Just because the Nazis allowed religion didn’t make them religious in the sense of a theocracy you pain in the ass!! The fact that they ordained their own Bishop and usurped all identities including religious ones makes MY point even better than even I did!
In the second place one can dispute whether or not fascism has a distinct ideology like Marxism or liberal democracy. What is fascist ideology? Ideology is not just a loose collection of tendencies but a coherent and cohesive set of linked ideas that undergird political agenda. Fascism consists more of a concrete program of national regeneration than a set of philosophical ideas. Fascism is also less ideological than action oriented (Action’ Francais); it engages a politics of spontineity which galvanizes political action and “fires the popular imagination” with nationalist purpose and imagery. One example is Kristallnacht in November 1938 in Germany. Another from contemporary America is the Minutemen who are trying to spur US ultranationalism with spontanious action on the US borders. They are also playing on race and security fears of “invasion.” A homegrown US fascist movement could easily emerge from their actions.
As far as the Chavez comments go they were to silly for a response.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Oct 27, 2006 at 7:41 PM
cabbie,
No, you can’t have it both way. Either fascism is distinctly secular, or it is not. Show me where they were decidedly irrelevant towards religion as opposed to merely anticlerical.
Which ties into your second argument, that fascism is not a proper ideology. You may not like it, and I certainly don’t, but that is not a proper argument. Fascist ideology is (again, I repeat myself, again) all about a SINGULAR identity (please, read Mussolini’s definition more closely - it is relevant, after all, he and his band of Italians quite literally defined and gave “fascism” its etymology). There is nothing that proscribes religion; just a plurality of religion.
State religion is quite in line with fascist ideology.
(and to respond to the obvious, and obviously ridiculous counterargument, state religion does not lead to fascism, but is certainly wholy compatible.)
And perhaps the Chavez remark is only “too silly” because you can’t refute it??
Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 28, 2006 at 3:47 PM
jc,
Just for my elucidation, could you tell me how the glorificaiton of the US military, the projection of US power outside your bounded national community, and the itching desire to not leave any culture or polity alone unless and until they conform to your culturally specific view of the ‘the right way’, differs from other ideologies which glorify might over right, seek to obtain influence over political entities other than their own, and thereby laud a strong and militaristsic state? The only difference between the US state and every other democratic state, is that you guys tolerate military spending to the max, whilst pretending that otherwise everybody in the US is freer than anywhere else, whilst elsewhere. people successfully demand, thorugh elections that are less corrupt than your own, that the state act in thier domestic political interests. It is sad, but there you go. By the way, where I come from, if you want to ‘kill’ a domestic measure, just tell people it will make us more like the US. Why do you think that is the case jc?
And don’t start the crap about people not understanding how your system works. Every imperial power is studied by those who must inhabit the world in which the impperium holds sway. It is common for the ruled to know their rulers far better than the rulers know themsellves.
Posted by Jane Doe on Oct 28, 2006 at 9:57 PM
Hugo Chavez is not Hitler you silly a**hole. Furthermore, I explained my position on fascism more than is necessary. Stop trolling. You need to get laid!!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Oct 28, 2006 at 10:47 PM
CDiC -
First of all it is the absolute height of lunacy to lump Chavez in with Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.
Well, you are right, of course. Chavez, so far, is nominally less repressive and homicidal than the Big Three. And Chavez uses his physical and fiscal resources more poorly than anyone since Mao. Chavez has recently enjoyed very high returns on his petroleum assets, but has he used this money wisely?
Ummm, no.
Chavez purged the professional management of PDVSA at the time of the oil strikes in 2003, and the political hacks who were put in charge of Venezuela’s oil have made a hash of it. Maintenance is not being performed on the oil facilities, and oil production is declining. Venezuela has had to buy oil from Russia in order to avoid violating existing supply contracts.
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/5/22/165318/469
Chavez is not maintaining the Venezuela infrastructure, either.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/international/americas/22venezuela.html?
ex=1295586000&en=86a387be5c24caa6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Instead of spending money on things that would make the country work and insuring the continued flow of oil profits, Chavez is spending money on Russian weapons, promoting socialist regimes (Cuba and Bolivia), and buying Argentine bonds to prop up the Argentine socialist government. All this before the recent drop in the price of crude oil, which may tend to complicate Venezuela’s problems, with or without Chavez.
And as the infrastructure and the oil facilities deteriorate, the social environment declines as well.
http://www.worldtravelwatch.com/archives/2006/06/venezuela-crime-in-caracas-airport-highway-closed.shtml
If the EU is collapsing why is the Eurodollar stronger than the US dollar despite the fact that all global oil trade is in dollars and over 75% of foreign reserves in central banks all over the world are US Dollar denominated.
Damn, Cabbie, how is it that you are an expert in every silly-ass fascist and socialist economic system in the world, and you are so ignorant of your own economy? You seem to recognize the contradiction contained in your own question, but what makes you think the Euro (not the Eurodollar!) is strong? In a free market environment, higher interest rates drives up the value of the currency (Euro, in this case). But higher interest rates are required to attract capital, in order to offset the economic weakness in the EU. Sky high interest rates are the sign of a very sick economy, such as some third world countries and the USA in the Carter years. You can verify this quickly the next time there is an international crisis; the price of the US dollar will jump as people flee to the dollar’s strength and security.
Maybe W.’s growing national debt and deficits are to blame.
Fiddle-dee-dee. The USA deficit is dropping like a rock. In the 2004 Presidential campaign, President Bush promised to reduce the deficit to 2.25% by 2009. The deficit is now on track to meet that goal three years early. If we can keep the dip-shit Dimocrats from raising taxes, we will be in fine shape.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aZgwyLsWjDDc
The war is also ruining the US economy as did the Vietnam war.
So, if the war is ruining the economy, why is every single key indicator optimizing and getting better? Productivity is up, interest rates are nominal, unemployment is at record lows, and the markets just set new records. It’s the world’s strongest economy, stupid!
We have now succeeded in killing over 2.5% of the Iraqi population.
With a population of 25 million, you have just stated that, “We have now succeeded in killing” 625,000 Iraqis. Do you ever stop to think before you blindly accept and repeat stupid left-wind Lancet propaganda?
625,000 is greater than the number of fatalities on both sides in four years of hard combat in our own Civil War. 625, 000 is greater than the fatalities that resulted from the WWII fire bombings of Tokyo, Kobe, Osaka, and Nagoya, plus the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Think a little bit, and you won’t say such incredibly idiotic things.
And you finished off your error-filled polemic with a rationalization of Stalin’s murder of five million Kulaks in the Ukraine. Are you fucking crazy?
Posted by scorp on Oct 29, 2006 at 1:49 PM
Scorp,
You need to stop relying on NewsMax or whatever rightwing source you use because it is wrong and misleading. Chavez is having problems right now but he is maintaining the oil facilities. In addition, Venezualan oil is very expensive to refine because unlike “Arab Sweet” from the Persian Gulf it has higher sulpher content and takes more processing. The price per barrel is less than that fetched for the Saudi oil. This contributes to Venezualas problems. I don’t know of Chavez really killing anyone either.
I wasn’t aware, as you imply, that the EU, our closest trading partners and political allies, were a “socialist or fascist economy” but then again the Bush/Cheney crowd talk about them as if they’re enemies and obviously this thinking has influenced you.
True the US economy is far from collapsing but there are many troubling issues. First the US budget deficit is not dropping like a stone. It is less than the over $600 billion levels in earlier years of the Bush administration but it is projected to shake out at over $400 billion when the costs of Hurricaine Katrina are figured in. This is less than in years past but cold comfort especially considering yet other bad news.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, US GDP grew only 1.6% in the 3rd quarter of 2006 down from 2.6% in the previous quarter. This is the slowest rate of growth since 2003 bringing this years average to under 3% thus far the slowest since 2003. Domestic demand is weak as is the savings rate which is negaitve for the first time ever, -0.5%. Average monthly job growth is down form last years rate of 190,000. The first quarter of ‘06 saw 176,000 jobs per month slipping to a monthly average of about 112,000 for the 2nd and 3rd quarters. The interest rates have climbed a bit and the housing bubble has all but burst. Residential housing investment which was 6% of GDP in the second quarter of ‘04 slide to 3.7% currently. This is serious because it has the potential to slow down the whole US economy. The $8.5 trillion national debt is only rising. It is currently over two-thirds of the GDP and climbing towards three-quarters. This has not been the case since the late 1940s when the debt/GDP ratio peaked at 65% and quickly began to decline with the rapid economic expansion. There is no such expansion looming on the horizen today. The current account trade deficit is an unprecedented 7% of GDP and this is quite harmful because it can easily weaken the dollar and raise interest rates slowing the economy right when growth is needed. True rising interest rates could attract foreign capital, but it could also become a drain on the US economy should massive capital flight occur. I do believe the Bush strategy has failed most Americans.
I’ll let the news coming out of Iraq speak for itself.
As to your final point I’ll just let Stalin rest.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Oct 30, 2006 at 12:20 AM
Jay-Jay,
Yes, I wear American flag underwear just so soul-sucking ueber-patriots like yourself can kiss my red, white and blue ass.
Scorpy,
Maybe my comments only seem to you to reflect ‘leftist rhetoric’ because you are so blatantly and transparently a running dog lackey of the esqualido capitalist pig oligarchy.
I really wish you two could relinquish your unrelenting oppositional posturing and begin a proper dialog rather than continue with the pointless and unyielding dogmatic and ideological dialectical positions you have embraced. If we could just put our heads together and work things out we could attain to the Perfection of Knowledge. After all, ‘you know everything, and I know you guys are fools’ (G. B. Shaw, a socialist not Josef Stalin).
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 30, 2006 at 11:47 AM
Starboy,
You are funny, in both disguises. “JD”, Since you are making the predicates, you can answer your own questions, you silly goose. “LB”. Now, THAT’s funny.
Cabbie,
For true blue examples of trollish behavior, please read starboy’s previous posts, of both genders.
Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 30, 2006 at 2:20 PM
jc
You are really crazy. Who the f**k is starboy? Wow, you really are crazy!
Posted by Jane Doe on Oct 30, 2006 at 3:01 PM
I expected serious political debate not trollish mudslinging!!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Oct 30, 2006 at 10:01 PM
starboy, er, jd,
I am truly disappointed. Even if this farce were a product of my own delusion, as David “believes”, “Jane Doe” comes off as intelligent enough to answer that question just in context. Disingenuity in question and comment is a characteristic of starboy. The more I prick thee, the more your personas bleat like the one true starboy.
cabbie,
I agree totally.
Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 31, 2006 at 6:07 AM
Troll Song for Jay-Jay and Scorpy:
My friends who live under bridges
With prim’tive occipetal ridges,
Your juvenile jibes
And snide snarky vibes
Are less than the bites of small midges.
From long and painful experience, I have come to what I confess is merely an inferential and unprovable inductive belief that great intelligence is burdened by the geometrically increased opportunity to make more and more grievious boneheaded mistakes. Judging by this admittedly unreliable dictum, Jay-Jay, you and Scorpy are very intelligent indeed.
As flattering as is your assumption of my computer skills (perhaps you could tell me how to make an umlaut on this freaking borrowed pc?) and my ability to create differing and consistent personae, you are barking up the tree of cognitive dissonance.
I, too would like to know, ‘who the fuck is Starboy?’ Is that just your nickname for me, or is it the screen-name of some other innocent poster you suspect of the crime of being me? My inclination is to believe the former, as a search of ITT’s archive admits to the appellation only in this comment section. But if so, why list that name with those you accuse me of creating, presumably, just in order to abuse your delicate sensibilities? Obviously, I have no trouble doing that without resorting to any hide-and-seek subterfuge. Perhaps you ran into someone going by that moniker on some other site, and by the wonders of the kind of magical thinking for which you are here becoming renowned, made the leap that he was me. I may be your own arch-nemesis, but that is not reason to believe the inverse is also true. You are just my pet troll. That you accuse me of trollish and disingenous behavior is more icing on the cake; the utilization of psychological projection to reinforce your weak and confused ego against the onslaught of the reality that the beliefs you cling to are but the stuff of a self-indulgent fantasy. A regression into infantilism of the sort, ‘I know you are, but what am I?.
It would be funny if it were not so pathetic. Well, no, honestly, it is both funny and pathetic. Funny ha-ha, not as your feeble attempts at wittiness are funny like the smell of something gone bad in the refrigerator. Verdad, there is the unmistakable stench of burning sulfur emanating from your posts (to paraphrase Hugo Chavez).
But I really love you guys if only for the unintentional entertainment your fuzzy-brained attempts at rational discourse provide, and truly wish for you the best.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 31, 2006 at 12:33 PM
LOL!
yea, verily, that is why we love you so, starboy, in all your incarnations…
Posted by Jay Cline on Oct 31, 2006 at 2:37 PM
For the non-trolls who read and/or contribute, there is an interesting entry at Wikipedia on clerical fascism. Now, being wikipedia, you need to take it with a grain of salt, but it is part of their cross-article Series on Politics and does provides useful, if abridged, references.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 1, 2006 at 4:48 AM
Yeah Jay,
Where is Starboy?
I too did an ITT archive search when you first brought Starboy up and the results, except for your mention of Starboy on this thread, were non-existent.
I also entered starboy into a seach engine and got some results but except for your paranoid rantings about starboy on this thread found nothing else except the usual debris.
So ... where is Starboy?
Theres’ a starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds
There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’s told us not to blow it
‘Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 1, 2006 at 9:33 PM
david, starboy,
What is with these feigned and disingenuous queries? Do you not read your own posts as you write them? Massive memory infarction, eh?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 2, 2006 at 6:48 AM
Who is Jay-Jay?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 2, 2006 at 1:35 PM
feigned and disingenuous queries
Oh Jay,
Now you have hurt my feelings :(
Now that was feigned and disingenuous whereas my previous was a sincere and genuine question.
Although I was having some fun with you when I returned from my wanderings I am not trying to give you a hard time here and now.
Seriously Jay ... where is this Starboy you speak of?
Please show me a post of his here at In These Times.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 2, 2006 at 3:41 PM
This is how JC can up with the term Starboy….
Jay was looking at himself in the mirror “nak’ ked “( that alone should make him cringe , but why digress) , anyway….ol’ boy turned around…an’ bent over . looking at his reflexion from between his legs….Starboy was born….
Thats how ol’ Jay…came up with the idea for that silly little name..he’s a very imaginative fellow that Jay Cline…very imaginative indeed….
Now David…Redhorse understands how you loath profanity and such so I made a special effort to keep it clean….( although one is quite sure the view in that mirror was anything butt ....ugh )
Posted by Redhorse on Nov 2, 2006 at 4:51 PM
Thanks Redhorse, I do appreciate the effort.
Chocolate Starboy ... brilliant!
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 2, 2006 at 6:55 PM
david,
c’mon! you are the one who identified my “paranoid delusions”. have you forgotten?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 3, 2006 at 10:08 AM
have you forgotten?
Not at all ...
hehehe - sorry but I couldn’t resist.
Then I fear it’s true, Jay, and life has imitated art.
You are having paranoid delusions.
There is no Starboy at In These Times except in your imagination.
I am glad that is settled.
Admitting you are sick is the first step to recovery.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 3, 2006 at 10:27 AM
if I be paranoid, it is only because it is true, eh?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 3, 2006 at 10:34 AM
Who is Jay Cline?
We’ve been having these little chats for years now and you remain little more than a cipher. Even your website (last time I looked) is full of pompous opinionation and lacking in much genuine human detail. You know most of us (if you’ve been paying attention) in considerable biographical detail. Why do you hold your cards so close to your chest? What is it that you think you have to protect?
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 3, 2006 at 11:36 AM
starboy,
you are funny. and quite predictable. and quite illogical.
who is lb? your comments (as inane as they are) could easily be turned right back at you, yet I won’t go there because there is no value in it.
but, if you have been paying attention, and if biographical information is so important to you, you would not need to ask these questions. I have not been shy of such information, when relevant.
so, to what end, really? or is this just one more example of your typical disingenuity? do you really care who I am? do you really need my home address?
what is yours?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 3, 2006 at 12:16 PM
if I be paranoid, it is only because it is true, eh?
It is not true, Jay. You are simply delusional.
There is no Starboy here.
Redhorse is not Rabbit.
Jane Doe is not Luminous Beauty.
You appear to be suffering from a monothematic delusion called Fregoli delusion.
Please, seek help!
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 3, 2006 at 2:21 PM
But, David, who is this starboy you are refering to?
(careful, David. Your own disingenuity is showing…)
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 3, 2006 at 2:25 PM
I am refering to the Starboy who is a figment of your delusional imagination.
(Not at all, Jay, it is your disingenuity that is showing, or perhaps your paranoia.)
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 3, 2006 at 3:00 PM
Not at all, my dear friend. Not at all.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 3, 2006 at 3:03 PM
No Jay,
Your next line was supposed to be Touche !
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 3, 2006 at 3:38 PM
Well, let me just say that I scanned this discussion looking for an entry point, but too thoroughly enjoyed cabbie’s mopping the floor with jay (a very informative exchange nonetheless) to even interrupt!!
Maybe later…
a closer examination of the particular motivations (as opposed to general boogeyman stuff) for the administration’s choice of terms here
Posted by metaxy99 on Nov 3, 2006 at 11:17 PM
Jay-Jay,
Don’t want your home address, don’t want your e-mail, don’t care if J. Cline is your real name or a nom de guerre. Some occasional anecdotal and personal stories that connect with your inner human being might make you seem a bit more like a real person, that’s all.
