The End of America

[Guest]

Re: The End of America

Bart -

Although what you say is true, defending freedom starts at home and expands from there. My take is that is what Rajiv is saying.

The housecleaning can indeed much better start at home, than it ever can abroad.

If you try to apply Thomas Paine's ideas abroad in troubled parts of the world, your admirable actions will be quite brusquely and unceremoniously co-opted by some nation state players that give a whole new meaning to the term "ruthless".

Hence practically the only place we can begin the "Thomas Paine" purification is right here at home. Not abroad, because the abroad is a snake pit of utterly cynical interests, whose machinery has been grinding away with the same cynical inevitability for millennia. Nations do not have allies, they only have "interests" which means they are generally taking a bite out of things and spitting out the small bones.

America has had a long love affair with the public illusion that high principle could be brought to bear on international affairs, while it schizophrenically carried out it's actions much more cynically, in direct contravention to it's delusions of operating on Wilsonian principle. Many foreign nations more experienced than America in foreign policy must have been looking at our international Wilsonian delusions for decades with utter amazement.

It's one thing to talk about deterioration of American civil liberties, and it's a very serious matter. Being an agent of instability and consequent bloodshed in other countries is also a very serious matter indeed, with severe consequences. But be prepared to dump those principles at least partially out of the window in international affairs, because Woodrow Wilson demonstrated all too well how brilliantly the application of principled idealism translates into world peace (NOT!). It's not a bad objective, and one should always attempt to steer towards it, but the real world leeway to follow it's precepts literally is the cherished illusion of every presidential hopeful before they actually wind up inside the office.

Wilsonian idealism in international affairs is strictly hit and miss in terms of results. Ask the French, who have steered a reasonably rational course in the past seventy years internationally by adhereing strictly to the art of the possible.

[bart]

Re: The End of America

...
My whole point is, it's one thing to talk about deterioration of American civil liberties, and it's a very serious matter. But be prepared to dump those principles at least partially out of the window in international affairs, because Woodrow Wilson demonstrated all too well how brilliantly the application of principled idealism translates into world peace (NOT!).
...

Ah yes, grasshopper... but the subject as I understood it actually is overall freedom and issues in the U.S., but I also admit I don't know Rajiv's full viewpoint.

Principled idealism alone *never* works, and if it appears to then one has just not found or seen the full picture including behind the scenes actions.

To counter balance Wilson and then some, go back just a few years to the man who spoke softly and carried a big stick... and did his homework too.

[Guest]

Re: The End of America

Thanks for all your sober input Bart.

I have greatest respect for Rajiv. He's actually one of my favorite posters around here with a very fine sensibility, very widely read, and keenly intelligent - but he drives me barmy sometimes.

You hear that Rajiv? You drive me barmy sometimes (and I'm sure I'm doing a good job driving you up a tree as well!) !! :rolleyes:

[bart]

Re: The End of America

Moi? Sober?!? Where have I gone wrong?
http://www.nowandfutures.com/grins/burp.wav ;)

Without some barmy now & then, what would we do for amusement?... :eek:

[BiscayneSunrise]

Re: The End of America

Right after 9/11, it was popular to say that the world changed on that day. My response was the world didn't change on 9/11, it was just that the average American got a much better and visceral understanding of the world in just a couple of hours.

With that in mind, I believe that both sides of this argument are correct and suggect that this debate is not a new one.

I do find it bothersome that it is so easy for people to cry "security" as a way to shut down debate or dissent (try debating regulations while at an airport security checkpoint or a flight attendant or my favorite, among anti-growth people, a new development/industrial plant could potentially be the target for terorists)

While we may be on a slipperly slope in many areas, human rights are still better protected here in the US than probably anywhere else in the world. For instance, a westerner may feel more free to do as they please in places like Vietnam, Uraguay or Ukraine but cross the wrong people there and I'm sure it would be immeasurably more difficult to extricate oneself than it would be in the US.

It is important as Americans to insist on civil liberties while remembering we live in a dangerous world where other groups would love to see our demise.

