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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The danger of American proto-fascism

[The situation in the U.S. today] "is very similar to late Weimar Germany," Chomsky told me when I called him at his office in Cambridge, Mass. "The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and the Communists but that the traditional parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties, were hated and disappeared. It left a vacuum [in] which the Nazis very cleverly and intelligently managed to take over.

"The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen. Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers. If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says 'I have got an answer, we have an enemy'? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I don't think all this is very far away."

Chomsky should know, the interviewer points out in his introduction, as he has spent his entire life thinking about politics from an iconoclastic perspective. And I think he's right about how the main difference is the lack of a galvanizing figure, a leader (like that envisioned by "Coach" Daubenmire in his plea for the Tea Party to line up behind him). Not that there aren't plenty of people like Daubenmire and Kenneth Hutcherson and Newt Gingrich. But as Chomsky points out, each is too obviously venal and unstable to attract much of a following.

At least I hope that's true when it comes to Gingrich.

technorati: THIS, THAT, TOTHER

Labels: fanatics, Newt Gingrich, religious right, Republicans, zeitgeist

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Today's paranoid: Obama said to be jockeying for one-world presidency

From a Time story about a Virginia gathering of Congressional candidates sponsored by a Tea Party group:

Feda Morton, the only woman in the race, has been a teacher, a state-championship basketball coach, a school board member and a Republican organizer. A diminutive mother of five sporting a sparkling flag pin, she fidgeted as she recited the merits of her candidacy in an interview with TIME. When the topic turned to Barack Obama, she confessed deep fears. "I don't think the President really cares about our health care," Morton says. "He's not trying to lead America. He's trying to position himself to be a leader higher up, and the only way he can do that is to bring America into the whole one-world order concept."

Obama, she adds, belongs to a plutocratic cabal that manufactures crises for personal profit, foisting scams like health care reform and global warming on U.S. taxpayers to depress the economy. "Look at who his czars are," she says. "He's tied very closely to George Soros, European socialist organizations, Howard Dean. These people all play into this one-world order, one-world money system. And it's to make money for them."

Wow! I love the expression "his czars" -- it's like a combination of the concept behind Jesus's admonition that no one can have two masters, with some neo-Red Scare ideology. Here is her website.

technorati: paranoia, nuts, Tea Party

Labels: fanatics, nuts, paranoia, politics, Republicans, Tea Party, zeitgeist

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Keeping abreast of body modifications

"Ultramarathon" runners -- those who take part in races of 50, 100 or even more miles -- tend to suffer from problems with toenails. So some of them have toenails permanently removed through surgery, a process that includes "pouring acid onto the nailbed" to prevent regrowth. Runners interviewed for the NYT story say things like "toenails are dead weight;" one who had all his toenails removed said "it's one less thing to have to deal with" on races upwards of 100 miles.

The piece is a little contradictory about whether runners who have undergone the procedure -- an estimated five to ten percent of "ultrarunners" -- feel like publicizing the fact. Some of them are "tired of being freaks, and they don't want to add anything more freakish to their résumé." Others sport t-shirts reading "Toenails are for Sissies" -- a clue to the mentality of the sport.

The most reasonable comment is from one doctor who says, "You know any sport has gone off the rails when you have to remove body parts to do it."

Labels: closet cases, cults, fanatics, over-reactions, superheroes

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Herzog's film school 'not for the faint-hearted'

It's almost like a satire: Werner Herzog announces a "Rogue Film School .. in guerrilla filmmaking" (courtesy The Rumpus) that will teach rough-and-tumble filmmaking teachniques. His description reads like a manifesto:

"The Rogue Film School is not for the faint-hearted," said the film-maker. "It is for those who have travelled on foot, who have worked as bouncers in sex clubs or as wardens in a lunatic asylum, for those who are willing to learn about lock-picking or forging shooting permits in countries not favouring their projects.

"In short: it is for those who have a sense for poetry. For those who are pilgrims. For those who can tell a story to four-year-old children and hold their attention. For those who have a fire burning within. For those who have a dream."

I wonder if he will begin the first day by declaring, "The first rule of Rogue Film School is that you don't talk about Rogue Film School!"

Herzog is clearly among that class of artists who -- perhaps luckily for the citizens of their nations -- might also have become extremely persuasive politicians (Vaclav Havel having been the only one to actually make the leap to head of state).

technorati: Herzog

Labels: Bad Behavior, fanatics, films

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Focus on the Fundies: Obscure minister predicts calamity

Courtesy John Burton, that manic Christian "prophecy" guy I link to from time to time for laughs, here's another "minister" with an "urgent message" about "AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY ... SO FRIGHTENING, WE ARE ALL GOING TO TREMBLE."

For ten years I have been warning about a thousand fires coming to New York City. It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires -- such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago. There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting -- including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God's wrath. ... If possible lay in store a thirty-day supply of non-perishable food, toiletries and other essentials.

Yes, when the righteous tremble, at least they will have a thirty-day supply of toilet paper. I'd love to see their shopping lists, actually. Imagine what's on them.

technorati: prophecy, Christians, evangelicals

Labels: crypto-fascists, evangelicals, fanatics, Focus on the Fundies, over-reactions, zeitgeist

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Another ray of sunlight: arch-conservative Paul Weyrich dies

Far-right foamer Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist who founded the Heritage Foundation and the Free Congress Foundation, has died at age 66.

Weyrich was one of the main people behind anti-gay measures, using them to motivate hysterical Christianists and hateful conservatives to the polls where they would elect more neocon Republicans -- a scam that continues to work to this day. In this sample of his work, from the Media Matters website, Weyrich comments in 2006 on the Mark Foley scandal:

WEYRICH: Here is the real problem. It has been known for many years that Congressman Foley was a homosexual. Homosexuals tend to be preoccupied with sex. The idea that he should be continued -- or should have been continued as chairman of the Committee on Missing and Exploited Children is, you know, given their knowledge of that, is just outrageous.

NPR host Nichelle NORRIS: Now before we go on, I think I can say, Mr. Weyrich, that there are quite a few people who would take exception to the statement that homosexuals are preoccupied with sex.

WEYRICH: Well, I don't care whether they take exception to it. It happens to be true. I mean --

NORRIS: That is your opinion.

WEYRICH: Well, it's not my opinion. It's the opinion of many psychologists and psychiatrists who have to deal with them.

technorati: right-wing, conservatives, Weyrich

Labels: closet cases, crypto-fascists, fanatics, Focus on the Fundies, Republicans

Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Astyk Award: first winner

The NYT has an article about people who victimize their families in the name of environmentalism: a mother "couldn't find a (Little League baseball) league that wasn't a long drive," so her 6-year-old is stuck playing catch with her in the yard; in the winter they heat with a wood stove and the average indoor temp is 52 degrees. A man is collecting every bit of waste his family generates, including the recyclables, and blogging about it. And so forth.

Perhaps we need a companion to the Stolpa Award, which recognizes people who fit into the "Too stupid to live" category but manage to menace their whole family in the bargain. All right, let's name it after, and give the first award to, the mother who can't be bothered to live in the 20th (much less the 21st) century: The Astyk Award. (Although the article itself contains another phrase which is wonderfully evocative: dark green.)

I mean, really -- you want to reduce your carbon footprint? Don't have kids. She has four.

technorati: waste, recycling, green

Labels: Astyk, environment, fanatics, recycling, Stolpa