Rage On
The Onion gives us a worthy Op-Ed: “Where Are You Now, When We Need You Most, Rage Against The Machine?”
The answer is that they combined with Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell to form Audioslave. In an odd bit of serendipity, Audioslave is part of The Axis Of Justice.
Courage of Conviction
Just a thought, but I think that if there is a draft, it should be limited only to people who had the chance to vote in the previous federal election.
As an alternative, Strange Black Cat was mentioning a movement early last century that was attempting to change the constitution so that any call to war had to be a national referendum, and anyone who voted “yes” was required to serve if called upon.
Yay! Trains!
Governor Tim Pawlenty is taking heat from his party for supporting the Northstar commuter rail line.
I lived in Boston for a short time, and found rail commuting to be a delight. I’ve seldom had the opportunity to take the train from city to city, but there is some part of me that loves the train. They are an efficient and pleasant way to move people and cargo between population centers, and something we really don’t take enough advantage of.
Of course, I’d prefer they were run on regionally grown bio diesel…
Got Sunscreen?
The former Secretary of Defense, William Perry claims that there are even odds of a nuclear terror strike by 2010. The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof offers an Op-Ed on the subject.
Paranoia Strikes Deep?
One of the Fraters Libertas proclaimed their disgust towards people drawing comparisons between America today and Nazi Germany.
As I read their analysis of why this annoys them, a realization hit me. This is just another case of one side saying one thing and the other side hearing another. The waters of course get muddied by the rabid extremists of both sides.
In the past, I’ve made some comparisons between contemporary America and pre-WWII Germany. I’ve also taken a look at the appeals and threats of fascism – a term that is so colored by the holocaust that it is hard to consider with any rationality.
There are two mistakes being made. The first is in drawing the comparisons between the Third Reich as opposed to the culture that permitted the Third Reich to gain power. The second is, as rotten.com’s library put it, to dehumanize the crimes and actions of the Third Reich.
When looking at the comparisons, the beliefs of racial superiority and anti-semitism are not points where parallels can be drawn. Where they can be drawn is in a strong sense of nationalism, a belief in their ideologies being superior, and a belief that in a strong centralized state. This, when combined with a sense of being attacked by the outside world and threatened by internal dissenters and disaffected, leads to a fascist state.
When I look at our administration’s belief in the “Anglosphere” and support for the Project for the New American Century, I see a belief in a western ideology and a movement to push for worldwide adoption of Western culture and economics.
When I see the State eclipsing the Individual, and strong anger being directed towards those who would dissent and thereby weaken the state, I see the building blocks of fascism.
When I draw a comparison between American and Post WWI/Pre WWII Germany, I am looking at the suppression of dissent, the rise of the state over the individual, the belief that we are a nation with superior ideology that is being threatened by forces outside and within, and a drive towards spreading the concept of the Anglosphere across the globe.
I do see us sliding towards a fascist state. Not one driven by the same fears and goals of Nazi Germany, but one with its own fears and goals. Not one that will instigate a horror on the level of the holocaust, but one that will be looked back upon with regret and disdain for its own crimes against free will and self determination. Many of these crimes have been committed years or decades ago, and our actions now can only mitigate or accentuate them.
When it comes to our current conflicts, I do not believe that our enemies would attack us if we withdrew our influence and interference to our own borders. The Islamic militants would not come after us if we left the middle east.
Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy.
The state of the middle east is a result of over a century of heavy western influence, and a half a century of heavy American influence. A sudden withdrawal would collapse many power structures and cause chaos. That chaos would result in the rise of the most brutal and oppressive in the region and, to an extent, the suffering of the oppressed would be do to our actions.
But back to the comparisons between America and Germany, it is a mistake to claim that our administration is being guided by a nefarious master plan aimed at another holocaust, but it is also a mistake not to realize that we are on a path that could easily lead towards fascism. A perfect fascist state might well be a great place to live, but it is much more likely to be degenerate and create horrors of its own.
###
Recent Comments