It is a delicate balance, which is perhaps why Lady Justice carries both a scale and a sword.

[Guest]

Re: The End of America

OK, I just slogged through Naomi Wolf's article posted here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps


<< From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all >>

This is Ms. Wolf's thesis, and she sets about constructing it's logical compartments with a workmanlike but slightly rigid conceptual style. Everything written must illustrate the "Fascism in Ten Easy Steps", with easy to understand parallels to all the other places in history where those ten steps were followed , so we can get a "before and after" glimpse of where America is inevitably going.

As I progress through this article I feel the literary "steel shoehorn", dynamically following it's agenda, unimaginatively and mercilessly squeezing assertions in with facts into the "ten steps boxes" - to make all the analogies "fit" our hapless predicament under this Republican Administration.

The (she suggests - I will refrain an opinion) ideologically plug-ugly resident of the White House is the bright Republican spark bringing all this about, the "brilliantly evil motive force" that's inspiring it all. - But meanwhile, apparently unnoticed by Ms. Wolf, her perhaps ill advisedly partisan political logic winds her up in something of a box itself - specifically because of some events coming up in the near future.

I don't have the patience, and no-one here has the patience probably, to pick the whole article apart. But if you do read it through you'll maybe see the (political, of course) box Ms. Wolf is unwittingly packing herself into, by describing this whole creep to Fascism as A) "dire" and B) produced by "right wing neo-con etc. etc". (And no, this is not because neo-cons aren't costing us a tremendous political and financial capital - they have, but the issue is another one entirely). It's all about her description of the inroads on democracy wrought specifically by this "Republican Administration".

OK, say they have indeed done all of that damage. And they probably have one of the worst records imaginable in that regard, with all the "emergency powers" the current administration wishes to accrue to itself. I feel the fear and apprehension too. But I'm not sure I see the coherence in Ms. Wolf's thesis - in how it extends itself into the next four or eight years along the lines she's thinking, which are all about exceedingly "dire peril".

What happens to this author's thesis, of the "unmistakeable signs of the rise of Fascism in America" when the Democrats win the elections? :rolleyes: Will we have the same civil rights squeeze going on under the Democrats? Or does the "dire peril" meekly pack it's bags and go back to the dark netherworld in the weeks and months after a Democratic inauguration 2008?

The thesis I read posted by so many members of iTulip is more flexible than Naomi's. The rise of authoritarianism is suggested by many of it's proponents here as being created by irresolvable massive debt burdens (ties back to Naomi's Weimar, but differently). That seems a much more plausible thesis, because it is much more curtailed in the extent of it's speculation - it merely observes the extet of the financial disarray. So probably, the iTulipers here who also believe in the rise of authoritarianism think it's only rational that if there is real authoritarian strains emerging here, they'll keep right on rolling under left of center administrations as well, because the causes are recognized by people in this community as being t the roots a financial implosion which is now seemingly inevitable?

I'm a lot more on board with that possibility.

So my question is, and it's a question Ms. Wolf seems to box herself in on most clumsily, is this authoritarianism something that is really neither left nor right ? I thought you were supposed to have to go far to the left of plain vanlla center-left American liberal to re-encounter Fascist strains, where they approach the far right strains of the same ailment at the far side of the political circle? Or is this neo or proto Fascism (or whatever the know it all's call it now), as Ms. Wolf seems to reiterate many times, a product of an aberrant Republican administration alone?

If it's just the Republican administration that is causing all this nasty neo-fascist regurgitation of past failed history, how grave an issue is this, given that Hillary Clinton or some other liberal Democrat will be taking over shortly and we can all presumably breath a sigh of relief and shelve the whole bad dream of rising Fascism in America?

Here's what I find wearying about having Ms. Wolf as the standard bearer for my concerns about encroaching authoritarianism in this country - What's overtly implied by Ms. Wolf, if we remove the rightwingers who are instigating all this bad, bad stuff, and promptly install a Democratic administration, then the "Fascist America in Ten Easy Steps" she has laid out for us so graphically along party lines must immediately pack it's dirty bag of sleazy tricks and go away, no?

