4 ms·

I have trouble taking people seriously when they refuse to call things what they are because they don’t want to admit it.

al_borland 1y ago
Trump has given power back to the states for various things and seems to be consistently anti-war. Musk has been pushing the idea of starting a new political party to better represent the people and is for less regulation and smaller government. This doesn’t sound like a couple of fascists.
- mcphage 1y ago
  > seems to be consistently anti-war …this is the guy who bombed Iran? > to better represent the people Do you just believe everything that people with power tell you?
- cholantesh 1y ago
  >Musk has been pushing the idea of starting a new political party to better represent the people and is for less regulation and smaller government. This is self-contradictory gibberish. Deregulation and small government for him means further weakening labour laws to the point where the interests of the majority of Americans, ie, wage workers, have no ability to advocate for their needs and no recourse when he encroaches on them. >Trump [...] seems to be consistently anti-war. This was already a surreal claim to make when he was sending troops and PMCs into Iraq and Syria, deploying SEALs on abortive raids in Yemen, where Saudi troops were using arms his administration provided them, oh and, I dunno, ordering the assassination of the highest military official of a sovereign nation. It becomes solipsistic in the month after he oversaw the US' direct intervention in Israel's war with Iran.
  - queenkjuul 1y ago
    It's only war when the guy i don't like does it. Otherwise it's "intervention" or "police action" or "limited engagement" or the term du jour
    - yencabulator 1y ago
      The US special operation in middle east.
- queenkjuul 1y ago
  Yes it does
  - msgodel 1y ago
    It's fascist in the anti-communist sense sure, but most Americans would be fascist then.
    - cholantesh 1y ago
      No, it's fascist in the sense of nativism and public-private collaboration that was normative in fascist states. Most Americans are ambivalent to communism.
      - msgodel 1y ago
        You can't not be nativist to some degree. Otherwise all you have is an economic zone, not a country. That's a completely ridiculous definition of fascism and again, if you pick that most Americans would be fascist and consider it a good thing.
        cholantesh 1y ago
        Most Americans, who are working class, want the state to collaborate with their employers against their interests? Quite a bold assertion.
    - saubeidl 1y ago
      Most Americans are fascist, the same way most Germans were in the 1930s.
- yencabulator 1y ago
  That's very much a rules for thee not for me scenario. Watch Trump regarding California and try to claim he's all about state's rights.
kcplate 1y ago
The problem is that fascism historically encompassed a number of political and power qualities and what is being described as “fascist” today might have some of those qualities, but not necessarily all of them. Ironically the side yelling “fascist” today also has some of those qualities, but doesn’t want to admit either. Probably just best to focus on those qualities you don’t like on the other side and leave the labeling to the future historians.
- queenkjuul 1y ago
  We need words people understand now to describe what's happening now. Curious what you consider fascist about people who hold zero corporate or political power
  - kcplate 1y ago
    > We need words people understand now to describe what's happening now. Ok, so use words appropriate to what is happening. When you work to redefine “scary” words in an attempt to try and piggyback on their negative history you minimize that history. > Curious what you consider fascist about people who hold zero corporate or political power The point was that I don’t consider what we see today as fascist and you shouldn’t either…because it’s not.
    - mcphage 1y ago
      At what point will you consider it fascist, if anonymous masked police kidnapping people off the streets doesn’t, and building concentration camps doesn’t, and silencing of critical media doesn’t? Are you waiting for a specific number of mass casualties, or is this just sparkling despotism?
      - kcplate 1y ago
        Those are “tactics”. You are confusing relatively common control and power tactics that are used by some governments with an ideology that encompasses many different characteristics. The Soviet Union used many of the same tactics, but you wouldn’t call them fascist. Many of the important (political and economic) fascist ideologies don’t apply to the current administration…in fact politically and economically the current US administration is directly opposite of what was found in historic fascism. I get that you want to redefine what “fascism” is, because historically it’s associated with some really evil things, but I am not willing to dilute that definition.
PaulHoule 1y ago
"Anti-fascists" were saying things like "Keir Starmer is a Fascist" (sci-fi writer Charlie Stross) or that "My local police department is Fascist" or "White people are Fascist" If you know your 'Pataphysics or Chaos Magick you know that's a magic spell to put fascists in charge.
- queenkjuul 1y ago
  So you can't call fascism fascism because some idiot called not-fascism fascism?
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    You can but people won’t listen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf

al_borland 1y ago

Trump has given power back to the states for various things and seems to be consistently anti-war. Musk has been pushing the idea of starting a new political party to better represent the people and is for less regulation and smaller government. This doesn’t sound like a couple of fascists.

