• Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Those are not the original posters though, they're derivatives.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    They did use democratic means, such as elections and voting, at least until they achieved absolute power.NOS4A2

    My point is that once they achieve absolute power, the use of democratic means necessarily weakens the fascist nature of the state. Conversely, it precipitates its transformation into a representative democracy. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You either have a fascist state or a democratic one.

    Again, the point is to use it to service the state, and then perhaps be done with when it is no longer required.NOS4A2

    Be done with what, with the democratic means or with the fascist state itself?
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    My point is that once they achieve absolute power, the use of democratic means necessarily weakens the fascist nature of the state. Conversely, it precipitates its transformation into a representative democracy. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You either have a fascist state or a democratic one.

    I think you’re right that popular sovereignty would eventually be fascism’s downfall, but they literally did create a democratic fascist state in the form of the Italian Social Republic. You can read in their Manifesto of Verona that a leader would be chosen by citizens every 5 years, not to mention the adoption of plenty liberal and socialistic “devices” in order to further the fascist state. So fascism has veered into “left-wing populism”, after all.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    I think you’re right that popular sovereignty would eventually be fascism’s downfall, but they literally did create a democratic fascist state in the form of the Italian Social Republic. You can read in their Manifesto of Verona that a leader would be chosen by citizens every 5 years, not to mention the adoption of plenty liberal and socialistic “devices” in order to further the fascist state. So fascism has veered into “left-wing populism”, after all.NOS4A2

    But those devices that you mention actually weaken the fascist state instead of strengthening it. At least that's how I see it. Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro also became the heads of state in Venezuela through democratic means. But once they got there, the democratic means that they used began to show their limits. It's not possible to fully democratize Venezuelan politics and still have an (arguably) socialist regime. It would weaken it. It's the same reason why you can't have full democratic means in today's China: it's simply anathema to the very existence of the CCP. It's the same reason why you can't democratize North Korea: it's anathema to Kim Jong Un's Juche-based regime.

    Trump is a right wing populist, as far as I'm concerned. He's not a fascist in the same sense that Mussolini was. Yet there is a real danger (to my mind, at least) with some of the policies that his administration wishes to carry out. Even if I were to grant, for the sake of argument, that his administration "means well", I would say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro also became the heads of state in Venezuela through democratic means. But once they got there, the democratic means that they used began to show their limits.Arcane Sandwich

    It is more than probable that DJT is preparing exactly the same methods for the U.S. I mean, he's already demonstrating it - many of his executive orders in the first two weeks of his Presidency might be unconstitutional and/or illegal - but how can they be challenged? He's gutting the Justice Department and purging the FBI of anyone deemed disloyal - classical authoritarian moves. Fox News was complaining that the Democrats are 'shredding the Constitution' by stalling the confirmation of Trump's dangerous Cabinet selections. Republican Congressmen have already started talking about how to remove the two-term limit for Trump. And so on. You're seeing the birth of an authoritarian political regime right in front of your eyes.
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    I guess we’ll have to see about all that.

    Argentina, was it? What do you think of Milei? I’m watching his rule with great interest.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    I guess we’ll have to see about all that.NOS4A2

    Suffice to say that I sincerely hope I'm wrong. I hope Trump's administration benefits the people of the USA. I'm just skeptical about it, and I think that my skepticism here is warranted.

    Argentina, was it? What do you think of Milei? I’m watching his rule with great interest.NOS4A2

    I didn't vote for him. That being said, the inflation rate seems to be showing some signs of improvement, as well as other economic indicators. However, his reduction of so-called state bureaucracy has meant less funding for (what I believe are) key areas for the further development of Argentina, such as science and technology. Currently, only a 0.2% of Argentina's gross domestic product (GDP) is invested in S&T. By contrast, in the United States, in 2022 the investment in S&T represented 3.4% of that country's GDP. Investing in science and technology is crucial for the development of any nation. At least that's how I see it.
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    No, I can appreciate the skepticism. The establishment wouldn’t have it any other way.

