This is How Fascism Comes: Reflections on the Cost of Silence
For those who have seen the ugliness and heard the vitriol emanating from the mouths of persons attending McCain/Palin rallies this past week--what with their demands to kill Barack Obama, slurs that he is a terrorist and a traitor, and paranoid delusions about his crypto-Muslim designs on America--please know this: This is how fascism comes to an ostensible democracy.
If it comes--and if those whose poisonous, unhinged verbiage has been so ubiquitous this week have any say over it, it surely will--this is how it will happen: not with tanks and jackbooted storm troopers, but carried in the hearts of men and women dressed in comfortable shoes, with baseball caps, and What Would Jesus Do? wristbands. It will be heralded by up-dos, designer glasses, you-betcha folksiness and a disdain for big words or hard consonants.
If fascism comes, it will spring from the soil of middle America, from people known as values voters but whose values are toxic, from simple folk whose simplicity, far from being admirable, is better labeled ignorance, from "all-American" types whose patriotism is a dagger pointed at the very heart of the national interest, for it so forsakes all the best principles upon which the republic was founded, choosing instead to elevate and ratify the narrow-mindedness, the bigotry, and the intolerance that also marked our country's origins.
If fascism comes, it will be ushered in by tailgaters at the big football game, by Joe Six Pack, who, upon finishing his sixth beer and belching forth the stench of a mediocre life lived, will gladly announce its arrival, so long as it comes with a steady supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon and hot dogs on the grill, and giant foam hands with a "We're Number 1" finger, some Mardi Gras beads and a good titty bar.
If fascism comes it will dress like a hockey mom, or a NASCAR dad. It will believe Toby Keith to be an artist, Larry the Cable Guy to be a comic, and that the world was made in six literal days less than 6000 years ago.
If fascism comes it will come from the small towns; the ones Sarah Palin, quoting a famous racist and Jew-hater, said "grow good people," and which occasionally do, but which, just as often grow provincial, isolated, fearful and superstitious ones.
If fascism comes it will come from faux populism, from anti-immigrant hysteria, from persons who have more guns in their homes than books, or whose books, when they have them, are principally volumes of the Left Behind series, several different copies of the Bible, and a plethora of romance novels.
If fascism comes it will be welcomed, lock stock and barrel by persons who pray at every meal to a God they visualize as white, whose son they also think was white, and who they believe is going to rapture them all into the sky upon the blowing of some heavenly trumpet, after which point all those who don't think as they think will be burned in an eternal lake of fire. Their vision and version of God is itself fascistic--to love a God who would do such a thing is to love an abusive, sadistic and evil deity after all--so it should come as little surprise that their conception of the state would be equally authoritarian or worse.
If fascism comes it will be at the behest of those who hold a contempt for what they call "book learnin," who prefer Presidents who mispronounce basic words because they make them feel smarter, and who are looking for nothing so much as a commander-in-chief with whom they would enjoy having a beer, or two, or twelve at some backyard barbecue.
If fascism comes it will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio, by hosts whose cerebral inadequacies are more than made up for by their bellicosity, their bombast, their willingness to shout down those with whom they cannot argue, for argument requires knowledge, and this is a commodity with which they have not even a passing familiarity.
If fascism comes it will come wrapped in red,white and blue, carrying a crucifix and a shotgun, projecting its own sexual confusion and insecurity onto others, substituting volume for veracity and rage for reason, and landing on the New York Times best-seller list as a result.
If fascism comes it will have a pajama party at Ann Coulter's house, pop pills with Rush Limbaugh, and go gay-bashing with Michael Savage, all in the same weekend. And it will refuse to learn another language or get a passport, because doing either of those would make one cosmopolitan--which is just another word for "faggot."
If fascism comes it will come because a lot of people who aren't like the folks I'm talking about here, won't stand up to the ones who are. Because we're too busy, don't want to make waves, don't want to lose friends, or alienate family. It will come, in other words, because those who know better are cowards, more concerned with getting along, making nice, and being liked than with telling the truth, calling out evil and saving their country.
If fascism comes it will come because of the silence, and thus, collaboration of those who think themselves good, and certainly superior to the knuckle-draggers they can see on YouTube at the McCain rallies, but who in the end are no better and in some ways worse than they: after all, at least fascists stand up for what they believe in. They are telling us, in no uncertain terms what kind of United States they want and are willing to fight for, and maybe even to kill for. But many "progressives," many liberals, many of the so-called enlightened are doing nothing at all.
If fascism comes it will come because those liberals thought voting for Barack Obama was all they needed to do; it will come because they allowed themselves to believe that politics is what a person does every four years, but not at work, and not in the neighborhood, and not at the dinner table. Meanwhile, know-nothings filled with hate, nurtured on racial and religious bigotry and who have overdosed on the kind of hypernationalism that has always proved fatal to those places foolish or craven enough to allow it a foothold, talk of their visions for America at every opportunity. They raise their kids on that sickness, they build churches whose very foundation is rooted in that cancerous rot, and they will think nothing of steamrolling those who get in their way.
So when, exactly, do we fight back? When do we say enough? When do we stand up to our relative or friend who sends us the e-mail about Obama being a Manchurian Candidate or al-Qaeda sympathizer, or the one about the decency of Midwestern flood victims as opposed to those stranded after Katrina, or about how God was punishing New Orleans because of its tolerance of homosexuality, and tell them what we think: namely, that they are a bunch of racist, heterosexist loons, whose friendship or familial connection we neither want nor intend to pursue unless they get help. When do we decide that we love our country and humanity too much to allow these people one more day of decent sleep, one more day of self-assured confidence in their craziness and the willingness of the rest of us to just take it? When do we decide that every irrational, Jeezoid, racist thing that comes from their mouths will be attacked, will be rebutted, until they can no longer take for granted the ability to say any of it in mixed company without being called out?
Why, in the face of the fascism they would surely introduce if given the chance, are we intent on being so nice? Why are we not more offended? Offended not merely at what such persons say about others--like Obama, or Latino immigrants, or whatever--but even about we who look like them? After all, their open exhortations of racism presuppose that they are speaking for us, and that this kind of brain-dead ventilation is something to which all white folks should aspire as though it were virtually the essence of enlightenment.
If fascism comes it will come because we did not see in their actions a sufficient threat, or because we allowed ourselves to believe that it couldn't come, that our institutions were too strong, our people too good, for that to happen. If it comes it will come because we allowed ourselves to believe the rosy and optimistic version of America spun by Obama, without tempering that optimism with a clear-headed appraisal of the way that (sadly) a still huge number of Americans actually think: because we allowed the vehicle of our hopes to outrun the headlights of truth; because we convinced ourselves that we actually lived in the country of our aspirations, rather than the nation we have at present.
And if fascism doesn't come--if, rather, democracy does--it will come because good people said no. It will come because we saw in this moment the opportunity to demand the full measure of our humanity and to pour it forth upon the national soil. It will be because we understood that democracy isn't what you have, it's what you do. But if we are to issue that demand, if we are to stand straight and fulfill the potential we possess to do justice, we had best exercise the option quickly, for the opponents of justice are on the move. They are preparing to enter on the winds of our silence and indifference, and complacency. Let them find no quarter here.
Keywords:
About Tim
Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S., and has been called, "One of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation," by best-selling author and professor Michael...
Connections
Republican Voters
Wow! Tim, again you nail it right on the head. What you describe are the remaining republican (I refuse to capitalize republican) voters. The people you describe are the very people that are hurt the most by fascism. It is amazing how fear and religious zealotry can overcome common sense. But then I guess that is the purpose of crap that has been coming from the McCain campaign.
Keep up the great writing. I wish I could write half as good as you do. Thanks.
The capital letter distinction
Be careful here! You confuse with your self-rightous moral posturing.
First of all, the Republican party has a long history of being the watchdog for liberty, opposing internventionist wars overseas, and opposing big govt at home.
I am not a Republican because the party is morally and intelectually dead,for the most part. (But then so are the Democrats.)
But lower-case republicanism is the subscription to the ideal of a representitive republic. NOT a diminuative Republican Party govt. Get it right or I'll call you anti-intellectual (a common "liberal" "democratic" put-down).
Antiquarian Excursion
"First of all, the Republican party has a long history of being the watchdog for liberty, opposing internventionist wars overseas, and opposing big govt at home. "
And the Whig Party had a long history of interesting policy regarding silver coinage and tariffs on manufactured goods. So what? What parties do historically is irrelevant to what they do now. And the Republican Party certainly at the moment (nor for the past fifty years or so) is not a watchdog for liberty, is the foremost advocate of interventionist wars, and is a big fan of big government (though they use the rhetoric of small government to cut those things that protect the poor and weak).
Also
All PEOPLE are hurt by fascism. Except the top 1 percent of 1 percent. All suffer when liberties are denied to a few, then gradual to more and more, til all are slaves of the govt and corporations.
Additionally and equally, all are hurt when some are taxed to benefit a few others. Soon enough the tax game goes to see how we can rob each other the most inefficiently, as ALL govt expeditures of our money are inefficient. (Spending others' money on others, and taking a cut of the pie? There is no incentive to provide quality for cheap --- ther is only incentive to get a bigger budget to take a bigger piece of that pie)
Right.
"All PEOPLE are hurt by fascism. Except the top 1 percent of 1 percent. All suffer when liberties are denied to a few, then gradual to more and more, til all are slaves of the govt and corporations."
Agreed.
"Additionally and equally, all are hurt when some are taxed to benefit a few others."
