The day of the Great Reversal has not yet, and may never, dawn. I remain suspicious of Obama's shady background, and I remain infuriated by memories of his appalling campaign. More than that: This President has chosen the wrong course.
We have seen no nationalization of insolvent banks, no investigation of loan fraud, no prosecution of the Bush/Cheney gangsters. Geithner intends to maintain the Bush-era fantasy that craptastic "assets" are "undervalued." Obama wants to keep Wall Street crooks in place and overpaid, while forcing auto workers into homelessness.
What a wretched way to begin a presidency!
The progblog worms keep turning. TPM, D.U., Atrios, Buzzflash -- they've all voiced disappointment. Not rage, not yet: That will come. But disappointment is definitely there.
If you want rage, head right.
I take this column by Chuck Norris seriously: In essence, he calls for a new civil war because the country is led by a president he does not like. Pat Boone wants the same thing. Of course, both rabble-rousers will, if pressed, lay claim to the "just kidding" defense, even though everyone knows that they mean every word of it. (The term, I believe, is "kidding on the sly.")
In Pittsburgh, a deranged gunman -- one of a recent series (and isn't it eerie how they all popped up at once?) -- claimed as his motive the conviction that Obama plans to institute the Great Gun Round-Up. Apparently, this man felt that a spasm of irrational violence could prevent that imagined round-up. Logical, no?
Ever since I was ten years old, right-wingers have screamed that the Great Gun Round-Up will occur within the next few months. The GGR-U is one of the top American myths, alongside Roswell, sewer-gators, and the post-quake submergence of California. Today, the myth has reached an impressive state of hysteria, despite the complete lack of evidence that Obama has any such plans. The Oath Keepers movement proves the point.
Even more ominous is the We Surround Them movement:
According to the group’s website the organizing principle is 9/12, i.e. after 9/11 all things changed. The organizers apparently consider the election of Barack Obama another 9/11: “We are faced with yet another attack on our freedoms. This one doesn't come in the form of airplanes, but is an assault on our core freedoms, principles and values. Our Constitution hangs by a thread, our economy has been sold, our rights trampled, our future compromised.” The site is run by “Debra” who prefers to remain anonymous. In the 9/12 vein Beck lists 9 principles and 12 values; only those who agree with 7 of the 9 are eligible for membership.
During the Clinton administration right wing militia groups sprang up, literally training members for battle to prepare for the overthrow of what they considered an illegitimate U.S. government. After the Oklahoma City bombing many believed the harsh rhetoric of right wing talk radio gave aid and comfort to dangerous groups willing to use violent means if necessary.History repeats itself.
I felt lukewarm toward Bill Clinton initially, but the repellent nature of his right-wing opponents transformed me into a Clinton supporter. When Oklahoma City happened, I felt shock but not surprise. If enough people at the Macy's parade keep firing rifles into the air, eventually you'll hear a pop.
I've always considered conspiracy theorists significant. Not necessarily the theories: The theorists. Alex Jones is a clown, but he's also a far more important individual (potentially) than most pundits would ever allow themselves to believe. Any good history of Germany in the 1920s should explain the dangers.
Fascism -- yes, that's the right word -- becomes an option when economic collapse causes the populace to lose faith in conventional political parties. That's where we are now.
Don't make the mistake of marginalizing fringe beliefs. For a large number of your fellow citizens, bizarre political myths are more real than is reality itself. Roughly one third of the population is fundamentalist Christian, and most fundamentalists have been conditioned to accept inane conspiracy theories involving Satanists, the Illuminati, secular humanism, the United Nations and whatnot.
These absurdities also have a massive following among the non-pious.
Millions of Americans have read widely in the literature of "alternative history" -- yet they remain ignorant of conventional history, of genuine history. Millions of Americans know about Albert Pike and Adam Weishaupt and Jesse Marcel and Berenger Sauniere and all the other superstars of conspiracy literature -- but those same Americans cannot tell you who ran France during the Second Empire or who fought at the battle of Fredericksburg.
Those Americans are worse than ignorant: They think they know the score. It's easy to gull the faux-hip into thinking that the goosestep is the latest dance.
Americans love false dichotomies. We'll soon face a doozy: Either you're an Obama-lover or you'll support the fascist revolution.
Of course, the rebels won't use the word "fascist." "Populist," perhaps. Perhaps even "anti-Fascist."
