a single finger of dissent!

Democracy is flat lining!

2005-01-12T20:00:00.000-08:00

by David VanThournout 01-12-05

Ok people. This is it!

With the impending appointment of Alberto Gonzales the heart of democracy is fibrillating. We wondered if it was possible and the worst has happened theocratic psychos have once again stolen the white house and the rapture index just went through the roof. It looks to a lot of Americans that democracy in America has finally bitten the red Texas dust.

Well there may be another way to look at this. You could, for instance, instead of believing this "democracy is finally dead crap", understand this bit of wisdom: “it ain’t over till its over…” It’s why I never concede a game of chess (who would think Yogi Berra would be a great posthumous chess coach?) and I never give up on democracy till I'm dead! No, I don’t think that American democracy is dead (it's only resting).

Actually, I think its just beginning to get interesting.

The other night at the Bettendorf steel workers union hall, the group Democracy for the Quad Cities (subset of democracy for America) held a meetup. The subject of the meetup was “Reframing the debate”. Our goal: discuss possible issues which we might pursue on a local level and put together a team of people to begin the campaign. What was most noteworthy of this post election political meeting of the minds is that there were 48 people there! I was very pleasantly surprised to see that many people after such a grueling campaign and terrible defeat. Many progressive and liberal people have been seriously depressed by the outcome of election 2004. But now many of us want to stay involved and take part in the longest lived democratic experiment on earth.

Instead of looking at the downside of this past presidential election, I look to the upside. Four more years, then we elect our man, or woman. Yes democracy may be flat lining on us here but we can bring it back. As long as you and I breathe air, as long as we keep sight of these progressive values that we hold as truths, that we all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness no matter what our religion, race, gender, sexual persuasion, political alignment, or species might be (hey! We may have a visit from aliens in the future! Aliens need rights too!). American values are progressive values!

So… get out the emergency defibrillator, give this place a shock. And whoa, what a shock! Senator Boxer stands up and backs John Conyers "challenge to congress to fix our broken election system!" So, I see the flat line, I see the spark, I see democracy rising from the operating table with new instant runoff voting and paper trails forever…. Paper trails… to you…

Maybe democracy in America is hurting now, but we still have time to revive it. Alberto Gonzales won’t last any longer than George Bush himself and democrats are probably right to save their energy for filibustering Bush’s judicial appointments. We can survive Alberto Gonzales. However appointing three or more conservative judges to the Supreme Court would perhaps be the death knell we’ve all been waiting for. We can’t let that happen. 30 or 40 years of conservative Supreme Court rulings and this country would almost certainly not resemble anything like a democracy.

Say goodbye to women’s choice, say goodbye to gay rights in America. Say goodbye to civil society as the radical right gains more of the imaginary mandate they claim to possess today. Remember the south during the civil rights movement? Imagine it working in reverse as our society devolves to fascism, violence and hate.

If we allow George Bush to appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court he will have deeply corrupted the most important check against overbearing executive authority. This will place more and more power into the hands of just a few people in the executive branch. If this happens I will have to think of yet another reason why democracy isn’t quite dead yet! You people don’t really want to have to listen to the eternal optimist even while sitting waiting your turn in the gas chamber at the local death camp do you? So let’s just not go there in the first place.

Easier said than done you say?

Let’s just start with talking to our neighbors and our family and friends that may be end times evangelicals, try and talk some sense into these people (along with those of us unconsciously assisting them by being your averagely over consumptive Americans). There are 50 million of us that believe they are going to be included in the 144,000 that are (supposedly, according to rapture dogma) going to be lifted by Jesus into heaven. The rest of us have to stay and suffer for a thousand years or so... (I’ll be down here gardening, paradise one seed at a time I like to say) What these people need to understand is that we are actually God’s designated care takers here. No one is coming to save us! We are waiting for ourselves to realize this truth. Try this logic: This is God’s creation, would he(she) want us to take care of this wonderful creation? Or drop bombs upon it? Quickly now! Here's a clue: “Love your enemy”

Lately I’ve been suggesting what seems to me to be an essential truth: Christ’s greatest power was entirely derived from his humanity. His being human puts it within the realm of possibilities that we could act like him, individually and then eventually collectively. This future “second” coming of Christ is in my opinion nothing more than all of us realizing simultaneously that Jesus was a human and we could just start acting like him! Any day of the week in fact! I sometimes like to point out that for one hour a week we go talk about god, the rest of the week money is our god. That has gotten a few looks over the years…. Staring daggers into my back as I leave in most cases I’m sure….