Hold up. First of all, when we're talking about social policy, things like minimum wage, Social Security, etc. benefit the VAST majority, all but that top 1% of the top 1% you mentioned. Even those who do not take advantage of welfare, or use food stamps, or collect on unemployment insurance, know that those programs are out there to give them a meager way (and it should be more, not less) to survive if things go really bad. Social Security in particular has been one of the most massive anti-poverty programs ever, drastically cutting down poverty and starvation among the elderly. And we all reap the benefits. Wal-Mart's whole business model, for example, is contingent on government subsidy providing a safety net to their workers. Ironically, Wal-Mart would not be able to exist were it not for such things, which does show ancillary negative impacts of positive government action, but if those programs didn't exist, Wal-Mart workers would die BEFORE the company went down. Further, were we to raise the minimum wage and enforce laws that prevent bullying of union organizers, Wal-Mart would become infinitely better. See the point? Programs that benefit the poor benefit all but the ultra rich (and even arguably benefit them too, that's why many of the ultra rich support them) because they move up the wage and living standard scale for everyone. If the bottom is starvation, then the middle is always going to have problems.
But second, when we are taxed to help a minority, there's usually a damn good reason.
"Soon enough the tax game goes to see how we can rob each other the most inefficiently, as ALL govt expeditures of our money are inefficient. (Spending others' money on others, and taking a cut of the pie? There is no incentive to provide quality for cheap --- ther is only incentive to get a bigger budget to take a bigger piece of that pie)"
The irony is that you don't like corporations but advocate corporate dogma whole cloth. (Yes, corporations would be eliminated by REAL free markets. The point is that real free markets can't exist for any long period of time, and so small firms bloom into corporations to PROTECT themselves from the irrationality of the free market).
First of all, it's simply not true that government expenditures of money are inefficient. Every working economy on the globe has had and/or presently has government intervention. Every competitive part of the US economy had government intervention. Those who don't go into horrible collapses, like most of Latin America. Government expenditures CAN be inefficient or bureaucratic, too. But corporations are equally inefficient. They are just as bureaucratic and idiotic (see the Peter Principle, among numerous other illustrations).
The problem with your argument and marketeers' argument in general is that the choice is not between a free market utopia and the present heavyhandedness of the state. The choice is between a (at least in principle) democratic state and unaccountable corporate tyrannies. It's between government bureaucracy and corporate bureaucracy. Now, corporate bureacracy is just as bad about not wanting to provide quality for cheap, and are just as inefficient an bureaucratic, they actually provide the OPPOSITE: raising the price and lowering the quality.
The fact is that since we've moved closer to your kind of equilibrium, with less government intervention and cutting social programs and so forth, we've seen lower growth, lower social mobility, higher inequity, lower wages, etc.
In fact, it's fairly uncontroversial in economics that government CAN organize production, be mobilizers of last resort, etc. etc. The question always hinges on more sophisticated questions.
Interesting
Great post as always, Tim.
I always have found the impressions of what makes someone "gay" or weak or a woman or not badass is so arbitary. Take the passport example you offer. CIA agents, men like Chalmers Johnson, know about other countries, can speak other languages, and have many passports. Does that make them not tough? Why is it that being smart, well-educated, ambitious and desirous to advance oneself a BAD thing if it gets to a particular point, or comes from a black man, or comes out in the electoral politics, when all we hear is how much of an American dream there is?
There is something to be said for the higher path, for tolerance, but if someone wants to bring the game, say something racist, say something idiotic, I will correct them. And if they want to defend themselves, I will undermine their defenses. And for this, I am sometimes called rude.
On Fascism Coming.
Tim,
This post speaks volumes to me. I will vote for Obama, but I don't agree with many of his exceptionalist views of America as well as full acceptance of the free market, among other things, and I know that that can't be enough. Voting is certainly crucial, but only one part of working toward a truly democratic society.
In any case, it's important to note that we may be approaching fascism at a much quicker rate than most Americans realize. As of October 1, the Pentagon assigned a unit of U.S. soldiers recently back from Iraq to the United States. Essentially, President Bush can declare martial law due to a "catastrophic emergency"--and the language in the Presidential Directive is such that it can essentially be applied to anything Bush would deem an emergency, including our current economic crisis--and with the troops already here, as commander-in-chief, order them to look for suspected terrorists in America among other things, namely trampling all over the Constitution and screwing with human and civil rights. And all of this could happen at any moment, essentially. Bush could say tomorrow that the economic crisis deems declaring martial law. The power has been stolen by him to do so.
This is only a small snippet of the greater picture. Check out more about what's happening to our country and our freedoms, alternative media, bloggers and citizen journalists are covering it. Watch Naomi Wolf in a video on Youtube talk about what's going on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XgkeTanCGI
We live in a police state. A police state ran by the rich white men and those who pass their "safe" tests, and we must break free.
Facism
C. Perk- Thanks for the Naomi Wolf link. That is some scary stuff. But try to spread this to the mass public...The media dismisses it as unfounded conspiracy theory and doesn't report it. I have been a very loud opponent of electronic voting, and think that they steal elections that way (private proprietary computer software designed by close friends of Bush?). Yet for all my e-mails and letters to the media, the subject is dismissed as crazy tin-foil-hat talk.
Tim, I think it is too simplistic to think we can simply spread the word and make these racists and right-wing anti-intellectuals see the error of their ways by calling them out so they won't dare to be so narrow-minded in public. Anyone who has seen Bill O'Reilly knows that doesn't work. We are just dismissed, along with you and the Michael Moores and Al Gores of the world, as crazy liberals. They've already tuned you out.
I AM very vocal about my views. I DO call out the disgusting behavior I have been seeing, and sometimes to veryuncomfortable results. This week alone, I have engaged in a heated debate with a relative of a friend who supports McCain/Palin and calls Obama a terrorist, and now my friend is angry with me. I have also had a conservative friend delete me from their friend list on Facebook this week after my simple postings of links to sites like this. I don't need friends like that, so losing them doesn't particularly bother me. The fact that they effectively block out any alternative viewpoint to their own racism, homophobic, sexist, Christian one, is what bothers me. We cannot reach them. They cannot hear us. It is very easy to point fingers at the liberal community for not doing enough. But I think you are misled if you think you are not largely preaching to the choir here on your blog. How do we reach those who will allow this facist element to take over our country?? That's a much harder thing to do.
Freemarketeering
Oh my god. Thanks to disinformation in the media, I can't believe you actually think McCain and/or Obama are for free markets. They are not! They are for govt intervention is markets, which IS FASCISM!
Please check out educational materials here. Including Austrian economic theory (fact).
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/education.php
Thank you for being interested in these important issues!
Austrian, Huh?
Austrian economic theory is far from fact. Economics is so poorly understood that "fact" is few and far between. Your implicit argument is that free markets are just means for social transfer and exchange. This argument, I think, is sorely lacking, and I propose parecon as an counter-alternative, which is a non-statist, non-market, non-centralized, liberatory and self-managed way of managing economic decisions.
As far as government intervention in the economy: It is a fair enough argument that, from a technical perspective, the US (and most of the world) has been fascist since World War II. (Notice, however, that this coincides with the most growth: Neo-liberalism has shrunk the state, and in doing so lowered growth. This is because even attempts at radically distorted free markets are utter disasters). But both sides do want to cut down "protectionism" in some areas, namely those which protect the poor, by using free market rhetoric.
If fascism comes
it will be because people will vote and/or act against their own self interests just to keep the other guy or woman down, a pattern that has been repeated through the centuries.
I'm not known for niceness...
...but no one ever sends me those emails or makes those comments in my presence, so there's no chance to stand up about it.
(Well, except for my dad. But he doesn't care what I think, so arguing with him when there's no audience to provoke is pointless.)
I'm a father of three-year-old twins. I don't have the opportunity to sleep full nights, let alone figure out how to bring the fight to the fascists. I'm also a novelist and filmmaker, so that's where I can (and do) try to grapple with things I care about; but if I weren't, what would my options be? They're hard to see.
So what are your thoughts on that? Exhorting people to stand up... I was all for it before you said it, but there's little to stand against in my day-to-day day job life in Manhattan, or in the interior of my apartment, or along my cycle commute on the greenway. Racism is generally systematic where I am--by which I mean not the geography of where my feet are, but my broad circle of acquaintance--and isn't expressed individually, ever. There's little to fight in the way you, in this article, (and I, simply by my nature) would like to see it fought. The minor act of courage doesn't seem to have a clear opportunity to flourish; it seems the choice is between major acts and nothing. I can raise my children thoughtfully, I can say what I believe--but the chance, in daily life, to actively oppose the kind of thing you've described is near nil.
I'd like to hear what you think can be done by the many people I know in that circumstance, not in dramatic ways, but in the course of daily life; not in ways that would require more time or quick thinking than, oh, let's say a sleep-deprived parent juggling two three-year-olds can realistically muster, but in the simple choices made along the headlong course of a day.
And not that you need any more applause, but that was an excellent article, and I encountered it while trying to get my head around a novel I'm working on now. So who knows...
Great post Tim! "Those who
Great post Tim!
"Those who stand for nothing, will fall for anything." - Alexander Hamilton
As a white man, I've unfortunately had to disown my immediate family due to their insensitivity and downright mean spiritedness in regards to my African American wife. I refuse to allow ANYONE to disrespect my wife be it through ignorance, prejudice, or blatant racism. Figure it out, then come talk to me. Until then I refuse to allow such negativity in our lives. I think people have to take a stand and adopt a zero tolerance policy, even if it means breaking ties with ones family.
On this day, Columbus Day, which I personally celebrate as "Andiginous Persons Day", I think is a great opportunity for folks to begin standing up to fascist behavior, racism, and prejudice by learning the TRUE history of Christopher Columbus and spreading the facts to their friends and family.
