fascism in America?

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henry quirk
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by henry quirk »

I agree "we're all in the world".
I think, mebbe, we mean different things.
Belinda
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Belinda »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:35 am
The problem which now confronts both you and Descartes is "How are they welded together if they are two radically different things?"
Yeah, you materialists and determinists, there's a whole whack of stuff you guys can't explain (and you don't even try*) but I'm supposed to have all the answers.

Another strategy.

Anyway: hell if I know.





*promissory materialism
Spinoza did actually confront Descartes' error , turn Descartes' error inside out, and made sense out of it.
Spinoza reckoned that the body (" meat machine "if you like) and the mind are two different ways to think of the same thing. By the same thing I refer to the whole individual or even the world itself.
Belinda
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Belinda »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:47 am
I agree "we're all in the world".
I think, mebbe, we mean different things.
It's a simple thing. We are all subject to the human condition which is like the condition of all life only worse, or better , depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. What is certain we're all in the word means we all die .
Belinda
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Belinda »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:46 am
I wonder if you really understand it follows from deism that this is a Godless and rather mechanical world.
Some deists agree: some don't. There is no Big Book of Definitive Deist Answers. And -- forgive me, B -- you ain't the authority on the subject.
You and me both.

You are obviously better informed about deism which has never interested me much and I regard deism as a way scientists got the religionists off their backs.
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henry quirk
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by henry quirk »

Spinoza did actually confront Descartes' error , turn Descartes' error inside out, and made sense out of it.
Spinoza reckoned that the body (" meat machine "if you like) and the mind are two different ways to think of the same thing.
Okay. That's, I guess, property dualism. Me: I'm a substance dualist. I say mind and brain are not the same.
By the same thing I refer to the whole individual or even the world itself.
❓
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henry quirk
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by henry quirk »

Belinda wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:54 am
henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:47 am
I agree "we're all in the world".
I think, mebbe, we mean different things.
It's a simple thing. We are all subject to the human condition which is like the condition of all life only worse, or better , depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. What is certain we're all in the word means we all die .
Sure. We are part meat after all.
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henry quirk
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by henry quirk »

I regard deism as a way scientists got the religionists off their backs.
🤣

As you like.
Belinda
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Belinda »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:58 am
Spinoza did actually confront Descartes' error , turn Descartes' error inside out, and made sense out of it.
Spinoza reckoned that the body (" meat machine "if you like) and the mind are two different ways to think of the same thing.
Okay. That's, I guess, property dualism. Me: I'm a substance dualist. I say mind and brain are not the same.
By the same thing I refer to the whole individual or even the world itself.
❓
Okay , now we part our ways.

I leave you with the thought that morally and practically substance dualism causes suffering and heartbreak.

Moreover, modern scientists from psychologists through neurologists to physicists, are happy with Spinozan dual aspect of mind and body.
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henry quirk
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Re: fascism in America?

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morally and practically substance dualism causes suffering and heartbreak.
Don't suppose you want to, or can, back that assertion.
Belinda
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Belinda »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:07 pm
morally and practically substance dualism causes suffering and heartbreak.
Don't suppose you want to, or can, back that assertion.
If you dare to ruin a night's sleep, look no further than Descartes experimenting on dogs.
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henry quirk
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by henry quirk »

Belinda wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:12 pm
henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:07 pm
morally and practically substance dualism causes suffering and heartbreak.
Don't suppose you want to, or can, back that assertion.
If you dare to ruin a night's sleep, look no further than Descartes experimenting on dogs.
🤣

Yeah, he was a real Mengle, an absolute Fauci.

You get my meaning, yeah?
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

iambiguous wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:45 am How seriously is this to be taken? Is there anything in America "here and now" that is the equivalent of Hitler's Brown Shirts, the Sturmabteilung/Storm Troopers.

Recall that just after the January 6th assault at the Capitol, there was a barrage of media predictions that there would be an explosion of violence to follow. Never happened.

How big a threat is this?
For quite a number of years now I have been reading a great deal of the American and European Right's material. There is no other place to start if you were determined to understand the so-called Dissident Right. You have to read their material directly, not material written about them (though there are a few sources that are decent).

I would say that there is no doubt at all that many of the most influential exponents of Dissident Right ideas are not closed to reading and considering ideas (about society) that have links to fascist and ultra-right political views. But Fascism and Social Traditionalism began as reactive movements against Marxist-based radicalism (speaking of Europe). The pressure of the latter tended to drive the former to different extremist postures.