mcphage 1y ago
> seems to be consistently anti-war …this is the guy who bombed Iran? > to better represent the people Do you just believe everything that people with power tell you?
cholantesh 1y ago
>Musk has been pushing the idea of starting a new political party to better represent the people and is for less regulation and smaller government. This is self-contradictory gibberish. Deregulation and small government for him means further weakening labour laws to the point where the interests of the majority of Americans, ie, wage workers, have no ability to advocate for their needs and no recourse when he encroaches on them. >Trump [...] seems to be consistently anti-war. This was already a surreal claim to make when he was sending troops and PMCs into Iraq and Syria, deploying SEALs on abortive raids in Yemen, where Saudi troops were using arms his administration provided them, oh and, I dunno, ordering the assassination of the highest military official of a sovereign nation. It becomes solipsistic in the month after he oversaw the US' direct intervention in Israel's war with Iran.
- queenkjuul 1y ago
  It's only war when the guy i don't like does it. Otherwise it's "intervention" or "police action" or "limited engagement" or the term du jour
  - yencabulator 1y ago
    The US special operation in middle east.
queenkjuul 1y ago
Yes it does
- msgodel 1y ago
  It's fascist in the anti-communist sense sure, but most Americans would be fascist then.
  - cholantesh 1y ago
    No, it's fascist in the sense of nativism and public-private collaboration that was normative in fascist states. Most Americans are ambivalent to communism.
    - msgodel 1y ago
      You can't not be nativist to some degree. Otherwise all you have is an economic zone, not a country. That's a completely ridiculous definition of fascism and again, if you pick that most Americans would be fascist and consider it a good thing.
      - cholantesh 1y ago
        Most Americans, who are working class, want the state to collaborate with their employers against their interests? Quite a bold assertion.
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    Most Americans are fascist, the same way most Germans were in the 1930s.
yencabulator 1y ago
That's very much a rules for thee not for me scenario. Watch Trump regarding California and try to claim he's all about state's rights.

kcplate 1y ago

The problem is that fascism historically encompassed a number of political and power qualities and what is being described as “fascist” today might have some of those qualities, but not necessarily all of them. Ironically the side yelling “fascist” today also has some of those qualities, but doesn’t want to admit either. Probably just best to focus on those qualities you don’t like on the other side and leave the labeling to the future historians.

queenkjuul 1y ago
We need words people understand now to describe what's happening now. Curious what you consider fascist about people who hold zero corporate or political power
- kcplate 1y ago
  > We need words people understand now to describe what's happening now. Ok, so use words appropriate to what is happening. When you work to redefine “scary” words in an attempt to try and piggyback on their negative history you minimize that history. > Curious what you consider fascist about people who hold zero corporate or political power The point was that I don’t consider what we see today as fascist and you shouldn’t either…because it’s not.
  - mcphage 1y ago
    At what point will you consider it fascist, if anonymous masked police kidnapping people off the streets doesn’t, and building concentration camps doesn’t, and silencing of critical media doesn’t? Are you waiting for a specific number of mass casualties, or is this just sparkling despotism?
    - kcplate 1y ago
      Those are “tactics”. You are confusing relatively common control and power tactics that are used by some governments with an ideology that encompasses many different characteristics. The Soviet Union used many of the same tactics, but you wouldn’t call them fascist. Many of the important (political and economic) fascist ideologies don’t apply to the current administration…in fact politically and economically the current US administration is directly opposite of what was found in historic fascism. I get that you want to redefine what “fascism” is, because historically it’s associated with some really evil things, but I am not willing to dilute that definition.

PaulHoule 1y ago

"Anti-fascists" were saying things like "Keir Starmer is a Fascist" (sci-fi writer Charlie Stross) or that "My local police department is Fascist" or "White people are Fascist" If you know your 'Pataphysics or Chaos Magick you know that's a magic spell to put fascists in charge.

queenkjuul 1y ago
So you can't call fascism fascism because some idiot called not-fascism fascism?
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  You can but people won’t listen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf