in response to the suggestion that fears of catastrophe are overblown when it almost occurred recently.

A couple of recent quotes from Republicans on press freedom.

I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. We need the media to hold people like me to account. Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power. — George W Bush

NBC Interview, 28th Feb

" We need a free press. We must have it. It's vital." The Arizona senator who has just been reelected to another six-year term added that in order to “preserve democracy” a “free and many times adversarial press” is essential. “That’s how dictators get started,” he continued. “They get started by suppressing a free press. In other words, a consolidation of power. When you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press.” — John McCain

24th February

Lol. It's still a red herring.

How could you possibly know that? — Thorongil

We know it for sure, because that's the media narrative. Don't forget, Trump and his non-haters are literally Hitler.

'Oh, you're saying Trump is untruthful? So, you're saying that he's "like Hitler"! Hey, that's an hysterical reaction.'

Kind of apt, in a thread called 'post truth'.

Short of that, the global economic system came within hours of collapse on September 18th 2008. — Wayfarer

Actually, Kanjorski's claims there were discredited.

Literally Hitler, and there are many of these:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/adolf-hitler-donald-trump-mein-kampf-bluffed-way-to-power-nazi-leader-germany-fuhrer-us-president-a7568506.html

A summary of the WaPo "Trump is Hitler" meme

http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/5-washington-post-writers-liken-trump-to-hitler/

Kanjorski's claims there were discredited. — Michael

That's interesting, if it's true. But I had read that account of the emergency of 18th Sept 2008 from a number of sources. Recall, it was three days after the Lehmann Bros collapse, and IAG looked like it was next.

Here is another account which is in line with various accounts that were published in the aftermath.

Sorry, but I don't think it was a piece of 'rogue journalism'. The worlds' financial systems really did come within hours of collapse in 2008. Many people don't seem to know that.

The Rosenbaum article is reasonable, but the WND article is junk.

From a display in the United States Holocaust Museum. Purveyors of old news, but not fake news.

When one has early signs of a serious illness, it is recommended that one not deny and ignore them, but face the facts, and start treatment as soon as possible.

A couple of recent quotes from Republicans on press freedom. — Wayfarer

There appears to be a very simple strategy if one is against free press. First, fill the media with lies and fake news, not hard to do for someone with money and power. Then use the abundance of abuse in the media, to justify restricting the media.

So Trump's a fascist. Got it.

stub deleted and entry reposted

Jon Stewart last night:

"...and from what I've heard they do anal"

It's not a definition, its a list of warning signs. If you got one, don't panic; if you got them all, don't complace.

Like blood in your stools might not be (due to) bowel cancer, but don't bet on it.

So Trump's a fascist. Got it. — Thorongil

It's a stupid game, this. The sign doesn't mention Trump, and my post doesn't mention Trump, and the sign says Early warning signs. Many of these signs are present in Europe and elsewhere. The straw man that you "got" is a way to dismiss and shut down a debate that needs to be had. I don't think this is fake, and I don't think it is directed at Trump. Rather it functions as part of the educative role of the Holocaust Museum, and deserves to be taken seriously.

If there was one fascist in the US, there would be nothing to worry about. But Fascism is more a direction a country or the world can be going in than the title of a leader.

Trump has displayed a lot of fascist tendencies, but I think it's a stretch to say that he's actually facist. But notice the constant tendency to say that calling attention to Trump's mendacity amounts to 'saying Trump is like Hitler'.

No, Trump is not like Hitler. Personally, I don't believe Trump is malignant, in the sense that fascist and totalitarian dictators have been; he's basically civil, albeit a narcissist and a bully. But he has fascist leanings, not least the constant appeal to fear ('the country is in peril!') and therefore to military strength; nationalism, denigration of other nationalities and races (Mexican and Muslim) and hostility to the press (mainly for calling him out on all the above) and even to the legal system.

This is not Republican V Democrat, Conservative V Liberal issue. Trump upended or abandoned a very large number of Republican policies, to the extent where a long list of senior Republicans formally opposed his candidacy. Many Republicans are speaking out against him. So to defend Trump is not necessarily to defend conservatism, or Republicanism, as such.

The list is too inclusive to differentiate fascism from other kinds of political arrangements. Most of these have existed in most western countries fairly often, to varying degrees. Are all these countries therefore fascist? I don't think so.

A tighter definition of fascism than this list is needed.

I am totally opposed to labor power being suppressed, but suppressing labor, in itself, isn't fascism. It's a common practice of the small wealth-monopolizing class. Anti-intellectualism and disdain for the arts is a major flaw among people who are educated; I don't consider it surprising that the proles react to intellectual condescension and artistic obscurantism with disdain.

Intense nationalism, disdain for human rights, a conservative religious establishment serving a militaristic society, and an obsession with national security focused on an enemy (real or imagined) brought together in a political program -- that comes closer to what I think of as fascism.

Fraudulent elections, corruption and cronyism, corporate power protected, controlled media, rampant sexism, etc. are not good by any stretch, but they aren't fascism, either.

Fraudulent elections, corruption and cronyism, corporate power protected, controlled media, rampant sexism, etc. are not good by any stretch, but they aren't fascism, either. — Bitter Crank

I think fascism (loosely put) is a reaction to a sense of impending decline or doom. Bouts of it occur during economic downturns. The onset of the Jim Crow era had a lot of symptoms of fascism. People already felt uneasy and fearful because of economic conditions. White supremacists rose to explain that fear: it's non-whites. We need to separate ourselves from them because their very presence is damaging us. We're sick and we need to get back to our glorious historic presentation. Violence was directed at non-whites, but more importantly against whites who didn't tow the line.

