Tag Archives: Politics

I F*cking Told You So

07 Friday Mar 2025

Posted by in Fascism, Politics, Trump

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(Warning for the tragically delicate: “adult” content)

Yeah, so, I fucking told you so. The professional, “adult” way of saying that is something like, “events have evolved along the patterns we previously anticipated”, but I’m fucking done with being an “adult”. I told you that Trump was a fucking fascist; I told you more than once. Ironically enough (assuming I’m using the term “ironically” correctly, which assumption may itself be a bit ironic) Robert O. Paxton, the scholar upon whose work I lean most heavily for my understanding of fascism, was quite slow in acknowledging the fact that Trump is a fascist. The last straw for Paxton was Trump’s ginning up the mob on January 6th in his (previous) last ditch attempt to overthrow the government. It was the invocation of the mob that turned Paxton’s opinion, but Paxton is (I am arguing) in error on this matter. J6 was the time Jabba-the-Trump succeeded in ginning up the mob, it is scarcely the first or only time he made such an attempt or appeal. Trump was and is constantly calling for mob action, whether in the form of beating up someone he dislikes, or more general intimidation tactics. Stochastic terrorism is Jabba’s bread-and-butter. J6 stands out not because it was the first time Jabba made such a call; it stands out because it was the time the mob actually turned out en masse. And as Paxton himself astutely notes, it is not success that makes a fascist movement fascist, it is the fascism itself; the intent, not the achievement.

Realistically, Paxton’s hesitancy is quite understandable and worthy of respect. “Fascism” is one of the most promiscuously abused terms out there, second only to “communism” and “scientific.” So while I do contend that his reluctance was misplaced, I nevertheless recognize that it was misplaced for reasons on intellectual integrity. The fact that even the most cautious expert in the field has now (however reluctantly) acknowledged what I insisted was the case almost 10 years ago is enough for me to take a victory lap, declaring I was right all along (regardless of whether it was only a sadly accurate guess at the time.)

A reminder for those who don’t want to go back and read those earlier posts, fascism is:

… a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

– Robert O. Paxton, Anatomy of Fascism [4267] Kindle edition.

It might be petty of me to note that this definition makes no mention of the invocation of mob action, but I am feeling petty (and bitter) so I’m going to pretend I didn’t say anything about it. What had been previously lacking in Jabba’s rhetoric was not the call for mob action, but rather the call for external expansion. That has now been radically changed with the Orange Shitgibbon’s demands to seize Canada, Panama, and Greenland.

Jabba is now assisted by the even more racist born-rich illiterate buffoon whose name I’ll not mention here. Let’s call him “Leon Cuck.” As the richest man in the world, Leon is the living demonstration that wealth is absolutely no indication of intelligence, integrity, or decency. For the last 8 or so weeks, President Leon and his neutered lapdog Donald have been destroying the framework of democracy in this country with promiscuous abandon, aided and abetted by members of the Republican party, everyone of whom has had to get reinforced kneepads sewn into their clothing for all the time they spend on them copping Dear Leader’s joint.

Leon’s shiny new disregard for any pretense of legality, the Department Of Unelected Cunts Harming Everything (“DOUCHE”) – enthusiastically manned by his pimple-popping brigade of cultish InCel blackshirts – is going well beyond any mere grab for, and exercise of, hegemonic domination. This is actually new in the history of fascist movements. In the past, fascist programs were aimed at unfettered power, without let or hindrance. But it was power over an intact social infrastructure. Yes, the fascists always aligned themselves with big money; yes, they always suppressed any manner of labor movement, unions, or worker advancement. But they didn’t set out to annihilate them either. Fascists set out to seize the government, not destroy it and all of the citizenry along with it. But that appears to be the path Leon is following.

Of course, Leon is also a fucking moron, and so he’s constantly being caught off guard by his own incompetence. Keep in mind that this individual is nothing more than a born-rich grease-stain like his new best buddy Jabba, a “man” – a term that must be used advisedly – who has never actually created or built anything of his own, but who has only ever leveraged his inherited wealth into taking over other people’s creations and then squeezing more wealth out of those things. Along with Jabba, stripped of his inherited money he is nothing more than a low-rent school yard bully. So it is unclear what he expects to accomplish by destroying the very possibility of economic production, especially since the effects of his actions will ramify around the globe.

