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A specter is haunting Political Jack

EatTheRich

President
The specter of fascism! What day goes by without a conservative calling a liberal and a liberal calling a conservative a fascist?

Is it because fascism is on the march? Not really. The right wing has a momentum, but fascists in the U.S. are more insulated from the mainstream right than when Democratic Senator Theodore Bilbo openly backed Mussolini and Hitler, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson openly praised the semi-fascist Ku Klux Klan, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy openly backed Franco and condemned “premature anti-fascism” during WWII, or Republican leader George W. Bush was introduced by fascist leader Patrick Buchanan at his party’s convention.

While President Trump, as he bumbles, from one self-imposed political crisis that is symptomatic of the general crisis of capitalism to the next, has made a few overtures to the rightists (including fascists) on the fringe of his party (as there are fascists like LaRouche on the fringes of the Democratic Party), he has always quickly backed off and distanced himself from fascism. Bannon (a rightist and not a fascist) is marginalized, Miller (Jewish and therefore likely excluded from being part of any successful proto-fascist movement, and is a rightist but not a fascist), and Gorka (a fascist sympathizer), the rightmost of Trump’s leading advisors, have been largely marginalized and excluded from making policy, except with regard to immigration where rightists had been in charge of policy since long before Trump took power. Helmut Kohl had a much cozier relationship with fascist violence than Trump (or Merkel) has ever had, but fascists are not about to bid for power in Germany.

Nor is fascism on the rise worldwide. Gone are the days of ultrarightists like Jorg Haider, rightists like Winston Peters, and centrists like Silvio Berlusconi entering power-sharing agreements for coalition cabinets with fascist parties or parties with fascist pedigrees in imperialist countries. Hungary’s ultraright-fascist-center coalition government is dominated by the conservative element while semi-fascist elements in the ruling parties of Croatia and Serbia in the early 1990s were much more independent. The centrist Putin’s semi-fascist allies are dangerous but appear to be on the defensive and elements pushing them in a fascist direction have not won out. Croatia’s government today is ultrarightist but shows no sign of collaborating with fascism. Many parties that had flirted with fascism, from France’s National Front to Egypt (also elsewhere’s) Muslim Brotherhood to India’s People’s Party to Afghanistan’s Students (Taliban) movement, have been taken over by a more mainstream conservative element. The rightist element has increasingly been excluded from government in Israel as well. Saudi Arabia, where conservative elites are too entrenched to permit much of a fascist element to flourish, is rapidly liberalizing. Central and South America, riddled with fascist collaborators and fascist sympathizers in power for decades, is now moving rapidly to the left and jettisoning this trash. Fascist-sympathizing elements in Ukraine are sympathetic for historical reasons, not because they are fascist-minded today, and they have been soundly defeated on the picket lines, in ground fighting, and at the ballot box. China’s ultraright Falun Gong appears to be on the defensive and moving in a direction away from fascism and ultraright radicalism. The right wing element within the Chinese Communist Party is also on the defensive.

More generally, support for democratic rights is getting broader. Support for rights for oppressed races and women is getting stronger. 50 years ago, Spain and Portugal, major powers, were ruled by fascist dictators.

If fascism were asked to make the case for its vigor, it could point only to ISIS ... ultrarightist but lacking the popular base to even evolve toward fascism, and on the run due to the fight led by the Kurdish-majority People’s Protection Units, Women’s Protection Units, and state (of Iraqi Kurdistan)-sponsored peshmerga; Hungary, discussed above; Syria, where the centrist Assad has deigned to let fascists fight in his ranks, but has not built them up to the point that they could succeed without the regime’s protection; and Iran, where the centrist-clerical state has undoubtedly sponsored countless fascist elements (spilling over to Iraq, Syria, and perhaps Yemen) which could in some reasonably foreseeable future fight for power (as is conceivable in Hungary). But Iran’s ruling class’s desire for an alliance with the U.S. likely precludes a fascist transformation of Iran for the time being, and in the meantime Iran has an excellent potential for a socialist revolution that would arrest the cause of fascism.
 
