BElieve me, you'll probably want to be in Africa when the shyt hits the fan in America and you can't get out of the country.Africa nikka. The fukk?
Is America headed towards Fascism?
- Thread starter Unknown Poster
- Start date
'To where bruh?
The Trump phenomenon is going on in every Western nation I can think of.
The Trump Phenomenon = WHITE NATIONALISM
It already started in the EU and UK with Brexit and the US is following suite.
Grano-Grano
The Bando
#2 and #4 at the same damn time. I'm calling it. All scandals under the rug with support of Breitbart News
DynamoEAR
All Star
Where in Africa breh? Ghana seems the only place that's feasible.Africa nikka. The fukk?
Austria and Italy about to be on the bullshyt soon too.
The foul stench of fascism in the US
The foul stench of fascism in the US
"White America may be shocked by the election of Donald Trump, but black and brown America smelt it coming."
By
John Metta
@JohnMetta
John Metta is a writer on racial issues in the US.
Throughout this summer and autumn, I have interviewed fellow minorities, asking them about their feelings and experiences regarding this presidential election. In all of these interviews, one thing was clear: We knew this was coming.
To some of us, it hung like a foul smell in the air. The acrid stench that generations before somehow learned to live with, though it choked them. Many of us coughed and spluttered when that suffocating air filled our lungs. Some of us cried out in warning.
But when those of us who spoke up were heard at all, we were greeted with disbelief, or with laughter. Like some others, I wrote about that laughter.
We were given the assurance that yes, there were some for whom that acrid stench was a breath of fresh air, but those foolish people were few and unimportant. We were told the smell would go away on its own. It went nowhere. It lingered. And it got stronger.
READ MORE: Inside Owsley - America's poorest white county
And for some of us, it was more than a smell. For some unlucky ones such as Kozen Sampson, it became a physical assault.
In February, Kozen parked his car in my beloved town of Hood River, Oregon, to take his dog for a walk. As Kozen told the town's newspaper, "I started to get out of the car, and heard someone yell, 'Hey,' … The car door smacked my head and then my head hit the door frame … I lost part of my memory for about 15 minutes."
When news of the assault hit our small town, it shocked us all. We had a hard time believing it, especially when Kozen reported that the only other words he heard were "F****** Muslim." Kozen, you see, is not a Muslim, he is a Buddhist monk and, in typical Buddhist monk fashion, his response was filled with compassion.
"I am happy it happened to me and not to a Muslim," he said.
People watch Donald Trump deliver his speech after winning the US election [Stephanie Lecocq/EPA]
'I can't feel safe in a third of my own country'
In my church, we spoke at length about the assault and what it meant. By February, we had already seen that racism and white nationalism were on the rise. The fact that an innocent Buddhist monk was attacked at all was shocking, but that he was attacked for being something he wasn't, for being nothing more than "probably not white" was what really smelled.
Still, my town assumed it was isolated. We assumed there was a small minority of people filled with hate.
We assumed that the smell would go away on its own.
For months, news stories abounded about white people verbally or physically attacking minorities, LGBT people, and people with disabilities. Still, many people - mostly white allies - thought that it was rare. Not something to worry about.
Miguel Carlos didn't believe that for a minute.
Miguel is a black designer who was living in Philadelphia in July, but was returning to his native San Francisco. "My white girlfriend and I are moving back to California this summer," he told me then.
I was jokingly worried about being 'a big, opinionated negro' in the south before this summer. But now? It's untenable
Miguel Carlos, designer
"We had originally planned to drive across the country and stop in Atlanta, New Orleans, Austin, and Phoenix. Needless to say, we're not doing that any more." Miguel and his girlfriend took an plane instead. Too many stories of white backlash attacks in too many disparate places made them cancel their trip.
"I was jokingly worried about being 'a big, opinionated negro' in the south before this summer," he said. "But now? It's untenable. It's incredibly sad that in 2016, I can't feel safe in a third of my own country."
Miguel is not alone. By spring, many minority people in America had already changed their behaviour and outlook. Marina (name changed), an Asian artist from Los Angeles, began to avoid eye contact with people on the metro when someone looked at her and said, "Chinese people are so filthy".
"These experiences with remarks, actions and violence have existed before but haven't gotten the attention they're getting now. Also, social media makes sharing these experiences easier than ever before, so things I've encountered I've kept to myself, but with Facebook and Twitter I'm talking about it."