    I appreciate the comments about Milei. After all, he may be the first libertarian leader in human history. All I can say is I hope it awakens some private initiative instead of metastasizing a reliance on the corrupt and wasteful public initiative.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    All I can say is I hope it awakens some private initiative instead of metastasizing a reliance on the corrupt and wasteful public initiative.NOS4A2

    "It's complicated", is what I would say here. Argentina has a strange history.
  • Vera Mont
    4.5k
    Trump is a right wing populist, as far as I'm concerned. He's not a fascist in the same sense that Mussolini was.Arcane Sandwich
    The only ism Trump adheres to is opportunism. He believes in nothing except his own enrichment and aggrandizement. He's a grifter with a huge ego and unlimited spite.
    Yet there is a real danger (to my mind, at least) with some of the policies that his administration wishes to carry out.Arcane Sandwich
    Wrecking the economy and shredding the constitution is a real danger?
    Even if I were to grant, for the sake of argument, that his administration "means well"Arcane Sandwich
    Of-bloody-course it doesn't mean well! This is the end-times feeding frenzy.
  • ssu
    8.9k
    Would it be fair to say that Norway and Sweden (and to a lesser extent, Finland) carried out fascist policies against the Sámi people? Maybe there's few native people today in Lapland because those are the ones that weren't forcefully assimilated.Arcane Sandwich
    Fascist? Again an awkward use of the term fascism. It's basically eugenics and racist ideas, not fascism. Sweden or Norway (or Finland) weren't fascist states.

    And just what to you would be by "native people"? Compared to whom?

    In America it's so different. You do have a divide between native Americans and all others. You have had a class divide by race thanks to the Spaniards, who were so racist that they made the children born in America to Spanish parents who had migrated from Spain, peninsulares, a lower caste, criollos. There's still a divide between the native population and those of basically European origin and it's really different. Some countries it's a bigger problem, some countries a lesser problem.

    First of all, with the Sámi, we are talking about really a small group of people. In Finland there's only about 10 000 Sámi. That is a population of a small town. And about the genetics in Finland in general. Archeologists found this ancient village that was one of the earliest human settlements after the last Ice Age in Finland. When they looked at the geneology of the ancient people and compared them to the local people now living there, it was such a perfect match that they could say with high probability that likely the current folk living in the area were descendants of these ancient dwellers. Another example, which is actually quite common, I remember my parents summer cottage in Middle Finland had a farm as a neighbor. The farm had been owned by one family since the time Columbus found America. Unfortunately the Church books went only so far (to the late 15th Century), so likely the family could have been there for longer time.

    Hence the idea of one group being indigenous and another not is a bit confusing, when basically these migrations happened thousands of years ago. Sámi became reindeer herders only in the Middle Ages.

    But yes, the Sámi activists have to adapt to the dominant narrative of the indigenous/native people being the victims of the "white colonizers", because that's the only narrative which people use about these issues. Hence you end up with totally white Europeans calling other white Europeans "whities" and having to claim they aren't so white. Bit awkward when you have pale skin, blue eyes and blond hair.
  • ZisKnow
    15
    Won't lie, haven't read the entire thread, but has anyone actually agreed on a definition of fascism? Because without that, debating whether the USA is heading in that direction seems pointless

    What we can say as objective facts are that:"

    • The USA is increasingly centralising power under the Office of the President.
    • Democratic norms—truthfulness, checks and balances—have been eroded since 2016.
    • Unilateral decisions are being enacted based on the will and beliefs of a single individual.
    • The partisan split has become aggressively tribal, with moderate voices dismissed on both sides.

    Regardless of whether that meets the definition of fascism, it represents a dangerous slide into authoritarianism, one that risks permanently altering the USA’s democratic structure. A democracy that refuses to defend itself isn't really a democracy for long
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Ok.