At any rate, we have to convince 50 million people that you have to do more than say you’re a Christian to be a Christian; you have to act like one too! It’s that simple! Bombing Iraq and short changing social programs like education, social security, environmental protection (global warming) and health care are the exact opposite of what Jesus would do! In short, we have to convince 50 million people that the only possibly real purpose there might be in predicting the horrors of the apocalypse is that by being forewarned of this event we might actually choose to avoid this planetary death sentence!

And death sentence is exactly what may happen if we have a deepening of the conservative hold upon America through 40 or more years of conservative bias upon Supreme Court rulings. Allowing this to happen will surely mean at least a 200 year step back into the past in terms of civil liberties within the next twenty years. Allowing this to happen will guarantee the hold corporations have upon our media to become even more conservatively biased, and we will continue blithely to consume oil at artificially low prices manipulated that way on our behalf by mad oil developers bent on seizing the rest of the worlds oil until, at last, the whole thing comes crashing down upon our heads at which point we go hungry and the corporatists will simply change venues! To them the only thing sacred is the almighty dollar, it will matter not at all whether it is manipulated from Europe, America or the moon. America may even successfully hold the world (or at the very least, ourselves) back from pursuing renewable energy technology. Technology which could save this place from WWIII or the “end of oil wars” as they will be known to historians in the future. For now, we’ll just refer to it as "the final crusade".

Look at Russia today. You may be looking into a mirror.

I hope we stop at 200 years in the past rather than following in the footsteps of the Roman empire after which we were plunged into almost a thousand years of darkness. They weren’t that much fun from the sounds of them. It is my assertion that the brighter the empire burns, the quicker it burns out. I would also like to add; the impending dark ages may seem all the darker for that… Technology may actually exacerbate this effect rather than remedy it by guaranteeing our going all he way back to the Stone Age instead of stopping at a mere 200 years of civil retardation.

There are 15 nuclear power facilities in the Mississippi valley watershed. Facilities which will require a stable civilization to maintain indefinitely. The cost of not properly maintaining them will be to render the entire Mississippi Valley region uninhabitable. 60% of North/South American migratory birds use the resource rich Mississippi Valley corridor to travel south in the winter. Just imagine if the Romans had discovered nuclear technology? Where would we be today? Maybe Plato was doing us a favor when he advised the Ionians library be burned for the dangerous ideas that were housed within. Archeological findings suggest that the Ionians were the most mathematically advanced society at the time. They were on the verge of calculus. Carl Sagan has suggested that Plato may have put us two thousand years behind. As if that were entirely a bad thing. I'm not so sure.

My suggestion: just start planting heirloom vegetable seeds and buying solar panels and windmills right now!

Think about this: George Bush = Oil. Renewable energy = energy independence (what would Thomas Jefferson say?), diversification of power, reduction of global warming, world peace becomes realistically possible through reduction of competition for third world resources either by manipulative capitalism or by outright theft (otherwise known as war). Jobs are created, and our environment is preserved for future generations.

So, rather than believe in the rapture, I believe in the “impending paradise”. This is really the cusp we are upon, not the rapture followed with a thousand year tribulation … George W. and his misguided minions will hate that won’t they?

After all, what will they do with no evil empire with which to scare us into submission?

Peace now

D. VanThournout

Progressives Promoting Censorship?

2005-01-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

By David VanThournout 01/07/05

Earlier this morning I was in a heated discussion with a friend about censorship of violent video games.

While I completely agree with him that they are a bad influence and this should be discussed I disagree with him totally upon the course of action to take.