As I understand it, the gist of your argument is, “I’m like rubber, you’re like glue. Everything you say, bounces off me and sticks onto you”.
A sad descent from the mere sophmoric to the regressively juvenile. Pathetic if not pathological. Your attempts to be clever are still amusing, though. They are so patently and transparently obvious, and as I say, disingenuous, but fooling none but yourself. As David says, delusional.
It really doesn’t make me happy to see you inflict yourself so, but because the persona you project is so sympathically unappealing, such an aridly abstract, bumptiously bloviating little beetle of a voice, the humor of it is inescapable. So Chaplinesque with a strong strain of Dwight Schrute. Please forgive me, but what you do makes you the perfect foil.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 4, 2006 at 12:14 PM
Upon reflection, I recognize that the intellectual drubbing of those who would support the use of the term ‘Islamofascism’ is, as usual, beside the point.
The point, it seems to me, has been the effective use of terms and concepts by this administration, as opposed to the accurate use.
Critical response should therefore strive toward the same pragmatism.
It really doesn’t matter that fascism is hardly unitary, or that it might be peculiar to certain historical conditions - - most people can’t be bothered to read half a dozen heavy books on the subject, then go on to consider technology, nationhood, religion, etc…
Or rather, it does matter - - but it’s generally not going to get you the traction you need in an argument…
So, the question this raises fo me is: can critical arguments be more effective by interrogating the ‘use’ of the terms and concepts?
In this case, I would begin by pointing out that:
1.) The term ‘Islamofascism’ is an effort to unify a lot of different ideas and practices.
a.) The administration needs a cohesive villian to justify its “War” rhetoric and strategy (what one poster referred to as “perpetual military engagement.”)
b.) A unitary villian is not just easier to imagine, it it easier to defeat (or to conceive of defeating) than a loosely aligned network of shadowy cells; legitimate Muslim governments that are not friendly to the U.S. or are not supporting some particular component of U.S. interest at any given time; an expression of popular discontent with the world order; an expression of popular discontent with local political and economic conditions, etc etc.
c.) Unitary villian calls for one overarching type of action: the projection of power via concerted military engagement, rather than heterogeneous strategies of intelligence work, discrete military engagement, diplomacy (carrots as well as sticks), the formation of alliances, the give-and-take associated with economic stimuli, etc etc.
2.)The term provides a useful frame of meaning for the administration.
a.) Allows Bush to be the Truman he’s always projected himself into -ie, a blunt, unsophisticated, unpopular president who history will judge kindly for taking the decisive actions necessary to clean up what his liberal predecessor left. Makes sense of the wasteful expenditures in the Middle East as a new Marshall Plan.
b.) Casting the people as another ‘great generation’ substitutes for original true vision. It also projects us into a simpler moral era (the multifacted value of this should not be overlooked). It also tends to excuse any domestic failures (where to begin??) in the name of collective sacrifice.
c.) Allows the old Cold War dinosaurs leading the administration to continue with the mode of thinking and operating that’s proven so inadequate to contemporary reality…
That’s just a beginning of a challenge to the use of the term on pragmatic grounds. The political advantage sought on each point could be elaborated in order to drive home the point that the administration has crafted the term to meet its own political and ideological interests.
The next step is to contest the use of the term by articulating in each case the danger of the simplification, what is lost in using it, what are the consequences, etc.
Posted by metaxy99 on Nov 4, 2006 at 12:17 PM
Metaxy99,
They chose Islamofascism to vilify Muslims and thereby motivate Americans, and the rest of the coalition of the killing, to want to kill and/or control Muslims and thereby control the oil that these Muslims are (un)fortunate enough to have. This is just one of many reasons, as you have noted others, but I think it is a primary reason. Of course another is to protect that bastion of freedom and best ally in the region, Israel.
President Bush says as much himself in his recent interview with Rush Limbaugh.
Here it is in the President’s own words :
“Give me a second here, Rush, because I want to share something with you,”
“I am deeply concerned about a country, the United States, leaving the Middle East.”
“worried that rival forms of extremists will battle for power, obviously creating incredible damage if they do so; that they will topple modern governments, that they will be in a position to use oil as a tool to blackmail the West.”
“People say, ‘What do you mean by that?’”
“I say, ‘If they control oil resources, then they pull oil off the market in order to run the price up, and they will do so unless we abandon Israel, for example, or unless we abandon allies.’”
“You couple that with a country that doesn’t like us with a nuclear weapon, and people will look back at this moment and say, ‘What happened to those people in 2006?’ and those are the stakes in this war we face,”
“On the one hand we’ve got a plan to make sure we protect you from immediate attack, and on the other hand we’ve got a long-term strategy to deal with these threats, and part of that strategy is to stay on the offense,”
“Part of the strategy is to help young democracies like Lebanon and Iraq be able to survive against the terrorists and the extremists who are trying to crush their hopes, and part of the democracy is for a freedom movement, which will help create the conditions so that the extremists become marginalized and unable to recruit.”
Sick, eh?
If you can stomach it you can read the whole transcript of the interview for yourself here but I warn you that you have to sign up a membership and that may require a stomach made of iron.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 4, 2006 at 12:31 PM
starboy,
again, you are a funny man. Whilst I attempt a rational discussion, all you have contributed here is your typical non-sequitors. You ask who I am, yet when I ask why, you twist it into purile word games and point the finger at me. If you’re not interested, don’t ask.
But, if you are looking for a foil, you need to step up to the plate and actually say something, beyond childish taunts.
c’mon. disingenuity to the max here, dude.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 5, 2006 at 1:30 PM
meta,
it is certainly true that the war rhetoric from the administration is to “unify” a more coherent strategy. It seems to me that your only objection is that you do not believe there are any points of congruence to the threats that face us after 9/11.
The real question is whether the rhetoric matches the threat.
Who are these “loosely aligned network of shadowy cells” that you mention? Is not the “alignment” that you yourself speak of based on the beliefs and actions of radical Islamic groups? Is your objection to the first part of Islamofascist, or the second?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 5, 2006 at 1:38 PM
Jay-Jay,
your query was such,
so, to what end, really? or is this just one more example of your typical disingenuity? do you really care who I am? do you really need my home address?
what is yours?
I answered thusly,
<blockquote>Don
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 5, 2006 at 3:28 PM
oh come now starboy. If you must exercise that which you (apparently) find so despicable, that of childish verse of “glue sticking on you”, take the quotes back a bit further.
The dispute betwixt us is of my “paranoid delusions” where I have inferred, through grammatical, syntactical, lexiconic and thematic similarities that certain recently emerged “personas” (after ITT’s inclusion of source) are uncannily similar to long established ITT denizens, er trolls. After getting your legs, you took the offensive and have tried to turn the knife back, a pathetic attempt that has failed utterly. Now, in desperation, you resort to your typical condescending attitude, a sort of French declaration of victory.
You have oft decried for honest debate, yet are so utterly incapable of it. I do appreciate that maintaining multiple personas can be taxing, but your reliance on one-dimensional stick figures has dulled your wit.
If you desire debate, if you enjoy fencing, join the discussion. I have repeatedly turn away from your puerile antics and have engaged others in real, if raucous, debate.
Certainly if a low-browed troll such as myself can maintain multiple threads of discussion under a single moniker, a person of your intellect should have no difficulty. No?
You could start by taking issue with my last response to meta.
Or, perhaps, you truly are a Sophist. Ah , Socrates must be rolling in his grave.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 6, 2006 at 5:31 AM
Well Jay - as much as I appreciate your response, it seems that you’ve been fighting a rearguard battle.
Previous posters have expended a good deal of effort at pointing out the ways in which the term does not fit reality. I appreciate that effort, and as I said, have found it very enlightening.
My aim is not to say again what others have said, for they’ve said it better than I could.
My aim is to get clear insight into the effects of the distortion.
When Bush deployed the ‘Axis of Evil’ rhetoric, effective critical response was not endless debate about the meaning of ‘evil,’ but rather attempts to resist the effects of the term (eg, the implication that the U.S./Bush is a messianac force of good), understanding its consequences (eg, the momentum for war in Iraq; the further alienation of North Korea and Iran) and looking to head those consequences off wherever possible.
I suggested, for instance, one way in which the term conjures a field of historical meaning that is quite pleasing, quite expedient for the administration and its supporters.
Besides the implications for strategy, besides the value of the definition for partisan purposes, besides even that every problem looks like a nail when all you have is a hammer, that historical return is a big part of the term’s appeal.
Given that you think the term is apt, maybe you can suggest some other effects of the term or other aspects of its appeal??
Posted by metaxy99 on Nov 7, 2006 at 12:36 AM
meta,
Perhaps the most elegant “effect” of the usage of Islamofascists is that it actually and accurately does reflect reality.
The previous posters have only succeeded in demonstrating a capacity of proving that A equals A.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 7, 2006 at 8:59 AM
Islamo-fascist doesn’t reflect any reality whatsoever. There is no such thing. We’ve gone through all the reasons why this is the case. All J. Cline has done is make silly ahistoric generalizations (“nationalism has always existed because it is in people’s genes”), accuse others of circular logic when it is he that is guitly of such logic, and nit pick in an impish manner about the use of terms (such as pointing out that technology isn’t needed for fascism because there is no visible relationship. Most aggriegously he is guilty of post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallicies. He obviously doesn’t understand fascism as an historic phenomenon and thinks in such laymans terms so as to be meaningless in scholarly terms. He is also a royal pain in the ass. People like this are not interested in a genuine discussion. They only want to troll and frustrate people and alienate potential supporters. This is his real goal!!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Nov 7, 2006 at 10:17 AM
dude,
maybe if you spent less time in the trenches with your own trollish behavior and actually address the issues I raise, rather than summarily dismiss them in some pseudo-elitist rant, we could have gotten off page one of the debate.
To wit, where have I exhibitied circular logic, and how is proclaiming that fascism is strictly secular simply because you define fascism as a secular ideology NOT a demonstration of circular logic?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 7, 2006 at 11:51 AM
jay-jay writes,
You could start by taking issue with my last response to meta.
After I had written,
Likewise, when I say you are being disingenuous, I show some reasons why I come to that conclusion. Among those reasons are gross over-simplification, and broad generalization, evidenced by your response above to metaxy99, where she makes a genuinely good case for the complex of factors influencing political, social, cultural and religious sensibilities underlying the difficult situation in the Middle East, and instead of replying to any of the points she makes, make the improbable and reductionist assertion that the only thing we should necessarily consider is Islamic radicalism, which itself is neither Islamic nor radical, but a reactionary attempt to recreate an imagined past by reinforcing regressive cultural and social norms that are not any genuine part of Mohammed’s teachings irregardless of the imprimatur of legitimacy they believe, in [much] the same machavellian fashion that you make with your and the neo-con’s semantic distortions, [such associations] impart to their political aspirations.
It would seem your pathology has had dire effects on your comprehension abilities.
It is one thing to throw accusations of sophistry or disingenuousness or whatever. It is quite another to demonstrate with clear reasoning and reliable evidence why it might be so. You have endlessly repeated a cavalier propensity for the former, and an unceasing incapacity for the latter. It would seem that in the desire to protect your self-image you are projecting your own shortcomings on anyone (me) who is willing for the sake of honest discussion to point them out, hence the rubber glue remark. (fyi It wasn’t directed at you as a rejoinder in a childish manner but was a reference your own immature manner of response. Again with the misapprehension of intent and meaning, commonly referred to as mierda los toros puro). Rather compelling evidence in itself that you reside in Crackpot Villa. Get some professional help, quick, before you do real harm to yourself or others.
I’m really not out to get you, Jay-Jay. My criticisms are meant to be of the constructive kind, and though my humor might be sarcastic, its sting is not meant to paralyse, but to stimulate. It is a rough kind of fun, I admit, but that it is as fun and not in a spirit of cruel meanness I insist is my genuine intent. You may not believe me, but there it is. You aren’t without some intelligence. It is a shame to see it wasted defending trivial horse crap.
I ain’t lookin’ to compete with you,
Beat or cheat or mistreat you,
Simplify you, classify you,
Deny, defy or crucify you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
No, and I ain’t lookin’ to fight with you,
Frighten you or uptighten you,
Drag you down or drain you down,
Chain you down or bring you down.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I ain’t lookin’ to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up,
Analyze you, categorize you,
Finalize you or advertise you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I don’t want to straight-face you,
Race or chase you, track or trace you,
Or disgrace you or displace you,
Or define you or confine you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I don’t want to meet your kin,
Make you spin or do you in,
Or select you or dissect you,
Or inspect you or reject you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
I don’t want to fake you out,
Take or shake or forsake you out,
I ain’t lookin’ for you to feel like me,
See like me or be like me.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.
Bob Dylan
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 7, 2006 at 12:01 PM
dude,
Are you writing a polemic dissertation illustrating your childish trollish talents, or responding to a simple question in the debate?
Apologies if you buried substance in your ponderous treatise and I missed it.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 7, 2006 at 1:23 PM
With regards to metaxy making a good argument, saying that others have made his point, actually says nothing, particularly when “others” have only succeeded in demonstrating circular logic.
Ergo, not a good argument.
To say the issue is the use and/or misuse of the term Islamofascist without coming to an agreement on whether the term is mere political sophistry or an actual reflection on reality (which is the real point of the debate), is, dare I say, disingenuos.
If the use is mere sophistry, then the point is made in the assumption itself.
Again, more circular logic.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 7, 2006 at 1:31 PM
With regard to the assertion that Islamic radicalism is neither Islamic nor radical, the first rational response to that kind of sophistry is, huh??
But, for the sake of the argument, if it is neither, and is “merely” a reactionary attempt to create an imagined past, is it your contention that there is no enemy, or that they are not Islamic despite their own beliefs?
Who are you to arbitrate on the legitimacy of another man’s beliefs and interpretations of his own religion?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 7, 2006 at 1:37 PM
Oh, and welcome back to the debate.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 7, 2006 at 1:38 PM
Those early modern fascists, those early twentieth century Italians, described themselves as radicals AND reactionary revolutionaries. Radical in the sense of seeking violent change against the rising dominance of Marxist-inspired politics, and reactionary in the sense of going back to an idealized (imagined, to use starboy’s words) past of singular social identity.
Those we face in anger today are Islamic, starboy’s sophistry notwithstanding, and are very much radical and reactionary in the same sense as those early modern Italian fascists. Personified by al Qaeda and the Iranian mullahs, they speak of violent change against a “corrupt” and “westernized” Islamic society in an attempt to go back to an idealized (er, imagined) past.
Islamic through their own belief structure; fascist in shape and form akin to past fascist phenomena.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 7, 2006 at 2:02 PM
Hi CABBY, Canuck dave, and Jane dOE? WHO IS OBVIOUSLY NOT OLE rABBIT,
KEYBOARD PLAYING UP THERE
jAY DEECLINE talking about ‘vetting all candidates’ reminds me about AIPAC selecting candidates for your Congress, but i guess he was refering to the IslamofFascist Enemy of the month.
I think it was JD who pointed out that the the use of the “F” word, like the “appeasement” one was just another example of the cheap and nasty , and ineffably stupid , level to which current politics have descended.
I’ve spent far too long trying to wean amurrican friends off their illusion that the Midwest is menaced by “IF’s”, trying to point out that I am a far more easily accessible target, and am losing no sleep about it;
Like wot I told you guys so many times, ole frog invented the container bomb in 1967, and it hasn’t happened , yet. . Apart from in a few TV films.
Of course there ARE a FEW lunatics.
The whole idea that the USA can be rendered “safe” by ‘disappearing’ all your freedoms is totally lunatic.
Easier and cheaper to close those oversaes bases, and if you want to buy some oil, or whatever, PAY for it , like the Finns ,?
Posted by frog on Nov 7, 2006 at 7:39 PM
There no such thing as elitist in the sense that you use the phrase. I have never said that anything about fascism was simply true by definition but by virtue of history and fascism’s own self conception. I know this must sound like “elitist” phrase-making to you. Fascism is an early 20th century phenomenon. There are no fascist theocracies although the Church rallied support to Franco and Salazar in Spain and Portugal respectively. Though technologically behind Germany and Japan, they were modern states and colonized foreign possessions and were able to control and settle them.
Your remark earlier in the thread on page one that I denigrated the nationalism of the Greek City states was silly and to the point about the problems that arise with laymen approaching scholarly issues. Sparta and Troy were not nations but city-states. Though sovereign the concept of nation didn’t really exist and so loyalties were to the individual leader and the city-state itself.
I know it is difficult to see how human identities change over time and take different political forms and have different political consequences. The form of the state also changes as does its attitude toward citizenship. In modern times statelessness is anathema as I have said previously. In ancient times the question of citizenship wasn’t considered an inalienable right but rather something confered by virtue of social connections, service to the leader, or ownership of property. Modern nationalism, where rights are inherent in the state’s very existance by dint of its exercize of sovereignty, allows no statelessness and extends citizenship throughout its realm due to the increased power of the state over the centuries and the centralization of that power. Think of Weber’s maxim that the modern state monopolizes the legitimate use of force in any given society. Perry Anderson, in his work, the Lineages of the Absolutist State, traces the nature and reach of the modern state to the 17th century rise of the absolute monarchs whereby extra-statal or vassal like status is gradually abolished in favor of growing centralized control. These were the necessary developmental preconditions in the centuries long maturation of the modern state before which fascism could eventually assume control . Fascism necessarily took over modern states with modern political identities, institutions, and practices. Traditional forms of authority can not be termed fascism for this reason. I believe that fascism IS specific to this typology of rule and no other. Simply conservative or traditional authoritarianism, no matter how repressive or belligerant, does not satisfy the technical definition of fascism.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Nov 7, 2006 at 10:03 PM
Ah, I see now. I wanted to develop a pragmatist line of argument in the discussion. Also interested in trying it out as a strategy against intransigent interlocutors.
