Naomi Wolf interviewed by Lew Rockwell
Lew also answers some of her question on the libertarian philosophy. I am confident the left can be swayed in the right direction with intellectuals like this woman.
I am about mid-way through the interview. I think her point about creeping fascism is apt. American Fascism won’t come marching down the street with Swastika banners, it will ride in on religion, patriotism and nationalism.
Notice there are certain narratives that one must voice in the national discourse or else you are disregarded or treated as “anti-american”. Look at all the stink that was made because Obama wasn’t wearing an American flag on his lapel.
“…American Fascism won’t come marching down the street with Swastika banners; it will ride in on religion, patriotism and nationalism…”
E; this almost needs to be a sticky.
Reading a lot of the threads lately have given me a much greater appreciation of how Jews must have felt sitting in a Nazi Town Meeting in Pre-WWII Germany.
It’s scary, actually…
Mufasa
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Reading a lot of the threads lately have given me a much greater appreciation of how Jews must have felt sitting in a Nazi Town Meeting in Pre-WWII Germany.
[/quote]
Mufasa, American democracy is a work in progress. I am 48 y.o. now and grew up in the South. I can remember the first black students being integrated into my school, when I was in the first grade.
This is to say that whereas the democratic principles of our country are strong in many ways, there have always been exceptions…and still are.
I believe that Lew Rockwell was right when he said that crises will be the way that the powers-that-be take away already-existing fundamental rights. I don’t think we need to speak in the future tense about this. And we needn’t concoct elaborate conspiracy theories to explain how this will unfold, IMHO.
As the economy tanks, it will become easier and easier for “populist” politicians to direct people’s chauvinism, anger toward some group(s). This scapegoating won’t be initiated by the politicians but will originate from certain quarters of the population…the politicians will just give voice to it. The followers of such ideas won’t be skin-heads, Neo-Nazis or white-hooded Klan members…they will be corn-fed, flag-waving Christians.
I hope that I am wrong about this. I hope that the institutions of democracy are strong enough to withstand such an assault. And the truth is, maybe they are.
Rofl.
[quote]entheogens wrote:
I am 48 y.o. now and grew up in the South. I can remember the first black students being integrated into my school, when I was in the first grade.
[/quote]
Oh, then you remember that it was Southern ‘Liberal’ Democrats who fought tooth and nail against ‘Civil Rights’ since Lincoln right up until LBJ redefined ‘Civil Rights’ as ‘Re-Enslaving Generations via Welfare Programs’
[quote]entheogens wrote:
As the economy tanks, it will become easier and easier for “populist” politicians to direct people’s chauvinism, anger toward some group(s).
[/quote]
Yes. Today it’s called ‘Class Warfare’ as practiced by today’s Democrat party and it’s reinvigoration of classic Marxism through it’s front runner for President.
[quote]entheogens wrote:
The followers of such ideas … will be corn-fed, flag-waving Christians.
[/quote]
And with all due respect, sir, you’re full of shit.
[quote]entheogens wrote:
I hope that I am wrong about this. I hope that the institutions of democracy are strong enough to withstand such an assault. And the truth is, maybe they are.
[/quote]
They are. However, the Socialist/Marxist path we’ve been on is exactly the antithesis of the Founding Principles as written and debated by the Founding Fathers. Even the Hamiltonian Federalists could never have conceived or approved of the power the Federal government wields today.
C’mon, D…
“Dixicrats” LIBERAL???
In addition, they justified everything they did; from States Rights to Jim Crow Laws; and from Voting Rights to Segregation, on their interpretation of the LAW, the CONSTITUTION and the BIBLE.
And I’ll repeat; THAT’S when it all becomes scary.
The Ku Klux Klan even became their “muscle” or unofficial Army, whose “calling card” was a burning CROSS, NOT a hammer and sickle.
Mufasa
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
In addition, they justified everything they did; from States Rights to Jim Crow Laws; and from Voting Rights to Segregation, on their interpretation of the LAW, the CONSTITUTION and the BIBLE.
[/quote]
That’s a far cry from “Christianity” bringing about the fall of our Republic.
Those “justifications” based on their interpretations of Bible are perverted abominations of the text, meaning, intent, and Spirit of the words contained in the Book.
Do you really think that the KKK (or racists in general) using the Bible to justify their actions is really what the Bible teaches?
That is the thing IMO.
I have no problem with any religion, actually like some of them. It is the people that fuck it all up for everyone. It is people that make ugly what could be beautiful.
Further, Economic Fascism, the path we’ve been going down is much more a modern Democrat phenomenon than what ‘pop culture’ would have you think. Sure, it’s fun to associate Republicans with Nazi’s, and the next step is to associate them a fascists.
I maintain, that 9 out of 10 (or more) people who even use the words ‘fascist/fascism’ have absolutely no idea what it really means. Fascists are Socialists. Individualism is villified-- must be destroyed (before we can save it-- yeah right)-- FDR even said so:
[i]Virtually all of the specific economic policies advocated by the Italian and German fascists of the 1930s have also been adopted in the United States in some form, and continue to be adopted to this day. Sixty years ago, those who adopted these interventionist policies in Italy and Germany did so because they wanted to destroy economic liberty, free enterprise, and individualism. Only if these institutions were abolished could they hope to achieve the kind of totalitarian state they had in mind.
