Something something Manufactured Consent :chomsky-yes-honey:

link :ilhan: }

  • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    The USA stands a like 1,000% higher chance of descending into fascism than China ever will. Hell, we already got a friendly sort of fascism anyway in neoliberalism.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      The USA stands a like 1,000% higher chance of descending into fascism than China ever will.

      Only because the Chinese government is focused on the material needs of its residents in an effort to run an efficient economy. Meanwhile the US oligarchs stuff their faces with a generation's worth of seed corn, then order their media flaks to blame populism for the subsequent famine.

      If the CCP's leadership ever starts drinking from the neoliberal kool-aid jar (as they very nearly did with Bo Xilai), it could very easily topple into American-tier hyper-nationalism and fascist militarism.

      • comi [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Meh, that’s ideological thingy if I remember correctly. Materially, as soon as you have mobs of petit bourgeoisie and lumpen beating worker strikes (or leftists generally) on behalf (or at weak permission) of finance capital, that’s that. Floyd counterprotestors and capitol riot comes extremely close there, so. Read comrade :trot-shining: for that perspective

      • FidelCastro [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        The 14 points of fascism:

        The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”

        The rejection of modernism. "The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”

        The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”

        Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”

        Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”

        Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”

        The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”

        The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”

        Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”

        Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”

        Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”

        Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”

        Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”

        Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning."

        • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          3 years ago

          sorry i forgot to link them, but the US has the 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,12 points

          • Wrecker [they/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            There's an argument to be made about the other 5 points being present too, but not prevalent/fully widespread

            • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
              hexagon
              ·
              edit-2
              3 years ago

              yeah you are right about that, but the thing with the Eco 14 points of fascism is that if the country in question has some of the points then its already light/Quasi fascism

            • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              The other 5 are absolutely present. The Republican base is absolutely already showing all 14. Even the Newspeak textbooks is being done in places like Texas and Alabama.

              I'd even argue that since 9/11, "pacifism bus weakness" has become one of the driving mottos of US domestic policy. Expansion of the police state, glorification of military, etc.

      • Three_Magpies [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Me, from my country with 2.2 million prisoners, that deported 26,000 people in month (some of them infants) and has so many children in concentration camps that it needs to build more camps with materials pillaged from the global south: China bad!