12-11-2021, 03:34 PM
(11-20-2021, 09:07 AM)David Horn Wrote:(11-19-2021, 05:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: We are witnessing the emergence of a proto-fascist movement that has a categorically different dithe freedom to be lost is sdain for democracy, multiculturalism, and the rule of law than anything we’ve seen in generations.
Please join me in this simple but essential commitment:
I am outraged by the rise of neo-fascism in America. Democracy cannot exist at the end of a gun. We must stand up to right-wing leaders who foment, glorify, and even perpetrate political violence.
It's impossible to argue that we are not in degraded times. The only question left to be answered: will fascism win? It's never possible to know the answer until it's revealed, but it's not looking good at the moment. The public just doesn't care.
Fascism requires that people sell out freedom, which is far easier to do when the loss of freedom is by others. Usually that is of "others' by ethnicity, faith, or class. Take jobs away from Model Minorities or compel them to sell off assets cheaply? Take away the right to a militant union so that employers can cut wages? Promote huge increases in preparations for war? Of course such is evil, but that is what Hitler did. Are we Americans wise enough to reject such? I can't be sure.
One thing is sure: socialism won't. Another thing is sure; libertarianism won't, either. The economic elites of America today seem to want a government that represents wealth and not people, and they can always find people so deluded and desperate that they could accept such for an electoral cycle or two so that we can get some new birth of prosperity. Nobody that such people believe credibly warns them that their freedom will vanish indefinitely, and that the agony of poverty will only intensify. Dissidents will be brutalized or murdered. It'd feudalism with high technology. Well, that is one way to describe fascism!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.