Many American politicians who have advocated more or less total government control over economic activity have been more devious in their approach. They have advocated and adopted many of the same policies, but they have always recognized that direct attacks on private property, free enterprise, self-government, and individual freedom are not politically palatable to the majority of the American electorate. Thus, they have enacted a great many tax, regulatory, and income-transfer policies that achieve the ends of economic fascism, but which are sugar-coated with deceptive rhetoric about their alleged desire only to “save” capitalism.
American politicians have long taken their cue in this regard from Franklin D. Roosevelt, who sold his National Recovery Administration (which was eventually ruled unconstitutional) on the grounds that “government restrictions henceforth must be accepted not to hamper individualism but to protect it.” In a classic example of Orwellian doublespeak, Roosevelt thus argued that individualism must be destroyed in order to save it.
Now that socialism has collapsed and survives nowhere but in Cuba, China, Vietnam, and on American university campuses, the biggest threat to economic liberty and individual freedom lies in the new economic fascism. While the former Communist countries are trying to privatize as many industries as possible as fast as they can, they are still plagued by governmental controls, leaving them with essentially fascist economies: private property and private enterprise are permitted, but are heavily controlled and regulated by government.
As most of the rest of the world struggles to privatize industry and encourage free enterprise, we in the United States are seriously debating whether or not we should adopt 1930s-era economic fascism as the organizational principle of our entire health care system, which comprises 14 percent of the GNP. We are also contemplating business-government “partnerships” in the automobile, airlines, and communications industries, among others, and are adopting government-managed trade policies, also in the spirit of the European corporatist schemes of the 1930s.[/i]
http://www.banned-books.com/truth-seeker/1994archive/121_3/ts213l.html
Absolutley NOT!
But it gives me MORE than just a little concern when there are people who begin to wrap up religion, guns, and the Constitution; start talking about “us” and “them”; and “real Americans” and “those people”; and wrap it all up in a nice little Quasi-Religious, “True American” package.
Again; that’s a damn scary thing to see and hear, D.
Do I think that this Country will go back to the days of “Jim Crow”? No.
But I also don’t see some “Peoples Army”, led by Barack Obama, taking it over either.
Mufasa
[quote]entheogens wrote:
Notice there are certain narratives that one must voice in the national discourse or else you are disregarded or treated as “racist”. Look at all the stink that was made because Obama is a Socialist/Marxist.[/quote]
There-- reworded that for you.
It works both ways. One central and recurring theme of this election is that if you’re Anti-Obama (ie do not support class warfare and Marxism), then you must be a racist.
[quote]entheogens wrote:
American Fascism won’t come marching down the street with Swastika banners, it will ride in on religion, patriotism and nationalism.[/quote]
Why would it “ride in” that way when that hasn’t been its natural path in the past?
Do your homework - fascism rode in on the coattails of socialist movements that discovered society must be re-engineered so that what the “oppressed” could be delivered into a proud and perfect paradise.
Fascism grew out of the politics of the Left, not out of any patriotic sentiment emanating from an American Revolution.
Religion wasn’t the vehicle, nor was patriotism. Fascism was a political movement based on transformational, radical politics designed to free the afflicted from a oppressor keeping the people from realizing utopia.
This remains an overblown myth of the Left - if there was this enduring “chill” of being “disregarded” because someone was critical of America or the administration, then why so many websites, books, public demonstrations, movies, songs, t-shirts, and plays since 2000?
How is it that this “anti-American” pressure existed and yet I could go into a Barnes & Noble and pick up any one of 50 books trashing George W. Bush on any day of the week?
Rest assured Entheogens, if I wore a “Bush 2004” t-shirt down the street in San Francisco, I would have gotten a much more intolerant response than if I had worn a “Kerry 2004” t-shirt on the town square of Willis, Texas.
This is and always has been pure therapy by the Left who, collectively, must always define themselves as romantic victims resisting Big Meanies, even when they have to invent the tale out of whole cloth.
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
But I also don’t see some “Peoples Army”, led by Barack Obama, taking it over either.
[/quote]
Really? He’s calling for a “Civilian National Security Force”…
I don’t disagee with the article you posted, D.
However, if I read it correctly, the author always used the term “American Politicians” without saying that “Ecomonic Fascism” was the platform of any particular party.
Mufasa
If it walks like a duck…
And, since we are diving into taxonomy, the KKK - very much despicable, racist trash - are not interested in “fascism” as it is properly understood. They despise the national government - they want less centralization and more local authority back.
They may want to use that authority to awful ends at the local level, but they aren’t harbingers of American fascism.
Oh, boy…
A “force” of Volunteers to serve…
This “outcry” by some people falls under the same category of those that were “outraged” by the “Obama Youth Army” he was raising, with a bunch of overweight inner-city kids who with no rhythm to “step”.
Mufasa
[quote]entheogens wrote:
I believe that Lew Rockwell was right when he said that crises will be the way that the powers-that-be take away already-existing fundamental rights. I don’t think we need to speak in the future tense about this. And we needn’t concoct elaborate conspiracy theories to explain how this will unfold, IMHO.[/quote]
This has been the way in this country for the last 100 years. Every crisis has been used to engage the American people to accept a big government solution. It is not a conspiracy. It is out in the open and can be seen with ones eye when view with the proper perspective.
There are many that will hem and haw and deny the facts and concoct their own conspiracies about the greatness of the American government and the superiority of democracy – if you ask me that is the real conspiracy. It is a conspiracy of ignorance. Keeping the wool pulled over people’s eyes…