Some lives are exemplary, others not; and of exemplary lives, there are those which invite us to imitate them, and those which we regard from a distance with a mixture of revulsion, pity, and reverence. It is, roughly, the difference between the hero and the saint (if one may use the latter term in an aesthetic, rather than a religious sense). Such a life, absurd in its exaggerations and degree of self-mutilation — like Kleist’s, like Kierkegaard’s — was Simone Weil’s. -
Susan Sontag [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Dec 19, 2011 -
8 comments
"As the sun rose on that fateful day, thousands of blackshirts gathered in the cool morning air, trading jokes and cigarettes. Their boots and belts were well-polished. Those with peaked caps wore them at no angle but the true. The Union’s flags hung limply on their poles, waiting to be unfurled and waved in the faces of the fearful public. Hundreds of policemen – also, in a technical sense, in black shirts, boots and belts – formed up alongside the Fascist column, determined to escort them on an errand that none thought wise or good but which no one had said was illegal.
The signal was given. The march began. It was
October 4th, 1936"
It has been 75 years since the battle of Cable Street, when "people in the East End of London stopped Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists marching through Cable Street, in Stepney, then a mainly Jewish area. A slogan from the Spanish Civil War, a popular anti-fascist cause of the time, was widely used:
They Shall Not Pass - No Pasaran!"
[more inside]
posted by Stagger Lee
on Oct 4, 2011 -
44 comments
Before Qaddafi, the closest thing to a national icon that Libya had was
Omar Mukhtar, the Lion of the Desert. Mussolini thought of Libya as the
Fourth Shore of Italy; the natives were not pleased with this idea, and under the leadership of Mukhtar, a school teacher, successfully resisted the Italians for twenty years with almost no resources. Italian rule in Libya was harsh: Libyans were rounded up into
concentration camps, tanks and
aerial bombardment were used against civilians, and half of the population of Cyrenaica - the eastern part of Libya - died. To stop Mukhtar from receiving supplies from Egypt, the Italians built a
168-mile long barbed-wire fence essentially dividing the country in two. Mukhtar was finally captured and hung on September of 1931; he remains a
symbol of Libyan independence.
[more inside]
posted by with hidden noise
on May 1, 2011 -
15 comments
It is not our role to take power. It is our role to make the powerful frightened of us. And that's what we've forgotten. Give up that dream! Chris Hedges talks neoliberalism and neofeudalism, the civil rights movement, Camden, Obama, Clinton, Tea Parties, moral nihilism, inverted totalitarianism and corpocracy, NAFTA, welfare reform, health care, labor, poverty, Yugoslavia, post-industrial capitalism, economic crisis, imperial collapse, socialism, and democracy, among other things.
[more inside]
posted by gerryblog
on Apr 24, 2010 -
51 comments
Though President Obama has signed no laws since taking office that prohibit gun purchases and ownership, that hasn't stopped permit applications and weapons sales in the United States from rising through the roof and worried state legislators from
passing laws they wouldn't otherwise pass, which greatly ease access and allow carrying weapons in, among other public areas, city, state and
national parks. Schools may have to
get their kids prepared.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Feb 23, 2010 -
102 comments
In 1981, ABC aired a program in daytime that, while pre-dating the
After School Special format, was a moralist tale aimed at children.
"The Wave" was based on the classroom experiments of
Ron Jones, which at the time went largely undocumented and were primarily anecdotal.
The Third Wave as he called it, fooled the children of his class into creating a fascististic movement within the school complete with symbolism and salutes.
[more inside]
posted by mediocre
on Dec 28, 2008 -
46 comments
“People like you are not holding up the Constitution ..." Or so said Major Freddy Welborn, Specialist Jeremy Hall's commanding officer in Tikrit. "Last month, Specialist Hall and the
Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group, filed suit in federal court in Kansas, alleging that Specialist Hall’s right to be free from state endorsement of religion under the First Amendment had been violated and that he had faced retaliation for his views. In November, he was sent home early from Iraq because of threats from fellow soldiers." (NY Times)
posted by fourcheesemac
on Apr 26, 2008 -
123 comments
A Rage In Dalston [
BBC Radio 4 documentary, 1hr, streaming RealMedia] "For four years after 1945, London and the South East witnessed vicious confrontations between the remnants of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and Jewish ex-servicemen organised in the
43 Group." Interviewees include
Vidal Sassoon, by day mild-mannered teenage hairdresser of talent, by night militant anti-fascist. Documentary maker Alan Dein was unable to get any surviving Moseleyites to talk for the programme but there's contributions from Trevor Grundy, author of
Memoir of a Fascist Childhood.
posted by Abiezer
on Apr 21, 2008 -
34 comments
Suicide bombers in Valhalla "Sverige fights back! I'll see the heroes in Valhalla, inshallah."
Where can you find an eclectic mix of Fascists, Libertarian Socialists, Trotskyists, National Anarchists, DPRK apologists, Dixie lovers, Christian Reconstructionists and Islamists all in one place?
