As someone pointed out on MeFi, this link is somewhat of a ripoff of an essay by Umberto Eco a few years ago. Eco’s piece is much less about trying to make the case for “America is fascist” than it is about the undying impulse toward fascism from which humanity cannot escape.
I read the Eco piece about a year ago and found it saddening because it seems so true. Truer, perhaps, than this latest link, and thus so hard to ignore.
First, about the HTML: I disabled it because I’d heard about potential problems with people abusing it. I’ve added a notice to the comments.
About the rest of your comment, Brian, I have to say I agree with you. That’s why I added the link to the MeFi discussion to the post: it seemed more balanced than the original link at rense.com.
While I do think that there are strong fascist tendencies manifesting themselves in the USA at the moment, I agree with you and Umberto Eco that these are a problem humans in general share, and not something limited to the USA or the current administration there. I decided to post the link, though, because I feel too many Americans think they are somehow immune to fascism because they “defeated” it in World War II, and therefore somehow have a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card that makes it unnecessary for them to think about it.
Where I live, in Austria, people are obviously a lot more conscious and aware of anything that reeks of fascism, although that too is declining over time.
As someone pointed out on MeFi, this link is somewhat of a ripoff of an essay by Umberto Eco a few years ago. Eco’s piece is much less about trying to make the case for “America is fascist” than it is about the undying impulse toward fascism from which humanity cannot escape.
I read the Eco piece about a year ago and found it saddening because it seems so true. Truer, perhaps, than this latest link, and thus so hard to ignore.
Apparently you have HTML turned off, so here is the link to the Eco essay:
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html
First, about the HTML: I disabled it because I’d heard about potential problems with people abusing it. I’ve added a notice to the comments.
About the rest of your comment, Brian, I have to say I agree with you. That’s why I added the link to the MeFi discussion to the post: it seemed more balanced than the original link at rense.com.
While I do think that there are strong fascist tendencies manifesting themselves in the USA at the moment, I agree with you and Umberto Eco that these are a problem humans in general share, and not something limited to the USA or the current administration there. I decided to post the link, though, because I feel too many Americans think they are somehow immune to fascism because they “defeated” it in World War II, and therefore somehow have a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card that makes it unnecessary for them to think about it.
Where I live, in Austria, people are obviously a lot more conscious and aware of anything that reeks of fascism, although that too is declining over time.
No one is immune, is all I’m saying.