Where your tax dollar is going...

[ImWithStupid]

WTF? I was talking about the ammo shortage and huge increases in price.

 

But since for some odd reason you felt the need to bring it up and link it to my completely unrelated post...

 

As far as government control of an economy and it's populace, I said we were on the road to faschism, not socialism.

 

For that you only need to hold the strings of the key industries, not all of them.

 

Energy, finance and health care and you control everyone.

 

This was accelerated under Bush, but has been pushed full throttle under Obama.

[phreakwars]

Sorry, the REAL NUMBERS show your complaint about SOCIALISM and NATIONALISM are BS. Not even 1/4th of 1%. Tell me again how the government is trying to control our lives.

.

.

[hugo]

Tell me again how the government is trying to control our lives.

.

 

 

If I only had time to write a book.

[phreakwars]

So explain, I'm listening. Be sure to leave out speculation and only insert actual facts. This fear mongering BS won't fly unless you can back it up. The fact is, less then 1/4th of 1% of our American assets are actually government controlled. I know this might break your heart and be totally wrong against the BS you hear, but facts are facts. The government DOES NOT and IS NOT trying to control anything. It sure makes for good chatter when you try to accuse them of doing so, but facts are facts. .21% of 1%? Ha, nothing to really give a about unless you are motivated to complain about every little god damn thing the government does to help people.

.

.

[hugo]

There is a difference between government controlled and government owned. An example is government controls, to a large degree, how you operate your motor vehicle, though it does not own it. Government controls what drugs you are able to put in your body, though it does not own your body. Government increasingly controls how you educate and discipline your children though it does not own your children. Government directly controls how you spend a portion of your paycheck though it does not own you.

 

Control of individuals; that is why , along with protection from outsiders, that governments are formed. Increased government almost always means increased control of individual activity.

 

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."=== George Washington

[ImWithStupid]

So explain, I'm listening. Be sure to leave out speculation and only insert actual facts. This fear mongering BS won't fly unless you can back it up. The fact is, less then 1/4th of 1% of our American assets are actually government controlled. I know this might break your heart and be totally wrong against the BS you hear, but facts are facts. The government DOES NOT and IS NOT trying to control anything. It sure makes for good chatter when you try to accuse them of doing so, but facts are facts. .21% of 1%? Ha, nothing to really give a about unless you are motivated to complain about every little god damn thing the government does to help people.

.

.

 

 

If you read that article the chart came from and the subsequent posts afterword, you would see conversations along the lines of ownership doesn't equal control.

 

40% of the economy is now govenernment. Also the author, who made the chart you posted, said he didn't know how accurate the information was, and asked for suggestions on better information.

 

As for the ownership/control fascism thing goes. Here's a little fact with some startling similarities to the US economy now...

 

One of Mussolini's first acts was to fund the metallurgical trust Ansaldo to the height of 400 millions Liras. Following the deflation crisis which started in 1926, banks such as the Banco di Roma, the Banco di Napoli or the Banco di Sicilia were also assisted by the state [16]. In 1924, the Unione Radiofonica Italiana (URI) was formed by private entrepreneurs and part of the Marconi group, and granted the same year a monopoly of radio broadcasts. URI became after the war the RAI. Starting in 1925, Italy's policies became more protectionist. Tariffs of grains were increased in an attempt to strengthen domestic production ("Battle for Grain"), which was ultimately a failure. Thus, according to historian Denis Mack Smith (1981), "Success in this battle was... another illusory propaganda victory won at the expense of the Italian economy in general and consumers in particular". He also pointed out "Those who gained were the owners of the Latifondia and the propertied classes in general... his policy conferred a heavy subsidy on the Latifondisti".[17]

Affected by the Great Depression, the Italian state attempted to respond to it both by elaborating public works programs such as the taming of the Pontine Marshes, developing hydroelectricity, improving the railways which in the process improved job opportunities, and launching military rearmement.[18] The Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI) institute was created in 1933, with the aim of subsiding floundering companies. It soon controlled important parts of the economy, through government-linked companies, including Alfa Romeo.

Economically Italy improved with the GNP growing at 2% a year; automobile production was increasing especially those owned by Fiat,[19] its aeronautical industry was making advances.[5] Mussolini also championed agrarianism as part of what he called battles for Land, Lira and Grain; in aims of propaganda, he physically took part in these activities alongside the workers creating a strong public image.[20][21]

[phreakwars]

So you got to go back... way way back in history, and try and find something that might be what government control is all about and try and convince me (fear monger), that it applies to this day and age, and this country.