Talking with people throughout the summer, I saw this pattern repeated. Minority people of various ethnic, religious, and racial groups were all doing the same things.
They were talking about the foul smell in the air, pointing out the real danger to anyone who would listen, and they were all being more cautious around white people. Many of them changed their behaviour in small, subtle ways. "I wear headphones more at work now," said Deborah (name changed), a white lesbian woman who wants to remain anonymous for fear of a backlash at the legal practice where she works outside Portland, Oregon.
"Because I just want to avoid the chance of getting into 'that interaction' again."
"That interaction" was being verbally assaulted and called "evil" because she spoke about wanting to marry her partner. Even in Portland, national symbol of quirkiness, a lesbian woman felt afraid to argue for her right to a marriage that the state had already given her.
OPINION: Racism in the US - the melting pot is boiling
William James, a black writer and actor in Orlando, Florida, who did not want his real name used, had a somewhat similar take on avoiding arguments when he talked about the police. "The goal is not to win the argument," he told me. "The goal is to get home alive." William happens to be 4ft tall and his car is fitted with special gearing to allow him to drive only with his hands. It is a car that only someone his size can operate.
"But a white cop pulls me over one day," he told me, "and is looking me up and down, looking at my insurance and my registration, and he asks me 'Is this your car?' I mean, what is that question supposed to mean? We all know what it's supposed to mean. You're looking at my registration, and I have a car only I can drive. I know why you're asking that question, but I'm not going to say that, because the goal is to get home alive, so I just say 'Yes, sir. It is'."
This is America, 2016.
' White men are taking America back … to the 1850s'
I heard similar responses throughout the summer and autumn: Minority people universally spoke of this election as a threat, they spoke of being scared. White people universally saw it as comical, an accidental event that would just disappear, that couldn't really happen here.
Sarah Kendzior warned us of exactly that sentiment. A political writer who studied fascism, Sarah has written of the seriousness of this election in numerous essays, telling us that "it can't happen here" is exactly how fascism happens. Her essays are like a plan for how to avoid a catastrophe, yet it seems that no one wanted to bring her map on this journey.
In August, I warned us too, writing that "we are on the cusp of a historic decision in the US. We can make history and transition from the first black to the first female president. The alternative is to make history by electing our first fascist demagogue." America has made our choice.
Some of us knew this was coming.
The foul stench of fascism in the US
"White America may be shocked by the election of Donald Trump, but black and brown America smelt it coming."
By
John Metta
John Metta is a writer on racial issues in the US.
Throughout this summer and autumn, I have interviewed fellow minorities, asking them about their feelings and experiences regarding this presidential election. In all of these interviews, one thing was clear: We knew this was coming.
To some of us, it hung like a foul smell in the air. The acrid stench that generations before somehow learned to live with, though it choked them. Many of us coughed and spluttered when that suffocating air filled our lungs. Some of us cried out in warning.
But when those of us who spoke up were heard at all, we were greeted with disbelief, or with laughter. Like some others, I wrote about that laughter.
We were given the assurance that yes, there were some for whom that acrid stench was a breath of fresh air, but those foolish people were few and unimportant. We were told the smell would go away on its own. It went nowhere. It lingered. And it got stronger.
READ MORE: Inside Owsley - America's poorest white county
And for some of us, it was more than a smell. For some unlucky ones such as Kozen Sampson, it became a physical assault.
In February, Kozen parked his car in my beloved town of Hood River, Oregon, to take his dog for a walk. As Kozen told the town's newspaper, "I started to get out of the car, and heard someone yell, 'Hey,' … The car door smacked my head and then my head hit the door frame … I lost part of my memory for about 15 minutes."
When news of the assault hit our small town, it shocked us all. We had a hard time believing it, especially when Kozen reported that the only other words he heard were "F****** Muslim." Kozen, you see, is not a Muslim, he is a Buddhist monk and, in typical Buddhist monk fashion, his response was filled with compassion.
"I am happy it happened to me and not to a Muslim," he said.
People watch Donald Trump deliver his speech after winning the US election [Stephanie Lecocq/EPA]
'I can't feel safe in a third of my own country'
In my church, we spoke at length about the assault and what it meant. By February, we had already seen that racism and white nationalism were on the rise. The fact that an innocent Buddhist monk was attacked at all was shocking, but that he was attacked for being something he wasn't, for being nothing more than "probably not white" was what really smelled.
Still, my town assumed it was isolated. We assumed there was a small minority of people filled with hate.