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EatTheRich

President
But if fascism is not a present threat, why the hysterical accusations of it?

In part, because “fascist” is not used in the technical sense but as a generic insult. This is by design, since it was demanded that of opportunist betrayers of the working class across the political spectrum from Stalinists to liberals that they avoid exposing fascism’s capitalist roots (except perhaps in hypocritical lip-service) but they also often had to use “fighting fascism” to justify their betrayals.

But that is not all. The fear of fascism is out of proportion to the present danger. But it has real meaning. Many of the things we hate about fascism are much more present dangers. Jew-hatred is on the rise, not due to fascism, so much as due to conservatism, liberalism, and radicalism from left to right simultaneously, separately, and organically reflecting the interests of the ruling class in promoting Jew-hatred during this period of sustained capitalist crisis. Repression of civil rights is on the rise due to the crisis of capitalism and the parallel advances of the mainstream right and the mainstream left. The war party is likewise in the ascendant, and we see that while fascist takeovers are catastrophic defeats for the working class and plebeian element, and put big business in the ascendant, much of what seems specific to fascism were really just the atrocities of capitalist dictatorships and democracies of all sorts, conjuncturally (and not least through the fascist counterrevolution) carried to unheard-of extremes in some respects in Hitler’s Germany.

The witch-hunt, far from the exclusive prerogative of fascism, is typical of any reactionary regime. The U.S. and UK are far from the verge of fascism, but they are very close to dictatorship, and people who have not studied historical materialism are bewildered by it and the other socioeconomic and political evils besetting us and reach for the paradigm of dictatorship and political evil in the shallow propaganda they were taught as childten.

Moreover, fascists, and the not-inconsiderable (thanks to the corporate media which loves to give them a platform, and their talent for getting attention through violence) element that likes to play masquerade as fascists, as well as leftist groups such as Antifa (U.S.) or the EZLN (Mexico) that have the potential to spawn future fascist movements, do pose a long-term threat even if they don’t pose an immediate one. Something as simple as a fascist counterrevolution in Iran would itself give a tremendous spur to fascism. As will the setting up of Bonapartist and conservative military-police dictatorships in more and more of the capitalist world as the crisis of capitalism deepens. And letting a fascist take over any nuclear power (which Iran will soon be) could lead to unimaginable horrors.
 
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EatTheRich

President
I think hurt feelings play into it too. Someone inaccurately (or inaccurately, they think) is accused of fascism or of sharing a position or an ideal shared by fascists. In their outraged and insulted (real or presumed) innocence, and with little knowledge about what fascism is technically, they defensively cling for rhetorical and psychological Purposes to the position that people who think like the person who accused them are the real fascists.
 
Call it whatever you want but our nation is moving closer to a dictatorship then it is a democracy. It is moving closer to an oligarchy then a democracy. It is moving towards a nation for and by the rich and powerful faster then it is a democracy. We are not even close to being a democracy anymore, it is a chimera. As we move on, people will move into urban areas at a faster rate leaving small rural states with diminishing populations. Yet the Senate remains, the EC remains, gerrymandering remains and whatever is left of our democratic dreams will be chipped away at continuously.
 
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Max R.

On the road
Supporting Member
The specter of fascism! What day goes by without a conservative calling a liberal and a liberal calling a conservative a fascist?

Is it because fascism is on the march? Not really. The right wing has a momentum, but fascists in the U.S. are more insulated from the mainstream right than when Democratic Senator Theodore Bilbo openly backed Mussolini and Hitler, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson openly praised the semi-fascist Ku Klux Klan, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy openly backed Franco and condemned “premature anti-fascism” during WWII, or Republican leader George W. Bush was introduced by fascist leader Patrick Buchanan at his party’s convention.

