how a people can slide into fascism and barbarism

[fela fan]

As an insider outside looking in, it most certainly seems to me that britain, along with their mother nation the US, is sliding into something most definitely unappealing, whether it's fascism or not. Society looks well fucked, and of course society is nothing but the sum of its people.

That post about people in west yorkshire's attitudes towards asian looking people is horrible to read.

I think it entirely reasonable to believe that britain is sliding rather quickly into fascism. Just one look at the constant and frequent laws being passed with the intention of limiting people's freedoms alerts awake observers to this movement. And as freedoms erode, so people become more and more inward looking and selfish and fearful, and at best apathetic.

It really looks like it's in one big mess. And the best time to sort out the mess is before it's taken a full grip, not afterwards, by which time the solution is far more painful and protracted.

 

[invisibleplanet]

That post about people in west yorkshire's attitudes towards asian looking people is horrible to read.

Which post is that, please?

 

[fela fan]

The bit about people not having enough time to do the required thinking about how their nation is moving really hits home. People seem to be working harder and longer hours than just half a generation ago, and what free time they do have is spent increasing their debt mountain at the high altar of consumerism and watching all that reality tosh on the telly and living out their lives through COD (celebrity obsession disorder).

It's no wonder politicians are finding it so easy to fuck with people's freedom: they don't even know they've lost it, no time to think about it.

Abuse of power seems to gain rapid momentum if left unchecked.

Britain is staring at an abyss in my opinion. And self-deception (as described in the OP) that it's not, has yet to be accepted.

 

[fela fan]

Which post is that, please?

#50

 

[ymu]

So does Indymedia have evidence of people in the US systematically rounding people up into camps and then gassing them in large numbers...?

People in the US being dragged to the same camps for saying Bush is a cock...? Etc, etc, etc...

Historical parallels do not have to be precise to be informative. Those who refuse to learn from history etc etc,

I've heard the US troops/mercenaries aren't behaving themselves terribly well in Iraq. And it's a bit worrying on the homefront also...

On Nov. 26, 2006 radio host Jerry Klein of WMAL 630 AM (covering Washington DC, Northern Virginia and Maryland) had a program that was "focused on public reaction to the removal of six Imams, or Islamic religious leaders, from a US Airways flight."[1] (See Flying Imams controversy). In an effort to gauge his audience's reaction said that force should be applied to ensure that all Muslims in America wear "identifying markers. ...I'm thinking either it should be an arm band, a crescent moon arm band, or it should be a crescent moon tattoo. ...If it means that we have to round them up and do a tattoo in a place where everybody knows where to find it, then that's what we'll have to do."[2][1]

The response was overwhelming "the phone lines jammed instantly", Klein later stated that "The switchboard went from empty to totally jammed within minutes. There were plenty of callers angry with me, but there were plenty who agreed."[1]. While some callers said he was "off his rocker", others insisted that his statement did not go far enough, calling for forced mass exile: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country...they are here to kill us." Others called for Muslims to be placed in concentration camps: "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans.""[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Klein’s_2006_Radio_Experiment

Those in agreement are not a fringe minority: A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1 000 Americans showed that 39% were in favour of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification.

Roughly, a quarter of those polled said they would not want to live next door to a Muslim and a third thought that Muslims in the United States sympathised with Al-Qaeda, the extremist group behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

A poll carried out by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an advocacy group, found that for one in three Americans, the word Islam triggers negative connotations such as "war," "hatred" and "terrorist".

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3577576

 

[8ball]

Those in agreement are not a fringe minority: A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1 000 Americans showed that 39% were in favour of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification.

Holy shit.

 

[ymu]

The bit about people not having enough time to do the required thinking about how their nation is moving really hits home. People seem to be working harder and longer hours than just half a generation ago, and what free time they do have is spent increasing their debt mountain at the high altar of consumerism and watching all that reality tosh on the telly and living out their lives through COD (celebrity obsession disorder).

Aye. But it's also in the massive increase in bureaucracy - targets, testing, league tables, health & safety, complex tax & benefits systems, ID cards, etc. The tools of obsessive control-freaks in government, with the handy side-effect of allowing them to keep pushing at the boundaries because we're all too damn busy trying to jump through hoops. Or filling out forms requesting permission to protest.

 

[gorski]

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=204924&page=2&highlight=Liberalism+Fascism - very enlightening!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[fela fan]

Aye. But it's also in the massive increase in bureaucracy - targets, testing, league tables, health & safety, complex tax & benefits systems, ID cards, etc. The tools of obsessive control-freaks in government, with the handy side-effect of allowing them to keep pushing at the boundaries because we're all too damn busy trying to jump through hoops. Or filling out forms requesting permission to protest.

Indeed. There are so many signs of where britain is heading, and it's kind of ironical (or not) that it's under labour that this is all happening. Although if i have any sympathies for politics, it's for the left, it seems to me that left leaning people always want to get their noses into other people's lives, always telling others how they should live.