Tim alluded to Columbus' true legacy in Pride and Prejudice: Tony Soprano, Christopher Columbus, and the Irony of Ethnic Stereotypes and you can get more information from 23/6.com's "Dickopedia", a wiki of dicks.
An excerpt:
Christopher Columbus’s greatest achievement in dickery, however, is his legacy. Despite leading a life of racism, slavery, and barbaric acts against natives so heinous that he was arrested and jailed, the only thing American children are really taught about the man is that “in fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” With similar historical airbrushing, schools could also accurately teach that “in nineteen hundred and forty two, Hitler gave free showers to lots of Jews.” He did. Look it up.
amen Daniel
amen Daniel
Fascism
Tim - I agree with most of what you say, although you overstate the degree of ignorance and bigotry in small communities based on my experience in my small community here in Kansas. We do have people here like the Joe Six Packs you describe, but we also have many others who are working hard every day to create a strong community that takes care of all its members, regardless of skin color or country of origin or sexual orientation or religious beliefs. It's challenging work, and we look to people like you to help us recognize the ways that whte privilege and unrecognized racism obscure our view, and to exhort us to be courageous in speaking out against hatred.
But I disagree with the tone of this piece. It doesn't help us find our way to thoughtful discussion with those whom we disagree, which is imperative if we are going to solve the problems that face us. Obama has been an extraordinary model in this regard, and those of us who support him are challenged to work even harder to reach across the (at times enormous) chasms between us. Yes we must speak up, and we must do so in a way that is more likely to create dialogue rather than division. We need your help with this.
Paula Fried
You Stand Up To Bullies
The problem, Paula, is that if raising even the idea that a racist joke isn't okay, or that Imus can't blame rappers for his use of the n-word, or that it's wrong to spread the Christian faith through the sword, or that Muslims are equal people, or so forth, leads to a backlash and closed minds rather than a discussion, then we either have to accept that, rationally, racist jokes might have some excuse, or simply make our argument stridently. The former is the way the movement loses its soul, so the latter is the only way we can do things.
Tim's point here is well-taken: The right doesn't do any of these things. The right doesn't engage with us, or try to have productive dialogue. The right's success has been because they have a backbone. I'm not saying we need indoctrination camps and Bill O'Reilly's per se, but we need analogous mechanisms for social justice and left causes.
I'm reminded of Murray Bookchin's comments about fascism and the left before the war. He pointed out that the liberal and left centers opposing the Nazis routinely decided to vote for the lesser evil, battling only the fascists, trying to have dialogue, etc. And so the tolerable left candidates moved further and further rightward, because the fascists do NOT have dialogue and vote for whom they please, and their unity and lack of wishy-washiness makes it so the political spectrum has to shift to them, not the other way around.
Obama is a perfect example of the problem. Not only are the man's left commitments non-existent historically, but his books and speeches make claims like the notion that a Vietnam war veteran is analogous to a native victim of American extermination in their audacity to have hope. He has been likened to MLK despite the fact that he supports capitalism, militarism and decides to rarely discuss institutional racism, thus avoiding all three of MLK's three evils. He is not one of us. Indeed, it is staggering how quickly he has shunted off progressive support in his inevitable rightward shift for the election proper, and pointed to passages from the very same books that led progressives and leftists to have such a love affair with him about his real commitments. For once, the politician isn't lying: It's us who was lying to ourselves.
The left has been complacent, dialogue-centered, and tolerant for long enough. It needs to hit back.
Midwest
Unfortunately, as a resident of southern Illinois, I can only attest that these ideas are true. However, there are many, like myself, who acknowledge the bullshit and try to move past it. The more rural you go though, the more you'll find the narrow minded biggotry.
If fascism comes
Well, someone understands what is going on. I guess that makes two of us.
if facism comes
Granted, some of the people at these rallies are nutters, but what about the facism of the mainstream media that silences debate on issues like immigration? If you don't go along with the multicultural consensus you are quickly branded a racist, even if you're just suggesting border control should be improved. So much for a liberal democracy with open debate.
Democracy = Fascism 51% of
Democracy = Fascism 51% of the population will always vote to control the other 49%. We do not, have not, and will hopefully never live in a democracy. We live in a constitutional republic governed by preset rules that ensure our liberties not only from the bush family, but also from that nasty 51%
that is a stunning lack of
that is a stunning lack of perspective actually...democracy, though i agree we don't have one, is not fascism. Under fascism, those who are 49 percent on one day, wouldn't be afforded the freedom and liberty to persuade the current 51 % that they were wrong, so as to forge a different consensus or majority...repression of the 49 percent would be total, or near total, voting (in which the numbers could change) wouldn't be allowed, or would be heavily repressed, etc...there is a difference. Though i agree pure up and down votes on everything can be dangerous, in that it wouldn't necessarily protect the rights of statistical minorities, it is not fascism just to have those votes. The fascism I am worried about is the repressive, kill or jail the enemy kind, or otherwise abuse them terribly, which is what some of the mobs seem to be like..
Nature of a Free Society
To add to Tim's objection: Democracy has never meant every issue is voted on by every member of the republic. Some issues just aren't political: What color my house is in most cases. From a simple practical perspective, either republican or direct democracy won't deal with every issue by a simple up-or-down vote. Also, not every vote has to be a minority/majority. Some may require supermajorities, others with multiple perspectives (not simple yay or nays) may only require a plurality. In any respect, as Tim points out, even if there are no individual rights a true democracy is never the same as fascism because the people on one side of an issue one day are on a different side of another issue the next. And individual and minority rights protections are different from the republican/direct question.
There's two primary problems with our representative system. First, when one person represents hundreds of thousands or millions of people, that person is heavily shielded from direct, organic responsibility to them. A direct democratic system of local councils would have representatives that would be directly recallable and accountable, and would be part of the organic body which they represent. Second, and far more serious, the representative system and the peculiarities of American politics make it so that the rich and the corporate factions of society are in control and are able to form an elite class, insulated from popular opinion or accountability, incumbency and money determining victory in a lot of situations, etc. This destroys the nature of the free society.
Fascism
Thank you. I'm forwarding this to friends to use as talkng points.
You said it all.
Sorry, Tim but I believe
Sorry, Tim but I believe the lack of perspective is yours. Only some people bother to critically think and come to a conclusion as to what their ideals are. The rest hop on the train of what is current as if they were picking out a pair of shoes. After a few years of deeply hypocritical opinions the resolve to call themselves Centrists.
I will call them non-thinkers. It is this group of people who truly decide the path of our nation. Meanwhile the thinkers in this country may rest assured that their not so easily manipulated vote was counted. Democracy breeds Fascism. Fascism is already here. Thinking people should be acting NOW. Instead(we as thinkers)squable over the headlines of the Replicrats. There is no fundamental difference between either candidate. It is one party. One direction. BIGGER GOVERNMENT. fewer liberties. REGARDLESS OF SKIN TONE. The next fascist government will not be racist. They will/are thoughtist.
People Don't Act Based on Insults
"Sorry, Tim but I believe the lack of perspective is yours. Only some people bother to critically think and come to a conclusion as to what their ideals are. The rest hop on the train of what is current as if they were picking out a pair of shoes. After a few years of deeply hypocritical opinions the resolve to call themselves Centrists."
So what? No reason the train can't go the other way. It happens all the time: Revolutions occur just as often as coups and juntas.
"I will call them non-thinkers. It is this group of people who truly decide the path of our nation. Meanwhile the thinkers in this country may rest assured that their not so easily manipulated vote was counted. Democracy breeds Fascism. Fascism is already here. Thinking people should be acting NOW. Instead(we as thinkers)squable over the headlines of the Replicrats. There is no fundamental difference between either candidate. It is one party. One direction. BIGGER GOVERNMENT. fewer liberties. REGARDLESS OF SKIN TONE. The next fascist government will not be racist. They will/are thoughtist."
They'll be both. The jingoist unity under which Republicans unite is racist as blacks, against Arabs and Muslims, and sometimes against Jews. They'll target homosexuals as well. The only differences as to who might be targeted from the Holocaust would be gypsies, the disabled and Jehovah's Witnesses.
I hear this a lot: "It's all about power" or "the only color that matters is green" or "regardless of skin tone". But that's simply not true and it never has been. Just like the Italians did not pick on Ethiopians by coincidence and the Nazis targeted ethnic groups, so too is American racism a force above and beyond the statist and the corporatist factors. For example, as much as we hear about fascism and so forth, most whites still have functionally a lot of civil liberties, but blacks don't need to be lectured about fascism and state oppression.
People are not going to act when you castigate them as sheep. If anything, polls show that the average, non-voting, politically apathetic American has a much better head on their shoulders than most of the so-called intellectuals.
Power is but a means
First off,Frederic, I didn't say that the motives of high ranking individuals(both public & private)was power or cash. It is however as it has always been a deep seated resentment to others derived from the insecurities about oneself. For these people power,cash,and racism are merely a means to an end.
Right now I do not believe that racism based solely on skin tone would even be an effective tool(most people despise it). I do agree with you however when it comes to the great possibility of horrible acts being committed against other types of minorities such as homosexuals and atheists. What sets these groups apart however is the ordinary americans ability to justify their hatred.
Regardless of what the truth is these individuals are seen as choosing,rather than being born with,their respective social stigmas. You see they are both thought processes. As far as arab americans are concerned they are stigmatized as a culture rather than as a race. The hatred towards them is directed through parents. They both fear that their children could be corrupted by islamofascism and/or hurt by people who are. Either way it comes back to a fear of a thought at it's core.
