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By jimjam
#15206088
Odds are extremely high that 2022 will be the last year of our more than two centuries old "democratic experiment". Those of us who do not identify with the Trump cult must start to think seriously about how we will live under a totalitarian regime, because the odds right now are extremely high that we will.

So what will we do? A totalitarian regime always rules by fear. This means that we will keep our heads down. We will speak candidly only with our most trusted friends, and perhaps not even then. We will try not to rock the boat because we know what happens to those who incur Dear Leader's wrath.

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.
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By Verv
#15206093
Is this what the second amendment is for?

Also, why do you think that Trump is going to be taking over soon? You think the midterms are going to be nutty? Like, what is going to happen?
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By Fasces
#15206095
jimjam wrote:So what will we do? A totalitarian regime always rules by fear. This means that we will keep our heads down. We will speak candidly only with our most trusted friends, and perhaps not even then. We will try not to rock the boat because we know what happens to those who incur Dear Leader's wrath.



This is the problem with propoganda. A competent totalitarian regime allows even more, within lanes. And that's exactly the excuse we'll use to say "no, its not totalitarian, you're exagerating."

The regime will dress itself up in "it's not like we're XYZ" and discourse which accepts XYZ as an imagined draconian evil won't be able to respond, because propoganda blinded them to the reality of what a competent regime looks like.
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By jimjam
#15206173
Verv wrote:Is this what the second amendment is for?


To guarantee enormous profits for the gun industry. One more time kids: want the truth? Follow the money.

Verv wrote:why do you think that Trump is going to be taking over soon?


:hmm: Where did I say that?

Verv wrote:Like, what is going to happen?


Dumb question. Why don't you "answer" it.
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By Rancid
#15206175
I agree that if not by 2022, certainly 2024.

MAGA morons do not understand the kind of fire they are playing with.

America is a shithole, but it will be more official around the next presidential election.
#15206179
@jimjam, permit me to advance an alternative way to describe the current US political situation.

The liberal view is that the GOP is sliding into fascism and is gearing up to cross the Rubicon into some form of dictatorship.

This seems to me to be too narrow a view.

As I see it the US is now undergoing a Cold Civil War. A partially hidden war, but quite real. The players are not who we think - ie, it's not democracy versus fascism. (Well, fascism is there of course, but it always has been.)

Instead what is happening is a factional conflict between two models of oligarchy.

The first model is the now-standard post Reagan consensual elite form of government. It merges the natsec blob with the financial sector, tech, pharma, and corporate media. Hillary Clinton is its avatar.

The second form is an emerging strongman model. It's based on a charismatic leader who can sway a mob, and can make alliances with military and police. Trump is its avatar.

In this scenario the fate of democracy is not in the balance, but rather who gets to govern into the foreseeable future.

The strongman model has gained credence only due to the continuing failure of the consensual elite to competently govern and meet the fundamental needs of humans.
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By Verv
#15206204
jimjam wrote:To guarantee enormous profits for the gun industry. One more time kids: want the truth? Follow the money.


So how are you going to resist Fascism?

Your plan is literally to just keep your head down and live through it? :eek:


:hmm: Where did I say that?

Dumb question. Why don't you "answer" it.


I honestly do not know..?

I think there could be some 'national divorce' at some point in the future. But even this is hard to believe.

The media, the intelligence structures, the actual government in Washington DC, and the military are all controlled by mainstream left & right, not MAGA-aligned America. Of course, it is true that many of the footsoldiers are perhaps disproportionately likely to be MAGA-sympathetic, but it is absolutely bizarre to believe that all these institutions are controlled by conservative populists.

If there is any kind of Fascism (with the word being used in the sense of 'totalitarianism') it will be through the active suppression of populist conservatism. The populist conservatives do not have the means to actually remove free speech or control the internet, while this has been the shot for the American left for a long time in imitation of the soft control exercised over all public discourse throughout Europe.
By Rich
#15206245
In 2016 Syria and Russia were ere my number 1 issues for the American election, hence I supported Trump over Hilary, but I wouldn't have supported overthrowing American democracy. In 2022 my top issues are anti forced vaccination, anti lockdowns and anti mask mandates. I am not alone in my prioritisation of these matters. I know a lot of people who feel similarly, hardly any of them would have been considered right wing before the China virus came along.

