08-29-2010, 10:45 AM | #81 |
Pink Confection
How Do You Identify?:
Femme Preferred Pronoun?:
She, Her, Ma'am Relationship Status:
Dating Myself Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Nashville
Posts: 4,266
Thanks: 17,195
Thanked 11,382 Times in 2,839 Posts
Rep Power: 21474855 |
I thought it did seem pretty religious, and politcal.
The points made seemed to be anti women, abortion, taxes, government social programs and more. It read like a church service. I agree Theo about what happened in Germany between the world wars. People get scared and they turn on each other like we are seeing now. For example the anti Islamic thing now...equipment being used to build a Mosque in Mufreesboro, TN (30 minutes from here) was caught on fire yesterday. Its like we have to have someone to target with our hateful fear.
__________________
|
08-29-2010, 11:12 AM | #82 |
Timed Out
How Do You Identify?:
Permanently Banned 5/27/2011 Preferred Pronoun?:
hy ho, hy ho; he, she, it, whatever Relationship Status:
Going slow ... Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: in her orifices ... la frontera
Posts: 1,433
Thanks: 6,414
Thanked 2,958 Times in 953 Posts
Rep Power: 0 |
It may have read to you like your experience of church services.*I* feel that we must be careful lumping all religious customs and beliefs in one basket, just as some POC do not lump all white people as predatory, colonizing asshats.
We are lead now to be polarized. Power will use whatever works to attain its ends. Do the corporate structures, operating behind the scenes in the media and elsewhere, do they really give a rat's behind about G-d, or anything having to do with a deeply considered ethos? What approach has been most successful in changing the minds of people? Truth? Or fear of the Other? What makes the other distinct? Since at least Newt Gingrich, we have come to politics with a posse mentality. The nation has succumbed to being whipped up into a frenzy by those in the background who play us like a seasoned lover. There is no reasoned discourse taking place within this circus of the absurd. Those "religious" or, better, those who profess a religion, struggle with how to counter this insanity. We have been trained to counter Prop 8 when dealing with the media. When our churches, synagogues, and mosques are picketed by the religious right, we run to support and give voice to the media. The media ignores us too. We are crying out to counter what is being done in our name. There are few ears to hear. |
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to waxnrope For This Useful Post: |
08-29-2010, 12:36 PM | #83 | |
Pink Confection
How Do You Identify?:
Femme Preferred Pronoun?:
She, Her, Ma'am Relationship Status:
Dating Myself Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Nashville
Posts: 4,266
Thanks: 17,195
Thanked 11,382 Times in 2,839 Posts
Rep Power: 21474855 |
Quote:
I did not mean to imply that all religions are bad or that everyone religious thinks the same way Glen Beck does!...Just that he read to me as religious. A small segment (I hope) of "religious"...but the show? event? service? was filled with prayer, Bible reading and mention of God and Jesus and Christians and Jews...which *to me* seems pretty religious. I agree 100% that most of this is being created by the media. Prime example is the fact that both Palin and Beck are on Fox's payroll. So I am going to add media driven in addition to religious and polical. Not saying everyone in the media, or who is in politics or is religious....Palin and Beck only. I know there are religious people out there who are as horrified as I am.
__________________
|
|
08-30-2010, 10:19 AM | #84 | |
Power Femme
How Do You Identify?:
Cinnamon spiced, caramel colored, power-femme Preferred Pronoun?:
She Relationship Status:
Married to a wonderful horse girl Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Lat: 45.60 Lon: -122.60
Posts: 1,733
Thanks: 1,132
Thanked 6,848 Times in 1,493 Posts
Rep Power: 21474851 |
Quote:
Most of the elements from Umberto Eco's essay, Ur-Fascism, appears to be present in the American Right. (My commentary in parenthesis) To wit: 1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition...This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice"; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth. As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message. (They believe that they know both the Bible *and* the Constitution and that both the words and the *understanding* of those words are fixed for all time.) 2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism...The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modem depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism. 3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goeringís alleged statement ("When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectual," "eggheads," "effete snobs," "universities a nest of reds." (Liberal elites, the 'lamestream media', 'unelected judges'...) 4. No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason. 5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition. (Muslims, Hispanics, Arabs, immigrants) 6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority. 7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the US, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertsonís The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others. (Muslims have had this role foisted upon them.) 8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. (Mostly this is targeted at queer people but you also see this playing out in "their taking our jobs") 9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. 10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. 11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. 12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. 13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of viewóone follows the decisions of the majority. 14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in 1984. as the official language of Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. Almost all of 14 elements above were on display at Beckapalooza on Saturday and, more broadly, in the American Right at present. Cheers Aj
__________________
Proud member of the reality-based community. "People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so, the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up." (Terry Pratchett) |
|
The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to dreadgeek For This Useful Post: |
08-30-2010, 11:19 AM | #85 |
Infamous Member
How Do You Identify?:
Human Preferred Pronoun?:
He Relationship Status:
Very Married Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Where I want to be
Posts: 8,155
Thanks: 47,491
Thanked 29,299 Times in 6,640 Posts
Rep Power: 21474859 |
http://www.leftake.com/diary/2696/gl...onfused-savior
Found this an interesting, and rational read. Not Becks part mind you but the authors.
__________________
"Many proposals have been made to us to adopt your laws, your religion, your manners and your customs. We would be better pleased with beholding the good effects of these doctrines in your own practices, than with hearing you talk about them".
~Old Tassel, Chief of the Tsalagi (Cherokee) |
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Corkey For This Useful Post: |
|
|