My friend embraces restricting the first amendment in cases of violent video games and simply censoring them. He also insists that the debate on whether these video games are actually damaging or not is actually closed. I insist that to close the discussion is to limit future findings and is in fact itself a kind of conservative behavior.

This is what I have to say about all that;

Open and honest communication occurs best when our freedom to speak is protected. I therefore do not support any groups or initiatives even if they wish to censor materials I myself find particularly offensive. Rather, I would embrace a campaign of awareness aimed at educating the public upon the dangers of violent video games and the danger of television in general.

In my opinion to accept censorship at any level forwards a conservative agenda aimed at restricting our 1st amendment rights.

My suggestion that for a progressive to embrace a campaign that is pro censorship is essentially contrary to our progressive values is not in fact frivolous or splitting hairs at all. It is more than just a waste of our time and effort. It is us directly contributing to the oppression of future generations of Americans. The outcome of this attempt to subvert the first amendment for a supposedly “good” case would almost certainly be a failure. If you did succeed you would be rubbing shoulders with the radical right wing evangelical “Christians”.

It would be in my opinion, far more productive to assume public policy would not change and simply and immediately pursue a program of awareness aimed at getting our children (and the rest of us too) off the vidiot box.

Reasons for doing this are numerous and include; health risks associated with sedentary lifestyle, energy consumed, pollution generated, minds and bodies wasted and our world comodified.

The debate upon the damaging effects of the cathode ray tube upon us, our society, and our world is only just beginning to scratch the surface. To close the debate now would be premature.

To oppose censorship of even that which I find offensive is an important expression of my core progressive value of open and honest communication.

Speaking of this issue in terms of their own values is exactly what republicans have done very successfully over the last thirty years. It is how they’ve framed liberals as dangerous to American values. They’ve done it by speaking from a perspective of their values rather than from a dry recital of the facts. It’s called “Framing”.

I have just framed the censorship of video games for what it truly is; a morality based attack (whether unwittingly or not) upon our basic civil liberty of freedom of speech. I would argue that if you can censor one video game you open the door to further censorship and subsequent redefinitions of what may be censored in the future.

All of this would suit evangelical republicans just fine. Limiting freedom of speech is something conservatives want to do. By embracing the “poster child” aspect of the “do the video games cause violence” debate, you are ultimately shooting yourself in the progressive foot and helping to forward a conservative agenda ultimately aimed at suppressing the 1st amendment rights of future generations of America.

In the end, to embrace censorship furthers the aggressive agenda of fear based right wing politics and has the effect of chilling all future discussion. This is exactly what the strict father model of behavior imprinted upon politics would look like.

In the end, my friend while well meaning is attempting to pursue a progressive agenda using strict father model politics. This is exactly why the conservatives have won America. We must also speak from a perspective of our own progressive values if we expect to win America back.

Transforming our Society, a slow and sometimes agonizing process...

2004-12-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

By David VanThournout 12-26-04

Occasionally someone says something that nags at me, gets under my skin a little. Perhaps requiring an answer from me because of my own personal involvement with the destruction of everything we as humans hold sacred here on earth.

so in response to the following post on our message board (see: Not One Damn Dime Day)

"pooh ping" had said; (one of the cleverly named rascals who likes to post anonomously)

"how about not one f ing red cent year. everytime we spend any of ceasars dollars we enable their genocide, we give them crediblity and are complicit in their aggresions and abuse. burn everything and then we can have the necessary rebirth."

To which I reply:

....I am working my way to a life of consuming only what I grow and make and living on native plants etc.

I figure that shouldn't be too hard since over 75% of the worlds food come from plants introduced to us by Native Americans.

I am not buying anything for anyone this Christmas. I bought only one item last year in a gift exchange my family has adopted. And that item was made for me by a friend I know that makes pottery.

So.... I am personally doing much more than just Not One Damn Dime Day. I am working on a not one penny more the rest of my life.

There is nothing to tear down that isn't already ours. The perception that we can hurt the rich by destroying things is an illusion.