It does call for a bare minimum of rationality on their part, however.
Anyways, good point and well said at the end of the last post cabbie.
Posted by metaxy99 on Nov 8, 2006 at 12:14 AM
cabbie,
What, again, was your technical definition of fascism? I do not ask this gratuitously, but after 3 pages of blogging, it would perhaps be well to repeat it.
I think if there is one single point on which we agree is that we apparently do not share the same definition. But before I respond, I would appreciate a touchstone of where your definition is coming from. Obviously from your last post, I have misinterpreted it.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 8, 2006 at 8:08 AM
Anticipating your response, I would make this distinction between us with regard to nationalism and fascism:
To fascists, the State is the thing. It is, as Mussolini described, an “anti-individualistic conception of life [that] stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity”.
Fascism invests in the State the personification of the will of the people, “opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number; but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered - as it should be - from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one”.
Fascism is a Gestalt, politically personified.
That fascism requires nationalism is not quite accurate. Nationalism is too broad a brush to paint one of fascism’s fundamental tenets - that of a need for a singular social Uberidentity.
In this context, nationalism is merely one possible structural edifice of fascism. The idea of Uberidentity is not dependent strictly on nationalistic expression, but that of a single social identity that can also be expressed in terms of ethnicity or religion. The fascism of the Romanian Iron Guard (of the same circa as the Italian, German and Spanish fascist movements) centered their Uberidentity around a rural, not urban, demography and a highly religious mythology.
It is again, in this context, that the reactionary and apocalyptic visions of Islamofascists, gives current radical Islamic fundamentalists their political ideology and singular social identity.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 8, 2006 at 10:15 AM
Jay-Jay,
Perhaps you would be so kind to answer these simple questions. Does adopting the language of religion and assuming the mantle of religious authority necessarily mean that one has absorbed the spiritual essence of religious faith? Is being a Muslim or a Christian really so simple as declaring oneself so? Did not Jesus implore his followers to judge others not by their words but by their deeds?
Indeed, I am entitled merely as a human being and of necessity by being a seeker of what is true and genuine to bring my intelligence and discriminating insight to bear in making discernment as to the sincerity and genuineness of others as to whether their actions are in accord with their statements, and whether their statements are intended to clarify, deepen and broaden understanding, or to manipulate and decieve, or if their statements are merely confused by being misled, either by external manipulative agents or their own self-centered prejudices. Otherwise is to make oneself vulnerable to any bullshit artist that comes down the pike.
It is ironic to the max that one as yourself who states his reluctance to accept any expert authority on its face would present the words of Mussolini, arguably one of the worlds premier bullshit artists, as objective and authoritive characteristics of fascism on their face.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 8, 2006 at 12:36 PM
dude,
Your obvious BS aside, if a man proclaims his faith, why would I not accept his statement of belief at face value?
With regard to judging by actions, which “benevolent ” actions of those we fight would you care to discuss?
With regard to Mussolini, if you want to understand the “BS”, what better way than to examine the words of those who actually defined what modern fascism is; in thought, word AND deed?
Your rhetorical sophistry knows no limits, doesn’t it?
And yet, you have unerringly ducked the question.
Again.
Disingenuity. You may turn the knife as often as you please. Yet, there it is.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 8, 2006 at 12:47 PM
starboy,
What are you views on the Christian Crusaders? Certainly, they did not uphold Christian values in their own jihad.
Were they acting in the name of their god? Or do you have ecclesiastic authority over them as well?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 8, 2006 at 12:53 PM
Perhaps I have been too harsh, ol’ starboy. You do seem to have issues with keeping up your stamina.
Every time you actually get engaged in a real debate, you have a bad habit of falling back on character assassinations, slander, mischaracterizations and trivializations of the arguments of others, without really contributing any original observations or points of debate.
Do you have attention deficit disorders? No, really. I have had in the past some ADD issues and problems with dyslexia, but never to the point where they so impair my intellectual facilities as to render them impotent. I guess that goes a long way to explain the multiple personas you create here; it is certainly much easier to imbue each persona with only one attack pattern. I didn’t know.
Truly, I apologize for my inconsiderate behavior.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 8, 2006 at 1:32 PM
But, in case you have forgotten the question,
When is an Islamic terrorist, not Islamic?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 8, 2006 at 2:05 PM
One attempt to clarify the notion of fascism is Michael Mann’s exhaustive work “Fascists” which is a sociological study of interwar European fascism. Fascism is not a transcendental idea but an historically specific reference to a type of rightist authoritarian rule in the mid twentieth century which had no precedent and will probably never be repeated in the future. It seemed to be specific to a particular time in history and to emerged only in modern societies.
Some of the core features of fascism, according to Mann, is a cleansing nationalism, stateism, class transcendence, and militarism. The first aspect of fascist society is a bitter hatred of diversity of any sort in the belief that the nation is a pure, organic whole united by a singular quality and destiny. In this spirit ethnic cleansing is a fascist objective. State worship is also a key feature of fascism. Taking off from Hegel’s idealist notion that “the state is the embodiment of the ethical ideal”, fascists distort the intent of this idea and assert that the state is the embodiment of moral project unique to the nation in question and in this sense the state embodied the historic will of the nation thus transcending all class and other petty social particularisms. This leads easily into the third major charactoristic of fascism which is class transcendence. Here the fascists suppress social conflict in the interests of the national mission which is deeply historic and transcends class and other particular interests. Finally, militarism not only made violence a basic principle of social organization but disciplined the masses and politicized a formerly professional and politically neutral instrument, the army, making it a key force in the pursuit of the national mission and an tool of inculcation. The combined embodiment of these features in an ideologically rightist totalitarian modern state made fascism “Revolutionary” in its refashioning of the modern state to forcibly mobilize every grouping within mass society toward a singular national mission. Traditional authoritarianism could not be described as revolutionary for these reasons. Furthermore, fascism was always a response to crisis and the inability of the old regimes to cope with the challenges of unstable societies experiencing traumatic political and social transitions.
Thus, fascism is a modern, twentieth century phenomenon which no longer exists today and had no roots in the distant past.
Well, clearly there is no common ground between our historical interpretations. I profoundly reject the notion that fascism is a mere aberration, a blip in history without context, that emerged from a vacuum and similarly vanished.
To continue any further debate along that particular line would be like engaging a Creationist in a debate over evolution.
I guess I am more of a hedgehog than a fox.
But s’al’right.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 9, 2006 at 3:51 AM
You twisted the meaning of my statements. I never said fascism was abberant, had no historic context, or emerged and existed in a vacuum. Those are your wrongful interpretations of what I said and it reflects little experience with scholarly reasoning and research. You must abandon laymen’s thinking when dealing with these types of subject matter. Fascism is a unique and historically specific typology of modern authoritarian rule. Its context was the crisis of highly developed societies and the emergence of nationalist ideology in the late 19th Century in Europe which nourished the post WWI nation-state and the nationalism which accompanied it. Social and economic crisis and political instability led to political tendencies on the right which were unprecedented and which became the typologies we now know as fascism. They had NO precedent. They may emerge some time in the future perhaps in the US but it is doubtful.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Nov 9, 2006 at 10:35 AM
dude,
I am cool with our differences and meant no disrespect.
If I did, I would question the logical consistency between these two statements:
Thus, fascism is a modern, twentieth century phenomenon which no longer exists today and had no roots in the distant past.
and
I never said fascism was abberant, had no historic context, or emerged and existed in a vacuum.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 9, 2006 at 12:44 PM
dude,
Your obvious BS aside, if a man proclaims his faith, why would I not accept his statement of belief at face value?
If he is using the declaration of faith towards venal and morally destructive ends. What obvious BS are you talking about?
With regard to judging by actions, which
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 9, 2006 at 4:15 PM
Talk about BS, Cline you’re full of it!! The two statements don’t contradict each other unless you look at things narrowly. Fascism WAS an abberation in that it never existed as a whole, functioning system before WWI although, in dialectical fashion, it was a system that synthesized aspects of old forms of European authoritarianism into a wholly new form of rightist dictatorial rule called modern fascism. This doesn’t mean it had no context. The context was merely its social and physical environment and the circumstances under which it emerged which I pointed out was the crisis of the old regimes’ ability to maintain existing power relationships while remaining stable. With regard to the final reference absolutely nothing exists in a vacuum and I never claimed anything did much less the political typology of modern fascism the historic context of which I thoroughly explained in several prior posts!!
jay asks,
When is an Islamic terrorist, not Islamic?
starboy says,
<blockquote>You just don
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 10, 2006 at 6:00 AM
cabbie,
Like I said, I have no problems with agreeing we don’t agree. Unlike starboy, in a real debate I have no interest in “he said, she said” arguments. I think there are inconsistencies in your argument about fascism’s place in history; you think I am an uneducated troll. Let’s move on.
Let’s get back to nationalism. I offered for consideration what I believe is a better refinement on nationalism’s relationship to fascism, that the critical point of congruence is not the building of nations, but the singular social identity that ultra-nationalism gives to fascism. Isolating this from the umbrella of nationalism makes it possible for other vehicles of identity to be used in the cause of fascism, namely ethnic and religious identities.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 10, 2006 at 6:08 AM
starboy,
If living a morally virtuous life consistent with one’s religion is a criteria to religious identification, then there are not 100 people since the dawn of man who has a religious identity.
The point of order was not, are Islamic terrorists virtuous Islamists, as you well know, but are they Islamists? The point of order was not are Islamist jihadists acting in strict accordance (according to your interpretation) with the Koran, or were Christian crusaders acting in strict accordance (according to your interpretation) with the Bible, but what is their religious identity? Islamist terrorists are accepted as Islamic by nearly the whole of the world’s Islamist community. Some may not agree with their methodology; some may even resent the ire they bring upon them, but they do identify with them and call them “Islamic brothers”. As did the Christians of one thousand years ago.
You attempt to wear the mantle of ecclesiastic authority, for both Islam and Christianity, yet cannot rationalize your actions. If your arguments are not classic sophistry, if they are not totally disingenuous, then the only explanation for them is you are a small boy with delusions of manhood.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 10, 2006 at 8:07 AM
Jay=Jay,
You make a good argument that not many religious aspirants achieve the ideals of their faith. However, if a persons actions are explicit violations of those ideals, then the commitment of their aspiration is reasonably to be questioned. This is the sine qua non of hypocrisy, is it not? Not to mention, dare I say it, disingenuousness. It is to the credit of moderate moslems that they seek to embrace and encourage the return to reason of their prodigal brethren rather than anathemize them, thereby only creating emnity and dissention. It is not at all a reflection of those who embrace terrorist tactics being in compliance with Islamic doctrine.
To hinge ones understanding of the complexities of spiritual aspiration on the superficial and simplistic question of religious identity, not to mention your lack of consideration of the social, cultural, political, economic, et al, factors that impinge on and distort people’s religious feelings is reductionist to the max. It is only by such extreme reductionism to black/white, either/or true/false premises that your simplistic and naive grasp of rational thought can gain any traction at all. Traction in the narcissistic self-concieved intellectual superiority of your own ego, that is. Not in the real world, however.
You would do well to heed the instruction of Albert Einstein. “Make things as simple as possible, but be careful not to over-simplify.”
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 10, 2006 at 12:11 PM
luminous beauty,
I agree that jihads and crusades are hypocrisies of the highest order for the devoted of those religions to follow. Yet, they do and hypocrisy is at the heart of many human activities.
But it is legalistic nonsense to argue that, as they fight in the name of their god, as they perceive it, to say that they are not acting in the name of their god merely because they are hypocrites. Logic rules the head, not the heart. Yet matters of the heart are not trivial.
And that is not an over-simplification.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 10, 2006 at 12:53 PM
I do, however, appreciate the humor in this statement:
<i>Your rhetorical sophistry knows no limits, doesn
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 10, 2006 at 3:44 PM
I get it. Your being paid to repeat stuff I said in other posts as if its yer idea and I actually disagree to drive me insane! You have to much time on yer hands my friend. Who’s yer daddy?
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Nov 11, 2006 at 3:14 AM
cabbie,
I am the one with paranoid delusions here. If I have said something that agreed with a point you have already made, that generally implies progress and gives us something to build on.
Where have we agreed?
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 11, 2006 at 7:34 AM
I am the one with paranoid delusions here.
Jay, good to see you manage to hang on to a sense of humour, take a little jab at Cabbie, practice self-deprecation and do it all at the same time.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 11, 2006 at 3:14 PM
Jay Cline,
You must read a book on fascism before debating the issue on scholarly grounds. Books like Daniel Guerin’s Fascism and Big Business is a good start. So is The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton. Michael Mann’s Fascists gives a unique sociological perspective and Stanley Payne’s Fascism is a noted contribution (if it encourages you I knew Payne at the UW-Madison. He is a conservative historian and a noted expert on Modern Spain and Portugal. Guerin is a Marxist and Paxton a standard liberal. Mann is a non-Marxist leftist and is very ecclectic in his expansive and far reaching treatment of the subject of fascism.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Nov 11, 2006 at 10:33 PM
Jay-Jay,
“The heart has its reasons of which reason knows not.”
Blaise Pascal
A man who knew something about the limits of reason.
Concerning having an appreciation of sophistry;
“Realizing the basic absurdity of the human condition is the true beginning of reason.”
Albert Camus
Likewise.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 12, 2006 at 5:50 PM
Well.
I guess that says just about everything.
Cabbie,
I thank you for the reading list, though please don’t wait for a response. I already have a dozen or so tomes on various topics already on my list and nothing I have seen here would encourage me to prioritize these new additions off the bottom of that queue.
I do appreciate your honest attempts at debate, though again, it is a pity we couldn’t get off first base, what with so much importance placed on bibliographic references and “entrance exams” over a truly articulated analysis of them. I am not sure if the failure is that of the articulator or the inability of the original author to make a good point. But your engagement has given me the opportunity to articulate some of my thoughts, which naturally sharpens my focus of my own understandings, which is the ultimate purpose of any debate.
If you wish to get back and address my questions and commentary about the relationship of nationalism and fascism, I will be here. Though I am not holding my breath. You haven’t even made an attempt, beyond elitist “read a book” commentary. Food for thought: if bibliographies are so important to you, perhaps you are the one who needs to expand your reading venues. I have read quite a bit on many topics. I try not let that get in the way of critical thinking or sharing the experience, though.
But, to “naively” charge into the face of the obvious provocations of that nebulous Gestalt of singular identity that I have called “starboy”, allow me to walk into that valley of shadows of death and predictably paraphrase a quote from (I think) Emerson that says it all,
“I hate book lists. Tell me what you learned from them”
Never a better epitaph to the death of a blogodebate have I ever seen.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 13, 2006 at 12:32 PM
Cabbie,
In case you suffer from the same sort of memory malfunctions as our lovable starboy, here is, as I see it, the current point of contention:
To fascists, the State is the thing. It is, as Mussolini described, an “anti-individualistic conception of life [that] stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity”.
Fascism invests in the State the personification of the will of the people, “opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number; but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered - as it should be - from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one”.
Fascism is a Gestalt, politically personified.
That fascism requires nationalism is not quite accurate. Nationalism is too broad a brush to paint one of fascism’s fundamental tenets - that of a need for a singular social Uberidentity.
In this context, nationalism is merely one possible structural edifice of fascism. The idea of Uberidentity is not dependent strictly on nationalistic expression, but that of a single social identity that can also be expressed in terms of ethnicity or religion. The fascism of the Romanian Iron Guard (of the same circa as the Italian, German and Spanish fascist movements) centered their Uberidentity around a rural, not urban, demography and a highly religious mythology.
It is again, in this context, that the reactionary and apocalyptic visions of Islamofascists, gives current radical Islamic fundamentalists their political ideology and singular social identity.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 13, 2006 at 12:40 PM
The Romanian Iron Guard were centered heavily in Bucharest. Aside from this, nationalism is not a broad and complex topic with a great expanse as you suggest but a very narrow one. It is an essentially modern phenomenon. Neither nationalism, or any other political tendency, is part of human nature. These things are deeply historic and specific to epochal development. This is where I think we REALLY part company. I am influenced by thinkers like Foucault and Neitzsche and other post-modernists in addition to Marx and the dialectical approach to history. I believe that history synthesizes key aspects of one epoch of history into another wholly new epochs creating new patterns of social relations and political institutions. This is what makes history interesting.
Conservatives, on the other hand, believe in a transcendental reality based on objective essential meaning which only changes form over time but nor REAL substance. This I believe is incorrect. And that is the source of our disagreement on the historic significance and nature of fascism!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Nov 14, 2006 at 12:41 AM
<,blockquote>But it is legalistic nonsense to argue that, as they fight in the name of their god, as they perceive it, to say that they are not acting in the name of their god merely because they are hypocrites. Logic rules the head, not the heart. Yet matters of the heart are not trivial.</blockquote>
I don’t know about the ‘legalistic’ aspect of such an argument, but yes it is a nonsense argument. And I would admit as much if that was in fact the argument I was making. Once again you employ the strawman to put arguments in the mouths of those whom you would engage in debate. It is either the epitomy of intellectual dishonesty or the mere incompetence of one who is more intent on winning an argument than coming to a clear and mutual understanding.
What I am really saying, in case you just misunderstood, is that the mere facade of religious piety, that is, acting in the name of one’s traditional religious identity is meaningless and hypocritical, without the sincere intent and effort to live up to the spirit of those deep moral and ethical teachings that all the religious traditions of the world universally aspire to produce and preserve. Otherwise is to affix a label that has no intrinsic meaning and is a mere cypher. Or else, with machiavellian disingenuity, as in the case of ‘Islamofascist’,. to associate, by simple juxtaposition, the most superficial understanding of one religious tradition with, as Cabbie quite rightly insists, an historical political movement widely recognized for the monstrosity of its policies. An appeal not to reason, but to fear, and a mere rationale for a ‘causus belli’.
That is more similar to the methodology of fascism to manipulate the public will than the hyperbolic rhetoric of the most extreme Mullah’s incitement of the faithful to defend the faith against, the percieved political, economic and military pressure by the hegenomy of the U.S. security state to force compliance with their corporate (another word for gestalt) interests at the expense of the people’s of traditionally Islamic regions of the world sovereign desire for self-determination. A perception not without empirical evidence.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 14, 2006 at 2:29 PM
Cabbie,
What I have suggested is that nationalism is not unidimensional. What I have suggested is that nationalism is not necessarily ultranationalism and that ultranationalism is not necessarily fascism. What I have suggested is that perhaps it is not nationalism per se that is relevant to fascism, but one critical aspect of it, that of a political and social tendency to congregate with other similar people, especially in times of fear and uncertainty, whether that similarity is based on geography, ethnicity, religion, or whatever. And that tendency is very much a part of human nature.
I agree history’s appeal is the multitude of diverse patterns, for lack of a better word. Yet there are patterns amongst those patterns. Santayana was quite right in his admonishment to learn from history. Allegedly, Twain said it even better when he said history may not repeat itself, but that it certainly rhymes. European fascism was something “new under the sun”, at least in its particulars and their arrangement, and it certainly is greater than the sum of its parts. But it is those parts, those “key aspects”, that are “deeply historic”. I readily agree that this new pattern of relationship, this European fascism, is new, but there is a measure of continuity from one epoch to another as new arrangements are tried.
If we assume that every epoch is a uniquely new arrangement, we are going to rapidly run out of words to classify them all. And we would be hard pressed to find relevance in studying earlier epochs that are so “uniquely different” than our own. I have no problems abstracting the essentials of one social arrangement and comparing them with another. If they be similar, then call a spade a spade. I find it incredible that people spend so much effort trying to delimit the difference between Italian fascism and German fascism, that they ignore those societies emerged in the same time and place and were shaped by the same forces; they ignore what makes them fascist.
What we experienced in the first half of the last century is large enough to justify an attempt to understand the forest. Yes, this forest is aboreal; that one tropical. Yet they are both rainforests, and their impact on the climate essentially the same. European fascism is very different than Islamic fascism. European fascism is certainly a distinct archetype of that political genre. Yet some of the essential and fundamental social processes and relationships within each of those societies are strikingly similar. With strikingly similar consequences.
What is going on with Islamic fundamentalism today has eerie similarities to what happened in that profusion of fascist states three generations ago. And what transpired under the French in the late 18th century. And under the Spanish in the wake of the fall of Islamic Granada and, especially, in the Conquest of the New World. And under the Puritanical Rule of the early Massachusetts colony. And under Cromwell. And under Savonarola’s diatribes in Florence. There are important differences between all of those; but to understand where they overlap, their points of congruence across generations, gives us knowledge and understanding that can be predictive in nature. And what is knowledge if not an attempt to arm us with tools to shape our world?
With regard to your “dig” into conservative transcendentalism, well, it so widely misses its mark (as I stated way back at the beginning of all this) that it is difficult to respond. Again, I do not believe in a Fall from Grace. I do not believe all was Created at the Dawn of Creation and we just need to discover it. I do not take Santayana’s warning to ad nauseum. I do not assume that all we ever need to know, we can find in some book written be sheepherders, if we only read it close enough. Tell you what. You stop digging into your stereotypes and stop trying to tell me what I believe, and I’ll continue to tell you what I do believe.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 14, 2006 at 2:36 PM
starboy,
Again, you assume ecclesiastic authority over those who identify themselves (and are identified by those who are) Islamic.
<blockquote>the mere facade of religious piety, that is, acting in the name of one
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 14, 2006 at 2:46 PM
Again, you assume ecclesiastic authority over those who identify themselves (and are identified by those who are) Islamic.
No I don’t. Again, a strawman argument. I am just an observer of a phenomenon, making a simple distinction between those who adopt a label as an identity and those who actively strive to make a spiritual path, any spiritual path, a reality in their lives.
Perhaps this line of Garrison Kiellor’s may illuminate;
“Believing that sitting in church will make one a Christian is the same as believing sitting in a garage will make one into a car.”
It may be true for you that only the most superficial and simplistic designation of identity, a mere label, an empty cypher, matters sufficiently in political philosophy, affairs of the spirit, or for making judgements specifically as per the matter here under discussion, which really does say something about your own moral, intellectual and spiritual foundations for making considered judgements of any kind. However for me, the particular distinctions that give depth of meaning to those labels make all the difference in the world.
And you, kind friend, simply do not have the moral nor intellectual nor spiritual foundation to make that judgement for them.
Again, a strawman argument, in that I have no pretense of making any judgement for anyone, but merely a judgement of their degree of commitment, hopefully not to be construed as a judgement of condemnation, and only to clarify my own understanding and maybe to communicate that understanding, in the (your case, apparently vain) hope that understanding may be generously reflected with some degree of mutual understanding and maybe a growing and evolving deeper understanding that only comes from interpersonal dialog and sharing of another’s insights.
And you, kind friend, simply do not have the moral nor intellectual nor spiritual foundation to make that judgement for them.
Neither do I.
It would seem, by implication, you admit to not having the moral, intellectual, nor spiritual foundation to make such a judgement about what moral, intellectual or spiritual foundation I may have. A judgement you nonetheless proceed to make. It rather gives you the air of one who brags unceasingly about the depth of his humility.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 15, 2006 at 3:40 PM
Well.
starboy, we are yet again at a “No I’m not! Yes you are!” conundrum.
So be it.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 15, 2006 at 3:48 PM
Cabbie,
TNR has posted the following review:
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20061120&s=frank112006
Despite our intransigent differences of opinion, I would welcome your comments. I have not yet read any of the literature referenced in the review, but I just may start bumping them up my reading queue.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 15, 2006 at 3:51 PM
I went to the TNR website but I didn’t want to pay to read the rest of the article which looked quite interesting. I also don’t know what it had to do with the price of tea in China.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Nov 16, 2006 at 12:38 AM
I am not a subscriber either, but I get their free newsletter. It might be only that you need to register with an email?
It is about Romanian fascism in the 20s and 30s. Given that I have interpreted (wrongly?) your thoughts of fascism being urban, secular and industrialized, given that Romanian fascism was rural, decidedly religous and not industrialized, I’d be curious how you viewed Romanian fascism.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 16, 2006 at 5:39 AM
Jay-Jay,
It appears that you wish once again to retreat from the field of battle with a shred of your tattered dignity intact. So be it.
Part of me understood your post of 11/14 to have the flavor of another swan’s song, albeit without the whiny self-pitying tone of that earlier famous bit, and to your credit ended with that delicate touch of self-effacement. To my own shame, I failed to respect that, and couldn’t help but throw that last twist of unintentional irony in your words back in your face.
I’m sure David is proud of you, but allow me a final critical comment in that if it was meant to be humorous, there are problems with your delivery that made it fall a little flat. That is something you should work on, maybe.
Not to say that sometimes my own attempts to be witty may not also sometimes fall short or over-shoot their mark. After all, as the saying goes (attributed to various actors on their deathbeds), “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” Indeed, I am sure that David, sweet and gentle soul that he is, is sometimes horrified at the viciousness of the ridicule that I have heaped upon you. In my defense, let me say that my comedic talents, humble as they may be, lie not so much in self-deprecating humor, but more along the lines of the left-handed compliment. Even when I try for the former, it seems I inevitably drift into the latter. Indeed, there is necessarily some touch of cruelty in all humor. As Will Rogers said, “Everything is funny, as long as it’s not happening to you.”
Though it is true that you are necessarily the butt of my many jokes, I hope there is some small understanding that my intent is not to humiliate and destroy you, but to challenge you to grow, intellectually, morally, and spiritually, to coin a phrase. Call it tough love if you will. Perhaps mistakenly, but sincerely, I see you as the younger brother who wants so desperately to hang with the big boys that he challenges others to fights he has niether the sophistication or strength to win in order to show he has heart. It’s endearing, but you just cannot let the little twerp get away with his shit.
In brief, I do believe you are making some small progress, little brother.
I can forsee that day when the realization dawns within you, heart and mind, that the truth of a satisfying life lies not in discerning the rightness of this versus that, us versus them, or even good versus evil, but in recognizing the open-ended interconnectedness of the entire universe and everything in it with a generous spirit of loving-kindness.
Not to claim that I, myself, have attained that ultimate thule of spiritual realization, but would enlist you in that cooperative enterprise, to rise up from the confused and uncertain depths in which we find ourselves, willingly and persuaded through the skeptical lens of your own reason.
After all, the path is long and our legs are short.
Exactly!
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 16, 2006 at 2:41 PM
LOL!
starboy, if you wish to play rhetorical King-of-the-Hill, well, the honor is yours!
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 16, 2006 at 4:10 PM
As far as I know most of the Eastern European Fascist movements in the 1930s and 1940s that collaberated with the German Nazis and formed Waffen SS divisions didn’t have a distinct urban or rural identity but recruited from all areas of the countries where they existed including big cities. They were deeply nationalist, xenophobic, violent, allied with larger fascist mentors, and carried out roundups, mass murder, and revaunchism on behalf of their Nazi overlords. Some of these countries were less developed than Germany but it didn’t make them less fascist. Many were fascist movements that didn’t have complete control of the state for more than a few months at a time. The Monarchies in Romania and Bulgaria and the Regency under Admiral Horthy in Hungary were viewed by most as the legitimate governments. These, however,were highly compromised by the pro-Nazi fascist movements which sought levels of collaberation well beyond what the old conservative elites were willing to tolerate not least of all because of Hitler’s revaunchist rearrangement of national boundaries. Such revaunchism was often done in order to consolidate the volk Deutsch. These movements would have had much less power without Nazi military pressures or the direct Nazi presence. Often they functioned as the mere long arm of Hitler in their respective countries. This dependency made them no less fascist. They certainly pursued fascist goals and followed the fascist model of mass movements and the state as much as possible.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Nov 16, 2006 at 5:41 PM
I’m sure David is proud of you
I am, mostly.
Indeed, I am sure that David, sweet and gentle soul that he is, is sometimes horrified at the viciousness of the ridicule that I have heaped upon you.
Horrified? Not at all.
Thank you for your kind words, Luminous Beauty.
After all, the path is long and our legs are short.
And I am so tired.
David,
Before I go anywhere with “Canuckistan”, I must ask: Is “Canuck” a self-deprecating pejorative to our good friends to the north, or is it a term of endearment?
And, for the record, some of my best friends are Canadian.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 17, 2006 at 6:08 AM
I have been reading a bit on the economic policies that various Fascist countries pursued, and it seems the one defining economic characteristic within those countries is that the economy was, for the most part, seen as a means to an end (I believe I have even seen one quote attributed to Hitler that said the basis of their economic theory was they had no theory - not sure what the context was that it was said in, or if it was even said). Mussolini sometimes seems almost free-market as he “fostered” economic competition as a means to weed out the weak. But they all seem to advocate protectionism to encourage self-reliance, whether it was closing their borders, or expanding their influence (as you - Cabbie - have noted of the Nazis and their activities in central and eastern Europe) over areas of vital natural resources. That would be a natural fit to the xenophobia of a people who see themselves as separate from the rest of humanity.
I perused on rather lively discussion from one ultra-libertarianist that basically considered any government intervention in the economy and any international projection of power in the name of “national interests” that is to the left of Milton Friedman (whom I have just heard, died) as examples of Fascism. Not sure I am trying to go that far, though.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 17, 2006 at 6:14 AM
Jay-Jay,
It is not my wish to play king of anything. My wishes are what they are, not what you, with your unbridled tendency to produce strawmen, percieve them to be. Why is it so hard for you to recognise such a simple and glaring error in your thinking? It is only human to make mistakes, but I daresay you abuse the priviledge.
A mere suggestion, as I have no time to look up sources, is that what drove the Fascist economies, besides a State command structure that favored capital expansion of the existing major corporations, often at the expense of small businesses, increases in the military and police forces, and actively promoting technological innovation in production and infrastructure, while ensuring full and gainful employment for the working class, thereby undermining support for the Free Trade Union Movement (very effective when combined with the assassination or imprisonment of Union, Socialist, Communist, Anarchist leaders and rank and file), was the very simple effect of expansionist conquest, and the subsequent looting and pillaging of those conquered territories. ‘Lebensraum’ was more than just a slogan.
Comparables to modern Conservative ideology (which, fortunately, is unraveling as we speak), though not exact, abound (my left-handed homage to Milton Friedman, if you will). This is not to say, modern Conservatism is Fascism under a different name. However, historical Fascism was very much conservative in a broader philosophical sense going back to the darker implications inherent in Plato’s Republic, with stops at Hegel and Hobbes along the way..
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 17, 2006 at 1:14 PM
Before I go anywhere with “Canuckistan”, I must ask: Is “Canuck” a self-deprecating pejorative to our good friends to the north, or is it a term of endearment?
Can’t it be both, Jay?
Just like Yankee Doodle Dandee.
... some of my best friends are Canadian.
Me included ... I hope!?
Ahh ... Hobbes and his Warre of All Against All.
Leviathan is a permanent fixture in my washroom and sits atop the toilet tank.
No disrepect intended.
It is an old saying, That all lawes are silent in the time of warre, and it is a true one, not onely if we speak of the civill, but also of the naturall lawes, provided they be referr’d not to the mind, but to the actions of men, by the third Chapter, Art. 29. And we mean such a war as is of all men against all men; such as is the meer state of nature; although in the warre of nation against nation a certain mean was wont to be observed. And therefore in old time there was a manner of living, and as it were a certain oeconomy, which they called leotrikon, living by Rapine, which was neither against the law of nature, (things then so standing) nor voyd of glory to those who exercised it with valour, not with cruelty. Their custome was, taking away the rest, to spare life, and abstain from Oxen fit for plough, and every instrument serviceable to husbandry, which yet is not so to be taken, as if they were bound to doe thus by the law of nature, but that they had regard to their own glory herein, lest by too much cruelty, they might be suspected guilty of feare.
That brings me back to the olde days ...
day dreaming in college philosophy classes ...
high as a kite.
Long live Canuckistan!
A professional philosopher friend once told me that Hobbes goes down much easier if you assume he is speaking in the ironic voice of Jonathan Swift. ‘Tis true! So horribly, terribly true.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 18, 2006 at 2:29 PM
Thanks for the Canuckistan link. It’s brilliant!
My philosophy professor always recommended Hobbes as excellent reading material for toilet time. Fortunately I am blessed with an excellent digestion and excrete quickly so I don’t read too much Hobbes.
The reactions I get from visitors who dared to read Hobbes during their toilet are the best part. Some have no idea what it is they just read while others do but don’t want to read Hobbes ever again.
I hate the term ‘neocon’. I suspect Liberals like it, since it it means essentially the same thing as ‘neoliberal’, but has the partisan advantage, when it is used instead of ‘neoliberal’, of not reminding people that Liberals are just as Conservative as Conservatives.
The politics of the Republicans and Democrats (Liberals) are the same. The only difference, which is not one of importance, is that ‘neocon’ refers to a person who identifies him- or herself as a Conservative, rather than a Liberal. So what? Republicrats follow a neoliberal agenda, where the ‘liberal’ in neoliberal refers not to the party origin of it’s adherents, but primarily to ‘trade liberalization’, and all of the other anti-civil society policies that those who push for trade liberalization also endorse.
Liberal mags like ITT, The Nation, The Progressive - all of which are fine, but not the solution - will not like what I just posted here. Too bad.
Posted by Arby on Nov 20, 2006 at 4:14 AM
starboy,
childish retorts aside, I cannot resist employing your “glue” metaphor right now:
Why is it so hard for you to recognise such a simple and glaring error in your thinking? It is only human to make mistakes, but I daresay you abuse the priviledge.
Forgive me. I had a momentary relapse into my second childhood.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 20, 2006 at 6:59 AM
Arby,
In order to criticize the term “neo-con” you will have to understand its origins. It is not an epithet or term of derision assigned this tendency by the left. Neo-conservatism, the respectful term preferred and originated by Neo-cons themselves, was a political tendency that has its roots in the 1950s with the start of the Cold War. Its originators, but by no means its total membership, were American Jews whose political roots derived from the Left, usually Trotskyist. With the revelations of the Crimes of Stalin and the sense that Communism was a highly repressive failure these individuals founded a new political movement that swung all the way to the right. This tendency began modestly in the early 50s with presently obscure thinkers like Daniel Bell who declared that American society consisted of the “end of History” much like Japanese Philosopher Francis Fukayama does today. Both men believe that American society and its founding principles and system are the highest plane of human existance having reached the highest point politically achievable by human beings.