Where in Ms. Wolf's passionate call for "vigilance" does she try to give her thesis a little more depth or dimensionality, by venturing into an analysis of the potential rise of authoritarianism in this country that might thrive equally under a pacifist, Democratic administration too? And conversely, if that pacifist Democratic administration is antithetical to Fascism, then the whole Fascism thingy was a big noisy boondoggle! ??

And so if we can install a Democrat government who will summarily remove us from half the foreign bases, and all the wars in the world in which this country became stupidly embroiled, then the "inevitability" and "dire peril" of Fascism Ms. Wolf has been warning us about must have been over-estimated? In the end, we simply voted out a bad government and suddenly the Fascist danger went away? Wow, "defeating Fascism" was sure easy there, huh? All we had to do was vote the other guys! :rolleyes:

So what have we gained from reading Ms. Wolf?

Thesis # 1) Republicans will slide us into Fascism out of kneejerk fear. Unless we veer to the center left, we will / must go to that bad place. Ergo, Fascism is a political problem, rooted in the differences between the LEFT and the RIGHT (here I emit a cavernous yawn and slide out of my chair in a sleepy stupor).

Thesis # 2) As soon as we elect a center left government back to the Whitehouse all this will be rolled back, the US will re-demonstrate the vitality of it's two party democratic process, and the "rise of Fascism in America" will be blown away like a bad dream?

Problem: - Ms. Wolf can't have it both ways. Either this is a rising, deeply rooted, truly dire threat which will render even Hillary Clinton's government just as corrosive to liberty as was the Bush administration, or the Democrats will be the cure, and make all the bad neo-Fascist stuff "go away". If the Democrats can make neo-Fascism "go away" however, that means we never really had fascism at all, because whatever it was, we simply VOTED IT OUT!

Which is it to be, Ms. Wolf? If Hillary is elected and we can all breath a sigh of relief, where was your deadly threat to Democracy in this country lurking? We voted it out!

This is the kind of ideologically cramped, two dimensional "resistance to Fascism" which makes me feel, if I ever went to the barricades with these people, that I would be hanging out with people who's minds are in an ideological shoebox. They have some "clear ideas" about the left and the right which frankly leave me bewildered. I might join them on those barricades if things got bad enough - but I'd always feel slightly like I was living the experience on some kind of two dimensional acid trip in terms of the breadth of political horizons which such people employ to get where they want to be going.

[Orforded]

Re: The End of America

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.” - Thomas Paine


BERKELEY, Calif.--A Halliburton subsidiary has just received a $385 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security to provide "temporary detention and processing capabilities."- New America Media, Feb 08, 2006

"At some point you have to have some trust in the courts and media to protect us from such abuses."

Hmm. I am a lawyer and I can tell you first hand that to access the protection of the courts, one needs lots of $$$$$. And as to the media, which Murdoch franchise are we going to rely on?

My first post, hope I didn't screw it up.

[Guest]

Re: The End of America

Orforded -

You need to refer this observation to Brucec42, as you are quoting him, not me.

This sort of thing is why I can't share this website with anyone I know. It's borderline kooky ... At some point you have to have some trust in the courts and media to protect us from such abuses. Maybe I missed something, has the Bush administration had any political enemies jailed w/o trial yet?

_____________

With regard to financial "barriers to entry" for people of lesser means to obtain effective legal represenation in the US, your observations are of the "activist for change" variety, because you are merely observing a process that has existed for decades, under many different administrations.

I certainly don't object to your views, nor have I posted comments contrary to your expressed views about what's wrong, if you'll check. Under both Republican and Democrat administrations going back a good number of decades, we've had a legal system thriving on the highly litigious "commercialization" of legal interests in this country that absolutely are not this much exploited to multiply lawsuits in many other countries in the world.

We are a very litigious society, which in part is why your profession are able to derive a higher standard of living from it than (for example) many solicitors in European countries, and certainly so in many other parts of the world, where solicitor's function and opportunities are far minor.