Our goal rather is to build a community that creates a space where we grow our own food and do not depend upon fossil fuels. We will build each others "in earth" alternative art homes and use renewable energy such as wind, solar, and bio fuels. Living this way, the way nature intended, close to the land, I will be able to reduce my income to $12,000.00 per year. This will ensure that my money is not spent on war by my government, the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.

The only problem I see with the overzealous pursuit of the death of this society is that in such turmoil the only ones that benefit from it are the rich and we end up going feudal, ultimately only exchanging one ruling elite for another. This guarantees more exploitation, more social unrest and more war.

There are 18 nuclear reactors that we know of within the Mississippi Valley watershed. It is important that we, rather than have a crashing and burning of our society and it's errant ways, have a gradual and healthy transformation allowing us to safely make the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

There are many reasons why energy independence is important. The most important reason is that in the future more and more wars will be fought over dwindling resources due to global warming.

see; Pentagon says Global Warming is the single largest threat facing America today

This is the most important political battle before progressives, democrats, and liberals.

Energy Independence

Energy independence solves more and more problems as it becomes a domino effect. This is what we call a strategic initiative, and once started will become a slippery slope of progressive reform.

Energy independence will positively impact the environment by reducing the gases that cause global warming. It will improve America's political environment by diffusing power into the hands of many instead of the few oil barons of America. Energy independence will help to reduce and eventually remove the motivation for the industrialized nations of the world to seize the developing world’s resources by force or by manipulative laissez faire capitalism. Energy independence will create more jobs. Energy Independence is freedom from the tyranny of oil and the death it’s running out will cause.

Furthermore, we will probably not actually run out. It will just become too costly to extract. It doesn’t have to run out. In the next twenty years we will watch the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy resources. The sooner we do this the better. The sooner we do this the less likely the ruling elite will be able to simply have a quick, society destabilizing upheaval, that will benefit only the rich.

This transformation has already begun. We are forming that community that I speak of already.

The transformation of our society into one that actually embraces real democracy instead of the failing and archaic form of democracy we have now will not happen overnight, beware promises of that sort. Violence will not solve our problems and will only play into the hands of those forwarding fascism in our midst.

Peace now
Crow

Also see; www.sudval.org

and also; Vernal Education Project

Support your organic growers! We are forming an organic food coop right now. Our intention is to avoid yuppie pricing of organic food. Check out Ecovilla Coop for contact info.

Not One Damn Dime Day!

2004-12-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

I received this in my email, origin unknown I agree and will not spend one dime on Inauguration day.

Inauguration Day, Silent Protest

Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq,
since our political leaders don't have the moral courage to oppose it,
Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is "Not One Damn Dime Day" in
America.

On "Not One Damn Dime Day," those who oppose what is happening in our name
in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of
consumer spending.

During "Not One Damn Dime Day" please don't spend money. Not one damn dime
for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases.
Not one damn dime for anything for 24 hours.

On "Not One Damn Dime Day," please boycott Walmart, KMart and Target. Please
don't go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don't buy any
fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter). For 24 hours, please do
what you can to shut the retail economy down. The object is simple. Remind
the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they
are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop
it.

"Not One Damn Dime Day" is to remind them, too, that they work for the
people of the United States of America, not for the international
corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and
funnel cash into American politics.

"Not One Damn Dime Day" is about supporting the troops. The politicians put
the troops in harm's way. Now 1,200 brave young Americans and (some
estimate) 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan --
a way to come home.

There's no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda
to rant about. On "Not One Damn Dime Day" you take action by doing nothing.
You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed. For 24 hours, nothing
gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our
politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give
America back to the people.

Better the Five Fingers of Freedom than the Single Finger of Dissent!

2004-12-10T14:25:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it simply comes down to the five fingers of freedom.

When I was a child, I was taught that I lived in a democracy. Even when I was in fifth and sixth grade I had a love for those concepts. As well I might living in a nuclear family ruled in an authoritarian fashion like most of us... One day in an argument about the habitual tendency of America to devolve to fascism I blurted out; "I was taught that America was a free country when I was a child, I'll be damned if I live any other way!"

