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

al-Qa'bong wrote:

Quote:

Okay Al' Q here's a few.  If you're reading conversation on a blog that's even remotely political and you come across Chewbacca references they aren't Star Wars fans.  They're referencing something to do with the Michelle Obama.  "Peace shirt wearers" can be a number of things but if the conversation is about kids they're referencing negatives that are somehow connected with Obama's kids.

 

Thanks, EQ. I didn't know about these, and I have no idea what they're referring to. How is Ms. Obama connected to a hirsute space alien chauffeur?

  It's has a racist origin.  Big monkey or gorilla got too obvious.  So I suppose they thought they were smart and moved on to 'wookie' because I guess it has more plausible deniability when called on it.  It then moved on somewhat to people that really have no clue about it's original origins but think it's funny to call her a wookie.   The same reason that talk about not liking bananas or about bananas in general is code speak for talking about POC and Obama and his policies.   I saw a reference to 'socialist bananacare' just last week which basically adds a racial component to 'Obamacare' which is favorite meme of the right wing talkers.  

I had a marxist office mate at Carleton who used to read the ROB. I admire him; I can't bring myself to do that. 

...awaiting the 4th member of the gang, and all will be here.

remind, which "gang" are you referring to? Right now your comment reads like an oblique accusation of some babblers for some vague charge. Could you clarify, please?

al-Qa'bong wrote:

remind wrote:

al-Qa'bong wrote:

remind wrote:

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.

 What sort of masochist would want to do that?

 Don't know anything about masochist, just know that I do not want to be a condescending lack wit that lives in a bubble not understanding the enemy's words.

Oh my, that was quite the zinger.

Staring at the abyss of right-wing monsters' writings appears to have rubbed off a liitle.

Really? You thought I was speaking of you, rather than myself, should I ignore the words of those on the right?

Please do not ascribe your personal failings to me.

Oh my god. Knock it off, remind and al-Q. Apparently I can't follow all the innuendo and implied personal attacks flying around here. I don't see al-Q calling you a masochist, remind, nor does it look like KenS is referring to you and Eliza when he talks about right-wing commentary. Perhaps I'm wrong. At any rate, it's clear that no one involved can respond to each other's posts without getting offended or lobbing a couched zinger of their own. So just don't read each other's posts. It's simple. Maysie and I aren't paid enough to wade into this childish foray. So just stop it. Yourselves. Like adults.

No problem catchfire.

 Woah..um...okay.  Just my few cents since I'm apparently part of something.  I don't read or better feel that I have been overtly attacked by anyone.  I actually agree somewhat with both Al Q's comments and Ken S's and also understand why Remind reads them the way that was commented on.  So for the sake of clairifying the whys and what fors....  

Though I wouldn't use the descriptor 'masochist' I at time wonder why on earth I do read and follow some of this stuff.   It's quite hard and at times, quite maddening and lately can only handle it in small doses because it can be really depressing.  I don't hold any rancor for people who chose not too if it's not their thing.  It's not easy.   And while I wouldn't label it as being entertaining (or at least in a fun entertainment sense) I do follow what's going on because it's an area that I do have an interest.  Partly because, as Remind suggested, I feel it's important to follow what's going on in opposing quarters and partly because, for whatever reasons, I have general interest in the sociological and cultural aspects, the social networking aspects (power of the internet to move information around) and a general interest in the power of propaganda and word and how it plays out in the political and social world.  

 So in a nutshell, for me, I feel that what's currently happening in right wing world and particularly the US, is not only interesting from a more academic observational viewpoint but relevant to the understanding the forces that sit in opposition to many political and social issues I hold to be important and I like to keep somewhat of a  handle on the ins and outs of  what is going on beyond what I would find in a mainstream media newscast or article.    

@ ElizaQ

I think I mentioned once already that a year or so back I rented a copy of "Hell House". with the intention of having a good laugh at the wacky christians and their foolish beliefs. .

