The Rise of Pseudo Fascism

[gold_bug]

David Neiwert started a six part series on his blog Orcinus. I think it's worth reading, check it out:

Part 1: The Morphing of the Conservative Movement

When movements like this take shape and gain real power -- and especially when they consolidate complete control of the reins power, as the conservative movement has done in the past four years -- they often take on a real life of their own, mutating into entirely separate entities that often bear little resemblance to their root values. In the process, they almost always become travesties of their original impulses.

[PATRICK]

1. Original impulse is greed

It can make you look clownish, puff you up, blind you, ruin you. Power trip, likewise. Most of these movements, like communism, start out with clubbish ideas, but as soon as the "trip" to the top begins suddenly they are the same old diseases after all. Of course the Conservatives started out a bit deranged and intellectually bankrupt. Filling the void with other people's money, suppressing competition and enjoying armchair empires is a bottomless pit.

Fascists were just one more variety, not a role model(since they LOST). It might comfort us subliminally to nail the label(connoting monstrous loser) on these perennial enemies of the common good and civilization, but they don't always lose so easily and the recurrences MUST STOP.

Anyone with ideals(warning Ralph Nader) who starts out on that road can end up the same way. A man with greater depth of character and wiser knowledge of real life consequences can keep his head devoted to service especially if the common good is his focused goal.

[OneBlueSky]

2. nothing "pseudo" about it . . .

it's pretty explicit, as far as I can tell . . . particularly if you define fascism (as Mussolini did) as the blending of corporate and state interests . . .

[teryang]

3. This web site is a valuable resource

Thank you. The history of the Patriot Movement is especially interesting as it explains the rejection of consensus politics by the current Republican party.