While President Trump, as he bumbles, from one self-imposed political crisis that is symptomatic of the general crisis of capitalism to the next, has made a few overtures to the rightists (including fascists) on the fringe of his party (as there are fascists like LaRouche on the fringes of the Democratic Party), he has always quickly backed off and distanced himself from fascism. Bannon (a rightist and not a fascist) is marginalized, Miller (Jewish and therefore likely excluded from being part of any successful proto-fascist movement, and is a rightist but not a fascist), and Gorka (a fascist sympathizer), the rightmost of Trump’s leading advisors, have been largely marginalized and excluded from making policy, except with regard to immigration where rightists had been in charge of policy since long before Trump took power. Helmut Kohl had a much cozier relationship with fascist violence than Trump (or Merkel) has ever had, but fascists are not about to bid for power in Germany.

Nor is fascism on the rise worldwide. Gone are the days of ultrarightists like Jorg Haider, rightists like Winston Peters, and centrists like Silvio Berlusconi entering power-sharing agreements for coalition cabinets with fascist parties or parties with fascist pedigrees in imperialist countries. Hungary’s ultraright-fascist-center coalition government is dominated by the conservative element while semi-fascist elements in the ruling parties of Croatia and Serbia in the early 1990s were much more independent. The centrist Putin’s semi-fascist allies are dangerous but appear to be on the defensive and elements pushing them in a fascist direction have not won out. Croatia’s government today is ultrarightist but shows no sign of collaborating with fascism. Many parties that had flirted with fascism, from France’s National Front to Egypt (also elsewhere’s) Muslim Brotherhood to India’s People’s Party to Afghanistan’s Students (Taliban) movement, have been taken over by a more mainstream conservative element. The rightist element has increasingly been excluded from government in Israel as well. Saudi Arabia, where conservative elites are too entrenched to permit much of a fascist element to flourish, is rapidly liberalizing. Central and South America, riddled with fascist collaborators and fascist sympathizers in power for decades, is now moving rapidly to the left and jettisoning this trash. Fascist-sympathizing elements in Ukraine are sympathetic for historical reasons, not because they are fascist-minded today, and they have been soundly defeated on the picket lines, in ground fighting, and at the ballot box. China’s ultraright Falun Gong appears to be on the defensive and moving in a direction away from fascism and ultraright radicalism. The right wing element within the Chinese Communist Party is also on the defensive.

More generally, support for democratic rights is getting broader. Support for rights for oppressed races and women is getting stronger. 50 years ago, Spain and Portugal, major powers, were ruled by fascist dictators.

If fascism were asked to make the case for its vigor, it could point only to ISIS ... ultrarightist but lacking the popular base to even evolve toward fascism, and on the run due to the fight led by the Kurdish-majority People’s Protection Units, Women’s Protection Units, and state (of Iraqi Kurdistan)-sponsored peshmerga; Hungary, discussed above; Syria, where the centrist Assad has deigned to let fascists fight in his ranks, but has not built them up to the point that they could succeed without the regime’s protection; and Iran, where the centrist-clerical state has undoubtedly sponsored countless fascist elements (spilling over to Iraq, Syria, and perhaps Yemen) which could in some reasonably foreseeable future fight for power (as is conceivable in Hungary). But Iran’s ruling class’s desire for an alliance with the U.S. likely precludes a fascist transformation of Iran for the time being, and in the meantime Iran has an excellent potential for a socialist revolution that would arrest the cause of fascism.
It's just a phase. Let's not forget that all of the Neo-Nazi/Fascist/TCS/Q/Alt Righties are, like Trump, 99% bullshit. They talk a lot but do very little except post "dislike" or "disagree" and bleat how great things will be after Trump is reelected.

They're as lame and weak as Democrats...who appear to be running a circus with a 23 passenger clown car as their entertainment for 2020.
 

Max R.

On the road
Supporting Member
Call it whatever you want but our nation is moving closer to a dictatorship then it is a democracy. It is moving closer to an oligarchy then a democracy. It is moving towards a nation for and by the rich and powerful faster then it is a democracy. We are not even close to being a democracy anymore, it is a chimera. As we move on, people will move into urban areas at a faster rate leaving small rural states with diminishing populations. Yet the Senate remains, the EC remains, gerrymandering remains and whatever is left of our democratic dreams will be chipped away at continuously.
If you really believe that, then why does the LW keep pushing for greater gun control and giving government more power over citizens?
 

bdtex

Administrator
Staff member
The specter of fascism! What day goes by without a conservative calling a liberal and a liberal calling a conservative a fascist?

