>The Nazis also obsessed over zero unemployment
>and state ownership--should we call Marxism/socialism into question too?
>There's also the question of exactly who or what we are to scrutinize. I'm
>having trouble picturing it without a form of the witch hunt, like we all
>stand outside of food coops and health-food stores, interrogating and
>inspecting the bags of all the dirtheads and granola-munchers. What do have
>in mind, Doug?
The arrest and public trial of Gary Null, to start with!
"Obsessing" about zero unemployment can be good for the working class, but it can also lead to the work camp. State ownership (though that wasn't a big Nazi thing) can go with authoritarianism and a rigid class structure. Certain kinds of "socialism" can depend on an unpleasant nationalism, if the planning space is conceived of as the nation. I guess I'm just a negative kind of guy, but I like scrutinizing things for their downside.
On the health thing, "obsessing" about purity can accompany a contempt for illness and weakness (not to mention a mindless indulgence of quacks like Null and a reflexive disbelief of conventional science). And what is it with all those "colon cleansers" you see in the health food store? Are we suffering an epidemic of colonic pollution?
Speaking of which, I once heard Paul Krassner define a high colonic as "an enema with an ideology."
Doug