The courts in many European countries provide perhaps lower barriers to entry in terms of expense, but having lived there 25 years I assure you they more than compensate for that in the "entropy" department (in some countries - not all) by reducing legal procedure to a glacially dysfunctional pace which makes American court cases seem like world class sprinters in comparison.

As for honey-pot deals between the Department of Homeland Security and Halliburton, if that contract was not won on an open bid and on competitive criteria it's an open disgrace, and I'm aware this process has been considerably abused under the current administration.

I'm only slightly to the right of center politically, and I really don't like fitting haplessly into anybody's political stereotype cookie cutter, so if you automatically tag me as "one of those conservatives" and think you have my views all mapped, I resent it.

Despite my emphatic arguments against silly cartoon stereotypes of this administration, created and hugely popularized by too many intellectually lazy Liberals who seem incapable of putting forward instead the many perfectly legitimate (and devastating) arguments that could indeed be made, I never voted for this president and government, either the first or the second times.

May I ask why you are addressing these observations about a faulty legal system and bid-rigging for Halliburton to me? Is it perhaps because these are critiques which liberals habitually address to conservatives and you've read some posts of mine and interpreted them to imply that I'm "Conservative" according to the textbook of what "all Conservatives are supposed to think"?

If so, I suggest the smart Liberals and Conservatives all rise above such partisan position taking to evaluate, approve and condemn multiple issues in a politically agnostic way, that cuts straight across all ideological stereotypes and all party lines. This may be a rare bird, and I regret that if you've encountered very few of them, your faith that they exist may be diminished.

It's just my view, but I think Left - Right ideology is for dummies.

[Spartacus]

Re: Fred is Right - It's the TREND needs watching

Nah, actually what he said was

"all it takes to stop evil is to shout loudly it's not happening and make fun of and try to shout down people who say it's happening."

So there is reason for hope, both in historical context and in the pushback we are seeing from both the Right (Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, etc.) and Left (ACLU, US attorney scandals, etc.).

But as a very famous patriot said "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance".

[sunny129]

Re: The End of America



Those willing to trade liberty for security, deserve neither!
Ben Franklin

One more '9/11' like event leads to Patriot act III - Marshal law. (Remember how many lawmakers even knew/read the Patriot act I, when it got passed 99-1). Fascism will be accepted as a necessary evil in the name of national security and survival. Main media has become a lap dog of White house. Otherwise we wouldn't have Iraq mess.

Ms. Wolf may sound extreme but events since 2003 make her arguments less than rediculous like some of you suggest.

[Guest]

Re: The End of America

Sunny129 -

If you read my posts you'd note I conceded Ms. Wolf indeed has a valid issue. I just don't like some of her (one-sided) exaggerations, particularly the large international issues she omits factoring in that initially prompted this chain of events over here.

You take the same lopsided view she does. You say "if we have another 09/11 then we'll really slide into fascism", as though the only issue worthy of comment there was what your government did in response, not those who actually carry out that second 09/11 itself?

You comment on this without making the smallest reference to the issues occurring outside the US which brought that second 09/11 here.

The vast majority of people hyperventilating about the curtailment of our freedoms are so far removed from previous generations of Americans, that they would look blankly at another bombing of Pearl Harbor as even being an act of war. That is to say, the only villain you seem to have in your universe worth getting concerned about is your own government (that's fine, they are a disaster and they probably deserve our concern, but do you really have the whole picture?), so when someone or other bombs the crap out of five, or ten or twenty thousand of your CIVILIAN countrymen INTENTIONALLY you are anxiously examining your government for signs it may be impairing your civil liberties? What's missing in this picture (which frankly seems more like a cartoon to my mind)?

Do you know what an act of war is, generally speaking? How about a dirty bomb which takes out 30,000 people next time, rather than 3000? Think it really can't happen, and this is all sinister government inspired propaganda? If so, you are living in a cocoon. The republic of Slovakia just busted a small group attempting to sell, for a measly one million USD, enough enriched uranium tailings to make a decent sized dirty bomb, and the US borders despite the buffoonery of Homeland Security are Swiss Cheese, with 98% of all containers coming into Los Angeles harbor not even inspected.

