[Xmca-l] Re: Rumblings of the F-word

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Hi Mike,

In Italy the facists were considered modern and futuristic. The aesthetic was important. There was art intertwined with the ideology which perhaps is something that inspired the Nazis sense of uniform fashion. I recall reading that Mussolini was outdone by Hitler, the first fascist outdone by the second. It reminds me of our stable genius's admiration for other strong men. I wonder what is going on there.

I am hopeful that enough young people (having the ability to google words and their meanings and even their histories), have enough of a peace arsenal to resist being suckered into a war.

Also so many are educated, even if they are poor. I've heard if not for WW2 we may have had a revolution in the 1930s, and some people say Roosevelt in concern for these tinderboxes of revolution wanted to get us into the war as soon as possible and utilize that unrest. I'm not certain of the verity of that story, but it seems plausible.

I respect your concern, but I feel young people just want to have a peaceful life. They know that they are not able to live the life or their parents or their grandparents. I don't think they aspire to civil war or any war. Indeed the demonstrations for BLM's peaceful protests shows what we are made of on so many levels.

This article from the Atlantic speaks to Millenial mental health as a group. I do worry for them.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/why-suicide-rates-among-millennials-are-rising/612943/__;!!Mih3wA!UrK6KPVRClQIMvKFjArGrYm3iZZxnKWgCq02m-7IkEhP2_0H12u0AEOwykT79V1NOLOFxw$ 

I understand why it's so easy to internalize the environment, but we have to remain hopeful.

I can't predict the future, but the buffoonery these days is so cartoonish these days, and that may be why the press conferences have gone quiet. If only to cut losses in the polls by remaining quiet.

Who would have thought that a little virus would be the undoing of this administration, but it seems that's exactly what we are looking at.

I read somewhere else that it's projected the number of mendacities are now almost 20,000 since 2016. How is that even possible?

4 x 365 = 1460 ; 20,000 / 1460 = about 13 lies a day since that unsavory November. Imagine that.

A life built on that cannot feel very good on the inside, I'd gather. It's a bonfire about to collapse in on itself.

Kind regards,

Annalisa --->(2 n's and 1 s; one word united)

________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2020 9:53 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rumblings of the F-word


  [EXTERNAL]

Thanks for posting the essay on facism, Analissa. I was sitting down to forward it to xmca when I encountered your post.
I have been using that word to apply to what Trump and his allies have been doing since before he was elected.
That is why I keep pointing to the ways in which the US is re-playing the 1930's when people who identified themselves with
facism came too close to gaining control. America firsters were a nazi and a democratic socialist. The first fascist, the second
anti war.

Events of the recent past have made a lot of people look back 80 years. Not just us octogenarians.
It took a catastrophic war to extricate the world from the last attack of that disease.
This time?
mike



On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 5:45 PM Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu<mailto:annalisa@unm.edu>> wrote:
Hello,

Just found this article on NYT about the development of recent discourse over the word "fascism," see:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/books/fascism-debate-donald-trump.html__;!!Mih3wA!UrK6KPVRClQIMvKFjArGrYm3iZZxnKWgCq02m-7IkEhP2_0H12u0AEOwykT79V3EO57vhQ$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/10/books/fascism-debate-donald-trump.html?action=click&algo=top_conversion&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=true&imp_id=338460257&impression_id=744917922&index=0&pgtype=Article&region=footer__;!!Mih3wA!QEaovj_Y1l2RygQkKM2iFC9PMkkIl9JleFqlPMWrvbSN64XBjThhZdqZeYrkfLS-6Mp2xA$>

In the article:

“The word ‘fascist’ has acquired a feeling of the extreme, like crying wolf,” Stanley writes — not because Americans are so unfamiliar with fascist tactics but because we are becoming inured to them. “Normalization of fascist ideology, by definition, would make charges of ‘fascism’ seem like an overreaction.” Our senses have been dulled by exposure. The United States has had a long history of pro- or proto-fascist sentiment, including the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan, the America First movement of the interwar years and the Jim Crow laws that Adolf Hitler cited as an inspiration. “Fascism is not a new threat,” Stanley writes, “but rather a permanent temptation.”

I recall using this word a few years ago and someone being surprised that I used the word.

If we decontextualize the separation of immigrant children from their parents seeking political asylum from our everyday newspaper experience and compare that to concentration camps, at the time it seemed like we were overreaching in our descriptions, but do you remember when this happened? Not enough of us were objecting to this hard enough. We still do not know what has happened to those children, nor what will become of them as adults.

Now that we are bored in pandmic lockdown, it does seem strange looking back at that time. Even looking back at the impeachment trial seems quaint in it's softball pitches.

I'm not sure this pandemic is at all good for us. But what can be done?

Anyway, with regards to the appropriate use of the term...

There are different colors of fascism, isn't there? Just like any other ideology.  Why is there so much resistance to using the word??

I'm thinking again out loud... there is the word and the meaning and then the word-meaning.

This is the article by Gerald Early on Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't Happen Here." mentioned in the NYT article.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/touchstone-texts-it-cant-happen-here/__;!!Mih3wA!UrK6KPVRClQIMvKFjArGrYm3iZZxnKWgCq02m-7IkEhP2_0H12u0AEOwykT79V2qe0YVtw$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/touchstone-texts-it-cant-happen-here/__;!!Mih3wA!QEaovj_Y1l2RygQkKM2iFC9PMkkIl9JleFqlPMWrvbSN64XBjThhZdqZeYrkfLR0sCrxhg$>


(With grammaresque concern, I am also relieved that I have confirmation of the apostrophe-s after a name that ends in the letter "s", but what about when the "s" is silent as in "Descartes's Error"?)

Anyway, here's to finding the right word for the right meaning.

Kind regards,

Annalisa





--

Crush human humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit, according to its kind.  C.Dickens.

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