We assumed that the smell would go away on its own.
For months, news stories abounded about white people verbally or physically attacking minorities, LGBT people, and people with disabilities. Still, many people - mostly white allies - thought that it was rare. Not something to worry about.
Miguel Carlos didn't believe that for a minute.
Miguel is a black designer who was living in Philadelphia in July, but was returning to his native San Francisco. "My white girlfriend and I are moving back to California this summer," he told me then.
I was jokingly worried about being 'a big, opinionated negro' in the south before this summer. But now? It's untenable
Miguel Carlos, designer
"We had originally planned to drive across the country and stop in Atlanta, New Orleans, Austin, and Phoenix. Needless to say, we're not doing that any more." Miguel and his girlfriend took an plane instead. Too many stories of white backlash attacks in too many disparate places made them cancel their trip.
"I was jokingly worried about being 'a big, opinionated negro' in the south before this summer," he said. "But now? It's untenable. It's incredibly sad that in 2016, I can't feel safe in a third of my own country."
Miguel is not alone. By spring, many minority people in America had already changed their behaviour and outlook. Marina (name changed), an Asian artist from Los Angeles, began to avoid eye contact with people on the metro when someone looked at her and said, "Chinese people are so filthy".
"These experiences with remarks, actions and violence have existed before but haven't gotten the attention they're getting now. Also, social media makes sharing these experiences easier than ever before, so things I've encountered I've kept to myself, but with Facebook and Twitter I'm talking about it."
Talking with people throughout the summer, I saw this pattern repeated. Minority people of various ethnic, religious, and racial groups were all doing the same things.
They were talking about the foul smell in the air, pointing out the real danger to anyone who would listen, and they were all being more cautious around white people. Many of them changed their behaviour in small, subtle ways. "I wear headphones more at work now," said Deborah (name changed), a white lesbian woman who wants to remain anonymous for fear of a backlash at the legal practice where she works outside Portland, Oregon.
"Because I just want to avoid the chance of getting into 'that interaction' again."
"That interaction" was being verbally assaulted and called "evil" because she spoke about wanting to marry her partner. Even in Portland, national symbol of quirkiness, a lesbian woman felt afraid to argue for her right to a marriage that the state had already given her.
OPINION: Racism in the US - the melting pot is boiling
William James, a black writer and actor in Orlando, Florida, who did not want his real name used, had a somewhat similar take on avoiding arguments when he talked about the police. "The goal is not to win the argument," he told me. "The goal is to get home alive." William happens to be 4ft tall and his car is fitted with special gearing to allow him to drive only with his hands. It is a car that only someone his size can operate.
"But a white cop pulls me over one day," he told me, "and is looking me up and down, looking at my insurance and my registration, and he asks me 'Is this your car?' I mean, what is that question supposed to mean? We all know what it's supposed to mean. You're looking at my registration, and I have a car only I can drive. I know why you're asking that question, but I'm not going to say that, because the goal is to get home alive, so I just say 'Yes, sir. It is'."
This is America, 2016.
' White men are taking America back … to the 1850s'
I heard similar responses throughout the summer and autumn: Minority people universally spoke of this election as a threat, they spoke of being scared. White people universally saw it as comical, an accidental event that would just disappear, that couldn't really happen here.
Sarah Kendzior warned us of exactly that sentiment. A political writer who studied fascism, Sarah has written of the seriousness of this election in numerous essays, telling us that "it can't happen here" is exactly how fascism happens. Her essays are like a plan for how to avoid a catastrophe, yet it seems that no one wanted to bring her map on this journey.
In August, I warned us too, writing that "we are on the cusp of a historic decision in the US. We can make history and transition from the first black to the first female president. The alternative is to make history by electing our first fascist demagogue." America has made our choice.
Some of us knew this was coming.
And now we are living in fascist America.
BocaRear
The World Is My Country, To Do Good Is My Religion
prophetic
The anti-intellectualism and a complete disdain for experts is here.
We live in an era where people think their opinions are equal to an expert's educated understanding.
This is the alternative fact era and thanks to the internet it's global, there is a disinformation war being fought right now
The anti-intellectualism and a complete disdain for experts is here.
We live in an era where people think their opinions are equal to an expert's educated understanding.
This is the alternative fact era and thanks to the internet it's global, there is a disinformation war being fought right now
prophetic
The anti-intellectualism and a complete disdain for experts is here.