Mark my words. Very soon, we may have only two choices: Support Obama's mis-rule or support the rabid beasts of political nescience. Support mad Caligula or support the barbarians on the borderlands.
When you come to the fork in the road, remember that both paths may lead to Hell.
16 comments:
I majored in History and a large part of the curriculum is unlearning stuff that isn't true.
Funny how less than a year ago Donna Brazile was claiming there would be "blood in the streets" if Obama didn't get the nomination, and now those same folks are in a tizzy over the comments of a couple of washed-up B-listers. Plus ca change (he says, looking frantically for a cedilla on his keyboard). The Obama White House is seeking to demonize dissent in exactly the same way Bush/Cheney did.
As for right-wingnut fears of the GGR_U, even a tree-hugging lefty like me is a little concerned by HR 45, introduced by Bobby Rush this year:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.45:
Gun licensing is not a GGRU. At any rate, that law will not pass.
Probably not - it's hard to see where the Federal government has the constitutional authority to implement a licensing scheme, since there's no interstate commerce involved. Even if it passed, I'd expect it to be overturned.
Guns are a product that is placed into the interstate stream of commerce.
But then again since they repealed Prohibition there is no other product in the interstate stream of commerce that has its own Amendment.
Neither of which affects the political viability of a national gun licensing law.
They are already calling themselves "anti-fascist." Obama is a fascist, according to the Right. Michael Savage has predicted another 9/11-type event, followed by dictatorship. Of course there were similar fears on the Left during Bush.
The Oath-Keepers are interesting. I don't even disagree with many of their principles. I hope that the military would disobey illegal orders. They even have some mild criticism of Bush. But many of them clearly regard Obama as a usurper and a traitor.
Most Americans seem to like and approve of Obama. Most Americans seem to actually hold fairly progressive views. They don't like the demonized "liberal" label but support banning assault weapons, are pro-choice. But then there is that 20% who live in rightwing bizarro-world. And about one-quarter of those are really nuts, and dangerous.
I think that your opposition to Obama is in part because you discovered that he was a politician, that he lied during a campaign, and had associations with unsavory businesmen. Of course so did Clinton and so did Kennedy for that matter. Also perhaps that he isn't Left enough for you. I don't know how I will judge the Obama presidency 10 or 20 years from now, but for now put me among those who approve of his overall performance so far.
Resorting to demonstrating in the streets is one of the last few methods of influencing government that is available to the people.
Since it is a Constitutionally protected right to do so, and since many times the peoples' doing so has made a difference in the right direction as I see it, I will not condemn such actions ahead of time. I lean more to supporting such actions, out of principle.
However, among the dominant memes in the anti-Obama camps are that he is either Hitler or the Anti-Christ (can't be sure which just yet!), he is an illegitimate pretender to the presidency (not even eligible to be president, from his foreign birth and background), he is a Manchurian Candidate (pre-programmed to destroy this country), and of course, he's not a Christian but a Muslim.
These beliefs are a recipe for turning any 'peaceful public gathering' into a howling mob out for blood, which paradoxically, could play into the hands of Obama, ESPECIALLY if there is a shred of truth to any of these claims.
Another irony is that the Constitution itself describes one role of 'the militia' as 'putting down rebellions,' even as the 2nd Amendment single-issue voters and others on the right proclaim that it is the militia that should engage in insurrection.
For me, I consider Obama's election to be legitimate, legal and binding (more so than most in the past 17 years), and consider any attempt to deny it or overturn it as seditious. Having said that, the use of public demonstrations remains itself Constitutional, and when or if the Obama team's policies require it, I would join them myself.
While any given policy may be mistaken, and call for opposition, that is different from opposing the man a priori as 'evil' and/or 'a mad Caligula' (Joe's infelicitous ending phrase characterization of BHO).
Surely we can oppose error without resorting to such overheated and poisonous rhetoric.
XI
I am going to this Tea Party here in Pittsburgh this weekend (4/11). I think it's important that many true liberals are at these functions, not just republicans. We should be welcome since the event is: "...a peaceful rally to show the Government that We The People will no longer stand for the abuse of unjust taxation, pork belly spending, stimulus package, and the like...( more trickle down economic theory in their pocket package)"
Since I oppose all the corruption in both parties, I will be at this event. I don't think the Republican Party should be allowed to twist the current sentiments to their own ends.
Politicians in both parties are to blame for the current mess, and we can't let the GOP turn liberalism into the enemy.
Some quick comments on your comparison between US conditions in the current Depression and German conditions during late Weimar. And also on your April Fool's Day offering.