From here we go to Norman Podhoritz and Commentary Magazine which criticized the “excesses of the 60s” as culpable for the collapse and weaknesses of the 70s. These guys served as the intellectual orientation point for the Republicans in the runup to the 1980 Reagan victory and inspired many “Reagan Democrats.” Today the are an even more right wing tendency that advocates extreme nationalism, militarism, and adventurism mostly on behalf of Israel. Here is where they make a linkage with Christian Fundamentalist theocracy. Here also neoconservatism comes full circle. Originally a conservative tendency for American Jews who were once a community identified as Liberal and which produced mostly Leftist intellectuals, they founded a new conservative movement sans cultural particularisms and beliefs of the traditional Gentile American Paleoconservative movements. With the upsurge of Conservatism in the 1980s Jewish Neo-conservatism, with its Cold War urgings of US military superiority, became a preferable option for the mainstream right wing establishment because of its extreme militarism and Zionist fanaticism(many traditional conservatives are isolationist and anti-Israel). These goals dovetail well with current US objectives for conquest in the Middle East.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Nov 20, 2006 at 11:53 AM
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 20, 2006 at 7:59 AM
My dear Jay-Jay;
Are you saying that I am consistently throwing up strawman arguments? I would appreciate at least one example with some sensible explication of why it is so. I am always open to genuine and constructive criticism. If it can be shown that I am in error, it is helpful in order that corrections can be made.
It would appear that your ‘momentary’ lapse has persisted for years now.
Permit me to add that the strawman fallacy isn’t the only rhetorical diversion you commit, but it does seem to be your favorite. Perhaps because it is so easy an attack to make when one can offer no rational refutation of one’s debating opponent’s position. Other mistakes of argument common in your presentation are the ‘red herring’, ignoratus elenchi, loaded question or plurium interrogationum fallacies, such as when you presume the Socratic method, and the fallacy of proof by assertion (also one of your favorites).
Respectfully yours,
Starboy
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 20, 2006 at 1:21 PM
Respectfully??
LOL!
starboy, you are indeed a riot. But, unlike you, I do not come here for the perverse pleasure of seeing others twist in the wind, as you have confessed to on numerous occassions.
I truly understand it is difficult for you to disengage without total capitulation; but I have already given the “field of battle” over to you. You command the hilly heights.
I truly and sincerely hope this gives you what you yearn for.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 21, 2006 at 6:41 PM
Jay-Jay,
If that is a ‘capitulation’ on your part, then it is respectfully accepted.
For the record, I do not take ‘perverse pleasure in seeing others (you) twisting in the wind’. When someone (you) persists in presenting absurd and irrational pseudo-arguments, I do feel a responsibility to point out the errors in their (your) reasoning. This is not for my benefit so much as for theirs (yours). I know the idea that anyone, much less myself, upon whom you have obviously imprinted and invested your deepest feelings of emnity and irreconciliable conflict may have a genuinely generous and altruistic motive is somewhat alien to your particular world-view, but I assure you, I am most serious and certain and sincere. I am also sincere in saying that if I should fall into such error myself, I am open to similarly objective criticism, though I necessarily require some specificity of explanation to aid in my understanding, as I have tried to do repeatedly for you.
To aid in your comprehension of my true intent, which I confess may not be easily discerned behind the irony and sarcasm I employ, and knowing it is very likely that you will interpret them as applying from you to me more than from me to you, (sometimes the flavor of such irony is impossible to avoid, no?) allow me once again to quote the lyrics of Bob Dylan:
Positively 4th Street
You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning
You got a lotta nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that’s winning
You say I let you down
You know it’s not like that
If you’re so hurt
Why then don’t you show it
You say you lost your faith
But that’s not where it’s at
You had no faith to lose
And you know it
I know the reason
That you talk behind my back
I used to be among the crowd
You’re in with
Do you take me for such a fool
To think I’d make contact
With the one who tries to hide
What he don’t know to begin with
You see me on the street
You always act surprised
You say, “How are you?” “Good luck”
But you don’t mean it
When you know as well as me
You’d rather see me paralyzed
Why don’t you just come out once
And scream it
No, I do not feel that good
When I see the heartbreaks you embrace
If I was a master thief
Perhaps I’d rob them
And now I know you’re dissatisfied
With your position and your place
Don’t you understand
It’s not my problem
I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you
Perhaps this one may underline the absurd foolishness and ultimate inconsequence of our ‘battles’ in a way that is more mutually agreeable, and if my own mind’s inference that you simply feel that I have indeed left you ‘twisting in the wind’ and it’s just your ‘foolish pride’ that makes you accuse me of having that intention, is correct, I hope wil offer some solid ground for ‘your weary toes to be a touchin’:
I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I’m finally free,
I kissed goodbye to the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.
You’ll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above,
And I’ll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love,
And it makes me feel so sorry.
Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats,
Blowing through the letters that we wrote.
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,
We’re idiots, babe.
It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.
Wishing the best for you and yours,
And, in this season of gratitude, may all the vestiges of fear, mistrust and the hatred such feelings engender be soon swept away by the infinite rain of eternal compassion and loving-kindness that, now and forever, falls equally upon all.
P.S. In your own words, what is the reason you come here? I’d really like to know.
Posted by luminous beauty on Nov 24, 2006 at 12:21 PM
Wow ... great words, Luminous Beauty.
I have written them on my heart.
And printed them on a piece of paper to put on the ‘fridge.
Kernels like that are the reason I come here to weed through the tares.
I hope my interruption doesn’t dissuade Jay from answering or taint his answer if he does but I had to say something.
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Reader Comments
Just because the Nazis allowed religion didn’t make them religious in the sense of a theocracy you pain in the ass!! The fact that they ordained their own Bishop and usurped all identities including religious ones makes MY point even better than even I did!
In the second place one can dispute whether or not fascism has a distinct ideology like Marxism or liberal democracy. What is fascist ideology? Ideology is not just a loose collection of tendencies but a coherent and cohesive set of linked ideas that undergird political agenda. Fascism consists more of a concrete program of national regeneration than a set of philosophical ideas. Fascism is also less ideological than action oriented (Action’ Francais); it engages a politics of spontineity which galvanizes political action and “fires the popular imagination” with nationalist purpose and imagery. One example is Kristallnacht in November 1938 in Germany. Another from contemporary America is the Minutemen who are trying to spur US ultranationalism with spontanious action on the US borders. They are also playing on race and security fears of “invasion.” A homegrown US fascist movement could easily emerge from their actions.
As far as the Chavez comments go they were to silly for a response.
cabbie,
No, you can’t have it both way. Either fascism is distinctly secular, or it is not. Show me where they were decidedly irrelevant towards religion as opposed to merely anticlerical.
Which ties into your second argument, that fascism is not a proper ideology. You may not like it, and I certainly don’t, but that is not a proper argument. Fascist ideology is (again, I repeat myself, again) all about a SINGULAR identity (please, read Mussolini’s definition more closely - it is relevant, after all, he and his band of Italians quite literally defined and gave “fascism” its etymology). There is nothing that proscribes religion; just a plurality of religion.
State religion is quite in line with fascist ideology.
(and to respond to the obvious, and obviously ridiculous counterargument, state religion does not lead to fascism, but is certainly wholy compatible.)
And perhaps the Chavez remark is only “too silly” because you can’t refute it??
jc,
Just for my elucidation, could you tell me how the glorificaiton of the US military, the projection of US power outside your bounded national community, and the itching desire to not leave any culture or polity alone unless and until they conform to your culturally specific view of the ‘the right way’, differs from other ideologies which glorify might over right, seek to obtain influence over political entities other than their own, and thereby laud a strong and militaristsic state? The only difference between the US state and every other democratic state, is that you guys tolerate military spending to the max, whilst pretending that otherwise everybody in the US is freer than anywhere else, whilst elsewhere. people successfully demand, thorugh elections that are less corrupt than your own, that the state act in thier domestic political interests. It is sad, but there you go. By the way, where I come from, if you want to ‘kill’ a domestic measure, just tell people it will make us more like the US. Why do you think that is the case jc?
And don’t start the crap about people not understanding how your system works. Every imperial power is studied by those who must inhabit the world in which the impperium holds sway. It is common for the ruled to know their rulers far better than the rulers know themsellves.
Hugo Chavez is not Hitler you silly a**hole. Furthermore, I explained my position on fascism more than is necessary. Stop trolling. You need to get laid!!
CDiC -
Well, you are right, of course. Chavez, so far, is nominally less repressive and homicidal than the Big Three. And Chavez uses his physical and fiscal resources more poorly than anyone since Mao. Chavez has recently enjoyed very high returns on his petroleum assets, but has he used this money wisely?
Ummm, no.
Chavez purged the professional management of PDVSA at the time of the oil strikes in 2003, and the political hacks who were put in charge of Venezuela’s oil have made a hash of it. Maintenance is not being performed on the oil facilities, and oil production is declining. Venezuela has had to buy oil from Russia in order to avoid violating existing supply contracts.
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/5/22/165318/469
Chavez is not maintaining the Venezuela infrastructure, either.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/international/americas/22venezuela.html?
ex=1295586000&en=86a387be5c24caa6&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Instead of spending money on things that would make the country work and insuring the continued flow of oil profits, Chavez is spending money on Russian weapons, promoting socialist regimes (Cuba and Bolivia), and buying Argentine bonds to prop up the Argentine socialist government. All this before the recent drop in the price of crude oil, which may tend to complicate Venezuela’s problems, with or without Chavez.
And as the infrastructure and the oil facilities deteriorate, the social environment declines as well.
http://www.worldtravelwatch.com/archives/2006/06/venezuela-crime-in-caracas-airport-highway-closed.shtml
Damn, Cabbie, how is it that you are an expert in every silly-ass fascist and socialist economic system in the world, and you are so ignorant of your own economy? You seem to recognize the contradiction contained in your own question, but what makes you think the Euro (not the Eurodollar!) is strong? In a free market environment, higher interest rates drives up the value of the currency (Euro, in this case). But higher interest rates are required to attract capital, in order to offset the economic weakness in the EU. Sky high interest rates are the sign of a very sick economy, such as some third world countries and the USA in the Carter years. You can verify this quickly the next time there is an international crisis; the price of the US dollar will jump as people flee to the dollar’s strength and security.
Fiddle-dee-dee. The USA deficit is dropping like a rock. In the 2004 Presidential campaign, President Bush promised to reduce the deficit to 2.25% by 2009. The deficit is now on track to meet that goal three years early. If we can keep the dip-shit Dimocrats from raising taxes, we will be in fine shape.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aZgwyLsWjDDc
So, if the war is ruining the economy, why is every single key indicator optimizing and getting better? Productivity is up, interest rates are nominal, unemployment is at record lows, and the markets just set new records. It’s the world’s strongest economy, stupid!
With a population of 25 million, you have just stated that, “We have now succeeded in killing” 625,000 Iraqis. Do you ever stop to think before you blindly accept and repeat stupid left-wind Lancet propaganda?
625,000 is greater than the number of fatalities on both sides in four years of hard combat in our own Civil War. 625, 000 is greater than the fatalities that resulted from the WWII fire bombings of Tokyo, Kobe, Osaka, and Nagoya, plus the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Think a little bit, and you won’t say such incredibly idiotic things.
And you finished off your error-filled polemic with a rationalization of Stalin’s murder of five million Kulaks in the Ukraine. Are you fucking crazy?
Scorp,
You need to stop relying on NewsMax or whatever rightwing source you use because it is wrong and misleading. Chavez is having problems right now but he is maintaining the oil facilities. In addition, Venezualan oil is very expensive to refine because unlike “Arab Sweet” from the Persian Gulf it has higher sulpher content and takes more processing. The price per barrel is less than that fetched for the Saudi oil. This contributes to Venezualas problems. I don’t know of Chavez really killing anyone either.
I wasn’t aware, as you imply, that the EU, our closest trading partners and political allies, were a “socialist or fascist economy” but then again the Bush/Cheney crowd talk about them as if they’re enemies and obviously this thinking has influenced you.
True the US economy is far from collapsing but there are many troubling issues. First the US budget deficit is not dropping like a stone. It is less than the over $600 billion levels in earlier years of the Bush administration but it is projected to shake out at over $400 billion when the costs of Hurricaine Katrina are figured in. This is less than in years past but cold comfort especially considering yet other bad news.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, US GDP grew only 1.6% in the 3rd quarter of 2006 down from 2.6% in the previous quarter. This is the slowest rate of growth since 2003 bringing this years average to under 3% thus far the slowest since 2003. Domestic demand is weak as is the savings rate which is negaitve for the first time ever, -0.5%. Average monthly job growth is down form last years rate of 190,000. The first quarter of ‘06 saw 176,000 jobs per month slipping to a monthly average of about 112,000 for the 2nd and 3rd quarters. The interest rates have climbed a bit and the housing bubble has all but burst. Residential housing investment which was 6% of GDP in the second quarter of ‘04 slide to 3.7% currently. This is serious because it has the potential to slow down the whole US economy. The $8.5 trillion national debt is only rising. It is currently over two-thirds of the GDP and climbing towards three-quarters. This has not been the case since the late 1940s when the debt/GDP ratio peaked at 65% and quickly began to decline with the rapid economic expansion. There is no such expansion looming on the horizen today. The current account trade deficit is an unprecedented 7% of GDP and this is quite harmful because it can easily weaken the dollar and raise interest rates slowing the economy right when growth is needed. True rising interest rates could attract foreign capital, but it could also become a drain on the US economy should massive capital flight occur. I do believe the Bush strategy has failed most Americans.
I’ll let the news coming out of Iraq speak for itself.
As to your final point I’ll just let Stalin rest.
Jay-Jay,
Yes, I wear American flag underwear just so soul-sucking ueber-patriots like yourself can kiss my red, white and blue ass.
Scorpy,
Maybe my comments only seem to you to reflect ‘leftist rhetoric’ because you are so blatantly and transparently a running dog lackey of the esqualido capitalist pig oligarchy.
I really wish you two could relinquish your unrelenting oppositional posturing and begin a proper dialog rather than continue with the pointless and unyielding dogmatic and ideological dialectical positions you have embraced. If we could just put our heads together and work things out we could attain to the Perfection of Knowledge. After all, ‘you know everything, and I know you guys are fools’ (G. B. Shaw, a socialist not Josef Stalin).
Starboy,
You are funny, in both disguises. “JD”, Since you are making the predicates, you can answer your own questions, you silly goose. “LB”. Now, THAT’s funny.
Cabbie,
For true blue examples of trollish behavior, please read starboy’s previous posts, of both genders.
jc
You are really crazy. Who the f**k is starboy? Wow, you really are crazy!
I expected serious political debate not trollish mudslinging!!
starboy, er, jd,
I am truly disappointed. Even if this farce were a product of my own delusion, as David “believes”, “Jane Doe” comes off as intelligent enough to answer that question just in context. Disingenuity in question and comment is a characteristic of starboy. The more I prick thee, the more your personas bleat like the one true starboy.
cabbie,
I agree totally.
Troll Song for Jay-Jay and Scorpy:
From long and painful experience, I have come to what I confess is merely an inferential and unprovable inductive belief that great intelligence is burdened by the geometrically increased opportunity to make more and more grievious boneheaded mistakes. Judging by this admittedly unreliable dictum, Jay-Jay, you and Scorpy are very intelligent indeed.
As flattering as is your assumption of my computer skills (perhaps you could tell me how to make an umlaut on this freaking borrowed pc?) and my ability to create differing and consistent personae, you are barking up the tree of cognitive dissonance.
I, too would like to know, ‘who the fuck is Starboy?’ Is that just your nickname for me, or is it the screen-name of some other innocent poster you suspect of the crime of being me? My inclination is to believe the former, as a search of ITT’s archive admits to the appellation only in this comment section. But if so, why list that name with those you accuse me of creating, presumably, just in order to abuse your delicate sensibilities? Obviously, I have no trouble doing that without resorting to any hide-and-seek subterfuge. Perhaps you ran into someone going by that moniker on some other site, and by the wonders of the kind of magical thinking for which you are here becoming renowned, made the leap that he was me. I may be your own arch-nemesis, but that is not reason to believe the inverse is also true. You are just my pet troll. That you accuse me of trollish and disingenous behavior is more icing on the cake; the utilization of psychological projection to reinforce your weak and confused ego against the onslaught of the reality that the beliefs you cling to are but the stuff of a self-indulgent fantasy. A regression into infantilism of the sort, ‘I know you are, but what am I?.
It would be funny if it were not so pathetic. Well, no, honestly, it is both funny and pathetic. Funny ha-ha, not as your feeble attempts at wittiness are funny like the smell of something gone bad in the refrigerator. Verdad, there is the unmistakable stench of burning sulfur emanating from your posts (to paraphrase Hugo Chavez).
But I really love you guys if only for the unintentional entertainment your fuzzy-brained attempts at rational discourse provide, and truly wish for you the best.
LOL!
yea, verily, that is why we love you so, starboy, in all your incarnations…
For the non-trolls who read and/or contribute, there is an interesting entry at Wikipedia on clerical fascism. Now, being wikipedia, you need to take it with a grain of salt, but it is part of their cross-article Series on Politics and does provides useful, if abridged, references.
Yeah Jay,
Where is Starboy?
I too did an ITT archive search when you first brought Starboy up and the results, except for your mention of Starboy on this thread, were non-existent.
I also entered starboy into a seach engine and got some results but except for your paranoid rantings about starboy on this thread found nothing else except the usual debris.