I believe that statement. I will certainly be damned if I do not raise my voice in opposition to this murderous ideologue of a president George W. Bush. But also in a way that to me is exactly a spiritual concept. I will be damned if I don't follow my heart and mind and honor my true self. I will be damned and I will have become my own jailer.

So I say, lets have a good time! It is important I think that we celebrate all that is good in life. Nurturing our world is what we essentially believe to be the solution. One of the things that we need to nurture is the belief that we all have a voice and raising it makes a difference. Not just on voting day and the weeks preceding it but everyday with everyone.

Fear is ruling our country. We cannot let it rule us. We do things differently. Conservatives are fond of saying that liberals live in a fantasy land. We simply allow ourselves the freedom to question even our own most sacred beliefs. We do not let fear rule us. Fear brings out our strict father programming. It is the source of things from; "simply be quiet because I am your father" to violence justified by the threat of violence. What we choose instead is not to allow fear and anger and hatred to rule our thoughts and words and deeds and thereby our world. We do not adhere strictly to any specific doctrine or dogma rather sensing them as traps and are therefore able to act more fluidly dynamic which strengthens our ability to adapt to future conditions. This is natural and we are allowing our own inner nature to guide us. From these principals we can act without regret. Life becomes play when free from fear.

The dream of the planet is currently a nightmare but more and more of us are waking up and this will eventually lead to more of us taking an active role in being the change we wish to see.

Fear will not do as our message. Too often it is these days. Fear of another four years. We talked of moving to Canada... but I know that I will stay. I probably blog much too freely to feel truly comfortable in this advanced stage of American Fascism we find ourselves on the brink of. The stacking of the Supreme court will be the worst assault to civil liberties this country has seen in decades if the appointment of Alberto Gonzales is any indication of the direction the Bush appointees will be taking. The thing that republicans don't realize is that while I do fear for the world and my country and myself and my friends in the coming years I also am feeling more alive than I have in years. We are on the verge of a wave of populism that will sweep this country soon. Within my lifetime at any rate. I intend to be a part of that wave. We will take America back to it's finest principals. We will face our fears and confront our opponents with full knowledge of the possible outcome. This is a path with heart and it will sustain you to walk upon it.

We cannot allow our opponents to frame the debate. Know your values. Progressives have not had the advantage of 3 billion dollars and 43 think tanks to hone the simple yet diabolically effective language Frank Luntz and other PR specialists have invented to cover the republican party's weak position on things from the environment to health care to national security. These Orwellian figures have effectively manufactured the consent of the American people for Tax cuts for the rich and sending our children into the mouth of war for profit and oil. We must also hone our message because quite simply the belief that the truth will set you free is a myth. It is well known that an emotional story no matter how far it strays from the truth will always be more effective than a dry recitation of the facts.

You will set you free. Only you. Among Christians there are more people that understand that Jesus was a liberal than people who believe that Jesus would vote for George W. Bush. Though this year I believe that many of them voted for George Bush out of fear and peer pressure.

The future of this world depends upon us becoming energy independent through developing renewable energy strategies. This will not happen with the current cabal in the Whitehouse. It is up to us down here on the ground. We are up to the task. We just have to wake up and realize the American Dream is only just beginning. Solar, wind and bio-fuels are up and coming and ready to take on the challenge of America's becoming Energy Independent.

This is what we call a strategic initiative. When it takes off finally, there will be no stopping it. It will inevitably have the effect of distributing the political power more evenly into the hands of the many rather than the few that the current fossil fuel based politics allows through corruption and greed and lies. Just like the tobacco industry lied about known and documented health risks associated with smoking, the oil industry is lying to us about global warming and the ensuing climate change that we are probably right about at the brink of not being able to stop. Why would they tell us something like that? What? Tell the truth about the impending death of the planet due to pollution and global warming? Our sales would plummet!

