Domnu' Schiau: ia saliveaza un pic peste articolul asta! Este sau nu adevarat ca Bush-Impostorul reprezinta fatza fascismului american? Stiu... chestia asta nu te face decat sa juisezi! Vestea proasta pt tine e ca nu aveti nici o sansa! America adevarata incepe incet-incet sa se trezeasca din cosmarul asta odios si va ia deja vartos la palme si scuipati.
American Nascent Fascism: Are We in Stage One? As we ponder the realities of the recent election and attempt to make sense of all the implications of the results, one can't help but wonder about the true goals and objectives of those who drive the Bush Administration's agenda. Candidly, I'm worried and have been struggling with trying to reconcile everything that has happened. I'd like to offer the following for consideration as I believe we've reached a point in our political evolution, both as a nation and as an international neighbor, that demands real clinical scrutiny. My gut tells me that the country I carried in my heart (thank you, Bruce) no longer exists, that the core founding ideals no longer resonate for a large percentage of our population. That so many people can overlook a bungled war effort, a tanking economy, and a health care crisis of supernova proportions in order to cast a vote based on religious and wholly emotional values is staggering. Clearly the neoconservative Republicans are at the top of their game. Their skillful and successful use of Orwellian language, lies, and smear techniques indicate that we have seen only the beginning of what they have in store. That said, Robert O. Paxton, Mellon Professor of Social Sciences emeritus at Columbia, has written extensively about fascism in ways that reclaim the term from the hyperbolic misuse we've come to know, ridicule, and reject. On careful examination, however, and with a more scholarly definition in mind, there may be cause for concern as we move forward as a nation. First, yes, the days of raging Nazi stridence and Wagnerian theatrics are relics of the past. We're too smart for that particular brand as the lessons of Orwell and Hitler are firmly implanted in the contemporary democratic consciousness. But because we have these outsized examples as reference points, incipient fascism is not terribly easy to diagnose as each society has constantly shifting values, paradigms, and emotions. Since movements, by their nature, have a somewhat discreet quality with each exhibiting its own particular identity, it is helpful to look at Paxton's "mobilizing passions," which identify in broadest terms the foundational appeals found in nascent fascism: 1. The primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether universal or individual. 2. The belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any action against the group's enemies, internal as well as external. 3. Dread of the group's decadence under the corrosive effect of individualistic and cosmopolitan liberalism. 4. Closer integration of the community within a brotherhood (fascio) whose unity and purity are forged by common conviction, if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary. 5. An enhanced sense of identity and belonging, in which the grandeur of the group reinforces individual self-esteem. 6. Authority of natural leaders (always male) throughout society, culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group's destiny. 7. The beauty of violence and of will, when they are devoted to the group's success in a Darwinian struggle. "The Five Stages of Fascism,"The Journal of Modern History, March 1998 Even the most cursory reading of these points should sound an alarm bell in anyone paying close attention to our own political and social climate. Indeed, Paxton continues: ...each national variant of fascism draws its legitimacy, as we shall see, not from some universal scripture but from what it considers the most authentic elements of its own community identity. Religion, for example, would certainly play a much larger role in an authentic fascism in the United States than in the first European fascisms.... The larger question, of course, is whether fascism is possible in contemporary America? Paxton offers this rather cautionary observation: Fascism can appear wherever democracy is sufficiently implanted to have aroused disillusion. That suggests its spatial and temporal limits: no authentic fascism before the emergence of a massively enfranchised and politically active citizenry. In order to give birth to fascism, a society must have known political liberty -- for better or for worse. Social scientists point historically to the KKK as the quintessential fascist movement in the U.S. (one that Hitler admired tremendously), but, fortunately, there seems to be little resemblance between the Klan and our currently political climate. Still, though, when we consider the foundational elements listed above, we should all be a little uneasy with their disturbing relevance. Who can say with any certainty after this week's election that the core ideals of American society are intact? Once, however, the seven mobilizing passions are established and an incipient fascism begins to emerge, Paxton claims movements typically follow five stages. These stages are: * The initial creation of fascist movements * Their rooting as parties in a political system * The acquisition of power * The exercise of power * Radicalization or entropy If we accept the staging offered by Paxton, then things aren't as dire as they may seem because fascist movements typically fail, he asserts, in the second stage given that the rooting process requires nearly perfect conditions. Nevertheless, I'm worried about the direction our nation is taking, I'm worried about the skillful propagandists at high levels in the Administration, and I'm worried about the fifty-one percent of voters who endorsed the presidency of George Bush. The Bush Administration is shrewd and astoundingly manipulative--and people seem to love what they stand for. Are they good enough at shaping the national consciousness to move this country to stage two? ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Help save the life of a child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/mGEjbB/5WnJAA/E2hLAA/DXOolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Sageata Albastra e cea mai mare tzeapa a transportului public! Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/protest-ro/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