    First of all, with the Sámi, we are talking about really a small group of people.ssu

    It seems to me that their small population is due to the fact that their ancestors were forcefully assimilated into the nation-states of Scandinavia, but I could be wrong.

    Sámi became reindeer herders only in the Middle Ages.ssu

    You say that as if it happened last Monday or something.

    But yes, the Sámi activists have to adapt to the dominant narrative of the indigenous/native people being the victims of the "white colonizers", because that's the only narrative which people use about these issues. Hence you end up with totally white Europeans calling other white Europeans "whities" and having to claim they aren't so white. Bit awkward when you have pale skin, blue eyes and blond hair.ssu

    It doesn't seem that the issue here is about having white skin, blond hair and blue eyes. From what I can understand about this issue (which is admittedly not much), it's a cultural issue. The Sámi have a culture that has been deemed primitive or inferior in some sense, in relation to the modern nation states of Norway, Sweden, Finland, etc., which is why those countries carried out policies to assimilate them in a cultural sense. That seems like fascism to me. Bundle of sticks with an axe and all of that.
  • ssu
    8.9k
    It seems to me that their small population is due to the fact that their ancestors were forcefully assimilated into the nation-states of Scandinavia, but I could be wrong.Arcane Sandwich
    You are wrong, at least in my opinion. The history wasn't like that. Believe or not, but Lapland was very much uninhabited and is still quite uninhabited. The population density is similar to Santa Cruz province in Argentina or to Alaska. The Sámi people have basically grown in size and actually the number of people speaking Sámi as mother tongue have increased.

    The population of now Finnish Lapland in the year 1500 is estimated having been about 5000 and in 1830 about 20 000. Only in the 18th Century records of people started to be kept in Lapland. And actually the Swedish government banned Finnish migration from the south to Lapland until 1675, yet even then there were already Finns living in Lapland as Lappish people or Laplanders can be also a Finn (or Swede or Norwegian), not only Sámi. One cannot talk about colonization as for example in the Americas. Those that migrated to the area in the 17th Century had to get a permit from the Lappish villages to settle down or the land was bought or rented from then. Another way was through marriage. And the Lappish villages weren't only Sámi. Furthermore, there was no government project of "settling" Lapland, so the idea of similar attrocities as in America isn't a reality.

    You say that as if it happened last Monday or something.Arcane Sandwich
    Well, the domestication of the reindeer happen in historic times, in the late Middle Ages. I think it was first the Norwegians that domesticated mountain reindeer. The Sámi adapted to this, but also other Lapplanders too. Usually domestication of wild animals, if you can call that about herds that freely walk around tundra, has happened far more earlier.

    The classic picture of a Sámi with a reindeer in the tundra:
    saamelainen.JPG

    It doesn't seem that the issue here is about having white skin, blond hair and blue eyes.Arcane Sandwich
    Well, racist ideologies don't need any logic and there isn't logic. Europeans have been racist towards each other, not only other people.

    The Sámi have a culture that has been deemed primitive or inferior in some sense, in relation to the modern nation states of Norway, Sweden, Finland, etc., which is why those countries carried out policies to assimilate them in a cultural sense.Arcane Sandwich
    Yes. Indeed those kind of ideas were popular during the era of nationalism and the classic racism that eugenics promoted. Wildly popular in Sweden. Yet in fact the opposite happened what you think. This made Sámi identity more evident. In 1917 there was held the first congress of the Sami people in Norway because of the actions of the Norwegian government. Similar "national consciousness" didn't rise in Finland then, because there wasn't much if any tensions between Sámi and other Lapplanders. Or there simple wasn't enough activists.

