"Fascism", or the mere bleating of weak kneed defeatists?
There is a undercurrent of discussion among the blogs these days with regard to the "f" word. No, not "fuck". "Fascist". The target of the "f" word is,naturally, the right wing repub machine. I don't read many right wing blogs, so I don't know if they're saying the same things about liberals or if, indeed, "liberal" is today considered epithet enough.
But the point is serious, and more than rhetorical. While many of us throw around the word fascist, and others lecture at the rest of us that to do so demeans the term and the circumstances of the moment, and even fewer can probably cite a dictionary perfect definition, that is not the point. At least for me.
Like most other phenomena, political and social phenomena are relative to their time. To those who like to tsk tsk that Bush is not Hitler, and that the only real discrimination and threat to life and limb worth talking about occurred during the Stalinist purges or the Jim Crow era I not so humbly disagree. We are, after all, in the 21st century and should have learned a thing or two from the horrendous past of the 20th century. But judging by the mass assault on civil liberties in the U.S. by the Bush administration -- albeit the effects have not palpably touched most of us in a way that slaps us awake -- we haven't advanced a lot, and indeed the framework seems to be growing for the acquiescence to the latest proposed clampdown on individual rights to meet the latest supposed threat to some imagined sense of security.
While my larger hope for the redirection of life on this planet in a more positive direction -- which I do not see happening -- may be regarded by most as spiritual smoke and mirrors, even my short term appraisal of the possibilities is sadly devoid of convincing evidence.
Whether the fascism, or incipient or potential fascist direction if you're more comfortable with that, which I smell is around the corner or already here, I don't intend to wait to see the fires before I start hollering about the smoke.
But the point is serious, and more than rhetorical. While many of us throw around the word fascist, and others lecture at the rest of us that to do so demeans the term and the circumstances of the moment, and even fewer can probably cite a dictionary perfect definition, that is not the point. At least for me.
Like most other phenomena, political and social phenomena are relative to their time. To those who like to tsk tsk that Bush is not Hitler, and that the only real discrimination and threat to life and limb worth talking about occurred during the Stalinist purges or the Jim Crow era I not so humbly disagree. We are, after all, in the 21st century and should have learned a thing or two from the horrendous past of the 20th century. But judging by the mass assault on civil liberties in the U.S. by the Bush administration -- albeit the effects have not palpably touched most of us in a way that slaps us awake -- we haven't advanced a lot, and indeed the framework seems to be growing for the acquiescence to the latest proposed clampdown on individual rights to meet the latest supposed threat to some imagined sense of security.
While my larger hope for the redirection of life on this planet in a more positive direction -- which I do not see happening -- may be regarded by most as spiritual smoke and mirrors, even my short term appraisal of the possibilities is sadly devoid of convincing evidence.
Whether the fascism, or incipient or potential fascist direction if you're more comfortable with that, which I smell is around the corner or already here, I don't intend to wait to see the fires before I start hollering about the smoke.
