From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Dec 07 2003 - 20:11:20 GMT
David M and all y'all:
DM asked:
Glad to see your approach does not try to simplify history.
Clearly the problems of WWI and the depression, hyper-inflation,
war reparations, communist agitation, ineffective government,
saw a desperate nation see dictatorship and the fuhrer principle
as a means of escaping its predicaments and the burden of
a squabling democracy. USA today is very different. What are the
factors taking the USA down its current road do you feel?
dmb answers:
Right. I still remember phrase I ripped-off for my thesis on Hitler. I'd
asserted that the rise of fascism in Germany was due to "a particular
sociological constellation". Since then, however, I've come to think that
its a pretty weak explanation insofar as it construes fascism as a unique
event. If that were true, then it would have no connection to the rise of
fascism in Italy, Spain, Portugal, several of the Eastern European countries
or the re-emergence in recent years in the form of punk skinheads and the
American right-wing militia movement. This is why I think Pirsig's
description of fascism as an anti-intellectual re-assertion of social values
is so helpful. His explanation allows us to see the thing much more clearly
and it allows us to see it even in a variety of sociological circumstances,
even in non-Western cultures, such as the case of Islamo-fascism.
More to the point, I suppose you'll have to accept a mediocre answer to your
question about today's American version of the same, because I don't have a
very good one. 9/11 certainly helped to accelerate it. LOts of it is due to
the "angry white guy" stuff; a reaction to the liberal progress made by
racial minorities, women, gays and lesbians and secular culture in general.
It has lots to do with the tendency of (SOM) intellectuals to be be
dismissive or even openly hostile to traditional morallity, religion and the
transcendental realm. These are genuine conflicts, but I also think all of
this, and more, has been artifically pumped up and aggravated by the media
and by politics.
I give brief examples of each. In the last 10 or 15 years a web a right-wing
media organs have developed into what is pretty accurately called an "echo
chamber". It goes back at least to the 1970's when Adolf Coors financed the
formation of the Heritage Foundation and some small media outlets, but it
really took off about the time Clinton was first elected in '92. As talk
radio and the internet began to blossom even more right-wing millionaires
and billionares like Richard Mellon Scaife and Reverend Moon began to
finance magzines and newspapers like the Weekly Standard and the Washington
Times. Once all the pieces were in place, the web would operate on a sort of
trickle up basis. Scandalous stories would begin in the ghetto, either on
internet sites like the Drugde Report or on radio talk shows like Rush
Limbaugh's. The same stories would then work their way up into said print
media, then the mainstream papers and magazines and before long the same
dubious stories would be broadcast on the major networks. The stories would
bounce around for weeks or months until the volume and repetition became
such that only a deaf and blind person could avoid it. This is how the
famous Lewinski sex scandal became serious news and lead to the impeachment
of a President. It started on the Drudge report and ended in the Senate. And
this is only the most famous such story. This same echo chamber also painted
Clinton as a drug runner, an thief, a murderer, as the father of an
illegitimate black child and more. The man couldn't even get a new dog
without some sinister motive being assigned to it.
Politicians got just as ugly during this same period. Newt Gingrich
orchestrated a Republican take over of the House of Representatives, for
example, by unifying all House races under a single tatic. Namely, he sent
out instructions to all candidates telling them to repeatedly refer to
liberals and liberalism as "corrupt", "sick", "perverted" and the like.
There was also a nation wide effort by Republicans to transform the House
through re-districting. Most Americans have heard about the recent efforts
By Tom Delay to do this in Texas, but it has been happening nationwide in
'81, '91 and '01. Not only are they trying to change the borders of
congressional districts in their own favor, which is really nothing new and
is done by both sides, but they've also gone out of their way to make sure
that they are as many Black Democrats as possible. They hope to make
Democrats into the minority party in more ways than one. One of the chief
Republican operatives by the name of Benjamin Ginsberg has dubbed this
effort "operation ratfuck". Did I mention that this was ugly? There is lots
more to tell, but I imagine you see the point by now. Through media and
politics there has been a concerted effort to demonize anything liberal or
intellectual and it has done so by appealing to the most hateful and ugly
sides of human nature. And its working.
like I said, this is only a mediocre answer and things are far more detailed
and complicated than I could ever express in a single post, or even a single
book. But you could probably take any part of this sketch and look it up for
yourself. Its not easy, but its out there. I saw some of this happen first
hand. (I worked in talk radio for five years during this period and am
ashamed to admit that I gave Matt Drudge a microphone way too many times.)
But I'm also not saying anything that hasn't already been written about by
others.
So, the short answer is... The reason that we're looking so fascist these
days is quite simply because people have been working so hard at it.
Thanks,
dmb
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