 

HA!

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.

[ImWithStupid]

So you got to go back... way way back in history, and try and find something that might be what government control is all about and try and convince me (fear monger), that it applies to this day and age, and this country.

 

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." ~ George Santayana

 

No fear mongering. Foreshadowing.

 

Believe what you want.

 

Obama sure seems to want to be likened to FDR. Where did FDR get the ideas for his policies. Benito Mussolini.

 

A charismatic leader, under a large ruling party, without anyone questioning what they are doing. No national media asking questions or criticizing. Nobody reporting on how France, Russia and China are warning us about going too far left with our economic policies. Nobody reporting that Hugo Chavez, an out and out socialist dictator, stated that he believes he and Castro are to the right of Obama's ideology.

 

Whatever. I hope I'm wrong.

[hugo]

So you got to go back... way way back in history, and try and find something that might be what government control is all about and try and convince me (fear monger), that it applies to this day and age, and this country.

 

HA!

.

.

 

You ain't gonna be convinced until you are being waterboarded in a retraining camp dungeon.

[ImWithStupid]

You ain't gonna be convinced until you are being waterboarded in a retraining camp dungeon.

 

 

Funny you said that. I saw this cartoon the other day...

 

.

[RoyalOrleans]

So you got to go back... way way back in history, and try and find something that might be what government control is all about and try and convince me (fear monger), that it applies to this day and age, and this country.

 

HA!

.

.

 

History applies to every day and age, Bender.

 

"The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute for them the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood." [Adolph Hitler, quoted in Hitler, A Study in Tyranny, by Alan Bullock (Harper Collins, NY)]

 

 

"It is thus necessary that the individual should come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole ... that above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual. .... This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture .... we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man." [Adolph Hitler, 1933]

 

 

There is the great, silent, continuous struggle: the struggle between the State and the Individual; between the State which demands and the individual who attempts to evade such demands. Because the individual, left to himself, unless he be a saint or hero, always refuses to pay taxes, obey laws, or go to war. [benito Mussolini]

 

"Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all." [Nikita Khrushchev , February 25, 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party]

 

"All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all." [Vladimir Lenin, as quoted in Not by Politics Alone]

 

"We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society." [Hillary Clinton, 1993]

 

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans ..." [President Bill Clinton, 'USA Today' March 11, 1993: Page 2A]

 

 

I have not intention of trying to convince or turn or by the hand of God miraculously show you the light, but you have already succumbed to the fear mongering and live in fear of revoked cheese privileges.

[RoyalOrleans]

And a bullet.

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.

 

Fukken brilliant.

[RoyalOrleans]

Now that GM is going bankrupt, how can I drive up in my Cadillac to get my cheese?

 

You can ride with Bender.

[ImWithStupid]

"Your grandchildren will live under communism!" To which Secretary Benson enthusiastically replied: "If I have it my way, your grandchildren will live free!" Khrushchev, undeterred, fired back: "Oh you Americans! You're so gullible! We'll spoon feed you socialism until you're Communists and don't even know it. We'll never have to fire a shot!" ~ Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev bragged to American patriot and Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson

[ImWithStupid]

Am I a Fascist?

 

Jonah Goldberg's tendentious history of liberalism.

 

By Timothy Noah

 

Posted Monday, Jan. 28, 2008, at 7:49 AM ET Why did Jonah Goldberg write [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201226904&sr=1-1]Liberal Fascism[/ame]? To find out, you must wade through 391 pages of tendentious scholarship. A mighty jackbooted procession—Herbert Croly, John Dewey, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Herbert Marcuse, John F. Kennedy, Saul Alinsky, Ralph Nader, Hillary Clinton—goose-steps across the page to illustrate Goldberg's apparent belief that, with the exception of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and everything published in National Review (where Goldberg is contributing editor), every word previously written or spoken in favor of mobilizing the citizenry was either proto-fascist, fascist, or heavily influenced by fascism. On Page 392, though, Goldberg emerges from his dusty carrel and gives it to us straight:

Ever since I joined the public conversation as a conservative writer, I've been called a fascist and a Nazi by smug, liberal know-nothings, sublimely confident of the truth of their ill-informed prejudices. Responding to this slander is, as a point of personal privilege alone, a worthwhile endeavor.

Liberal Fascism, then, is a howl of rage disguised as intellectual history. Some mean liberals called Goldberg hurtful names, so he's responding with 400 pages that boil down to: I know you are, but what am I?

