Thanks very much for the interesting information about US politics and culture; however I'm really not so terribly interested in what you do about your own problems (except insodar as "freedom == good", of course) and how you go about fixing them. And you might notice from the page title that this story wasn't about the USA, it was about the UK.
OK at this point I don't even know what you ARE arguing
I'm arguing that it's silly to assert that there's a plan by Gordon Brown or the Labour government (or the Bavarian Illuminati, come to that) to turn the UK into a fascist state. I absolutely agree that civil liberties have generally gone backwards in the last 20 years (go back and look at the Thatcher government's record, it started well before '97.) Some particularly egregious, stupid, and bad laws have been passed by this gov't, including RIP (which some of us protested about in 1999/2000), ASBOs, mass surveillance, the continuing theme for home secretaries to be appointed as reasonably sane people, and emerge bodysnatcher-like a week or two later babbling about ID cards and retinal scanners on every door and CCTV in police helmets and ANPR and all the rest of it. That stuff sucks! (FWIW, I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to be a member of, and contribute to, a bunch of organisations who have been fighting this stuff hard; No2ID, Liberty, Amnesty, the EFF, the Open Rights Group,.. etc.) I've even *gasp* written to my MP a couple of times about civil liberty issues. Ranting about a conspiracy to turn the UK into a fascist state will get you a nice slot in the kook file at any one of those organisations, because they have more important things to do that ACTUALLY MIGHT HELP CHANGE THINGS, rather than just posting guff about how the bank bailout is the start of the New World Order (or fascism or whatever else it is.)
It sounds like you're genuinely concerned about all the same sort of things that I am. Slashdot flaming aside, could I sincerely suggest that you put some efforts towards actually trying to help? (I apologise if my assumption that you don't do anything practical already is unfounded.) Mail me your address and I'll send you a few bundles of fliers for No2ID or Liberty to hand out in your local shopping centre this Saturday for an hour or two. Seriously, dude! Put down the weed and start helping!:)
You: "Just because you chose to pretend Fascism can't exist doesn't make it so."
Me: "Could you please quote where I've made that claim?"
You: "Since you called me a "nutter" for suggesting that Fascism is where the U.K. is heading it follows that you are making that claim that the U.K. isn't heading to Fascism."
Notice how those are two entirely different statements? Yes, I do assert that the UK is not heading towards fascism.* No, I do not "pretend that fascism pretend Fascism can't exist".
*Let's be clear, by "heading towards fascism" I take you to mean "intended and likely to become a fascist state in the foreseeable future", not "heading in a bad direction, civil libs-wise" .
Have you ever read or studied any history or is your education and world view confined mostly to reading British tabloids as it appears?
Er,.. if you read back the thread you'll notice I've made my opinion of the tabloids clear. (Again, thanks for the abuse, although incidentally that appears to be the false dilemma. Do you really think that all people who haven't studied history are informed by nothing but the tabloid press? (2.2, was it? ouch!;p )
No, I haven't studied history since O level (1985), although I've picked up a reasonable lay-person's general knowledge of it. I haven't read the work you cite, but I don't dispute any of what you're saying about the rise of Nazi Germany.
I'm not entirely convinced by this notion of fascism being purely defined by state capitalism, though. (Yes, I know the Mussolini quote, thanks.) I seem to remember a personality cult around a leader-for-life, the suspension of an independent judiciary, summary judgment and violent physical repression on a mass scale, aggressive military occupation and colonisation of neighbouring states, complete intolerance of political or cultural opposition, oh yes and a particular aesthetic, also had something to do with it.) So I guess you're thought is that this "fascist state" will look much like it does now, except with lots of nationalised industries? With a lot of mass surveillance? If so, we're arguing over semantics, 'cos that's not what I'd call fascism. Dissolve parliament, suspend law & order, start marching people off to death camps and I'm happy to call it fascism. Can you clarify what you're asserting about the UK in 2 years' time? I don't want to be putting up a straw man or anything...
There's only one way to settle this; let's see if we are living under fascism before Brown leaves office. If you'd like to put a fiver on it to be paid to the charity of the winner's choice, I'll be around to collect in 16 months' time when he and Labour are kicked out of office.
Really, though if you seriously believe this, you need to get yourself to a qualified psychiatrist.
