America is now a police state - why isn't this being widely reported?!

[amateur51]

The stooge-like quality of the Republican candidates is worrying for anyone who supports human rights although I will just add as an Obama man, sort of, that I feel instinctively that Romney is underrated and may surprisingly be a reasonably honourable man.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/12/mitt-romney-gay-marriage_n_1143460.html

Marvellous man!

[Budapest]

Lateralthinking1, my apologies for not responding immediately to your post (I really shouldn't start threads when I'm rushed for time). I think you're right that fascism, if I've interpreted you correctly, is an ideological based system rather than more theoretical systems like communism. That's why left wing and right wing are irrelevent in terms of fascism. What we're talking about here is authoritarianism (Eric Blair would have a fit if he could see what's going on in America at the moment). With regard to democracy, I think that maybe you and I and many, many other people can agree that there needs to be a different way of doing politics, beyond the two party name-calling system, and there needs to be a different way of running an economy beyond the free market shark tank. Mostly there needs to be no restriction of information given to the people, which thesedays means no censorship on the free-for-all that is the internet (because all traditional media is biased one way or the other).

[Serial_Apologist]

Lateralthinking1, my apologies for not responding immediately to your post (I really shouldn't start threads when I'm rushed for time). I think you're right that fascism, if I've interpreted you correctly, is an ideological based system rather than more theoretical systems like communism. That's why left wing and right wing are irrelevent in terms of fascism. What we're talking about here is authoritarianism (Eric Blair would have a fit if he could see what's going on in America at the moment). With regard to democracy, I think that maybe you and I and many, many other people can agree that there needs to be a different way of doing politics, beyond the two party name-calling system, and there needs to be a different way of running an economy beyond the free market shark tank. Mostly there needs to be no restriction of information given to the people, which thesedays means no censorship on the free-for-all that is the internet (because all traditional media is biased one way or the other).

Fascism always seems to have arisen in situations in which the ruling class is unable to use democratic means to get its way. I tend to ascribe to the theory that fascism is a last-ditch attempt by those with wealth and power to use divide-and-rule to protect their privileged position by inseminating the notion that it is groups of different ethnicity, immigrant status, religion or sexual orientation from the "majority", or combinations of at least some of the above, irrespective of class, who can be targetted, initially by propaganda, as being responsible for the ills of the world - instead of class which, to my mind is what it all boils down to in the final analysis.

[Lateralthinking1]

amateur51 - Is there any Republican candidate who supports gay marriage? I thought they all opposed it. It is a natural assumption on my part like they wouldn't be supportive of Medicare. I sort of judge it in its own context. I was really responding to the suggestion by budapest that all the Republican candidates were muppets. I think that was the word used. My starting point on the Republican Party is that I expect all the candidates to be awful and at various points on "the scale scary". Then, that neutral commentators have said that the ones this year are dire. Then, that even Republican voters are saying so in large numbers.

This to me is a golden opportunity to question what is being presented. I did a little research and found that all apart from Romney appalled me considerably. Some are bland yet dangerous. Ron Paul is frankly worrying. Santorum gives me the creeps and must be kept out at all costs. Romney only appalled me somewhat. They say he is a lightweight cutout and he seems it. But actually he has some substance and isn't wholly a sabre rattler. He flip flops which means that he isn't full of dogma. His father who ran in 1968 was in political terms a good guy. Too nice by all accounts. He would have been several planets better than Nixon.

budapest - Yes, I would choose the word totalitarianism. On information, have you noted Gus O'Donnell's parting words that he thinks the FOI legislation is bad law? The Tories were in favour of expanding it but watch this space! There could be another Cameron-Clegg battle. I have started a thread about Hungary. A couple of interesting clips that are not without relevance and which got me thinking about your definitions even more. I saw a few contradictions in things I had said. No one has responded but I feel it could become a very big problem for Europe in the coming months. Orban is becoming a very wild man.

Serial_Apologist - I fully accept what you say. I also note that it generally emerges after dismal economic performance under socialism and it tends to require the appearance of an individual who has unfathomable charisma and the ego the size of a castle.

