Obama unleashing the Islamo-Fascist terrorists in Libya and Egypt
I just looked at the wikipeadia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism . Do you really think that the new regimes in Libya and Egypt are "fascist"? They look to me to be a lot less fascist than what they replaced. Also the new regime in Libya is actually secular isn't it?
I also think fascism is very much a mixed bag of ideologies. The most dangerous parts of it IMO are racism/religious intolerance and imperialism. It seems to me that your tendency to use "Islamo-Fascist" as a default term for muslims is straying worryingly close to religious intolerance and you seem to want much more aggressive US Imperialism. To me it looks as though your anxiety about fascism is in danger of turning you into basically a fascist.
As an aside, the economic policies of fascism show hints of Singapore even though Singapore is very much a place that respects religious freedoms and celebrates multiculturism and is not at all imperialist
Fascism advocates a state-controlled and regulated mixed economy; the principal economic goal of fascism is to achieve national autarky to secure national independence, through protectionist and interventionist economic policies.[24] It promotes regulated private enterprise and private property contingent whenever beneficial to the nation and state enterprise and state property whenever necessary to protect its interests.[24] At the same time, fascists are hostile to financial capital, plutocracy, and "the power of money".[24] It supports criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers because it deems these acts as prejudicial and detrimental to the national community and therefore to society as an entirety.[25] Fascism promoted such economics as a "third position" alternative to capitalism and Marxism, as fascism declares both as being obsolete.[26] Fascism denounces capitalism not because of its competitive nature nor its support of private property that fascism supports; but due to its materialism, individualism, alleged bourgeois decadence, and alleged indifference to the nation.[27] Fascism denounces Marxism for its advocacy of materialist internationalist class identity that fascism regards as an attack upon the emotional and spiritual bonds of nationality and thwarting the achievement of genuine national solidarity.[28]
Last edited by stone on Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment." - Mulla Nasrudin
Obama unleashing the Islamo-Fascist terrorists in Libya and Egypt
I just looked at the wikipeadia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism . Do you really think that the new regimes in Libya and Egypt are "fascist"?
You'd think that Islamo-fascist would be a term used only by the likes of Sean Hannity, but even my beloved Christopher Hitchens (may he rest in peace) used the term frequently. Still, I don't know whether he would use it for what's emerging now in the new middle east. It's a good question.
To be fair to us Americans, we don't have any direct experience with fascism so I think most of us don't really know what the term actually means. For instance, I don't know how many of us would be able to identify the WWII Italians as having the same political/economic system as the Nazis.
I think our liberals would be made quite uncomfortable to have to admit that a key component of fascism is state regulation, control, and direction of private industry. How did Obama put it last night? "a new economic patriotism?" And on the other hand, conservatives are terribly fond of several of the other attributes, such as militarism, xenophobia, and the desire for cultural purity. I think that's what us independents and libertarians mean when we say that there's no real difference between the parties; not that there literally is no difference, but that each one always seems to bring us closer to true fascism in their own oblivious way.
Last edited by Pointedstick on Thu Oct 04, 2012 11:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary, but competition for limited resources remains a constant.
- CEO Nwabudike Morgan
Pointedstick wrote:
To be fair to us Americans, we don't have any direct experience with fascism so I think most of us don't really know what the term actually means. For instance, I don't know how many of us would be able to identify the WWII Italians as having the same political/economic system as the Nazis.
I don't have any direct experience with homosexuality, but I'm pretty sure I grok what the term actually means.
The WW2-era Italians are tricky to define. Mussolini was a fascist, but the populace was too protean to pin down.
Mussolini defined fascism as the merger of state and corporate power. In other words, the current GOP wet dream. Surveillance drones outsourced to Boeing; military troops outsourced to Blackwater (now Xe), healthcare outsourced to Monsanto/Aetna (now the people who sell you poison that makes you sick can sell you the treatment to get you fixed back up).
After all, Romney believes (despite the fact checkers that prove him wrong) that private corporations are always more efficient than government. In most cases, I would agree, however, Medicare is one shining example where there is less overhead than any private insurance plan. If you look at Medicare operating with a miniscule 3% overhead, and ask any private insurer "would you want a business where your net profit is capped at the rate of inflation?" They would say, not No, but "hell No!"
"I came here for financial advice, but I've ended up with a bunch of shave soaps and apparently am about to start eating sardines. Not that I'm complaining, of course." -ZedThou
Storm wrote:
After all, Romney believes (despite the fact checkers that prove him wrong) that private corporations are always more efficient than government. In most cases, I would agree, however, Medicare is one shining example where there is less overhead than any private insurance plan. If you look at Medicare operating with a miniscule 3% overhead, and ask any private insurer "would you want a business where your net profit is capped at the rate of inflation?" They would say, not No, but "hell No!"
If that is the kind of society that those nations want for themselves, what business is it of ours?
M.T. you've got to be kidding! The majority of the people there don't want that kind of society. The Islamo-fascists do. And they know how to get it.
