On Oct 26, 2007, at 12:57 PM, Mr. WD wrote:
> On 10/26/07, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> I think this sort of talk is generally pointless,
>> destructive and misleading, but I found the word
>> coming out of my mouth in a conversation with a
>> liberal (I mean regular liberal) colleague in the
>> faculty lounge to describe Mukasy's defense of
>> torture, and neither of us even hiccoughed.
>
> I've recently found myself using the term in similar contexts -- and
> with level-headed people who demand a reasonable amount of precision
> in applying such labels. Nobody has suggested I've gone overboard.
> Maybe that's because "fascism" really is an apt label for what we're
> seeing today -- particularly with respect to torture and civil
> liberties.
Cops have been torturing people forever in the USA. And there were far greater violations of civil liberties in the past too - Lincoln suspending habeas corpus, Wilson & Palmer banning magazines from the mails, Palmer's raids. Let's not get carried away with the alleged novelty of the Bush years.
> I've used it too, but I think it's actually a pretty fair description
> of a specific tendency on the right:
>
> -- The denigration of individual and human rights for the sake of the
> preservation of "the nation"
> -- A conception of "the nation" as having certain essential
> characteristics (e.g. a "Christian heritage," the English language,
> etc.)
> -- A sense that there is an internal enemy that conspires to undermine
> those essential characteristics. This is what Ann Coulter makes all
> her money off of.
> -- Distrust of cosmopolitanism, art, and intellectuals
> -- The promotion of a conception of masculinity that is strongly
> interwoven with militarism
> -- The idea that preserving "the nation" requires military aggression
Most of this is as American as apple pie. It's been with us for most of the country's existence. In fact, a country founded on slavery and genocide can hardly plumb fresh depths, can it?
Doug