As far as castigating people as sheep and therefore hindering their action,well sheep only act when they are lead or frightened. The "revolution" you speak of will not come by way of a fad train. It will arrive(as it always does) when watchdogs stop barking at the wind and start nipping at the heels of the flock coercing them to action.
Racism Is Real, Harold.
"First off,Frederic, I didn't say that the motives of high ranking individuals(both public & private)was power or cash. It is however as it has always been a deep seated resentment to others derived from the insecurities about oneself. For these people power,cash,and racism are merely a means to an end."
First of all, that's not entirely true. One cannot spin a web of lies, propaganda, deceit and indoctrination without getting caught in it to some degree. Very few are cynical enough to believe X and constantly spew Y; one internalizes the cognitive dissonance. So we see when we review the internal planning record that many times we see bizarre official pieties in the midst of data and admissions that starkly disprove those pieties. In the planning for the 1973 Israeli-Egyptian war, for example, we see high-level horrendous racism about the supposed ineptitude of the Arabs. This led to them having to take the 1977 Sadat offer, which was worse than the offer Sadat gave in 1971. Similarly, the Nazi high planning clearly believed some of their own spin, and this led to some disastrous decisions. Review any government carefully and one sees that their own propaganda catches up to them on occasion.
Second, so what? The fact that those on top use things like race for their own ends doesn't make those things any less real when they appear. So, yes, it appears that American-style racism was partially fomented or enhanced by the ruling classes to cause infighting among the poor and give the white majority a psychological wage of whiteness. But just as the rich and powerful couldn't control the fascists after they got too powerful, so too is racism not always useful to the rich and powerful (say, when it helps get them into a disastrous war and then makes it harder to get out) but they can't simply turn off the switch.
"Right now I do not believe that racism based solely on skin tone would even be an effective tool(most people despise it). I do agree with you however when it comes to the great possibility of horrible acts being committed against other types of minorities such as homosexuals and atheists. What sets these groups apart however is the ordinary americans ability to justify their hatred."
Then you simply aren't paying any attention, I'm afraid. I know I sound like a broken record when I cite this, but studies from the Boston Federal Reserve Bank and numerous others have shown that identical black and white applicants get treated differently: Whites get prime loans when blacks don't, white excuses for poor credit are listened to while black excuses aren't, etc. Redlining, while reduced, is still a real, directly racist phenomenon. When a suburb starts becoming 10-15% black, whites move out en masse, lowering property values and creating a new ghetto. Indeed, the subprime meltdown is partially a racist crisis, because the black middle class were shown to bad loans overwhelmingly more often than whites even when they could have paid off the better, prime loans. But the media does not mention this because race is invisible.
A good 5% of white Americans (that is around 10 million people) think that blacks are genetically inferior, and another good plurality or majority of the population have numerous attitudes about black behavior that are stereotypical or racist. Implicit Attitude Tests prove that whites associate black faces with negative concepts far more often than would be expected by random chance, which only occurs when there is an onus or stigma to a group. And, as Tim makes clear in his piece on GHETTOPOLY, "A few years ago, sociologist William Julius Wilson, who had long peddled the line that race and racism were of declining significance in the U.S., partially reversed course when he discovered that employers in and around Chicago were openly reluctant to hire people of color because of a collection of negative stereotypes about their work effort, home environment and character: the same kinds of stereotypes that form the backbone of GHETTOPOLY."
It goes down the line. You're simply wrong, Harold. The fact that racism has become an insult in American parlance is a good thing, and a refreshing change. But the campaign that McCain is running, not to mention the innumerable studies I have cited and can continue to cite, prove that this is a very thin coating. How many times have you heard, "I'm not a racist, but [insert X racist comment?]" And how many whites take this seriously? Far too many.
Whites have proven themselves perfectly willing to stand by while black urban areas disintegrate thanks to neo-liberal politics, while blacks are locked up en masse by a criminal justice system that in essence functions as concentration camps for the poor and black (not the dangerous, mind you, since the majority are non-violent drug offenders), while welfare programs that serve as a precious lifeline for the black community are cut. The country is nowhere near as racially enlightened as you think. Race matters, it is in the room, and it will be a part of fascism.
Putting all that aside: Are you HONESTLY going to allege that there is not a major trend among Americans to be terrified of, angry at or intimidated by Arabs, Muslims, Indians, Sikhs, Persians, etc. because they're "of terrorist descent", as the Boondocks put it?
"Regardless of what the truth is these individuals are seen as choosing,rather than being born with,their respective social stigmas. You see they are both thought processes. As far as arab americans are concerned they are stigmatized as a culture rather than as a race. The hatred towards them is directed through parents."
This is silly hand-waving semantics. Indonesian Muslims, Asian Muslims and Arab Muslims are not treated the same. And Sikhs, who are not even Muslim OR Arabic, are routinely pummeled for the supposed crime of being either. It's virtually impossible to hate a culture you know almost nothing about, yet millions of Americans have vitriolic hatred of "sand ni**ers" and "camelfuckers" (yes, those are terms of cultural hatred, right?) despite knowing almost nothing about the regions in question.
Regarding people perceiving the difference between genetics and culture: Despite what many conservatives would like to think, I suspect that many (maybe not a majority but certainly a large group) white Americans don't care about or comprehend the difference. They look at black skin and get scared. Indeed, we can determine this for ourselves. Because those same white conservatives who claim that race doesn't matter and it's all culture, not genetics, turn around and buy en masse the Bell Curve, a book that says the opposite! It became a best-seller, and on these very forums it's been brought up several times.
So, no, race matters too. Yes, maybe some THINK they just hate the culture or the behavior, but a) even this is a racist presumption because of their routine ignorance about the behavior and their willingness to excuse whites who do the exact same, as with the difference in white reaction to college riots and inner city riots and b) the way they perceive this is NOT cultural but is racial. How many Americans, for example, can distinguish between a Persian and an Arab? It's intensely important to both groups, yet many whites will see the same culture. Because they see race, even if they rationalize culture.
"They both fear that their children could be corrupted by islamofascism and/or hurt by people who are. Either way it comes back to a fear of a thought at it's core."
This is a ridiculous assertion. The millions who resonated with Ann Coulter's comments that we should nuke people "for fun" aren't thinking rationally that they're going to be turned into Islamofascists. And even if that was the case, the fact that they would be so afraid of this remote, nebulous possibility when they know almost nothing about the culture they might become more familiar with is ITSELF racist, in that it is based in kneejerk bigotry and fear. Every example and excuse you cite IS racism.
"As far as castigating people as sheep and therefore hindering their action,well sheep only act when they are lead or frightened. The "revolution" you speak of will not come by way of a fad train. It will arrive(as it always does) when watchdogs stop barking at the wind and start nipping at the heels of the flock coercing them to action."
The left has had that attitude for decades. Guess how far it's gotten?
People don't listen when you tell them they're sheep. They don't resonate with you when you act like they are. And a movement that takes the notion that the working class or the poor or the majority of Americans or whomever are sheep will be a racist, classist, coordinatorist movement that will only create a new fascism or Stalinism or coordinator class rule.
People act when hope is there, when issues are explained rationally and alternatives are given. When the left does this, and resolves it pernicious problems of internal cohesion (what Michael Albert calls "the stickiness problem"), we'll have a fighting chance. Elitism about everyone else being sheep is great for patting yourself on the back, but horrible at getting anything accomplished. People aren't sheep, they're just afraid there's no alternative, and frankly this is a rational fear.
WOW
We need to be prepared to lose friends and even family and stand up and speak the truth and do the right thing. I wish we had a leader brave enough to do the same.
when we let it happen...
Thank-you Tim that was beautiful in its simplicity. People its not hard to understand. If you hear, see, smell racism in any form you stand up no matter where you are and you SPEAK OUT AGAINST IT. Not when its comfortable, especially when its not comfortable, not just when there is no one looking, no matter where you are, dinner with friends, Christmas morning with the family, in the lunchroom at work, on a bus no matter where. You speak out loud and clear, you take a stand, you make it understood you do not agree and why. You embarrass people, you make people feel uncomfortable , you draw attention to the stupidity of whatever act, word or deed has been preformed in the name of low intellect and ignorance . You make it your mission to never be silent, so as never to be a silent partner in the degradation you are witnessing therefore being in silent agreement. Its not safe or comfortable, the confrontational path never is but it is so necessary . I think some "liberal thinkers" love to hear themselves talk without ever really saying anything and accomplishing nothing.They enjoy the intellectual banter and are not willing to do the grass roots dirty work of being simply in your face confrontational for fear of looking stupid or being embarrassed. What will the neighbors think? Talk is cheap. Action not words.
Thanx for speaking up. The
Thanx for speaking up. The McCain/Palin and GOP comments and campaigning make me afraid to be a Black person in my own country. I was born, reared and educated in the USA. This is my country, my nation; and I am deeply, deeply grieved by the efforts of the McCain/Palin campaign and other GOP groups to undermine Senator Obama’s identity as an American and as a patriotic person, and to incite racial violence against Obama and his supporters. I thought this country was better than what the Republicans are displaying. I am afraid for African-Americans in this country generally because of what looks like a KKK presidential campaign. If these fear-promoting and racially divisive tactics of the Republicans work, then I truly fear the worst for this nation that I have called home my entire life. The efforts of the Republican campaign are acts of real domestic terrorism. I fear that the Republicans are undermining all the years that Civil Rights leaders have fought for equality and to uphold the truth our founding fathers declared -- “that ALL men are created EQUAL”!! A travesty that grieves me even more is that more folks in visible positions in the media and government leadership (and especially “Christians”) are not vehemently repudiating this hatred and publicly chastening John McCain, Sarah Palin and all the other GOP folks spewing this hate-filled rhetoric against Barack Obama. There is very much a hidden double standard and an anti-Black message in these GOP efforts. I remain appalled that people are just letting this happen…in 2008 no less!!!
