Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

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Alphaville
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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Alphaville »

i call them kakistocrats

but if reepicheep wants to call them fascists, i know what she means and why she protests, and i support her right to do so, though i’d recommend staying clear of any frontlines.

Jason

Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Jason »

Fascism requires a coercive mechanism which implies an agglomeration of power. There is no Nancy Pelosi pointing fingers into Putin's bare chest. There is no Supreme Court making decisions that JinPing's disagrees with. There are no citizens chalking hopscotch out lines in front of Kim Jong Un's brothels.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by reepicheep »

Ya'll, I used "" for a reason.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Alphaville »

reepicheep wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:39 am
Ya'll, I used "" for a reason.
but you have no right or cause to protest because history bros :roll:

ZAFCorrection
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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by ZAFCorrection »

As pushy and common as the well-known Bernie Bros.

Jason

Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Jason »

I do not want to wake up in a country where one can't protest. I especially don't want to wake up in a country were one can't protest during patriotic celebrations. I also don't want to wake up in a country where if you disagree about what the protestors are protesting, you are considered a fascist. Out of these three, I only see the last one as currently in effect.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by reepicheep »

This is not a straightforward situation.

I don't know if Trump's actions are objectively more power-mongery or unlawful than other Presidents. I do know they give me much concern.

I'm also heavily influenced by Greer, who predicted Trump's election and made a convincing case for why it was inevitable that a populist demagogue take the stage right now, and what that means in the historical context of American decline in political and economic power.

That doesn't mean I have to like it.

First, they came for the Jews.

Jason

Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Jason »

reepicheep wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:35 am
First, they came for the Jews.
What do you mean by that in context of what is happening now? And you do know that Hitler went for the Jews outside of Germany first. That is why technically Hitler is not a fascist. He destroyed states in order to create areas where there were no laws. And he didn't do it in the name of Germany, he did it in the name of the party. From my understanding, Trump has not created a military unit to enable the Republican Party to solve the world's problem through the extermination of specific people groups in non-US territories.
Last edited by Jason on Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by ZAFCorrection »

@reepicheep

The key aspect of Greer's analysis putting Trump in the white house was the interaction of man and moment. Trump happens to be selling a story that resonates with a lot of people at the moment. That is the source of his power. So I would ask yourself to realistically gauge how strong a mandate that is. Weimar Germany, for instance, had a political and economic situation fairly similar to that of present-day Iraq. That gave Hitler a lot of room to run, just as the Islamic State also got a lot of room. I'm not sure the US is in quite the same situation.

Incidentally, the great man theory of has been pretty well discredited, particularly by people on the left. A series of books I liked had its storyline nuked for the stated reason that the author was too cool to let his protagonist have influence over anything. Now he is bitching about Trump going full Nazi. Zero irony detected.
Last edited by ZAFCorrection on Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Alphaville »

too much gaslighting about how if trump is not following hitler’s exact blueprint then there’s nothing to worry about.

the sheer incompetence of this administration should be cause enough to mobilize people.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by ZAFCorrection »

@alphaville

Your last two posts have included accusations of being a bro and engaging in gaslighting. I will assume you are not interested in having a conversation.

Jason

Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Jason »

Well, whatever blueprint Stephen Miller has in his word doc, Trump better get moving on it because he may only have four months to execute 6 million people.

Edit: An effective fascist by definition needs to be extremely competent. As they say, if you are going to be omnipotent, it helps to be omniscient.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Alphaville »

ZAFCorrection wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 11:09 am
@alphaville

Your last two posts have included accusations of being a bro and engaging in gaslighting. I will assume you are not interested in having a conversation.
well it’s gaslighting as i see it. reepicheep has a reason to protest but her perceptions are being disqualified on the basis that “it’s not hitler.”

i don’t know what else to call it.

i mean, if it were a semantic discussion, an alternative term could be offered. eg “this is not textbook fascism, it’s neofascism [or right wing populism or whatever] but good on you for protesting” etc.

but rather she’s told “no fascism per the 1930s, therefore nothing to see here, move along.” which is, well... textbook gaslighting. so. that’s the word for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jason

Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Jason »

If you are going to employ a word like fascism, you have to demonstrate its applicability to the current situation and the historical use of the word is a necessary part of that discussion. No one objected to reepicheep voicing her concerns. What was objected to was the use of fascism to contextualize those concerns. And I find no basis, semantic, historical or otherwise to frame what is currently transpiring in this country in terms of fascism. As a matter of fact, I believe she is doing a disservice to her concerns by voicing them in such terms. Fascist leaders cannot be subject to impeachment, congressional investigation or being voted out of office, all of which have happened or is going to happen in a matter of months, unless it's the preliminary stage of being noosed.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by nomadscientist »

The US has a coercive mechanism of thought control, cancellation, which is entirely in the hands of the left. If Trump could cancel people more people would like him (or pretend to like him).

