Cassandra is right

[lwcon]

Naomi Wolf debates with Alan Wolfe about whether American fascism is a clear and present danger.

Mr. Wolfe is a born-again centrist who sees the 2006 election as evidence that our checks-and-balances system is working.

The change in Congress was most welcome, though the Democratic Senate caucus's majority is wafer-thin. And how much checking and balancing can we get from a Supreme Court packed with rightwing idealogues, a media about whom "neutered" would be a generous assessment, and a general population that remains drunk on apathy?

An amusing exchange occurs after Alan dismisses Naomi as a "Cassandra," a pejorative often hurled at those who warn us about actual dangers.

Wolf goes yard with this rebuttal:

The American founders themselves argued that it is far better to err on the side of vigilance in defence of liberty than less so. When the Constitution and the rule of law are under such sustained assault, we are all much better off using Cassandra as a role model than Candide.

Cassandra's curse, by the way, Alan, was not that she was wrong — it was that she wasn't believed in time. She was right.

Pity, though, about the Trojans.

Though she doesn't expressly use the term, Ms. Wolf provides an excellent argument against our knee-jerk fears of transgressing Godwin's Law, which (in practice) mocks those who would compare something to Hitler's Germany:

Understandably, one tends to become emotionally flooded when Nazis are mentioned, and I understand too why it can be considered almost unseemly to refer to Hitler or to Nazism (or to fascism) except in the context of pure elegy. This form of intellectual etiquette has been seen for two generations as a tribute to the victims.

I believe strongly that this etiquette is not helpful in this crisis and not even, at this point, most respectful to the victims. It actually keeps us from thinking clearly about what happened to them and it keeps us from learning the lessons we need to learn in time. Now more than ever we need to honor the victims of fascism by being willing to discuss the details of how these most cruel dictators did they did what they managed to do, in the midst of modern democracies. We honour the victims most profoundly, I believe, by being willing to learn history's lessons in defence of a democratic America in which every life is precious and in which the rule of law is just as precious.

I did find Wolf without an "e" curiously complacent about today's MSM:

We certainly still have a free press, thank God; but so did Germany in 1931 and Italy in 1920. I don't doubt that the press in America is working, but I am really scared about the fact that the free press is now a target of the Bush administration in exactly the way dictators classically target the press when they wish to close down an open society.

In the end, Wolfe maintains that it can't and won't happen here.

With a runaway administration flaunting doctrines of a unitary executive, preemptive war, theocracy, lawless surveillance, torture, and no due process, it's hard to figure why one wouldn't want to err on the side of caution... and activism.

Because Cassandra is right.

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[orpupilofnature57]

1. Jefferson , Roosevelt and all intelligent Americans agree our biggest

enemy has always been the infiltration of Private concerns in to our public interests.

[Cassandra]

2. Well, of course I am.

There have been things I've seen for nearly 30 years that everyone else thought I was making a big deal about that it now turns out I was right about. (outsourcing, mergers, ripping off investors, endless fear of the other for the gain of the military-industrial complex, etc.) Do I make the kind of money that people who still don't get it do? No. And I still get an argument about what I've been right about all along.
Cassandra: not my name, just my life experience.

[lwcon]

6. Whom should Time magazine hire...

... Bill Kristol, or someone who hasn't been wrong about everything?

The most galling thing about it all, is when these guys finally run out of excuses, they argue that "hindsight is 20/20," completely ignoring that it was foresight.


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Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[annabanana]

3. Excellent post..

Time after time I have heard Cassandra's name used to denigrate those who are calling attention to that which must be heard. There is irony here. Cassandra now, as then, is too gloomy to listen to (in the "bb in a boxcar" minds of the bobbleheads).

[lwcon]

9. The quote that sums up our age...

De Tocqueville: "It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth"

We could paraphrase it to "It is easier to sell a lie than an inconvenient truth."

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Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[CrispyQ]

4. Thanks for the post.

I read Wolf's original article "Fascist American, in 10 Easy Steps" & forwarded it to people I know, but I doubt that many took the time to read it. My mother scoffed at it -- without reading it, of course! She scoffs at anything that suggests fascism in America. Like Wolfe, she simply does not believe it can happen here.

I'll check out your Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy site, too.

k&r

:thumbsup:

[orpupilofnature57]

5. The ' Good Old Boy ' network ,is a casuistry for fascism.

[lwcon]

7. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

"The father of modern conservatism" got that right:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

Thanks!

VL / lwcon


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Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[orpupilofnature57]

8. " People who believe the biggest absurdities ,will commit the worst

atrocities" , Voltaire. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/voltaire.htm