Ooh, now who's resorting to ad-hominem!:D My "blatherings" are two or three sentences, to which people are posting screeds that, if this were a print newspaper, would be written in green crayon.
Just because you chose to pretend Fascism can't exist doesn't make it so.
Could you please quote where I've made that claim?
I'm assuming the U.S. and U.K. are so envious of China they decided to switch instead of fight.
Yes, yes, of course they did, that makes PERFECT sense and it's all so clear to me now. That chap from Occam would no doubt have agree with you that this is far more likely to be the real explanation for a bunch of attempts to pass authoritarian, repressive laws, in an atmosphere poisoned by the tabloid press (who as I remarked up-thread set the political agenda in the UK), than the absolutely crackpot idea that politicians might just be a bit crap.
If this was the case, all democracies would be on a permanent downward slope with fewer and fewer civil libs and more and more powerful politicians, and we would never have had them in the first place except immediately after revolutions. This is not the case. QED.
All your protestations about bad laws not passing in Democracies completely fails in the face of the historical example of Nazi Germany
No, because I didn't claim that democracies (and politicians) never go bad; of course they do. That's not what I'm arguing.
The GP begins an interesting discussion of some details of the recent crash / credit crunch by asserting that Gordon Brown is bringing about a world fascist regime. Observing that this is the statement of a nutter isn't ad-hominem, it's an observation.
Yes, but some politicians do seek to grab more power for the state, since its more power for them while they are in office, and more power for their party if they are succeeded by their own.
That does not follow, and is the appeal to conspiracy over cock-up I mentioned. We can be suspicious of the motives of particularly unpleasant characters, but (as it's obvious that their party will not always be in power) this would be a stupid motive for bad law. Laws that/do/ give individual politicians more power - for instance the Home Secretary's powers to issue Control Orders in the UK, in effect placing persons not found guilty of any crime under house arrest - are bad laws, of course, and we should and do protest about them and seek to have them changed. This is the source of my hope for the future - not something I am well-known for! - I think I see signs that future UK governments may roll back some, at least, of the recent bad laws.
What happens in the US is up to USians, of course.
If this were so, why were (for instance) ID cards discontinued very quickly after the end of WW2? I think you are confusing state power with personal political power. Certainly all politicians seek personal power (to get to the top of their party, to get elected, to become a minister, to become party leader and/or PM.) However not all politicians seek more power for the/state/. In a democracy, state != government.
No need to appeal to maliciousness to explain that which can easily be explained by incompetence (the reciprocal of "cockup over conspiracy".) It's a combination of simple-minded headline grabbing by unprincipled politicians (which isn't actually ALL of them, quite yet), plus an infuriatingly vacuous, knee-jerk, reactionary tabloid press which sets the agenda for all mainstream political debate. It's depressing, pathetic, outrageous.
However as a long-time observer of the UK domestic political scene over the last thirty years or so, I see a lot of straws in the wind suggesting that the tide is turning (pardon the mixed metaphors.) When the shadow Home Secretary resigned to protest a particular high profile issue (42 days in jail without charges), and the "surveillance state" issues in general (CCTV, ID cards, criminal record checks, ubiquitous state databases on the population, security theatre in response to 9/11, etc etc) you KNOW something's up. I noticed that Times story on their front page; it's bagged up so I could only read a couple of lines above the fold, but they managed to get "raising fears amongst privacy campaigners of the surveillance state" in there. Interestingly, a lot of this stuff is actually being picked up by the very same reactionary tabloids that howled about paedophiles, immigrants, crime, terrorism and so on, as a stick to beat the Labour government with! This strikes me as beautifully poetic justice. Brown's picked up a short-term lift on account of how he does look good wearing a dark tie and a solemn expression whilst appearing to save the world from economic catastrophe. However in six months' time, when it becomes apparent that avoiding catastrophe has not meant avoiding 2.5 or 3 million unemployed, that's going to be painted as "rescuing the fat cats". (Don't get me started on the sickening hypocrisy with which the "kick-a-banker" movement has got going over the last couple of months... )
You know it's odd, I'm nearly 40; I've spent twenty years feeling steadily more despondent and left out as my contemporaries got married, got a mortgage, started having kids... and now? Heh!;)
Nation states are perfectly happy to push conspiracy theories of their own. By they those of Nazi Germany or the "Al Quada / Emanual Bin Laden / Osama Bin Goldstien" one we have going right now.