~isLOVEreal?
Thanks Tim
Awesome post!
what bothers me about this "if fascism comes"
It is quite obvious to me that Barack Obama will win this campaign in a landslide. This post focuses on how the losing campaign might harm us,it can't. Our focus should be on he who will be the most powerful president in American history. Following Bush and being in the same position he was in 2000(party control of the congress)Barack will be able to essentially do whatever pleases him.
We should be committing him to constitutional government. Chiefly to end the use of the"executive order" in policy making. To return to congress the right to declare war(regardless of wether or not they think he should keep it). To humble the Executive branch and put the power back where it belongs vested in congress.
Agreed, Harold (and it's odd
Agreed, Harold (and it's odd that McCain is not arguing that), but to be totally fair while we should be skeptical of all politicians, the Dems have shown slightly less willingness to abuse the Constitution in the same manner as the present party, even when in control of the Congress. The executive order isn't a problem in very limited situations, but of course it is used far too often. Similarly, we need to slay the chimera of the line item veto. And the executive branch has to be put back into its place.
But, remember, Harold: The ascension of the voracious Presidency has deeper structural causes, part of the democratic deficit caused by neo-liberal mandates. We need to challenge that deeper corporate problem.
Incidentally, it's bizarre to say that the losing campaign (McCain) can't harm us and in the same breath say that executive orders are dangerous. A McCain Presidency would be disastrous, allowing vetoes of the better legislation from Congress, conservative judges, etc.
um, how much money would you
um, how much money would you like to put on the landslide prediction? I think you greatly underestimate not only white voter racism in key states, in particular, but also the propensity of the right wing to suppress turnout and steal the election (not that I think they'll be successful in that, but certainly enough so to make it close)...If Obama wins, it will be no more than 53-47 in popular vote, and 285 electoral votes (max), which is no landslide.
"285 electoral votes (max), which is no landslide."
Tim Wise: If Obama wins, it will be no more than 53-47 in popular vote, and 285 electoral votes (max), which is no landslide.The results, as of 2:20am et, are actually 349 to 158, with N. Carolina, Missouri, Montana and Alaska still uncounted. N.Carolina has 100% votes counted, with Obama ahead.
Various Newspapers calling this election a landslide are:
(Examiner) McCain concedes in landslide vote
(AP) "Obama's landslide win"
(Time) "When historians look back at the 2008 presidential landslide"
(Reuters) "Obama's landslide win"
(Afrik France) "Obama’s landslide win for the Presidency was largely anticipated"
(Fox) "Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation's first black president Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself."
(Nigerian Tribune) "Obama elected first African-American president of the US in landslide victory"
(Press Trust of India) "Democrat Barack Obama today wrote himself into history becoming the first Black US President in a landslide election win over Republican rival John McCain, engineering a huge political transformation four decades after the peak of civil rights movement for racial equality."
(China Daily) "Obama wins US presidency in landslide victory"
(Africa News) "The entire continent of Africa is in an ecstatic state following the landslide victory of Barack Obama as the first black president of USA."
(AP) Obama's electoral win resounding
Add another electoral landslide to the record books.
There's no set definition for what constitutes a landslide, but Barack Obama's resounding electoral victory seems to fit the bill.
Much like the miscalculation of Sarah Palin as the voters primary concern of the McCain campaign(a)(b)(c) (with half of voters as early as September 5, deeming her unqualified, and growing to 60% by November) in contrast to the paper on white privilege, this incorrect prediction on the election results lies at incorrect assumption you are making on the American public. We're moving on, whether you come with us or not.
Pick up a book about racism and white privilege, please
"Much like the miscalculation of Sarah Palin as the voters primary concern of the McCain campaign(a)(b)(c) (with half of voters as early as September 5, deeming her unqualified, and growing to 60% by November) in contrast to the paper on white privilege, this incorrect prediction on the election results lies at incorrect assumption you are making on the American public. We're moving on, whether you come with us or not."
*sigh*
Joe, predicting the outcome of an election is no science.
When writing a sentence like "lies at incorrect assumption you are making on the American public" and dropping a list of links, then saying that someone ELSE is miscalculating, you embrasss yourself publically. White privilege mattered in this election. If you don't agree with that, you're wrong. And you seem to not think that race is salient, yet you offer no reason to accept this, just say that Tim made two inaccurate predictions (wow! I bet you don't listen to any political analyst given that they've all made two or more inaccurate predictions! Tool). McNeil-Lehrer had an interview with some commentators on how much Obama had managed to shore up support and McCain not, and noted that very few people predicted the massive landslide. I personally felt Obama would win, that McCain had no chance, but even I'm surprised by how much the victory was.
But it's uncontroversial that the victory could have been even more intense if many white voters could set aside their prejudices. Remember that Obama did NOT win the majority of the white vote, which was part of Tim's point.
By the way, if you can't understand why "half of voters" doesn't mean "half of white voters", you are making "at incorrect assumption" on us.
Pick up a book about racism and white privilege, please.
Ascribing racial motives
Tim Wise
I think you greatly underestimate not only white voter racism in key states
White Americans play major role in electing the first black president
Obama did not win a majority of white voters; no Democrat has since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But he ran equal to the last three Democratic candidates for president among white voters, and even slightly better than the party's 2004 nominee, according to an Edison/Mitofsky exit poll conducted for a consortium of TV networks and the Associated Press.
Race proved to be no discernible handicap, even among the small-town, working-class whites who were considered most resistant to the black political newcomer from Chicago.
For Pollsters, the Racial Effect That Wasn’t
All the ominous predictions, all the fretting about hidden votes and closeted racists frustrating a victory for the nation’s first African-American president came down to this: the so-called Bradley effect did not exist.
+++
But if election polling showed anything about attitudes on race, it may have been about Americans’ quickness to ascribe racial motives; to some extent, they blame racism more than they actually act on it — or at least, vote on it. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in late October, Obama supporters were more likely than McCain voters to say they knew someone who was not supporting Mr. Obama because he is black. McCain backers were more likely than Obama supporters to say they knew someone who was supporting him because he is black. “
It says something about race and our culture that we were more likely to attribute racial motivation to people who disagree with us than to people who agree with us,” said Kathy Frankovic, the director of surveys at CBS News.
Nice Try
These arguments sound good on the face of it, but they come from a total ignorance of the history behind the issues in question.
First: You argue that Obama couldn't have been harmed by racism because he polled something like the last few voters. Yet WHY do whites vote so anemically for Democrats in the first place? It has PLENTY to do with the Democrats being associated as the party of blacks, women and immigrants. The fact that Obama didn't poll a majority of whites is the argument you conceded and the argument Tim made, and that stems from racism.
Second: You make the erroneous and tremendously silly assumption that VOTING for Obama proves that one has no problem with his skintone. But the world is not that clearcut. As Tim made quite compellingly clear, Obama's race cost him vis-a-vis Hillary in the primaries. It appears that, when the party nominated Obama, Democrats swallowed their racism and voted for the Democratic candidate anyways, but that doesn't mean they weren't racist and it doesn't mean Obama's candidacy in general wasn't hurt by his race.
Remember that white privilege is more than just the absence of disadvantage, it's the presence of advantage. So, sure, lots of whites stomached voting for a black man. But they did not do so with as much excitement, and they did so with more ambiguity. Were Obama white, he would not have had that advantage.
And even your poll notes that people have racialized attitudes! Both Dems and Republicans replied that they KNEW someone who responded to Obama's skin color. That alone proves Tim's point, yet you obliviously throw it out there thinking it's a response.
The Republicans managed to get away with stealing two elections. Apparently, it caught up to them this time. Don't let that fact detract you from proper analysis of white privilege...
I am quite aware of racism
I think you have misinterpreted my point,probably due to my lack of writing skills. I do recognize that racism exists, I do understand that a black man will do more time than a white man for the same crime. I understand that"A good 5% of white Americans (that is around 10 million people) think that blacks are genetically inferior"(but I'm willing to bet that at least more than half these people are over fifty and on their way to meet their maker),but sexism also exists. We all know that palin is a moron but regardless of what the "ignorant masses may say about a womans ability to lead, I would not say that you were ignorant to sexist views in america when you pick out legitimate flaws in her logic.
"Putting all that aside: Are you HONESTLY going to allege that there is not a major trend among Americans to be terrified of, angry at or intimidated by Arabs, Muslims, Indians, Sikhs, Persians, etc. because they're "of terrorist descent", as the Boondocks put it?"
I asserted that there is this trend. It is a problem but it's not necessarily grandpa's racism but a fear of what most americans don't have a culture.
"This is silly hand-waving semantics. Indonesian Muslims, Asian Muslims and Arab Muslims are not treated the same. And Sikhs, who are not even Muslim OR Arabic, are routinely pummeled for the supposed crime of being either."
This IS NOT SEMANTICS. I am an Atheist living in Utah and do to my lack of any legitimate higher education I work with the hillbillies that we are talking about. The reason they hate me or my(edit minority{it's impolite to talk about others})friends is because of cultural/thinking differences yet most of them(under 50) have no problem with a person of any race so long as they don't have an accent. I recognize that racism exists and amoung some groups even prevalent and I believe it is every well rounded individuals duty to stand up to it. I simply do not believe that the dark days ahead will be characterized by the mass graves of traditional minorities yet more likely by the mass graves of political opposition. The words on this page not only point out a true injustice but also slander everyone who is conservative. This only fuels the fire of hatred towards an opposing view. IN THE LONGTERM "POST BARACK" YOUR SIDE MAY LOSE. In which case it could be your grave or mine.
