Korean Job Discussion Forums

[desultude]

Yes, I'm glad to see some traction given to this question.

By the way, Gopher, here is what started the accusation of me throwing around the term fascism, in the first place:

[ddeubel]

Fascism was in vogue and under the intellectual radar screen, long before its hayday....(although it is still making plenty , if not more hay).

It is simply, in the most banal and dangerous form: the love of country as God. (de Tocqueville). (and all the transpiring evils from the same such adventure.).


DD

[thepeel]

I see more than a few points of contact between all totalitarian states. Namely, the removal of economic control from the individual to the state or her friends (of course, in the name of the people). Some states nationalize the economy (Cuba, USSR and others) while others nationalise the people (Germany, Italy etc.). I would argue that there very little difference between the two, in terms of application or outcome. In both cases the liberty of the individual is tossed aside for the sake of a goal, usually one presented in a metaphysical manner and adhered to with an almost religious devotion.

We are an extremely excitable animal.

[dulouz]

There is no good definition of Facsim but it mixes race and government. God was not central to the National Socialists.

Facism more serves as an incite word. After the incantations people are generally dummified into not asking details.

Fascism has superior moral ethics to Communism even with its vauge definition. Communism is merely a collection of thugs acting under order of a smaller but smarter collection of thugs to loot and kill and spread the booty around. The Bolsheviks looted the imperial palace and executed the Romanov girls. Even after that, they were still miserably poor. Perhaps they should have sold the organs as the Chinese have learned to do.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Gopher]

[Nowhere Man]

So, Goph, you are essentially a McCarthyist then, right?

[desultude]

[Gopher]

I don't want to argue with you.

If you want to know how "Hitler" and "fascism" got into the conversation, then there it is, and in your words, not mine.

If that was not what you meant, then choose another word. McCarthy was not a fascist, not a member of any fascist or Nazi party, and, as far as I can tell, he was an anticommunist zealot on a self-appointed crusade, and for multiple reasons. Those were the ideas that informed his views and actions, not fascism, quasifascism, or anything else "fascistic." I have never seen any evidence at all that would link or tend to link McCarthy with fascism.

Only your impressions. And they are exactly that, impressionistic.

McCarthy caused much commotion but there was no place for such a zealot in the U.S. political system (and certainly zero tolerance for fascism, quasifascism, or anything else "fascistic" -- as we had just waged total war against fascism, even aligned ourselves with the Soviets to defeat these dictators, if you recall, a senator whose name I cannot recall said that both fascists and Communists were our enemies, but, in any case, we would let them fight amongst themselves for a time, but we would also never permit the fascists to come out on top in the war).

McCarthy died a rather pathetic death (drunk himself to death after being censured and his career came crashing down around him, no?). Eisenhower clearly disdained him, as did Allen Dulles and the entire armed forces, all of whom refused to play to his tune.

So if you don't like being called on something, then say what you mean and mean what you say. I already went around in circles with Rapier on the question of his allegation that the U.S. deliberately waged "genocide" against the American Indian peoples and cultures and that this was "the Holocaust."

McCarthy was a poor example for Dulouz to cite, and it totally undermined his message. Why not leave it at that? Why introduce emotionally-charged mythmaking to the discussion?

[Gopher]

More examples of how liberal references to "fascism" in political rhetoric has backfired in the U.S....

[Ya-ta Boy]

I am about half convinced there is a vast, international right-wing conspiracy to bleed the term 'fascism' of its meaning by

a) proposing that alternative political spectrum that puts the traditional left and traditional right on the same end, thereby confusing everyone, and
b) randomly throwing the word around so as to make it a generic word without meaning.

Then, when they propose their right-wing agenda, there is no language left to criticize it.

[desultude]

[Gopher]

Disagree.

You brought up Hitler and all that it implied. (He did no better by -- and I still have a hard time believing it -- apparently honoring McCarthy...and who honors McCarthy?) But I won't go in cicrcles on this with you anymore.

Fascism is dead and is not going to come back. It represents no more of a threat today than Communism or Stalinism does.

Here is the post-Cold War world, we have our own isms to worry about: resurgent nationalism, this time with a dangerous ethnic slant (see the former Yugoslavia), and Islamic Fundamentalism and how the West may deal with it.

I suggest focusing on these problems rather than continually bringing up anachronisms.

Which brings me back to the last ism I might mention as a serious threat to us in the U.S. today: extremism in our politics.

Michael Moore and co., Tim McVeigh, the Unibomber, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, Ann Coulter, Jesse Helms and the Cuban exiles, the extreme right who foamed at the mouth when Clinton was president, and the extreme left who foams at the mouth now that W. Bush is president.

Everybody calling everybody they disagree with a "fascist."

Enough of this.