The risk of fascism in America

[B_VinylBoy]

All that being said and how Obama is for the average and poor I find it telling about him that even a progressive like Chomsky admits the rich supported Obama. Then again - Obama and his wife made 5.5 million last year so you could say - birds of a feather stick together.

McCain thought people who made $5 Million Dollars or more were "middle class" during the 2008 election. If that's the case, then Obama should still be collecting welfare checks. But I digress, of course...

 

[slurper_la]

more reading on fascism:

http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=11167

Projection much? Glenn Beck warns: 'Fascism is on the rise' | Crooks and Liars

 

[Nrets]

The risk is that if we do nothing about it we will continue down the path we are on.
Not to besmirch the Obama lovers. I like the guy and feel he is the most progressive and honest president in decades or ever. But that shouldn't be a green light to ignore the loss of privacy, freedom of speech, and the general reality that you are only free as long as you walk a very specific line of either working hard and paying taxes, being a fundamentalist of any religion, OR drowning oneself with consumer goods.

 

[THEDUDEofDestiny]

Fascism, totalitarianism and authoritarianism all seem to me to be different terms for more or less the same thing.

That's only because people throw around these terms when they don't understand them.

 

[EvanLesnick]

SGT Torpedo,

The bankers and businesmen who facilitated and bank rolled European fascists were never prosecuted after the end of WWII (remember Franco was a success) and indeed were the founders of the European Union.

People never seem to realize this

Capitalism has actually collapsed, what has replaced it is tantalizingling unsure - you take a risk, make an investment and reap the rewards of profit or failure. The new model is: the ruling elite make an investment, if it fails they are compensated and rescued by the tax paying low and middle income communities.

I believe the term you are looking for is oligarchy

 

[B_talltpaguy]

^Plutarchy is actually the correct term... Oligrachy connotes control by the few, but not necessarily the wealthy.

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

Chomsky is and always has been a provocateur. You have to give him credit for making bold predictions over his lifetime. But tally up all the things he said would happen that haven't, and it's hard for me to consider him an intellectual.

 

[D_Andreas Sukov]

If you look at the tea party, there is a seroius threat of fascism in America.

They are most likely not fascist right now, but if you look at them, They take part in Elections, they are on the street, they are angry at the state, and have serious issues with Race, Sexuality etc, and all it takes in one Charasmatic person to lead them to a serious threat/ Sarah Palin? Maybe, maybe not

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

If you look at the tea party, there is a seroius threat of fascism in America.

They are most likely not fascist right now, but if you look at them, They take part in Elections, they are on the street, they are angry at the state, and have serious issues with Race, Sexuality etc, and all it takes in one Charasmatic person to lead them to a serious threat/ Sarah Palin? Maybe, maybe not

I suppose they might be a serious threat someday, but not today. So far they've failed to oust most of the incumbents in this year's primary elections. That's not exactly a sign that they're taking over.

 

[B_talltpaguy]

^Especially since the handful of candidates they have actually helped get on ballots haven't exactly fared all that well (nor are projected to).

The teabaggers are a media phenomenon played up to drive ratings, much more than they are an actual political movement with electable ideas.

 

[sbat]

Chomsky is and always has been a provocateur. You have to give him credit for making bold predictions over his lifetime. But tally up all the things he said would happen that haven't, and it's hard for me to consider him an intellectual.

Chomsky was a brilliant linguist in the 60's and 70's, who did some groundbreaking research on human language. As the Dude of Destiny said, his political writings have been full on paranoia to the same tune of Zeitgeist and other corporatocracy conspiracy theories. I remember getting disgusted while watching Manufacturing Consent due to the lack of actual evidence provided to support his arguments, which are largely logical leaps based on small bits of circumstantial incidences.

On the other hand, popular media exposure is the primary means of a minority or fringe group of co-opting the national agenda. The ratings driven exposure of divisive fringe groups, given enough time, will completely erode the power of centrist thinking that probably jives best with the majority, and actually lend credence (by way of continued exposure) to political ideas that are completely fringe. Making them seem like they are more widespread than they actually are. If you turn on the telly and 90% of the stations are giving coverage to Teabaggers, and this is true for a year, and then another year, those who take their political opinions from what they hear on the telly (or get their idea of American politics from the telly, as a foreign based person reasonably would) will begin to think that the Teabaggers are very powerful

This is straight from Mein Kampf - this was the strategy Hitler used to expand the influence of the NDAP. Control the mass media, and you control the public agenda. Control the talking points and you control the political outcomes.

