Beck raising consciousness of fascism

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sun Feb 21, 2010 at 18:00


When UT Law Professor Sandy Levinson starts sounding a bit like David Neiwert, then you know something's up:

[The New York Times reports that Glenn Beck, in his closing speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference described "progressivism" as a cancer, "the disease in America." Let there be no doubt that this is nothing more than the stench of fascism, which relies on treating one's political opponents as what Carl Schmitt, the great (I use that word advisedly) Weimar political theorist (who ended up supporting Hitler's takeover in 1933), termed "enemies" who were viewed ultimately as subhuman (as "cancers" are), ulutimately fit to be eradicated "by any means necessary....

It is past time for Republicans to be called on whether or not they tolerate millions of their fellow citizens being called "cancers" and "diseases." We are indeed in a true moment of cultural and political warfare, in which Glenn Beck has made very clear that he has no regard whatsoever for the most basic notions of civility (which begin by granting the possibility that one's opponents simply disagree rather than are "cancers" to be ripped out of the body politic).

What "Beckism" presages is more terrorist violence like that conducted in Austin, Texas, where a demented citizen flew into an IRS building and killed a true American "hero" a/k/a known as a public servant who had dedicated his life to tax collection. One might remember that Justice Holmes called taxes "the price we pay for civilization." Part of our move toward fascism is to view as "heroes" only those who carry guns and are prepared to risk their lives while preparing to inflict fatal violence on others. We must recognize that all public servants are, in their own ways, "heroes." The Republican Party for the past generation has systematically viewed all public servants, save for the military, as chumps, who if they had any real talent, would be working in the private sector (perhaps in Goldman Sachs, etc.). I truly fear for our country.

Hear! Hear!

We need to dramatically raise the cost for Republicans to continue indulging the growth of protofascism.  Dramatically

Rachel Maddow: Book this man now!

Paul Rosenberg :: Beck raising consciousness of fascism

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Beck raising consciousness of fascism | 16 comments
PreProgressive Golden Age of Small Government? (0.00 / 0)
There was no pre Progressive golden age "without Big government":

http://www.cato.org/pub_displa...

"In the election of 1888, Republicans called for tariffs to protect American manufacturing...
Protectionist tariffs remained the bedrock of economic policy of the Republican Party for the next 20 years. ...But as soon as the Republicans re-assumed power after World War I, they raised tariffs again. The Fordney-McCumber tariff of 1922 generally increased tariff rates across the board. However, it also gave the President power to raise or lower existing tariffs by 50 percent.

The infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 was the last outrage inflicted by the Republican protectionists."

There has never been a golden age of small government (4.00 / 11)
While much damage has clearly been done by big-government faux conservatism, virtually all the good things that government has done has been done by big-government progressives (of either party). From Washington and Hamilton's financial reforms to Lincoln's infrastructure investments to TR's trust-busting reforms to FDR and LBJ's social programs and legislation, the country has always been propelled forward by big-government progressivism. Whereas small-government governance, whether of the real (Jeffersonians) or faux (Reagan/Bush) variety, has always hurt the country. The US would never have become as prosperous and successful as it's been (with reservations, of course) had it not been for big-government progressivism.

What deluded conservatives fail to acknowledge is that the constitution was drafted not merely to protect us from the excesses of big government, but to make possible the sorts of reforms and actions that the country needed to survive and thrive and which necessitated government to be bigger than it had been allowed to be prior to it. In fact the constitution, at its core, IS a big government blueprint, by broadly acknowledged consensus at the time (at least among the elites who wrote it), onto which protections against its becoming TOO big and powerful were added afterwards, almost as an afterthought. And while these protections were and are clearly essential (even if often meaningless in practice), so was the need for big government, because the Articles of Confederation just weren't working.

Conservatives get the yang, but not the ying. And even the yang they usually screw up.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

[ Parent ]
Well (4.00 / 4)
It should be added that progressives also think of and refer to people on the crazy far-right as a cancer that needs to be destroyed or at least sent back into remission (and rightly so, because that is precisely what they are and what needs to happen to them).

It's just that, unlike the far right, we on the left are calling for the POLITICAL and IDEOLOGICAL defeat of this far right cancer, not the physical eradication or unconstitutional silencing of its adherents and proponents, and advocate using purely lawful and ethical (but still quite effective) means to accomplish this.

See, unlike the far right, we on the left actually believe in the constitution that the far right clearly despises even as it claims to revere it. Which is why they are the actual cancer, cancer being a kind of parasitical distortion of otherwise healthy living things.

All they do is project, 24/7.