[more inside]
posted by symbioid
on Feb 15, 2008 -
20 comments
It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi.... Mr. B has risen beyond his real abilities.... His code is not his own; it is that of his class–no worse, no better, He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value–success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.... Mr. G is a very intellectual young man who was an infant prodigy.... Mr. G will never be a Nazi,... [h]e will certainly be able, however, fully to explain and apologize for Nazism if it ever comes along.
"Who goes Nazi?" via
sott.net, with added context. [more inside]
posted by orthogonality
on Jan 24, 2008 -
76 comments
The quicker you succeed the better. Declassified documents show Secretary of State Kissenger
gave a green light to the Argentine Junta, whilest Rev. Christián González
aka Christián von Wernich, also leant a hand, showing that The Catholic Church's involvement with fascism and the Dirty War was far from dead. The Vatican was instrumental in
witholding detail. The
Desaparecidos probably exceeded
12,000.
posted by adamvasco
on Oct 10, 2007 -
8 comments
Libya is a desert, yes, but if you trace your fingers through the moonlit sand and listen, carefully, you may hear ancient whispers: of
Apollo's love of Cyrene; of prehistoric hunters making Rock Art [
1,
2,
3], back when the Sahara was wet; of Phoenicians subdued by Greeks, of Romans followed by Byzantines, all leaving
ruins that Libya is famous for [
Cyrene,
Leptis Magna,
Sabratha,
et cetera]; of desert soldiers in World War II, remembered in
Graves and
Memorials; of the occupying Italians, who responded to
Omar Mukhtar's resistance of the Fascists by rounding Libyans into
concentration camps; of the camps' prisoners, one of whom wrote this
famous poem: "My only illness is the torturing of our young women, with their bodies exposed ... how my speech has become subdued, the humiliation of our noble and leading men and the loss of my gazelle-like horse..."; of
more culture, more
memories from this land that witnessed the wrenching passion of all man's history—whispering in the very dust that made his soul.
posted by Firas
on May 14, 2007 -
18 comments
Today is the 70th anniversary of
the battle of Cable Street. On Sunday October 4th 1936,
Oswald Moseley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, attempted to lead a march through Stepney, at that time a predominantly
Jewish area. As the fascists met at
Royal Mint Street, around
300,000 people barricaded the roads of the East End, chanting
"No Pasaran" and
"They Shall Not Pass". When the police attempted to
break through the corden at Cable Street a riot ensued.
The police were repelled and Moseley and his acolytes were forced to march in the opposite direction, into the
empty streets of the City. With the Spanish Civil War at its peak, Cable Street saw
communists,
anarchists,
Jews, dockers and many other ordinary
eastenders fighting
the fascists together and has a
mythological place in
East London folklore. Celebrations will be held
this Sunday.
posted by criticalbill
on Oct 3, 2006 -
26 comments
Despotism. In 1946,
Encyclopedia Britannica and
Harold Lasswell produced an educational film about the nature of Despotism. Calls to mind contemporary examples of despotism, and (in view of Lasswell's own views on the subject) raises some interesting questions about the uses and misuses of persuasion and propaganda.
Film link via the
Prelinger Archive, previously discussed
here).
posted by washburn
on Mar 16, 2006 -
8 comments
Emory University study describes the Millenial Generation An interesting comparison of Gen Xers and the so-called Millenial Generation, born since 1982, from Emory University. The M.Gen kids apparently want to do good, as long as there is a clear structure and leadership that tells them how and what to do . . . oh, and don't question the leaders. Really. Why would you?
posted by pt68
on Mar 2, 2006 -
67 comments
We all
know the Nazis picked, and ruined, a perfectly good
basic geometric symbol. But what about
other symbols of
fascism? Not as well known, not as demonized, but interting for students of symbolism.
Oldest, and among the most interesting and enduringly popular, is the
fasces, a bundle of sticks wrapped around an axe, from which
fascism gets its name.
It's pretty rare to see swastikas in public nowadays -- they're so associated with the Nazis that they were universally stripped off American
sports jerseys, soda pop promoting
watch fobs, and
first ladies. And yet, in the United States, fasces can still be found everywhere:
medals of honor,
the doors to the Nebraska Supreme Court, even
behind the president as he speaks at the U.S. House of Representatives.
posted by Astro Zombie
on Feb 16, 2006 -
45 comments
Section 605 of the House's Patriot Act renewal bill is entitled
THE UNIFORMED DIVISION, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE. The Secret Service has broad authority (included arrest powers without warrants) when it comes to protecting the President. The "uniformed division" (previously the "Executive Protective Service") handles most of the grunt work.
Talkleft has been analyzing this text and has come to the conclusion that the President can, upon passage of this bill, use his "Uniformed Divison" (aka private army) on a whim:
(11) An event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a special event of national significance.Section 3056(e)(1) of title 18 reads simply:
When directed by the President, the United States Secret Service is authorized to participate, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, in the planning, coordination, and implementation of security operations at special events of national significance, as determined by the President.
posted by taumeson
on Jan 25, 2006 -
135 comments
