Woman's Head Stomped By Rand Paul Supporter -- Rise of US Fascism in General

To understand what occurred you have to watch the more complete clip of the incident. The protester started to advance toward the candidate. The supporters thought the woman was attempting to do harm to Rand Paul as she was running towards him caring something. They stopped her but one of the supporters put his foot on her and quickly realized he had gone too far and withdrew the foot. Simultaneously, the other supporters seeing the one man going too far also told the man to stop as he was withdrawing the offending foot.

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Rand Paul is accused of tying up and blindfolding a woman and making her worship the "Aqua Buddha" in college. A college prank? No, that's assault.

No, it sounds like something done at a college Halloween party. Plus, Rand paul stated the incident never occured. No one has proof that the incident occured.

To exit from apologia and back to the point.  Sara Robinson thinks fascism is close to arriving.

The US is much closer to fascism than we are.  Rob Ford is a Harris replay, not a fascist.  He is single message and it's not racism (not that he wouldn't exploit prejudice, but it's more likely to be homophobia, given the specific campaign).

The question for us is how to resist an Anschluss if the US goes fascist.

The US has to worry about having elections in 2016 and 2020.

How tro resist? I don't think we can - or anyway, not until we make some drastic changes in mass communications. The majority of Canadians seems to accept Harper's militarist, elitist direction, but we don't know whether that's a plurality, because a large segment of Canadians have no public voice.

The majority of USians also seems to have been desensitized to violence, and divided into ethnic and other factions, so that they cannot act in concert. But it's hard to tell from here, just what the plurality of Americans are thinking, because they have no public voice. 

I'm hearing rumbles of "The South Shall Rise Again" variety, with a whole lot of sequelae that are hard to contemplate. They may well be headed for another (well, really, Part II of the same) civil war, more disasterous than the first. If that happens, our glorious leaders might be sufficiently chastised to change tack.

Back to the original story (and BTW the newest contributor and apologist for the stomping of Laura Valle is echoing the exact same talking points all the tea baggers keep saying over and over again.

Tim Profit (I believe that is the goons name who stomped on her head) actually said he wanted Laura to apologize to him. "Sorry my head got in the way of your boot".

Laura was not "rushing" Rand Paul. She was stopped on the other side of the car he got out of pretty much immediately. After it was clear she wasn't doing much, three goons decided she needed to be physically stopped so they threw her to the ground while three men took turns holding her down and TP stomped on her head. TP claims he has back problems.

Laura has class, the Tea Bagging goons do not.

I don't know if anyone has seen the latest issue of MacLean's.

The cover story is 'Europe Throws A Tantrum'

A Pampered Continent Protests The Rollback Of Its Lavish Welfare State.

What a right wing snot rag.

But that is the media these days....Exclusively from the point of view of the corporate elitists...This saturation of propaganda,the unopposed liar machine that been made credible...It's unbelievable.

This Tea Party movement is the biggest joke....Example--Dick Armey's FreedomWorks (and it SHOULD be insulting to anyone's intelligence when a union busting corporate supremist organization uses the word freedom)

These people are protesting in FAVOUR of a system in which corporations CANNOT be regulated by government,where unions are commies and where a $900 billion health care project that would insure the millions who are not insured and be a CHEAPER alternative to the billion dollar private insurance SCAMS is a resurrection of Hitler but an earmark of DOUBLE for the illegal occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan is patriotic and what the American fore fathers fought for....I don't know if that's true,it sounds seriously fucked up to me. 

And somehow Canadians are shifting to this lunatic movement.

Harper was right when he said no one would recognize this country when he got through.

Well,if the Tea Party is not a 'joke',what are they?

Freedom fighters?

If Sarah Palin calls herself a 'maverick'...It's hard to keep a straight face.

"Now is the winter of our discontent": Like Richard III, Tea Partiers are steeped in the resentment of a perceived deformation of their nation's body politic.  Like Shakespeare's anti-hero, they, and their nativist, knownothing, patriotism would rather be hated than go unnoticed.  Eventually, hopefully, in the end, their reactionary movement will run its course, and they'll beseech the heavens, relinquish their vanquished ambition, and plead for a good 4X4-- with lots of horsepower. My apologies to The Bard.

The Tea Partiers are fascists.  Full stop.  

We do not have a corresponding problem in this country.

We have a different problem.  We have authoritarian governments dedicated to the status quo.  They have and will use repressive methods to maintain it.

Tea Partiers are too small. What we have in North America and Europe are fascist financial entities waging war on labour and even elected governments. In Europe they are battling to reduce living standards of the large majority of workers by a third. Fascist financial interests here in North America will be observing the outcome in Europe in order to decide how far they will go with reducing quality of life for workers here. The US Military-Industrial complex still commands the largest percentage of America's annual budget expenditures even in times of economic crises while fascist bankers are allowed to finance their own bailouts with future generations of Americans on the hook for their "mistakes." Meanwhile war reigns merrily.

