comment #1

Larry says ...

All my life I've heard people speaking this nonsense--our freedom is at stake over something or other, and I not just talking about by crackpot means that Ron Paul believes in, such as a North America union.

Look, I admit, all sorts of groups want to take greater control of our lives--not just religious nuts or law and order types, but also feminists and environmentalists and those who say we need to go along with the UN.

But that's no excuse for this silly hysteria. It's no different from those who used to see communists hiding under every bed.

As is said, "The dark night of fascism is always descending on America, but it always seems to land in Europe."

comment #2

JHRussell says ...

Larry, you beat me to it...and in a similar hysterical vein, if I hear one more moron say "the next Presidential election is the most important in our nation's history" I will vomit all over them...

comment #3

York "Budd" Durden says ...

Hey, if you guys don't want to believe that our government is in thrall to corporations, that's fine. In the meantime, I will continue to keep my head out of the sand just for you.

comment #4

EOTW says ...

blah blah blah

comment #5

MPNeeb says ...

Um, the Freedom to Fascism documentary was made by a guy convicted of tax evasion. A very wealthy guy convicted of tax evasion.
While, there may be something to the doc, let's not forget where he's coming from.

comment #6

SpinDozer says ...

MPNeed is correct. This is a Ron Paul/Alan Jones style documentary where the agent of fascism is the IRS (!).

From their website:

America: Freedom to Fascism is a compelling and troubling account of how the wealth of our nation was silently passed from its citizens to a handful of powerful bankers in 1913. That's the year the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th Amendment were introduced, giving a privately held corporation the means to control our finances while ensuring its interest payments through the strong arms of the newly-formed Internal Revenue Service. Ever since then, Russo suggests, Americans have been gradually conditioned to accept fewer freedoms and a lower standard of living... all the while considering debt and servitude as distinctly American values.

comment #7

SpinDozer says ...

er, MPNeeb, sorry, Spindozel

comment #8

Luke Y. Thompson says ...

Yeah, it's a terrible movie -- I spoke of it earlier on the "worst of year" thread.

The first three quarters are about how the IRS has no legal right to impose income tax. Then towards the end it goes nuts, talking about injectible microchips, saying that Hurricane Katrina relief was a plot to seize all the guns in New Orleans, all kinds of conspiracy stuff. But I'm not surprised Ron Paul's a fan.

comment #9

Arizona Joe says ...

I heard Ron Paul mention this on "Meet the Press," and I find a paradox in his message.

Like them or not, (and I generally loathe most of them) corporations are the infrastructure of a modern society. In order to manufacture anything valuable, or provide high value services (like investment banks that afford) an organization needs a critical mass and capitalization.

Government should protect the little guy, the ordinary citizen, from the excesses of corporations and capitalism. And I don't think that is fascism, I think it is common sense.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and his book, "Super Capitalism" make a lot more practical sense to me than Ron Paul and this documentary.

These college kids who support Ron Paul are delusional.

Institutions, such as Ohio State, UCLA, Syracuse, and Arizona State, have had greater than 50% of their infrastructure (classrooms, laboratories, power plants, students unions) paid for by federal grants born of the federal income tax. The remainder comes mainly from state taxes.

If a libertarian like Ron Paul had his way, everyone would pay for their own college education in its entirety. Hence, tuition costs would then triple, at the very least.

That truly demonstrates the cost of being a rugged individualist who wants no government in his or her life.

With modern advances in productivity and efficiency, there is plenty of capital to go around, but it is concentrated in so few hands that I believe it is unhealthy. And so do others, like the super rich Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Ron Paul is a horse's ass who does not realize that the founders wrote the Constitution before the Industrial Revolution.

I don't want his world. I'd like our country to be more like those western European nations that Michael Moore illustrated in "Sicko."

comment #10

christian says ...

We do indeed have soft fascism in this country. Just watch the tube.

comment #11

D.Z. says ...

Larry: "Look, I admit, all sorts of groups want to take greater control of our lives--not just religious nuts or law and order types, but also feminists and environmentalists and those who say we need to go along with the UN."