The stakes are very high but we can get through the end of oil without it destroying earth with WWIII. But we will need to be actually re-creating our homes and our heat from sustainable and renewable resources that require absolutely no oil. Our food production is completely dependent upon oil to process, grow, protect from pests, and deliver to our plates. In fact there is so much oil used to do everything that we do that when it stops finally we will have to do a lot more than just stop driving.

Our intention is to reclaim as much of this land for mother nature and nurture our environment of which we are an integral part and thereby nurture ourselves and future generations of people and animals and plants. This is the Garden of Eden that we inhabit. I would think that god would like us to take good care of it. How do we bring into being this garden? Community. Love. Truth. By accepting and protecting the incredible diversity of all of earth’s people and life and lands and waters and air and understanding that this diversity is Earth's greatest asset. Diversity is a value. When we act as a community with everyone's voice in consent not manufactured but having been fully informed, we act from our highest principals.

We, over the last few months and weeks have gathered together to work on increasing voter turnout and we did in fact make a difference. The counties that I live and canvassed overwhelmingly voted for John Kerry in this election. Don't let them kid you. This Quad City area is more progressive than conservative. So just because we get tongue tied and don't know our own values as well as it seems they know how to spin the story, doesn't mean that you are alone here. It is hard admitting to a nurturant nature without getting ridiculed for it in a patriarchy.

Let us start breaking the last 30 years of conditioning us to think that liberal is a bad word. and just say it; "Liberals have more fun!" When we do things that are the right thing to do, even if it might mean our being thrown into the Bush administrations new American gulag for our dissent, we do so with a clean conscience and without fear governing our lives. Sure it might be painful, sure you might get gassed... there are worse things. You could live in some sort of half awake walking death. Hanging on to what has turned decidedly sour (the lemon Ronald Regan sold us perhaps?). Got the government off our backs yet? Wait, was that the boot heel of a corporation on my neck?

Please join us in protest of the war on Iraq.

We are gathering Sunday November 14th at 1pm til 3pm across from the Rock Island Entrance to the Rock Island Arsenal (where 24th street turns into I 92). Do not go to the guard shack because it is illegal to protest on the island itself. Instead you can park in the new Social Security buildings parking lot and also in the cul de sac of 3rd avenue and walk up the sidewalk from there.

Bring signs, Bring peace

Also please join us tonight, the five fingers of freedom and other poets and oddities from the local raging poets society's temporary autonomous zone at Peabody’s Coffeehouse!

Hear local poets and other stories while steeping your mind in the sounds of five fingers of freedom from the frets of musicians that usually live in irrelevance, or is that irreverence?!?!

It all happens at 7pm till midnight every Saturday night at Peabody's!

Some might call it escapism. We call it musical communion.

Some might claim that we're angry and loud and avoiding a conversation.... They might be right but we might not be wrong in the long run if they keep it up we'll just have to refuse to participate in their draining of the future of the world for a few quick profits at the end of the days of oil....

Next will come the two feet of locomotion if we aren't careful we'll be going back to the days when it was just us children playing our eternal games in our eternal garden. Repeat after me; " I will not ever work for a corporation the rest of my life. I will survive upon the gifts that the great spirit has granted me and I will share those gifts freely with the community. In doing so we will be building a community which will sustain all of us and which will help preserve a future for earth and our people.

A community based upon the idea that diversity is a virtue. A community which embraces all nurturant spiritual views. A community that becomes a protective roof rather than an oppressive roof. A community which empowers individuals to be who and what they are and live their lives in happiness and does not infringe upon the rights of even the smallest of voices. A community which acts from its highest principals can afford to pay attention to even the smallest of voices and in making decisions not violate the rights of
even one single individual.

It falls upon our shoulders to build this future. Without us it will not be.

What is the difference between George Bush and Adolph Hitler?

2004-12-01T22:43:00.000-08:00

By David VanThournout 12-01-04

If someone were to ask me the question; "what do you think of democracy in America now?" I would have to respond with; "I think it would be a good idea."

I've been studying fascism for a while now. Since I was in grade school in fact. I remember when I was in high school, my totalitarianism teacher informed us the second day in class that; "Make no mistake children, you live in a fascist regime."

