Fascism phase II

We are in that post-holiday period of the year when many go into some form of hibernation. Part of it has to do with the letdown that accompanies the harried activity and build up that is our modern day version of the holidays. If you live in colder climes, part of it is due to the inhospitality of the weather and the shorter days.

Some might be jacked up by their New Years’ resolutions. Whether they are losing weight, getting a new job, spending that holiday cash, or some other form of self-delusion, after about a month, all those good intentions and other diversions will come crashing down. Life will revert to a boring routine of watching TV, renting movies, drinking/drugging and generally “tuning out” the realities of the real life, modern day progression of birth, school, work and death.

It’s in the context of this milieu that government and in particular, the current administration, is seeking to ram through legislation and additional elements of their blueprint designed to undermine democracy in the good ‘ole U.S.A.

If you don’t think what I’m talking about is progressing more rapidly than I care to imagine, try David Neiwert’s blog Orcinus, for a reality check about the shakeout from America’s shift rightward.

Just back from a couple of trips to Montana and Idaho, Neiwert gives us the lowdown on what’s shaking out in Red State America. If you read Neiwert at all, you know he’s thorough and analytical to a fault. Because of this his writing is so invaluable, as well as difficult to refute. I don’t like to do a lot of cut and paste, but with someone as good as Neiwert, it’s required. I’ll post just a bit here, but make sure you visit his site and read the entire piece; it’s very good, albeit scary:

(From Orcinus, Jan. 4, 2005)
Having made two post-election jaunts to the red state hinterlands of Idaho and Montana, I'm back to report that, well, things are getting ugly out there. In some cases, really ugly.I've been talking for some time about the course that eliminationist rhetoric on the right would eventually take by the force of its own nature: pretty soon we'd go from talking about liberals as traitors to overtly wishing for violence to be visited upon them and discussing locking them up, followed in due course by such violence and incarceration becoming a reality.Well, it is now becoming a commonly spoken sentiment on the right to wish for violence against liberals and to simultaneously suggest they and all "traitors" (including Muslim Americans) should be locked away. We're firmly into Phase II now.

You hear it when conservatives -- especially those red-state cultural conservatives from the working class who are most likely to vote against their own self-interest, and then blame liberals for how lousy their lives are -- get together among themselves for their communal liberal-bashing hatefests. They'll say it when they think no one else is listening. You can hear it from "fringe" radio figures like Michael Savage. Or you can read it in the unpublished letters to the editor that most publications choose not to run.It's the natural outgrowth of the kind of rhetoric we've gotten from the national conservative punditry, manifesting itself on a less sophisticated but more direct and plain-spoken mode.My very clear impression of the rank-and-file American right is that many if not most of them, at the behest of their leaders, now believe that opposing George W. Bush and the Iraq War, as well as his handling of the War on Terror, is an act of genuine treason worthy of the ultimate social condemnation, including incarceration and execution. They feel not only vindicated but profoundly empowered by the election result, empowered to silence their opposition, by force if need be.These aren't just my impressions from hanging out in Deep Red Country. The evidence is abundant elsewhere as well. Consider, for instance, some of the letters to the editor received by Editor and Publisher after it published a piece by former USA Today publisher Al Neuharth (who is not exactly a liberal) questioning the administration's handling of Iraq.One writer wished we had formed an alliance with Hitler (so we could have eliminated Commies and leftists from the planet first), while the rest called the offending authors "cowards and traitors", "unAmerican," "jackals," and the like. Then the threatening notes enter:

Their dissent equals treason. The terrorists got him just like all the other rich liberals who side against our victory. They forget that wars end, and then the country takes stock of who was where.