Um, feminists just want women to make the same money as men and not have the government decide what they do with their bodies. Environmentalists want us to make sure that we have an earth left for our descendants. And those who want us to go with the U.N. simply expect us to recognize international law. The people who want greater control of our lives are the ones lobbying against any of these progressive ideas.

MP: "Um, the Freedom to Fascism documentary was made by a guy convicted of tax evasion. A very wealthy guy convicted of tax evasion."

I'll take tax evaders over faceless corporations lobbying for subsidies...

Joe: "Like them or not, (and I generally loathe most of them) corporations are the infrastructure of a modern society."

More like a parasite.

"In order to manufacture anything valuable, or provide high value services"

You need competition, which they do not provide.

"If a libertarian like Ron Paul had his way, everyone would pay for their own college education in its entirety. Hence, tuition costs would then triple, at the very least."

Costs already have tripled! And we're still not learning shit which will prepare us to compete with the rest of the world...Not to mention that, if the money is just going to pay for services for dumbasses like Dubya, then what exactly is the point? Hell, I believe in supporting schools, too; but if my own district can't even pay its teachers for months on end, due to overpriced glitch-filled software, then there should be a little bit more accountability. Realistically speaking, we are eventually going to have to start from scratch, because the old system is clearly not working.

comment #12

christian says ...

And Larry, to compare the power of that feminists have as equal to that of the military-industrial corporations is ludicrous and worthy of Rush Limbaugh. Yeah, feminists and environmentalists hold an enormous concentration of wealth and power. Pretty much equal to Boeing and GE and CNN...

comment #13

Walter Sobchak says ...

Quick, D.Z. .... name the last U.S. president that you really liked.... seriously... and not candidate, actual serving president....one that you supported (or would've supported) at least 80-85%.

(and I did say U.S. presidents, not Third World dictators or politburo members)

comment #14

bmcintire says ...

Crackpot or not, the guy evaded paying taxes for the very reason the documentary exists. And that stuff about the Federal Reserve is both largely unknown and frightening.

comment #15

bmcintire says ...

WS - you might as well ask the question "When did you start beating your wife?"

comment #16

jeffmcm says ...

Yeah, and Andrew Jackson was never really President because he was born outside the U.S. Likewise, Ohio wasn't a state until a few years ago so all of its laws were null and void.

comment #17

Josh Massey says ...

Andrew Shepherd!
-D.Z.

comment #18

D.Z. says ...

Walter: "Quick, D.Z. .... name the last U.S. president that you really liked.... seriously... and not candidate, actual serving president....one that you supported (or would've supported) at least 80-85%."

Carter?

"(and I did say U.S. presidents, not Third World dictators or politburo members)"

Why would I support dictators? I'm not a Republican.

comment #19

christian says ...

"Why would I support dictators? I'm not a Republican."

Zing!

comment #20

AJW says ...

"Why would I support dictators? I'm not a Republican."

D.Z. made me laugh! It must be Christmas!

comment #21

Walter Sobchak says ...

Did Carter ever meet a dictator he didn't like?

Oooohhh, THAT'S right. If their left-wing/communist they aren't dictators.

Castro? Freedom fighter and father of the Worker's Paradise of Cuba, of course.

And Carter hates Jews, too. (must be a Ron Paul guy)

Snap! You been served! Boo yah, aw hell naw! How's that taste beeaaatch? Bring it down for me, ya'll!

comment #22

Walter Sobchak says ...

Merry Christmas Everybody!

comment #23

D.Z. says ...

Walter: "Did Carter ever meet a dictator he didn't like? Oooohhh, THAT'S right. If their left-wing/communist they aren't dictators."

Um, he stopped doing business with Iran and brought back the draft after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Nixon opened up relations with China, while Reagan sold weapons to Qadaffi. Nice try, though.

"Castro? Freedom fighter and father of the Worker's Paradise of Cuba, of course."

Last time I checked, he never lifted an embargo against Castro. But Bush Sr. opened up trade with China, and is trying to do the same with Vietnam.

