OHollern writes:
"All the same, I’ve considered the arguments and have reluctantly concluded that the Administration is right. We have to vote for their side because the alternative is worse."
You don't have to vote. I don't have to vote. But...if you think the protection racket ought to have a few more thugs running it, vote for the Tea Tea Macoutes. If you think the protection racket ought to have a few more austerians in key offices, vote for the Democrats. Neither is a lesser evil. Neither. They're both equally awful. The Tea Tea Macoutes will fagstomp, harass, criminalize, bomb and imprison their opponents, and the proles who don't have giant Other identifiers marking them as outsiders will for the most part go along, because let's face it, a choice between a Mexican laborer a thousand miles away, and losing your children, is no choice at all. The Democratic austerians will starve, reform, consolidate and transfer away the remainder of the Commons, so long as the banks win and the wars stay somewhere Over There. Republicans: fascist violence, one day. Democrats: starvation, and then Republican fascist violence, one day.
"Far worse. Unthinkable, in fact. Just watch the video of that simian thug slamming his foot on a woman’s head at a Rand Paul event to get a glimpse of where the extreme Right will take us given half the chance. These people carry guns. They relish violence. They think the Founding Fathers intended for this country to be a Christian theocracy. They believe God hates gays, Muslims and liberal elites with equal ferocity and will gladly bash us in the head if we disagree. They’re pissed off and they want a Fuhrer."
Yep. True. All true. But...if my choices really are reduced to an actual either/or, between technocratic austerians who will leave me in the dirt with a handout and a sloppy kiss once they get their Yglesian political singularity, or Jesusian fascists who will stomp me in the dirt and re-educate my kids once once they get their strong, small efficient state - I'll take the outright fascists, thank you very much.
"Bwuh?" you ask?
I can put a target on a fascist's head. I can fight him, and his small, lean, efficient protection racket.
We can do that.
We haven't yet managed to take down a single bank or investment house. Not one.
So, let's make way for the fascists. They'll still be financed by the banks and defcos, but the connection will be a whole lot more obvious.
A gamble? Sure. Life ain't always lucky...
"They’re doing the muscle work for the plutocrats who really run things, and who only need one more bout of Republican political control in order to permanently institutionalize their power. Not to be too melodramatic about it, but they must be stopped."
Yep. True. All true. But...the Dems? They are the plutocrats. They can do all their damage under the aegis of "reform" and what the fuck all can we do about it, really?
"I know, I know, the Democrats are taking us into a similarly dark place. True enough, but they’re doing it more slowly and with some anaesthesia. It’s realistically all we’ve got at this point.
All along, I’ve thought we were the reincarnation of the last decadent days of Rome, a fat dead culture in the throes of an organic and unstoppable decline. Now I’m wondering if we more closely resemble Germany in 1933. Perhaps a uniquely American mixture of both? No matter. There are outright fascists at the core of the Republican party. They’re heavily subsidized, and their chosen candidates are getting uncomfortably close to power. If the only alternative is to vote for corrupt, center-right, go-along-to-get-along Establishment Democrats, that’s just what it will have to be for now. Better Boss Tweed than Mussolini"
Nyet. No. Non. Ne rien. Mussolini, like Hitler, fell - and took the whole state with him. Because those fascist protection rackets are too lean and mean to survive transition. They win - or they lose completely. As Camus noted all those many decades ago, the all-or-nothing maximalist often ends up with nothing.
Boss Tweed? That fucker died long before Hitler or Mussolini and his system still exists today...
8 comments:
Oi, thanks for the salute.
Now for the disclosure, shocking and disturbing: I agree with your entry above!
This popped up on my radar last night. A particularly bitter note is that Obama is rolling back a law that his predecessor put in place to penalize countries that use child soldiers. Don't forget to vote for that kinder, gentler, machine-gun hand of the Democrats on Tuesday, bitches!
The one problem I see with this post's otherwise agreeable scenario is that the Nazi artwork of the 21st century isn't going to be looted masterworks but paintings of Reagan.
The pwog blogs have really come up with a winning strategy this time. The tea baggers are about as scary as a wet kitten.
Good point--capitalism has endured whereas fascism was relatively short-lived. And, people living in a fascist society, I presume, understood they were living in a fascist society, contra those living in a "democratic" one for whom's spirits no amount of elite molestation will damper.
Thanks for the shout-out!
It’s realistically all we’ve got at this point.
Wuh thuh fuh?
Charles, I'll shall try mightily to get you to disagree, in the near future. :)
Justin, I think the Dems understand, fundamentally, that the tide has turned, not in a political sense, but culturally. As I read over to the right (singularity, IIRC) we are facing the culmination of the so-called "culture war," which in truth were corporate assaults against the Commons, autonomy and cooperation. So, the Dems are trying to race ahead and hold onto their corner of the "progressive" retreat, to shore up the institutional niceties which will dull some of the edges of the emerging corporate world order. They will fail, and they should. When you polish uncle's steel, he sharpens it and stabs you down and dead.
Randall, how can I object? The Nazis did manage to steal some good art. Alas, under the kitschfascists of the New American Right, we will have to endure montage shots of eagles and Weeping Clown Jesus...
Alan,
Here we part ways, I think. I don't quake at the Tea Party protesters. I worry at what they represent. A couple of months back I mused about the "rump state." We're watching it take shape, right now. And the Tea Party is a symptom of that approaching future. That's cause for concern.
Peter, here's where I break from my other leftist/anarchist anti-pwogs and anti-cons: at some point, capitalist factions dispense with the cover of democracy, abandon the welfare state and bury the pretense to common society. As long as they can manage their client populations within a bubble of superficial tolerances, they will. You might find corporate enclaves where good gays can marry and no one cares if the plant manager is black - always so long as they serve the company and ball up against the hoi polloi. It's not going to look like Nazism, Italian fascism or Catholic falangism under those circumstances. It's going to look like the inside of a Microsoft campus, and it will still be no less fascist.
Only if the resource base collapses, or the Jesusians get control of the State before it's fully remodeled as a rump state, will be likely to see some sort of punitive State fascism.
Big Bad, lesser evilists are funneh, no?
Peter, here's where I break from my other leftist/anarchist anti-pwogs and anti-cons: at some point, capitalist factions dispense with the cover of democracy, abandon the welfare state and bury the pretense to common society. As long as they can manage their client populations within a bubble of superficial tolerances, they will. You might find corporate enclaves where good gays can marry and no one cares if the plant manager is black - always so long as they serve the company and ball up against the hoi polloi. It's not going to look like Nazism, Italian fascism or Catholic falangism under those circumstances. It's going to look like the inside of a Microsoft campus, and it will still be no less fascist.
Of course I'm not PW, but still -- I agree... again!
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