This might be a good time to interject a fairly obvious point: Leon is a billionaire many hundreds of times over, yet it is not possible – not even in imagination, never mind reality – to earn a billion dollars. The only way a person can acquire that kind of obscene wealth is through theft, fraud, &/or extortion. (Or maybe marrying and then divorcing someone who has acquired that kind of money.)

Under ordinary circumstances – or even just slightly less outrageously extraordinary ones – we in the US could take some small comfort in the thought that the electoral massacre the Republicans would suffer in the 2026 midterms would finally put a check on Jabba’s and Leon’s rampage. But they have largely achieved the hegemonic domination fascists dream of. Even as a few courts get all pouty-faced and call them naughty boys, there is no agency capable of enforcing any judicial ruling against them. If they back down on any issue, it is purely because the choose to do so, as no one now can compel it of them. And those midterms, will there even be any?

At this point, I rather expect Jabba and Leon to continue to run roughshod over everyone and everything until they finally gin up large scale civil protests. At that point, Jabba calls out the military (the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs are both kneelers) to start shooting people. He then declares a nationwide emergency and suspends the Constitution.

I would like to be proven wrong about this, but I’m beyond holding my breath for anything.

Better in The Original German

23 Tuesday Jul 2024

Posted by in Authoritarians, Donald Trump, Fascism, Project 2025

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The title refers to a meme going around on social media comparing the Heritage Foundations (“HF” going forward) “Project 2025” (“P25” hereafter) to Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The comparison is apt, as the neo-fascist intentions behind the more recent document are disturbingly obvious. The full text of this horrifying document continues to be downloadable,i but as more people become familiar with its contents it remains to be seen how eager HF will continue to be for people to learn what it actually says.

Critiquing the document from a philosophical, and specifically metaphysical, perspective is not difficult. The bald-faced essentialism dripping from every page is so thick in its presentation, and so breathtakingly infantile in its assumptions that it leaves one wondering how the authors ever even mastered their own toilette, much less earned advanced degrees at presumably respectable universities. One scarcely needs a background in process metaphysics to shred this fatuous, and tediously long (almost 900 pages) piece of pretentious twaddle. Consequently, I’ll waste none of my own time, much less any of yours, saying any more on the matter.

Rather, I want to drill down into a few specifics that will exemplify the general trends of this blueprint for the destruction of the Republic. I’ll have a few words of criticism along the way for critics with whom I might otherwise agree, but who have failed to do their due diligence. This document is too important, and too simply monstrous, to entertain ourselves with vague, histrionic arm wavings and dismissals. I believe it is important that we actually know what we are talking about, and then talk about it with care and accuracy. Let us then turn to the meat and potatoes:

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Man Up

18 Saturday May 2024

Posted by in Objective Morality, Personal History, Personhood, Politics

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This has been an on-and-off again topic of discussion for some time now, long enough that I’ve more or less assembled some thoughts of my own on the subject. Obviously toxic manhood is “bad” – I mean, “toxic,” after all – but that by itself tells us very little about what it is. One might suggest starting off with a definition, except that in any rational mode of inquiry, definitions only come at the end, not the beginning of thought. I’ve recently talked about this HERE. So no, I’m not going to offer any definitions; rather I will follow a pattern akin to Plato in the Symposium (and which Iris Murdoch brilliantly adopted in her Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals) by trying to “spiral in toward” the topic with a few chosen examples and stories.

There is a meme currently circulating in social media asking women if they’d rather find themselves lost in the woods with a bear, or with a man who was a stranger to them. By some significant margin, the preference appears to be for the bear. Frankly, if you are not between the bear and its cubs (if it is female) then the chances are the bear will let you back away unmolested. A great many men are also (evidently) tragically butthurt by this revelation. So then the next question gets asked: how would you feel if it was your own daughter, rather than just some woman in general? How does that preference get simplified if it is between a bear and another woman who is a complete stranger? Unless one is profoundly delusional, the answers are not difficult to understand, even as they are revelatory. This is one of the legacies of toxic masculinity in our culture. (I’ve said more about this subject here: Un-Bear-Able | THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION (garyherstein.com).)