I was a bit surprised at what I saw. As outraged and shocked as I was by almost all their views, I was surprised that the film-maker caught how seriously some of these people took morality and self-improvement. As much as I disagreed with them, many of them did not come off sounding like brainwashed idiots at all.

It's not that I wasn't aware that many of them are intelligent, and caring in their own selective way, it's just that you don't often see a balanced approach in a culture war. It' certainly  not the perspective we usually get when we limit our understanding to laughing at their beliefs about creationism, dinosaurs, and other things. 

It is absolutely true that authoritarians have many positive traits.  Successful fascism requires a failed liberal state and a bunch of people disconnected from liberal ideas (I'm using liberal in the older, more european sense, not the american sense).  

So, work at making government succeed.

Connect to authoritarians at the local level.  Altemeyer's suggestion centres around things like neighbourhood cleanup campaigns.

al-Qa'bong wrote:

Quote:

Though I wouldn't use the descriptor 'masochist' I at time wonder why on earth I do read and follow some of this stuff.   It's quite hard and at times, quite maddening and lately can only handle it in small doses because it can be really depressing.

I limit my exposure to that garbage just because I come across it only accidentally.  I used to hear the hate radio guys on AM640 because I listened to Leafs Lunch.  They'd be on right after the hockey show, so I'd hear what Mike Stafford or Charles Adler had to spew on various issues.  I could put up with their bilous offereings for only a few minutes before shutting them off. Since they cancelled the Lunch, I am no longer exposed to these clowns.  The only times I see Glenn Beck and the other Fox News yahoos are via The Daily Show.

I haven't been to Free Dominion in many years, since babblers no longer link to that place.  I used to find visiting that site a surreal experience, as if I were in some sort of alternate bizarro universe.

  I haven't been to Free Dominion for a while though usually when I do it's just a quick read over the headlines to get a glimpse of what's being talked about.   It's not that original anyways and usually just seems to be a regurgitation of talk that is found elsewhere.  Plus it seems to be mostly the same old, same old.   That's the thing I've discovered, the right wing blogosphere, especially some of the major blogs are quite tightly connected, what's on one you'll find on the other.  The meme and whatever 'outrage du jour' just gets repeated and the talking points mostly the same.  It's the way it's connected that I find interesting.  Also how much of what is contained in it bleeds into mainstream news and not just the obvious ones like Fox news corps.  They feed off each other. Sometimes things start at the Fox news level (like from Beck) and sometimes and more and more often it seems that Fox and people like Beck are feeding off what is already going on at the blogosphere level.   Folks like him, to a certain point, hold themselves accountable to that sphere and some of it's more powerful voices.   There are a lot of power politics and power struggles in this sphere between blogs that have similar interests which mostly consist of keeping each at some sort of morphing 'purity' level and as well as  between blogs that hold different viewspoints.   One of the things I've found really interesting is how much a small group of people has the ability to 'get around' so to speak and affect what happens in each particular community.   There are people who have been found out (as they post with different names) to be the same people causing the same crap all over the place.  There's a couple who are quite infamous for this.   Wouldn't surprise me in the least to find out that these more infamous net denzians have even been around here at one time or another though because of the way the Babble culture is they wouldn't make it too far. 

The lefter wing blogosphere is much more diverse which in terms of messaging can be considered a weakness but overall I think it's a strength.   

 I think I've managed to sit through one whole Beck show from start to finish, it hurt my brain and I can't really stand listening to people talk. The good thing is that there are enough sites that keep track of major things they say and transcripts are easily available.  Small dose clips are available all over You-tube as well. 

Relax!  Halloween is over, and Tuesday's 'tea' leaves have yet to be read.  Besides, 2012 portends to be the big shebang, anyway...and there's plenty of time for the GOP country clubbers (and their cronies on Wall St., and the defense establishment) to co-opt their useful idiots. 