"And Carter hates Jews, too. (must be a Ron Paul guy)"

That must be why he worked for a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt and tried to wean us off oil.

"Snap! You been served! Boo yah, aw hell naw! How's that taste beeaaatch?"

It tastes like the usual whiny righty bullshit.

comment #24

christian says ...

And Happy Xmas!

Watch and Smile over a true Battle Royale:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yon2YuXssvo

comment #25

jeffmcm says ...

DZ, for Christmas I would like to give you a sense of humor. You are painfully in need of one.

Also, a chocolate orange. They're delicious.

comment #26

MAGGA says ...

I agree with D.Z on this thread. And asking him to name tha last US president he liked is unfair, because it is entirely possible to loathe most of them without being hysterical. It is only a two party system, after all, and the small differences between the parties means that Americans have less freedom of choice politically than almost all western democracies. Personally I liked Bill Clinton, but my sympathy for him may have grown a lot because of the idiotic witch-burning procedure that drove a knife through the heart of American political credibility despite him almost removing the deficit and doing mostly good with the millitary.

comment #27

SpinDozer says ...

'I agree with D.Z on this thread. And asking him to name tha last US president he liked is unfair, because it is entirely possible to loathe most of them without being hysterical.'

Bada-Bing!

Anyone who calls Carter a friend of left wing dictators is parading their own ignorance. The one sure way to make an enemy of the US whichever party is in power, is to be left wing, and no matter how democratically you come to power in the 3rd world, if you are left wing, you will almost certainly be called a dictator by democrats & republicans.

comment #28

BurmaShave says ...

Look at any of the top generals and admirals we have now in the military. Do any of them not seem exceedingly more intelligent and qualified than any candidate on either side of the race? Plus just from my experience with the soldiers and sailors in my own family, they're generally security-minded libertarians who don't really care about these social disputes. Ron Paul does surprisingly well with them, but they're attracted to his anger, not his policy. No military leader would have ever led us into the clusterfuck of Iraq. I myself can't wait for the military to take over. Fuck soft fascism, bring on the hard fascism.

comment #29

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

There will be a fascinating sociological text to be written on the way in which the insanely pampered and privileged children of the early 2000s worked so hard to convince themselves and others that they were under the jackboot of fascism, even as they themselves advocated an expansion of the state into every corner of our lives. In many ways it's obscene and offensive to the true victims of real totalitarian nightmares around the world, but it is in a sense the tribute that vice pays to virtue when a D.Z.'s deeply buried discomfort with government omnipresence manifests itself this way, at the same time that he's calling for wildly ramped-up economic regulation, the intrusion of government into every aspect of our health, and so on.

comment #30

Walter Sobchak says ...

Word.

I always imagine someone who's life was destroyed in the 1950's by the blacklist beating the living shit out of people today who say, "this is no different from the blacklisting!", it's McCarthyism!"

comment #31

D.Z. says ...

Burma: "Look at any of the top generals and admirals we have now in the military. Do any of them not seem exceedingly more intelligent and qualified than any candidate on either side of the race?"

If that were the case, they'd admit they were wrong, and demand an end to the war.

"No military leader would have ever led us into the clusterfuck of Iraq."

Except for Colin Powell and General Patreus and John McCain, and...

Mgmax: "There will be a fascinating sociological text to be written on the way in which the insanely pampered and privileged children of the early 2000s"

Um, where did you get that we were well off? Read "Generation Debt" or "Strapped". Or how about trying to get a liver transplant under CIGNA while fighting to keep your job from being outsourced to China and India? Oh, wait. All that time we've been protesting against this plutocracy must have convinced you that we must be as rich as the last generation which sold us out by voting Reagan. Sorry, but all those trillions in debt from the war alone are going to keep us from even touching the glass ceiling. But keep pretending that the economy is fine under Bush, even though illegals don't even want to work here, due to the falling dollar. http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2126758320071224

"worked so hard to convince themselves and others that they were under the jackboot of fascism, even as they themselves advocated an expansion of the state into every corner of our lives"

Yes, caring about the poor and needy is so fascist, but torturing people is lawful.