"People don't listen when you tell them they're sheep. They don't resonate with you when you act like they are. And a movement that takes the notion that the working class or the poor or the majority of Americans or whomever are sheep will be a racist, classist, coordinatorist movement that will only create a new fascism or Stalinism or coordinator class rule."
The people that I have "castigated" will never read this(or little else)therefore I won't resonate with them either way.
The constitution triumphed by Hamilton(who ironically began the first abolitionist movement in America)was written on the idea that mob rule was lunacy. It was envisioned as a document that would create a meritocracy where the best and the brightest would be able to succeed and lead. This was broken both by the corrupting influence of the wealthy and the democratic reforms of the working class. The Idea that the mob is capable of ruling is what has in part created our present predicament. How many Noble laureates do we have for congressmen? How many doctors,physicist,CLIMATOLOGISTS? They are sheeple. I doubt,however, that anyone conversing hear is (you read). It is high time that the best and brightest start convincing the slow and the lazy as to why they would be better off relinquishing their control(until they earn it)before they get us all KILLED. FACISM ALTHOUGH IT HAS THE POWER TO ACT IS NO MORE RACIST THAN THE AVERAGE IDIOT. IT DOES NOT COME FROM RACISM RACISM IS BUT A NASTY SYMPTOM. When fascism comes it will sound like hope not hate. once the power is there(almost all the pieces are currently in place)then it will morph to hate because when ideologically
bankrupt people rule they fail the masses. Then they begin to place blame. That blame will fall on outsiders culturally . When fascism comes it will because thinking people put their faith in a politician. Not from decrepit old racist jerks.
And Tim my definition of landslide is that the gop won't bother to rig this one. Would you put money on it that Barack will lose? I doubt it.
Arrogance
"I think you have misinterpreted my point,probably due to my lack of writing skills. I do recognize that racism exists, I do understand that a black man will do more time than a white man for the same crime. I understand that"A good 5% of white Americans (that is around 10 million people) think that blacks are genetically inferior"(but I'm willing to bet that at least more than half these people are over fifty and on their way to meet their maker),but sexism also exists."
Actually, there's no reason to expect a disproportion of the genetic inferiority types to be old. While it is true that one would expect some diehard Southerners to be in that sweep, one would also expect Nazis and RaHoWa types to be dispro young because hate crime tends to be a young man's game. I don't know the actual statistics (Tim, any comment?), but I'd imagine the disproportion of the older is not very high.
"We all know that palin is a moron but regardless of what the "ignorant masses may say about a womans ability to lead, I would not say that you were ignorant to sexist views in america when you pick out legitimate flaws in her logic."
This is true, but I fail to see the point. Our original discussion was about the emergence of fascism. You argued that most Americans wouldn't associate a neo-fascism with race. I said that this was a bizarre position given the widespread nature of institutional racism combined with widespread subtle racist and discriminatory attitudes held by whites. I presume your point here is that one can criticize Obama without being racist, which is absolutely true (in fact, one can criticize Obama quite strongly from an anti-racist perspective, given how anemic he is on issues of race), but that's neither here nor there to our original discussion.
"I asserted that there is this trend. It is a problem but it's not necessarily grandpa's racism but a fear of what most americans don't have a culture."
Yes, I'm sure it literally is a trend, but the original context of this discussion was exactly about the salience of race and racism. I brought up the specter of anti-Arab racism as part of a point about how ruling classes can get misled by their own racist dogma. The only way that your comments about culture could be a non sequitur would be if the culture point was the main phenomenon, not just a trend.
And again, I don't get the foundation you have for asserting that all these racist attitudes are just holdovers from Jim Crow or "grandpa". There are plenty of young, hip guys, whether frat boys or dudes playing Counter-Strike, who are perfectly willing to utterly totally racist things about the humanity and worth of "camel fuckers". I would like to imagine that the young are more enlightened, and polls show that in some ways they are, but it's not enough to eliminate the salience of race, especially since the evidence would indicate that as they grow up they get grandpa's racism too.
"This IS NOT SEMANTICS. I am an Atheist living in Utah and do to my lack of any legitimate higher education I work with the hillbillies that we are talking about. The reason they hate me or my(edit minority{it's impolite to talk about others})friends is because of cultural/thinking differences yet most of them(under 50) have no problem with a person of any race so long as they don't have an accent."
Well, I can't speak to your experience, but first of all let me say based on my own experience with Utah that I find it highly unlikely that these hillbillies are racially enlightened. If you have them take Implicit Attitude Tests, I bet you they will score like many whites do. If you ask them why they think blacks are poor, I bet you many will mention births out of wedlock or gangs or rap music or something. And so forth. And I can absolutely guarantee you that if their community became more than 15% black, they would move en masse if they had any choice. In any respect, this is anecdotal. Utah or your area may have unique traits that don't extrapolate. My comments apply to the majority of Americans.
But second, it still is semantics. Because as I pointed out, plenty of whites think the same thing, that it's just black culture they don't like but they're okay with black people, but that position IS RACIST, because it ascribes cultural traits to a group, imagines those cultural traits are vastly determinative, and causes them when they look at the group to be irrationally bigoted towards every member even members who clearly don't show the cultural traits they don't like, while they excuse whites who show those traits. Like I said: Whites sometimes rationalize culture, but they see race, making it still about race. The accent example is perfect. My mother is Quebecois and has a notable French accent, and yes, she faces some ostracism and mockery. But I guarantee you her treatment is nowhere near as bad, and wouldn't be in your town, as an Indian or an African with an accent. Fear and dislike of accents is at least part a racial thing, given how accents are likely to cluster in racial groups.
I honestly think that if you scratch a little under the surface, you will find quite a bit of racial hatred, racist attitudes, willingness to use racial slurs, etc. among the people in your area.
"I recognize that racism exists and amoung some groups even prevalent and I believe it is every well rounded individuals duty to stand up to it. I simply do not believe that the dark days ahead will be characterized by the mass graves of traditional minorities yet more likely by the mass graves of political opposition. The words on this page not only point out a true injustice but also slander everyone who is conservative. This only fuels the fire of hatred towards an opposing view. IN THE LONGTERM "POST BARACK" YOUR SIDE MAY LOSE. In which case it could be your grave or mine."
And I think this is a bizarre characterization. It has no historical precedent: While fascism varies in its usage of racism, it always uses it to SOME degree, because racism and nationalism are so closely intertwined. Whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Mussolini's Italy or Nazi Germany, racial (as well as religious, cultural, etc. outsiders) were castigated and assaulted. It has no resonance with present-day reality: The strongest fascist forces, the religious right, are incredibly racist. And it makes no sense given the actual institutions: Already, we are seeing that the democratic deficit has led to a racial war against blacks through the criminal justice system (and, some would argue, the military as well, where the military is used to get excess black youth who would otherwise be working and turn them to imperial uses, thereby killing a disproportionate amount of them and of the poor in general). But you are honestly arguing that a fascist society, one that amplifies present regressive trends, would be MORE enlightened than our present one. I am baffled.
First of all, I don't believe you really believe or understand or accept race as institution. If one understands institutional racism, then one would realize that any reactionary force like fascism would have to deal with racism, and it's far more likely to amplify it than to eliminate it.
Second, I think you're simply not thinking of race as a parallel category to politics. If you did, you'd recognize that by DEFINITION if the Republicans are to go after Democrats, or fascist elements after the elements that opposed them, they would HAVE to go after blacks since blacks are overwhelmingly against the primary fascist current in our society. Maybe they would scrupulously avoid mentioning their race, but I highly doubt it.
As far as slandering people who are conservative: I argue against conservatives. Some offer interesting arguments, or arguments that aren't offensive. Your position, for example, that Obama is dangerous because if he wins his party will be in the majority in two chambers of government is a serious one, and one I had actually just only heard the day before reading your post in my Comparative Government class. When conservatives say something offensive or continue to argue down offensive lines or deny institutional racism based on foul logic, I of course get ired, but to call this slander and to further make the snide implication that this is anything like a fascist tendency is bogus and offensive. People here are overwhelmingly quite polite to people who often do not deserve it.
Honestly, Harold, fascism is NOT going to come from the Democrats. Institutionally speaking, it isn't going to come from the "Republicans", either, or at least the business party of them. Fascism tends to be very bad for the corporate elite: They like what they currently have, and a nationalist status quo with faux populist elements may benefit them in some ways but it harms them in others. Yet just as in pre-Nazi Germany, the Republicans have made a deal with the very forces they've unleashed. By barring progressive, secular political involvement through neo-liberal democratic deficit, the powerful have produced, structurally, a class of people who still want to participate in the system but now find their own outlet to be through religion. Religious groups lead to reactionary, far right politics, the type of which have taken over a lot of the Republican Party at the grassroots level. The Republican side of the business faction has to make deals with the devil. Think about the many ironies in the Republican Party: They talk about Main Street but assidiously serve Wall Street; many claim to be civil libertarians but also have to want to ban abortion and flag burning; and so forth. The Republican Party has to grant the religious conservatives what they want socially, because they can't grant them what they would need economically (policies to protect the working class) and because they need their ongoing support.
Now, the proto-fascist trend isn't inevitable, but as Tim points out if it comes it'll be because the religious, ultra-right, reactionary (and racist) factions of society will get tired of the measly gifts they get from the Republicans, fully take over the party, take over the political system, and then turn the society into a theocracy, as oh-so-many people I've interacted with desperately want to do.
"The people that I have "castigated" will never read this(or little else)therefore I won't resonate with them either way."
