Archive for the 'Fascism' Category

Soon-to-be Gov. Steve Beshear can transform how the world sees Kentucky and how Kentuckians see themselves

Matt Gunterman November 5th, 2007

Yesterday morning a German friend emailed me to say that The New York Times Sunday travel section was running a feature on the finer qualities of bourbon and bluegrass in Kentucky.

He’s read much about Kentucky lately, and it’s intriguing him. Just last week, both the London-based Guardian newspaper and The American Prospect magazine ran pieces on the growth of progressive culture and politics in Kentucky. These follow in the wake of Bob Moser’s monumental cover story on Kentucky for The Nation in September.

When Terence Samuel, who authored the Guardian and TAP articles, interviewed me, he made the comment, “Everyone’s talking about Kentucky.”

People around the world are talking about Kentucky because — right here, right now — Kentuckians are offering them hope. In us they see the potential that the American spirit that has inspired so many generations of the past is finally awakening and is ready to take on the wicked specter that is the creation of hate- and fear-mongers like Pres. George W. Bush (R), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R), Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R), and Rep. Stan Lee (R).

They see it in the workers who are out canvassing neighborhoods today. They see it in the peace demonstrators who are agitating to end a senseless war. They see it in the families who are fighting for their children’s health care. They see it in the crusade to protect and restore our environment. They see it in people of faith who are standing up to the bigots and bullies who have dominated Kentucky pulpits for too long.

The evidence is all around that something is happening in Kentucky, and the world is hungry for that something to be a people who are innovative, bold, tolerant, and progressive.

There is not a thing about McConnell, Fletcher, or Lee that’s any of those things. They are instead calculating, rigid, bullying, and conservative.

Soon-to-be Governor-elect Steve Beshear (D) will have the opportunity to communicate to the world what the new Kentucky is all about.

Ernie Fletcher saw “selling” Kentucky as a mere re-branding exercise. Nothing of the substance changed, and the discerning public could see through that. Fletcher’s take on “unbridled spirit” was anything but.

But Beshear can change the substance because he is not beholden to the baser elements of Kentucky society; his opponent will win the vote of every sort of bigot our state has to offer. With Kentucky’s urban center of Louisville poised to enter a sort of renaissance (barring the next Bush recession undermining its growth), Kentucky can become part of a new face for the United States to the rest of the world, one that is dynamic and provocative, welcoming and welcomed.

Kentucky can’t move forward on jobs, education, or other quality of life issues if it doesn’t tackle those elements of its culture that are holding the state back, and Beshear is well positioned to change the conversation and move down a different path.

McConnell should listen to Ahmadinejad; they speak the same language of hate and delusion

Matt Gunterman September 25th, 2007

Our Senator Mitch McConnell (R) always has his finger on the pulse of the nation. After all, why — on a day when Kentucky GM workers went on nationwide strike for the first time in over a generation to decry loss of job security and benefits, and GM bosses insisted that the government needs to do something about the health care crisis in the nation (health care cost GM $5.2 billion in 2005) — why worry about that health care crisis [and McConnell certainly doesn't as he's busy obstructing expanded health care to American children] when you’ve got a premier American university to criticize.

McConnell lashed out yesterday at Columbia University’s decision to allow Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R?) to speak to the student body. Of course, in introducing Ahmadinejad, the president of the university called him a “petty and cruel dictator,” and the audience laughed at his ludicrous claims.

However, Ahmadinejad had a lot to say to American conservatives. After all, the Iranian leader repeated no fewer than three times that his country didn’t suffer from the twin plagues of homosexuals and homosexuality.

Isn’t homosexuality one of the chief threats to the United States in the eyes of Republicans? Isn’t this lifestyle choice a sign of moral decay and the rot of empire? Didn’t the Roman empire fall because its soldiers were too busy engaged in homosexual acts to defend themselves from invading hordes?

If Iran has eliminated homosexuality from its borders, then perhaps Mitch McConnell and other Republicans should approach what Ahmadinejad has to say with an open mind. Perhaps they should think harder about what true theocracy is and whether their preferred Christian faith is simply inferior to Islam.

Think long and hard, Mitch.

Redneck bigots like to invoke Jesus, but that doesn’t mean Jesus listens

Jim Pence September 6th, 2007

[Message from Matt: Jim's work is ever provocatively ornery, but there are times when it not only captures the humor and mood of the moment when making its point, but also is elevated, quite frankly, to the level of art. If ever MOMA does an exhibit on folk blogging, then Jim Pence and his HillbillyReport will be Exhibit A.]

Mitch McConnell mourns death of Jerry Falwell

Matt Gunterman May 16th, 2007

Senator Mitch McConnell’s political base lost one of its most prominent members yesterday: Jerry Falwell.

Here’s what McConnell had to say:

“We regret his passing. He’s been a prominent figure in American religion and politics for the last 20 years and I know he’ll be greatly missed,” said Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell.

Now, I’m not going to say anything myself about Jerry Falwell, and I don’t have to say anything because fortunately Falwell left behind plenty of words on his own. Those words will far outlive the man, and they will be his legacy.

Here are elements of that legacy, courtesy of AMERICAblog:

[...]

In the 1980s Jerry Falwell was an outspoken supporter of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. When president PW Botha was elected President by the White South African minority, Reverend Falwell went to South Africa and made statements supporting the government there and urging American Christians to buy Krugerrands, a coin issued by the South African Government[17]. He drew the ire of many when he called Nobel Peace Prize winner and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu a phony. He later apologized for that remark and claimed that he had misspoken

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Falwell has asserted that when The Antichrist (”The Beast”) comes, he “must be, of necessity, a Jewish male.”

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After the September 11, 2001, attacks Falwell said on the 700 Club, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’” (a sentiment with which Robertson concurred).

[...]

“AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals.”

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After Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith tells a Dallas Religious Right gathering that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew,” Falwell gives a similar view. “I do not believe,” he told reporters, “that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew.”

[...]

And who can forget our favorite Falwellism: Tinky Winky is gay.

So, I’ll leave it up to you — and Falwell’s own career — to decide how “Christ-like” the man was.

Naomi Wolf: Republican Party devolving into Fascist force

Matt Gunterman April 30th, 2007

There’s an interesting and frightening phenomenon going on in the Republican Party, and you can see it manifest in the panicked senate leadership and reelection campaign of Senator Mitch McConnell.

You see, as the nation’s liberals, progressives, moderates, and independents rally around the Democratic Party and agenda, the Republican Party is shrinking in every possible capacity: in sheer numbers, in intellectual capital, in resources, and in scope. The Republican Party is quite possibly entering yet another a period of permanent minority status. I’d say that it is.

Yet, what’s left of the Republican Party is radicalizing [for example, see this article on how the Republican base is foaming at the mouth over GOP candidates who see reason on the Iraq war]. It’s becoming even more hate-filled and crazy, and it’s looking everywhere for a scapegoat for its self-inflicted troubles (the gays, science, empowered women, liberals, foreigners, etc.). And therein lies the danger: this nation might be cursed for a generation with an organized lunatic fringe of rightwing radicals that make Newt Gingrich look like Mr. Rogers.

Writing in the Guardian (UK), Naomi Wolf outlines the nightmare scenario of how the Bush administration has primed the fascist pump in the Republican Party.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

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If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.
As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security - remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” - didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.

[...]