vockins wrote:

clocker bob wrote:

vockins wrote:None of those conditions are particularly new to the United States.

I don't remember losing habeas corpus or seeing people locked up without access to lawyers before five years ago.

Jackson in 1812, Lincoln, Colorado Coal Riots in 191?, Philippine-American War camps, SF Dock Riots in 1934, Palmer Raids, Hawaii after Pearl Harbor, Japanese internment, and I bet I'm forgetting a half dozen at least.

Technically, you're correct, but I wasn't talking about temporary suspensions of habeas corpus in reaction to emergencies, I was talking about Congress passing a law that took away habeas corpus from detainees. I don't have the time to look up all your examples, but are they not examples of the President using his emergency powers?

CB wrote:I don't remember America fighting a war against a human emotion ( anger/ terror, they're interchangeable ) before five years ago.

"Avenge The Maine,"

Not a war against emotion. Did we claim that the Spanish were infected by a hatred of american freedoms, and did we pursue an open-ended war against Spanish fundamentalists after we beat them in the Spanish-American war?

Sacco & Vanzetti,

Not a war.

impetus for the Sedition Act,

Sedition acts to demonize 'anti-patriots' have been in effect since the dawn of the country, but they are standard muscle-flexing by xenophobes. They're on the books in case the state needs to dispense with some undesirables, but they're not accompanied by an endless state of war against 'anti-patriots', so, bad example.

OPEC/Khomeni/Arab fears...

Not a war. Are you mixing up predictable american reaction to threats to our hegemony with what the war on terror really is, which is a mandate to pursue 'anti-americanism' around the globe, wherever it lurks?

CB wrote:]Yes, we fought 'communism', but it was embodied in a state, the Soviet Union.

.
..

and that insignificant backwater that has a quarter of the planet's population, hollywood blacklisting, Verona Project...

Can you not read? I said that communism was embodied in a state, and that was who we built our defense budgets to defend us against. We didn't build ICBM's to defend us from hollywood screenwriters. They were targeted because they were sympathetic to an ideology that was embodied in a state, the USSR, the state that had the opposing military that we prepared for. Are you not grasping that the enemy in the War on Terror is not embodied in a single state ( although it is transferred from state to state by the US propaganda machine as the need arises, from Iraq to Iran to Syria ) and is located in the minds of scattered people?

There's a rich history of all ten occuring here for the length of the existence of the country.

That's a cute way of saying it- 'rich history'. Are you saying that the war on terror has not been accompanied by an escalation of fascism? Are you saying the past six years have been a continuation of business as usual? Nothing 'new' about these escalations of fascism?

vockins wrote:It comes in waves, but nothing she's mentioning here is new at all. There's a rich history of all ten occuring here for the length of the existence of the country.

I think this is correct, yet it doesn't have to be an either/or thing: EITHER business as usual, nothing new under the sun OR Now! More fascist than ever! In a so-called "unipolar" realm, with no European/British empire and no Soviet empire, American empire (liberal capitalism) dresses itself up a little differently in order to proceed.

Corruption, repeal of civil liberties, military and geopolitical expansion and/or endless war are endemic to the U.S. It's an imperial nation, founded as such. Wolf's a Clintonite liberal-democrat fanning the Anybody But Bush flames. As if liberal democracy/republicanism can't be or is not inherently anti-democratic. Militarism, corporatism, authoritarianism, anti-labor-ism, these are hallmarks of both fascism and liberal democracy (especially in its American mold). While there are certainly contradictions inherent to liberal democracy, there is no formal contradiction between liberal democracy and authoritarianism (I take it most here disagree with this but you don't know your history. You're mistaken).

Wolf's article is political analysis for American liberals with historical amnesia. And, what's more, decline in union density, repeal of civil rights, growing disparity, etc, etc, these are global phenomena, propagated by but not exclusive to the aims of America's current right-wing government.

Interesting take on American Fascism in 1954 here.

Isn't it already too late?

tommydski wrote:

alex maiolo wrote:The guy killed 6 million in camps, you know? Only Stalin compares.

Pol Pot deserves a dishonourable mention I guess.

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html

alex maiolo wrote:
Everything she says here concerns me, but she's a little late to the ball, don't you think?

-A

Yep. And the more the halfassed generalizations and catch phrases get thrown into the mix by the 'enlightened opposition', the more diluted the more genuine aspects of this sort of discussion wane...

But, yeah, at least it's out there in some form, I suppose. It will make an easy target for smart warmongers, though.

Ten Steps??? Try one.........



2000

Anyone who thinks things are bad in this country, or getting oh so much worse...

Things were way worse in every way prior to WW2.

Racism, rights abuses, cops beating your ass for whatever reason, violent crime, poverty, hunger, the government doing all sorts of stuff without anyone knowing, real economic depressions, lack of health care for most people, etc. etc.

krakabash wrote:Anyone who thinks things are bad in this country, or getting oh so much worse...

Things were way worse in every way prior to WW2.

Racism, rights abuses, cops beating your ass for whatever reason, violent crime, poverty, hunger, the government doing all sorts of stuff without anyone knowing, real economic depressions, lack of health care for most people, etc. etc.

True enough. However, that's no excuse to roll things back...I mean, all that work to establish something feasible...

Are we just supposed to sit back and watch it go up in flames?

krakabash wrote:Anyone who thinks things are bad in this country, or getting oh so much worse...

Things were way worse in every way prior to WW2.

Racism, rights abuses, cops beating your ass for whatever reason, violent crime, poverty, hunger, the government doing all sorts of stuff without anyone knowing, real economic depressions, lack of health care for most people, etc. etc.

Sure, in some ways, esp. for 'minorities' things have improved post WWII.
However your above description of the pre-war situation differs from the current situation how exactly, based on your checklist?

2007, the USA:

Racism...check
Rights abuses...check
gov. secrecy...hypercheck
rogue cops...check
violent crime...check
poverty,etc....check
lack of health care...check

Also, the seemingly all-powerful consumerist/neo-liberal global capitalism mindset/power structure was not yet realized in prewar society. The shift in people's thinking that accompanied(s) this domination is a key factor in assessing, addressing, and potentially changing the way global capitalism effects and pervades nearly all elements of daily life.

Is that Lucille Bluth?