"In many ways it's obscene and offensive to the true victims of real totalitarian nightmares around the world,"

Yes, but murdering one million Iraqi civilians is freedom. Orwell would be proud.

"but it is in a sense the tribute that vice pays to virtue when a D.Z.'s deeply buried discomfort with government omnipresence manifests itself this way, at the same time that he's calling for wildly ramped-up economic regulation, the intrusion of government into every aspect of our health,"

You're right. The forty million uninsured people should simply let the hand of the market take care of them. It worked with Enron. Oh, wait!

Walter: "I always imagine someone who's life was destroyed in the 1950's by the blacklist beating the living shit out of people today who say, "this is no different from the blacklisting!","

Yes, how can people who are marginalized from the political process relate to people who were
denied a fair trial, simply because their points of view didn't have the mainstream appeal of burning crosses on lawns?

comment #32

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Or how about trying to get a liver transplant under CIGNA while fighting to keep your job from being outsourced to China and India?

Exactly. Because it is in the Constitution that you are entitled to all medical procedures, no matter the cost, and to a job for life, no matter the changes in the economy. That a society under such rules is probably not sustainable is beside the point-- you're entitled to all of it, no matter what.

comment #33

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax: "Because it is in the Constitution that you are entitled to all medical procedures, no matter the cost, and to a job for life, no matter the changes in the economy."

So life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are no longer self-evident truths?

"That a society under such rules is probably not sustainable is beside the point--"

So why are the Euro and Canadian currencies worth more than the dollar?

comment #34

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

PURSUIT.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.

comment #35

christian says ...

Yeah, why can't we just learn to love the federal government like Grover Norquist, who wants to drown it in a bathtub? Who cares if the head of the FBI had a plan to round up political dissidents? It was just a plan, after all. And why not just blindly trust the crooks in charge who show their repeated lack of respect for the constitution and our country? How spoiled that we just don't just go shopping and watch lotsa TV and savor our consumer freedoms!

God Bless Us All..Everyone!

comment #36

SpinDozer says ...

'There will be a fascinating sociological text ..."

Rest assured, should your side prevail, many such books will be written. It will be most important that a professional 'sociologist' will give their authority to your fantasies. The 'others' will all be 'insanely pampered and privileged children', 'nattering nabobs of negativity', or whatever else would illicit the complete and utter rejection of their thoughts and words unseen and unheard while simultaneously extolling the virtues of the hard-working, non-thinking mench's, the selfless digital-brownshirts who reach for their guns when the word culture enters the conversation, or go to the other's blogs and repeat the correct ideology to defeat their group-thinkism; Good Germans. The study of people will have its uses.

comment #37

SpinDozer says ...

'I always imagine someone who's life was destroyed in the 1950's by the blacklist beating the living shit out of people today who say, "this is no different from the blacklisting!", it's McCarthyism"!'

People like Norman Finkelstein or Ward Churchill, for instance?

comment #38

SpinDozer says ...

'it's obscene and offensive to the true victims of real totalitarian nightmares around the world'

This, presumably, excludes Maher Arar and the hundreds or thousands in Abu Grahib and Gitmo?

comment #39

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

whatever else would illicit the complete and utter rejection of their thoughts and words unseen and unheard

That argument would hold more water if it wasn't coming from someone throwing around words like "sheeple," which are designed to invalidate an opponent's opinions without discussion by implying that he is not even in charge of his own thoughts.

comment #40

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax: "That argument would hold more water if it wasn't coming from someone throwing around words like "sheeple," which are designed to invalidate an opponent's opinions without discussion"

Your words are invalidated, simply because you lost your ideological war. If you want to win next time, say what you mean, and mean what you say.

comment #41

SpinDozer says ...

'That argument would hold more water if it wasn't coming from someone throwing around words like "sheeple," which are designed to invalidate an opponent's opinions without discussion by implying that he is not even in charge of his own thoughts.'