Is it because fascism is on the march? Not really. The right wing has a momentum, but fascists in the U.S. are more insulated from the mainstream right than when Democratic Senator Theodore Bilbo openly backed Mussolini and Hitler, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson openly praised the semi-fascist Ku Klux Klan, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy openly backed Franco and condemned “premature anti-fascism” during WWII, or Republican leader George W. Bush was introduced by fascist leader Patrick Buchanan at his party’s convention.

While President Trump, as he bumbles, from one self-imposed political crisis that is symptomatic of the general crisis of capitalism to the next, has made a few overtures to the rightists (including fascists) on the fringe of his party (as there are fascists like LaRouche on the fringes of the Democratic Party), he has always quickly backed off and distanced himself from fascism. Bannon (a rightist and not a fascist) is marginalized, Miller (Jewish and therefore likely excluded from being part of any successful proto-fascist movement, and is a rightist but not a fascist), and Gorka (a fascist sympathizer), the rightmost of Trump’s leading advisors, have been largely marginalized and excluded from making policy, except with regard to immigration where rightists had been in charge of policy since long before Trump took power. Helmut Kohl had a much cozier relationship with fascist violence than Trump (or Merkel) has ever had, but fascists are not about to bid for power in Germany.

Nor is fascism on the rise worldwide. Gone are the days of ultrarightists like Jorg Haider, rightists like Winston Peters, and centrists like Silvio Berlusconi entering power-sharing agreements for coalition cabinets with fascist parties or parties with fascist pedigrees in imperialist countries. Hungary’s ultraright-fascist-center coalition government is dominated by the conservative element while semi-fascist elements in the ruling parties of Croatia and Serbia in the early 1990s were much more independent. The centrist Putin’s semi-fascist allies are dangerous but appear to be on the defensive and elements pushing them in a fascist direction have not won out. Croatia’s government today is ultrarightist but shows no sign of collaborating with fascism. Many parties that had flirted with fascism, from France’s National Front to Egypt (also elsewhere’s) Muslim Brotherhood to India’s People’s Party to Afghanistan’s Students (Taliban) movement, have been taken over by a more mainstream conservative element. The rightist element has increasingly been excluded from government in Israel as well. Saudi Arabia, where conservative elites are too entrenched to permit much of a fascist element to flourish, is rapidly liberalizing. Central and South America, riddled with fascist collaborators and fascist sympathizers in power for decades, is now moving rapidly to the left and jettisoning this trash. Fascist-sympathizing elements in Ukraine are sympathetic for historical reasons, not because they are fascist-minded today, and they have been soundly defeated on the picket lines, in ground fighting, and at the ballot box. China’s ultraright Falun Gong appears to be on the defensive and moving in a direction away from fascism and ultraright radicalism. The right wing element within the Chinese Communist Party is also on the defensive.

More generally, support for democratic rights is getting broader. Support for rights for oppressed races and women is getting stronger. 50 years ago, Spain and Portugal, major powers, were ruled by fascist dictators.

If fascism were asked to make the case for its vigor, it could point only to ISIS ... ultrarightist but lacking the popular base to even evolve toward fascism, and on the run due to the fight led by the Kurdish-majority People’s Protection Units, Women’s Protection Units, and state (of Iraqi Kurdistan)-sponsored peshmerga; Hungary, discussed above; Syria, where the centrist Assad has deigned to let fascists fight in his ranks, but has not built them up to the point that they could succeed without the regime’s protection; and Iran, where the centrist-clerical state has undoubtedly sponsored countless fascist elements (spilling over to Iraq, Syria, and perhaps Yemen) which could in some reasonably foreseeable future fight for power (as is conceivable in Hungary). But Iran’s ruling class’s desire for an alliance with the U.S. likely precludes a fascist transformation of Iran for the time being, and in the meantime Iran has an excellent potential for a socialist revolution that would arrest the cause of fascism.
Step over the steaming piles. Don't engage.
 