And BC, don't correct my narrative. It's factual. :P

The list is too inclusive to differentiate fascism from other kinds of political arrangements. — Bitter Crank

Like any other 'ism, Fascism is first and foremost a state of mind. I hope Mongrel will excuse my dissection:

a sense of impending decline or doom... uneasy and fearful... need to separate... We're sick and we need to get back to our glorious historic presentation. — Mongrel

There is no need to sharply differentiate the pathology, it's a spectrum illness. No need either to identify some person that is it or has it and another that does not, it is a social malaise, and it strikes whenever there is a downturn, and infects even its opponents.

I think fascism (loosely put) is a reaction to a sense of impending decline or doom. — Mongrel

I agree with you that what is driving the apparent 'right turn' in America, Europe and also here in Australia, is basically dissappointment with the consequences of globalism, but also fear of change, and the longing to return to simpler times. It's unconscious. Like Landru used to say on the old Forum, Trump gives voice to the Id - he speaks out what a lot of people believe but have been afraid to say. That's what got him elected.

And BC, don't correct my narrative. It's factual. :P — Mongrel

What are you referencing?

I was enjoying this conversation until I got to Colbert being quoted as authority, at which point I couldnt take it seriously any more.

From baseless claims about 'illegal voting', to baseless claims about 'the largest-ever inauguration crowd', to baseless claims about 'illegal wiretapping'. And still so many people prepared to turn a blind eye to obvious fabrications.

Philosophically speaking, the 'post truth' phenomenon is nothing new. It is just a label for something that has become more apparent to more people recently. The phenomenon is recorded in history ever since Alexander the Great ignored Aristotle's reasons not to invade persia.

Philosophically speaking, the 'post truth' phenomenon is nothing new. It is just a label for something that has become more apparent to more people recently. The phenomenon is recorded in history ever since Alexander the Great ignored Aristotle's reasons not to invade persia. — ernestm

You need to get an eye patch.

When a narcissist finds resistance, they look for someone to blame. When that someone is the legal and intelligence fraternity, which both stand on whatever trust the public are willing to place in them, the solution is to undermine that public confidence.

One effective way to undermine that confidence is to posit a conspiracy that has them involved in clandestine cooperation,

Hence, the Deep State.

Today's Post Truth installment:

President Trump showed an affinity for “working the referees” in his race to the White House, criticizing a federal judge as biased, panning polls as rigged and even questioning the aptitude of the nation’s intelligence agencies.

Now, with Mr. Trump’s administration aggressively pitching the House Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Capitol Hill’s official scorekeeper — the Congressional Budget Office — is coming under intense fire. As it prepares to render its judgment on the cost and impact of the bill, the nonpartisan agency of economists and statisticians has become a political piñata — and the latest example of Mr. Trump’s team casting doubt on benchmarks accepted as trustworthy for decades.

NY Times.

Same modus operandi - anyone who calls out the bluff and bluster of the current White House is deprecated, degraded, called phoney - whether it be judges, journalists, scientists or bureaucrats.

"It is beyond the capacity of any person such as me to rectify the problem, as I had so much once hoped when I started writing on natural law two years ago. For no matter how relevant the truths might be to each and every person in this self-infatuated nation, they also display no interest whatsoever in learning better, just like the far more ignorant terrorists they so despise, yet for whom no better knowledge is even possible. The result is no real democracy at all, with misunderstood natural rights in deceptive name alone. Instead there is an imperial oligarchy in war with its own culture and incapable of recognizing it, where most are innocent, and far too many die for it, all for immaterial justifications. And with that I draw the curtain closed on two years of endeavor. "
http://www.yofiel.com/social-contract/terrorism

It's a simple enough tactic, though, to take advantage of the current state of polarization, much of which arose from previously dependable objective bodies abdicating their roles as objective bodies.

Would you not criticize the Supreme Court if all members adopted Scalia's ideology and do you not distrust Fox News? That is, the media and the courts are already distrusted with each side asserting only their allies are to be trusted. Since both sides have no deference to the other, why should it be surprising when someone expands who they are willing to challenge? If the courts and media are fair game, so it would seem appropriate for some obscure agency to also be.

If the courts and media are fair game, so it would seem appropriate for some obscure agency to also be. — Hanover

They're not 'fair game', and your argument simply capitulates to the notion that everything really is a matter of opinion. 'If everyone tells lies, what's the matter with lying'? There's a clear pattern of dissimulation and undermining trust in the institutions which underlie the democratic state. I don't think you realise the magnitude of the problem. (Oh yeah, that's right, if you talk about 'magnitude of the problem' then that's just 'liberal hysteria', right?)

If the courts and media are fair game, so it would seem appropriate for some obscure agency to also be. — Hanover

If the Congressional Budget Office is "obscure," then it is so only because of the ignorance of the American public. The CBO is as close as an objective arbiter as one gets in Washington these days when it comes to assessing proposed bills' impact on the budget and the economy, and is thus hugely important.

I was unaware that Trump's smear tactics had lately been aimed at this department until I saw the quote from that article quoted above, but it only reinforces this administration's bullying, bloviating, and lying to get when it wants when the facts don't support them.