[Budapest]

Lateralthinking1, you talk about the "dismal economic performance under socialism". I live in France and am well aware of this stuff. More than half of the French workforce is employed in some way or the other by the state. Most of them do diddly squat, but at least they have employment of some kind. Under the capitalist model these people would be at the mercy of 'the markets'; ie, France would turn into the kind of places that America and the UK have become.

The denigration of socialism is totally ridiculous. Most of Europe is socialist, and it's the most successful bloc on earth, in terms of human rights, its economy, etc (which is why the EU is hated so much by America and her allies, and it's why you lot in the UK are so brainwashed against it). Britain is just an offshore American missile base. It saddens me that Brits don't seem to want to take part in what's going on in Europe. I hold a British passport, yet I am first and foremost a European. The death of the euro currency has been predicted non-stop by pundits, who of course have no understanding of the power of the euro or of the European Union.

America has been dead from the neck up for a long time. Europe is, and always has been, the leader of the free world.

[Lateralthinking1]

I could have phrased it slightly better Budapest. I wasn't meaning to imply that socialism was a bad thing. You will find me saying good things about the Attlee Government. I even admire Tony Benn. Mitterand always looked like a champagne socialist in style to me but I can't speak with authority about his policies. On paper, Hollande looks far preferable to Sarkozy.

My point is about ineffective socialism. Very poor performance by Labour has led to right wing governments here twice. The parallels between 1976-1979 and 2007-2010 are uncanny. In terms of the far right, clearly the recent lurch towards totalitarianism in Hungary has arisen out of very poor economic management by the Socialists. The most striking example is the growth of Nazi Germany from the ashes of the dismal Weimar Republic and there are several other examples. Hope this helps to clarify.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

...Britain is just an offshore American missile base...

Sad, but partly true - much less so in these post Greenham Common days.

[Mahlerei]

i gather NDAA has caused some disquiet in the US, with protests planned for Capitol Hill next month. It's a grim piece of legislation and I'm terribly disappointed that Obama signed it into law.

[marthe]

I'm more than disappointed, Mahlerei! It's a frightening piece of legislation, especially as some of our friends (and my nearest and dearest) are not US citizens.

[Serial_Apologist]

I could have phrased it slightly better Budapest. I wasn't meaning to imply that socialism was a bad thing. You will find me saying good things about the Attlee Government. I even admire Tony Benn. Mitterand always looked like a champagne socialist in style to me but I can't speak with authority about his policies. On paper, Hollande looks far preferable to Sarkozy.

My point is about ineffective socialism. Very poor performance by Labour has led to right wing governments here twice. The parallels between 1976-1979 and 2007-2010 are uncanny. In terms of the far right, clearly the recent lurch towards totalitarianism in Hungary has arisen out of very poor economic management by the Socialists. The most striking example is the growth of Nazi Germany from the ashes of the dismal Weimar Republic and there are several other examples. Hope this helps to clarify.

Socialism - so-called - has always been a half-hearted, quarter-implemented approach by reformist governments intended to mitigate the inegalitarian effects of concentrated power and capital. Originally it was seen by the reformist (as opposed to revolutionary) left as an alternative route to eventual socialism, gradualist, calibrated to parliamentary pace and procedure, and peaceful, rather than precipitant, revolutionary, and because extra-parliamentarily driven prone to violent counteropposition from the still-ruling class, judiciary and sections of the armed state. For some of us Chile did it as far as still harboured illusions in the peaceful parliamentary route were concerned. But the main point I would make is that socialism - partial, top-down, bottom-up, whatever - and capitalism - private capital accumulation, ownership of property and productive means, market-determined priorities predominant - are in the end at mutual odds. With the mixed economy of old (and today's Scandinavia and EU) best suiting the dominant private sector by acting as infrastructural support and subsidsing back-up, business still complains about over taxation (forgetting the welfare state was originally intended to guarantee a healthy productive workforce) and over-regulation. Hostile to trade unionism it nevertheless maintains its own equivalent - the old guilds in the form of organisations like the CBI with politico-economic links far more efficient and internationally coordinated than the tu's (who should long ago have built up organs in parallel instead of talkiing about defending "our" jobs). And in the end business can just threaten to pull the plug and move elsewhere where "business-friendly" regimes don't tax profits and keep the workers down, should the "balance" be too tilted towards "the state" - their euphemism for what rightly could be bottom-to-top reorganised, democratised, except we're never given the chance as capitalism always ups the risk factor in its mad scramble to transliterate lemming into human self-destructiveness with religious (or these days evolutionary psychologistic) explanations to make us feel terrible about ourselves.