I would not call it fascist, because fascism acts in the open, through the formal institutions. Fascism was a counter-left movement - it does not have a positive ideal of its own - an attempt to preserve the institutions against co-option. For that reason it is grounded in its time, and today fascism is just a swear word. No one likes a loser.

If there's a 1930s analogy to this it would be Kristallnacht, the withdrawal of state protection from normal people, allowing "nature to take its course." Trump is trying to reject this withdrawal, and only partially succeeding.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by jacob »

Umberto Eco's essay on Ur Fascism is useful porn-test for identifying fascism. It lists 14 items or signs not all of which need to be present to get the label. Concentration camps or detaining immigrants are not on this list. Nazi Germany didn't turn fascist they day they built their first concentration camp. It was a long process that took 15+ years. It's a sliding scale.

One key point is that while hindsight is 20/20, identifying fascism while you're living through it can be either easy or hard. All the usual human pitfalls apply. Moving the goal posts, denial (it can't happen here/it can't happen to me), normalization,... The opposite also holds which is why "fascist" has turned into a general insult.

However, it really does mean something fairly precise and it really does attract a certain character/type of person at certain times in history. Americans are not exceptional. In particular, humans probably all have a bit of "fascist" inside us which might be expressed and tolerated more easily when we or others are doing things we believe in. Most democratic systems have been set up to curb/thwart fascism, but they're obviously not perfect. Thus you can have wannabe-fascists or perhaps it's better to think of them as protofascist types who "would if they could" but can't, because the system of democracy still prevents them. In that regard, the US system has proven more resilient than initially believed (and obviously more resilient than Weimar Germany) but it has also become clear that much of the political process in the US depends more on tradition and the collaboration of the "deep state" than actual law. For example, it is apparently not illegal for unidentified officers to snatch people up in unmarked vans. It has not been made illegal because traditionally it has never been done before. Is that fascist then? Well, check the list. You'll find it's not on the list, but perhaps the sentiments/attitudes that make people support it and do it are? If you think so, you'll deem such actions to be fascist. If not, you won't.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by ZAFCorrection »

@alphaville

I don't know if reepicheep protested, and I don't believe she is overly married to the word "fascist." As I recall, you were the one who attributed an unqualified usage of that word to her, not me. I was speaking in general terms as the word is being thrown around commonly.

I would recommend not aggressively trying to defend people who aren't being attacked.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Alphaville »

@Jason

with impeachment in the hands of mcconnell, congressional investigations discredited as witchhunts, refusal of financial transparency by the cief executice, voting rights and vote by mail in a pandemic under attack by the executive, attacks on the judiciary, attacks on the press, scapegoating of minorities, attacks on the military, intelligence agencies and civil servants, the drift towards “i alone can fix it” authoritarianism continues unabated.

we’re not in a banana republic yet because we have institutions to keep it at bay. institutions that are being eroded right now, but do you want to get there? how long do you want things to continue to degenerate before you say “ooops”? meanwhile, you want protesters to debate the dictionary with you. very funny.

Jason

Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by Jason »

A polarized congress (Obama), attacks on the media (Nixon), refusal of financial transparency (who cares) voting rights questioned (JFK Chicago), scapegoating of minorities (hello), attacks on the judiciary (FDR, remember the New Deal stacker) I can fix it (everyone other than Carter?) Slave Trader (Polk). Blow jobs by interns (Clinton). Blow jobs by movie stars while lying about real status of Vietnam War (Kennedy). Showing off his dick in the bathroom (LBJ). Anal retentive paranoid taping spying wack job (Nixon). Intellectual racist prick (Wilson). The system, once again, is stressed but is holding up nicely, thank you. That's why history as well as the dictionary are always by my side.

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Re: Assessing Federal agents deployed to Portland

Post by ZAFCorrection »

Firing people, confiscating their property (not slaves), and keeping them in concentration camps for having anti-war opinions (Abraham Lincoln). And he goes down as the best president ever.

Basically, you can put together technically-true sound bites to justify any narrative. The devil is in (all) the details.

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