So ... where is Starboy?
Theres’ a starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds
There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’s told us not to blow it
‘Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie
david, starboy,
What is with these feigned and disingenuous queries? Do you not read your own posts as you write them? Massive memory infarction, eh?
Jay-Jay;
Are you Tommo ?
.
Who is Jay-Jay?
feigned and disingenuous queries
Oh Jay,
Now you have hurt my feelings :(
Now that was feigned and disingenuous whereas my previous was a sincere and genuine question.
Although I was having some fun with you when I returned from my wanderings I am not trying to give you a hard time here and now.
Seriously Jay ... where is this Starboy you speak of?
Please show me a post of his here at In These Times.
This is how JC can up with the term Starboy….
Jay was looking at himself in the mirror “nak’ ked “( that alone should make him cringe , but why digress) , anyway….ol’ boy turned around…an’ bent over . looking at his reflexion from between his legs….Starboy was born….
Thats how ol’ Jay…came up with the idea for that silly little name..he’s a very imaginative fellow that Jay Cline…very imaginative indeed….
Now David…Redhorse understands how you loath profanity and such so I made a special effort to keep it clean….( although one is quite sure the view in that mirror was anything butt ....ugh )
Thanks Redhorse, I do appreciate the effort.
Chocolate Starboy ... brilliant!
david,
c’mon! you are the one who identified my “paranoid delusions”. have you forgotten?
have you forgotten?
Not at all ...
hehehe - sorry but I couldn’t resist.
Then I fear it’s true, Jay, and life has imitated art.
You are having paranoid delusions.
There is no Starboy at In These Times except in your imagination.
I am glad that is settled.
Admitting you are sick is the first step to recovery.
if I be paranoid, it is only because it is true, eh?
Who is Jay Cline?
We’ve been having these little chats for years now and you remain little more than a cipher. Even your website (last time I looked) is full of pompous opinionation and lacking in much genuine human detail. You know most of us (if you’ve been paying attention) in considerable biographical detail. Why do you hold your cards so close to your chest? What is it that you think you have to protect?
starboy,
you are funny. and quite predictable. and quite illogical.
who is lb? your comments (as inane as they are) could easily be turned right back at you, yet I won’t go there because there is no value in it.
but, if you have been paying attention, and if biographical information is so important to you, you would not need to ask these questions. I have not been shy of such information, when relevant.
so, to what end, really? or is this just one more example of your typical disingenuity? do you really care who I am? do you really need my home address?
what is yours?
if I be paranoid, it is only because it is true, eh?
It is not true, Jay. You are simply delusional.
There is no Starboy here.
Redhorse is not Rabbit.
Jane Doe is not Luminous Beauty.
You appear to be suffering from a monothematic delusion called Fregoli delusion.
Please, seek help!
But, David, who is this starboy you are refering to?
(careful, David. Your own disingenuity is showing…)
I am refering to the Starboy who is a figment of your delusional imagination.
(Not at all, Jay, it is your disingenuity that is showing, or perhaps your paranoia.)
Not at all, my dear friend. Not at all.
No Jay,
Your next line was supposed to be Touche !
Well, let me just say that I scanned this discussion looking for an entry point, but too thoroughly enjoyed cabbie’s mopping the floor with jay (a very informative exchange nonetheless) to even interrupt!!
Maybe later…
a closer examination of the particular motivations (as opposed to general boogeyman stuff) for the administration’s choice of terms here
Jay-Jay,
Don’t want your home address, don’t want your e-mail, don’t care if J. Cline is your real name or a nom de guerre. Some occasional anecdotal and personal stories that connect with your inner human being might make you seem a bit more like a real person, that’s all.
As I understand it, the gist of your argument is, “I’m like rubber, you’re like glue. Everything you say, bounces off me and sticks onto you”.
A sad descent from the mere sophmoric to the regressively juvenile. Pathetic if not pathological. Your attempts to be clever are still amusing, though. They are so patently and transparently obvious, and as I say, disingenuous, but fooling none but yourself. As David says, delusional.
It really doesn’t make me happy to see you inflict yourself so, but because the persona you project is so sympathically unappealing, such an aridly abstract, bumptiously bloviating little beetle of a voice, the humor of it is inescapable. So Chaplinesque with a strong strain of Dwight Schrute. Please forgive me, but what you do makes you the perfect foil.
Upon reflection, I recognize that the intellectual drubbing of those who would support the use of the term ‘Islamofascism’ is, as usual, beside the point.
The point, it seems to me, has been the effective use of terms and concepts by this administration, as opposed to the accurate use.
Critical response should therefore strive toward the same pragmatism.
It really doesn’t matter that fascism is hardly unitary, or that it might be peculiar to certain historical conditions - - most people can’t be bothered to read half a dozen heavy books on the subject, then go on to consider technology, nationhood, religion, etc…
Or rather, it does matter - - but it’s generally not going to get you the traction you need in an argument…
So, the question this raises fo me is: can critical arguments be more effective by interrogating the ‘use’ of the terms and concepts?
In this case, I would begin by pointing out that:
1.) The term ‘Islamofascism’ is an effort to unify a lot of different ideas and practices.
a.) The administration needs a cohesive villian to justify its “War” rhetoric and strategy (what one poster referred to as “perpetual military engagement.”)
b.) A unitary villian is not just easier to imagine, it it easier to defeat (or to conceive of defeating) than a loosely aligned network of shadowy cells; legitimate Muslim governments that are not friendly to the U.S. or are not supporting some particular component of U.S. interest at any given time; an expression of popular discontent with the world order; an expression of popular discontent with local political and economic conditions, etc etc.
c.) Unitary villian calls for one overarching type of action: the projection of power via concerted military engagement, rather than heterogeneous strategies of intelligence work, discrete military engagement, diplomacy (carrots as well as sticks), the formation of alliances, the give-and-take associated with economic stimuli, etc etc.
2.)The term provides a useful frame of meaning for the administration.
a.) Allows Bush to be the Truman he’s always projected himself into -ie, a blunt, unsophisticated, unpopular president who history will judge kindly for taking the decisive actions necessary to clean up what his liberal predecessor left. Makes sense of the wasteful expenditures in the Middle East as a new Marshall Plan.
b.) Casting the people as another ‘great generation’ substitutes for original true vision. It also projects us into a simpler moral era (the multifacted value of this should not be overlooked). It also tends to excuse any domestic failures (where to begin??) in the name of collective sacrifice.
c.) Allows the old Cold War dinosaurs leading the administration to continue with the mode of thinking and operating that’s proven so inadequate to contemporary reality…
That’s just a beginning of a challenge to the use of the term on pragmatic grounds. The political advantage sought on each point could be elaborated in order to drive home the point that the administration has crafted the term to meet its own political and ideological interests.
The next step is to contest the use of the term by articulating in each case the danger of the simplification, what is lost in using it, what are the consequences, etc.
Metaxy99,
They chose Islamofascism to vilify Muslims and thereby motivate Americans, and the rest of the coalition of the killing, to want to kill and/or control Muslims and thereby control the oil that these Muslims are (un)fortunate enough to have. This is just one of many reasons, as you have noted others, but I think it is a primary reason. Of course another is to protect that bastion of freedom and best ally in the region, Israel.
President Bush says as much himself in his recent interview with Rush Limbaugh.
Here it is in the President’s own words :
Sick, eh?
If you can stomach it you can read the whole transcript of the interview for yourself here but I warn you that you have to sign up a membership and that may require a stomach made of iron.
Here is another example of the same bullshit that GWB spreads but of course careful consideration should be given to the perspective and proverbial spin.
starboy,
again, you are a funny man. Whilst I attempt a rational discussion, all you have contributed here is your typical non-sequitors. You ask who I am, yet when I ask why, you twist it into purile word games and point the finger at me. If you’re not interested, don’t ask.
But, if you are looking for a foil, you need to step up to the plate and actually say something, beyond childish taunts.
c’mon. disingenuity to the max here, dude.
meta,
it is certainly true that the war rhetoric from the administration is to “unify” a more coherent strategy. It seems to me that your only objection is that you do not believe there are any points of congruence to the threats that face us after 9/11.
The real question is whether the rhetoric matches the threat.
Who are these “loosely aligned network of shadowy cells” that you mention? Is not the “alignment” that you yourself speak of based on the beliefs and actions of radical Islamic groups? Is your objection to the first part of Islamofascist, or the second?
Jay-Jay,
your query was such,
I answered thusly,
<blockquote>Don
oh come now starboy. If you must exercise that which you (apparently) find so despicable, that of childish verse of “glue sticking on you”, take the quotes back a bit further.
The dispute betwixt us is of my “paranoid delusions” where I have inferred, through grammatical, syntactical, lexiconic and thematic similarities that certain recently emerged “personas” (after ITT’s inclusion of source) are uncannily similar to long established ITT denizens, er trolls. After getting your legs, you took the offensive and have tried to turn the knife back, a pathetic attempt that has failed utterly. Now, in desperation, you resort to your typical condescending attitude, a sort of French declaration of victory.
You have oft decried for honest debate, yet are so utterly incapable of it. I do appreciate that maintaining multiple personas can be taxing, but your reliance on one-dimensional stick figures has dulled your wit.
If you desire debate, if you enjoy fencing, join the discussion. I have repeatedly turn away from your puerile antics and have engaged others in real, if raucous, debate.
Certainly if a low-browed troll such as myself can maintain multiple threads of discussion under a single moniker, a person of your intellect should have no difficulty. No?
You could start by taking issue with my last response to meta.
Or, perhaps, you truly are a Sophist. Ah , Socrates must be rolling in his grave.
Well Jay - as much as I appreciate your response, it seems that you’ve been fighting a rearguard battle.
Previous posters have expended a good deal of effort at pointing out the ways in which the term does not fit reality. I appreciate that effort, and as I said, have found it very enlightening.
My aim is not to say again what others have said, for they’ve said it better than I could.
My aim is to get clear insight into the effects of the distortion.
When Bush deployed the ‘Axis of Evil’ rhetoric, effective critical response was not endless debate about the meaning of ‘evil,’ but rather attempts to resist the effects of the term (eg, the implication that the U.S./Bush is a messianac force of good), understanding its consequences (eg, the momentum for war in Iraq; the further alienation of North Korea and Iran) and looking to head those consequences off wherever possible.
I suggested, for instance, one way in which the term conjures a field of historical meaning that is quite pleasing, quite expedient for the administration and its supporters.
Besides the implications for strategy, besides the value of the definition for partisan purposes, besides even that every problem looks like a nail when all you have is a hammer, that historical return is a big part of the term’s appeal.
Given that you think the term is apt, maybe you can suggest some other effects of the term or other aspects of its appeal??
meta,
Perhaps the most elegant “effect” of the usage of Islamofascists is that it actually and accurately does reflect reality.
The previous posters have only succeeded in demonstrating a capacity of proving that A equals A.
Islamo-fascist doesn’t reflect any reality whatsoever. There is no such thing. We’ve gone through all the reasons why this is the case. All J. Cline has done is make silly ahistoric generalizations (“nationalism has always existed because it is in people’s genes”), accuse others of circular logic when it is he that is guitly of such logic, and nit pick in an impish manner about the use of terms (such as pointing out that technology isn’t needed for fascism because there is no visible relationship. Most aggriegously he is guilty of post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallicies. He obviously doesn’t understand fascism as an historic phenomenon and thinks in such laymans terms so as to be meaningless in scholarly terms. He is also a royal pain in the ass. People like this are not interested in a genuine discussion. They only want to troll and frustrate people and alienate potential supporters. This is his real goal!!
dude,
maybe if you spent less time in the trenches with your own trollish behavior and actually address the issues I raise, rather than summarily dismiss them in some pseudo-elitist rant, we could have gotten off page one of the debate.
To wit, where have I exhibitied circular logic, and how is proclaiming that fascism is strictly secular simply because you define fascism as a secular ideology NOT a demonstration of circular logic?
jay-jay writes,
After I had written,
It would seem your pathology has had dire effects on your comprehension abilities.
It is one thing to throw accusations of sophistry or disingenuousness or whatever. It is quite another to demonstrate with clear reasoning and reliable evidence why it might be so. You have endlessly repeated a cavalier propensity for the former, and an unceasing incapacity for the latter. It would seem that in the desire to protect your self-image you are projecting your own shortcomings on anyone (me) who is willing for the sake of honest discussion to point them out, hence the rubber glue remark. (fyi It wasn’t directed at you as a rejoinder in a childish manner but was a reference your own immature manner of response. Again with the misapprehension of intent and meaning, commonly referred to as mierda los toros puro). Rather compelling evidence in itself that you reside in Crackpot Villa. Get some professional help, quick, before you do real harm to yourself or others.
I’m really not out to get you, Jay-Jay. My criticisms are meant to be of the constructive kind, and though my humor might be sarcastic, its sting is not meant to paralyse, but to stimulate. It is a rough kind of fun, I admit, but that it is as fun and not in a spirit of cruel meanness I insist is my genuine intent. You may not believe me, but there it is. You aren’t without some intelligence. It is a shame to see it wasted defending trivial horse crap.
dude,
Are you writing a polemic dissertation illustrating your childish trollish talents, or responding to a simple question in the debate?
Apologies if you buried substance in your ponderous treatise and I missed it.
With regards to metaxy making a good argument, saying that others have made his point, actually says nothing, particularly when “others” have only succeeded in demonstrating circular logic.
Ergo, not a good argument.
To say the issue is the use and/or misuse of the term Islamofascist without coming to an agreement on whether the term is mere political sophistry or an actual reflection on reality (which is the real point of the debate), is, dare I say, disingenuos.
If the use is mere sophistry, then the point is made in the assumption itself.
Again, more circular logic.
With regard to the assertion that Islamic radicalism is neither Islamic nor radical, the first rational response to that kind of sophistry is, huh??
But, for the sake of the argument, if it is neither, and is “merely” a reactionary attempt to create an imagined past, is it your contention that there is no enemy, or that they are not Islamic despite their own beliefs?
Who are you to arbitrate on the legitimacy of another man’s beliefs and interpretations of his own religion?
Oh, and welcome back to the debate.
Those early modern fascists, those early twentieth century Italians, described themselves as radicals AND reactionary revolutionaries. Radical in the sense of seeking violent change against the rising dominance of Marxist-inspired politics, and reactionary in the sense of going back to an idealized (imagined, to use starboy’s words) past of singular social identity.
Those we face in anger today are Islamic, starboy’s sophistry notwithstanding, and are very much radical and reactionary in the same sense as those early modern Italian fascists. Personified by al Qaeda and the Iranian mullahs, they speak of violent change against a “corrupt” and “westernized” Islamic society in an attempt to go back to an idealized (er, imagined) past.
Islamic through their own belief structure; fascist in shape and form akin to past fascist phenomena.
Hi CABBY, Canuck dave, and Jane dOE? WHO IS OBVIOUSLY NOT OLE rABBIT,
KEYBOARD PLAYING UP THERE
jAY DEECLINE talking about ‘vetting all candidates’ reminds me about AIPAC selecting candidates for your Congress, but i guess he was refering to the IslamofFascist Enemy of the month.
I think it was JD who pointed out that the the use of the “F” word, like the “appeasement” one was just another example of the cheap and nasty , and ineffably stupid , level to which current politics have descended.
I’ve spent far too long trying to wean amurrican friends off their illusion that the Midwest is menaced by “IF’s”, trying to point out that I am a far more easily accessible target, and am losing no sleep about it;
Like wot I told you guys so many times, ole frog invented the container bomb in 1967, and it hasn’t happened , yet. . Apart from in a few TV films.
Of course there ARE a FEW lunatics.
The whole idea that the USA can be rendered “safe” by ‘disappearing’ all your freedoms is totally lunatic.
Easier and cheaper to close those oversaes bases, and if you want to buy some oil, or whatever, PAY for it , like the Finns ,?
There no such thing as elitist in the sense that you use the phrase. I have never said that anything about fascism was simply true by definition but by virtue of history and fascism’s own self conception. I know this must sound like “elitist” phrase-making to you. Fascism is an early 20th century phenomenon. There are no fascist theocracies although the Church rallied support to Franco and Salazar in Spain and Portugal respectively. Though technologically behind Germany and Japan, they were modern states and colonized foreign possessions and were able to control and settle them.
Your remark earlier in the thread on page one that I denigrated the nationalism of the Greek City states was silly and to the point about the problems that arise with laymen approaching scholarly issues. Sparta and Troy were not nations but city-states. Though sovereign the concept of nation didn’t really exist and so loyalties were to the individual leader and the city-state itself.
I know it is difficult to see how human identities change over time and take different political forms and have different political consequences. The form of the state also changes as does its attitude toward citizenship. In modern times statelessness is anathema as I have said previously. In ancient times the question of citizenship wasn’t considered an inalienable right but rather something confered by virtue of social connections, service to the leader, or ownership of property. Modern nationalism, where rights are inherent in the state’s very existance by dint of its exercize of sovereignty, allows no statelessness and extends citizenship throughout its realm due to the increased power of the state over the centuries and the centralization of that power. Think of Weber’s maxim that the modern state monopolizes the legitimate use of force in any given society. Perry Anderson, in his work, the Lineages of the Absolutist State, traces the nature and reach of the modern state to the 17th century rise of the absolute monarchs whereby extra-statal or vassal like status is gradually abolished in favor of growing centralized control. These were the necessary developmental preconditions in the centuries long maturation of the modern state before which fascism could eventually assume control . Fascism necessarily took over modern states with modern political identities, institutions, and practices. Traditional forms of authority can not be termed fascism for this reason. I believe that fascism IS specific to this typology of rule and no other. Simply conservative or traditional authoritarianism, no matter how repressive or belligerant, does not satisfy the technical definition of fascism.