"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything...Mankind are forever destined to be the dupes of bold & cunning imposture" -- Alexander Hamilton

George Lakoff's excellent Kos diary comes into play here. (4.00 / 5)
He writes,

"It was entirely predictable a year ago that the conservatives would hold firm against Obama's attempts at "bipartisanship" - finding occasional conservatives who were biconceptual, that is, shared some views acceptable to Obama on some issues, while keeping an overall liberal agenda.

The conservatives are not fools. Because their highest value is protecting and extending the conservative moral system itself, giving Obama any victory at all would strengthen Obama and weaken the hold of their moral system. Of course they were going to vote against every proposal and delay and filibuster as often as possible. Protecting and extending their worldview demands it.

Obama seems not to have understood this - or wants to appear that way.

We saw this when Obama attended the Republican caucus. He kept pointing out that they voted against proposals that Republicans had made and that he had incorporated, acting as if this were a contradiction. But that was to be expected, since a particular proposal that strengthens Obama and hence weakens their moral view violates their highest moral principle.

Such conservative logic explains why conservatives in Congress first proposed a bipartisan committee to study the deficit, and then voted against it.

That is why I don't expect much from the President's summit with Republicans on February 25.  Why should they do anything to strengthen Obama's hand, when it would violate their highest moral principle, as well as weakening themselves electorally. If Obama thinks he can shame them in front of their voters, he is mistaken again. Conservative voters think the same way they do."


Poltical intractibility is, for better or here- I think- infinitely worse, inherently rallying. And it feeds on itself. Obama gives an inch, and over and over again, a mile is taken. He's not strictly a victim of this conservative mentality; he's also, albeit secondhandedly, a perpetrator.  
"cancers" and "diseases"!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!? (4.00 / 3)
Sounds like a good time for an ActBlue or DFA fundraiser.
I can't trust myself to leave a printable comment at this point. Let's nail this ass.
the Weimar Republic was plagued by the problem (4.00 / 10)
that many public servants, law enforcement officials, and military men were hostile to, or at least skeptical of, democracy. Many of them were nostalgic for the old days of  Empire and longed for a more authoritarian regime. Thus those whose job it was to enforce the law and carry out the business of the state were often in opposition to the ideals and principles of that very state--a situation which quickly became untenable when things got unstable.

We have a similar problem here in America. A significant portion of the official class, the people whom we depend on to do the day-to-day work of governing, are openly hostile towards the very idea of pluralistic democracy. Examples are the notorious anti-immigrant sheriff Joe Arpaio, who's become something of a folk hero in Arizona for his vigilante tactics.

Our Justice Department is infested with conservative functionaries appointed by Bush, people who are none too subtle about their belief that constitutional democracy and the law come second to their religious and political agenda. Obama and his men (such as Holder) are either unable or unwilling to confront them.

And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the generals and top military men--men who are openly contemptuous of their commander-in-chief, think him a weakling, and who see it as their sworn duty to undermine him if he doesn't do as they say.

The foundations of our state are riddled with termites, and should there be a groundswell of popular support for fascism, it would not be long before the apparatus of an authoritarian police state took shape.

The apparatus is already there (0.00 / 0)
just waiting for a "black swan" to trigger its full implementation.

One would hope that a political movement could be rallied to destroy said apparatus. Perhaps after it's too late the impetus will be there. Humans being humans and all...

[ Parent ]
Kinder, Küche und Kirche (0.00 / 0)
has always been a rallying cry of Progressives.

Not!

1. Has communism been rehabilitated? Why aren't they using "commie" as a slur of the left? Perhaps it's hard to pull off when Obama is handing trillions to the big banks.

2. Beck is the neocon version of Alex Jones, meant to reanneal "Infowarriors" to the GOP electorate. Palin and Beck are recently flubbing that mission, reopening a window of opportunity for progressives to prevent that reannealing from taking place.

3. Something along the lines of "We Agree" is called for.

4. Outreach might also slow or reverse the metastasis of right-wing / populist violence a la Joe Stack, if people feel they have a numerically viable alternative to the "two" parties.

let the right (0.00 / 0)
continue to use their violent rhetoric, it will turn off those that believe in the democratic process and the american dream, the others, nothing can save them from the hate and bigotry that drives their anti-american agenda dressed in the guise of patriotism, the nazis loved the mother country and treated those that were different similarly to the contemporary right of america, can the arm bands be far behind.    
One of the indicative things about these guys.... (4.00 / 5)
is that they don't actually have anything specific. They want the world and they want it now, but their demands aren't clearer than that. Beck has no idea how to get the economy going again or balance the budget or win the war in Afghanistan or anything. All he knows is who is to blame, and then he says magic words about  Jesus and the Constitution he knows little about, but there are even fewer specifics than the Republicans crank out, even though Beck's basic ideas are pure winger Republicanism. Accusations, demands, needs, feelings, crackpot theories that he doesn't really develop.... he makes Boehner look like a deep thinker.
That's Sort of the Proto-Fascist Thing (4.00 / 4)
Blaming the Jews was the answer for the Nazis. Same reductive mo.