    But note the time line here. All that talk of inferior people, the need for assimiliation and eugenics ended quite quickly after WW2. Eugenics and classic nationalism of the 19th Century went away in the Nordic countries quite quickly. Then in the 1960's and 1970's the governments have supported the Sámi culture and language. And why not, when you are talking about 10 000 people of whom 2 000 speak as a mother tongue Sámi language, it isn't a huge amount to sponsor Sámi culture and have a Sámi parliament of Finland. More like a tourist attraction nowdays when you have Europe's "only indigenous people" around.

    Finnish president in the Sámi parliament:
    39-129053466505d2228712
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Very informative reply , thanks.

    Eugenics and classic nationalism of the 19th Century went away in the Nordic countries quite quickly.ssu

    Yeah well, except in Norwegian Black Metal, right? For the most part, at least. Swedish Death Metal bands don't seem to be overtly racist in that sense. And Finland doesn't have a comparable metal scene. I mean, it has one, but it's basically Nightwish, Finntroll, and Korpiklaani. And few dozen bands that sound more or less like one of those.

    More like a tourist attraction nowdays when you have Europe's "only indigenous people" around.ssu

    That's a bit of a strange thing to say. Aren't Germans indigenous to Germany, the Irish indigenous to Ireland, and the French indigenous to France? Etc.
  • Paine
    2.7k
    That's a bit of a strange thing to say. Aren't Germans indigenous to Germany, the Irish indigenous to Ireland, and the French indigenous to France? Etc.Arcane Sandwich

    Depends upon how far back you go.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Depends upon how far back you go.Paine

    Sure, at the end of the day, humanity started in Africa. So, no one is really indigenous to anywhere except the African continent.
  • Paine
    2.7k

    The changes and movements of people from the early Bronze age are significant. We don't have to go back as far as the emergence of the species.
  • Vera Mont
    4.5k
    Won't lie, haven't read the entire thread, but has anyone actually agreed on a definition of fascism? Because without that, debating whether the USA is heading in that direction seems pointlessZisKnow
    Nobody has agreed on a hard-and-fast definition, not even Hitler and Mussolini.
    What we do know about its various sub-species: how they manifest in a nation's life, the tactics they employ and the figurehead they set up as all-powerful leader.
    If you wish to call what's happening in the US by some other name, I'm sure that would be fine, so long as those conditions are met.
  • 180 Proof
    15.6k
    United States of Kakistan
    7February25

    "Truth matters" ...
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    So, no one is really indigenous to anywhere except the African continent.Arcane Sandwich

    What about the warm little pond?? Where was that? :brow:

    We know things must be truly desperate when 180 starts posting The Bulwark.
  • 180 Proof
    15.6k
    Two politically-savvy philosophers discussing "truth in an age of division" is quite relevant in this Trumpian moment, no?
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    I agree, and I do read The Bulwark from time to time. But they’re all disillusioned conservatives, which shows just how far MAGA has morphed from its origins.
  • 180 Proof
    15.6k
    Idk anything about the podcast.
  • Wayfarer
    23.5k
    Started by Never Trumper Republican media people. Like the Lincoln Project. But all those panelists are independent of that.
  • Tzeentch
    3.9k
    How did American politics get so dumb?


    Let me present you with a small exercise:

    Vietnam
    American people: :rage:

    Cambodia
    American people: :yawn:

    East-Timor
    American people: :yawn:

    Iraq:
    American people: Unfortunate. Carry on.

    Afghanistan:
    American people: Unfortunate. Carry on.

    Libya:
    American people: We came, we saw, he died! LOL!

    Etc. etc.


    The real question ought to be, how did the American people get so dumb?
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    What about the warm little pond?? Where was that? :brow:Wayfarer

    Well, there's a hypothesis that says that life started somewhere else. I don't think that's true. But if it is, then no living organism is indigenous to Earth, not even microbes.
  • 180 Proof
    15.6k
    America's Fascisting Around and Finding Out ...

    PSA Monday

    The real question ought to be, how did[why are] the American people get so dumb?Tzeentch
    Proudly Voting rich, Living poor since 1788!
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