27 February 2017

Authoritarianism



In Episode V of Star Wars, a major climactic moment is the light sabre fight between Lord Vader and Luke Skywalker. As the duel progressives, Vader tries to talk Luke into joining him. He tries to convince Luke that if they join forces and crush the rebellion, they can bring order. That is his goal and he offers it as a virtue.

In the 1930's, the model fascist State was Italy. Mussolini until his army proved remarkably inept in Ethiopia and Greece, had been the model. Franco, Salazar, and yes Hitler all made trips to Rome to see how it was done. Hitler would add State anti-Semitism and and effective military. As Germany bailed Italy out in Greece and Africa, Hitler would eventually surpass Mussolini. What strikes me as relevant from that earlier time is the almost universal comment by Americans and other visitors was that the Fascists had made the trains run on time. That imposition of efficiency was seen as success, and an alteration of the somewhat sloppy Italian culture that was remarkable.

We must have, I hear, order. The same lunatic gun lobby that proclaimed a right to shoot Federal agents in Wyoming and Montana now wants to attack Standing Rock Lakota and their "liberal" allies. There is as my favorite rock song proclaims, something happening here.

Back in the 1930's Hitler showed the world that what fascism needs is an enemy. So also Communism needed an evil enemy. Hitler proclaimed Jews the enemies of the "volk," while Stalin discovered, "counter revolutionaries" who were enemies of the Soviet People. If any of that sounds the least bit familiar, you have been paying attention to Mr. Trump, and his tools, Steve Bannon and Steven Miller. The press, paid protesters, and the evil intellectuals are the enemies of the people.

Wayne La Pierre declared in his CPAC speech that gun owners, "have the president's back." http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/short-enemies-nras-lapierre-invents-new-one He also brought back the big lie technique with his reference to $1500 a week payments for protesters which he knows or should know is a lie. Mark Shields observed on PBS last Friday that declaring the press the enemy of the people is where dictatorships begin.

So here we are at the moment when the desire for order over-rides (a card player might say,"trumps") liberty. The opposite of order is not chaos, it is freedom. We are slipping into a time when order will be the overwhelming motive of the State. Authoritarianism is always excused by finding an enemy of the people and of order. That way lies fascism.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Lucas is a communist sympathizer. so star wars was just a little pink. (watch American graffiti its pinker than a panther;)
and yes there needs to be a dark side. BAD Cop. for the story to be told. Koney and the lords resistance army. . .
you see Montenegro joining nato is Ok but Crimea joining Russia is wrong.
see the story of propaganda works much better when we are right and they are wrong.
'its right for the good guys to get a navel base but its wrong for the bad guys to get one. Nice and simple. just remember there is nothing equal between us and them
Btw barrack Obama is Cia Trump is bad cop and comey and his fbi ties needs to investigated more than trumps supposed Russia ties! Furthermore Palestinian lives matter more than transgendered peoples feelings... so be on the look out for propaganda that feels the need to include boogeymen such as human trafficking genital mutilation cyberbulling or Russian interference in elections. currently Us propaganda is using them to not listen to people in Asia and Africa and to take over their countries for their own good. and if your not cool with it you are assumed to be for genital mutilation of kids and human trafficking . It cant be that you oppose us taking over countries in Africa and Asia and support free speech. because see the above propaganda
(nato needs navel bases to prevent Russia from stopping the democratic process!

Unknown said...

this one time Vladimir Putin blew up his own apt buildings,
and yet America has never chosen to make this public.
its almost as if we need to hide our false flag events so much we are impotent to call him out on his.
Btw I recently created the Vlad the blower up of apartments free to play game here is how you play.
you get a point when ever you mention vlad blew up his own apartments you lose a point when ever you take about conservative provocateurs/ milo or kellyanne
so this post is only worth one point. plus 3 minus 2

JimB said...

Mr. Lucas's politics which are also mine by-the-bye. do not invalidate the point, authoritarian regimes arise from a desire for order and a will to make the obstreperous behave.

Like it or not, there ARE bad people in the world, they do in fact act in evil ways, and not everything is a play staged by a boogie man conspiracy.

FWIW

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