Friday, February 27, 2015

John Pilger — Why the rise of fascism is again the issue


No, it's not about the rise of far right groups and parties.

The new fascism is Anglo-American neoliberalism.
Since 1945, more than a third of the membership of the United Nations - 69 countries - have suffered some or all of the following at the hands of America's modern fascism. They have been invaded, their governments overthrown, their popular movements suppressed, their elections subverted, their people bombed and their economies stripped of all protection, their societies subjected to a crippling siege known as "sanctions". The British historian Mark Curtis estimates the death toll in the millions. In every case, a big lie was deployed....
Uniting fascism old and new is the cult of superiority. "I believe in American exceptionalism with every fibre of my being," said Obama, evoking declarations of national fetishism from the 1930s. As the historian Alfred W. McCoy has pointed out, it was the Hitler devotee, Carl Schmitt, who said, "The sovereign is he who decides the exception." This sums up Americanism, the world's dominant ideology. That it remains unrecognised as a predatory ideology is the achievement of an equally unrecognised brainwashing. Insidious, undeclared, presented wittily as enlightenment on the march, its conceit insinuates western culture.
"American exceptionalism" was initially a phrase to describe America's different history and meteoric rise owing to the frontier that allowed it to expand hugely and quickly in while most of the rest of the world land was already distributed. Of course, this overlooks the fact that much of the territory was already in use by indigenous tribes and nations.

However, "American exceptionalism" later came to mean that God had especially favored America as his "chosen people" giving it a very different sense, not all that different from the semi-religous Nazi teaching of "Aryan superiority."

John Pilger
Why the rise of fascism is again the issue

See also

Truthdig
The Real American Exceptionalism
Alfred W. McCoy, TomDispatch

Cooperation with China on joint assessment of the impermissibility of meddling in other countries’ affairs is a major stabilizing factor in the current international situation
TASS
Russia and China advance new global order — Russian foreign minister

3 comments:

Ralph Musgrave said...

Political correctness is another form of fascism: i.e. "you're only allowed to say and think what we, the high priests of PC tell you to think and say."

Ryan Harris said...

The american exceptionalism ideal is created from the idea that scientists and engineers and economists than can simply calculate the best, the maximized, the optimal solution and then provide better outcomes for society as a whole. It sort of worked for a time until a larger portion of the population became educated and understood the flaws, limitations and errors in academic models, science and engineering that make them prone to dictate bad public policy that favors a minority.

Tom Hickey said...

The american exceptionalism ideal is created from the idea that scientists and engineers and economists than can simply calculate the best, the maximized, the optimal solution and then provide better outcomes for society as a whole.
American Exceptionalism at Wikipedia.

Long history preceding the above.