Yep, and coming up fast on the inside is the "fat cats on Wall St" one, and it's close relative "Bush did it on purpose so they can declare martial law and shut down democracy" meme.
"Instead of rewarding failed decision makers, why don't we let them go bankrupt so that their more responsible competitors [thisiscommonsense.com] can take over?"
Because banks are not as other enterprises. You might say that they are meta-companies. If the banks (the vast majority of them)
Oh yeah, and lots of banks have been in trouble that didn't MAKE any bad decision; that is, they weren't into credit default swaps or other toxic debt-derived instruments. Once runs start happening to banks, the rational thing to do is to rush to your bank to get your money out before it goes tango uniform. The vast majority of customer who aren't at the front of the queue lose all their savings. Apart from wiping the savings of "innocent" customers, this destroys the credibility of banks in general for a generation, at least. The result is severe economic depression; you can read a lot about what fun those are in the economic history of the nineteenth century. Suffice to say I don't want to see people starving to death in the streets.
There now, see, that wasn't so hard to understand was it?
Demand collapsed, dummy. If you go out and buy a newspaper, you'll notice that the global economy just imploded. I've not done the arithmetic but I'll bet that in a year or two's time, the ratio of average income to oil prices will be of the same order as it was earlier this year.
You do realise our taxes are actually lower in Europe that yours in USA, right? I earn about $70K (depending what the exchange rate is today) and I pay about 30% on that, including National Insurance (equiv to your FICA.)
See this comment for more detail...
These technologies of mass surveillance and ubiquitous tracking, which have slid into existence in many states (excluding some of the more enlightened European countries, such as Germany) were designed and built during economic good times. If, as seems very likely, we have mass unemployment, some interesting societal effects can be expected - ranging from conspiracy theorists (it's the jews! no, the illuminati! no, it's the CIA!), plus the inevitable search for a scapegoat amongst the dimmer / less educated members of society (those currently saying things like "Why are we paying billions to bankers when small businesses don't get bailed out?") will mean a lot of social churning. Some of that will be well organised via political parties, some through NGOs, some very informal and "underground". Now, what happens when mass surveillance technology meets mass unrest? Given what we know of abuses of the blank cheque that are inevitably going on... I think things could get really ugly.
(Yes, of course they're ugly now, but there's still a broad acceptance of the various "think of the children!" "time of war" "terrrrrists!" pablums by which this crap is justified.) I saw some rather scary vox-pops of attendees at a McCain rally the other night, with the guy with bulgy eyes and a pseudo-military "Sir, yes SIR!" manner who when asked what would happen if Obama won, said "I think it will make Europe very happy..." - a slight pause whilst he dealt with the cognitive dissonance of saying that to a representative of The Enemy, namely European media - "and it'll be socialism, and the destruction of our values and our freedoms!"
(Tangent -- I wonder what such people would say if someone said "Obama will allow the NSA to intercept and monitor American's phone and internet traffic, en masse, without any warrant!" or any of the other egregious civil-rights abuses this administration's delivered. Their heads would probably explode with fear at the coming invasion of socialist lizard army Europeans, forcing everyone to marry a gay and eat cheese... )
Anyway, when these types start burning immigrants out of towns and shooting at black helicopters and such, or at least register on the radar of the security state as a potential threat and get the full attentions of the (real) Man,.. well, people get crazy when they find themselves unexpectedly hungry, cold and poor.
That would be Michael Moorcock. The first book of his that I encountered, aged about 11, had an incestuous sex with a lesbian nun on page 2. Now *that's* how you make a fan for life.
PS whaddya mean, "retelling" of the Odyssey? Read the real thing! (OK, OK, a (good!) translation into English is probably acceptable.)
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks very much for the interesting information about US politics and culture; however I'm really not so terribly interested in what you do about your own problems (except insodar as "freedom == good", of course) and how you go about fixing them. And you might notice from the page title that this story wasn't about the USA, it was about the UK.