Verily, there's much xenophopia, racism, sexism, etc. crawling under the U.S. proverbial rock, that's been exposed for all to see (and much anti-American sentiment expressed toward it).  I have more faith in our Southern neighbours (North in my case), many of whom are as disgusted as the rest of us at what they've witnessed.  It's up to them to address it, as I believe they will.

Now, it's time to put away the ghosts and goblins..and the pumpkin in with the compost-- it's already starting to rot.

KenS wrote:

Some of us are just wired to read the business pages. We'll say its because of the information and background you cannot get elsewhere. And that is very true. We the truth is we would not do it if we didnt just plain find it interesting.

Out and out reactionary blathering on the other hand....

But I'm sure some find that entertaining.

Your tepid promotion of business-page news, Ken, (it's not "out and out reactionary blathering") is a stark reminder of  the bifurcation of political analysis and economics on "the left", and leaves one wondering how the ability of a society to pay for a sharing of its welfare - its productive capacity in a now-universally competitive capitalist world - came to be reviled news. As the late Tony Judt points out in Ill Fares the Land, communist political concerns were centrally involved with economics, just as we have watched Cuba necessarily concerned with its means of paying for its systems of medicine, education, and general welfare.

Democratic socialism, born in a time of economic growth, was less concerned with how business fared after the entry of Keynesianist government stimulated growth, and simply concentrated on the goal of a more equitable distribution of wealth and life chances., leaving business economics to the managers and the then minority class of shareholders. It seems to me that "the left" is being left out of meaningful political involvement by its continuing  "social democratic disregard" for (hell, its revulsion for) things economic.  In the U.S., the conservative does not understand either the neo-con disregard for old conservative values centered on balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility, or  the liberal pre-occupation with social freedoms while it too has ignored the big public balance sheet. But, of course, it was only recently possible to make promises without thought of payment  

 Dictating the content of his last book, even as he lay dying of ALS, in February of this year, Judt said: "The more exposed the society, the weaker the state and the greater the misplaced faith in 'the market', the higher the likelihood of a political backlash... North Americans and western Europeans fondly suppose that there is a necessary relationship between democracy, rights, liberalism and economic progress. But for most people, most of the time, the legitimacy and credibility of a political system rests not on liberal practices or democratic forms but upon order and predictability. A stable authoritarian regime is a lot more desirable for most of its citizens than a failed democratic state... above all we want to be safe" , the sentiment of a majority of the seven billion people on our planet.

Far as I can make out, that  has been the sentiment that has grown until it now dominates political discussion south of the 49th.

Unfortunately, Judt is more political and social historian than economist, so that the current convulsions in the market and international trade, or even the statistics on U.S. unemployment, do not enter his work. But if one also reads Robert Reich's After-Shock, the picture emerges of a NEED to read the business pages, as well as the social critics with their cute phrases . 

But if anything does lead to that blessed fascist state, it would surely come from economic collapse, as Krugman explains:

October 31, 2010

Mugged by the Moralizers

By PAUL KRUGMAN

"How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills?" That's the question CNBC's Rick Santelli famously asked in 2009, in a rant widely credited with giving birth to the Tea Party movement.

It's a sentiment that resonates not just in America but in much of the world. The tone differs from place to place - listening to a German official denounce deficits, my wife whispered, "We'll all be handed whips as we leave, so we can flagellate ourselves." But the message is the same: debt is evil, debtors must pay for their sins, and from now on we all must live within our means.

And that kind of moralizing is the reason we're mired in a seemingly endless slump.

The years leading up to the 2008 crisis were indeed marked by unsustainable borrowing, going far beyond the subprime loans many people still believe, wrongly, were at the heart of the problem. Real estate speculation ran wild in Florida and Nevada, but also in Spain, Ireland and Latvia. And all of it was paid for with borrowed money.

This borrowing made the world as a whole neither richer nor poorer: one person's debt is another person's asset. But it made the world vulnerable. When lenders suddenly decided that they had lent too much, that debt levels were excessive, debtors were forced to slash spending. This pushed the world into the deepest recession since the 1930s. And recovery, such as it is, has been weak and uncertain - which is exactly what we should have expected, given the overhang of debt.