It's absolutely fucking frightening what this labour government have been doing for the last decade. Or perhaps more accurately for me, not frightening but truly mind-boggling. Because the british people just supinely continue to accept having their freedoms eroded with barely a whimper of complaint. Both by laws passed, and through accepting a consumer, celebrity, debt based life outside of work, and by doing ridiculous things while at work.

Just look at the state of education as an example of what you're saying about bureaucracy.

If fascism is the outcome of terrible sickness, britain is one step from being fascist.

 

[kyser_soze]

targets, testing, league tables, health & safety, complex tax & benefits systems, ID cards, etc

The thing is most of these are examples of governments doing what they perceive as being what their voters want. Take league tables - these are a result of 15 years of questioning the idea that public services couldn't be accountable for what they do, that because their role was inherently 'social' that it was also unquantifiable and unaccountable. Voters wanted this, voters voted for the policies that created league tables, and in fairness while the actual tables themselves are of questionable value, the UKs public services are more accountable to the people that pay for them.

Same thing goes for H&S - we live in an increasingly risk-averse society. I have no idea where the root cause of this comes from, and in many cases there is a logic to some of the things that have come out of it...BUT you have the negative and above all stupid side which leads to the labelling of bags of nuts with 'Wanring, product contains nuts'...

 

[poster342002]

Though our labour movement may be weak and corrupt it has not been physically shattered

It doesn't need to be - it's been totally ineffectualised and the beaurocracy co-opted. The net result is the same: no workers movement to act as a check against capital in any real sense of the word.

 

[Spion]

It doesn't need to be - it's been totally ineffectualised and the beaurocracy co-opted. The net result is the same: no workers movement to act as a check against capital in any real sense of the word.

I find that curious

You don't think it makes any difference working in a unionised workplace rather than an un-unionised one?

And you don't think any of the strikes over the past year have 'in any real sense' acted as a check on the bosses' aims?

 

[poster342002]

I find that curious

You don't think it makes any difference working in a unionised workplace rather than an un-unionised one?

Given the numbers of people who report utterly horrendous experiences of union collusion with manegement (http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/public.htm and http://www.bullyonline.org/action/obstruct.htm), I'm really starting to wonder. A union in the manegement's pocket can be worse than no union at all - as it's easier for the employer to fuck you over when you think the union's "on your side".

And you don't think any of the strikes over the past year have 'in any real sense' acted as a check on the bosses' aims?

No - they've mostly been ignored or any concessions won have been quietly reneged upon once the heat is off.

 

[Spion]

Given the numbers of people who report utterly horrendous experiences of union collusion with manegement (http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/public.htm and http://www.bullyonline.org/action/obstruct.htm), I'm really starting to wonder. A union in the manegement's pocket can be worse than no union at all - as it's easier for the employer to fuck you over when you think the union's "on your side".

No - they've mostly been ignored or any concessions won have been quietly reneged upon once the heat is off.

Yeah, and millions of people get better pay and conditions at the same time as a result of thier existence.

So, do you advocate the creation of new unions and not joining existing ones?

Look, anyone with an ounce of sense knows the current unions are pretty hopeless in the grand scheme of things, but IMO they need revitalising by rank and file activism, not getting the baby and bathwater treatment as you seem to be suggesting.

 

[poster342002]

Look, anyone with an ounce of sense knows the current unions are pretty hopeless in the grand scheme of things, but IMO they need revitalising by rank and file activism.

I think they're beyond that now. I think the existing TUs have atrophied into little more than glorified mailing-lists with utterly entrenched, fossilised beaurocracies that are completely a law unto themself and beyond any means of control from the membership. They've become just another layer of the ruling class.

 

[Spion]

They've become just another layer of the ruling class.

The leadership has been for many decades. Nothing new there.

While they still have millions of rank and file members I can't write those people off. They need serving properly by activism that can undermine the bureaucrats, and TBH, in most cases that means working within the workplace structures.

 

[poster342002]

While they still have millions of rank and file members I can't write those people off. They need serving properly by activism that can undermine the bureaucrats, and TBH, in most cases that means working within the workplace structures.

Those rank-and-file members fighting to improve their union are, I fear, figthing an admirable but futile battle. The beaurocracies have never been more entrenched or untouchable and I've yet to hear of any union where their grip has been weakened in any significant way by any amount of rank-and-file activism.

Chances are we are at the stage where "starting over" is the only option.

 

[Spion]

I've yet to hear of any union where their grip has been weakened in any significant way by any amount of rank-and-file activism.

It hasn't happened for a while now, AFAIK

Chances are we are at the stage where "starting over" is the only option.

I think you have to think what that would mean in terms of tasks it presents, and IMO, I think you'll find that contesting the rule of the bureaucrats and seeking to undercut their power from within is the only practical way.

So, how would you start new unions and how would you relate to existing members and activists?