Ah, I see now. I wanted to develop a pragmatist line of argument in the discussion. Also interested in trying it out as a strategy against intransigent interlocutors.
It does call for a bare minimum of rationality on their part, however.
Anyways, good point and well said at the end of the last post cabbie.
cabbie,
What, again, was your technical definition of fascism? I do not ask this gratuitously, but after 3 pages of blogging, it would perhaps be well to repeat it.
I think if there is one single point on which we agree is that we apparently do not share the same definition. But before I respond, I would appreciate a touchstone of where your definition is coming from. Obviously from your last post, I have misinterpreted it.
Anticipating your response, I would make this distinction between us with regard to nationalism and fascism:
To fascists, the State is the thing. It is, as Mussolini described, an “anti-individualistic conception of life [that] stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity”.
Fascism invests in the State the personification of the will of the people, “opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number; but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered - as it should be - from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one”.
Fascism is a Gestalt, politically personified.
That fascism requires nationalism is not quite accurate. Nationalism is too broad a brush to paint one of fascism’s fundamental tenets - that of a need for a singular social Uberidentity.
In this context, nationalism is merely one possible structural edifice of fascism. The idea of Uberidentity is not dependent strictly on nationalistic expression, but that of a single social identity that can also be expressed in terms of ethnicity or religion. The fascism of the Romanian Iron Guard (of the same circa as the Italian, German and Spanish fascist movements) centered their Uberidentity around a rural, not urban, demography and a highly religious mythology.
It is again, in this context, that the reactionary and apocalyptic visions of Islamofascists, gives current radical Islamic fundamentalists their political ideology and singular social identity.
Jay-Jay,
Perhaps you would be so kind to answer these simple questions. Does adopting the language of religion and assuming the mantle of religious authority necessarily mean that one has absorbed the spiritual essence of religious faith? Is being a Muslim or a Christian really so simple as declaring oneself so? Did not Jesus implore his followers to judge others not by their words but by their deeds?
Indeed, I am entitled merely as a human being and of necessity by being a seeker of what is true and genuine to bring my intelligence and discriminating insight to bear in making discernment as to the sincerity and genuineness of others as to whether their actions are in accord with their statements, and whether their statements are intended to clarify, deepen and broaden understanding, or to manipulate and decieve, or if their statements are merely confused by being misled, either by external manipulative agents or their own self-centered prejudices. Otherwise is to make oneself vulnerable to any bullshit artist that comes down the pike.
It is ironic to the max that one as yourself who states his reluctance to accept any expert authority on its face would present the words of Mussolini, arguably one of the worlds premier bullshit artists, as objective and authoritive characteristics of fascism on their face.
dude,
Your obvious BS aside, if a man proclaims his faith, why would I not accept his statement of belief at face value?
With regard to judging by actions, which “benevolent ” actions of those we fight would you care to discuss?
With regard to Mussolini, if you want to understand the “BS”, what better way than to examine the words of those who actually defined what modern fascism is; in thought, word AND deed?
Your rhetorical sophistry knows no limits, doesn’t it?
And yet, you have unerringly ducked the question.
Again.
Disingenuity. You may turn the knife as often as you please. Yet, there it is.
starboy,
What are you views on the Christian Crusaders? Certainly, they did not uphold Christian values in their own jihad.
Were they acting in the name of their god? Or do you have ecclesiastic authority over them as well?
Perhaps I have been too harsh, ol’ starboy. You do seem to have issues with keeping up your stamina.
Every time you actually get engaged in a real debate, you have a bad habit of falling back on character assassinations, slander, mischaracterizations and trivializations of the arguments of others, without really contributing any original observations or points of debate.
Do you have attention deficit disorders? No, really. I have had in the past some ADD issues and problems with dyslexia, but never to the point where they so impair my intellectual facilities as to render them impotent. I guess that goes a long way to explain the multiple personas you create here; it is certainly much easier to imbue each persona with only one attack pattern. I didn’t know.
Truly, I apologize for my inconsiderate behavior.
But, in case you have forgotten the question,
When is an Islamic terrorist, not Islamic?
One attempt to clarify the notion of fascism is Michael Mann’s exhaustive work “Fascists” which is a sociological study of interwar European fascism. Fascism is not a transcendental idea but an historically specific reference to a type of rightist authoritarian rule in the mid twentieth century which had no precedent and will probably never be repeated in the future. It seemed to be specific to a particular time in history and to emerged only in modern societies.
Some of the core features of fascism, according to Mann, is a cleansing nationalism, stateism, class transcendence, and militarism. The first aspect of fascist society is a bitter hatred of diversity of any sort in the belief that the nation is a pure, organic whole united by a singular quality and destiny. In this spirit ethnic cleansing is a fascist objective. State worship is also a key feature of fascism. Taking off from Hegel’s idealist notion that “the state is the embodiment of the ethical ideal”, fascists distort the intent of this idea and assert that the state is the embodiment of moral project unique to the nation in question and in this sense the state embodied the historic will of the nation thus transcending all class and other petty social particularisms. This leads easily into the third major charactoristic of fascism which is class transcendence. Here the fascists suppress social conflict in the interests of the national mission which is deeply historic and transcends class and other particular interests. Finally, militarism not only made violence a basic principle of social organization but disciplined the masses and politicized a formerly professional and politically neutral instrument, the army, making it a key force in the pursuit of the national mission and an tool of inculcation. The combined embodiment of these features in an ideologically rightist totalitarian modern state made fascism “Revolutionary” in its refashioning of the modern state to forcibly mobilize every grouping within mass society toward a singular national mission. Traditional authoritarianism could not be described as revolutionary for these reasons. Furthermore, fascism was always a response to crisis and the inability of the old regimes to cope with the challenges of unstable societies experiencing traumatic political and social transitions.
Thus, fascism is a modern, twentieth century phenomenon which no longer exists today and had no roots in the distant past.
Well, clearly there is no common ground between our historical interpretations. I profoundly reject the notion that fascism is a mere aberration, a blip in history without context, that emerged from a vacuum and similarly vanished.
To continue any further debate along that particular line would be like engaging a Creationist in a debate over evolution.
I guess I am more of a hedgehog than a fox.
But s’al’right.
You twisted the meaning of my statements. I never said fascism was abberant, had no historic context, or emerged and existed in a vacuum. Those are your wrongful interpretations of what I said and it reflects little experience with scholarly reasoning and research. You must abandon laymen’s thinking when dealing with these types of subject matter. Fascism is a unique and historically specific typology of modern authoritarian rule. Its context was the crisis of highly developed societies and the emergence of nationalist ideology in the late 19th Century in Europe which nourished the post WWI nation-state and the nationalism which accompanied it. Social and economic crisis and political instability led to political tendencies on the right which were unprecedented and which became the typologies we now know as fascism. They had NO precedent. They may emerge some time in the future perhaps in the US but it is doubtful.
dude,
I am cool with our differences and meant no disrespect.
If I did, I would question the logical consistency between these two statements:
and
dude,
Your obvious BS aside, if a man proclaims his faith, why would I not accept his statement of belief at face value?
If he is using the declaration of faith towards venal and morally destructive ends. What obvious BS are you talking about?
With regard to judging by actions, which
Talk about BS, Cline you’re full of it!! The two statements don’t contradict each other unless you look at things narrowly. Fascism WAS an abberation in that it never existed as a whole, functioning system before WWI although, in dialectical fashion, it was a system that synthesized aspects of old forms of European authoritarianism into a wholly new form of rightist dictatorial rule called modern fascism. This doesn’t mean it had no context. The context was merely its social and physical environment and the circumstances under which it emerged which I pointed out was the crisis of the old regimes’ ability to maintain existing power relationships while remaining stable. With regard to the final reference absolutely nothing exists in a vacuum and I never claimed anything did much less the political typology of modern fascism the historic context of which I thoroughly explained in several prior posts!!
jay asks,
starboy says,
<blockquote>You just don
cabbie,
Like I said, I have no problems with agreeing we don’t agree. Unlike starboy, in a real debate I have no interest in “he said, she said” arguments. I think there are inconsistencies in your argument about fascism’s place in history; you think I am an uneducated troll. Let’s move on.
Let’s get back to nationalism. I offered for consideration what I believe is a better refinement on nationalism’s relationship to fascism, that the critical point of congruence is not the building of nations, but the singular social identity that ultra-nationalism gives to fascism. Isolating this from the umbrella of nationalism makes it possible for other vehicles of identity to be used in the cause of fascism, namely ethnic and religious identities.
starboy,
If living a morally virtuous life consistent with one’s religion is a criteria to religious identification, then there are not 100 people since the dawn of man who has a religious identity.
The point of order was not, are Islamic terrorists virtuous Islamists, as you well know, but are they Islamists? The point of order was not are Islamist jihadists acting in strict accordance (according to your interpretation) with the Koran, or were Christian crusaders acting in strict accordance (according to your interpretation) with the Bible, but what is their religious identity? Islamist terrorists are accepted as Islamic by nearly the whole of the world’s Islamist community. Some may not agree with their methodology; some may even resent the ire they bring upon them, but they do identify with them and call them “Islamic brothers”. As did the Christians of one thousand years ago.
You attempt to wear the mantle of ecclesiastic authority, for both Islam and Christianity, yet cannot rationalize your actions. If your arguments are not classic sophistry, if they are not totally disingenuous, then the only explanation for them is you are a small boy with delusions of manhood.
Jay=Jay,
You make a good argument that not many religious aspirants achieve the ideals of their faith. However, if a persons actions are explicit violations of those ideals, then the commitment of their aspiration is reasonably to be questioned. This is the sine qua non of hypocrisy, is it not? Not to mention, dare I say it, disingenuousness. It is to the credit of moderate moslems that they seek to embrace and encourage the return to reason of their prodigal brethren rather than anathemize them, thereby only creating emnity and dissention. It is not at all a reflection of those who embrace terrorist tactics being in compliance with Islamic doctrine.
To hinge ones understanding of the complexities of spiritual aspiration on the superficial and simplistic question of religious identity, not to mention your lack of consideration of the social, cultural, political, economic, et al, factors that impinge on and distort people’s religious feelings is reductionist to the max. It is only by such extreme reductionism to black/white, either/or true/false premises that your simplistic and naive grasp of rational thought can gain any traction at all. Traction in the narcissistic self-concieved intellectual superiority of your own ego, that is. Not in the real world, however.
You would do well to heed the instruction of Albert Einstein. “Make things as simple as possible, but be careful not to over-simplify.”
luminous beauty,
I agree that jihads and crusades are hypocrisies of the highest order for the devoted of those religions to follow. Yet, they do and hypocrisy is at the heart of many human activities.
But it is legalistic nonsense to argue that, as they fight in the name of their god, as they perceive it, to say that they are not acting in the name of their god merely because they are hypocrites. Logic rules the head, not the heart. Yet matters of the heart are not trivial.
And that is not an over-simplification.
I do, however, appreciate the humor in this statement:
<i>Your rhetorical sophistry knows no limits, doesn
I get it. Your being paid to repeat stuff I said in other posts as if its yer idea and I actually disagree to drive me insane! You have to much time on yer hands my friend. Who’s yer daddy?
cabbie,
I am the one with paranoid delusions here. If I have said something that agreed with a point you have already made, that generally implies progress and gives us something to build on.
Where have we agreed?
I am the one with paranoid delusions here.
Jay, good to see you manage to hang on to a sense of humour, take a little jab at Cabbie, practice self-deprecation and do it all at the same time.
Jay Cline,
You must read a book on fascism before debating the issue on scholarly grounds. Books like Daniel Guerin’s Fascism and Big Business is a good start. So is The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton. Michael Mann’s Fascists gives a unique sociological perspective and Stanley Payne’s Fascism is a noted contribution (if it encourages you I knew Payne at the UW-Madison. He is a conservative historian and a noted expert on Modern Spain and Portugal. Guerin is a Marxist and Paxton a standard liberal. Mann is a non-Marxist leftist and is very ecclectic in his expansive and far reaching treatment of the subject of fascism.
Jay-Jay,
“The heart has its reasons of which reason knows not.”
Blaise Pascal
A man who knew something about the limits of reason.
Concerning having an appreciation of sophistry;
“Realizing the basic absurdity of the human condition is the true beginning of reason.”
Albert Camus
Likewise.
Well.
I guess that says just about everything.
Cabbie,
I thank you for the reading list, though please don’t wait for a response. I already have a dozen or so tomes on various topics already on my list and nothing I have seen here would encourage me to prioritize these new additions off the bottom of that queue.
I do appreciate your honest attempts at debate, though again, it is a pity we couldn’t get off first base, what with so much importance placed on bibliographic references and “entrance exams” over a truly articulated analysis of them. I am not sure if the failure is that of the articulator or the inability of the original author to make a good point. But your engagement has given me the opportunity to articulate some of my thoughts, which naturally sharpens my focus of my own understandings, which is the ultimate purpose of any debate.
If you wish to get back and address my questions and commentary about the relationship of nationalism and fascism, I will be here. Though I am not holding my breath. You haven’t even made an attempt, beyond elitist “read a book” commentary. Food for thought: if bibliographies are so important to you, perhaps you are the one who needs to expand your reading venues. I have read quite a bit on many topics. I try not let that get in the way of critical thinking or sharing the experience, though.
But, to “naively” charge into the face of the obvious provocations of that nebulous Gestalt of singular identity that I have called “starboy”, allow me to walk into that valley of shadows of death and predictably paraphrase a quote from (I think) Emerson that says it all,
“I hate book lists. Tell me what you learned from them”
Never a better epitaph to the death of a blogodebate have I ever seen.
Cabbie,
In case you suffer from the same sort of memory malfunctions as our lovable starboy, here is, as I see it, the current point of contention:
The Romanian Iron Guard were centered heavily in Bucharest. Aside from this, nationalism is not a broad and complex topic with a great expanse as you suggest but a very narrow one. It is an essentially modern phenomenon. Neither nationalism, or any other political tendency, is part of human nature. These things are deeply historic and specific to epochal development. This is where I think we REALLY part company. I am influenced by thinkers like Foucault and Neitzsche and other post-modernists in addition to Marx and the dialectical approach to history. I believe that history synthesizes key aspects of one epoch of history into another wholly new epochs creating new patterns of social relations and political institutions. This is what makes history interesting.
Conservatives, on the other hand, believe in a transcendental reality based on objective essential meaning which only changes form over time but nor REAL substance. This I believe is incorrect. And that is the source of our disagreement on the historic significance and nature of fascism!
<,blockquote>But it is legalistic nonsense to argue that, as they fight in the name of their god, as they perceive it, to say that they are not acting in the name of their god merely because they are hypocrites. Logic rules the head, not the heart. Yet matters of the heart are not trivial.</blockquote>
I don’t know about the ‘legalistic’ aspect of such an argument, but yes it is a nonsense argument. And I would admit as much if that was in fact the argument I was making. Once again you employ the strawman to put arguments in the mouths of those whom you would engage in debate. It is either the epitomy of intellectual dishonesty or the mere incompetence of one who is more intent on winning an argument than coming to a clear and mutual understanding.
What I am really saying, in case you just misunderstood, is that the mere facade of religious piety, that is, acting in the name of one’s traditional religious identity is meaningless and hypocritical, without the sincere intent and effort to live up to the spirit of those deep moral and ethical teachings that all the religious traditions of the world universally aspire to produce and preserve. Otherwise is to affix a label that has no intrinsic meaning and is a mere cypher. Or else, with machiavellian disingenuity, as in the case of ‘Islamofascist’,. to associate, by simple juxtaposition, the most superficial understanding of one religious tradition with, as Cabbie quite rightly insists, an historical political movement widely recognized for the monstrosity of its policies. An appeal not to reason, but to fear, and a mere rationale for a ‘causus belli’.
That is more similar to the methodology of fascism to manipulate the public will than the hyperbolic rhetoric of the most extreme Mullah’s incitement of the faithful to defend the faith against, the percieved political, economic and military pressure by the hegenomy of the U.S. security state to force compliance with their corporate (another word for gestalt) interests at the expense of the people’s of traditionally Islamic regions of the world sovereign desire for self-determination. A perception not without empirical evidence.
Cabbie,
What I have suggested is that nationalism is not unidimensional. What I have suggested is that nationalism is not necessarily ultranationalism and that ultranationalism is not necessarily fascism. What I have suggested is that perhaps it is not nationalism per se that is relevant to fascism, but one critical aspect of it, that of a political and social tendency to congregate with other similar people, especially in times of fear and uncertainty, whether that similarity is based on geography, ethnicity, religion, or whatever. And that tendency is very much a part of human nature.
I agree history’s appeal is the multitude of diverse patterns, for lack of a better word. Yet there are patterns amongst those patterns. Santayana was quite right in his admonishment to learn from history. Allegedly, Twain said it even better when he said history may not repeat itself, but that it certainly rhymes. European fascism was something “new under the sun”, at least in its particulars and their arrangement, and it certainly is greater than the sum of its parts. But it is those parts, those “key aspects”, that are “deeply historic”. I readily agree that this new pattern of relationship, this European fascism, is new, but there is a measure of continuity from one epoch to another as new arrangements are tried.