Oh, OK, seeing as you were banging on domestic UK politics as if you knew something about it, I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you were here.
the thing you probably need to do most is to work to throw your Liberals out of office and hope your Conservatives will do better.
Thanks for the advice, but the Liberal party hasn't formed a government since 1920.
if you have been working on behalf of all those causes its sad your efforts have been such a failure because your causes are losing and losing badly.
Wrong again.
OK at this point I don't even know what you ARE arguing
I'm arguing that it's silly to assert that there's a plan by Gordon Brown or the Labour government (or the Bavarian Illuminati, come to that) to turn the UK into a fascist state. I absolutely agree that civil liberties have generally gone backwards in the last 20 years (go back and look at the Thatcher government's record, it started well before '97.) Some particularly egregious, stupid, and bad laws have been passed by this gov't, including RIP (which some of us protested about in 1999/2000), ASBOs, mass surveillance, the continuing theme for home secretaries to be appointed as reasonably sane people, and emerge bodysnatcher-like a week or two later babbling about ID cards and retinal scanners on every door and CCTV in police helmets and ANPR and all the rest of it. That stuff sucks! (FWIW, I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to be a member of, and contribute to, a bunch of organisations who have been fighting this stuff hard; No2ID, Liberty, Amnesty, the EFF, the Open Rights Group,.. etc.) I've even *gasp* written to my MP a couple of times about civil liberty issues. Ranting about a conspiracy to turn the UK into a fascist state will get you a nice slot in the kook file at any one of those organisations, because they have more important things to do that ACTUALLY MIGHT HELP CHANGE THINGS, rather than just posting guff about how the bank bailout is the start of the New World Order (or fascism or whatever else it is.)
It sounds like you're genuinely concerned about all the same sort of things that I am. Slashdot flaming aside, could I sincerely suggest that you put some efforts towards actually trying to help? (I apologise if my assumption that you don't do anything practical already is unfounded.) Mail me your address and I'll send you a few bundles of fliers for No2ID or Liberty to hand out in your local shopping centre this Saturday for an hour or two. Seriously, dude! Put down the weed and start helping! :)
You: "Just because you chose to pretend Fascism can't exist doesn't make it so."
Me: "Could you please quote where I've made that claim?"
You: "Since you called me a "nutter" for suggesting that Fascism is where the U.K. is heading it follows that you are making that claim that the U.K. isn't heading to Fascism."
Notice how those are two entirely different statements? Yes, I do assert that the UK is not heading towards fascism.* No, I do not "pretend that fascism pretend Fascism can't exist".
*Let's be clear, by "heading towards fascism" I take you to mean "intended and likely to become a fascist state in the foreseeable future", not "heading in a bad direction, civil libs-wise" .
How should we get ready, o Lord?
(Selling all our stocks and taking all our savings out of the bank, perhaps? Oh hey...)
Have you ever read or studied any history or is your education and world view confined mostly to reading British tabloids as it appears?
Er,.. if you read back the thread you'll notice I've made my opinion of the tabloids clear. (Again, thanks for the abuse, although incidentally that appears to be the false dilemma. Do you really think that all people who haven't studied history are informed by nothing but the tabloid press? (2.2, was it? ouch! ;p )
No, I haven't studied history since O level (1985), although I've picked up a reasonable lay-person's general knowledge of it. I haven't read the work you cite, but I don't dispute any of what you're saying about the rise of Nazi Germany.
I'm not entirely convinced by this notion of fascism being purely defined by state capitalism, though. (Yes, I know the Mussolini quote, thanks.) I seem to remember a personality cult around a leader-for-life, the suspension of an independent judiciary, summary judgment and violent physical repression on a mass scale, aggressive military occupation and colonisation of neighbouring states, complete intolerance of political or cultural opposition, oh yes and a particular aesthetic, also had something to do with it.) So I guess you're thought is that this "fascist state" will look much like it does now, except with lots of nationalised industries? With a lot of mass surveillance? If so, we're arguing over semantics, 'cos that's not what I'd call fascism. Dissolve parliament, suspend law & order, start marching people off to death camps and I'm happy to call it fascism. Can you clarify what you're asserting about the UK in 2 years' time? I don't want to be putting up a straw man or anything...
