Whenever they call ordinary republicans "pugs" or "repukes"/"repugs"

Whenever they rant and rave against someone for being moderate or indepenent or centrist

Whenever they throw around words like "fascist" as if such words were games

Whenever they oversimplify and create a straw-man to attack their opponents

Whenever they push controversial issues and loose sight of bigger problems they deal with

Whenever rhetoric is more important than plain talk and solving real problems

Whenever they talk down to ordinary people or people who disagree

Whenever they have a patronizing attitude toward 'joe six pack'

Whenever they don't even care about this stuff

I.e., you can make a case that some of these folks may have this ideology/intention/plan, or that things are evolving in a Fascist direction somehow or other, BUT the abuse of power at home through such authoritarianism, has not reached typical Fascist-level extremes, when compared to Mussolini and Franco.

So what's holding them back, might be a good question to ask? I suppose we could speculate about a number of possible reasons.

How might people make for more reasons for quazi-fascists or neo-fascists, whatever label you want to give them, to hold themselves back, or get them out of positions of power?

That seems to me some practical ways to address this.

Benito Mussolini: The Doctrine of Fascism (1932) makes it very clear what Fascist culture is about -- ACTION, the VITAL ORGANISM of the culture, embodied in the STATE.

It is a good thing to read, to understand, to question, it raises some chilling questions about American culture right now, left right and center.

When one emphasizes the flesh, the body, the organism, the food and fitness, the strength and vigor, the immediate needs, the sundry dark fantasies, and channels them through an agenda, with the direction of the STATE and its agencies, coordinated through LEADERship to co-ordinate the great big CORPORATE BODY of the PEOPLE... REACTION is all that matters, action channeled by IMMEDIATE intuition by some focal point that expresses the will of the corporate body: state, leader, the elite.

There is a larger cultural problem, here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_...

Just another reason why 'idols' and rhetoric, become part of a dangerous game.

Let's just say I have some linguistic theories of my own as to why Chavez is so popular among some, and why Chomsky is so controversial.

Democrats can do better. I hope they do. It's hard to argue for a better brand of idiocy to people who are already disenchanted, even when that better brand of idiocy really is better, I mean, for the sake of the country, Chavez and Chomsky aren't Martin Luther King or anything, give me a break.

http://hrw.org/doc/?t=americas&c=venezu

It seems people wind up in prison for voicing opposition in papers.

Bush has a better record on that than Chavez, go figure, it doesn't work for Democrats to point to Chavez as if he were great, while pointing fingers at Bush.

Ok, this was brief, didn't involve pages of posts. What was said? Is this strategy for success at the polls?

There is some point, isn't there?

I can say 'wrong' can't I? I mean, aside from putting it on a poster for a protest. I can say it in public maybe? As a Democrat, perhaps, or in the course of commenting on people's lack of concern for ethics?

The culture of sadism is wrong, isn't it? Sorry if I offended someone who has a torture chamber in their basement. Oh well, if they are into that, they can take their licking from a moral challenge, I suppose.

Seriously, when does the culture of bad-assness, of bullying and humiliation and bullshit, get called wrong?

It's good to start figuring it out. Because some of us already have some clear ideas, and we are going to be more vocal.

They WILL be alienated by equivocations about morality, but they MAY listen if you raise more of a moral challenge to the lies and torture and lack of responsibility/accountability on the right.

They WILL be turned off by more talk of tolerance and equality, the sort of rhetoric that's EASY to make, but their ears MAY perk up if there is more Democratic talk about justice, standing up to bullies, wiser use of power, planning with allies intelligently and with diplomacy instead of recklessness, making sure the legal system is consistent, etc. It's not the same at all when you tell them to tolerate, as when you say 'stand against bullying/harassment'... when you say tolerate they hear 'tolerate rapists and murders and rioters', but when you speak against homophobes who bully and harass people, they can hear that as justice and decency.

They WILL pick up on the sort of resentment and shallow misrepresentation of religion that comes with time, bitterness, and disrespect for religious people and their beliefs, and they WILL pick up on pretense, they've heard enough of it from the Right, they can certainly hear it if the Left tries it.

They WILL wonder why there is no harsh talk against people who riot over cartoons, no harsh talk over brutal Arab regimes, they MAY listen if the cartoon rioters are condemned as violent parallels to Fred Phelps.

