For those outside the U.S.

warning-fascismA quick note to folks outside of the United States: what you are seeing in my country — in this country, I suppose I should say — is in fact the reality of the situation. We do in fact have fascists in power and they are in fact enabled by fascist voters who put them there. This is not meant to be hyperbole; none of this note is.

The reasons why this is happening are the same reasons that caused this to happen in Spain, Italy, Japan, and Germany in the 1930s, Argentina in the 1960s, Uganda in the 1970s…any number of places and times. There are always such people blinded by hate and fueled by violence, and they are everywhere. They take advantage of times when education is low and resentment is high — conditions that are caused by exploitation and inequality. They are strongest in the rural areas of the U.S., which should be considered third-world equivalent.

Donald Trump was not the cause of this; he is the outward symptom. His rise was inevitable given the system that has developed in the United States: falsified democracy, corporate welfare, and oligarchy. It didn’t start with him, but has been accelerated under him — a fact that perversely may be good in the long run, as it strips away the facade of the “kinder, gentler” fascism we have been creeping towards (and often embracing) over the past couple of decades.

I don’t know the ultimate answer to this. There is an impotent “Resistance” offered by the opposing party which reflexively opposes The Leader in the same way that his current followers did to Barack Obama when he was in power — through identity and vitriol and not actual policies or reforms. They seek to take us back to the conditions we had before, unaware that they were the precipitating factor in what we have now. If they succeed, please don’t think that there has been a serious change; the United States will still be dangerous and unstable, though it may have slightly more favor from global capitalists who require stability. (There are also likely to be serious civil conflicts internally, as the principal difference between the “MAGA” and “Resistance” cadres is that the former is more inclined to violence and is heavily armed as a rule.) The system which caused this crisis will still be in place, and can cause it again, or cause something worse to happen.

Please don’t be reluctant to act. Individual Americans might require assistance against the regime — I’m including myself in that category, though there are others who need it more acutely. The subversion required for that assistance will be worth more than any “Resistance” occurring here. Your nation, state, or alliance may need to take steps against the U.S. Do it. Again: what you are seeing is happening, and you should act accordingly.

The very uncomfortable area

I’ve been reading some of the testimony of Hermann Goering from the Nuremberg Trials; more specifically, from interviews conducted in his cell by a psychologist. Not exactly the best of reading topics at any time, and particularly not now.

I’m struck by the justifications from men in power – the denials, the half-truths, the buck-passing.  It was all further justified by their worldview – that this would have happened in any country and it was the same anywhere, and that they’d suffered at the hands of other countries and of the “Jewish race”.  They were being prosecuted only because they lost, not for any reasons of moral transgression.  It was petty and small, unbacked by any kind of greater vision.  Goering reiterates his hate of communism, because he believes the idea that men are created equal to be a ridiculous notion, unproven on its face; he bristles at the idea of the United States, who took wide swaths of territory from Mexico, condemning Germany for doing the same thing in Europe.  Hess, Goering, Doenitz, and the others mostly blamed those who were dead, playing down their own part when it would have gotten them in trouble, inflating it otherwise. Continue reading

It’s punishment of some kind

If I’m going to watch auto racing at all, I watch Formula 1 in preference to NASCAR. The former is actual racing, which involves turning in both directions and manuevering in and out of traffic on roads meant for real cars; the latter is lining up in a row and turning left for an hour or so, punctuated by someone crashing into a wall, probably from sheer monotony. The real reason that Americans do not watch F1 is of course it’s “European” – a word meaning “not American” to most American slobs.  Sure, some of the best drivers are from Brazil or Canada or, in the case of the fantastically named Scott Speed, the U.S., but I don’t care, it’s jest not raht, Bubba.

More Americans, however, may pay attention to F1 now given the Führer – er, sorry, furor – over the recent doings of Max Mosley, the chief muckety-muck of Grand Prix auto racing. Seems that last week, Mosley was videoed in the company of what News of the World described as prostitutes, getting (or giving – the article’s unclear) a BDSM session; the reported price was the equivalent of US$5000. (Client #9, call your office.)

The particularly fun part, for the tabloids and everyone else, was the possible Nazi overtones of the whole session: counting the strokes of the lash in German, shouting orders in German-accented English à la Colonel Klink (“She needs more of ze punishment!“), some prisoner-and-captor role play, including a “check for lice” and a reading of a list of personal effects. It gets better: Mosley’s father was Sir Oswald Mosley – yes, as in the guy behind the British Union of Fascists during WWII. The N.Y. Times has the story here, and here‘s some video (appropriate warnings here). Continue reading

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