14 Signs of Fascism

[halbhh]

Yesterday the proposed laws (bills) for this next period of parliament were announced (as read out by Her Madge). The government has an 80 seat majority and so they'll pass. What's coming will make it possible for the Prime Minister to control when a general election takes place, make it harder for people to vote, make it harder to challenge government decisions, and make it harder for anyone to protest about any of this.

Mmmm. Sounds a lot like the recent spate of new laws some U.S. states are passing. But, in the U.S. there are some checks on states passing their own laws. A state law can be overturned for being unconstitutional at the state or the federal levels, or could be overridden by a federal law.

I don't know much about the UK system in those ways. Does the UK have any checks and balances? Does the UK have any kind of court or panel that can review a national law and decide if it's constitutional or some such?

 

[Augustus]

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It's a bit like a horoscope, people will see what they want in vague, malleable statements.

(also, fascism had disdain for the arts? It was massive on aesthetic and was significantly influenced by Futurism. Hitler was an artist and Nazism was influenced by Wagner)

 

[halbhh]

It's a bit like a horoscope, people will see what they want in vague, malleable statements.

(also, fascism had disdain for the arts? It was massive on aesthetic and was significantly influenced by Futurism. Hitler was an artist and Nazism was influenced by Wagner)

Yes, a person can see it how they just prefer.

But, someone could do better than just 'malleable' and 'vague' on this list, with some effort.

e.g. #14 --
In the U.S. the elections in several states were reviewed in a variety of ways, checked, and the results updated and proven valid in overall result. That's not a vague thing, to audit ballots, but a process, so the ballots and the count were in those states tested, objectively.
For example, I have a close relative that wanted Trump to win, but admitted (like Cheney, Romney, many others) that Biden won and fairly. It was not really a malleable assessment that relative was doing on that one.

But, sure, many others interpret how they just prefer instead.

But of course the Nazis did this also --
Degenerate Art exhibition
Modern artworks were purged from German museums. ...
Art in Nazi Germany - Wikipedia

So, keeping in mind the Nazis did suppress art they didn't like, it was interesting to recall the Nazi aesthetic as you did though, about art styles they did like.

 

[Kooky]

(also, fascism had disdain for the arts? It was massive on aesthetic and was significantly influenced by Futurism. Hitler was an artist and Nazism was influenced by Wagner)

Try googling the term Entartete Kunst.

 

[Valjean]

It's a bit like a horoscope, people will see what they want in vague, malleable statements.

(also, fascism had disdain for the arts? It was massive on aesthetic and was significantly influenced by Futurism. Hitler was an artist and Nazism was influenced by Wagner)

Facsists have disdain for some arts. They usually don't like abstract, progressive or experimental arts. Anything new, confusing, or that makes them think makes them uncomfortable.
Wagner, on the other hand, was inspiring.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

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That list is as stupid now as it always was.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Anything new, confusing, or that makes them think makes them uncomfortable.

Nonsense. They didn't like modern and post-modern art because much of it was just ugly, didn't represent anything and encourages social and cultural decline. Art, to a Fascist, is supposed to uplift the people and culture, be beautiful and encourage concepts like duty, celebrating land and nation, etc. So they tended to favor Classical and Neoclassical forms of fine art and architecture.

 

[Secret Chief]

2 navy war ships to disperse some french fishermen

I reckon that stunt was to give a little boost prior to the nationwide elections that have just taken place.

 

[Revoltingest]

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The list is incomplete.
15 Corporate power is suppressed.
16 Religion is suppressed.
17 Political diversity is suppressed.
18 Monitoring speech & conduct of the populace.
19 Suppressing foreign reporters.
20 Government disobeying its own laws.
21 Criminal trials have pre-determined verdicts.
22 Government has "The Truth".

 

[Secret Chief]

Here in the US, the most obvious sign, to the casual foreign tourist, is #1 -- with the the proliferation of chauvinist symbols like flags and flag bunting everywhere, and the transformation of sports events to political rallies, with flags, anthems, standing to attention, &c.
We're looking much like Germany in the '30s:



I don't think the original architect would approve of this:

File:New York Stock Exchange Facade.JPG - Wikimedia.

Flags are big here too. Every minister interviewed in their homes (becaue of lockdown) had a flag in shot. Even in the kitchen. It became a joke, but of course laughing at the flag is unpatriotic.

 

[ChristineM]

I reckon that stunt was to give a little boost prior to the nationwide elections that have just taken place.

Wars (even mini wars and threats of war) are always good for election results. Used in fascism to good effect

 

[Secret Chief]

the attempt by Murdoch to start a right wing TV channel......

You'll be watching GB News then?

 

[Secret Chief]

Guess We should abandon everything and go back to living in Huts. That’ll solve everything right?

That's right, it's a simple choice between fascism and huts.

 

[Secret Chief]

You’ll have to speak simply. I’m a simple man

Clearly.

 

[Secret Chief]

That list is as stupid now as it always was.

Why?

 

[King Phenomenon]

That's right, it's a simple choice between fascism and huts.

Wish it were

 

[Augustus]

Facsists have disdain for some arts. They usually don't like abstract, progressive or experimental arts. Anything new, confusing, or that makes them think makes them uncomfortable.
Wagner, on the other hand, was inspiring.

Fascism was influenced by Futurism :

Futurism glorified war, power, chaos, and destruction – ways of forcing humankind into novelty. Futurists celebrated the beauty of machines, the morals of might, and the syntax of babble. Old-fashioned values, including sensitivity, kindness, and fragility, they dismissed in favour of ruthlessness, candour, strength. They painted ‘lines of force’ – symbols of coercion – and machines in madcap motion. Earlier artists had tried and failed to capture the speed and rhythm of industrial energy: Turner’s steam engine is a blur, Van Gogh’s depressingly static. But the Futurists excelled them by breaking motion into its constituent elements, like physicists splitting atoms, and copying the way cinema reflected movement in split-second sequences of successive frames. The excitement of speed – attained by the new-fangled internal combustion engine – represented the spirit of the age, speeding away from the past.

Futurism united adherents of the most radical politics of the twentieth century: fascists, for whom the state should serve the strong, and communists, who hoped to incinerate tradition in revolution. Fascists and communists hated each other and relished their battles, first in the streets and later, when they took over states, in wars bigger and more terrible than any the world had ever seen. But they agreed that the function of progress was to destroy the past.

The radical politics of futurists and fascists—and us, here, today

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Why?

Because they're just vague statements about general authoritarianism and not necessarily applicable to Fascism as an ideology or practice.

 

[Secret Chief]

I don't know much about the UK system in those ways. Does the UK have any checks and balances? Does the UK have any kind of court or panel that can review a national law and decide if it's constitutional or some such?

There are. The very things this government is trying to impede, emasculate, reduce or abolish.
Did you know that the government illegally prorogued parliament?

- Boris Johnson's suspension of parliament unlawful, supreme court rules

 

[Secret Chief]

Facsists have disdain for some arts. They usually don't like abstract, progressive or experimental arts. Anything new, confusing, or that makes them think makes them uncomfortable.
Wagner, on the other hand, was inspiring.

If you want to invade another country, you can't beat Bruckner. OTOH, the British government have just announced an absolutely massive cut in funding for the arts in higher education.