As a concrete example of a bearded boy with a mouth, we have the recent commencement address by Harrison Butker. Butker is not noted for his intellectual achievements, or his determination in overcoming a lifetime of personal hardships. Instead, he kicks footballs. Evidently, he does a very good job of this, but quite frankly it is the only thing he does, at least when his mouth is not running into sudden death overtime.i Now, I’ll admit to being old-school; I think commencement addresses should be delivered by people who don’t need assistance with the big words in a Dick & Jane story. But for reasons that transcend the possibility of rational explanation, the good Benedictines in Atchison, KS, deemed otherwise. So this young … ‘man’ … who is not notable for anything other than kicking footballs, proceeded to lecture women on how their only real fulfillment can come from being brood mares in service to a man. He also spewed about “bad leaders who don’t stay in their lane,” which is ironic especially given his apparent inability to grasp what irony is, as well as spewing about knee-jerk neo-fascist tropes like, “Things like abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia, as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values in media.” Of course, he considered himself obliged to yatter on about “being a man.” (No fucking wonder they prefer the bear …) (The full text of Butker’s, er, “presentation” can be found HERE.)

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Un-Bear-Able

05 Sunday May 2024

Posted by in Meme, Politics

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or
Why You Got to Hate So Hard on Men?

It has been a while since I’ve gone explicitly political, but that’s as much a matter of inspiration of the moment as design. If you’ve been following social media and the news stories generated by its trends, then there is a good chance that you can guess what my topic here will center around. For those who do not spend their days immersed in social media (and may the gods bless and smile upon you all your days!), I’ll offer a brief survey.

This question is posed to women – You are lost in the woods. You turn a corner and you confront one of either A) or B)

  1. A wild bear, or
  2. A lone man unknown to you.

Which would you prefer?

Drama bear being dramatic

A significant majority of women choose the bear. Needless to say, as unsurprising and reasonable as this answer is, it has caused an enormous number of Tragically Histrionic Butthurt Men (“THBM”) to delaminate over the “injustice” of such “rampant” and “indefensible” “man-hatred”. Yet, as I just mentioned, the response by women is BOTH unsurprising AND reasonable. Let me say a few words on why that is.

The following statements are copied and pasted directly from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) (so I’ve skipped the quotation marks):

  • One in five women in the United States experienced completed or attempted rape during their lifetime.
  • Nationwide, 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime.
  • One in three female victims of completed or attempted rape experienced it for the first time between the ages of 11 and 17.
  • Almost one in four undergraduate women experienced sexual assault or misconduct at 33 of the nation’s major universities.

This is only a partial list. All of these numbers are on the low side, since they are based (as they must be) exclusively on acts of harassment and assault that are reported. Per the first one, I’ve seen reports that set the number of women raped in their lifetime at 1-in-3. But for purposes of consistency, I will stick with the NSVRC statistics. Notice also the third bullet point: they experienced the rape … for the first time. Let the implications of the qualifier “first” sink in, for a moment. (Sources for the data are provided at their website, linked to above.)

Let’s be clear about something else here: these acts of harassment and assault are not being perpetrated by bears, and only under the most vanishingly rare of circumstances are they committed by womeni. These acts are committed by men.

One can add that the “strange man” in the above scenario is being encountered in a context that is largely outside the scope of social norms and constraints. But, of course, it is the behavior of so many men nominally within those constraints, that makes the thought of one encountered beyond them so disturbing. And the behaviors involved are not merely limited to those so egregious and carefully defined that one can collect statistics on them.

For example, anecdotally there are plenty of stories, none of which are hard to come by if one only listens to women. One such story that recently struck me (since it was associated the appearance of the bear meme) was a woman talking about a delivery driver whom she’d simply been decent to, smiled and said “thank you,” and now he’s creeping on her: sending inappropriate notes, acting grossly familiar, and so on. She wrote something to the effect that, from now on, she’d only accept packages delivered by bears. Incidents such as this one fall outside of the NSVRC’s collected statistics. Yet for women, it is a kind of daily, even minute-by-minute aggression and denial of their own agency that is so much a part of their basic experience that it starts to fade into the background; it is as though it is as ubiquitous as gravity.

So what, then, about bears?

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Say Goodbye, It’s Independence Day.*

04 Monday Jul 2022

Posted by in Donald Trump, Fascism, Politics

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*(A line from a Springsteen song, in case you didn’t know.)

With the “Supreme” Court and it’s viciously ideological rightwing members now stampeding the United States full-tilt to all-out fascism, there is little to celebrate this July 4th. Even if Trump does not run or does not win (for whatever reason, including federal indictments), even if, by some incomprehensible miracle, the moves the court will make in its next session do not entirely erase the majority of voters voices from our political enterprise, matters remain dire.