Hitler saw Edward Bernays as a true master...which Bernays was. America became fascist in the 1930s. America won the war, insofar as the west was concerned anyway. Much more advanced fascistically than those Nazis.
What Bernays understood that Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler didn't was that propaganda isn't just about techniques for telling people stuff. It's about f*cking with their minds and clouding them to the max. The US leads the world in that, with the UK on its coat-tails. Ask people in the Ukraine. Bernays's work on Propaganda (see above link; it's online) leaves The Myth of the Twentieth Century standing.
On conspiracy theories and fascism...where would the promotion of American policy have been without professionally-managed conspiracy theories, since 1947? What are you proposing will change?
As for Sir Aleister Crowley, he was a right-wing a*rsehole. Intellectually brilliant, yes. But would you want to be stuck in a lift with a Carlist?
One question about him that intrigues me is: what role did Trinity College, Cambridge play in his development?
Have you come across Trinity College, Joe? The amazingly well-endowed alma mater of magi John Dee and Isaac Newton, it has about 1000 undergraduates and has bagged 32 Nobel Prizes - unparalleled for any institution of its size in the world. Nowhere even comes close. The money came from the 16th-century dissolution of the monasteries. Until recently it was also the main recruiting ground of the Apostles. One could also mention the late-19thC and early-20thC scientific revolutions which led to both nuclear technology and quantum theory. No prizes for guessing what institution was home to Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr. Oh yes and John Michell. Just mentioned him to check whether you were listening!
According to some accounts, Crowley spent most of his time in Cambridge publishing samizdat poetry and expanding the "fundament of his philosophy" with his "fellow men".
It's notable that Trinity College doesn't figure in many conspiracy theories, unlike say Tavistock. Ditto certain institutions in England's old capital city Winchester, home to Michael Baigent (as it was of previous generations of Baigents) and obvious inspirer of certain of the memes in Holy Blood, Holy Grail .
b
I think the accusation of American fascism in the 1930s is too absurd for words. If FDR's America was ALREADY fascist, then what were McKormick, Hearst, Coughlin, Pelley and all of their lot trying to do?
A lot of people have rediscovered Bernays since Adam Curtiss did that documentary. Frankly, I think Bernays was a primitive.
It's a little silly to dismiss AC as a Carlist. At one time or another, he was (or pretended to be) pretty much everything you could name, including an Irish revolutionary. He did not have a consistent political philosophy and, to judge from the recent literature, spied for pretty much anyone who would pay. He eventually decided to back his homeland wholeheartedly, probably because he finally understood that he could get legal H only in the U.K.
Well, I didn't know that about John Michell! I suppose it is a sign of my irredeemable nature that Michell's name caused me to perk up in a way that Bohr's name did not.
I also did not know anything about Baigent's background. Well, here's a challenge for you -- without Google or IMDB, name the Boris Karloff movie written by Henry Lincoln?
(I may have mentioned this before...)
I didn't mean to propose that Carlism was Crowley's organising philosophy (!), just to point up that it was a little silly of him to go around most of the time flashing his Carlist "Sir" in front of his name! Kind of right wing, I'd say.
Never heard of Adam Curtiss; I don't watch TV. Bernays is not seen as a primitive in the "industry" of which he was a founding father.
Another guy who's at Trinity nowadays, on a scholarship from the Society of Psychical Research, is Rupert Sheldrake...
The Baigent-Winchester connection runs deep. You don't even have to factor in the theory that William of Wykeham was an illegitimate grandson of Philippe le Bel! :-)
b
Boris Karloff film was Curse of the Crimson Altar. Which is an anagram of... No, I jest.
Paul Smith has a penchant for playing the man rather than the board.
So do I. His I find a turn-off though...
:-)
b
The US didn't just become fascist in the 1930s; it's been fascist ever since. I mean Christ they had an army general as executive president in the 1950s, just like France. A lot of the questioning in this area isn't worthwhile anyway, tending as it does to posit the notion of a good (democratic? small-r republican? Montesquioid?) regime or state, to counterpose to a 'fascist' one. Whatever such an antinomy would mean. A 'government' that looked after the 'people' or what? Is someone having a joke here? If the rulers are the 'government', I'm a walnut. Whatever next - a truth-loving media? An honest public-relations man? A good landlord?