Look at Iran. The majority of the people there yearn for freedom. They just can't get it. By facilitating the removal of the Shah all Jimmy Carter did was open the door for these Islamo-fascists to take over. A much worse alternative. Much the same as Obama has done in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and other parts of the Middle East.
Sticking your head in the sand is not a good long term foreign policy.
Simonjester wrote:
has helping people gain freedom with a top down approach ever worked? it seems like a bit of a doomed method, they have top down dictatorships and we go in and use top down methods to replace them and get all surprised when it ends up being more of the same with different leaders, and they end up viewing us as trying to dictate their form of government..
you would think if they actually have a population that understands and wants freedom we would be better off helping those people with a grass roots movement to educate there fellow citizens and let them build there own government with there own leaders based on popular support.
But that doesn't support the corporate profits of the fascist NeoCon-industrial-war complex, or their hubris.
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes
Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet. I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
Reub wrote:
If that is the kind of society that those nations want for themselves, what business is it of ours?
M.T. you've got to be kidding! The majority of the people there don't want that kind of society. The Islamo-fascists do. And they know how to get it.
Like the same loyal followers of Muhammad who voted in Hamas when given the chance in Palestine?
Reub wrote:
Sticking your head in the sand is not a good long term foreign policy.
Sticking our head in the sand....or minding our own business. I guess it is a matter of perspective.
"I am for free commerce with all nations, political connection with none, and little or no diplomatic establishment. And I am not for linking ourselves by new treaties with the quarrels of Europe, entering that field of slaughter to preserve their balance, or joining in the confederacy of Kings to war against the principles of liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:77
Minding your own business is not a viable long term foreign policy either. When you look the other way as the little old lady on the next block is attacked what makes you think that the next attack won't be on your block?
Reub wrote:
Minding your own business is not a viable long term foreign policy either. When you look the other way as the little old lady on the next block is attacked what makes you think that the next attack won't be on your block?
Based on history I would suggest that minding our own business is an excellent foreign policy. The problem with the analogy quoted above is that from an historical perspective, we have been the bully in the Middle East for the last 60+ years. Iran's problems did not start under Jimmy Carter. They started under Eisenhower when he ordered the CIA to overthrow the democratically elected government and instal a despotic monarch with no claim to legitimacy.
Once again we reap what we sow.
Trumpism is not a philosophy or a movement. It's a cult.
Reub wrote:
Minding your own business is not a viable long term foreign policy either. When you look the other way as the little old lady on the next block is attacked what makes you think that the next attack won't be on your block?
I think appropriate responses to that situation include training with and carrying your firearm, getting a dog, and installing an alarm system in your house. An inappropriate response would be to find the people who attacked the little old lady, kick down their door, shoot half the people we see inside, eject the rest, set fire to the building, hire your friends in the construction business with your money to rebuild the house, and then invite the previous inhabitants back, pointing out how much nicer the house is now.
Last edited by Pointedstick on Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary, but competition for limited resources remains a constant.
- CEO Nwabudike Morgan
I agree. Other alternatives are starting Neighborhood Watch's, forming other alliances in the neighborhood, learning who the potential bad guys might be, having action plans if they attack again. I did notice that you made no mention of saving the old lady.
"For nine days, the Obama administration made a case that virtually everyone understood was untrue: that the killing of our ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, was a random, spontaneous act of individuals upset about an online video—an unpredictable attack on a well-protected compound that had nothing do to with the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.
These claims were wrong. Every one of them. But the White House pushed them hard."
"So we are left with this: Four Americans were killed in a premeditated terrorist attack on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, and for more than a week the Obama administration misled the country about what happened.
This isn’t just a problem. It’s a scandal.
If this were the first time top Obama officials had tried to sell a bogus narrative after an attack, perhaps they would deserve the benefit of the doubt. It’s not."
"For nine days, the Obama administration made a case that virtually everyone understood was untrue: that the killing of our ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, was a random, spontaneous act of individuals upset about an online video—an unpredictable attack on a well-protected compound that had nothing do to with the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.
These claims were wrong. Every one of them. But the White House pushed them hard."
"So we are left with this: Four Americans were killed in a premeditated terrorist attack on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, and for more than a week the Obama administration misled the country about what happened.
This isn’t just a problem. It’s a scandal.
If this were the first time top Obama officials had tried to sell a bogus narrative after an attack, perhaps they would deserve the benefit of the doubt. It’s not."
-Government 2020+ - a BANANA REPUBLIC - if you can keep it
-Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence
MT Does the truth hurt that much that you can no longer bear to hear it? When you stop siding with corruption, incompetence and falsifications please let me know.
This will be a huge issue in the next couple of weeks.
Last edited by Reub on Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reub wrote:
MT Does the truth hurt that much that you can no longer bear to hear it? When you stop siding with corruption, incompetence and falsifications please let me know.
This will be a huge issue in the next couple of weeks.
It's not that I can't bear to hear it, it's just that I feel like I've heard it and now I'm ready to hear something else.
The government screwing up a foreign policy effort isn't that remarkable to me.
Q: “Do you have funny shaped balloons?”
A: “Not unless round is funny.”