 

Among the liberals I know, you don't, in fact, hear the word fascist bandied about much, and if somebody blurts it out to describe contemporary conservatism, the most common reaction is a rolling of the eyes. It's a provocation rather than an argument, much overused by the left during the 1960s and now mostly absent from mainstream political discourse. The only exception would be the term Islamofascism, adopted mainly (though not entirely) by the right to describe the reactionary views of violent Muslims intoxicated with hatred for the West. Weirdly, that word doesn't appear once in Liberal Fascism.

 

Before proceeding further, I should disclose that previously I've written about Liberal Fascism as a publishing phenomenon, speculating from the promotional material that Goldberg—who, when he was an editor for National Review Online, fired Ann Coulter for writing about Muslims, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity"—was now adopting Coulter's uncivil, ranting style as his own. That got under Goldberg's apparently thin skin, and in a recent interview he called me a "jabbering fraction of a man" for making the comparison, an outburst that went a long way toward proving my point. (When Coulter ran afoul of Goldberg and National Review Editor Rich Lowry, she called them "girly boys.") So did Goldberg's provocative book title and his red-meat chapter headings: "Franklin Roosevelt's Fascist New Deal," "The 1960s: Fascism Takes to the Streets," "Brave New Village: Hillary Clinton and the Meaning of Liberal Fascism," etc.

 

On the other hand, it's inconceivable that Coulter would put as much effort into one of her screeds as Goldberg has clearly put into his. For the most part, Goldberg lays out his argument knowledgeably and calmly. He seems to have done his homework, which was not inconsiderable. He means to be taken seriously by people who care about ideas. All right, then. Let's take him seriously.

 

Goldberg's argument begins with the observation that well into the 1930s, the American progressive movement had more admiration than scorn for Benito Mussolini, who coined the words fascist and totalitarian, and even for Adolf Hitler. This isn't news to anyone with even a glancing familiarity with American history. Goldberg further argues that fascism initially evolved from and positioned itself as a muscular brand of socialism (hence Nazi, an abbreviation for "National Socialist German Workers Party"). Also true, and also known to most educated people.

 

Goldberg then points out that the wartime presidency of the progressive Woodrow Wilson curtailed free speech to a frightening degree and argues that this had something to do with Wilson's admiration for Otto von Bismarck, who fathered both the modern welfare state and the fascist Kulturkampf. According to Goldberg, Wilson's belief in an expansive role for government (example: creation of the Federal Trade Commission) was linked to his less-admired taste for government repression (example: the Palmer raids). Well, maybe. A simpler explanation for the latter would be that throughout American history, presidents have tended to trample on the Bill of Rights during times of unrest, starting with the Alien and Sedition Acts, which was signed into law by President John Adams 17 years before Bismarck was born.

 

"Woodrow Wilson," Goldberg declares, "was the twentieth century's first fascist dictator." That would be news to Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, the Massachusetts Republican who successfully opposed U.S. entry into the League of Nations. Throughout Liberal Fascism, the respect-hungry scholar wrestles with the invective-spouting provocateur. Here Goldberg is, for instance, trying very hard not to call Franklin Roosevelt a fascist:

This is not to say that the New Deal was evil or Hitlerian. But the New Deal was a product of the impulses and ideas of its era. And these ideas and impulses are impossible to separate from the fascist moment in Western civilization. … Franklin Rosevelt was no fascist, at least not in the sense that he thought of himself in this way. But many of his ideas and policies were indistinguishable from fascism. And today we live with the fruits of fascism, and we call them liberal.

Thirty-five pages later, Goldberg can hold back no longer. "t seems impossible to deny that the New Deal was objectively fascistic," he crows, imposing without irony a Marxist analysis.

 

The rest of Goldberg's argument unfolds as follows: Wilson begat FDR, who begat contemporary liberalism. The only reason the United States didn't remain a fascist country like Italy or Germany or Spain was "American exceptionalism," i.e., the public's resistance to tyranny over the long term. But Democratic presidents from Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy to Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton continued either to impose fascism or to bring the country terrifyingly close to it. To demonstrate this, Goldberg is obliged to render an ever-more-flexible definition of the word fascist.

Was Bill Clinton a fascist president? Well, he certainly believed in the primacy of emotion and the supremacy of his own intellect. … But I think if we are going to call him a fascist, it must be in the sense that he was a sponge for the ideas and emotions of liberalism. To say that he was a fascist is to credit him with more ideology and principle than justified. He was the sort of president liberal fascism could only produce during unexciting times.

 

 

 

[ImWithStupid]

Who knew fascism could be boring?

