Re: The greatest Mystery to me is Republicans

Okay, here we go with part 3.

>>>>9.) Corporate Power is Protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are
the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually
beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

Yet more proof that the person who wrote this knows virtually
nothing about either history or current events.

Even under Bush, American business is far LESS protected by
government than businesses are in most of Europe. Both France and
Germany outlaw what they call "predatory competition." What this
amounts to in practice is a government-enforced insurance policy for
existing large corporations. It means that new companies coming up are
legally prohibited from competing significantly on the basis of price.

Large, venerable corporations crash and burn all the time in the
US. In much of the EU, they're seen as national institutions and
propped up whenever it is at all possible.

Never mind the obvious, which is that this "point" mistakes the
actually position of large-scale business under fascism. Under
fascism, these businesses are not just "protected," they're considered
a semi-official part of the state--a condition far more accurately
describing both present-day France and Germany than the US.

<<<10.) Labor Power is Suppressed
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a
fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are
severely suppressed.

There's so much wrong with this, I hardly know where to begin.

First, under no circumstances is the "power of labor" the "only
real threat to a fascist government." Fascist governments have far
more to fear from certain kinds of religious institutions than they do
from labor, which is why real fascist governments (Cuba, North Korea,
China) persecute religion.

Second, the labor movement in this country hasn't been eliminated,
and it hasn't been suppressed. It's been committing slow suicide for
decades. Certainly businesses have moved in to take advantage of the
death march, but the death march is labor's own and is composed of
complacency and hubris, not the emergence of a fascist state.

<<<11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher
education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other
academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts
is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

Once more--no perspective, no historical understanding, and no
honest appraisal of what's actually going on in the US at the moment.

So--do Americans "promote and tolerate open hostility to higher
education, and academia"? Well, they tolerate it, as they should--it's
a free country, you can hate colleges and universities if you want.

But Americans hardly exhibit "hostility" to higher education. A
higher percentage of Americans goes on to higher education than the
percentage in any other country. It's the dream of every American
family to send the kids to college, and most of them realize the dream.

What Americans object to--what the hostility is to--is an
environment on too many college campuses that is actual, REAL
censorship. Students have been expelled and suspended for suggesting
in class or in alternative newspapers that students admitted under
affirmative action have lower academic credentials than students
admitted the regular way (even though that happens to be true), for
protesting the Balkanization of their campuses by the institution of
race-segregated housing (black-only dorms, for instance), for saying
that they think abortion is wrong or that the country would do better
if women stayed home and raised their children instead of going out to
work. College administrations have sat back while various
"progressive" campus groups did things like steal entire issues of a
student newspaper with an article they didn't like and then destroyed
it, and refused to go after the groups that committed the
instruction--at the same time hauling the students who wrote the
articles up and demanding that they undergo "sensitivity training" if
they want to stay in school (re-education camps, anybody?).

Nor are Americans hostile to "acadmics." They're hostile to
anybody who spends his time telling them how awful America and
Americans are, which is not surprising, but please note: Ward
Churchill didn't lose his job after calling (some of) the victims of
9/11 "little Eichmanns" who got what they deserved, and that in spite
of the fact that he teaches at a taxpayer-funded university. (He may
get hit for having lied about his ethnic background and plagiarized
half his research, but that's something else). Barbara Foley isn't out
of a job, either. Neither is Eric Foner.

But the most ludicrous claim in this one is that "Free expression
in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund
the arts."

In the free expression department, if you mean that people protest
that some art is obscene or offensive--what's your alternative? That
those people should have their speech suppressed? Would that we less
"fascist"?

As for "governments often refuse to fund the arts," they should,
and there's nothing fascist about it. Whatever the hell is the
government doing funding the arts?

The arts in the US are alive and kicking and in better shape than
they are most places, precisely BECAUSE they aren't as heavily funded.
Thirty years of French funding for French cinema has produced a film
industry that can't get its own citizens into the theater--this is good
news?

And don't give me that it's all American cultural imperialism.
Nothing we do forces French people to walk past the French movie and
buy a ticket to the American one playing in the next block.
Bollywood does just fine.

Oh, and don't tell me that the only arts that get funded are the
ones that toe the bottom line and appeal to corporate America. There
are certainly big record labels and big companies, but there are also
lots of small ones. ALL my artistic tastes are of the minority
kind--but I can find harpsichord music and medieval literature without
a problem, even though the government doesn't fund it.

This "point" amounts to a guy who has a pet project he wants the
government to fund, screaming "fascism!" when he doesn't get what he
wants.

Okay, we'll do the last three in the next post.

Jane Haddam
http://www.janehaddam.com

.

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