The above is what I thought when I read in a comment here that if this or that happens, a 'dictatorship' would arise in America. Well what on earth is there at the moment? I mean, behind all this political-party and voting nonsense? What else could there possibly be? Until the underlying relations of capitalism get abolished. Which doesn't exactly look on the cards. I've never voted - does that make me apathetic compared to the moron who always votes; follows politicians' debates on the telly; takes his unnecessary packaging supplied with his unnecessary consumer goods to the recycling plant, and so on? Never had a bank loan either. Never believed companies when they say they want to 'give' me something 'free'.
A dictatorship in America! Ooh-er! What a turn-up, eh? So Rahm Emanuel won't be accountable any more?? How dreadful to imagine.
And during the next Gaza massacre, 99% rather than 98% of Congressmen will back a motion saying Israel has the right to defend itself? What a Rubicon will have been crossed if that comes to pass!
Certain ultra-leftists think they're sophisticated for describing the "energy crisis" of the early 1970s as a strategic class move. But now a proper Depression is starting, they just follow the pundits, never dreaming to call it strategic. But it is. They also echo the 'experts' in calling it a 'crisis'. But it isn't.
The second point is more important than the first. A crisis is a crossroads at which a sick person starts recovering or dying. That's not where capitalism is at. It's not even where capitalism's financial system is at. This is a time of technological revolution. So was the Great Depression. So was the Long Depression, formerly known as Great, which preceded it.
What many people can't get, especially if they've studied economics (that discipline which Fredy Perlman - who had, but critically - called a "moron's paradise") is that Fordism, Keynesianism, call it what you will, was always meant to be temporary. Consumerism will be chucked out. Not for long will Gordon Brown et al. be echoing Michael Bloomberg telling us all we've got to spend, spend, spend our way out of depression and debt. We're talking a return to 19th-century style poverty for the bulk of the population which had forgotten about it. Not meant to be reversed.
This is what was to be expected, when the revolutionary movement of 1968 and around that time didn't go forward, didn't win. And here's the parallel with Weimar Germany, where something similar could be said about the defeat of the revolutionary movement of 1918-21.
As for Fordism-Keynesianism, or mass consumerism and consumption to go with mass production, I don't see it as on the cards for China. Sure, the middle class in China is huge in absolute terms, 100 million or 200 million people, and they want their luxury goods. But I don't envisage three-quarters of the oil going into the petrol tanks of workers driving themselves to work... Nor will it in America in 10 years time or even maybe 5.
Was Gorbachev telling it straight, rather than jut sorting himself out some think-tank money, when he wrote of the role of the 'Asian model'?
b
Crowley backed his homeland? Not a phrase I'd have expected to come from your keyboard, Joe. My first reaction was to ask "what, like John Wayne?" Isn't the perfume of special pleading somewhere in the air? The Irish connection was new to me, but there has always been huge room for right-wing reactionary arseholes in any notable part of the Irish republican and nationalist scene.
b
PS Just did a quick look-up on Crowley and Irish republicanism. Not surprising that Roger Casement (by then an ex-Sir) was close by, nor that it's been suggested that Crowley was a Brit plant. Peter Mandelson used to be in the youth section of the 'Communist' Party. Etc., etc. A lot of those insider/magnet types have such periods in the early parts of their CVs. Some of these youngsters with their unshakeable elitism are very sussed...
Crowley's mellowed attitude toward Britain during WWII is amply demonstrated in Symond's (unsympathetic) biography, which includes excerpts from AC's diary.
The Irish thing was just funny. Especially his little speech to reporters on Liberty Island, with his Scarlet Woman playing "Danny Boy" or whatever it was on the violin. You can't say the guy lacked a sense of humor.
I don't think AC was ever an "insider" in any meaningful sense. He was a scrounger, a user. I suspect, but cannot prove, that he seduced Maxwell Knight's wife and thus found out about Knight's homosexuality, a discovery which he used for blackmail purposes. He also got the occasional charitable "donation" from Freida Harris (the artist of his tarot deck), who was married to a liberal MP.
I can also assure you that (most of) AC's current followers in the OTO have no wealth, no great status in society, and no cohesive political stance. At least, none that I could see.
I didn't think the OTO was the secret centre behind world events :-) Did you hear that that Evolist swine, 'radical traditionalist' John Michell has died? It's coming out that he was mates with 'Prince Charles' too. Not that the existence of an association was a secret; the Prince's School of Traditional Arts is not an invisible college. Michell wasn't just an "estate agent" (real estate broker) in Notting Hill; he was a landlord.
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