If we assume that every epoch is a uniquely new arrangement, we are going to rapidly run out of words to classify them all. And we would be hard pressed to find relevance in studying earlier epochs that are so “uniquely different” than our own. I have no problems abstracting the essentials of one social arrangement and comparing them with another. If they be similar, then call a spade a spade. I find it incredible that people spend so much effort trying to delimit the difference between Italian fascism and German fascism, that they ignore those societies emerged in the same time and place and were shaped by the same forces; they ignore what makes them fascist.
What we experienced in the first half of the last century is large enough to justify an attempt to understand the forest. Yes, this forest is aboreal; that one tropical. Yet they are both rainforests, and their impact on the climate essentially the same. European fascism is very different than Islamic fascism. European fascism is certainly a distinct archetype of that political genre. Yet some of the essential and fundamental social processes and relationships within each of those societies are strikingly similar. With strikingly similar consequences.
What is going on with Islamic fundamentalism today has eerie similarities to what happened in that profusion of fascist states three generations ago. And what transpired under the French in the late 18th century. And under the Spanish in the wake of the fall of Islamic Granada and, especially, in the Conquest of the New World. And under the Puritanical Rule of the early Massachusetts colony. And under Cromwell. And under Savonarola’s diatribes in Florence. There are important differences between all of those; but to understand where they overlap, their points of congruence across generations, gives us knowledge and understanding that can be predictive in nature. And what is knowledge if not an attempt to arm us with tools to shape our world?
With regard to your “dig” into conservative transcendentalism, well, it so widely misses its mark (as I stated way back at the beginning of all this) that it is difficult to respond. Again, I do not believe in a Fall from Grace. I do not believe all was Created at the Dawn of Creation and we just need to discover it. I do not take Santayana’s warning to ad nauseum. I do not assume that all we ever need to know, we can find in some book written be sheepherders, if we only read it close enough. Tell you what. You stop digging into your stereotypes and stop trying to tell me what I believe, and I’ll continue to tell you what I do believe.
starboy,
Again, you assume ecclesiastic authority over those who identify themselves (and are identified by those who are) Islamic.
<blockquote>the mere facade of religious piety, that is, acting in the name of one
No I don’t. Again, a strawman argument. I am just an observer of a phenomenon, making a simple distinction between those who adopt a label as an identity and those who actively strive to make a spiritual path, any spiritual path, a reality in their lives.
Perhaps this line of Garrison Kiellor’s may illuminate;
“Believing that sitting in church will make one a Christian is the same as believing sitting in a garage will make one into a car.”
It may be true for you that only the most superficial and simplistic designation of identity, a mere label, an empty cypher, matters sufficiently in political philosophy, affairs of the spirit, or for making judgements specifically as per the matter here under discussion, which really does say something about your own moral, intellectual and spiritual foundations for making considered judgements of any kind. However for me, the particular distinctions that give depth of meaning to those labels make all the difference in the world.
Again, a strawman argument, in that I have no pretense of making any judgement for anyone, but merely a judgement of their degree of commitment, hopefully not to be construed as a judgement of condemnation, and only to clarify my own understanding and maybe to communicate that understanding, in the (your case, apparently vain) hope that understanding may be generously reflected with some degree of mutual understanding and maybe a growing and evolving deeper understanding that only comes from interpersonal dialog and sharing of another’s insights.
It would seem, by implication, you admit to not having the moral, intellectual, nor spiritual foundation to make such a judgement about what moral, intellectual or spiritual foundation I may have. A judgement you nonetheless proceed to make. It rather gives you the air of one who brags unceasingly about the depth of his humility.
Well.
starboy, we are yet again at a “No I’m not! Yes you are!” conundrum.
So be it.
Cabbie,
TNR has posted the following review:
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20061120&s=frank112006
Despite our intransigent differences of opinion, I would welcome your comments. I have not yet read any of the literature referenced in the review, but I just may start bumping them up my reading queue.
I went to the TNR website but I didn’t want to pay to read the rest of the article which looked quite interesting. I also don’t know what it had to do with the price of tea in China.
I am not a subscriber either, but I get their free newsletter. It might be only that you need to register with an email?
It is about Romanian fascism in the 20s and 30s. Given that I have interpreted (wrongly?) your thoughts of fascism being urban, secular and industrialized, given that Romanian fascism was rural, decidedly religous and not industrialized, I’d be curious how you viewed Romanian fascism.
Jay-Jay,
It appears that you wish once again to retreat from the field of battle with a shred of your tattered dignity intact. So be it.
Part of me understood your post of 11/14 to have the flavor of another swan’s song, albeit without the whiny self-pitying tone of that earlier famous bit, and to your credit ended with that delicate touch of self-effacement. To my own shame, I failed to respect that, and couldn’t help but throw that last twist of unintentional irony in your words back in your face.
I’m sure David is proud of you, but allow me a final critical comment in that if it was meant to be humorous, there are problems with your delivery that made it fall a little flat. That is something you should work on, maybe.
Not to say that sometimes my own attempts to be witty may not also sometimes fall short or over-shoot their mark. After all, as the saying goes (attributed to various actors on their deathbeds), “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” Indeed, I am sure that David, sweet and gentle soul that he is, is sometimes horrified at the viciousness of the ridicule that I have heaped upon you. In my defense, let me say that my comedic talents, humble as they may be, lie not so much in self-deprecating humor, but more along the lines of the left-handed compliment. Even when I try for the former, it seems I inevitably drift into the latter. Indeed, there is necessarily some touch of cruelty in all humor. As Will Rogers said, “Everything is funny, as long as it’s not happening to you.”
Though it is true that you are necessarily the butt of my many jokes, I hope there is some small understanding that my intent is not to humiliate and destroy you, but to challenge you to grow, intellectually, morally, and spiritually, to coin a phrase. Call it tough love if you will. Perhaps mistakenly, but sincerely, I see you as the younger brother who wants so desperately to hang with the big boys that he challenges others to fights he has niether the sophistication or strength to win in order to show he has heart. It’s endearing, but you just cannot let the little twerp get away with his shit.
In brief, I do believe you are making some small progress, little brother.
I can forsee that day when the realization dawns within you, heart and mind, that the truth of a satisfying life lies not in discerning the rightness of this versus that, us versus them, or even good versus evil, but in recognizing the open-ended interconnectedness of the entire universe and everything in it with a generous spirit of loving-kindness.
Not to claim that I, myself, have attained that ultimate thule of spiritual realization, but would enlist you in that cooperative enterprise, to rise up from the confused and uncertain depths in which we find ourselves, willingly and persuaded through the skeptical lens of your own reason.
After all, the path is long and our legs are short.
Exactly!
LOL!
starboy, if you wish to play rhetorical King-of-the-Hill, well, the honor is yours!
As far as I know most of the Eastern European Fascist movements in the 1930s and 1940s that collaberated with the German Nazis and formed Waffen SS divisions didn’t have a distinct urban or rural identity but recruited from all areas of the countries where they existed including big cities. They were deeply nationalist, xenophobic, violent, allied with larger fascist mentors, and carried out roundups, mass murder, and revaunchism on behalf of their Nazi overlords. Some of these countries were less developed than Germany but it didn’t make them less fascist. Many were fascist movements that didn’t have complete control of the state for more than a few months at a time. The Monarchies in Romania and Bulgaria and the Regency under Admiral Horthy in Hungary were viewed by most as the legitimate governments. These, however,were highly compromised by the pro-Nazi fascist movements which sought levels of collaberation well beyond what the old conservative elites were willing to tolerate not least of all because of Hitler’s revaunchist rearrangement of national boundaries. Such revaunchism was often done in order to consolidate the volk Deutsch. These movements would have had much less power without Nazi military pressures or the direct Nazi presence. Often they functioned as the mere long arm of Hitler in their respective countries. This dependency made them no less fascist. They certainly pursued fascist goals and followed the fascist model of mass movements and the state as much as possible.
I’m sure David is proud of you
I am, mostly.
Indeed, I am sure that David, sweet and gentle soul that he is, is sometimes horrified at the viciousness of the ridicule that I have heaped upon you.
Horrified? Not at all.
Thank you for your kind words, Luminous Beauty.
After all, the path is long and our legs are short.
And I am so tired.
David,
Before I go anywhere with “Canuckistan”, I must ask: Is “Canuck” a self-deprecating pejorative to our good friends to the north, or is it a term of endearment?
And, for the record, some of my best friends are Canadian.
I have been reading a bit on the economic policies that various Fascist countries pursued, and it seems the one defining economic characteristic within those countries is that the economy was, for the most part, seen as a means to an end (I believe I have even seen one quote attributed to Hitler that said the basis of their economic theory was they had no theory - not sure what the context was that it was said in, or if it was even said). Mussolini sometimes seems almost free-market as he “fostered” economic competition as a means to weed out the weak. But they all seem to advocate protectionism to encourage self-reliance, whether it was closing their borders, or expanding their influence (as you - Cabbie - have noted of the Nazis and their activities in central and eastern Europe) over areas of vital natural resources. That would be a natural fit to the xenophobia of a people who see themselves as separate from the rest of humanity.
I perused on rather lively discussion from one ultra-libertarianist that basically considered any government intervention in the economy and any international projection of power in the name of “national interests” that is to the left of Milton Friedman (whom I have just heard, died) as examples of Fascism. Not sure I am trying to go that far, though.
Jay-Jay,
It is not my wish to play king of anything. My wishes are what they are, not what you, with your unbridled tendency to produce strawmen, percieve them to be. Why is it so hard for you to recognise such a simple and glaring error in your thinking? It is only human to make mistakes, but I daresay you abuse the priviledge.
A mere suggestion, as I have no time to look up sources, is that what drove the Fascist economies, besides a State command structure that favored capital expansion of the existing major corporations, often at the expense of small businesses, increases in the military and police forces, and actively promoting technological innovation in production and infrastructure, while ensuring full and gainful employment for the working class, thereby undermining support for the Free Trade Union Movement (very effective when combined with the assassination or imprisonment of Union, Socialist, Communist, Anarchist leaders and rank and file), was the very simple effect of expansionist conquest, and the subsequent looting and pillaging of those conquered territories. ‘Lebensraum’ was more than just a slogan.
Comparables to modern Conservative ideology (which, fortunately, is unraveling as we speak), though not exact, abound (my left-handed homage to Milton Friedman, if you will). This is not to say, modern Conservatism is Fascism under a different name. However, historical Fascism was very much conservative in a broader philosophical sense going back to the darker implications inherent in Plato’s Republic, with stops at Hegel and Hobbes along the way..
Before I go anywhere with “Canuckistan”, I must ask: Is “Canuck” a self-deprecating pejorative to our good friends to the north, or is it a term of endearment?
Can’t it be both, Jay?
Just like Yankee Doodle Dandee.
... some of my best friends are Canadian.
Me included ... I hope!?
Ahh ... Hobbes and his Warre of All Against All.
Leviathan is a permanent fixture in my washroom and sits atop the toilet tank.
No disrepect intended.
That brings me back to the olde days ...
day dreaming in college philosophy classes ...
high as a kite.
Long live Canuckistan!
A professional philosopher friend once told me that Hobbes goes down much easier if you assume he is speaking in the ironic voice of Jonathan Swift. ‘Tis true! So horribly, terribly true.
Thanks for the Canuckistan link. It’s brilliant!
My philosophy professor always recommended Hobbes as excellent reading material for toilet time. Fortunately I am blessed with an excellent digestion and excrete quickly so I don’t read too much Hobbes.
The reactions I get from visitors who dared to read Hobbes during their toilet are the best part. Some have no idea what it is they just read while others do but don’t want to read Hobbes ever again.
I hate the term ‘neocon’. I suspect Liberals like it, since it it means essentially the same thing as ‘neoliberal’, but has the partisan advantage, when it is used instead of ‘neoliberal’, of not reminding people that Liberals are just as Conservative as Conservatives.
The politics of the Republicans and Democrats (Liberals) are the same. The only difference, which is not one of importance, is that ‘neocon’ refers to a person who identifies him- or herself as a Conservative, rather than a Liberal. So what? Republicrats follow a neoliberal agenda, where the ‘liberal’ in neoliberal refers not to the party origin of it’s adherents, but primarily to ‘trade liberalization’, and all of the other anti-civil society policies that those who push for trade liberalization also endorse.
Liberal mags like ITT, The Nation, The Progressive - all of which are fine, but not the solution - will not like what I just posted here. Too bad.
starboy,
childish retorts aside, I cannot resist employing your “glue” metaphor right now:
Forgive me. I had a momentary relapse into my second childhood.
Arby,
In order to criticize the term “neo-con” you will have to understand its origins. It is not an epithet or term of derision assigned this tendency by the left. Neo-conservatism, the respectful term preferred and originated by Neo-cons themselves, was a political tendency that has its roots in the 1950s with the start of the Cold War. Its originators, but by no means its total membership, were American Jews whose political roots derived from the Left, usually Trotskyist. With the revelations of the Crimes of Stalin and the sense that Communism was a highly repressive failure these individuals founded a new political movement that swung all the way to the right. This tendency began modestly in the early 50s with presently obscure thinkers like Daniel Bell who declared that American society consisted of the “end of History” much like Japanese Philosopher Francis Fukayama does today. Both men believe that American society and its founding principles and system are the highest plane of human existance having reached the highest point politically achievable by human beings.
From here we go to Norman Podhoritz and Commentary Magazine which criticized the “excesses of the 60s” as culpable for the collapse and weaknesses of the 70s. These guys served as the intellectual orientation point for the Republicans in the runup to the 1980 Reagan victory and inspired many “Reagan Democrats.” Today the are an even more right wing tendency that advocates extreme nationalism, militarism, and adventurism mostly on behalf of Israel. Here is where they make a linkage with Christian Fundamentalist theocracy. Here also neoconservatism comes full circle. Originally a conservative tendency for American Jews who were once a community identified as Liberal and which produced mostly Leftist intellectuals, they founded a new conservative movement sans cultural particularisms and beliefs of the traditional Gentile American Paleoconservative movements. With the upsurge of Conservatism in the 1980s Jewish Neo-conservatism, with its Cold War urgings of US military superiority, became a preferable option for the mainstream right wing establishment because of its extreme militarism and Zionist fanaticism(many traditional conservatives are isolationist and anti-Israel). These goals dovetail well with current US objectives for conquest in the Middle East.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 20, 2006 at 7:59 AM
My dear Jay-Jay;
Are you saying that I am consistently throwing up strawman arguments? I would appreciate at least one example with some sensible explication of why it is so. I am always open to genuine and constructive criticism. If it can be shown that I am in error, it is helpful in order that corrections can be made.
It would appear that your ‘momentary’ lapse has persisted for years now.
Permit me to add that the strawman fallacy isn’t the only rhetorical diversion you commit, but it does seem to be your favorite. Perhaps because it is so easy an attack to make when one can offer no rational refutation of one’s debating opponent’s position. Other mistakes of argument common in your presentation are the ‘red herring’, ignoratus elenchi, loaded question or plurium interrogationum fallacies, such as when you presume the Socratic method, and the fallacy of proof by assertion (also one of your favorites).
Respectfully yours,
Starboy
Respectfully??
LOL!
starboy, you are indeed a riot. But, unlike you, I do not come here for the perverse pleasure of seeing others twist in the wind, as you have confessed to on numerous occassions.
I truly understand it is difficult for you to disengage without total capitulation; but I have already given the “field of battle” over to you. You command the hilly heights.
I truly and sincerely hope this gives you what you yearn for.
Jay-Jay,
If that is a ‘capitulation’ on your part, then it is respectfully accepted.
For the record, I do not take ‘perverse pleasure in seeing others (you) twisting in the wind’. When someone (you) persists in presenting absurd and irrational pseudo-arguments, I do feel a responsibility to point out the errors in their (your) reasoning. This is not for my benefit so much as for theirs (yours). I know the idea that anyone, much less myself, upon whom you have obviously imprinted and invested your deepest feelings of emnity and irreconciliable conflict may have a genuinely generous and altruistic motive is somewhat alien to your particular world-view, but I assure you, I am most serious and certain and sincere. I am also sincere in saying that if I should fall into such error myself, I am open to similarly objective criticism, though I necessarily require some specificity of explanation to aid in my understanding, as I have tried to do repeatedly for you.
To aid in your comprehension of my true intent, which I confess may not be easily discerned behind the irony and sarcasm I employ, and knowing it is very likely that you will interpret them as applying from you to me more than from me to you, (sometimes the flavor of such irony is impossible to avoid, no?) allow me once again to quote the lyrics of Bob Dylan:
Perhaps this one may underline the absurd foolishness and ultimate inconsequence of our ‘battles’ in a way that is more mutually agreeable, and if my own mind’s inference that you simply feel that I have indeed left you ‘twisting in the wind’ and it’s just your ‘foolish pride’ that makes you accuse me of having that intention, is correct, I hope wil offer some solid ground for ‘your weary toes to be a touchin’:
Wishing the best for you and yours,
And, in this season of gratitude, may all the vestiges of fear, mistrust and the hatred such feelings engender be soon swept away by the infinite rain of eternal compassion and loving-kindness that, now and forever, falls equally upon all.
P.S. In your own words, what is the reason you come here? I’d really like to know.
Wow ... great words, Luminous Beauty.
I have written them on my heart.
And printed them on a piece of paper to put on the ‘fridge.
Kernels like that are the reason I come here to weed through the tares.
I hope my interruption doesn’t dissuade Jay from answering or taint his answer if he does but I had to say something.
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