I have discussed 'your' opinions which as it happens, are identical to those distributed on right wing outlets like POWERLINE, etc. Your inability to engage in discussion beyond the logic packaged thusly would tend to legitimize the conclusion that you are not in charge of your own thoughts and merely bleating some variant of 'Four Legs Good, Fascism Better'.

comment #42

christian says ...

Bush thinks dictators are funny!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD3xfT0c99g&feature=related

comment #43

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Did your liberal professors tell you to post that, Spinny?

comment #44

SpinDozer says ...

'liberal professors'

uh, you're under the delusion you are addressing a schoolboy? Or are you trying to identify the source of my arguementation? Some "left" POWERLINE which says here is what the righties say and here is your response? All packaged up and ready to blurt out? Is that what you need to know?

comment #45

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Yes, it is annoying and yet ineffectual when someone does that to you, isn't it?

comment #46

SpinDozer says ...

Not really. The Right's propaganda model has always been much more sophisticated and elemental than that of the Left. RW propaganda is most easily defeated by facts and logic since it especially weak on those. There are Left POV sources on the web, of course, but if I ever make use of their material, I do so because of the documentation they provide. Mediamatters, for example. I don't really give a damn whether they signed a pact with Bill and Hillary to share power as long as they provide direct quotes on the subject under discussion. Your mission, to defeat the 'Groupthink of Groupthink Lefties' is wholly different than mine. You need to have the only correct opinion, this is because RW Propaganda offers two choices (one or both of which is false) and for various rational and irrational reasons their targets must choose that which supports their ends. All I have to do is show that there are other opinions, so Google works for me.

comment #47

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Do you actually believe this shit? I mean, first of all that there are clearly delineated things called Left and Right which don't contain internal contradictions (e.g., the libertarian and authoritarian strains within each) or change over time (I'm interventionist in foreign affairs, you think America should stay the hell out, which for most of the 20th century would have made me the liberal and you the conservative)? And secondly, that they're so completely different in type that, apparently, my job is all but impossible but yours is supremely easy and so every sparring match goes to you in a fault? Don't you realize how silly, how naive or even bonkers this all sounds?

comment #48

SpinDozer says ...

'there are clearly delineated things called Left and Right which don't contain internal contradictions or change over time.'

Sure there are, I am not bound to one side or the other, indeed there are other choices.

'And secondly, that they're so completely different in type'

You seem to believe that we are on opposite sides of the same street; you are mistaken.

'Don't you realize how silly, how naive or even bonkers this all sounds?'

To someone in your position, I'm sure it does.

comment #49

christian says ...

Oh and since Mgmax is offended by words like "sheeple," I'm assuming Jonah Goldberg will be included in that soon-to-be-written think piece on spoiled leftists who trivialize totalitarianism.

I give you LA Times columnist Goldberg's new book: "Liberal Fascism"

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385511841

comment #50

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

SpinDozer, you have left the realm of coherence.

Christian, I must admit that the title produced in me a sigh of dismay, yet by all reports it's a well-argued book about the totalitarian tendencies in liberal movements (undeniable as a phenomenon). I take it you've read an advance copy and did not find it convincing?

comment #51

christian says ...

Oh not yet. I can't wait to find how he equates the left with the rise of Hitler. Famous flaming lib Henry Ford was certainly against fascism too, so I hope Goldberg includes that socialist hero.

By all reports? From who? Townhall and Powerline? Well, now I'm convinced. Still, years of reading JG still leaves me wondering on his ideology. I figger if the ultra-liberal LA Times has him as a columnist, he must be your typical leftist. Altho I recall he was adamant that Iraq had nuclear weapons a few years back. Here's his visionary open bet:

"Let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I'll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now)."

And here's more of his Christian wisdom:

"In the weeks prior to the war to liberate Afghanistan, a good friend of mine would ask me almost every day, "Why aren't we killing people yet?" And I never had a good answer for him. Because one of the most important and vital things the United States could do after 9/11 was to kill people."

