July 24, 2018

Ur-Fascism, the characteristics of Eternal Fascism...No. 13-14

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view—one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

Because of its qualitative populism Ur-Fascism must be against “rotten” parliamentary governments. One of the first sentences uttered by Mussolini in the Italian parliament was “I could have transformed this deaf and gloomy place into a bivouac for my maniples”—“maniples” being a subdivision of the traditional Roman legion. As a matter of fact, he immediately found better housing for his maniples, but a little later he liquidated the parliament. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in 1984, as the official language of Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.

Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco (1995)

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/

Impoverished vocabulary....like witch hunt, open borders, fake news, etc.

July 19, 2018

Does the Pig think having Putin here in the fall is going to win the mid terms for the GOP?

July 5, 2018

Any thoughts on how the market will react to the Pig's trade war tomorrow....

June 27, 2018

Everyone get pissed off...

around 40 percent of eligible voters don't....time to get them out to vote Democrat.

June 27, 2018

Our narrative to oppose the Trumpists...The Grift

all the fear mongering, scapegoating, smears and propaganda are grifts, scams, frauds.

We are already calling the Pig a liar, start calling and labeling his narratives what they are a grift.

June 23, 2018

I keep seeing new stories about how the Pig is having a bad week...

problem is he has no conscience, bad weeks aren't bad to him. He has no motivation to do anything different.

Even if he started hemorrhaging cultists.....meh. Nothing is his fault, he has no reason for regrets, nor any reason to forgive.

Seems like the media should adjust their approach...not sure what that would be though.

June 22, 2018

How are thee fascist let me count the ways....No. 10 regarding the latest comments from the Pig.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism.

Umberto Eco Ur-Fascism (1995)

June 22, 2018

Well, I have gone and done it...

I have been put into time out on The Hill.

June 22, 2018

Anyone know what happened with the 200 Korean War dead comment the Pig made...

Anyone seen any stories or press releases to say that it isn't anything but another lie?

Did the Pig get some poor family's hopes up?

June 21, 2018

You ever asked a Trumpist in a comment thread if they are a christian....

I have been asking that question on threads about the immigration debacle and it is like flipping a switch.

One second they are there blustering and spewing racist talking points and then silence.