Forget that your buddies tell you that all that alarmism spread (and heavily abused) by NEWSMAX is the Government and Dick Cheney trying to manipulate your viewpoint. If you believe these risks are not real, then you are living in a state of considerable innocence.

Have you read a little history? There was a time, long ago, when nations believed that if they were massively attacked, along with casting a beady eye upon infringement of their civil liberties by their own government, they did also cast a beady eye on those people who had just bombed the daylights out of their countrymen. But I surmise that kind of thinking is dismissed as "reactionary" or some such tripe today.

It is this slightly limp, "late epoch" American, who no longer understands that if he witnesses an industrial scale terrorist event mowing down 3000, or 30,000 of his countrymen, that is not something he has the luxury of leaving entirely to "his government" - that instead, like it or not, it is also his own responsibility, to have a coherent response when some entity outside of your country comes in and blows your ass up.

If in response to this, you are then looking merely to your own government in a critical appraisal of that "second 09/11" as you put it, to analyze it's shortcomings to the exclusion of all else - this could be rationally described as having a childish quality to it, because you are omitting a serious understanding of the other half of the picture? Ms. Wolf disappoints me because she also simply ignores any part of this recognition - for her it's a soft pillow-down of silence about which she has "no comment".

You would need to demonstrate the same sense of responsibility to the people coming in to your country from abroad, who came in to bring about this "second 09/11", as you might have if those who died from it were your own immediate family members. Then it may inspire you to look at the things Ms. Wolf does not talk about, while you instead portray the entire event as entirely a matter of your government's paranoid response, with no other comment as to who from abroad did some shocking thing against civilians in a premeditated, willfull, planned way, which would be a good part of what was causing your government to get paranoid in the first place!

To give you an idea how far people with this mindset have come from their origins, an American from sixty years ago would regard this kind of nerveless response to a terrorist mass attack upon your civilian countrymen with some amazement.

Sunny129, my post above asked the question, if you bring in a peace-loving, left of center government in 2008, but then notice that the encroachment of civil liberties here continues, then this whole disapproval of the Bush administration on your part is missing the main point, see? It's not Republican or Democrat - it's a combination of real mass terror events, and really severe economic events, and the Bush administration is only one part of what you should be condemning - you are reasoning just like Ms. Wolf does down a one-way street, imagining that by removing this admittedly poor government you remove the problem! NOT!

Change your government, and the US catastrophic debt is not changed one iota - that debt has been built over many administrations. Change your government, and the really nasty little fuckers organized overseas currently in the process of subverting the proud people of Lebanon, together with the various other really nasty little fuckers scattered up in the Afghanistan - Pakistan mountains, are all just as likely to get their jollies from trying the "hypothetical 09/11 number two you have mentioned. Except you mentioned it as only something of interest to you insofar as it may cause your government to become more repressive. What is it you are missing here in the wider picture?

[Orforded]

Re: The End of America

Lukester, my apologies. I did not intend my message to be a direct response to you, rather a general post to the forum. This was my first post, and obviously I didn't get it right, reminding me that one of my favorit quotes:

"A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again." - Alexander Pope

applies not only to the sublime but also the mundane, like figuring out how to post messages correctly. My response was in fact more directed to Bruce 42 but I neglected to identify him as making the statement.

As far as Lukester is concerned, I have been decidedly impressed by the level of engaged discourse between you and other posters. I totally agree that casting identity in the right/left genre often defeats the meaningful exchange of ideas- once you marginalize the other, its easy to disregard what they say.

I joined iTulip yesterday because I was intrigued by Eric Jansen's economic insights and wanted to gain investment ideas from his perspective. But, stumbling on this forum I got aborbed in the very thoughtful dialogue, spending the better part of yesterday afternoon reading all of the posts, even though I didn't watch the video- limited to dial up here in the wilderness, takes forever to download video. I didn't learn much about investing but it was sure an interesting discussion. What I did learn is that most of the posts I read were the product of careful thought, intelligence and consideration. This alone lends credibility to the posters and thereby gives me a comfort level when I get around to listening to the forum's views on the economy and investing.