It is clear that the overwhelming majority of the Republican party has abandoned any pretense of decency, of reason, and most certainly of democracy. Absent a series of what appears, as of this writing, to be highly unlikely events, the experiment that was the United States is done for. So, on this holiday, I leave you with these “postcards.”

(I add this last one for those who think there’s no difference between the two.)

So this evening while you’re testing your luck at whether or not you blow your hand(s) off, and terrorizing the dogs, cats, birds, veterans with PTSD, etc, in your neighborhood with explosive devices, perhaps cast a thought to little things like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and whether these things actually matter to you, or if all you care about is feeling good about white supremacism and other fascist instruments of hegemonic domination.

Not The Same

13 Monday Dec 2021

Posted by in Fascism, Politics, Socialism

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A recent interaction on social media reminded me of the widespread – and commonly enough, absolutely willful – ignorance of basic political distinctions that are rampant among so many people in the U.S. In particular, I was rather aggressively informed by an individual whose education ended somewhere in the 4th grade (regardless of how much time they actually spent in school) that communism and fascism were identical. Now, one need not be an especially enlightened thinker to recognize what galactically infantile nonsense on stilts such a clownish identification obviously is, but I thought I would use the moment to challenge myself to generate shoestring characterizations of both that, while undoubtedly insufficient by an expert’s criteria, might still serve as a useful thumbnail sketch for those of us who are not experts.

First, let me state what is implicit in the above: I am not an expert. Social/political philosophy is not any of my areas of scholarly expertise. However, I do have a Ph.D. in philosophy, so I am at once a fairly educated and articulate human being, and I’ve had a better than average exposure to such ideas. So scratching out such rough and ready comparative characterizations is nominally well within my reach. The trick that makes it entertaining for me (and possibly useful for others) is creating such formulations in a short and handy way that provides an adequate indication of each position.

Second, a word of caution: as Aristotle pointed out over 2300 years ago, requiring scientific precision of non-scientific topics is manifestly foolish. The shorter form of this caveat can be summarized as, “definitions are dumb.” Unless you are working in one of the mathematical disciplines (in which group I also include such things as computer programming, theoretical physics, formal logic, and such) then anything presented as a definition is never more than a guiding heuristic, not a rigidly absolute rule. Many people seem not to understand this (or deliberately ignore it in the hope of scoring “points), especially when dealing with matters of politics. Hence, any person demanding rigorous definition of, say, either communism or fascism is either guilty of ignorance, disingenuousness, or both. Hence my insistence that what follows are “guidelines,” “characterizations,” “sketches,” and the like. So let us begin.

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It’s Not Easy Being Green

22 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by in Altemeyer, Authoritarians, Critical Thinking, Green Party, Hillary Clinton, Politics

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The Green party has long been anathema to any genuine progressive turn in American politics now for upwards of twenty years or more. Beginning with Nader’s undercutting Gore’s electoral chances and thus putting Shrub (the lesser Bush) in the office of the President, the Green party has done everything in its power to demonstrate its absolute rejection of basic logic (to say nothing of facts on the ground) in favor of an “ideology” that amounts to nothing more than self-absorbed infantilism.kermit confused

And yes, I too have seen the strained fabrications that have self-righteously proclaimed that Nader did not cost Gore Florida in 2000. But like any person gifted with nothing more exotic than the mere abstract possibility of intelligence or thought, I recognize these exercises in childish excuse-making for what they are. This nonsense has even gone so far as to claim that Nader voters would have turned to Bush, had Nader not been running. Which is to say, Gore wasn’t far enough to the political left for such people, so in the absence of Nader they would have leapt even further to the political right. The only imaginable reason for doing so would be sheer, infantile spite which, given the nature of the Green party and its devotees, is actually almost believable. But I’m going to work on the assumption that Green party voters are merely stupid, as opposed to self-absorbed, narcissistic, intransigently petty, sniveling little cry-babies. If I am mistaken on this point, I apologize in advance. Continue reading →

What is Populism?

