[clue-talk] Wow, Card's a little political...

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 10-31 21:13, Jed S. Baer wrote:
> On Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:52:40 -0600
> Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> 
> > Is that still alive and kicking in reich-wing circles?
> 
> Wow. Nazis, eh? You do realize that "Nazi" is a contraction of "National
> Socialist" in the German, i.e. "Nationalsozialismus"? The portrayal of
> the right-wing as being equivalent to Nazis is a wonderful propoganda
> victory by the leftists, who don't want to people to examine the actual
> facts of the matter. However, there's a very short version here, if
> you're interested: (well, not the best I can come up with, but on short
> notice, it's okay)

No, discussions about the "socialism" of National Socialism aside, I meant
"reich-wing" in a very specific way - I meant the Right Wing Authoritarians
(RWA) in the right-wing party, since it's hardly all of the right wing that
are authoritarian.

When I say authoritarian here, I'm talking about the authoritarians describe
in the book by Altemeyer (free PDF, hardcopy available from Lulu) called _The
Authoritarians_.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

When it comes to the term "fascism", I realize it's thrown around all too
much, when people really mean to say authoritarian. 

Altemeyer's point is that although left-wing authoritarian does exist, it's
hardly a force in this time and place, but that RWAs do indeed have much
influence.

Just watch one of Palin's Nuremberg^H^H^H^H^H rallies, and you'll hear some
of them. They are the sort that would yell stuff like "off with his head".

Let me know where this is happening on the left.
 
> You might benefit from reading Jonah Golberg's excellent book, "Liberal
> Fascism". Hell, broke as I am, I'll buy you a copy, if you promise to
> read it in its entirety.

Nah. I'm aware of his book. Saw him trying to pitch that on the Daily Show,
too. I've even tried to read one of his pieces that got poked fun of on
Wonkette one time.

It's just not a priority. I have literally hundreds of books on my to-read
list, and a book like Goldberg's doesn't seem very compelling or smart,
IMHO.

 
> > School variety, so we'll probably see more of the same old, same old
> > disaster capitalism neoliberal stuff we've had for the past 20+ years...
> 
> "Disaster capitalism"? Please, point to any example where the sincere
> pursuit of socialism has resulted in prosperity for "the masses". See
> again the CSM article I linked above. Actually, I don't even know if
> that's a good reply, since I can't imagine what you're referring to by
> such terminology.

You'll notice I'm not juxtaposing "socialism" (quotes because I don't know
what you mean when you say socialism, as it's such an overloaded term,
fraught with Orwellian misuse) against any other systems, nor am I proposing
anything as a cure-all panacea.

When I said "disaster capitalism" it has a very specific meaning. I suggest
you read _The Shock Doctrine_ if you want to learn more. It's about the
Friedmanites and their influence. 

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at comcast.net
http://sean-leblanc.blogspot.com
Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
		-- Jules de Gaultier