If you really believe that, then why does the LW keep pushing for greater gun control and giving government more power over citizens?
I guess we want more gun control because gun owners are mowing us all down in schools, theaters, post offices, workplaces, discos, country concerts, bars, on the street, in your car, at a MacDonalds and so on. As for letting the government have more control over us, what exactly do you call the recent laws passed by right wing states like Alabama, Missouri and Texas?
 

Max R.

On the road
Supporting Member
I guess we want more gun control because gun owners are mowing us all down in schools, theaters, post offices, workplaces, discos, country concerts, bars, on the street, in your car, at a MacDonalds and so on. As for letting the government have more control over us, what exactly do you call the recent laws passed by right wing states like Alabama, Missouri and Texas?
Untrue. 2/3s of all gun deaths are suicides. The majority of the remainder are with handguns. Liberals don't care about saving lives, only banning guns.
 

Emily

NSDAP Kanzler
I guess we want more gun control because gun owners are mowing us all down in schools, theaters, post offices, workplaces, discos, country concerts, bars, on the street, in your car, at a MacDonalds and so on.
Because the people who do the mowing down aren't already violating already existing laws, one supposes...?

As for letting the government have more control over us, what exactly do you call the recent laws passed by right wing states like Alabama, Missouri and Texas?
"Humane."
 
Because the people who do the mowing down aren't already violating already existing laws, one supposes...?


"Humane."
You asked, I answered. You replied status quo works for you. I can only assume you do not care about guns and gun owners mowing us down like sheep or that certain parts of this country are becoming Gilead.
 

Max R.

On the road
Supporting Member
You asked, I answered. You replied status quo works for you. I can only assume you do not care about guns and gun owners mowing us down like sheep or that certain parts of this country are becoming Gilead.
Hint: If someone shoots at you, shoot back. Odds are, you'll have several other lawful gun-carrying Americans come to your defense provided you haven't forced all lawful Americans defenseless.

 

Emily

NSDAP Kanzler
You asked
Actually, someone else did. But whatever.
I answered
Not the question I posed, you didn't. All of those who do these killings (many of which are staged, fake, or psy-ops, btw, but that's ancillary to this conversation) break multiple laws already on the books, including gun control laws. How is it, then, that more gun control laws are going to stop law-breakers from breaking the law?
You replied status quo works for you.
No, I didn't (did you click reply to the wrong post?) and no I don't. There should be FEWER gun control laws that infringe upon the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens, better law enforcement, and a reversion to the social circumstances extant when such acts were extremely rare.
I can only assume you do not care about guns and gun owners mowing us down
A petulant, ridiculous, and pointless statement.
 
Actually, someone else did. But whatever.

Not the question I posed, you didn't. All of those who do these killings (many of which are staged, fake, or psy-ops, btw, but that's ancillary to this conversation) break multiple laws already on the books, including gun control laws. How is it, then, that more gun control laws are going to stop law-breakers from breaking the law?

No, I didn't (did you click reply to the wrong post?) and no I don't. There should be FEWER gun control laws that infringe upon the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens, better law enforcement, and a reversion to the social circumstances extant when such acts were extremely rare.

A petulant, ridiculous, and pointless statement.
There are laws that prevent us from owning biological weapons yet rarely is anyone found that used a biological agent to kill masses of people within the United States. The main reason is that these people cannot get access to biological weapons because they are tightly controlled and unavailable to the public. It's quite simple when you look at it this way. It is also the way most if not all other civilized nations deal with the problem. Should I spell it out for you?
 

EatTheRich

President
There are laws that prevent us from owning biological weapons yet rarely is anyone found that used a biological agent to kill masses of people within the United States. The main reason is that these people cannot get access to biological weapons because they are tightly controlled and unavailable to the public. It's quite simple when you look at it this way. It is also the way most if not all other civilized nations deal with the problem. Should I spell it out for you?
That’s not gonna happen with guns you can 3D print.
 
