Trump, Bannon and the Coming Crisis

[pbrower2a]

(02-04-2017, 02:59 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(02-01-2017, 12:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-31-2017, 10:22 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-31-2017, 02:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, I hope that I don't come off as a crank. Intensely partisan and opinionated -- OK. I know that.

There are no perfect parallels in history, and we have multiple cycles in operation.

Even the Vietcong got a bad mauling from the USA, even if their allies the North Vietnamese Army ultimately prevailed. .

To be honest, you can come off as a bit of crank sometimes.  You're about as in to the impending rise of American fascism as AlphabetSoup is to WWIII.  The fact that you actually responded this time in normal fashion is a good sign.  Thanks.

I don't mind partisan and opinionated that much, it's when people do the discussion board equivalent of responding to requests for clarification by staring intently at my left ear lobe and ranting away that I get a bit concerned about how I am spending my time.

I mean, this is an odd topic for a discussion forum, broadly speaking, so we're all at least a little bit crankish.

We are all aware of Lawrence Britt's fourteen signs of fascism

1. Pervasive nationalism
2. Disdain for the value of human rights
3. Scapegoating of pariahs
4. Avid militarism
5. Sexism
6. Controlled mass media
7. Corporate power exalted
8. Labor power crushed
9. Majority religion co-opted
10. Exaggerated concern for national security
11. Contempt for arts and intellectualism
12. Brutal treatment of offenders
13. Cronyism and corruption
14. Fraudulent elections

These are all pathologies to the extent that they are unnecessary for the survival of the society.  I look at that list and I also see many Commie regimes. Ask yourself how many of those fourteen warning signs apply to North Korea or to Romania under Ceausescu and his Dracula cult. Look also at Baathism and ISIS.


I am tempted to believe that for every culture there is one style of fascism that fits the culture. Wagnerian bombast, adulation of the Roman Empire, and samurai shtick are just too alien to fit America. But Celtic mysticism and the plantation order of the Old South make the KKK possible. 

I also look at that list and examine Donald Trump, who has more forcefully left his imprint upon political culture faster than any prior President. Because I consider Barack Obama an above-average President with a political ideology compatible with mine and Donald Trump offending so many of my sensibilities that I can't count the offenses - let's see how they apply to George H W Bush. Not much. Donald Trump? To use one of his ludicrous coinages, "bigly".

I look at that list and I see the US under FDR during WWII.

It is hardly surprising that FDR rode nationalistic trends in America that suddenly appeared on Sunday, December 7, 1941. Human rights? I wish that he had not incarcerated the Japanese and Japanese-Americans in the western USA, and I wish that he had let Jewish refugees from Hitlerland get sanctuary in America in the 1930s. Scapegoating of pariahs? No worse than anyone else. Militarism? Not really. If you are in a war for national survival, you will not choose methods for their benign character. Sexism? No worse than the norm among enlightened people.

It's clear that the media were not going to give open access to the Axis Powers. FDR imposed excess profits taxes and did not shut down unions. FDR co-opted all religions in America. I doubt that anyone can accuse him of 'exaggerated' concern for national security when America was in a war that it did not want.

Intellectual life went on after Pearl Harbor as it did before -- and there was practically no sympathy for fascism in America before, let alone after. FDR's government was indeed harsh on crime, especially gangland crime. There were few complaints.Cronyism and Corruption? FDR was clean of that.

But I will concede the rigged elections in the Deep South, where black people did not get to vote.