There's only one way to settle this; let's see if we are living under fascism before Brown leaves office. If you'd like to put a fiver on it to be paid to the charity of the winner's choice, I'll be around to collect in 16 months' time when he and Labour are kicked out of office.
Really, though if you seriously believe this, you need to get yourself to a qualified psychiatrist.
Just because you chose to pretend Fascism can't exist doesn't make it so.
Could you please quote where I've made that claim?
I'm assuming the U.S. and U.K. are so envious of China they decided to switch instead of fight.
Yes, yes, of course they did, that makes PERFECT sense and it's all so clear to me now. That chap from Occam would no doubt have agree with you that this is far more likely to be the real explanation for a bunch of attempts to pass authoritarian, repressive laws, in an atmosphere poisoned by the tabloid press (who as I remarked up-thread set the political agenda in the UK), than the absolutely crackpot idea that politicians might just be a bit crap.
All your protestations about bad laws not passing in Democracies completely fails in the face of the historical example of Nazi Germany
No, because I didn't claim that democracies (and politicians) never go bad; of course they do. That's not what I'm arguing.
The GP begins an interesting discussion of some details of the recent crash / credit crunch by asserting that Gordon Brown is bringing about a world fascist regime. Observing that this is the statement of a nutter isn't ad-hominem, it's an observation.
Yes, but some politicians do seek to grab more power for the state, since its more power for them while they are in office, and more power for their party if they are succeeded by their own.
That does not follow, and is the appeal to conspiracy over cock-up I mentioned. We can be suspicious of the motives of particularly unpleasant characters, but (as it's obvious that their party will not always be in power) this would be a stupid motive for bad law. Laws that /do/ give individual politicians more power - for instance the Home Secretary's powers to issue Control Orders in the UK, in effect placing persons not found guilty of any crime under house arrest - are bad laws, of course, and we should and do protest about them and seek to have them changed. This is the source of my hope for the future - not something I am well-known for! - I think I see signs that future UK governments may roll back some, at least, of the recent bad laws.
What happens in the US is up to USians, of course.
...he most definitely did rush the world deeper in to state capitalism over night...
Nonsense. You, sir, are a nutter. *plonk!*
If this were so, why were (for instance) ID cards discontinued very quickly after the end of WW2? I think you are confusing state power with personal political power. Certainly all politicians seek personal power (to get to the top of their party, to get elected, to become a minister, to become party leader and/or PM.) However not all politicians seek more power for the /state/. In a democracy, state != government.
No need to appeal to maliciousness to explain that which can easily be explained by incompetence (the reciprocal of "cockup over conspiracy".) It's a combination of simple-minded headline grabbing by unprincipled politicians (which isn't actually ALL of them, quite yet), plus an infuriatingly vacuous, knee-jerk, reactionary tabloid press which sets the agenda for all mainstream political debate. It's depressing, pathetic, outrageous.
However as a long-time observer of the UK domestic political scene over the last thirty years or so, I see a lot of straws in the wind suggesting that the tide is turning (pardon the mixed metaphors.) When the shadow Home Secretary resigned to protest a particular high profile issue (42 days in jail without charges), and the "surveillance state" issues in general (CCTV, ID cards, criminal record checks, ubiquitous state databases on the population, security theatre in response to 9/11, etc etc) you KNOW something's up. I noticed that Times story on their front page; it's bagged up so I could only read a couple of lines above the fold, but they managed to get "raising fears amongst privacy campaigners of the surveillance state" in there. Interestingly, a lot of this stuff is actually being picked up by the very same reactionary tabloids that howled about paedophiles, immigrants, crime, terrorism and so on, as a stick to beat the Labour government with! This strikes me as beautifully poetic justice. Brown's picked up a short-term lift on account of how he does look good wearing a dark tie and a solemn expression whilst appearing to save the world from economic catastrophe. However in six months' time, when it becomes apparent that avoiding catastrophe has not meant avoiding 2.5 or 3 million unemployed, that's going to be painted as "rescuing the fat cats". (Don't get me started on the sickening hypocrisy with which the "kick-a-banker" movement has got going over the last couple of months... )
So my wife have a sister as dumb as herself...
Repent at leisure much, do you?