Despite the lies of the lamestream media Trump has been an unashamed vaccine lover since the start of this thing. However on balance I consider my rights would be better protected under a Trump dictatorship than under a Biden democracy.
#15206246
quetzalcoatl wrote:@jimjam, permit me to advance an alternative way to describe the current US political situation.

The liberal view is that the GOP is sliding into fascism and is gearing up to cross the Rubicon into some form of dictatorship.

This seems to me to be too narrow a view.

As I see it the US is now undergoing a Cold Civil War. A partially hidden war, but quite real. The players are not who we think - ie, it's not democracy versus fascism. (Well, fascism is there of course, but it always has been.)

Instead what is happening is a factional conflict between two models of oligarchy.

The first model is the now-standard post Reagan consensual elite form of government. It merges the natsec blob with the financial sector, tech, pharma, and corporate media. Hillary Clinton is its avatar.

The second form is an emerging strongman model. It's based on a charismatic leader who can sway a mob, and can make alliances with military and police. Trump is its avatar.

In this scenario the fate of democracy is not in the balance, but rather who gets to govern into the foreseeable future.

The strongman model has gained credence only due to the continuing failure of the consensual elite to competently govern and meet the fundamental needs of humans.

In other words, it’s a re-run of the fall of the Roman Republic.
By Rich
#15206250
My support for a Trump insurrection is purely abstract. What is frightening in America, is the terrifying hold of the lies of the liberal media. Its becoming clearer and clearer that virtually every figure of note in Trump's orbit, far from trying to organise a coup was actually expressing concern to Trump that the protest was becoming too vigorous. Who was actually in this fantasy coup beyond Donald Trump and Steve Bannon? What military units did these plotters have? Where were the armed police detachments loyal to Trump ready to arrest Democrat House and Senate members? What about in other cities, where were the military units ready to arrest politicians, police chiefs and union leaders who opposed Donald Trump.

And don't give me this "What about the Proud boys?" The idea that the Proud Boys are going to over power the American security forces is absurd. So 4 or 5 people died in a protest. :roll: Big fucking deal! 13 died at Kent State. Did the world end? Did the US cease to be a democracy. Throughout virtually its entire history the US has had violent and deadly social conflict and protests.
By Patrickov
#15206253
jimjam wrote:Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.


It doesn't look like those who do study history don't repeat history.

For example, Mao Zedong was actually a super-keen history learner.
By Patrickov
#15206254
Rancid wrote:MAGA morons do not understand the kind of fire they are playing with.


Wrong. For example, I have never denied that if "what I think should happen" happens, it could be the end of humanity, at least "as we know it". But in some sense we ask for it.
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By noemon
#15206261
Verv wrote:The media, the intelligence structures, the actual government in Washington DC, and the military are all controlled by mainstream left & right, not MAGA-aligned America.


Uh huh, so it was not Paul Manafort, Roy Kohn(chief counsel to the Joseph McCarthy during the purges) and Roger Stone that created from scratch the PAC's & SuperPACs in order to skirt the transparency rules imposed after Watergate. It was not the exact same people that got Nixon, Reagan, Bush(both), Clinton and Trump elected. It was not these exact same people that stormed the ballots in Florida to steal the election from Al Gore, it was not the exact same people that stormed the Capitol to steal the election from Biden. :roll: It was not the exact same people that established the concept of campaign manager turned lobbyist charging for access to those they campaigned to get elected. A distinction that used to exist before they legislated it out of existence. It was not the same people that ripped up the few protections American citizens had against lobbying for special interests. It was not the same people that invited foreign actors to interfere in your election system just to satisfy their own ego.

It was not the same people that campaigned for the Reform Party to deny the votes from the Republicans in order to get Clinton elected the roundabout way, and then single-handedly destroy it so that it does not pose a threat to Bush. :lol: The Reform party got 13% of the vote under Stone's campaigning which ensured Bill Clinton's victory.

