overthrow the government he was running. Part of that mob was Ricky Shiffer, who was killed by the police on Thursday after he attacked an Ohio F.B.I. office after Trump denounced the agency’s raid.

Trump is also an expert at projection. As Peter Baker wrote in The Times, “Throughout his four years in the White House, Mr. Trump tried to turn the nation’s law enforcement apparatus into an instrument of political power to carry out his wishes.” Now, he is accusing the F.B.I. of being a political weapon for his successor.

Trump expects that kind of obeisance. Peter Baker and Susan Glasser report in their new book, “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,” that Trump told his chief of staff John Kelly that he wished his generals were as loyal as Hitler’s were.'


Trump the autocrat. Hitler the autocrat. Trump wishing his generals were as loyal to him as Adolph's were to him. Hitler sustaining that actual loyalty.

Is that where the comparison end?

On the other hand, no one doubted that Hitler himself was a fulminating fanatic objectivist. If not a pinhead.

I [and others] suspect that with Trump, however, it's not about idealism or ideology. Or the Fatherland. It's about himself.

He is basically a narcissist who will do almost anything to be the one that everybody is talking about.

He is dangerous only to the extent that he can fool most of the people most of the time. If he gets reelected, fascism or not will still come down to him winning over the armed forces to do his bidding.

That's what has to be grappled with. What is the thinking of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding America's future.

Also, in my view, something as dramatic as a fascist America would have to revolve around a truly significant crisis. A sustained economic calamity coupled with widespread civil unrest or a truly dangerous resurgence of one or another viral pandemic.
promethean75
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by promethean75 »

this fascist stuff is all so overdone and dramatic dude. fulminating leftist journalism. if trump is reelected the only thing you'll notice is different in the four years following 2024 will be the tax cuts. foreign relations, mexican border problems, tariffs, oil prices, etc. will neither make or break anything. you'd not even know it was happening.

the results of republican/conservative policies are always the same: the rich do better, the upper middle class does alright (with good credit) and the lower middle class does bollocks.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Is this SERIOUSLY offered as a topic here? :shock:

Does anybody believe that there is a "terrible danger" from "Nazis" rising up in America, or anywhere else?

What are we to start fearing next? Napoleonic guardsmen? Roman legionnaires? An invasion by the Spartans backed by Pharaoh's hordes?

So long as we're in stark terror of historical anachronisms, why not? To worry about "Fascism" in America is just that ridiculous.

There are no political parties representing any "Fascist" concerns, no media shilling for them, no educational institutions established to advance their agenda, no place at all where any such Visigoths have any influence or control at all. You can't find a "Neo-Nazi" in America outside of a biker club or the backwoods of West Virginia. They've got zero influence on the public agenda...even if you can find one at all.

The whole idea is just too, too funny. You may as well be afraid of Casper the friendly ghost...although, he does look a bit like a Democrat klansman in a sort of hood... :lol:
Flannel Jesus
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Flannel Jesus »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 3:54 pm Is this SERIOUSLY offered as a topic here? :shock:

Does anybody believe that there is a "terrible danger" from "Nazis" rising up in America, or anywhere else?
A sitting president tried, very hard, to stop an election that replaced him from being certified, and a huge portion of the country thinks he was right to do that.

I don't know about Nazis, but I know that this is the first time in American history that a sitting president tried to overturn an election in this manner, and I do consider it a terrible danger.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 4:32 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 3:54 pm Is this SERIOUSLY offered as a topic here? :shock:

Does anybody believe that there is a "terrible danger" from "Nazis" rising up in America, or anywhere else?
A sitting president tried, very hard, to stop an election that replaced him from being certified, and a huge portion of the country thinks he was right to do that.
You mean like Hillary did?

Business as usual.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Flannel Jesus »

No, I don't think Hillary has ever been sitting president, and I don't think she went through anywhere near the lengths trump did to stop the election from being certified.

She expressed doubt in the fairness of it, which while maybe distasteful is not the same as calling governors and telling them to find votes, not the same as telling the vice President not to certify the election, it's just not on the same scale of what trump did, not even close.

She said "this election wasn't fair", but what she didn't do was tirelessly try to throw her weight around to get the results changed in the dark, behind closed doors.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 4:46 pm No, I don't think Hillary has ever been sitting president,
She wasn't. Of course.
...and I don't think she went through anywhere near the lengths trump did to stop the election from being certified.
She had considerably less credibility. Had she had the means to do so, it seems very likely she would have pushed as far as she could. She certainly whined plenty, but nobody was listening to her. There was no reason to.