By this point, Goldberg's reasoning has progressed from unconvincing to incoherent. Modern liberalism, he argues, is linked to Nazism because both contain a cult of the organic (Hitler was a vegetarian) and both embrace sexual freedom (Himmler ordered his men "to father as many children as possible without marrying" in order to achieve the Aryan ideal). Eventually, Goldberg backs himself into asserting, in effect, that any government that does more than prevent abortions and provide for the common defense is inherently fascist. Granted, he gives a wide berth to the common defense. In a token criticism of President George W. Bush, Goldberg cites as evidence of fascist influence not the de facto suspension of habeas corpus and refusal to follow the Geneva Conventions, which go unmentioned, but rather Bush's extension of Medicare to cover prescription drugs.

So, what's more fascist, liberalism or conservatism? It's a moronic question. The United States is not, nor has ever been, anything close to a fascist country. But if compelled to choose, I should think it's more useful to consider what political thinkers had to say about fascism not before the full extent of its horrors became known to the world but after. As it happens, the Canadian Web site Sans Everything unearthed two obituaries for Francisco Franco, the fascist Spanish dictator, in the Nov. 21, 1975, issue of Goldberg's beloved National Review. One, by F.R. Buckley (William's brother) called Franco

a Spaniard out of the heroic annals of the nation, a giant. He will be truly mourned by Spain because with all his heart and might and soul, he loved his country, and in the vast context of Spanish history, did well by it.

The other, by James Burnham, stated, "Francisco Franco was our century's most successful ruler." If John Kenneth Galbraith said anything like this, I missed it.

[Update, Feb. 1: Goldberg replies here. Among Goldberg's key points:

1.) "I haven't liked Tim Noah for years." I never meant to suggest that Goldberg only started disliking me recently. It actually dates back to 2000, when I noted in a column that Goldberg had appropriated, without citation or correction, some patriotic but factually challenged spam about the Founding Fathers. Myself, I reserve personal dislike for people I've actually met personally, and I've never met Goldberg.

2.) "Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this a complete nonsequitur?" The reference is to my noting that Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge defeated President Woodrow Wilson's attempt to put the United States in the League of Nations. What Goldberg is missing is that if the U.S. Senate was able to defeat Wilson on his absolute highest priority, then he couldn't have been much of a fascist. Fascists wield more power than that.

3.) "Using the word 'objectively' is simply not objectively Marxist (was Orwell a Marxist?)" It's true that during World War II Orwell called pacifists "objectively pro-fascist." But he came to regret this usage as the "propaganda trick" that it is:

We are told that it is only people's objective actions that matter, and their subjective feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war effort, are "objectively" aiding the Nazis: and therefore the fact that they may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of saying this myself more than once. ... This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it. If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions. ... The important thing is to discover

which

individuals are honest and which are not, and the usual blanket accusation merely makes this more difficult.

4.) "There's ample evidence [Franco] wasn't even a fascist, but simply a strongman." Technically, no one discussed in Goldberg's book except Mussolini is an authentic Fascist. But Franco meets the standard-usage definition more than adequately. Goose-stepping soldiers? Check. Suppressor of personal freedoms? Check. Slaughterer of enemies real and imagined? Check. Slave labor? Check. Allied with Hitler and Mussolini? Check (though Spain stayed neutral in World War II). Pathologically Brutalist architecture? Check. (See Fallen, Valley of) Goldberg has an interest in downplaying Franco's fascism (and scarcely mentions him in his book) because Francoism lacked the socialist roots that for Goldberg are a defining characteristic of fascism. Others have downplayed Franco's fascism, but that's mainly out of embarrassment that after the war he became a U.S. ally.

 

5.) "I am unaware of NR ever advocating a Franco-style regime in the United States." Well gee, thanks for that. The hedge implicit in "I am unaware of" is mildly discomfiting, but lets assume that's a rhetorical flourish and not an expression of honest doubt.

 

 

Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine

[RoyalOrleans]

If you can't abort them, indoctrinate them!

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTm5rp8r6fE]YouTube - Children Sing Praises To Their Parent's Political Messiah?Heil Obama?Fascism Is Coming To America[/ame]

[snafu]

If you can't abort them, indoctrinate them!

 

 

Oh great now I'm gonna have nightmares.

[phreakwars]

Now what kind of sick twisted mind do you people have. Yet, you even try to defend your actions with denial. Tell me your not hate mongering. Now what kind of crap is that, that these kids were being trained to worship the guy. NOBODY except right wing retards refer to Obama as any type of messiah or savior.

