From the far better Tuesdays blog feature “Quote Of The Day”
“It all adds up to me, now having to admit that I was wrong. Our government is not marching down the road towards communism or socialism…they’re not marching us that direction. They’re marching us to a brand of non-violent fascism. Or to put it another way, they’re marching us towards 1984: Big Brother.
Like it or not, fascism is on the rise.“
– glen beck, fox news
First, why should we pay any attention to anything the critics on the far right have to say? Helloooo, anybody look at the stats after the last eight years? Bush and Co. left a flaming bag of poo on the doorstep of the Whitehouse and they and their little pals now crouch in the bushes snickering and jeering as Obama tries to figure out what to do with it. Credibility = zero.
Ok, now on to the comment, which is as clear an example of careening pseudo-intellectualism as I have seen in a long time. Kudos to Tony for pick it up. I realize that it is a popular conception that on the extreme edges of the political spectrum things get a little quantum, with various isms acting as both a populist wave and an authoritarian particle. But let’s examine from the basics on up to the final utterance, shall we?
Oh, fuck it, nobody will read this the way I have it laid out in my mind – get to the point as M would say.
OK, Beck so now we’re not marching towards communism or socialism – brother isms based on collective ownership of the means of production and variations on that theme. Nice to see you lower your screechings long enough to catch your breath. However, the opposite direction would be capitalism, not fascism. But I’ll give you the (large) benefit of the doubt and imagine your troops not doing an about face, but a vector over to fascism.
You lost me at non-violent fascism. By definition, these two items are mutually exclusive, in fact the utterance of the phrase “non-violent fascism” is a pristine example of an oxymoron. So maybe you are trying to inject wry humour? OK, now I understand why you continue this line of humour by clearly choosing the wrong illustration; 1984 being a book about totalitarianism not fascism.
Yes there is a difference. Yes it matters. Nothing compares to a holocaust, and people are righteously upset when you make such comparisons. I would argue that having seen extreme examples of all these political models in the 20th Century, it does justify disgust when they are inappropriately equated.
So it does disgust me when such comparisons are made by a lynch mob of nattering good old boys, self-identified seditionists, and opportunistic loyalists to Reaganomics.
To complain about isms under the circumstances seems a little like complaining the Captain of the Titanic got a little bossy there towards the end.
And for a supporter of the party of W to suggest that “fascism is on the rise” after the myriad violations of US and international law committed by the prior administration smacks of an association fallacy. For example, Obama plans partial takeover of the banks in return for bailouts. Communists own all the banks. Therefore, Obama is a Communist.
I have yet to see a Republican plan for treatment of the current economic crisis, but imagine what would happen if we followed the principles of Reaganomics:
Reaganomics refers to the economic policies promoted by United States President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. The four pillars of Reagan’s economic policy were to: reduce the growth of government spending, reduce income and capital gains marginal tax rates, reduce government regulation of the economy, and control the money supply to reduce inflation.
I suggest that reagonomics would be a disaster in the current circumstances, which seem to call for expansion of governmetn spending, increased regulation and expansion of teh money supply. The risks are many; stagflation for example, but the risk of doing nothing seems more catastrophic.