There are two primary websites I would recommend: Counter-Currents (begun and run by Greg Johnson) and The Occidental Observer (begun and run by Kevin MacDonald).

When both Greg Johnson and Kevin MacDonald's positions are examined you will find that their ideas are in many ways restatements of ideas and views that were far more common at earlier points in American history. And those ideas have, of course, been attacked and critiqued to a point where they are described generally as 'fascistic' -- a catch-word for ideas and attitudes that have been vilified and rendered *unthinkable thought*.

So what they do is to revisit the writing of certain figures like Francis Parker Yockey, Madison Grant and Lothrop Stoddard (there is a sizable list) and reconsider their ideas from the perspective of the present. And they are not at all in agreement with the general trends of the present.

These are titles that examine Dissident Right positions written by political centrists:

Roger Eatwell's National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy
Contemporary Political Ideologies (edited by Eatwell and Anthony Wright)
A Fair Hearing: The Alt-Right in the Words of Its Members and Leaders (edited by George T Shaw)

As for video-oriented websites there is, of course Red Ice started by Henrik Palmgren (Swedish-American) and Lana Lokteff. They had considerable presence on YouTube until the general banning which eliminated hundreds of channels considered Dissident and Extreme Right.

To understand all of these dissident positions the key is to see them as 'reactive' and 'reactionary'. They are opposed to Hyper-Liberalism and often see our present liberal society and situation as a result of 'liberal rot'. They seek out curatives or antidotes in traditional ideas and also Traditionalism (metaphysical and religious, both Christian and pagan). They take issues with certain aspects of feminism. They are traditionalist in respect to racial categories and demographics and see the demographic transformation of Occidental societies as a serious danger.

If you want to get a glimpse of European-based reaction I suggest understanding the position of Renaud Camus who coined the phrase The Great Replacement. This video has him reading his own quite poetic essay on the theme.

Generally speaking they (the Dissident Right generally with some exceptions) would be described as anti-Semitic. But that is a blanket term that is applied to them. Counter-Jewish or Jewish critical might be their own terms. But taken on the whole they tend to see Jewish interests and Jewish activism as dovetailing into anti-White ideology and a range of machinations which they identify as destructive. Kevin MacDonald wrote a series of books (he is a sociologist) on the theme of Jewish 'evolutionary strategy'. The Culture of Critique series. The Wiki page is, of course, quite slanted against his work (obviously). But his work is read widely in Dissident Right circles.

It is important to understand that these websites and these authors have a far greater reach than you'd imagine. Counter-Currents is read all over the world and its articles are translated in 4-5 languages.

If one seeks understanding of *what is going on in our present* it is also a wise idea to examine the Christian and Catholic 'traditionalist' movements which take stances as well against the hyper-liberalization of the Christian and Catholic denominations.

So for one example there is the book The Sword of Christ by Giles Corey which has a preface by Kevin MacDonald (who is Catholic and Traditionalist to some degree or other).

There are similar titles by Protestants who reject mainstream Protestantism and hyper-liberal Christianity and attempt to define both White Nationalist positions, or at least Pro-White and anti-anti-White positions, as well as trying to relink Christian philosophy with far more reactive political postures.

Though I regularly read the New York Times (though not the Washington Post) it is not hard to recognize the NYT's shift toward being -- and I say this seriously -- rather Maoist in orientation. I only mean that nearly all articles, all opinion pieces, are essentially informed by critical perspectives, and by that I definitely refer to activist Critical Theory. Many of the opinion pieces resemble Maoist 'struggle sessions'.

For a reasoned examination of Critical Theory I recommend James Lindsay. He is a political centrist and a Liberal (by his own definition). Though the Left and Progressives see him as 'radical'.

And in general the Times, aware of its audience, has taken the role of being an ideological journal of social transformation. Even today (for example) they began a series of articles (opinion pieces/articles) on the issue of mental health and, read carefully, each article is discusses mental health in Critical Theory/political terms.

So far at least I have not yet noticed that the NYTs food and recipe section has yet become Maoist . . . but that could come next. 😂

Something has to be said about the QAnon Movement (to use a general term) and the semi-religious, semi-reactionary populist movements and those who are Trump followers. It is not an easy topic and they are not at all easy to categorize or to understand. These are people who could be described a generally irrational and whose ideas about the world is murky and tending to quite extreme forms of conspiratorial thinking.

