Orbit
I'm a planet
This is a quite interesting read in the light of recent events:
Home-Grown Extremism: Look to the Right
Home-Grown Extremism: Look to the Right
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A brief history of the far right in America
- Thread starter Orbit
- Start date
From that piece, some history I did not know and pieces I do know tied together into compelling history. It's clear that calling ANYTHING Democrats want to do as socialism is part of the fanatic right wing insistence that they and they alone can decide what the country wants and needs.
What's needed is a full bore rooting out of the traitors and terrorists from all positions of authority whether is be in a county sheriff's office or the halls of Congress.
Public benefits like highways and hospitals, opponents argued, amounted to a redistribution of wealth, and thus were a leftist assault on American freedom.
...
Bundy owed the government more than $1 million in grazing fees for running his cattle on public land, but he disparaged the “Negro” who lived in government housing and “didn’t have nothing to do.” Black people’s laziness led them to abort their children and send their young men to jail, he told a reporter, and he wondered: “are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life… or are they better off under government subsidy?”
...
The January 6 assault on the Capitol is not an aberration. It has been coming for a very long time.
What's needed is a full bore rooting out of the traitors and terrorists from all positions of authority whether is be in a county sheriff's office or the halls of Congress.
Public benefits like highways and hospitals, opponents argued, amounted to a redistribution of wealth, and thus were a leftist assault on American freedom.
...
Bundy owed the government more than $1 million in grazing fees for running his cattle on public land, but he disparaged the “Negro” who lived in government housing and “didn’t have nothing to do.” Black people’s laziness led them to abort their children and send their young men to jail, he told a reporter, and he wondered: “are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life… or are they better off under government subsidy?”
...
The January 6 assault on the Capitol is not an aberration. It has been coming for a very long time.
Cooky
Veteran Member
Perhaps you could provide a brief summary on why you think this is worth reading...
Cooky
Veteran Member
It's a big deal to a socialist or communist types when a government building gets damaged... But mass looting of private businesses is "no biggie"...
George Floyd Riots Caused Record-Setting $2 Billion in Damage, New Report Says. Here’s Why the True Cost Is Even Higher | Brad Polumbo
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exchemist
Veteran Member
Very interesting. I had no idea that anyone thought the Waco business was some kind of infringement of liberty by the government. According to this, it is what set Alex Jones off on his path.
Orbit
I'm a planet
Because it traces the rise of the far right in America, who were responsible for the Jan 6th riot and sedition at the Capitol.
Orbit
I'm a planet
It's a big deal to a socialist or communist types when a government building gets damaged... But mass looting of private businesses is "no biggie"...
This has nothing to do with anything in this thread. Make your own thread if you want to argue false equivalence.
Cooky
Veteran Member
ok
Wandering Monk
Well-Known Member
German American Bund Rally, Madison Square Garden, 1939
exchemist
Veteran Member
Here is my summary of the content:
- The meaning of "socialism" in US political parlance was twisted out of recognition as early as the end of the c.19th, by wealthier people using it as an excuse to object to the funding of infrastructure, health etc by government, which they would have to pay for by taxes.
- Then, in the 1920s the meaning of "socialism" was further twisted, to include any extension of trade union rights or rights for Blacks, capitalising on the fear engendered by the Russian Bolshevik revolution which had just occurred.
- Next, post WW2, the embrace of FDR's New Deal by (Republican) Eisenhower led to the emergence of far-right thought, in which this was resented as being redistribution from hard-working Whites to lazy, undeserving Blacks.
- The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, which controlled bias in the media, created an explosion of far-right talk radio, Murdoch etc. This allowed these ideas to gain traction far more widely, because misrepresentation became legal.
- In the 90s, there were two shoot-outs, one involving someone called Weaver and a year later the Waco siege. Both were represented by these far-right outlets as government overreach, crushing individual liberty. The Waco one apparently is what motivated Alex Jones to start his activities.
- By 1995, the movement had become one railing against perceived government activism. However, in the opinion of the writer, the subtext was really about who benefitted from that activism: the Blacks.
And so towards the present day, when Trump was able to take up that agenda in the name of the presidency and put it on steroids.
Looking at this timeline it seems to me the biggest blunder was repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. That seems to be what really opened Pandora's Box.
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Wrong.It's a big deal to a socialist or communist types when a government building gets damaged... But mass looting of private businesses is "no biggie"...
George Floyd Riots Caused Record-Setting $2 Billion in Damage, New Report Says. Here’s Why the True Cost Is Even Higher | Brad Polumbo
I've expressed it over and over again and others have as well that rioting/looting is wrong no matter who does it.
Secret Chief
nirvana is samsara
Secret Chief
nirvana is samsara
Whataboutery.It's a big deal to a socialist or communist types when a government building gets damaged... But mass looting of private businesses is "no biggie"...
George Floyd Riots Caused Record-Setting $2 Billion in Damage, New Report Says. Here’s Why the True Cost Is Even Higher | Brad Polumbo
Wandering Monk
Well-Known Member
So, does whataboutism somehow justify what happened on Jan 6? It seems some on RF must believe it does.
This answers a lot of questions. I found this particularly informative, because I grew up in a radio broadcasting family, and not spreading lies on the airwaves was a given to me that was rather common sense. How then do you have this unmitigated swill being spewed with impunity nowadays? I thought there were FCC regulations about this. Well, there were....
Their job got easier after 1987, when the Fairness Doctrine ended. That Federal Communications Commission policy had required public media channels to base their stories on fact and to present both sides of a question. When it was gone, talk radio took off, hosted by radio jocks like Rush Limbaugh who contrasted their ideal country with what they saw as the socialism around them
Are there any proposals to bring back common sense FCC regulations?
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
This is what you rarely see in American history textbooks, namely that there were a great many Americans who bought into the fascism as found in Germany and Italy, which quickly dissipated when WWII started.
Looting is wrong. I would hope those business have some kind of insurance to help them get back on their feet.It's a big deal to a socialist or communist types when a government building gets damaged... But mass looting of private businesses is "no biggie"...
George Floyd Riots Caused Record-Setting $2 Billion in Damage, New Report Says. Here’s Why the True Cost Is Even Higher | Brad Polumbo
A bunch of people storming a government building with the intent to overthrow democracy and kill politicians (they were chanting “hang Mike Pence”) is a tad more serious though. I mean I have no love for politicians but I happen to value democracy.
And if the US of all places fall then that doesn’t bode well for any of us
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Why not just read it?
How well informed can one be if s/he ignores sources longer than sound bites and bumper sticker slogans?
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I don't think the fairness doctrine's repeal affects things
much. TV & radio have lost preeminence for news.
The internet really showed that change when The
Drudge Report broke all the rules by broaching the
Clinton Lewinsky affair.
much. TV & radio have lost preeminence for news.
The internet really showed that change when The
Drudge Report broke all the rules by broaching the
Clinton Lewinsky affair.
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