That’s not gonna happen with guns you can 3D print.
Well, laws are not 100% effective or there would be no need for police. However, if they are effective in keeping just one life alive, I think its worth it. Now of course, the pro-gun crowd is not really that interested in that one life, they only care about their own life or they would agree to have reasonable limits on their right to own guns. Prior to the NRA becoming the marketing department for the gun industry, most people agreed that guns should be regulated and that gun owners should be responsible actors. But then Heston turned the NRA into a sales outfit and before you knew it, reasonableness went out the window. So here we stand, watching massacre after massacre with nothing to show for it but tots and pears.
 

John Doe

I detest liberalism
Well, laws are not 100% effective or there would be no need for police. However, if they are effective in keeping just one life alive, I think its worth it. Now of course, the pro-gun crowd is not really that interested in that one life, they only care about their own life or they would agree to have reasonable limits on their right to own guns. Prior to the NRA becoming the marketing department for the gun industry, most people agreed that guns should be regulated and that gun owners should be responsible actors. But then Heston turned the NRA into a sales outfit and before you knew it, reasonableness went out the window. So here we stand, watching massacre after massacre with nothing to show for it but tots and pears.
Illegal immigrants have also killed people, do you feel the same way about enforcing immigration law?
 

Max R.

On the road
Supporting Member
There are laws that prevent us from owning biological weapons yet rarely is anyone found that used a biological agent to kill masses of people within the United States. The main reason is that these people cannot get access to biological weapons because they are tightly controlled and unavailable to the public. It's quite simple when you look at it this way. It is also the way most if not all other civilized nations deal with the problem. Should I spell it out for you?
Not following your logic here. Bioweapons, like chemical weapons, are difficult to weaponize and distribute in large quantities. Remember the Anthrax scare? How many died? Chemical weapons are similar but easier to make. Weaponizing is still a problem which is why most terrorist chemical attacks were aboard subways.

A dirty bomb was a big fear, and still is, since there are hundreds of x-ray machines being junked around the world. Harvesting the Cesium-137 and packing them around a few pounds of Semtex then exploding it 5 stories above Wall Street would both contaminate the area for decades and terrorize the wusses Americans have become. FWIW, the half-life of Cesium-137 is 30 years.

http://www.nuclear-risks.org/en/hibakusha-worldwide/goiania.html
The accident in September 1987 in Goiânia was one of the most serious radiation accidents in history. The opening of a radiotherapy machine containing cesium-137 led to the direct irradiation of 249 people. Four people died a short time later; at least 21 suffered severe external radiation damage. The long-term effects of the accident were never examined. Decontamination of the affected neighborhoods was only performed superficially.
 

Emily

NSDAP Kanzler
Should I spell it out for you?
Please do. It should be amusing.

It is also the way most if not all other civilized nations deal with the problem.
You mean those "civilized" totalitarian states that jail people for musing on Facebook whether third-world refugees might be impacting the native culture, and the like? Why, yes, they do make access to guns as restrictive as access to biological weapons.

laws are not 100% effective or there would be no need for police.
Police who have guns. Police who are agents of the state. The abuses of which the Bill of Rights was specifically intended to prevent.

the pro-gun crowd is not really that interested in that one life, they only care about their own life or they would agree to have reasonable limits on their right to own guns.
They have agreed to reasonable limits on their right to own guns.

most people agreed that guns should be regulated
Yes, including the "pro-gun crowd" and the NRA

and that gun owners should be responsible actors
As the "pro-gun crowd" and the NRA agree that gun owners should be responsible actors. The NRA teaches firearm safety courses.
 

EatTheRich

President
Well, laws are not 100% effective or there would be no need for police. However, if they are effective in keeping just one life alive, I think its worth it. Now of course, the pro-gun crowd is not really that interested in that one life, they only care about their own life or they would agree to have reasonable limits on their right to own guns. Prior to the NRA becoming the marketing department for the gun industry, most people agreed that guns should be regulated and that gun owners should be responsible actors. But then Heston turned the NRA into a sales outfit and before you knew it, reasonableness went out the window. So here we stand, watching massacre after massacre with nothing to show for it but tots and pears.
Define “reasonable limits.”
 
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