I should mention that this teacher was a Catholic priest himself the finest example of a "strict father" and so it was ironic that he should be telling us that.

Trotsky suggested that;

"In its politics as regards Hitler, the German social democracy has not been able to add a single word: all it does is repeat more ponderously whatever the Italian reformists in their own time performed with greater flights of temperament. The latter explained fascism as a postwar psychosis; the German social democracy sees in it a "Versailles" or crisis psychosis. In both instances, the reformists shut their eyes to the organic character of fascism as a mass movement growing out of the collapse of capitalism."

see; http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm

Fascism is an artifact of the collapse of capitalism?

If this was actually true then our economy has been crashing a long time. I don't entirely agree with this statement. Not to say that there's anything quite like being economically depressed to aid in ushering in a fascist regime. And I do believe that through the television and our deregulation/conglomeration of it we have changed many rules that may have applied at some time but are now perhaps no longer relevant. I mean you can be convinced of anything if you listen to it enough. Fascism can be traced in an unbroken line all the way from the collapse of the Roman Empire. Much of it stems from the male domination of society which began much farther back than even that. Tribal societies tend to be nurturant rather than strict father dominant. Tribal culture was always more cooperative even if it didn't seem to be progressive in the eyes of Europeans it may still have been acting in coexistence with the nature around it. Everyone's needs would be met. The Romans learned their behavior from others before them and so on and so forth. When the machinery of domination rather than coexistence began to dominate that is when society failed. When it didn't champion the rights of all great and small, that is when we went wrong.

Fascism is an artifact of our fear. We tend to become self censoring, deferring to the most angry person. Angry always wins the attention of the group. Fear invokes the strict father conditioning we've all received being members of a patriarchal society. It is difficult to break through this programming. Impossible for some. This response, developed by evolution as a survival mechanism, has in many ways been the cause of our sentience but has also ultimately led to our demise through the addictive use of anger and fear to control our friends, our family, and ultimately our society.

Anything that increases fear will favor the development of fascist policies. People support more police during times of high crime which if it is driven by forces such as hunger and poverty become a positively reinforcing feedback loop which results in more police and more laws (and more poverty and more hunger). A culture of fear is all that is required to create a political environment in which it is possible to build a social movement aimed at taking away civil rights. Eventually the people themselves willingly vote against their own self interests giving away civil liberties which literally took hundreds of years and rivers of blood sweat and tears to gain.

Privatizing the prison system gives the motivation to increase laws based upon the need for slaves to perform the cheap labor corporatists so love.

http://www.facts1.com/reasons/money.htm

The whole idea that we even pay any attention on capitol hill to the law enforcement lobby is ludicrous. But the idea that a law enforcement lobby group supports the making of laws based upon how many jobs the law will provide for the law enforcement sector is sickening. These people are the enforcers of the law and should not have anything at all to say about the creation of law. Using the growth economics paradigm in this scenario amounts to harvesting citizens with a sort of machine like mentality for use as slaves to make things which will in many cases end up killing people.

"The inclination of criminals to seek out and occupy positions of power in order to commit their atrocities with impunity, results in an abnormally high percentage of criminal minds among the members of the law enforcement community in comparison to society at large."

I would say that holds doubly true for the highest office of the land, the presidency of the United States of America.

The Roman Empire outlawed abortion because they needed slaves. The need for every child to be born today fits in with the currently held view at the Whitehouse. They only support anti-abortion policies because it divides us and because they need plenty of cannon fodder for the wars they plan on fighting with our children for their profits. Not to mention the fact that they need them poor for this to work right into their hands.

Figure this out people. I don't like abortion anymore than anyone else but it is the woman's place to decide whether her local environment, or her economics, or this world can support another child. Not someone else's morality.

Let me try a little storytelling.