We live in an era where people think their opinions are equal to an expert's educated understanding.
This is the alternative fact era and thanks to the internet it's global, there is a disinformation war being fought right now
The sad truth.
Is America Undergoing a Fascist Collapse?
What Americans Still Haven’t Learned About How Democracies Implode
Here’s what happened in America today. The President (after admiring one of the world’s dictators) announced that he would build camps in which to imprison little children forcibly separated from their parents.
Perhaps that makes your blood run cold. Or maybe not. Don’t worry — that’ll happen by the end of this essay, I promise.
Here is the textbook definition of a concentration camp: “a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc.” But funnily, foolishly, and strangely, American media, never noted for its intelligence or bravery, started referring to these as “tent cities” and “prison camps”. They are no such thing. Here we have one of the bona fide, genuine, historical red alert indicators of a fascist collapse — the rise of concentration camps. Are there others? I know — it’s a scary word. A thing no one wants to be. And yet, hiding from reality is no way to escape it. So let’s consider the (other) key indicators of a democracy collapsing into fascism, one by one — and you be the judge.
There is rhetorical dehumanization — the scapegoating of minorities, the vulnerable, immigrants, and anyone different. But not just by anyone — by the heads of political parties, by those in charge of institutions, by the head of state himself.
But dehumanization is not just a rhetorical maneuver. It is also an act — which we call the erosion or stripping away of basic human rights. When a nation puts kids separated from their parents in cages, is that an act of dehumanization, of denying the most basic rights to the most vulnerable people? If it isn’t — would you like it to happen to your kids?
There is the building of parallel, often militarized, institutions. What should be a Department of Immigration becomes something more like a Gestapo. What should be a Border Patrol becomes something more like a Stasi. When uniformed immigration policemen are raiding entire towns, and separating kids from parents, would you say that such institutions have already visibly been constructed?
There is the infiltration of institutions by supremacists, extremists, and nationalists. Right up to the very top of a society’s power structures. Who then use those power structures to spread propaganda and misinformation, to attack the rule of law, to thwart all opposition by any means necessary, to spread hate, spite, fear, and rage. But wasn’t that the last two years in American history?
Then there is the delegitimization of democratic institutions, at home and abroad. When the press is attacked as an enemy, when government posts are left unfilled, when the rule of law is obviously flouted at every turn, when nepotism and favoritism reign, then democracy itself is delegitimized.
There is the proud shaking of hands with other demagogues, authoritarians, and despots — but the angry, vehement, bitter rejection of constitutionally free nations. When a President scorns France, Germany, and Britain — but admires Russia, North Korea, and Turkey, would you say that meets such a bar?
There are appeals to purity, to a declining country’s dwindling prosperity belonging only to a “real” person, who is pure of blood or tribe or soil — which means, of course, others are not people at all. And so plans for policies like “denaturalization”, or the stripping away of citizenship, which mark the point of no return for a democracy, begin.
And there is the idea that the leader himself is the greatest and strongest one of all, above and beyond criticism — as are his underlings. That he does not need to obey norms, rules, or codes — but can transgress them, violate them, flout them. Should he be criticized, the response is not reason, logic, or argument — but fury, rage, propaganda, and vendetta.
Would you say all those are already visible in America today? Not just sometimes — but, at this point, multiple times a day? Again, you are the judge.
But we haven’t gotten to the meat of the issue yet. The above are just dry political indicators of fascist collapse. But they don’t get to the root of what fascism really is, what it means in a historical, philosophical, and psychological sense.
I am going to put it very simply. Fascism is the opposite of all that we should hold closest of all as civilized, enlightened, and reasoned people. It is just that simple — and just that lethal. Why?
The fundamental fascist belief is that some people are born better than others — but in a perverse way. Two key words. Born, better. Let’s start with the first. Not “better” as in “going to cure cancer” or “going to write a great book”, but better as in more vicious, ruthless, and cruel — more capable of dominating the weak. Born — domination is in the blood, and hence, the weak are impure, biologically, genetically, racially, tribally. And so those two words, “born better”, rule out democracy, civilization, reason, justice, and freedom (not to mention humanity, but I digress).
Now. Fascism was born from Nietzscheanism for precisely this reason, because the thrust of his philosophy was that the strong must dominate the weak, to prove that they are the most powerful, because power is the sole end of life, the only thing a human being can “will”, and therefore, the only just society is one in which the weak are abused, ruined, discarded, perhaps even enslaved, ruined, ravaged, and murdered, by the most willfully inhumane.