This is a silly copout. If you have this attitude here, it's fair to say you will have it elsewhere. But even if not, you've thrown it out into the ether. People read it, and some people who have those elitist ideas about people lock onto it. Your voice here is an expression of a long-standing elitist trend among intellectuals and the educated who, when they get into a movement, therefore invariably make those views part of the movement and make a vanguard party structure. It's the way these trends play out, virtually every time.
"The constitution triumphed by Hamilton(who ironically began the first abolitionist movement in America)was written on the idea that mob rule was lunacy. It was envisioned as a document that would create a meritocracy where the best and the brightest would be able to succeed and lead."
And the reason that they decided mob rule was lunacy had nothing to do with actual arguments against mob rule but was premised in the simple fact that they wanted to keep their wealth and have the society run by the "opulent minority". Yet their naivete here was astounding yet arguably forgivable. Because the same forces that kept the mob down were the forces that let modern capitalism ascend and completely take over the political system. Jeffersonians may have had contempt for the poor and for the "mob", but they also did not want an industrial society ruled by a super-rich elite. In fact, Jefferson near the end of his life had quite vigorous and angry things to say against the "banking incorporations" and "moneyed institutions".
In short, the Constitution's vision, or as Rocker would put it the vision of Democracy and Liberalism, crashed on the rocks of Capitalist Political Economy. This is NOT a meritocracy and hasn't been for centuries. And one is either on the side of the working class, ergo the mob, or on the side of the ruling class, ergo the rich and powerful. Given the present array of classes, one's ideology picks one or the other.
The reason why so many try to carve out a middle ground is because of the coordinator class. Coordinators want to have a future society run by them but without the capitalists. Therefore, they want institutional mechanisms that elevate them to ruling and keep the mob down but also get rid of the capitalists. This leads to Stalinism or to conventional market socialism.
Contempt for the working class, for the majority, isn't just expressing the worst of the Framers' rich white male ideologies (the ideologies that crassly protected their own interests instead of liberating everyone). It actually benefits the bastards you claim to despise.
"This was broken both by the corrupting influence of the wealthy and the democratic reforms of the working class."
To honestly allege that the threat to democracy is equally serious from the society being ruled by a tiny, inter-connected corporate elite that pacifies the vast majority of those who get involved and things like recall of judges and elected officials or Social Security is repugnant and idiotic.
"he Idea that the mob is capable of ruling is what has in part created our present predicament. How many Noble laureates do we have for congressmen? How many doctors,physicist,CLIMATOLOGISTS?"
This would make any sense if two things were true.
First of all, if scientists were more fit to rule. But that's a terrible claim. Scientists can process a particular kind of data, scientific data, quite well. That doesn't automatically lead to the people skills or the array of other skills that make sense for ruling. This is a technocratic ideology, and fundamentally offensive. A good society has experts of all kinds, whether artistic, legal or scientific, present the various options, present the data in accessible form, to the relevant people directly, who then figure out what to do in their OWN LIVES based on this information. This implies council communism and direct democracy.
Second, and far worse, it implies that the working class authentically chose the bastards in power. But they didn't. Those Senators aren't the real power, it's the corporate and policy-making elite who overwhelmingly stay in power no matter who is currently in charge of the government. And those who do run come from business parties that the majority of voters have contempt for and see irrelevant differences between. To point to a collapsed democracy and blame voters for whom they elect when the Tweedledeedees and Tweedledeedums they have to choose from are foregone predetermined conclusions is truly repugnant, and a new low.
"They are sheeple."
The worst part about this? It implies that you, and a few others you like and who you're talking to, are somehow better. It's just arrogance.
"I doubt,however, that anyone conversing hear is (you read). It is high time that the best and brightest start convincing the slow and the lazy as to why they would be better off relinquishing their control(until they earn it)before they get us all KILLED. FACISM ALTHOUGH IT HAS THE POWER TO ACT IS NO MORE RACIST THAN THE AVERAGE IDIOT."
History is full of people who said the same thing. Hitler. Lenin. Stalin. Guess what they have in common?
People who said the opposite, whether Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi, didn't make societies worse, or more chaotic. They made their societies more free, they made them better.
The problem with the best and brightest is that they get to define for themselves what makes them the best and the brightest, create the institutional means that keep them the best and the brightest, and make sure no one can challenge their rule regardless of merit. This is the foundation of some form of tyranny over the majority. I'd rather have mob rule any day.
As Kant famously pointed out, to say that people aren't ready for freedom is to stand in line with all those slavemasters and dictators who kept them enslaved. Because the maturity for freedom is only earned after freedom is earned. In reply to the violence of the French Revolution, he reiterated these points, saying that while violence is horrible, no one of reason or humanity would too quickly look at the violent actions of an oppressed people and thereby demand a return to an oppressive status quo. History bore him out: France is now a democracy.
And our own Republic was not earned by the "best and brightest", Harold. It was earned by volunteers, militia men and soldiers who believed in freedom. It was earned by the poor and the mob, the very same who were then betrayed at Shay's Rebellion. They bled and died for this, yet you want them after they have fought to give up their rights as free men. I cannot express my contempt for this position more strongly.
Also: Again, your claim about fascism is just plain wrong. In fact, it may even be DEFINITIONALLY wrong, since most definitions of fascism note its strong ethnic and racial element in every iteration we have seen, ever. Fascism is always racial. It makes sense: Race is one of the best ways of encouraging people to give up freedoms.
"IT DOES NOT COME FROM RACISM RACISM IS BUT A NASTY SYMPTOM."
Like I said, to no reply to you: Symptoms are real. And in the case of societies, symptoms can overwhelm causes. The ruling class always thinks they can control the fomenting they produce to bigotry and hate, but they often find they are wrong. Similarly, while one can argue that fascism is institutionally radical reactionary corporatatism, it also includes in its institutional basis radical reactionary racism.
"When fascism comes it will sound like hope not hate. once the power is there(almost all the pieces are currently in place)then it will morph to hate because when ideologically bankrupt people rule they fail the masses."
Of course. Our duty in reply is not to castigate the masses as sheeple, as if the record of those like us (educated white males) is any better than theirs, but to prepare liberatory movements that allow every man, woman and child to assert their right to self-management, freedom and participation in the decisions that affect them. If you stand in the way of this, then yes, I will "slander" you, because it means you are a Stalin and not a MLK.
"Then they begin to place blame. That blame will fall on outsiders culturally . When fascism comes it will because thinking people put their faith in a politician. Not from decrepit old racist jerks."
But racism will be part of it. A big part of it.
"And Tim my definition of landslide is that the gop won't bother to rig this one. Would you put money on it that Barack will lose? I doubt it."
This is also incredibly naive. The GOP will try. I just don't think they'll succeed.
In short, Harold: I think your arrogance comes from fear and having very little else to hold onto. Suffice it to say that no one knows what's in the best interest of any person better than themselves, and no one has the right to take away their ability to decide for themselves what to do with their lives and what to feel and say about the decisions that affect them. You are a fascist if you disagree with this.
Tim Knows Social Responsibility
Tim,
The one thing that I admire the most about you is the high level of decency in which you choose to exercise your first amendment rights to free speech/free press. You exercise these rights with a great deal of care, truth, meaning and purpose. And as I've heard you mention many times, to engage in any kind of discourse, requires intelligence.
I am fed-up with the Rush Limbaughs and Michele Buckmans of the World who unscrupulously perpetuate racism and fear. I have a great deal of disdain for people like Limbaugh who use their platforms to pit groups against each other, particularly racial, ethnic and political groups. Someone needs to let Limbaugh know that he's not on MTV and that his show isn't about pimpin' free speech. If this type of behavior isn't the epitome of primitive antics, I don't know what is. To say that people like him lack a pre-frontal cortex is putting it mildly.
I am sure that I, along with others, appreciate that you express your ideas, confront our hypocrisies and more importantly educate the masses in a rational and respectable manner. This is a basic and fundamental social understanding that we don't see applied very often.
Thank you for having the sense to know that when one is bestowed with a public platform, that at a minimum, it should be used in a socially responsible manner.
Stupidity never takes a day off
It is true that stupidity does not take a day off. And is dangerous if left unchecked. Some time ago, I began challenging the unspoken assumptions, stupidity and arrogance on a regular basis and I can tell you that it really reduced the number of people that were willing to utter mindlessness in my presence. Others just won't talk to me. But at least now there is an understanding that I am not a passive audience for political or racial propaganda.
The most effective approach I've found in dealing with individuals is to ask a series of questions which serves the function of getting people to defend their stupidity (something that people who are used to mindlessly rambling off stuff aren't used to doing.) I should note that when a persons opinion is tied to ego they will insist to the point of insanity because it is more about winning an argument or pushing a political point-of-view than gaining a deeper understanding of an issue.
However, what one is likely to encounter is a serious attempt to change the subject and If you can avoid the traps of branching off into a discussion where you are on the defensive. You can drive your point and your message home. Keep in mind that it's not always about the person you are talking to but rather the people that are listening. This is something that each one of us can do in our personal and professional lives and know that each time you do this you make the world a little smaller for the simple-minded. If you simply wrote an email or letter to your news paper, television station every time they published something racists sexist or just plain stupid. If you simply responded with reason every time you came across a racists or mind-numbing post you would be doing your part to counter insanity that has been accepted enough that people perpetuating this stuff don't feel the need to consider how people might respond to such propaganda.
Once this kind of response becomes common place, we will get back to the point where people won't be so comfortable making insanely stupid and profoundly ignorant comments in mixed company.