The need to end pregnancy started in the unrecorded prehistory of humankind. So I invent scenes and well, I came up with this thought; If the man wanted sex, the women would say no if they couldn't support another child. This would inevitably lead to the rape of a young girl perhaps and then the abortion would occur. The strong knowledgeable women would abstain and then have to deal with the abortion as well (not to mention the rape). I believe that the problem lies in the men. The men of our world have dominated this conversation when we are the cause of it. It is up to us to end this male dominance of those around us. We must stop with the anger which if the truth be known is all about creating unquestioning authority. We stop communicating when we let anger govern our thoughts words and deeds. If we don't realize this we are stupid beyond belief in my opinion. Male domination of the family unit lays the ground work for a fascist society.

Here's another story....

Once upon a time when the Romans needed lots of soldiers they made it illegal to have an abortion. It became commonplace for the poor to have no other choice but to sell their children into slavery. Now slavery in Roman times was radically different than in the American version. It was more like the African version where the slaves actually ended up becoming free or actually were included in the family and received an inheritance. Slaves had rights. This I suspect was merely to encourage more people to sell their children for as I said before (but could never be overstated) The Romans needed boots on the ground!

So here's one for you... suppose one day a woman has a boy child and because it was illegal not only to have an abortion but to use contraception and there was no other economic choice before you your husband and you decided that you would sell the child. Now the woman I believe would not have really willingly entered into this and probably the man would force her to give the child up when it came to needing gold to keep the farm or whatever he said he needed it for.

Unfortunately when the child was born it's sex changed the deal a little and since it was a boy the father regrettably chose to sell one of the younger daughters instead, much to the displeasure of the wife I'm sure...

This policy of needing numbers didn't change much with the passing of power into the hands of the Roman Catholic Empire.The Roman Catholic Church remained silent during the rise to power of Hitler. In fact the NAZI party cultivated the catholic vote in a number of ways. One was to praise large families and go on and on about how important they were to the fatherland. The NAZI party was very vocally against abortions also.

see; http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110604A.shtml

In some similar way, George Bush has managed to co-opt Christians, supposedly the followers of Jesus of Nazareth the most Liberal person to have ever walked this earth, into his brutal domination of Iraq, the specific elimination of civil rights for gays, and the forwarding of Christian fascism in America!

Now I have to ask the question; "Who would Jesus legislate out of the Constitution?

At any rate, we don't sell our children now though do we?

Ahhh, if that were only true....

Every single child born today will pay the price of our present day idiocy to the tune of at least $30,000 a piece! This is just the cost for the Iraq fiasco and for the first four years of George Bush! I can't wait to see how much more our future will be mortgaged when George finally leaves the Whitehouse. So no, we don't sell our children, we just mortgage their futures.

You can see that stacking the supreme court will eventually lead to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade which will guarantee that this country will have plenty of willing enforcers of "democracy". They will also be able to write our own citizens out of the constitution. In the process they will create such an atmosphere of hate in America they will be able to rationalize the oppression of those who speak against the rising theocracy in America.

Lets just hope they wake up in time to realize that democracy cannot be forced upon anyone, and that no one can legitimately have their god given rights taken away from them by anyone, majority, minority or otherwise, by the re-writing of the constitution. That only makes the document a shadow of its former self. And America a mockery of the principals for which it stood at one time...

And many people say; "but you're an American Dave, you have to believe that this place is better than other places..."

To them I put it this way; In America, we are born into an authoritarian family were the father knows best and then we go to school and learn what they tell us when what where how and why. Then when we get a job it is more of the same. Unquestioning authority is the norm for industrialized societies. I think that fascism is always going to be a danger of industrialization. We look into the machine and the machine looks back into us.

Lets just say that under informed as we are, we are not even capable of democracy in our own country let alone bringing it at the point of a gun to others halfway around the world. Oh, and one more thing, Germans believed up until the very end that they were a great nation. They convinced themselves that they had the right and the duty to purify the world. They convinced themselves that might made right and survival of the fittest was a higher calling. Ultimately cloaking a pure and simple greed as high minded principal and spending their sons and their daughters as mere grist for the mill of misery.

What is so different about what George Bush has done with America in the last four years?

The author can be reached for comment at; dvanthournout@thedeprogrammer.com

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