The key thing to bear in mind is that for the world as a whole, spending equals income. If one group of people - those with excessive debts - is forced to cut spending to pay down its debts, one of two things must happen: either someone else must spend more, or world income will fall.

Yet those parts of the private sector not burdened by high levels of debt see little reason to increase spending. Corporations are flush with cash - but why expand when so much of the capacity they already have is sitting idle? Consumers who didn't overborrow can get loans at low rates - but that incentive to spend is more than outweighed by worries about a weak job market. Nobody in the private sector is willing to fill the hole created by the debt overhang.

So what should we be doing? First, governments should be spending while the private sector won't, so that debtors can pay down their debts without perpetuating a global slump. Second, governments should be promoting widespread debt relief: reducing obligations to levels the debtors can handle is the fastest way to eliminate that debt overhang.

But the moralizers will have none of it. They denounce deficit spending, declaring that you can't solve debt problems with more debt. They denounce debt relief, calling it a reward for the undeserving.

And if you point out that their arguments don't add up, they fly into a rage. Try to explain that when debtors spend less, the economy will be depressed unless somebody else spends more, and they call you a socialist. Try to explain why mortgage relief is better for America than foreclosing on homes that must be sold at a huge loss, and they start ranting like Mr. Santelli. No question about it: the moralizers are filled with a passionate intensity.

And those who should know better lack all conviction.

I think today's outcome will depend largely on the Independents who voted for Obama, who may stay with or swing to conservative Democrats (if they turn out).  The Gubernatorial decision in Florida could again determine the Presidential outcome in 2012.  It's worth noting, whatever the midterm results, that Obama still has his veto power.

Democracy isn't the frail orchid that some would have us believe. It's more like a weed that's determined to assert itself-- despite concerted efforts, from certain quarters, to keep it down.

There is no such thing as democracy in America. There is the illusion of democracy, but there is no democracy. When big business and lobbyists can donate as much money as they like to the political process democracy is a hollow untruth.

I do not share the same optimism in American politics as some do. I see the reality. The reality is that big business and government are working hand in hand to ensure that their interests are advanced to the detriment of the people of America. This is not going to get better, this is going to get worse. The people that are elected today (a majority of them far right Rethugs and Tea Baggers) are not going to further advance this illusion of democracy, they are going to reframe democracy and freedom. The America people are the losers. Big business is the winner.

And that might be true Ken, we'll have to see. Behind each of the tea baggers there are a million screaming, angry people. Behind each of these Republicans are the exact same people.

Too dismissive. The Tea Party has the potential to be that fully formed fascist organization. Though I think it would have to be by taking over the GOP. If they fail at that, I think they will just dissipate. And then there will not be an alternative mass based fascist organization. Its not as neat and tidy as some Steering Committee waiting to plop down on the right conditions.

Maybe the Tea Party has that potential, but they're committed to those ruinous wars, just for the beginning of their troubles in power. The ranks have little or no grasp of the realities, the simple arithmetic, of what they're demanding. In short, they're not bright enough, in adition to their lack of loyalty or discipline. So far they've had their way through intimidation; their candidates have not been called upon to make a clear statement of policy.

There may be Republicans (or some mutation thereof) who can lead, perhaps even to continue leading these same people by the same noses. Quite probably, they can kill every progressive legislation still on the books.

But  - 1. that wonb't fix any of the economic or social problems. And it won't get them anywhere near the income they need to make a dent in the debt; they can't keep these people happy and raise the necessary taxes, and China won't be patient forever.

- 2 - All those African- Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern and Other- Americans, First Nations, the young, the old, the marginalized, jobless and homeless, keep having less and less to lose.

It's easy to build a single-purpose fascist movement in a country with a huge monolithic majority. In heterogeneous America, not so much. My money's on civil war, and not that far off.