You know it's odd, I'm nearly 40; I've spent twenty years feeling steadily more despondent and left out as my contemporaries got married, got a mortgage, started having kids... and now? Heh! ;)
Nation states are perfectly happy to push conspiracy theories of their own. By they those of Nazi Germany or the "Al Quada / Emanual Bin Laden / Osama Bin Goldstien" one we have going right now.
Yep, and coming up fast on the inside is the "fat cats on Wall St" one, and it's close relative "Bush did it on purpose so they can declare martial law and shut down democracy" meme.
"the fuckers that allowed the situation to develop..."
Could you lay out for us what YOU did to stop it?
"Instead of rewarding failed decision makers, why don't we let them go bankrupt so that their more responsible competitors [thisiscommonsense.com] can take over?"
Because banks are not as other enterprises. You might say that they are meta-companies. If the banks (the vast majority of them)
Oh yeah, and lots of banks have been in trouble that didn't MAKE any bad decision; that is, they weren't into credit default swaps or other toxic debt-derived instruments. Once runs start happening to banks, the rational thing to do is to rush to your bank to get your money out before it goes tango uniform. The vast majority of customer who aren't at the front of the queue lose all their savings. Apart from wiping the savings of "innocent" customers, this destroys the credibility of banks in general for a generation, at least. The result is severe economic depression; you can read a lot about what fun those are in the economic history of the nineteenth century. Suffice to say I don't want to see people starving to death in the streets.
There now, see, that wasn't so hard to understand was it?
2% market share is about right for government.
Demand collapsed, dummy. If you go out and buy a newspaper, you'll notice that the global economy just imploded. I've not done the arithmetic but I'll bet that in a year or two's time, the ratio of average income to oil prices will be of the same order as it was earlier this year.
I like to give a little "yoo-hoo!" drumming-fingers-in-air wave and a happy smile as I coast past them onto the roundabout at 35.
You do realise our taxes are actually lower in Europe that yours in USA, right? I earn about $70K (depending what the exchange rate is today) and I pay about 30% on that, including National Insurance (equiv to your FICA.) See this comment for more detail...
These technologies of mass surveillance and ubiquitous tracking, which have slid into existence in many states (excluding some of the more enlightened European countries, such as Germany) were designed and built during economic good times. If, as seems very likely, we have mass unemployment, some interesting societal effects can be expected - ranging from conspiracy theorists (it's the jews! no, the illuminati! no, it's the CIA!), plus the inevitable search for a scapegoat amongst the dimmer / less educated members of society (those currently saying things like "Why are we paying billions to bankers when small businesses don't get bailed out?") will mean a lot of social churning. Some of that will be well organised via political parties, some through NGOs, some very informal and "underground". Now, what happens when mass surveillance technology meets mass unrest? Given what we know of abuses of the blank cheque that are inevitably going on... I think things could get really ugly.
(Yes, of course they're ugly now, but there's still a broad acceptance of the various "think of the children!" "time of war" "terrrrrists!" pablums by which this crap is justified.) I saw some rather scary vox-pops of attendees at a McCain rally the other night, with the guy with bulgy eyes and a pseudo-military "Sir, yes SIR!" manner who when asked what would happen if Obama won, said "I think it will make Europe very happy..." - a slight pause whilst he dealt with the cognitive dissonance of saying that to a representative of The Enemy, namely European media - "and it'll be socialism, and the destruction of our values and our freedoms!"
(Tangent -- I wonder what such people would say if someone said "Obama will allow the NSA to intercept and monitor American's phone and internet traffic, en masse, without any warrant!" or any of the other egregious civil-rights abuses this administration's delivered. Their heads would probably explode with fear at the coming invasion of socialist lizard army Europeans, forcing everyone to marry a gay and eat cheese... )
Anyway, when these types start burning immigrants out of towns and shooting at black helicopters and such, or at least register on the radar of the security state as a potential threat and get the full attentions of the (real) Man,.. well, people get crazy when they find themselves unexpectedly hungry, cold and poor.
Stick to your guns on this issue and...
...shoot your television?
That would be Michael Moorcock. The first book of his that I encountered, aged about 11, had an incestuous sex with a lesbian nun on page 2. Now *that's* how you make a fan for life.
PS whaddya mean, "retelling" of the Odyssey? Read the real thing! (OK, OK, a (good!) translation into English is probably acceptable.)