These people, and these movements, are not informed by an ordered ideological framework. They have a hodge-podge perspective that draws from varied sources and cobbles them together in strange ways.

Finally, there is of course a range of Left-leaning radical sites (Antifa-like) and another side of extremism I suggest examining Its Going Down for a taste of that.
Last edited by Alexis Jacobi on Tue Sep 20, 2022 7:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Iwannaplato
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by Iwannaplato »

Belinda wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:12 pm
henry quirk wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:07 pm
morally and practically substance dualism causes suffering and heartbreak.
Don't suppose you want to, or can, back that assertion.
If you dare to ruin a night's sleep, look no further than Descartes experimenting on dogs.
But it wasn't Descartes dualism that led him to experiment on dogs, it was his assumption that dogs were only automatons. He could easily have been dualist about animals as well. I don't think this even works as anecdotal evidence. Yes, Descartes was a dualist. I think the Soviet and Chinese materialist monists managed to hurt a few mammals in the 20th century....along with some humans too.

And I doubt most scientists who experiment on mammals, even apes, are dualists, though I suppose some factory farmers are dualists.
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iambiguous
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by iambiguous »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 2:43 pm
iambiguous wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:45 am How seriously is this to be taken? Is there anything in America "here and now" that is the equivalent of Hitler's Brown Shirts, the Sturmabteilung/Storm Troopers.

Recall that just after the January 6th assault at the Capitol, there was a barrage of media predictions that there would be an explosion of violence to follow. Never happened.

How big a threat is this?
For quite a number of years now I have been reading a great deal of the American and European Right's material. There is no other place to start if you were determined to understand the so-called Dissident Right. You have to read their material directly, not material written about them (though there are a few sources that are decent).

I would say that there is no doubt at all that many of the most influential exponents of Dissident Right ideas are not closed to reading and considering ideas (about society) that have links to fascist and ultra-right political views. But Fascism and Social Traditionalism began as reactive movements against Marxist-based radicalism (speaking of Europe). The pressure of the latter tended to drive the former to different extremist postures.

There are two primary websites I would recommend: Counter-Currents (begun and run by Greg Johnson) and The Occidental Observer (begun and run by Kevin MacDonald).

When both Greg Johnson and Kevin MacDonald's positions are examined you will find that their ideas are in many ways restatements of ideas and views that were far more common at earlier points in American history. And those ideas have, of course, been attacked and critiqued to a point where they are described generally as 'fascistic' -- a catch-word for ideas and attitudes that have been vilified and rendered *unthinkable thought*.

So what they do is to revisit the writing of certain figures like Francis Parker Yockey, Madison Grant and Lothrop Stoddard (there is a sizable list) and reconsider their ideas from the perspective of the present. And they are not at all in agreement with the general trends of the present.

These are titles that examine Dissident Right positions written by political centrists:

Roger Eatwell's National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy
Contemporary Political Ideologies (edited by Eatwell and Anthony Wright)
A Fair Hearing: The Alt-Right in the Words of Its Members and Leaders (edited by George T Shaw)

As for video-oriented websites there is, of course Red Ice started by Henrik Palmgren (Swedish-American) and Lana Lokteff. They had considerable presence on YouTube until the general banning which eliminated hundreds of channels considered Dissident and Extreme Right.

To understand all of these dissident positions the key is to see them as 'reactive' and 'reactionary'. They are opposed to Hyper-Liberalism and often see our present liberal society and situation as a result of 'liberal rot'. They seek out curatives or antidotes in traditional ideas and also Traditionalism (metaphysical and religious, both Christian and pagan). They take issues with certain aspects of feminism. They are traditionalist in respect to racial categories and demographics and see the demographic transformation of Occidental societies as a serious danger.

If you want to get a glimpse of European-based reaction I suggest understanding the position of Renaud Camus who coined the phrase The Great Replacement. This video has him reading his own quite poetic essay on the theme.

Generally speaking they (the Dissident Right generally with some exceptions) would be described as anti-Semitic. But that is a blanket term that is applied to them. Counter-Jewish or Jewish critical might be their own terms. But taken on the whole they tend to see Jewish interests and Jewish activism as dovetailing into anti-White ideology and a range of machinations which they identify as destructive. Kevin MacDonald wrote a series of books (he is a sociologist) on the theme of Jewish 'evolutionary strategy'. The Culture of Critique series. The Wiki page is, of course, quite slanted against his work (obviously). But his work is read widely in Dissident Right circles.