I look forward to it.

[Guest]

Re: The End of America

Orforded -

Thanks for your gracious reply. And welcome to iTulip!

[sunny129]

Re: The End of America

Lukester:

All the points you have raised is well taken but focusing on '9/11' only and not prior to the world, when USA got away 1.with 'colonial' treatment of countries in not step with her interest 2. Anti democratic-destabalization of Govts by CIA operatives eg Argentina, Iran, Pakistan etc etc, is deceptive. Rajiv has brought up these factors nicely on his posts previously. One has to accept USA foreign policy during the later half of 20th century had put the seed for the current resentment from the world. It acted like a brazen bully and the same time preached on a moral high ground, on various platforms like democracy, free speech, free press, liberty, free market and capitalism. Hypocrisy at it's worst and world swallowed it up for a while but not any more!

Right after 9/11, the whole civilised world was behind USA. But Bush/Cheney ( neo cons) completely squandered that good will and a golden opportunity to put the nation on self reliance on energy and other progressive policies for which public was willing to sacrifice. We had budget surplus! Even the master bubbler Mr Greenspan uttered the word' oil' asthe sole cause for invasion of Iraq!

The credibility of our Govt lead by Bush/cheney is suspect. so is mainstream Media controlled by 6-7 giant coroporations. American foreign policy is controlled by major corporations for the several past 4-5 decades. Remember Eisenhower's 'military- industrial' complex!

Goldman sachs is on record (see Ben Stein's article on yesterday's NYT) having sold-long atleast 100 billion 'toxic' loans to public on clients' money but short on the same securities by parters' money and made a bundle! It was done under Henry Paulson, the current Secry of Treasury NOW trying to head a solution for the mess created partly by his/cronies own doing. This summarizes the situation at the Govt. You want me to believe what they say, broadcast and legislate in their view, what's good for the nation! I am not that naive.

[Guest]

Re: The End of America

Sunny129 -

How did I guess you would come up with the 'neo-colonialism has caused it' objection? No, I'm not asking you to believe what Henry Paulson, or Bush / Cheney say, I'm asking you to believe what I say, which is much more limited.

What I say only makes one or two very simple points, about the 'here' problem, which is debt, and about the 'abroad' problem, which is that changing your government and shifting it to isolationism (the only logical outcome of Democrat's hugely popular demands now) will do very little to change the course of events in certain other parts of the world. Those events are heading to something far worse than even we see now. Contrary to very popular (populist is more like it) belief, a wholesale retreat of the US from supporting it's allies overseas will accelerate the problems, not diminish them, because it's not the nice countries who will step in to fill the void, it's the 'not nice' countries who will step in.

Bush / Cheney out! Yes alright, I agree. But now what have you got? The same problems you have today. What you have after a changeover of government, is the same ugly realities that will stick to your back like a howling monkey, long after Bush / Cheney are gone from the government.

Debt is one monkey - iTulipers have discussed that one plenty enough.

But there is another monkey, called "payback from fundamentalist bigots" which is still on your back, although you told it you absolutely weren't interested in it long ago. Unfortunately, it did not take the hint and go away.

Americans are very insular. You think, oh, that's BS, if we don't step into those foreign problems we are well clear of it. Your posts suggest it does not interest you very much. But the previous actions of those people "that don't interest you much" changed the course of your country's history.

If they get the itch to "change your country's history" a second time, your disinterest will become a little more difficult to maintain. That's when you'll see the Democratic government you thought was better (and it probably is, but only marginally), start to look a lot like this government you want to lose (that is, we'll have increasing Govt. repression once again from their side) - and that transformation will come about partly because of real bad debt problems, which Bush's removal won't fix, and partly because of that 'problem overseas' that doesn't interest you today.