 

[EvanLesnick]

talltpaguy,

^Plutarchy is actually the correct term... Oligrachy connotes control by the few, but not necessarily the wealthy.

Actually, you're correct.

 

[Bbucko]

talltpaguy,



Actually, you're correct.

More often than not, TPaG is; that's why I appreciate his posts here so much.

 

[TheRenn]

If you look at the tea party, there is a seroius threat of fascism in America.

They are most likely not fascist right now, but if you look at them, They take part in Elections, they are on the street, they are angry at the state, and have serious issues with Race, Sexuality etc, and all it takes in one Charasmatic person to lead them to a serious threat/ Sarah Palin? Maybe, maybe not

Are you kidding me? The Tea Party are the good guys!

Fascism is what our government is guilty of, basically being in bed with big business. Granted, this has been going on for a long time (since the inception of the Federal Reserve and sooner) but the difference now is people are waking up to it because of the Internet and social networks.

I don't know why we're discussing Noam Chomsky. He's an idiot. If you really want to learn something about what happens when governments centralize power in the executive, read The Road to Serfdom by Hayek.

Anyone who argues in favor of socialist policies ignores the failures of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and any other nation that's tried them. Governments are not responsible for providing every kind of service to you as a citizen and in all reality, can't be asked to do so since it's impossible. The founders realized that our rights are God-given and that we should not be slaves to our elected leaders and be allowed the opportunity to work, save and invest on our own terms with the most amount of freedom possible to pursue our own ends. Governments should not be in the business of 'protecting people from themselves.' Traditionally, that should be the work of friends, family, neighborhoods, communities, charities and churches. There's a reason the US is the most charitable nation on earth.

It disgusts me how many people in this country take America for granted and spit on our constitution. We have our public education system to blame, no doubt, but anyone who knowingly denigrates this country and what it stands for don't deserve to live here and should move to some socialist country where there's little to no opportunity to advance yourself because that's where you belong.

 

[Bbucko]

The National Socialists were no more socialist than the German Democratic Republic was either democratic or a republic. You really need to put down the Jonah Goldberg, he's feeding his readers nothing but polemical disinformation (otherwise known as propaganda). In that respect he shares much in common with Ann Coulter, though, frankly, she's much more clever.

 

[justasimpleguy]

Did someone just put Ann Coulter and clever in the same sentence?

 

[B_talltpaguy]

Are you kidding me? The Tea Party are the good guys!

Bwhahahahaha!!!!

You mean, the 'tea party' started by a bunch of wealthy fat cat Republicans, looking for a new way to pull the wool over the eyes of disaffected Republican voters, and get them in the voting booth in November, without them knowing they were being snookered by the same party who all but destroyed this country in the recent past?

If the teabaggers are so 'good' for the country, then why is time proving them to be nothing more than a radical, far right subset of the Republican Party?

Anyone who argues in favor of socialist policies ignores the failures of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and any other nation that's tried them. Governments are not responsible for providing every kind of service to you as a citizen and in all reality, can't be asked to do so since it's impossible. The founders realized that our rights are God-given and that we should not be slaves to our elected leaders and be allowed the opportunity to work, save and invest on our own terms with the most amount of freedom possible to pursue our own ends. Governments should not be in the business of 'protecting people from themselves.' Traditionally, that should be the work of friends, family, neighborhoods, communities, charities and churches. There's a reason the US is the most charitable nation on earth.

It disgusts me how many people in this country take America for granted and spit on our constitution. We have our public education system to blame, no doubt, but anyone who knowingly denigrates this country and what it stands for don't deserve to live here and should move to some socialist country where there's little to no opportunity to advance yourself because that's where you belong.

Someone wake me up when the teabaggers have something to offer our nation's political discourse besides this mindless, ideology driven froth devoid of actual solutions.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Don't get too worked up on this one, talltpaguy. Me thinks we've seen TheRenn before if under a different guise.

 

[Bbucko]

Did someone just put Ann Coulter and clever in the same sentence?

Read the entire quote. Compared to Jonah Goldberg, Ms Coulter is a Rhodes Scholar.

Gotta agree w/VB; this account reeks of sockpuppetry.

 

[TheRenn]

You're all missing the point. Both parties are put in place to divide the people. We need to be uniting under the constitution.

George Bush was not a real conservative. He was in fact very liberal. Military expansionist policies are in fact liberal and so is No Child Left Behind and Medicare and Medicaid. They're all spending of some sort that is a redistribution of wealth.

Now we have Obama who got elected as a liberal, enacting the same policies Bush did and he is in fact going even further. Where is your criticism of him?

If you can't bring yourself to criticize the current administration, I have no respect for you.