“Very Interesting” (Tom Cotton’s Fascist Op-Ed)

I was outraged by Tom Cotton’s op-ed, but not by the Times’ decision to print it.

My reasoning: if a US Senator is advocating fascism, I want to know about it. And I want all other Americans to know about it too. I want THE WORLD to know about it.

But I don’t expect my opinion to be the final one any more than I would give the last say on this matter to anyone else. And that would be true even if people like Cotton were successful in overthrowing the Constitution and intimidating most people into an official silence for some dismal period into the miserable foreseeable future.

Anyone laughing at that prospect, this concern? Anyone think it’s “Funny, Snowflake?”

(Interesting...)

Still agreeing that Cotton’s op-ed should have been published doesn’t mean I disagree with every criticism of the Times. Yes, the op-ed was newsworthy. And yes, I’m glad that Cotton betrayed himself this way. But The New York Times exerts immeasurable influence. They must be held accountable. Is the primary question one of context?

The op-ed is still being published on the Times website, but now with a disclaimer indicating that it never should have been. (Interesting...) Then there’s the confession that it *could* have been published some note of “context”. I suppose one version of fairness would have every op-ed “contextualized” in some way.

But what way?

I’m thinking of the late Arte Johnson on the old show “Laugh-In”. Much opinionating (including the one you’re reading now) could justifiably be contextualized as “Interesting, but stupid.”

How should they have contextualized Cotton’s? “Interesting, but scary.” “Interesting but disgusting?” “Interesting but outrageous?” “Interesting but fascist?”

Interestingly, when Arte Johnson make his LAUGH-In comments, he was usually lurking behind a shrub dressed as a NAZI German soldier.

Very interesting . . .

But here I am, making light of (AT LEAST) two problems.

One, a US Senator is unafraid to outwardly call for a fascist clampdown, knowing he has the support of 40% of the US population when FORTY PERCENT was the final ceiling on electoral support for Hitler’s party (before it could outlaw legitimate elections).

The second is the thorny problem of WHAT TO DO about this clear and present danger of fascism keeping in mind that what public officials say in public is often tempered compared to what they say in private. (And then there’s the question of how what they say and think and hear influences what they DO...)

But, oops! There is a third problem too. Or is this really the first one? It’s the problem of what the Times did - or what it should have done. Just how should the press and “the media” (including the “social”) handle the attacks on fact, truth, and democracy from people in official positions of great power who are supported by others who control vast resources. How should they “mediate”?

Interesting, but not so funny.

But some of us can’t help but laugh at what we cannot understand, or encapsulate into a clear principle or ringing slogan. (That doesn’t mean we should hold those who don’t find laughter to be soothing as contemptible, as “snowflakes”.

Yes, the Times could have refused to publish the op-ed (as such) while reporting fully on the contents of its submission with ample quotes from Cotton’s essay as well as plenty of counterweights from people with more commitment to the Constitution and to the concepts of democracy which give any “the rule of law’ its legitimacy. A false controversy over “free speech” would ensue in the right-wing press. (Isn’t it now? Who can keep up?) But that only “solves” the problem in hind-site. Or, probably not.

Interesting...

Other dilemmas are bound to impact us soon, probably many of them all at once.

What else is new?

Democracy can only improve by criticizing itself. Democracy can only survive by relentlessly interrogating itself. The enemies of democracy see this correctly as a weakness. The supporters of democracy see it as a weakness too, but we also claim (without conclusive evidence?) that this particular weakness is also its prevailing strength. (Interesting, but . . . ?) We have NO CHOICE but to claim this contradiction as a mysterious and empowering paradox. (kinda like the “Trinity”?) We have no choice but to be (“strangely”?) inspired by it. It may stink of blind faith, but it is only the admission we can’t see EVERYTHING clearly.

We need to help each other. (Snowflakes and hard hats. Liberals and conservatives. Cool cats and hot heads. Woke or groggy.)

Let’s hope enough of us clearly see the threat posed by people like Cotton (and Barr, and trimp and so many others). And let’s hope we keep faith.

How we keep the faith, if we do, will be beyond “interesting”.

It’s going to be a “fascinating” ordeal. (No outcome is guaranteed.)

And keep in mind that “fascism “doesn’t really rhyme with “fascinating”, and that fascism also like the Spanish Inquisition in that “NOBODY” ever “really” expects it.

***********************

Joe Panzica is the creator of Democracy STRUGGLES! The Bloody Slideshow.  He is also the author of the unpublished Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass and is working on a second novel: I Want to be Evil.

The Road to Nowhere

“The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference.”

Was Ian Kershaw wrong to focus blame on ‘indifference’? Should we, today, be more concerned about “learned helplessness” or perhaps by a conditioned and inflicted “hopelessness” when it comes to deciphering the invisible forces roiling so much of our current events and politics?

“‘No One Believes Anything!’ Voters Worn Out by a Fog of Political News”

As the New York Times article written by Sabrina Tavernise and Aidan Gardiner proclaims, “Many Americans are throwing up their hands and tuning it all out.” This is exactly no accident. This is what trimp and the GOP idiotically depend upon. And it must not be forgotten that both trimp AND the 21st century configuration of the GOP are shameless creatures of a toxic accumulation of unaccountable concentrated wealth.