So the fascist society — which can’t be a democracy, remember — becomes one giant authoritarian exercise is seeing just who these people that are “born better” really are. Who among them is the most cunning, vicious, and ruthless predators of all, the Nietzschean uberman, who can dominate the weak the most savagely? It usually begins like this: can they exploit the weak, the alien, the immigrant, the foreigner, the disabled? Take their wealth and belongings? Kick and punch them down? But it’s a contest now. Who will go further? Soon enough, there is someone willing to put the weak in ghettoes. Then to split up families. Then to put children in camps. And then the unthinkable happens.
That is how good people are made bad, just as they were in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, or the Rwandan genocide. All these are examples of fascism, too, though we don’t often think of them that way.
Now. Already you probably rebel a little, and think I am very, very wrong. That is because American thinking has taught you for too long that, yes, obivously, some people are born better than others. How else would society work? Isn’t that what the point of life is? First, of course, it was whites over blacks. Then it was men over women. Then it was rich over poor. Then it was urban over rural, professional over working class. Or maybe it was all these at once, and it still is.
That is why the Nazis looked to America— yes, really — for inspiration, for orientation, for guidance, about how to put their foolish ideas into practice. Because the fundamental belief that they held was already at work, long before they held, in this country that would later defeat them. And yet it tells us how ironic, how complex, and strange history is — and how little we understand it, too.
To be a civilized, enlightened, reasoned person begins with precisely the opposite belief. No one is born better than anyone else, and none of us are born to be predators. Not a single one of us. I do not know if you will be tomorrow’s Einstein, and you do not know if I will be tomorrow’s Jonas Salk — yet neither of those are any more inherently worthy, really, than a humble nurse or teacher or carpenter, all of whom are necessary for Einsteins and Salks to come to be at all. Hence, we must respect one another, invest in one another, bond with one another, do the hard work of coexisting with one another. America has never really arrived at this point, if you ask me — not fully. And that is why it was so easy for it to have the fascist collapse it is having now — if that, is by now, you believe it may just be having one.
Here is what I think. While Americans have some sense things are going badly wrong, because, among other reasons, their media, intellectuals, and thinkers refuse to name things for what they are, I also think they don’t quite understand: America is now beginning to undergo a classic fascist collapse. The kind that they will teach in the history books of the future, if it goes on even for another year or two. Concentration camps are one sign. But the others are there, too. And yet the biggest sign of all isn’t a social indicator, but a fatally mistaken idea. One which I bet you yourself still even probably believe a little bit, deep down: some people are born better than others. Once a society believes that, even if it doesn’t know it, democracy collapsing into fascism is only ever a demagogue away.
Ah, you see? Remember when I said I’d make your blood run cold?
Umair
June 2018
Is America Undergoing a Fascist Collapse? – Eudaimonia and Co
What Americans Still Haven’t Learned About How Democracies Implode
Here’s what happened in America today. The President (after admiring one of the world’s dictators) announced that he would build camps in which to imprison little children forcibly separated from their parents.
Perhaps that makes your blood run cold. Or maybe not. Don’t worry — that’ll happen by the end of this essay, I promise.
Here is the textbook definition of a concentration camp: “a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc.” But funnily, foolishly, and strangely, American media, never noted for its intelligence or bravery, started referring to these as “tent cities” and “prison camps”. They are no such thing. Here we have one of the bona fide, genuine, historical red alert indicators of a fascist collapse — the rise of concentration camps. Are there others? I know — it’s a scary word. A thing no one wants to be. And yet, hiding from reality is no way to escape it. So let’s consider the (other) key indicators of a democracy collapsing into fascism, one by one — and you be the judge.
There is rhetorical dehumanization — the scapegoating of minorities, the vulnerable, immigrants, and anyone different. But not just by anyone — by the heads of political parties, by those in charge of institutions, by the head of state himself.
But dehumanization is not just a rhetorical maneuver. It is also an act — which we call the erosion or stripping away of basic human rights. When a nation puts kids separated from their parents in cages, is that an act of dehumanization, of denying the most basic rights to the most vulnerable people? If it isn’t — would you like it to happen to your kids?
There is the building of parallel, often militarized, institutions. What should be a Department of Immigration becomes something more like a Gestapo. What should be a Border Patrol becomes something more like a Stasi. When uniformed immigration policemen are raiding entire towns, and separating kids from parents, would you say that such institutions have already visibly been constructed?