More along those lines:

• Neuharth should be tried for treason along with a lot of other blowhards who should be spending their energies condemning the barbarism of our enemies, the same people who destroyed the Twin Towers.... In the end William Joyce was executed for giving aid and comfort to the enemy during war time. Would that the same fate befall Al Neuharth!
  The consummate expression of these attitudes was this:
  
  The Patriot Act will put both of you (Neuharth and Mitchell) on trial for treason and convict and execute both of you as traitors for running these stories in a time of war and it should be done on TV for other communist traitors like you two to know we mean business. This is war and you should be put in prison NOW for talking like this. Who the hell do you people think you are? You give aid and comfort to our enemies and aid them in murdering our proud soldiers. You people are a disgrace to America. Your families should be put in prison with you, then be made to leave and move to the Middle East ...This is a great Christian nation and god wants us to lead the world out of darkness with great leaders like President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Communists like Al and Greg will soon be in prison and on death row for your ugly papers. We won the election and now you are mad. We own America and all the rights, you people are trash, go back to Russia and Africa and take your friends with before we put you on death row after a fair trial.

Editor and Publisher had earlier been the recipient of a similar e-mail from a fellow named Joe M. Richardson voicing similar sentiments, while holding forth on the subject of the soldiers who dared to question Donald Rumsfeld (cited by Atrios):

• The duped soldier should be put at the very front of the action, no armor. The cooperating sergeant's career should be over and maybe become MIA. Pitts and all his cronies should be executed as traitors. We are fighting a war, the debate is over, you’re either for us or against us, there is no middle ground. I say start executing the leftists in our country, soon.
  Bow-tied Beltway Republicans (and liberals, too) like to disregard talk like this as unrepresentative. But I don't think that's the case any longer. I think they're not just blowing smoke, they're deluding themselves. It's out there, and it's just about everywhere.

In addition to all of Neiwert's stuff, there is this on the Bush crime syndicate's concentration camp at Guantanamo, as well as—thanks to the machinations possible under USAPA—dissent can lead to indefinite imprisonment if the current administration has its way.

Maybe we should be paying a little more attention, don't you think? A good place to begin might be Mike Malloy's show via Air America. Become a truthseeker!

Write Amber, write!

The book buying public’s wait is over with today’s release of Amber Frey’s new book, Witness for the Prosecution. Regan Books, that bastion of literary integrity is set to cash in on America’s addiction to salaciousness and titillation. Frey is set to join J.K. Rowling in the book reading preservation society.

I’m going to step way out on a limb here and predict that Frey’s book is sure to spend time on the bestsellers list. With titles like, “Oh My God! Lacy’s baby is due on my birthday!” and “Isn’t that a little twisted, Scott”, this work is just begging to find its place on my 2005 list of books to read.

I’m amazed by Frey. She’s obviously brighter and more talented than her stereotypical profile and persona would lead one to believe. Stupid me!! I’ve been researching, interviewing and losing sleep working a seasonal job trying to keep my project moving forward and I’m still a good week away from having my proposal remotely ready for a publisher. Frey on the other hand has talent to burn, juggling supporting herself as a massage therapist, being a mother, while sexually satisfying her sociopath boyfriend and still finding the time to crank out a book! I’m doing it all wrong, I guess.

Just today, I spent 10 hours today holed up doing some hard editing and rewriting on my own book that seems caught in some kind of purgatory of delays, self-critical procrastination and general blood and guts toil that comes with writing a book of any merit.

Please forgive me for sounding a little bitter about another hack that probably hasn’t written anything longer than 100 words since high school, yet lands a lucrative book deal and large advance. Can anyone say ghostwriter? Frey joins another princess of popular culture, porn star Jenna Jameson, bookending Regan's rush to embrace sex and murder as they ride to the top of America's cultural trash heap. Now that would be a book signing worth attending! Maybe the two could collaborate on a new book, How To Use Sex and Violence to Win Friends and Eliminate Enemies.

I’m curious to hear what her advance was. I’m sure it’s six figures and some change. Regan might not be held in high esteem by many in the writing community due to its pantheon of pseudographers (Gen. Tommy Franks, Sean Hannity, Jack Canfield, Jameson and now Frey), but it uses Barnum’s famous adage to its advantage.