The most devastating question that can be asked:

"What would you actually do, specifically?"

The second most devastating question that can be asked:

"Why should anyone believe that it would work, specifically?"

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Meh. (0.00 / 0)
I'm not impressed.

First off, saying that Becks use of the word "cancer" to describe progressives is somehow "fascistic" strikes me as a reach. Yes, militarism was always a key component of Fascism, that much is well known. And yes, they described their "enemies" as parasites, cancer, etc. and all other manner of degrading things. However, that's not exclusive to Fascism in any sense and never has been (Lets just say, that if one wants to reference Germany, the Nazis weren't the only ones advocating violence both in language and in deeds before they managed to gain the reigns of power). I routinely see Liberals and Progressives compare Conservative ideology to a disease on the net, does that make them Fascistic as well?

Second, her comment about "political correctness" is something, that, yet again, can be applied to pretty much any political party or constituency to one degree or another. Politics and controversy go hand in hand and always will. I would never expect the right to let Jackson live such a comment down anymore than I would expect the left to let Lott off the hook, or any other right wing pol or pundit who's been caught blabbering something stupid. It has been and always will be a useful strategy to brow beat opponents with past moronic statements to inflame resentment and disgust. The day that stops having an impact in one way or another is the day that our politics become a hell of a lot more civilized than I believe it ever could be.

The post, in short, reads like the standard "I know you are but what am I" tripe that I can't stand.

(Disclaimer: Since I know someone will inevitably think I'm some sort of Beck fan, I'll say it outright... I'm not. I can't stand him politically speaking. However, sanity being something he seems to lack, is something we should try to maintain a decent grip on. Calling someone a Fascist based on "evidence" as flimsy as this isn't my idea of maintaining sanity)

There's Abundant Evidence of Beck's Proto-Fascist Tendencies (4.00 / 1)
(1) If this were all there was, and it was just an isolated example, then you'd have a good point.  But of course, it's not, which is why you don't.

Rigidly applying any sort of rule is likely to get one into trouble sooner or later, and just as one must recognize that a few scattered examples of excessive language do not define movement, one must also recognize that there comes a point where the examples clearly are not incidental and peripheral, but are central to the movement's discourse, ideation, purposes, and intentions.  That point has long since past with the American hard right, and Beck's mainstreaming of it had all the hallmarks from the very beginning of his run.

(2)

I routinely see Liberals and Progressives compare Conservative ideology to a disease on the net, does that make them Fascistic as well?

There's a crucial difference between comparing an ideology to a disease and calling people a disease, or germs or using other dehumanized designations.  The latter is closely tied to eliminationist rhetoric, which has a long history on the right internationally, and a well-established relationship with fascism in particular.  Beck has, in fact, used eliminationist language on various occasions, as well as projecting his own elimationist fantasies onto Democrats and liberals.

(3) Jackson's "Hymietown" remark was actually not offensive, if you actually went back and studied the context--which was Jackson privately expressing his frustration with stubbornly parochial rabbis who were out to attack him no matter what he did.  This is totally incomparable to Beck's very public, repeated use of terms like cancer, and indulgence in eliminationist fantasies.  The fact that you lump these two together is yet another sign of rigidly apply a single standard where much greater discrimination is called for.

It's the public, repetitive and central nature of Beck's much-more-than-offensive language that led Levinson to write:

It is past time for Republicans to be called on whether or not they tolerate millions of their fellow citizens being called "cancers" and "diseases."

And you, apparently, disagree.  In fact, you are offering an "everyone does it" defense that only excuses the inexcusable.

(4)

The post, in short, reads like the standard "I know you are but what am I" tripe that I can't stand.

Um, no, actually you're the one making that genre of argument, not Levinson.

(5) Finally, Sandy Levinson is a he:

("Sandy" being the diminutive for "Sanford".)

Though I have to admit, I think he'd look much better in a red dress than J. Edgar ever did.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
meanwhile, Republican "moderate" Scott Brown (0.00 / 0)
responded to questions about the suicide attack on the IRS office by saying "no one likes paying taxes, obviously," and people are frustrated at the government.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.
Not To Mention Parking Tickets! (0.00 / 0)
In fact, why should anyone pay for anything?

Let's go looting!

It's the REPUBLICAN thing to do!

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Leona (0.00 / 0)
As Leona Helmsley said, "Only the little people pay taxes."
[ Parent ]
Beck raising consciousness of fascism | 16 comments
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