There is the infiltration of institutions by supremacists, extremists, and nationalists. Right up to the very top of a society’s power structures. Who then use those power structures to spread propaganda and misinformation, to attack the rule of law, to thwart all opposition by any means necessary, to spread hate, spite, fear, and rage. But wasn’t that the last two years in American history?
Then there is the delegitimization of democratic institutions, at home and abroad. When the press is attacked as an enemy, when government posts are left unfilled, when the rule of law is obviously flouted at every turn, when nepotism and favoritism reign, then democracy itself is delegitimized.
There is the proud shaking of hands with other demagogues, authoritarians, and despots — but the angry, vehement, bitter rejection of constitutionally free nations. When a President scorns France, Germany, and Britain — but admires Russia, North Korea, and Turkey, would you say that meets such a bar?
There are appeals to purity, to a declining country’s dwindling prosperity belonging only to a “real” person, who is pure of blood or tribe or soil — which means, of course, others are not people at all. And so plans for policies like “denaturalization”, or the stripping away of citizenship, which mark the point of no return for a democracy, begin.
And there is the idea that the leader himself is the greatest and strongest one of all, above and beyond criticism — as are his underlings. That he does not need to obey norms, rules, or codes — but can transgress them, violate them, flout them. Should he be criticized, the response is not reason, logic, or argument — but fury, rage, propaganda, and vendetta.
Would you say all those are already visible in America today? Not just sometimes — but, at this point, multiple times a day? Again, you are the judge.
But we haven’t gotten to the meat of the issue yet. The above are just dry political indicators of fascist collapse. But they don’t get to the root of what fascism really is, what it means in a historical, philosophical, and psychological sense.
I am going to put it very simply. Fascism is the opposite of all that we should hold closest of all as civilized, enlightened, and reasoned people. It is just that simple — and just that lethal. Why?
The fundamental fascist belief is that some people are born better than others — but in a perverse way. Two key words. Born, better. Let’s start with the first. Not “better” as in “going to cure cancer” or “going to write a great book”, but better as in more vicious, ruthless, and cruel — more capable of dominating the weak. Born — domination is in the blood, and hence, the weak are impure, biologically, genetically, racially, tribally. And so those two words, “born better”, rule out democracy, civilization, reason, justice, and freedom (not to mention humanity, but I digress).
Now. Fascism was born from Nietzscheanism for precisely this reason, because the thrust of his philosophy was that the strong must dominate the weak, to prove that they are the most powerful, because power is the sole end of life, the only thing a human being can “will”, and therefore, the only just society is one in which the weak are abused, ruined, discarded, perhaps even enslaved, ruined, ravaged, and murdered, by the most willfully inhumane.
So the fascist society — which can’t be a democracy, remember — becomes one giant authoritarian exercise is seeing just who these people that are “born better” really are. Who among them is the most cunning, vicious, and ruthless predators of all, the Nietzschean uberman, who can dominate the weak the most savagely? It usually begins like this: can they exploit the weak, the alien, the immigrant, the foreigner, the disabled? Take their wealth and belongings? Kick and punch them down? But it’s a contest now. Who will go further? Soon enough, there is someone willing to put the weak in ghettoes. Then to split up families. Then to put children in camps. And then the unthinkable happens.
That is how good people are made bad, just as they were in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, or the Rwandan genocide. All these are examples of fascism, too, though we don’t often think of them that way.
Now. Already you probably rebel a little, and think I am very, very wrong. That is because American thinking has taught you for too long that, yes, obivously, some people are born better than others. How else would society work? Isn’t that what the point of life is? First, of course, it was whites over blacks. Then it was men over women. Then it was rich over poor. Then it was urban over rural, professional over working class. Or maybe it was all these at once, and it still is.
That is why the Nazis looked to America— yes, really — for inspiration, for orientation, for guidance, about how to put their foolish ideas into practice. Because the fundamental belief that they held was already at work, long before they held, in this country that would later defeat them. And yet it tells us how ironic, how complex, and strange history is — and how little we understand it, too.
To be a civilized, enlightened, reasoned person begins with precisely the opposite belief. No one is born better than anyone else, and none of us are born to be predators. Not a single one of us. I do not know if you will be tomorrow’s Einstein, and you do not know if I will be tomorrow’s Jonas Salk — yet neither of those are any more inherently worthy, really, than a humble nurse or teacher or carpenter, all of whom are necessary for Einsteins and Salks to come to be at all. Hence, we must respect one another, invest in one another, bond with one another, do the hard work of coexisting with one another. America has never really arrived at this point, if you ask me — not fully. And that is why it was so easy for it to have the fascist collapse it is having now — if that, is by now, you believe it may just be having one.
