Hunger for Dictatorship

[giant_robot]

Via Buzzflash: A smackdown on the fascist tendencies of the administration from the editor of the American Conservative, of all things.

Hunger for Dictatorship

War to export democracy may wreck our own.


by Scott McConnell

<snip>
Nonetheless, there are foreshadowings well worth noting. The last weeks of 2004 saw several explicit warnings from the antiwar Right about the coming of an American fascism. Paul Craig Roberts in these pages wrote of the “brownshirting” of American conservatism—a word that might not have surprised had it come from Michael Moore or Michael Lerner. But from a Hoover Institution senior fellow, former assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, and one-time Wall Street Journal editor, it was striking.

Several weeks later, Justin Raimondo, editor of the popular Antiwar.com website, wrote a column headlined, “Today’s Conservatives are Fascists.” Pointing to the justification of torture by conservative legal theorists, widespread support for a militaristic foreign policy, and a retrospective backing of Japanese internment during World War II, Raimondo raised the prospect of “fascism with a democratic face.” His fellow libertarian, Mises Institute president Lew Rockwell, wrote a year-end piece called “The Reality of Red State Fascism,” which claimed that “the most significant socio-political shift in our time has gone almost completely unremarked, and even unnoticed. It is the dramatic shift of the red-state bourgeoisie from leave-us-alone libertarianism, manifested in the Congressional elections of 1994, to almost totalitarian statist nationalism. Whereas the conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing.”

<snip>

But Rockwell (and Roberts and Raimondo) is correct in drawing attention to a mood among some conservatives that is at least latently fascist. Rockwell describes a populist Right website that originally rallied for the impeachment of Bill Clinton as “hate-filled ... advocating nuclear holocaust and mass bloodshed for more than a year now.” One of the biggest right-wing talk-radio hosts regularly calls for the mass destruction of Arab cities. Letters that come to this magazine from the pro-war Right leave no doubt that their writers would welcome the jailing of dissidents. And of course it’s not just us. When USA Today founder Al Neuharth wrote a column suggesting that American troops be brought home sooner rather than later, he was blown away by letters comparing him to Tokyo Rose and demanding that he be tried as a traitor. That mood, Rockwell notes, dwarfs anything that existed during the Cold War. “It celebrates the shedding of blood, and exhibits a maniacal love of the state. The new ideology of the red-state bourgeoisie seems to actually believe that the US is God marching on earth—not just godlike, but really serving as a proxy for God himself.”

<snip>

more: http://www.amconmag.com/2005_02_14/article.html

A voice of reason on the right?

[cliss]

1. I have written

in many posts, that whatever a government does outside its borders, it will sooner or later do inside its own country.

The US became a radical government on Jan. 20, 2001. On that day, the government moved quickly to dismantle as many safeguards we had to protect ordinary citizens. Treaties, accords on the international level were also taken apart.

The US moved quickly to start torturing people abroad. When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, Americans simply did not want to believe it was true. "My country?" they whispered. "The beacon for freedom in the world stacks people on top of each other and taunts them?".

But yes, it was true. It's still going on today. When Rumsfeld was on the hot seat, notice he never said he was going to put a stop to the torture. All he said was that "digital cameras will not be allowed at the prison any longer".

When a country is out torturing people in other countries, you better believe its own citizens are next. Joe Six-Pack may breathe a sigh of relief that "we're fighting terrorists in their own venue so we don't have to do it on the streets of American cities".

Joe Six-Pack is in for a surprise. We can expect the same torture and abuse here very shortly. Because a government tortures people who it sees as a threat to itself, does not distinguish between foreign threats and domestic threats. It wants to assure its own survival, above all else.

We're next.

[giant_robot]

3. Here's a scary quote...

"...scapegoats are sought, and if we can’t bomb Arabs into submission, or the French, domestic critics of Bush will serve."

Unfortunatlely, I think that is exactly the way the kool-aid drinkers think.

[LibertyorDeath]

7. Well said.

Kick

[Obviousman]

2. kick

[dbeach]

4. red,white and blue blooded crime "just so long as I'm the dictator

bush wants to be the first amerikan dictator/emperor..he has the money to buy this USA and sell it to our enemies..that is the bush way..that is their plan ALWAYS has been their plan..Treason is in their veins since the gunpowder plot in 1605 and from sam bush to prescott to GHW bush to dumkoff jr..war profiteering and treason while they wave the flag..

"1. It would be a heck of a lot easier to be a dictator than work in a democracy. (1996 - referenced in J.H. Hatfield's "Fortunate Son", when Dubya was governor of Texas)

2. You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier. (July 1998)

3. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier... just so long as I'm the dictator. (Dec. 18, 2000 - shortly after his contentious victory in the Supreme Court that resulted in his becoming president)

4. A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it. (July 26, 2001)

5. It's not a dictatorship in Washington, but I tried to make it one in that instance. We are beginning to see some success in opening up federal coffers for faith-based programs. (Jan. 15, 2004) "


http://www.dubyaspeak.com/ro6.shtml#dictator

[struggle4progress]

5. kick

[deacon2]

6. The only bright light in all of this

is that there are some on the right that recognize these administration "policies" for the un-American, fascist bilge that they are. Whether we'll be roasting marshmallows together with them at the Family Camp is the only remaining question. How do so many people continue to miss what is now glaring, frightening and obvious?

[Rose Siding]

8. Just read this- it's very good

Linked through one of the excerpts in a Bilmon post

http://billmon.org/archives/001727.html

[steve2470]

9. I sent this to Hannity. Hope it wasn't a total waste of time nt