Bobos at the NY Times

David Brooks=mainstream columnist at major daily=hack

Another column in a growing pile of anti-intellectual drivel from conservatives and pseudo thinkers about the disaster in SE Asia, being passed off as journalism.

Brad Delong's blog pretty much says it all on Brook's latest pile of dung; Here it is:

Passing of a true patriot

I’ve not been spending a lot of time imbibing news other than from my trusted internet sources. I’m usually a reader of the local dailies and the NY Times on line, but for some reason, this past week has seen a variance from this routine. As a result, I missed the passing of an important American writer and patriot in the truest sense of the word. I’m somewhat surprised I didn’t catch this at some point while cruising the blogosphere.

Susan Sontag, writer, activist and one of America’s underappreciated thinkers passed away on December 28th.

A tireless advocate for human rights, Sontag spent considerable time traveling around the world advocating for the marginalized. During the 1990’s Sontag called attention to the escalating civil war in Yugoslavia and lobbied world leaders to intervene.

Susan, over at Suburban Guerrilla has a fitting tribute to an American intellectual and original thinker that I’ll miss hearing from as we navigate the minefield of a second Bush term and a coarsening culture rife with ideological booby traps.

Being angry

I found an article on anger by Kirsten Anderberg over at Infoshop. It was interesting to me as I’ve often been accused of being “too” angry, or had people say to me on more occasions than I care to be reminded of, “boy, you’re really angry about that, aren’t you?” Usually the context involved an issue where there was a perceived grievance concerning the lack of justice extended to myself or others.

Obviously, there are destructive forms of anger, particularly involving physical or emotional harm inflicted upon others. In Anderberg’s case, this isn’t the anger that she is writing about. The anger that Anderberg is addressing is the anger that comes from seeing justice and equality go wanting at the expense of lies and greed. She speaks about the kind of anger that comes from watching innocent people harmed by one’s government in the name of exporting democracy. While Anderberg mentions that the labeling of being “too" angry is often directed at women and people of color, as a white, privileged male, I too have had this charge hurled my way.

What I found most fascinating about the article and about her premise concerning anger, was the recognition that being labeled “too" angry is most often a tactic for marginalizing her as a thinking person and her critique or criticism of some form of wrongdoing or an immoral or unethical policy. Anderberg accurately represents how the term is used at times when she has been critical of the abuse and disempowerment that comes from being a woman. It also comes when a person refuses to acquiesce in a docile way to the status quo or middle-class paradigm of conducting our lives.

While her article is from the context and perspective of being a woman and the disempowerment that comes from our patriarchal society, the marginalization she speaks about isn’t limited only to women and minorities. Being a male and part of the working, or slave class can produce behavior that gets you labeled “too” angry. If you dare to speak out at meetings, or not act like a sheep in the workplace, that can get you labeled as “too” angry.

Daring to speak out against your government and its abuses will certainly get you labelled quickly. Refusing to put the flag in a position of superiority over people or other cultures can get you labeled pretty damn fast as being “too” angry. I’ve often thought it somewhat dysfunctional not to be angry when you look at all the abuses that are perpetrated in the name of family, faith and flag.

It’s interesting to look at who has been accused of being "too" angry historically. Malcolm X was considered “too" angry. Chicano activists, led by Cesar Chavez during the California Grape Strike were labeled “too” angry. Leaders of Native movements reclaiming land and demanding that treaties be honored have been labeled “too” angry. Feminists fighting for the right to control their own bodies are labeled as being “too” angry.

When I look at how the world operates, promoting the corporate interests of the powerful, at the expense of those who provide the labor necessary for their capital, I am amazed that there isn’t more anger. This is a testament to the level of mastery and manipulation that the powerful are able to enact upon the population in the forms of family, education, media and other tools of control. To see this level of injustice and not be angry enough to want to change things and demand justice is the true anti-social behavior, in my opinion.