I didn't say anything about Monbiot.  I have no quarrel with what he wrote.

The two takes are looking at different things.  Stargazer cited a piece that talks about the techniques of manipulation of individuals.

I cited Altemeyer who talks about the underlying social milieu. I see no contradiction between the two pieces.

I am following Sara Robinson in describing them as fascists. I am not going to object to anyone who opposes them but does not call them fascists. If they say they are not fascists (as opposed to being silent on the issue) I am going to think they are wrong, but I will not disown them.

Do you have an objection to what I wrote? If so, could you describe it more clearly?

All kidding aside the US was officially a fascist country since 1947. Canada has played follow the leader as 500_Apples mentions in post#1. Whatever the Yanks do in the way of economic and more recently military policies, our Bay St. hirelings in Ottawa are easily lead into illegal and immoral war by their puppet masters in Washington.

WWII era fascism has since morphed into neo-fascism. It's a new way since the 1970s when financial capitalism began plotting to overthrow industrial capitalism. Chicago School of Economics fascists actually updated von Hayek's road to serfdom with road to serfdom part II. "Creative destruction" as a central "free market" theme is still on. Fascist austerity comes after the period of deliberate, constrolled demolition of the productive labour economy. It's been one long psy-op against the proles. They want to extract and defeat any and all forms of socialism still present in economies since the 1930s and 40s and reversing the general trend for progressive taxation of the rich since the pre WW I era. These are the most dangerous fascists ever as they have managed to reverse an eight centuries long trend for western world governments to favour debtors interests over those of creditors. Creeping debt peonage is increasingly the way since the 1970s-80s and especially now with national debts owed to the private banking cabal soaring and joblessness skyrocketing since the meltdown began in 2008.

'Fascism' may not 'explain everything', but it's definitely appropriate here. Raging yahoos who have no idea what they're raging against, white supremacists who demand the exportation of the cheap labour groups they had formerly imported, 'democratic' leaders who vow to repeal the humane legislation, iconic emotionalism, slogans instead of issues, indoctrination and desensitization of the young, a sustained and baseless sense of grievance, growing militarism, jingoism, trampling of constitutional rights, trampling of people and burning of books. What more do you need?

Much as I dont like the free use of the label facism, and therefore inherently skeptical about arguments around it, I wwould say that the US does appear to be in a sort of pre-fascist holding pattern.

The gun has been cocked.

That said, we're not on a hair trigger, yet. Between now and 2012 will tell. And even if its still 'just' the gun cocked then, ther mere passage of time turns it to hair trigger even if the hysteria has not on the surface got worse.

Fascistic characteristics in the mob- even if it is predominately fascistic characteristics- does not make it fascism.

George, do not confuse the way Fidel uses fascism with the way I do.

See the thread "What's a Fascist?" to see my position on the overuse of the term (goes double for alan smithee).

Here is the Sara Robinson article which lays out the argument and cites the research about fascism in America (that's the first in a trilogy).

Ken, the Junkers thought the same about the Nazis (Godwin does NOT apply), what power do Rove et al have to control the Tea Party?

That's not an accurate characterization of the Tea Party.  The have a very deep desire to submit to authority (See Altemeyer's work), they just think Glenn Beck is the authority to submit to. 

You are missing the code words.  For the Tea Partiers, small government is is code for no money to blacks.  When it comes to keeping Hispanics out and enforcing abortion bans the government gets as big as is necessary.

Prophets are not the same thing as political leaders.

Perhaps I'm wrong and perhaps it IS just that simple. But I would suggest that the right-wing anti-federalist streak in  American culture is something quite different which has been ingreained since their revolution.

Even Jefferson Davis said that the biggest problem he had in fighting the union was his lack of strong federal authority because the rebels were more focused on local and  states rights than building a united cenfederacy.

jrootham wrote:

Here is the Sara Robinson article which lays out the argument and cites the research about fascism in America (that's the first in a trilogy).

Ken, the Junkers thought the same about the Nazis (Godwin does NOT apply), what power do Rove et al have to control the Tea Party?

First, I'd like to agree about Sara Robinson's article. Shes not about using the word 'fascist' as a catch all epithet- as it is used around here.

As to the Junkers [w/ Nazis], and Karl Rove an company: it goes without saying that Rove and friends sneer at the Tae Partiers and arrogantly assume they can control them. As did the Junkers smuggly think.

But that doesnt mean that Rove and friends cannot do it. That is beyond our control, and we'll see. The reason I think they are likely to succeed is because of the nature of Beltway politics. Emphasis on that word 'co-opting'. Rand Paul himself, and the guy from Florida, are for all their hysterical rhetoric primed to be coopted. Stirring the pot within the Republican Party for sure. But thats part of the cooptation and deflection. And these people for all the talk do not have an independent power base to sufficiently use or be accountable to. The degree of independent power base they have is sufficient for them to insist on a seat at the table. Etc.