They WILL want to know that people they vote for realize that Arabic tyrannical regimes are bad and dangerous, they don't want to elect a fool or naive person who is in denial, and they MAY listen if Saudi Arabia is revealed for the tyrannical regime that it is, friend thought it's royals are to Bush etc., if the dangerousness of the world is acknowledged.

Revealing the Republican Party's idiocy, their lack of accountability, hypocrisy, and disregard for human/civil rights, with determination and with moral indignation, can get a message out there, can make a difference.

But establishing Democratic alternatives as more ethical, more morally sound, more politically principled, as deeper answers to serious problems, and as insightful and realistic approaches to real dangers, is extremely important, too.

It isn't just about the platform. Hypocrisy, shallowness, or unrealistic approaches will hurt us. Lack of principle with hurt us. Over-focusing on lesser principles or ignoring the most important principles, will hurt us.

Let's strenghten our positions, let's look at the best most principled arguments, and let's look at difficult realities deeply.

This is serious business. Serious challenges, serious criticisms, can be opportunities to really do better.

1. By equivocating on whether there are any moral absolutes at all (arguing that even torture and rape are morally relative, thereby undermining a moral critique of Abu Ghraib/Bush Admin)
2. By claiming that your values are tolerance and equality (and forgetting about values like justice, speaking out against bullies, and defending the vulnerable)
3. By using more religious language without really knowing what it's about or sympathizing at all (pretending and patronizing will get you caught up in ignorance and you will probably be called on it)
4. By defending Muslim protesters who rioted over cartoons
5. By minimizing or denying the horrible religious extremism and tyranny of Arab states

The Bush administration can be seen as the worst of both worlds, politically.

While making moral postures, it is extremely immoral.

It demonstrates the worst potentials of both the right and the left, for all to see.

While is it important to rail against the Bush Administration's authoritarianism and hypocrisy about morals and religion, I think it is also important for the Left to challenge itself through observing the various errors, mistakes, and absurdities of the Bush Administration that may parallel potential errors, mistakes, and absurdities on the left.

Right wingers have complained about left/liberal utopian nightmare schemes, but support Bush when Bush listens to Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz's pipe dreams. Isn't there a challenge about ideals and their relation to reality, that everyone might learn from, here?

Right wingers have complained about left/liberal relativism and how it can undermine efforts to restrain abuses of government, but support Bush when he and his cabinet relativize about torture and human and civil rights. Isn't there some insight that can be gained by taking a deeper look at this?

Utopian schemes, ideals detached from real practical concerns, an inability to be criticized by facts of reality, all of these things CAN be dangerous. Conservatives like Voegelin and Buckley weren't wrong to say so. Voegelin's analysis of the Puritans, as found in "New Science of Politics" is very relevant to dealing with the religious right today.

Post-modern relativism really CAN undermine opposition to torture and various human/civil rights. Conservatives like Strauss or Alan Bloom weren't wrong to say so. Their concern about the tension between the contemporary mindset and the foundations set by ancient philosophers are very relevant to sorting out the cultural issues of the reactionaries and extremists of today.

The left, liberals, can certainly learn from Voegelin and Strauss, and the issues that are brought up by them, without becoming "Voegelinites" or "Straussians" (whatever that would amount to), or without becoming illiberal, conservative, or a Republican.

I think it's about time more Democrats stand up, be vocal, and shout out about morality.

Not pretense. Not word games. Not rhetoric. Not formulaic/theoretical reframing... I mean REAL morality.

I.e., if you care about morals, raise your voice against torture, raise your voice against corruption and greed and hypocrisy, raise your voice against bullying, raise your voice against lies, raise your voice against abuses that are done in the name of religion OR in the name of secularism.

BUT if you really don't care about morals, if you really don't give a crap about good or evil, if you really aren't spiritual, then do everyone a favor and stand aside while me and Democrats like me wag our fingers right back at the finger-wagging religious right and the pretentious false patriots.

PLEASE don't get in our way by waving your own fingers if you don't mean anything moral by it, if you really don't think there is any firm moral position against torture, or if you are so relativist that you really don't think there is a REAL human right to be free from rape and torture.

I.e., Sam Harris, thanks but no thanks. Your broken middle finger can't wave the way mine flags the fundies...

For the sake of the nation, seriously.

When will more people who are vocal about human and civil rights, speak in a way that is morally relevant to others?

When discussing a position paper for college, or for a think tank, or for some diplomatic forum, I can understand the need for careful and analytical language that is more technical and clear than morally indignant.