 

That's pretty damn sick man. Using an innocent song sung by little kids in your god damn hate mongering.

 

Same shiit that leads up to Right Wing Extremist/Talibaptists/Domestic Terrorists.

 

All you need is to keep propagating this about him being a messiah and you'll get some whack job acting on this belief.

 

But of course you'll say, "oh no, no no, you had it all wrong, we never meant for anyone to die, we condemn, and it was Obama's fault anyway."

.

.

[hugo]

Reminds me of the Hitler Youth. It is quite sad seeing young minds being fed that garbage,

[ImWithStupid]

Yea! We aren't supposed to talk about the possibility that some charesmatic leader could dupe the populace to follow him into policies that would ultimately lead them to forgo their freedoms, and allow them to take control of things like the financial system, health care system, or energy systems in an effort to ultimately control the populace under the guise of support to the state, and for the betterment of society as a whole.

 

Duh!!!

 

That happened like seventy years ago. It could never happen again.

[RoyalOrleans]

Now what kind of sick twisted mind do you people have. Yet, you even try to defend your actions with denial. Tell me your not hate mongering. Now what kind of crap is that, that these kids were being trained to worship the guy. NOBODY except right wing retards refer to Obama as any type of messiah or savior.

 

That's pretty damn sick man. Using an innocent song sung by little kids in your god damn hate mongering.

 

Same shiit that leads up to Right Wing Extremist/Talibaptists/Domestic Terrorists.

 

All you need is to keep propagating this about him being a messiah and you'll get some whack job acting on this belief.

 

But of course you'll say, "oh no, no no, you had it all wrong, we never meant for anyone to die, we condemn, and it was Obama's fault anyway."

.

.

 

Quite full of yourself, huh, Bender? So sure that hate and fear originated with right wing conservatives?

 

Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless' date=' chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or the lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible noble purpose, but to plain, naked human evil. [/quote']

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHF5OYmr7kQ&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Triumph of the Will (Full Version English Subtitles) 1934 Nazi Party Congress - Nuremberg Rally Film[/ame]

 

History is a great teacher.

[ImWithStupid]

Now what kind of sick twisted mind do you people have. Yet, you even try to defend your actions with denial. Tell me your not hate mongering. Now what kind of crap is that, that these kids were being trained to worship the guy. NOBODY except right wing retards refer to Obama as any type of messiah or savior.

 

That's pretty damn sick man. Using an innocent song sung by little kids in your god damn hate mongering..

 

Same as I think it's sick and twisted to have kids standing on the side of the road protesting abortion, for gay rights or at tea parties holding signs in reference the economy or calling Obama a socialist or telling him to keep his hands off of their piggy bank or about anything that young kids couldn't possibly have enough working knowledge of, to hold that view.

 

Kids shouldn't be politicized by anyone.

 

Same shiit that leads up to Right Wing Extremist/Talibaptists/Domestic Terrorists.

 

All you need is to keep propagating this about him being a messiah and you'll get some whack job acting on this belief.

 

But of course you'll say, "oh no, no no, you had it all wrong, we never meant for anyone to die, we condemn, and it was Obama's fault anyway."

.

.

 

 

I don't know where people would get the idea that those on the left treat or view Obama as a deity?

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-auZ4DGMspo]YouTube - Newsweeks Evan Thomas: Obama's 'God[/ame]

 

 

Not only do you have Evan Thomas from Newsweek actually saying Obama is a god, but Mr. Tingly Feeling Up My Leg, Chris Matthews predicts Obama will give a speech honoring what happened on D-Day, but instead we got some more of this...

 

[attach=full]2336[/attach]

 

 

There hasn't been this much biased fawning or blind following over a leader outside of North Korea, since 1970's Iran and before that 1930's and 1940's Germany.

 

In all of history, it's never turned out well for the people.

[hugo]

There hasn't been this much biased fawning or blind following over a leader outside of North Korea, since 1970's Iran and before that 1930's and 1940's Germany.

 

In all of history, it's never turned out well for the people.

 

It worked out well with George Washington.

[phreakwars]

Quite full of yourself, huh, Bender? So sure that hate and fear originated with right wing conservatives?

 

Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless' date=' chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or the lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible noble purpose, but to plain, naked human evil. [/quote']

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHF5OYmr7kQ&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Triumph of the Will (Full Version English Subtitles) 1934 Nazi Party Congress - Nuremberg Rally Film[/ame]

 

History is a great teacher.

That's your defense? Quoting a god damn fictional book, and showing images of Nazi's (more fear mongering)?

 

 

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