Here is what I think. While Americans have some sense things are going badly wrong, because, among other reasons, their media, intellectuals, and thinkers refuse to name things for what they are, I also think they don’t quite understand: America is now beginning to undergo a classic fascist collapse. The kind that they will teach in the history books of the future, if it goes on even for another year or two. Concentration camps are one sign. But the others are there, too. And yet the biggest sign of all isn’t a social indicator, but a fatally mistaken idea. One which I bet you yourself still even probably believe a little bit, deep down: some people are born better than others. Once a society believes that, even if it doesn’t know it, democracy collapsing into fascism is only ever a demagogue away.
Ah, you see? Remember when I said I’d make your blood run cold?
Umair
June 2018
Is America Undergoing a Fascist Collapse? – Eudaimonia and Co
Betty Draper
Pro
I’m not sure if fascism could play into it, although it’s possible because there are some serious patriotic people in that country. I do believe the US is heading towards serious political upheaval in a few decades. It’s been building up slowly. 9/11, Bush, recession and now Trump. America’s social cracks are being exposed to the world. MSM covering BLM, how Obama and his family were treated, Alt Right vs modern liberal, gun control argument. This can go left in many ways especially because America has so many guns! It’s still mind blowing to me that anyone can walk into a supermarket & buy a gun lol. That’s crazy to me. If anything goes down, the government may become totalitarian and use the amount of guns on the street as a reason why they need to have more power. To ‘protect’ everyone from the chaos. Social media will play a part. We laugh about it but it is a big part of human interaction now. People can play on that to start a fire. Like the Russian bots posing as both black and white Alt Right Americans.
Having concentration camps is a hallmark of fascism. It's very obvious America is turning into a fascist country under the Trump Administration. The exacerbation of racism, the blatant displays of white supremacy, rampant corruption, distinct and palpable anti-intellectualism, the significance of enemies and the demonization of "others", the embrace of nationalism, the worship of the military, the fear mongering and taking advantage of insecurities of the populace...if you can't see that it is headed in this direction, I really don't know what to tell you. Also, Americans are really shortsighted when it comes to history so it's really no surprise that it keeps on repeating itself over and over again.
Also, about Melania's jacket that said "I really don't care. Do You?" The phrase I don't care has much historical significance in regards to fascism.
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Also, about Melania's jacket that said "I really don't care. Do You?" The phrase I don't care has much historical significance in regards to fascism.
POLEMIC
FASCISM
HISTORY
A brief (fascist) history of ‘I don’t care’
- By Giovanni Tiso
- 22.Jun.18
- 4 Comments
This article was sparked by the jacket that Melania Trump wore as she travelled to a detention camp for migrant children, but my intent isn’t to argue that she or her staff chose that jacket in order to send a coded message to the president’s far-right followers. It is, rather, to highlight some of the historical echoes of that phrase – ‘I don’t care’.
The echoes of which someone ought to have been aware, especially in an administration that includes – to put it mildly – several far-right sympathisers. And also to show that the attitude, the theatrical ‘not caring’, was an explicit character trait of Fascism.
Which, at the very least, seems a troubling coincidence.
Fascism lay its roots in the campaign for Italy’s late entry in the First World War, of which Mussolini was one of the leaders. It was at this time that the phrase ‘me ne frego’ – which at the time was still considered quite vulgar, along the lines of the English ‘I don’t give a fukk’ – was sung by members of the special force known as arditi (literally: ‘the daring ones’) who volunteered for the front, to signify that they didn’t care if they should lose their lives.
The arditi were disbanded after the war, but many of them volunteered in 1919 for an expedition led by the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio to capture the city of Fiume (Rijeka, in present-day Croatia) and claim it for Italy during the vacuum created by the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire. At the time of this occupation, former arditi also formed the backbone of the original Black Squads during the terror campaigns that began in 1919 and culminated with the ‘March on Rome’ of 1922, which completed Fascism’s swift rise to power.
This lapel pin worn by an original member of the Black Shirts was recently sold on a website devoted to military memorabilia. It is emblazoned with the words ‘Me ne frego’ underneath the original symbol of the arditi and the acronym FERT (which stands for the motto of the Royal Family). The seller calls it ‘bellissimo’.
