Extremism Normalized: How Americans Now Acquiesce to Once Unthinkable Ideas

[Fire Walk With Me]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/31-0

Remember when, in the wake of the 9/11 attack, the Patriot Act was controversial, held up as the symbolic face of Bush/Cheney radicalism and widely lamented as a threat to core American liberties and restraints on federal surveillance and detention powers? Yet now, the Patriot Act is quietly renewed every four years by overwhelming majorities in both parties (despite substantial evidence of serious abuse), and almost nobody is bothered by it any longer. That’s how extremist powers become normalized: they just become such a fixture in our political culture that we are trained to take them for granted, to view the warped as normal. Here are several examples from the last couple of days illustrating that same dynamic; none seems overwhelmingly significant on its own, but that’s the point:

After Dick Cheney criticized John McCain this weekend for having chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate, this was McCain’s retort:

Look, I respect the vice president. He and I had strong disagreements as to whether we should torture people or not. I don’t think we should have.

Isn’t it amazing that the first sentence there (“I respect the vice president”) can precede the next one (“He and I had strong disagreements as to whether we should torture people or not”) without any notice or controversy? I realize insincere expressions of respect are rote ritualism among American political elites, but still, McCain’s statement amounts to this pronouncement: Dick Cheney authorized torture — he is a torturer — and I respect him. How can that be an acceptable sentiment to express? Of course, it’s even more notable that political officials whom everyone knows authorized torture are walking around free, respected and prosperous, completely shielded from all criminal accountability. “Torture” has been permanently transformed from an unspeakable taboo into a garden-variety political controversy, where it shall long remain.

[99Forever]

1. K&R

[gateley]

2. I'm not as concerned about what McCain says about Cheney, for example, as I am about how we have

so easily toed the line as we march toward fascism.

[Scootaloo]

4. "Toed the line"?

we've been a fascist country for a good long time, gately. It's a product of the Cold War, perhaps.

What you see now, is what happens when that fascism is challenged.

[malthaussen]

7. Perhaps Gately should have said "open" fascism.

Fascism has always been with the world, even before there was fascism. "Fascism" is just a convenient label to apply to certain systems of doing business. But since 9/11, the US has openly moved in that direction, whereas before such activities were shrouded behind the scenes. Or, arguably, more of us have become fascists than heretofore.

I don't agree with your last sentence: I don't see any challenge. Mr Obama made a special, highly-public effort to extend the Patriot Act at the beginning of his term. Except for the occasional ranter around DU (who is usually mob-swarmed with "Why do you hate Obama" responses), much of what our country is doing to promote facsism still passes with a shrug. "What we are seeing" is cries of outrage when this or that group is attacked at the level of basic rights. But we aren't seeing any kind of universal revulsion to the "God, Mom, and Apple Pie" meme that has been our daily bread since the Towers went down.

-- Mal

[Egalitarian Thug]

3. Exactamundo!

And this is also why I have little hope of making this disaster better. When so many people are so ignorant of virtually everything, combined with a fervent belief that fantasy is reality and that your enemies are furthering your cause, what hope is there that those people will ever even recognize who is hurting them when they eventually reach the limit of their endurance?

These are the assholes that will happily and enthusiastically vote for the next Napoleon and make him their Emperor.

[Jessy169]

5. The only good thing I can say about the Patriot Act

is that without it, the right-wing terrorist groups operating right here in America would have a much easier time plotting and planning if they weren't concerned about their electronic communications being monitored.

[SomethingFishy]

15. So how far are you willing to go to stop these groups?

What exactly is it you are willing to give up in order to protect yourself from all these terrorists that the Patriot Act has saved us from?

At what point do we realize that the more freedom is taken away, the bigger the victory for the terrorist?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. Republicans feel torture is a policy choice.

Just like they feel war is a policy choice.

They should be tossed in the clink.

[lunatica]

8. Nope! I'm still reeling from the Supreme Court selection of Bush

Everything after that has been an acquiescence to un-Constitutionality. Or, better said, to the deliberate destruction of our Constitution and then to the pretense that it never happened.

[xtraxritical]

9. I think they're all using the :sarcasm: thing at the same time!

[Dustlawyer]

10. I know it may be said too much but, isn't this how things went in Germany not so long ago?

[Hydra]

11. We're living proof of the "Banality of Evil" idea

The people who disagreed with it were naive. It's so EASY to let evil run rampant...it's only a problem if you or someone you know if a victim of it.

[obxhead]

12. This should be forwarded to McCain.

[woo me with science]

13. Great post. And more proof of it is that

serial defenders of extreme corporate, right-wing, neocon, and police state policies like...

indefinite detention, "kill lists" and drone wars, pre-emptive war as administration doctrine, spy centers for mining or surveillance of all phone calls and email without a warrant, internet IDs and internet-censoring measures like ACTA, military drones in American skies, coordinated violent crackdowns against peaceful protesters, strip searches for any arrestee, bailouts and settlements for corrupt banks, and austerity budgets in an economy that has already impoverished its middle class...

get away with calling theselves not only "moderates," but "Democrats."

[Odin2005]

14. "I respect leader X, but..." is typical political discourse in an authoritarian state.

It is akin to how Russians in the 30s thought the atrocities would stop if "Only Uncle Joe knew".

[tabasco]

16. Propaganda

Corporate fascists control the airwaves

[ananda]

17. Yes.. we have been conditioned over the past several years..

.. to come to a certain tolerance of violence and shock.

I've been thinking this for quite a while, and two things among
others confirm it: police state brutality on Occupy and more
frequent mass murders by guns.