The democratised state, whichever way you want to play it, is what of course should have happened in the Soviet Union - another story for another time mebbe - but, for or against the Soviet Union, the fact of its demise opened up that half of the planet which had been deprived the "benefits" of capitalist expansion for 50 years and in some cases more - a huge victory for those who have now run *their* economy into the ground.

[Lateralthinking1]

Interesting. When I said somewhere that I was beginning to feel that I would prefer to live in the old Soviet Union, I was being slightly flippant. A sane person could only start to look at that country positively as it was during the few years when its leadership was a little more flexible. To this day, I can't comprehend those who see any merits in Stalinism which was brutal. And throughout the entire history of that country, the excessive top-down controls seem anathema to the original ideal.

Human nature seems to be such that anyone who is very politically involved cannot stand the idea of not being domineering. The recent programme about the Critics Group of Ewan MacColl, whose standards and achievements I admire in many ways, showed this in a microcosm. For all of his supposed beliefs, he was unusually rigid, hyper critical and quite unable to give ground. He virtually fell apart when the moment came. He also sent his children to private school and lived in the stockbroker belt.

I would see myself as being more aligned in identity with mixed economy models. The Attlee Governments, Social Democracy in Germany under Brandt and Schmidt and the traditional Scandinavian model all demonstrate that left of centre politics can be highly effective in delivery as well as being reasonably fair. Having said as much, I feel that I have traits that could embrace a more left wing system better than those who actively seek to take such systems forward.

In the main, possessions beyond what I need for basic living leave me stone cold. I have no interest in larger houses, smart cars, the latest technology, fashion and exotic foreign holidays and never have done. I take on board liberalism only so far as it is accompanied fully by social responsibility. Frequently it is lacking. I am not at all libertarian. And I have never had the slightest inclination to seek leadership even if I have extremely high requirements of those who lead.

[Serial_Apologist]

Human nature seems to be such that anyone who is very politically involved cannot stand the idea of not being domineering.

Well while I can only speak for myself, that generalisation certainly didn't apply to me during the 12 years I was active on the left. The responsibility for re-running the basic a b c's of Marxism (insofar as I've understood it) comes from no experience other than commitment to the point of eschewing two possible family/marriage possibilities and taking "charge" of one or two united front setups. While I would describe myself as temperamentally more by nature a contemplative than revolutionary (all that violence, huh!), most of us were pretty easy-going as personalities, not the domineering types we met in the CP and LP, though of course we argued our points pretty fiercely with opponents .

[Lateralthinking1]

Well, I didn't realise you were or had been. I meant no offence to you. I can't quite place you. When you say you were "active on the left", might this mean CND or that you were a party campaigner rather than standing for election? My idea of being "very involved" is about being in a position in a party or a trade union. I agree with Antongould about the corrupting aspects of power.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, I didn't realise you were or had been. I meant no offence to you. I can't quite place you. When you say you were "active on the left", might this mean CND or that you were a party campaigner rather than standing for election? My idea of being "very involved" is about being in a position in a party or a trade union. I agree with Antongould about the corrupting aspects of power.

Simultaneously at one point:

Affiliate of the local Chile Solidarity Campaign (Bristol)
Secretary of the Bristol Anti-Racist Campaign (which in '77 became the ANL)
Secretary of Labour Party Ward
Labour Ward delegate to the CLP
Deputy Chairman of union branch representing 12,000 clerical staff
Union delegate to Bristol Trades Council (delegates from tu's all over SW)
Union delegate to annual conference (3 years running)

Along with weekly meetings of the organisation I was in, Saturday shopping centre sales of our "samizdat", demos in London at least monthly, and working a 40-hour week, that's pretty active!!!

[Lateralthinking1]

Bristol? Yes, well, I assume you were quite close to Tony Benn. I am happy to make an exception.