‘Me ne frego’ was the title of one of the most famous songs of the Fascist era. Its original version, dating around 1920, hails D’Annunzio and Mussolini as the fathers of the fascist movement, recycling the old war song of the arditi as the third stanza.
Me ne frego I don’t care
me ne frego I don’t care
me ne frego è il nostro motto, I don’t care is our motto
me ne frego di morire I don’t care if I should die
per la santa libertà! … For our sacred freedom! …
Later versions removed mentions of D’Annunzio, who faded fairly quickly into the background. In the meantime, Mussolini made the slogan his own, and explicitly elevated it to the philosophy of the regime.
The meaning of ‘Me ne frego’
The proud Black-Shirt motto ‘I don’t care’ written on the bandages that cover a wound isn’t just an act of stoic philosophy or the summary of a political doctrine. It’s an education to fighting, and the acceptance of the risks it implies. It’s a new Italian lifestyle. This is how the Fascist welcomes and loves life, while rejecting and regarding suicide as an act of cowardice; this is how the Fascist understands life as duty, exaltation, conquest. A life that must be lived highly and fully, both for oneself but especially for others, near and far, present and future.
The connotations of altruism at the end of the quote are in direct contrast with the meaning taken on by the word menefreghismo (literally, ‘Idontcareism’), which ever since the regime has meant in common parlance a kind of detached self-reliance, or moral autocracy. Just as Italy broke with its former allies and charted a stubborn path towards the ruin and devastation of the Second World War, so too the Fascist citizen was encouraged to reject the judgement of others and look straight ahead. It should be remembered in this regard that the regime treated ignorance and proclivity to violence as desirable qualities to be rewarded with positions of influence and power. This required a swift redrawing of the old social norms, and of the language used to signify the moral worth of individuals. ‘Me ne frego’ was the perfect slogan for the people in charge of overseeing such a program.
Four years ago, speaking at a First World War commemoration in the small town of Redipuglia, Pope Francis linked ‘me ne frego’ not only with the carnage of that conflict, but also with the horrors of Fascism, recognising its ideological and propaganda value for Mussolini’s project. This is the form in which the slogan has survived until the present day, as a linguistic signifier not of generic indifference, but of ideological nostalgia. And because the attempts in Italy and beyond to stem the spread of such signifiers have been comprehensively abandoned, we readily find those words appearing not just on seemingly ubiquitous Fascist-era memorabilia but also on posters,
t-shirts,
or this line of stickers that can be purchased for $.193 from Redbubble (motto ‘awesome products designed by independent artists’), where it was uploaded by user ‘fashdivision’.
The international neofascist movement is of course well aware of this lineage. By way of example, if you search for it online you’ll find a long-running English-language podcast called Me ne frego which recycles this imagery in support of arguments against immigration and multiculturalism, or to opine on the subject of ‘the Jewish question’. I don’t doubt that people close both to the Trump administration and this world are similarly cognisant of the uses to which those three words have been put. But even for those who aren’t, claims to indifference have a history which we mustn’t allow ourselves to forget.
Image: jacket Melania Trump wore to US detention camps.
Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places.
If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribeor donate.
Giovanni Tiso is an Italian writer and translator based in Aotearoa/New Zealand. His PhD examined the relationship between memory and technology. He blogs at Bat, Bean, Beam and tweets as @gtiso. He edited Issue 219: Winter 2015 Aotearoa edition of Overland.
More by Giovanni Tiso
https://overland.org.au/2018/06/a-brief-fascist-history-of-i-dont-care/
Trump is praising dictators like Duerte and Kim Jong Un. Calling the media "the greatest enemy of the people". Seperating children from immigrant families and putting them into camps. Letting police run wild without accountability. At war with the government and the American public. In collusion with foreign powers that have been trying to undermine American Democracy for decades. Taking millions and possibly billions in dirty money. How is he not a fascist? The White House hasn't had a Press Conference since MONDAY!
Seriously what the hell is it going to take to wake people up and yo I aint trying to be buzzkill or negative nancy or fearmonger but America has sunken down the depths of so many levels of fascism its mindblowing!
Seriously what the hell is it going to take to wake people up and yo I aint trying to be buzzkill or negative nancy or fearmonger but America has sunken down the depths of so many levels of fascism its mindblowing!
This needs to be its own thread.
This nikka a genius lol.