But when speaking as a 'talking head', when writing an editorial, when responding to a 'moral' claim from the right, when defending Democratic positions, there are definitely times when one can take a moral high road, and even condemn great evils.

Was slavery a great evil, or just ignorance? What about segregation? Race-mixing laws? Apartheid?

The Holocaust, was it an evil? Or was it too banal to even warrant Hannah Arendt's indictment?

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, catalog some very serious human and civil rights violations. People are imprisoned, tortured, killed, mutilated, raped, in the name of religion or ideology or expediency.

To see people avoid moral language against torture, rape, pedophilia, and massacres, disturbs me. What kind of moral jellyfish can't use the term 'Evil' for such things. I feel free to use the term 'evil' to describe Muslim riots over cartoons. I won't be lectured by moral jellyfish on it.

Isn't it odd that people who hesitate to use the term 'Evil' to describe such horrors, use moral tones against the very people who do have the clarity to voice such moral condemnation in clear unequivocal language?

I believe "Evil" is a very useful term. I think it is meaningful. It is within my own experience. There are a number of horrors that can be experienced personally, or vicariously, that are awful and hideous enough, that involve enough lack of character, depravity, conscienceless, gratuitous suffering, or sadistic cruelty, to warrant strong negative evaluation... evaluation stronger than simply 'bad' or 'unmeritorious' or 'unhealthy'...

Let me give some examples; consider the variety of responses:

Haditha Probe Finds False Reports -- soldiers misrepresented information, minimizing the reality of the horror.

Sex Offenders Sue for Playground Access -- ACLU challenges an ordinance that requires certain convicted sex offenders, including pedophiles and rapists, from passing within 1000 feet of playgrounds, etc., without being accompanied by another adult who is not a sex offender.

Congo President on Military Rapes: Unforgivable -- The rape and mutilation of women in the Congo, and the response of the Congo President, continuing concerns of Amnesty International.

On the one hand we have:

Soldiers tone down descriptions of what happened, to minimize war crimes.

Convicted rapists and pedophiles don't want to be inconvenienced by being considered untrustworthy around children.

A transitional President shows an appropriately shaken expression about what happened -- on his watch; he says he wishes to be the first elected president so he can correct the problem as a first priority.

On the other hand we have:

Officers who failed to scrutinize reports.

Wiley rhetoricians who choose to spend time and money disputing the protection of children in schools and playgrounds, in the name of civil liberties.

Amnesty International, cautious and concerned about a very difficult situation and trying to sort out facts about human rights violations, progress, etc.

What of Moral Politics?

Dereliction of duty will not serve as a model for Moral Politics.

Failing to consider the safety concerns of parents, safety of children from convicted sex offenders, will not serve as a model for Moral Politics.

Careful Scrutiny of principles, trying to get at facts, and evaluating realities, on the other hand, has merit.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other such groups, try to evaluate problems and give accurate information and send timely warnings about dangers. And there are great dangers.

Call them dangers, call them horrors, call them violations, I call them "Evil" -- there was a lot of Evil shown in photographs of US soldiers torturing Abu Ghraib prisoners, there was a lot of Evil shown as Musslims rioted over a cartoon, there was a lot of Evil when American soldier massacred civilians in Iraq, there was a lot of Evil when soldiers raped and mutilated women in the Congo.

But at least sound the warning. I am not afraid to call it a moral warning. Those who are afraid of the word Evil, seem to be playing with word-politics, the rhetoric of buzzwords and (the formerly) fashionable disdain for moral language. I'm concerned about the real dangers of politics. Those dangers include the manipulation of moral language. That does not negate the value of moral language, or the value of Moral Politics.

Military Intelligence encouraged tough treatment of inmates at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. There were allegations that glow sticks and thermometers were broken off in inmates' anuses, on purpose, and that young men who were imprisoned, were threatened with anal rape.

That the right wing ignored such blatant pro-sodomy abuses in the Military, is proof of their hypocrisy, lack of morality, and relativism.

I've been wondering for a couple years now why more on the Left don't call them on precisely that. In (Against) Political Identity I speculated that it might have something to do with the confusions and compromises involved with political identifications and alliances in the first place.

It also seems that there is general cultural confusion about boundaries, a sort of torture and sadism culture, on the left right and center, from Mel Gibson's Passion to Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses. I questioned that in Demolishing and Afflicting Boundaries.

But maybe the truth boils down to what Underground Panther wrote in Child Abuse, Gullibility, and...

Your serious consideration is welcome. Flippant sloganeers need not apply.