Is this America's 1989?

[edit on 14-4-2009 by Donnie Darko]

On one hand, I think our government has become so oppressive they don't deserve to rule us, but on the other hand I don't want the revolution to be violent.

Originally posted by smallpeeps

I've been reading a lot about the Afghan War and then the collapse. From what I can grasp, Russian fighters got sent to fight Osama's soldiers only to have their choppers get 'stung', and after 15,000 or so are dead and many more wounded, they cancel the war, and then go home to a country who actually had no idea there was a war going on! Then shortly after these soldiers get home, their nation collapses due to organized crime taking over the whole thing. It's almost like the Russian and USSR countries got bushwhacked when they were young at the turn of the 20th century and they lost their King (who wasn't working hard enough to free them anyway) and then immediately here come the Bolsheviks with a supremely organized global plan of conquest which ends up feeding millions of Soviet citizens into gulags and graves.

I have an extreme dislike for oppressive regimes like the communist party ... however the most repressive of States can produce the most tempered and strong heroes like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. We would need similar heroes if the US were to approach anything like what Russians have gone through.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was coming over decades. Their venture into Afghanistan was at the end and maybe the straw that broke the camel's back, but not the cause.

Of course Osama b L and co are mindful of the sequence of events and not being historians or economists, see themselves as the cause of the fall of Communism and the USSR. They are thinking now 9/11 was their coup d'etat fro the US.

I'm not a particular defender of the US, but they're bigger and stronger than Russia ever was. The British or Roman Empire are better comparisons. Both fell apart over time, but not in a day or a decade.

But the world is different from how it's ever been, and economies are more interlinked than ever before.

My view, the US has become soft, over-confident, complacent. The Great Depression and WWII brought innovation and patriotism to the fore. Both are lacking now. Paper pushing, whether it's complex financial instruments or software designs, is the product being exported, not manufactured goods.

This is the big mistake. America once had tens of millions producing tangible good that could be sold domestically and abroad. They farmed it out. Whole towns once working in plants and a blue collar sector of the population are supposed to get by with filling shelves in Walmart or delivering pizzas.

Short term greed has brought down America as we are witnessing.

Whether they can con the Chinese and others to support their bad habits and monopoly on printing an unbacked world reserve currency remains to be seen.

Maybe, maybe not.


Mike

I will fight against Socialism/Communism, and any attempts to push us there. I will also fight against Fascism, and any attempts to push us there.

It's easier to get from one extreme to the other, National Socialism easily becomes Fascism. They really are the same.

The left/right argument is a distraction. The scale is totalitarianism vs. anarchy. No laws (Somalia) vs. arbitrary laws. Liberty vs. Regulation. The U.S. is pretty close to arbitrary laws, there's no way to get through the day without having committed some infraction.

Secretarys of Office continually ask for increasing arbitrary power and are granted it. They won't give that power up. Each branch of government is in a power grab, each ratcheting up higher until the three branches of government can no longer relate to the people.

Originally posted by Dbriefed
National Socialism easily becomes Fascism. They really are the same.

Actually there is no such thing as 'National Socialism', it was a made up term. It's an oxymoron. Nationalism is when the government owns the 'means of production', and socialism is when it's owned by the people. You can't have both.

Hitlers 'National Socialism' was fascism (based mostly on Mussolini's fascism), not the 'same thing as' fascism.

So I plead with you not to associate actual socialism with the evils of fascism, nationalism, national socialism, racism, and the far right. In Europe these divisions are very obvious, chalk and cheese, nazi racists scum on the right, liberal hippie soap challenged on the left (lol). The socialists, and anarchists, were at war with the fascists all through the 1930's. Read some history and you'll see the association of the Nazis with the left, and socialism, is completely wrong and a dangerous rewriting of history, even if unofficially...

Originally posted by CityIndian

Originally posted by Dbriefed
National Socialism easily becomes Fascism. They really are the same.

Actually there is no such thing as 'National Socialism', it was a made up term. It's an oxymoron. Nationalism is when the government owns the 'means of production', and socialism is when it's owned by the people. You can't have both.

Hitlers 'National Socialism' was fascism (based mostly on Mussolini's fascism), not the 'same thing as' fascism.

So I plead with you not to associate actual socialism with the evils of fascism, nationalism, national socialism, racism, and the far right. In Europe these divisions are very obvious, chalk and cheese, nazi racists scum on the right, liberal hippie soap challenged on the left (lol). The socialists, and anarchists, were at war with the fascists all through the 1930's. Read some history and you'll see the association of the Nazis with the left, and socialism, is completely wrong and a dangerous rewriting of history, even if unofficially...

What is fascism exactly? Just any oppressive government?

reply to post by Donnie Darko


No, it isn't just any oppressive government. This is the problem with terms, people using them as a broad general description of something they consider oppressive, and not understanding the real meaning.

Fascism is basically when the state is more important than the people it supposedly represents, the state takes priority over the people. BTW 'the state' is what allows one class of people to rule over another.
It's authoritative, centralized, militaristic, non-democratic dictatorship. Fascism is Darwinist, in other words it believes in the superiority of race, i.e. the nazis and the Jews, but it could also be superiority of class. Fascism requires overpowering government and military, and use terror and censorship to suppress opposition.
It turns its population into a militaristic enemy of those who oppose the wealthy. It combines corporate interests with government, controls the media, and requires social conformity. It uses state propaganda to control its population.

(hey doesn't a lot of that sound familiar?)

Benito Mussolini started the fascist movement in 1919, fascismo, which came from the Roman word for a staff that was carried as a symbol of power. Note that the nazis were heavily into parades, where they carried such symbols of power from Roman times.

Whereas socialism is the opposite of fascism. Socialism is a system where the means of production (land, machinery etc.) is owned by the people, as apposed to a government (nationalism), or private ownership (capitalism). Socialism is a system based on equality for all races and creeds. No government and no military are needed. The power is in the hands of the people, not government nor private interests.

Originally posted by CityIndian
reply to post by Donnie Darko

 

No, it isn't just any oppressive government. This is the problem with terms, people using them as a broad general description of something they consider oppressive, and not understanding the real meaning.

Fascism is basically when the state is more important than the people it supposedly represents, the state takes priority over the people. BTW 'the state' is what allows one class of people to rule over another.
It's authoritative, centralized, militaristic, non-democratic dictatorship. Fascism is Darwinist, in other words it believes in the superiority of race, i.e. the nazis and the Jews, but it could also be superiority of class. Fascism requires overpowering government and military, and use terror and censorship to suppress opposition.
It turns its population into a militaristic enemy of those who oppose the wealthy. It combines corporate interests with government, controls the media, and requires social conformity. It uses state propaganda to control its population.

(hey doesn't a lot of that sound familiar?)

Benito Mussolini started the fascist movement in 1919, fascismo, which came from the Roman word for a staff that was carried as a symbol of power. Note that the nazis were heavily into parades, where they carried such symbols of power from Roman times.

Whereas socialism is the opposite of fascism. Socialism is a system where the means of production (land, machinery etc.) is owned by the people, as apposed to a government (nationalism), or private ownership (capitalism). Socialism is a system based on equality for all races and creeds. No government and no military are needed. The power is in the hands of the people, not government nor private interests.

Thanks. I see. So basically it's very much an i'm better than you belief.