The Junkers were arrogant aristocrats who did not understand democracy or how to use it.

I'm not saying that Rove and company will succeed. But they have an awful lot going for them.

We're not at the stage where these people can directly intimidate more than individual exceptions here and there. In the next couple years we'll be watching the Right sort itself out- that hase nothing to do with us. When and if the Tea Party virus begins to conquer the organism, we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there.

Meanwhile, what we can do has less to do with getting people to take the threat seriously, and more to do with achieving some tangible success around what we want to do anyway, and would do even if the Tea Party types did not exist.

In the US, as little as Obama did, for the next two years there will be nothing at all except Obama and the Democrats surviving the onslaught. Though I would not discout that in the course of that Obama, Democrats in general, and progressives outside the party, can get some traction with desire for an alternative vision. [And remember Babblers, we're not talking vision that would motivate you, were talking competition to the Republicans and Tea Parties playing on the legitimate anger and sense of betrayal that is entwined with the racism and jingoistic and delusional romanticism.]

I dont know if you are serious. Assuming you are...

What a code word is depends on the context. So calling of code words is something that should remain embedded in the discussion of the topic. Trying to come up with a stand alone list would just lead to rhetorical excess and can degenerate even further into a sort of 'counter newspeak'.

If you follow right wing forums, or listen to right wing talk show and religious blatherings, you can identify what the code words are very easily.

a long time ago, while reagan ruled, i read 'Babbitt' and was amazed at the prescience of the Afterword. After 911, reagan seemed benign compared to bush inc....I located a Penguin 1961 copy of Babbitt and the effect was even more so!

 'The drift of our commercial culture in the forty years since 'Babbitt' appeared suggests that Sinclair Lewis did little to alter it, perhaps, but he was the first novelist to tell us explicitly into what stupid, and finally devastating social damnation we were drifting... Have we landed?'
Mark Schorer, University of California 1961 afterword to 'Babbitt' "

George Victor wrote:

The use of the label "fascism" to explain everything just reduces to this meaningless cant.

Well we've had babblers suggest that what we mistakenly refer to as fascism is really just imperialism that's been kicking around since Roman times or even emperor Chin. But as I pointed out in another thread on that topic of discussion, there are a number of things wrong with just labellng everything the EU-American fascist clique does wrong as simply being down to good old fashioned friendly imperialism. They are ignoring a number of basic tenets of fascism when they try to divert our attention like this.

The tea partiers have given up on government and want to shrink it, and it's because they see government as having been taken over by a financial oligarchy. Tea partiers just want lower taxes and to spend the rest of their lives in gated community bliss.

Meanwhile, big government is not going away. Republican conservatives and Liberal Democrats all love big government and work in unison to increase its size all of the time everywhere possible. They especially love homeland security bureaucracy to surveil the lives of Americans. Some group of highly influential people will be wanting to control government as usual, however And so what do we call those people in the highly influential sub-set of the larger number of total people in general? Imperialists?

The Teapartyers who were interviewed by Michael Enright in Florida this morning (for 3 hours) FIRST wanted to bring about fiscal responsibility because they are all looking at multi-trillion dollar deficits building and they are afraid for the future (and while most of the Tea people see themselves as a "movement" in support of the GOP, there is a faction developing a "third party"... and the "movement" people see this as a Democratic plot to split the conservative vote.

...even though they have no explanation for how America arrived in that condition, they sure as shucks weren't about to admit to a conservative failure to see this developing in the Bush years....a point Enright returned to more than once. So there is a great deal of hidhonesty, and out and out ignorance, at work.

The people organizing the little local chapters of the movement interviewed by Enreight were not hate-filled folks in jackboots, but simply people who've given up on the mainstream parties for answers to growing social question...and desperately seeking resolutions in the blessed constitution, as though returning the existential questions that so threaten  to simpler questions of governance will somehow "straighten it all out."

People who feel the need to be involved are like activists I've known in the past - but my involvement has only been with people who saw the STATE as the answer, providing the social safety net.

To these folks in Florida talking to Enright, today, the STATE is the central problem.  And they are afraid that there is only going to be CHAOS as it all breaks down and the economic system as we know it collapses.

To talk about these folks as being knowingly a part of some sort of fascist conspiracy, is only to admit to failure of analytical capability, it's all too complex a mix of ideals. Those with the goal of bringing about the failure of the state and its replacment with private enterprise are the plottersa, and we have talked about these people before, the LIbertarians...but even they are not committed to a parallel goal of a failure of democratic freedoms, which would be necessary in a description of fascism.

Liberal voices have to become honest and upfront  with the average masses again, on fiscal questions. But of course, with capitalist financial structures collapsing all around us, and only the developing nations experiencing the growth that would maintain the mature welfare state of the developed world, it's going to be nip and tuck as to whether conditions supporting a full-blown fascist response to societal breakdown, materialize.

How has half of America been brought to believe that Obama was not born in America...and is one of them there Muslims?