There's nothing even remarkable here. And there are certainly no "Fascists," just two questionable politicians duking it out on the regular terms the debased business of American politics seems to offer these days.

No big deal.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Flannel Jesus »

You don't think a president calling in political favours to change the results of an election is a big deal?

Fucking hell, we must just have drastically different value systems.
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Harbal
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Harbal »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 3:54 pm Is this SERIOUSLY offered as a topic here? :shock:

Does anybody believe that there is a "terrible danger" from "Nazis" rising up in America, or anywhere else?

What are we to start fearing next? Napoleonic guardsmen? Roman legionnaires? An invasion by the Spartans backed by Pharaoh's hordes?

So long as we're in stark terror of historical anachronisms, why not? To worry about "Fascism" in America is just that ridiculous.
It occurs to me that the same could be said about communism. The idea of a communist America is way beyond ridiculous.

I've been a regular visitor to quite a few forums over the last few years, and one of my main complaints is how they have tended to be highjacked by politically motivated loud mouths. These loudmouths are invariably right wing conservative Americans. Things seemed to get considerably worse while that oafish moron Trump was President. Actually, it isn't just Americans, it seems that there are people from all parts of the world who take an active interest in the goings on of America. I can honestly say that I have never seen a comment on any forum advocating communism, or even extreme left wing views.

There is obviously an organised campaign coming out of the USA to completely eradicate anything that tastes of "the left", which I find very worrying. There has to be a balance. Whichever political colour is in power, there needs to be a healthy opposition in place to keep it in check. Extremism of any kind is a threat we need to guard against
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 4:51 pm You don't think a president calling in political favours to change the results of an election is a big deal?

Fucking hell, we must just have drastically different value systems.
If you saw the shit that IC is afraid of, you'd perhaps see why he isn't afraid of those things you list there. He believes that all sorts of Marxist plots are in motion all the time, with such rational objectives as to slowly make white people feel a little bad about some history. Also he thinks Marxists know how to make everyone gay.

One of the good ones is that he read a thing about some billionaires doing a "great reset" and he's been terrified ever since. They mentioned in their book that people buy stuff as services instead of as capital purchases - spotify, uber, AWS, and perhaps one day self driving cars. He completely sanely interpreted this as a cabal of "Socialist Billionaires" who will make it illegal for you to own stuff. Apparently it's not a conspiracy theory because they said in their book that they will make it impossible for you to own stuff (so CONSPIRACY FACT!!!). If you ask for the actual quote, he can't quite furnish you with that though.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Harbal wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 4:52 pm The idea of a communist America is way beyond ridiculous.
An "old school" Communist? Perhaps. Marx has long been discredited dozens of ways. Nobody with an ounce of sense, or even a rudimentary knowledge of modern history, should be parroting Marx today. So you're right that far.

Unfortunately, as many recent events have show, ranging from CRT, to political correctness and censorship, to the burning of neighbourhoods, and now to the (first) defunding of the public police and the (now) replacement of them with politically-motivated 'police' entities, the Neo-Marxists are very much alive and active.

And they've recorded their own history of the fact, so this isn't Right-wing propaganda. For example, Isaac Gottesman, and ardent Neo-Marxist 'educator-researcher' himself, by his own reckoning, has spelled it out in his introduction to "The Critical Turn in Education." You can read it there, if you doubt me. But it's been done admirably in various places by the anti-Leftists, too.

And when you see the Left and the Right agreeing on history, you can be sure there are reasons for that.
commonsense
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by commonsense »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 4:43 pm
Flannel Jesus wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 4:32 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 3:54 pm Is this SERIOUSLY offered as a topic here? :shock:

Does anybody believe that there is a "terrible danger" from "Nazis" rising up in America, or anywhere else?
A sitting president tried, very hard, to stop an election that replaced him from being certified, and a huge portion of the country thinks he was right to do that.
You mean like Hillary did?

Business as usual.
Bullshit. Hilary was never a sitting president who tried to stop an election. There’s no evidence to the contrary. Why are you propagating lies when philosophy aims to get at the truth?
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Harbal
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Harbal »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 5:27 pm

Unfortunately, as many recent events have show, ranging from CRT, to political correctness and censorship, to the burning of neighbourhoods, and now to the (first) defunding of the public police and the (now) replacement of them with politically-motivated 'police' entities, the Neo-Marxists are very much alive and active.
Yes, some people want to go too far, but if the issues they are reacting to had been addressed long ago, when they should have been, they wouldn't have nearly as much to cause trouble over, would they?
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