What’s even more important to remember is that washing one’s hands of “dirty politics” is also shameful. It is an abject surrender to the worst of us, and the worst in us. Politics and democracy are always so frustratingly difficult because politics and democracy are always as treacherous and confused as we are. Understanding media biases is so treacherous because we humans are ever so proficient in deceiving and confusing each other (and ourselves.)

Understanding media biases is, of course, critical for an informed electorate and the idea of self government. That there are no constantly reliable shortcuts is no reason to give up in despair. What it should be is a spur for us all to struggle on to the best of each of our abilities to make a world where human freedom and dignity is both protected and sustainable.

The Chomsky Herman “propaganda model” is probably the best approach to a partial understanding of how corporate interests have so much (but often limited) influence on the perceptions of various audiences. For example, the respectable mainstream media offers a chorus of condemnation for the GOP’s attacks on institutions, experience, and the rule of law. It does this while also promoting fresh new (“and improved”) faces of relative unknowns like Barack Obama and now Pete Buttegieg.

Ideologies, affiliations, and even critically questioned theories do offer valuable shortcuts for filtering the chaos of conflicting information and sensations. Such shortcuts are actually necessary. But blind faith in any perspective, ideology, or theoretical model is dangerously naive. (Including the Chomsky Herman approach!) Yet what's even more dangerous is giving up on the hope of ANY serious understanding. Fascism requires such hopelessness. 

Fascism engenders such hopelessness. 

The billionaire class and the institutional structure of profit centered corporations should be the prime focus of serious attention and reform efforts. Billionaires today are dangerously unaccountable and irresponsible in their accumulation and husbandry of concentrated wealth. But ultimately the responsibility is with us all as individuals, family members, and participants in significant affiliations, institutions, and concerted efforts.

Of course, it may be that we are now simply too oppressed and too corrupt to help ourselves. If so, crucial prospects for freedom and dignity will be set back for many more generations—if an insulted planet permits.

 
https://www.communicationtheory.org/propaganda-model/

https://beautifultrouble.org/theory/the-propaganda-model/

https://monthlyreview.org/2018/01/01/the-propaganda-model-revisited/

http://changingminds.org/techniques/propaganda/propaganda_model.htm

Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass.  He is currently working on his second novel I Wanna Be Evil.

Nemiss

A cadre of honest civil servants including an anonymous whistleblower. A coven of convicted (or yet to be caged) canaries including Rudi Giuliani just aching to sing. Pending court cases involving impunity regarding tax returns. A marked tendency to disrupt and self-shame.

NEMESIS!

“In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis (/ˈnɛməsɪs/; Ancient Greek: Νέμεσις), also called Rhamnousia or Rhamnusia ("the goddess of Rhamnous"), is the goddess who enacts retribution against those who succumb to hubris (arrogance before the gods). Another name is Adrasteia (or Adrestia), meaning ‘the inescapable”’ — Wikipedia

But is Nemesis coming for trimp?

For democracy and the rule of law?

Or for us?

Is America condemned to pay for decades and centuries of hypocrisy and violence regarding racism and empire?

Or is insatiable humanity which hubristically despoils land, water, air (and even “outer space where there is no air) being sloughed off like a nagging infection with a global band of autocrats (of which trimp is only one) acting as implacable anti-bodies?

Who will tell our story when we are gone?

Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass.  He is currently working on his second novel I Wanna Be Evil.

Why IS College So Cruel?

A recent piece by Frank Bruni in the New York Times examined this question in terms of the social and financial pressures on young people (and their families) - especially as they relate to the chances of being admitted into the Ivy leagues. This problem, of course, is related to the increasing crush of urgencies on young people growing up in a digitized social network, and also to the devastating impacts on opportunities and a sense of future in an economy becoming ever more unequal. Still, as Bruni points out, in the past we have turned to educational institutions (high schools) to, at least partially, address scarring perplexities involving inequity and status.

At this point, it’s unavoidable that AT LEAST two years of very affordable post-secondary education/training be made available to everyone. But that’s only a start. We need to continue to develop creative ways to ensure that everyone also has affordable, broadly based, LIFE LONG educational and training opportunities.

One of the pitfalls to avoid is profiteering and price gauging from educational institutions, new or established, ostensibly non profit or not.

The most important pitfall is the idea that such education and training is primarily for “the job market” as it is projected in then near or even long term.

Citizenship and especially the associated habits of mind should always be the focus. (Most employers already agree in confidential surveys where they repeatedly say most of what they looking for are certain “soft skills” along with more measurable abilities to communicate and analyze.) These habits of mind, including more nuanced abilities to think systematically, abstractly, and critically, are more likely to be developed in humane environments where efforts are made to differentially balance the need for Challenge & Standards on one side with the equally important need for support and nurture on the other. The need for such a balance is even critical in the many individualized online learning environments epitomized right now by DuoLingo and Kahn Academy.

Life-Long Educational Opportunities FOR ALL delivered via many types of technology and varieties of non profit institutions is possible with guidance, support, and informative promotion from federal and state departments of education, and local school districts (which would still be primary), public & private universities — as well as by many independent (community or expert based) supporters and evaluators. It is not only possible but is even being developed all around us even now.



Joe Panzica (Author of Democracy STRUGGLES! and Saint Gredible and Her Fat Dad's Mass.  He is currently working on his second novel I Wanna Be Evil.