It is important to understand that these websites and these authors have a far greater reach than you'd imagine. Counter-Currents is read all over the world and its articles are translated in 4-5 languages.

If one seeks understanding of *what is going on in our present* it is also a wise idea to examine the Christian and Catholic 'traditionalist' movements which take stances as well against the hyper-liberalization of the Christian and Catholic denominations.

So for one example there is the book The Sword of Christ by Giles Corey which has a preface by Kevin MacDonald (who is Catholic and Traditionalist to some degree or other).

There are similar titles by Protestants who reject mainstream Protestantism and hyper-liberal Christianity and attempt to define both White Nationalist positions, or at least Pro-White and anti-anti-White positions, as well as trying to relink Christian philosophy with far more reactive political postures.

Though I regularly read the New York Times (though not the Washington Post) it is not hard to recognize the NYT's shift toward being -- and I say this seriously -- rather Maoist in orientation. I only mean that nearly all articles, all opinion pieces, are essentially informed by critical perspectives, and by that I definitely refer to activist Critical Theory. Many of the opinion pieces resemble Maoist 'struggle sessions'.

For a reasoned examination of Critical Theory I recommend James Lindsay. He is a political centrist and a Liberal (by his own definition). Though the Left and Progressives see him as 'radical'.

And in general the Times, aware of its audience, has taken the role of being an ideological journal of social transformation. Even today (for example) they began a series of articles (opinion pieces/articles) on the issue of mental health and, read carefully, each article is discusses mental health in Critical Theory/political terms.

So far at least I have not yet noticed that the NYTs food and recipe section has yet become Maoist . . . but that could come next. 😂

Something has to be said about the QAnon Movement (to use a general term) and the semi-religious, semi-reactionary populist movements and those who are Trump followers. It is not an easy topic and they are not at all easy to categorize or to understand. These are people who could be described a generally irrational and whose ideas about the world is murky and tending to quite extreme forms of conspiratorial thinking.

These people, and these movements, are not informed by an ordered ideological framework. They have a hodge-podge perspective that draws from varied sources and cobbles them together in strange ways.

Finally, there is of course a range of Left-leaning radical sites (Antifa-like) and another side of extremism I suggest examining Its Going Down for a taste of that.
However this all plays out theoretically, intellectually, ideologically etc., the two most important factors revolve around Wall Street and the armed forces. Without the consent and cooperation of rich and powerful in both the military industrial complex and banking industry along with the support of the military, paramilitary and police forces, how far are these on the Dissident Right and those among the populist/QAnon whackos really going to get?

Who is going to lead them all, Jake Angeli?

Nope, what will have to occur is not something along the lines of Trump getting indicted, but a major economic calamity along with an explosion of "social unrest" or something along the lines of the covid pandemic on steroids.

Unless of course I'm wrong.
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iambiguous
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Re: fascism in America?

Post by iambiguous »

A particularly Insightful opinion piece today from Carlos Lozada at the NYT.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/opin ... -joke.html

'The Inside Joke That Became Trump’s Big Lie

'When politicians publicly defend positions they privately reject, they are telling the joke. When they give up on the challenge of governing the country for the rush of triggering the enemy, they are telling the joke. When they intone that they must address the very fears they have encouraged or manufactured among their constituents, they are telling the joke. When their off-the-record smirks signal that they don’t really mean what they just said or did, they are telling the joke. As the big lie spirals ever deeper into unreality, with the former president mixing election falsehoods with call-outs to violent, conspiratorial fantasies, the big joke has much to answer for.'


The Big Joke and the Big Lie basically revolving around the assumption that many Republican politicians know that Trump's narrative is basically just bullshit; but they sustain it themselves because they recognize in turn that millions of Trump fanatics among the white working class "masses" and the evangelicals [all voters] really are dumb or ignorant enough not to get the joke themselves. So, in order to win elections themselves, they have to go along with it.

Hitler and most of his fascist crew really did believe that Mien Kampf was the Bible. But if "semi-fascism" does prevail here in America it may well all revolve around "the joke".

Personally, I don't believe that Trump himself doesn't get the joke. It's all about sustaining his own narcissistic personality. Whatever it takes to keep it all about him.
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