The only insightful essay I've read by him is his response to firing Ann Coulter from the NR. You think he woulda learned.

comment #52

SpinDozer says ...

'you have left the realm of coherence.'

But of course I have. Me nospeakee the ubertwaddle.

comment #53

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax, to quote your own base after the 2000 "elections", 'Get over it!' It doesn't matter which ideological side people were on when they were against war in the past, because the majority of Americans-including "moderate" Republicans-are against this war and want it to end now. The majority of Americans also want to keep their jobs and their houses in the near future and in the long-term future. I don't know where you got the idea that a democracy of the majority is some sort of fascist concept, but your contempt for that type of system-and your support for ass-kissing crony-ism-makes you more ideologically similar to the political systems you claim to despise, rather than our own system of government.

No one's impressed with your neo-con posturing anymore, because it doesn't have any bearing on reality. If it did have any affect, we wouldn't be heading into the fifth year of a war which was only intended-even by our own war criminals' estimates-to have gone on until last year. The money from tax breaks would be enough to keep our economy going, even during housing slumps and a tech bubble. The best educated people working for our businesses would be Americans-not Chinese or Indians. Everything you've tried has been a failure. That's neither a conservative nor a liberal point of view, but a common sense point of view.

Sure, maybe in ten years, things could get better; but we're not in the position to wait that long. We're broke, and so is our infrastructure. We're basically like Rome, right before they imploded and got ransacked. You can keep trashing us all you want, but the rest of the world will get the last laugh. And when you begin wondering why, in the future, the U.N. and WTO will make decisions without us, and even exclude us from the process, only then will you truly realize the gravity of the situation.

comment #54

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Spin, bluster is obviously such. You can't answer my points and insults aren't answers. We're done.

D.Z., so how come no one to the right of Kucinich is running on a true firebreathing antiwar platform?

How come Pelosi and Reid can't get anything passed?

Maybe because "Everything you've tried has been a failure" and "we're not in the position to wait that long. We're broke" are demonstrably untrue?

And when you begin wondering why, in the future, the U.N. and WTO will make decisions without us, and even exclude us from the process, only then will you truly realize the gravity of the situation.

Yeah, and the Federation will repel the Klingons without us too. Fat fuckin' chance, we have the only functioning army on the planet.

comment #55

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Yeah, I didn't think you'd read a word of it, Christian.

comment #56

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax: "D.Z., so how come no one to the right of Kucinich is running on a true firebreathing antiwar platform?"

Ron Paul isn't to the right of Kucinich?

"How come Pelosi and Reid can't get anything passed?"

They can't get anything passed, because the few Republicans left are trying to make them look ineffective in a desperate attempt to maintain the status quo.

"Maybe because "Everything you've tried has been a failure" and "we're not in the position to wait that long. We're broke" are demonstrably untrue?"

If they were untrue, then you wouldn't have lost in the last term, now would you?

"Yeah, and the Federation will repel the Klingons without us too. Fat fuckin' chance, we have the only functioning army on the planet."

You seem to forget about China and Russia. Hell, Putin got mentioned as Man of the Year in Time.

comment #57

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Ron Paul isn't to the right of Kucinich?

Finally, you're learning something.

the few Republicans left are trying to make them look ineffective

And by a miracle, they succeed!

You seem to forget about China and Russia.

What battlefield have they been tested on, and learned their tactical flaws and how to remedy them on? Russia had a hell of a big Army in 1914, too, the largest in the world. Ask General Samsonov how that worked out for them.

Hell, Putin got mentioned as Man of the Year in Time.

How many divisions does Henry Luce have?

comment #58

christian says ...

"Yeah, I didn't think you'd read a word of it, Christian."

And neither did you. But you trust "by all reports." I already know Goldberg is a political and intellectual dolt. How much more should I read? Life is too short. He won't dazzle me with the same tired logic pimped by conservative thinkers like Kristol and Limbaugh etc. And I'm sure you're poring over Chomsky's new book for his insight.

And that was your most cogent post ever DZ. Props.