At The Same Time
At the same time, Lee, one has to make reasonable calculations about the utility of one's decisions. Going to a neo-Nazi forum and arguing there may not be the best use of one's time. One has to estimate the degree of impact one is likely to have versus the time spent to gain that impact. Your average small-town newspaper? Absolutely. There was a time where I wrote in every month or so to my local newspaper in my hometown, and I've heard from many people who read the letters and had their eyes opened a little. But there are some instances where you're preaching to the converted, so that you're only satisfying their existing commitment; or you're preaching to the fanatically unconverted, and one is more likely to get punched than to change anyone's mind.
I should have clarified
Frederic:
I've enjoyed reading just about everything you've written therefore, I guess that would make me among the converted. However, I should have clarified my comments as I am in complete agreement. I know that one must pick ones battles. I have personally experienced the futility in even attempting to discuss (because its not possible) with a willfully-ignorant political operative. Therefore, it is critically important to be able to discern rather quickly as to if one is simply-ignorant vs willfully so.
Five Thumbs Up!
I really appreciate that somebody other than I has written a good explanation of how fascism comes to the USA. Unfortunately, however, as I write in my own blog posting, I'm afraid that fascism is already here.
As long ago as September 1 I wrote another blog post pointing out that the modern-day Republican Party had transformed itself into a party of moderate fascists. In that blog post I noted that the Republican Party "merits the adjective 'moderate' only because it has not used violence to obtain its position of power in the United States." As we are now beginning to see with the McCain-Palin campaign, violence is rearing its ugly head. And it is not only violence against opponents which is threatened, but hateful attempts to use false claims of violence against McCain supporters which is being used as part of the incitement to violence. Like most false accusations, the lie has ten times the reach of the truth which follows.
I am a Goldwater conservative. But like Barry Goldwater himself in the years before he died, I find myself alienated from the Republican Party, which has moved so far to the right that it is now clearly fascist. And I do not use the term "fascist" lightly. In my own blog post I carefully analyzed the meaning of the term and its acceptable uses. The recent threats of violence leave the Republican Party only one baby step away from full-blown fascism. It will not take much for them to cross that line.
I agree with you that more people need to call out these fascists, and I congratulate you for your own well-written article doing just that. Please be aware that you have joined a growing chorus of people who are utterly convinced that the Republicans have turned fascist and that true conservatives, including myself, are among those who will aid you in calling out these despicable elements of modern America.
Hold Up
"As long ago as September 1 I wrote another blog post pointing out that the modern-day Republican Party had transformed itself into a party of moderate fascists. In that blog post I noted that the Republican Party "merits the adjective 'moderate' only because it has not used violence to obtain its position of power in the United States." As we are now beginning to see with the McCain-Palin campaign, violence is rearing its ugly head. And it is not only violence against opponents which is threatened, but hateful attempts to use false claims of violence against McCain supporters which is being used as part of the incitement to violence. Like most false accusations, the lie has ten times the reach of the truth which follows."
Let's analyze this.
Fascism typically includes outright dictatorship, full corporate-state allegiance, a crackdown on civil liberties, violence abroad and at home, and outright assaults on racial minorities.
We are not an outright dictatorship. Corporate-state allegiances of course are the primary way the society is run, the elite structure, but there are other calculations and other openings. PATRIOT is quite serious, but we still have formal and quite real rights of freedom of expression, religion, speech, the press, against search and seizure, and so forth. Violence abroad we definitely qualify for, but that alone isn't a sufficient condition: Athens was a quite free society for its time yet quite violent abroad. Violence at home, though, we don't: A few isolated assaults by Republican rank and file is not the same as Stormtroopers. And we don't have death camps.
No, fascism isn't already here, no matter how you look at it. Is the Republican Party a fascist party? Sort of. Fascist parties tend to have a cyncial leadership that is somewhat outside the traditional establishment who use populist moves to get into dictatorial power and establish radical corporatism. But the Republicans have a traditional party line that is actually often opposed to the religious wackos, and has caused a lot of infighting among the Republicans. In any respect, the party leadership rarely believe their own hype in any serious way: Look at the frequent divorces of the top groups, or Cheney's daughter, or... And while they do establish radical corporatism, I would argue structurally that it is in a NON-fascist way, since Republicans and Dems both try to WEAKEN the state with neo-liberal rules.
So, actually, the Republican Party is not fascist. Are its rank and file fascist? Sure, a lot of them have the potential to become a fascist movement. And one of the possible developments for America is to move from proto-fascism to fascism. But we're not there yet, and I think it's insulting to the victims of fascism to literally liken the two.
"I am a Goldwater conservative. But like Barry Goldwater himself in the years before he died, I find myself alienated from the Republican Party, which has moved so far to the right that it is now clearly fascist. And I do not use the term "fascist" lightly. In my own blog post I carefully analyzed the meaning of the term and its acceptable uses. The recent threats of violence leave the Republican Party only one baby step away from full-blown fascism. It will not take much for them to cross that line."
So they're not there. They're a babystep away.
What I think your argument misses, Bill, isn't the definition, but the clear implied magnitude.
We don't have death camps, we don't have a Fuhrer, we don't have a collapse of our Constitution and of the parliamentary system... yet. Let's try to stop it and reverse the fascistic trends that have already come into play.
Fascism is the part before the death camps and police state.
In any case, Bush says the president is the national coordinator of all the branches in an emergency in PD-51 - so there's your dictator. Obama now has the same powers.
And we do in fact have the death camps. 800 of them. They're going to be a bit more subtle this time. I think this will be the century of living death... millions dying from overprescription of psychotropics and substandard living redefined as comfort. The US is functionally a third world nation. No production, much consumption.
It was so good until epic fail...
"It will come because we saw in this moment the opportunity to demand the full measure of our humanity and to pour it forth upon the national soil. It will be because we understood that democracy isn't what you have, it's what you do. But if we are to issue that demand, if we are to stand straight and fulfill the potential we possess to do justice, we had best exercise the option quickly, for the opponents of justice are on the move. They are preparing to enter on the winds of our silence and indifference, and complacency. Let them find no quarter here."
Right out of the fascist textbook.
Unity comes from peace. Not the other way around. Before you tell someone to help the homeless you take one in. We've got 1.75 so far. 1 stayed, 1 took a ride and left (.25, likes it out there), 1 slept here for one night; .5, he was out because the family puts him out when he gets drunk.
Forget about a community of caring or duty. Put together a community of action and responsibility. You do it because you are alive, awake, and aware. Not because of an ideal that you need the interpreters of the Oracle at Delphi to explain to you.
You want to help the poor take an electrical or plumbing course and learn the meaning of the word "connection" beyond the emotion and the bumper sticker.
Otherwise a great essay. All of us should be get ready to do the obvious even if we can imagine nothing else as a solution.
"Right out of the fascist
"Right out of the fascist textbook.
Unity comes from peace. Not the other way around. Before you tell someone to help the homeless you take one in. We've got 1.75 so far. 1 stayed, 1 took a ride and left (.25, likes it out there), 1 slept here for one night; .5, he was out because the family puts him out when he gets drunk."
This is a silly assertion. The homeless example doesn't seem to say anything interesting, IMHO. Organizations don't just randomly coalesce; that's a deeply bourgeois and indeed ACTUALLY fascist attitude. They come together. By your reasoning, fascism can be found everywhere from a church pulpit to a university classroom to a group of friends hanging out at a bar. Shared beliefs, shared leadership, shared organization, does not fascism make.
The first step to fascism: create affinity and avoid activity
The problem here is that people forget that in the beginning fascism is comfortable, even a little exciting (if they don't have to get off their couches). Except if you're trained in some kind of youth brigade then the more pain the more affirmation of affinity with pointless activty. Fascism is not 1939 to 1945. That's just the death of Germany. Fascism is the 1920s and 1930s.
Fascism is a lot of talk and pomp which serves to distract and excuse making huge compromises for inflated promises, allowing the fusion of the public and corporate sector. Fascism is a fake and stage managed revolution demanding service, offering direction in all things, and laughing all the way to the bank.
"The homeless example doesn't seem to say anything interesting, IMHO."
The point regarding the homeless man is that we need local action. If you care about the homeless, you take one in. You don't chat about it. You do it. Forget about whether one person can do anything. If one person can't finish it, in a lot of situations more people can do even less because the difference between what they have and what they need increases.
"Organizations don't just randomly coalesce; that's a deeply bourgeois and indeed ACTUALLY fascist attitude. They come together."
Actually the spirit of a real organization already exists before it coalesces. It exists in the form of local individual action. It is resilient because you have to convince each individual to quit the dream. Any group can break apart easily. The anti-Bush crowd split into the Paul vs Kucinich factions which they both liked. But individuals committed to a task have to be broken down one by one. That's how a movement survives. Peace has to exist before unity. Action has to exist before it becomes a united front.
It isn't random. It is creative, productive and moral. Only individual action united after it begins works. It is precisely the "bourgeois and fascist" position that people need to be organized, directed, led, and coordinated by bourgeois celebrities and fascist conservacrat and liberacan leaders.
It is fascism which organizes false seemingly organic masses like the stage produced immigration protests - Bush's and Fox's campaign promoter Robert Ally & Co organized the media to organize the masses. How is a doubly organized protest anything but a scam? If someone telling you to meet together instead of you meeting of your own legitimate interest doesn't send warning signals, we're in serious trouble.
If you try it yourself, you get a hands on experience of the possibilities and limits of your own ability to help. Particularly you learn what fundamental resources and conditions you need to even begin. These things are extremely difficult to express in pamphlets and soundbites. You also end up having the advantage of knowing the basics and you can reserve your hope and faith for more complex details rather than wasting them on celebrity politicians and their speeches.