But why did Roger Stone wanted to punish the GOP by getting Clinton elected? Because he was posting cuckolding ads in newspapers looking for "muscular well hung men" to fuck his wife, he was stupid enough to post both his and his wife's images. So he was shamed and removed from the GOP and engaged with the Reform party to make himself important again by showing what kind of power he can wield, .ie getting Clinton elected without even being his campaign manager.

These MAGA people you say are "anti-establishment" :roll: :knife:


Rich wrote:Who was actually in this coup beyond Donald Trump and Steve Bannon?


Roger Stone, the same person who introduced Trump to Bannon, the same person who physically stormed the Florida ballots to illegally steal the election from Al Gore and the same person who got Nixon, Reagan, Bush & Clinton elected, the same person who liaised with Assange and Putin.
User avatar
By Potemkin
#15206264
Patrickov wrote:It doesn't look like those who do study history don't repeat history.

For example, Mao Zedong was actually a super-keen history learner.

Mao actually wanted to repeat history....

"He [Ch'in-Shih-huang, the first emperor of China] only buried alive 460 scholars, while we buried 46,000. In our suppression of the counterrevolutionaries, did we not kill some counterrevolutionary intellectuals? I once debated with the democratic people: You accuse us of acting like Ch'in-shih-huang, but you are wrong; we surpass him 100 times." - Mao's First Speech to the Party Congress, May 17, 1958.

Say what you like about the Great Helmsman, but at least he said it like it was. :)
User avatar
By noemon
#15206265
Potemkin wrote:Say what you like about the Great Helmsman, but at least he said it like it was.


This is the guy you are looking for Potemkin:


By late
#15206267
Rich wrote:
In 2016 Syria and Russia were ere my number 1 issues for the American election, hence I supported Trump over Hilary, but I wouldn't have supported overthrowing American democracy. In 2022 my top issues are anti forced vaccination, anti lockdowns and anti mask mandates. I am not alone in my prioritisation of these matters. I know a lot of people who feel similarly, hardly any of them would have been considered right wing before the China virus came along.

Despite the lies of the lamestream media Trump has been an unashamed vaccine lover since the start of this thing. However on balance I consider my rights would be better protected under a Trump dictatorship than under a Biden democracy.



I am going to guess that you have no idea how insane that is.

You are using an idea of freedom as a zero sum game, which is how slave culture thinks. You gain freedom by depriving someone else of it.

Your medical expertise can be expressed in negative numbers. You have less than no medical expertise.

Kooks are kooks, they really aren't on the political spectrum. Anti-vaxxers can portray themselves as Left or Right. But frankly, that's meaningless, they're just nuts.
By Patrickov
#15206268
late wrote:You are using an idea of freedom as a zero sum game, which is how slave culture thinks. You gain freedom by depriving someone else of it.


I don't know about Rich, but I do think freedom is a zero-sum game, but to be more precise, what I believe is that the extent of one's freedom should be in some way inversely proportional to the power the person wields.
By late
#15206270
Patrickov wrote:
I don't know about Rich, but I do think freedom is a zero-sum game, but to be more precise, what I believe is that the extent of one's freedom should be in some way inversely proportional to the power the person wields.



And precisely how would you limit their freedom; and for that matter, why?
User avatar
By Rancid
#15206273
Patrickov wrote:Wrong. For example, I have never denied that if "what I think should happen" happens, it could be the end of humanity, at least "as we know it". But in some sense we ask for it.


Every interview and personal discussion I've had with these types of people has lead me to the conclusion that they are not very thoughtful people. Mostly emotional. They like to feign that they are people of principle, that they are level headed, etc. However, they are not, they are exactly NOT what they like to claim to be.
By Patrickov
#15206276
late wrote:And precisely how would you limit their freedom;


For example, they must be financially restrained (cannot move or use their own money) and cannot make personal comments other than in the capacity of their public post.

late wrote:and for that matter, why?


The objective? Minimize their chance to abuse their power.
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