06 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Fascism, Metaphysics, Politics

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The question came up on social media, What is populism? I had my own little St. Augustine moment, where I realized that, as long as no one asked me, I knew exactly what I meant by the term, but as soon as someone asked I had no idea. (In fairness to Augustine, his moment was around the significantly more subtle notion of “what is time?”) I could run off to the dictionary and waste people’s time by quoting that, but I won’t. For one thing, the dictionary (like Wikipedia itself) is not the answer to a question (other than “how do I spell this word?”), it is the starting point for asking questions. Further, dictionary answers aren’t always that well considered. Thus, the dictionary will tell you that an ad hominem fallacy occurs any time you say something bad about a person, ignoring the fact that, in order to be an actual fallacy, it must be either irrelevant or untrue (or both). Finally I’ve enough acquaintance with the word “populism” via use – both my own and other peoples – that the dictionary will either tell me nothing new or, like ad hominem, tell me something wrong.Mob action

After I make of quick gloss of the sorts of things that populism is at an absolute minimum, I’ll go on to suggest two different developments of the idea. One development leaves populism as a relatively “morally neutral” political method or technique, while the other will put it squarely in the negatives as a substantially fascist instrument. Neither one of these approaches represents the “truth” about populism, or the “real definition”; they are simply different ways in which the word can be used, ways that should never be conflated. I’ll finish with some thoughts from Whitehead and Dewey about the philosophical underpinnings of the kinds of popular relationalism that strengthen genuine democracy. Continue reading →

Evidence

20 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by in Cherry Picking, Conspiracy Theories, Critical Thinking, Gun Control, Politics

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In one of the more spectacularly fatuous recent displays of why formal public debates are a complete waste of time, Ken Ham (creationist promoter of Kentucky’s financial albatross “Noah’s Arc” theme park) and Bill Nye (“The Science Guy”) “debated” the question of evolution versus creationism. Now, for there to be a debate, there first has to be something TO debate and, in this instance of course, there was not. While there are many scientific issues of deep perplexity still to be found in the theory of evolution, there is no reasoned question as to the FACT of evolution. Creationism, on the other hand, lacks even the abstract possibility of scientific – or even logical – content; not even amounting to a fabulous “just so story,” creationism is nothing but childish hand-waving, and it is incapable of being anything other than such hand-waving. (Detailed scientific texts on evolution can be downloaded for free from the National Academies Press HERE.)Ham-Nye-debate-in-a-nutshell

Still, one of the stand-out moments of this exercise in wasted time, which thoroughly demonstrates why the entire exercise was a waste of time, came at the end, when Ken Ham and Bill Nye were both asked what would suffice to lead them to change their mind regarding their position. Ham’s reply was an immediate and unqualified, “Nothing.” Nye, on the other hand, responded almost as instantly, saying, “Evidence.” Ham perfectly exemplifies the pointlessness of “debating” with people such as himself; there is no discussion to be had with the willfully impenetrable. Nevertheless, current events have me thinking once again about the role of evidence and denial in our society today. So this seems like a good opportunity to return to the subject, albeit in contexts other than that of creationism. Continue reading →

False Flag

05 Sunday Feb 2017

Posted by in Critical Thinking, Logic, Politics, Violence

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A “false flag” attack is a premeditated form of deception in which some disaster with a high number of casualties is inflicted upon a community, evidently by outsiders, but in reality by the community’s own leaders in order to fabricate the impression of immediate threat and danger within the community, so that the leaders may act with impunity by taking aggressive – and typically extra-legal – actions. This then establishes the leaders’ power, with the willing consent of those over whom they actually intend to exploit this power. If you are a movie buff, the “St. Mary’s virus” biological attack from the movie V for Vendetta, is an example of a false flag attack raised to the nth degree. Claims of “real” (note the scare quotes) false flag attacks are standard twaddle with childish conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones and blathering histrionics of his “Infowars” website. Lest there be any lingering ambiguity, I do not hold much truck with such infantilism. People who have taught the subject know that such conspiracy theory drivel is used as comedy relief in Critical Thinking courses. Such material is swallowed with great credulity by a large number of authoritarian minded people, especially on the extreme right-wing of the political spectrum.

squirrel

But we are seeing a perfectly analogous move gaining traction on the political left, and it is worth our time to squash it before it gains any traction. Multiple peaceful protests have recently either been preceded by, or occurred in parallel with, violent actions that had no relationship to the original protest. One increasingly sees these violent behaviors decried as the work of “paid provocateurs.” There are more than a few problems with these accusations, not the least of which being that they come without even the tiniest scintilla of evidence to back up the accusation. And these accusations will often be made by the self-same people who will brush aside Alex Jones’s fatuous nonsense with a roll of the eyes and a sweep of the hand, all the while as they are doing the exact same thing as Jones: making hysterical, baseless accusations and assuming that the volume with which they make the accusations carries probative weight. Continue reading →