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Re: Tuesday, October 2, 2001
If Doc is like me, the spot in Barlow's message that really caused eyebrows to raise was the term "fascist." Godwin's law and all, you know. Let's consult the online Merriam-Webster dictionary: "1) a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition" Well we are certainly exalting nation now, and talking about how individual liberties must give way to this tide of nationalism. With the wide expansion of federal power we are also drawing closer to a centralized autocratic government. I wouldn't call Bush dictatorial yet, (not to us anyway, other countries might differ) except in a de facto sense. The opposition is cowed into silence and acquiescence thru fear of bucking public opinion. As to economic and social regimentation we will have to see, but there are certainly hints in that direction. Forcible suppression of opposition is a little strong, but remember Fred Hampton, Jackson and Kent State, and the Chicago police riots. It can indeed happen here. Media consolidation is certainly happening, and should the government gain control of information dispersal we could see far worse than we have so far. The Internet is largely our last defense, and I don't think it at all accidental the ATA has so many provisions directed at its monitoring and control. If this still seems far-fetched to you, think of it from the perspective of a person living in Chile on Sep 11, 1973. Our assasination of Allende and installation of Pinochet to save Anaconda Copper from nationalization (or to save the hemisphere from a democratically elected marxist ruler -- take your pick) certainly brought fascism to *those* world citizens. And we have been supporting dictators, Shahs, Husseins, and bin Ladens in our war against communism for most of my life. Now I like capitalism, and I support a form of globalization. A bottom up sort where people deal equally with others across the world thru tools such as the Internet. eBay is one of my models for globalization. So is Linux. The IMF and WIPO are not. The Sep 11. attacks succeeded not only in bringing terrorism home to our shores, but in forcing us to see our government as others across the world have for decades. To them our rallying cry is not freedom, but capitalism. With us as the management, and most of the rest of the world as workers and resources. It is not capitalism that is evil, but the exploitative relationships some would have us equate with it. It is not enough that we preserve our own civil liberties, it is past time we exported them. They are after all inalienable human rights when force is not used to suppress them. I predict they would be a very popular product. This country has always had wonderful ideals, but too few outside our country today can see them as anything but hypocrisy. It needn't be that way, it wasn't always. Once we believed in self-determination, not protection of our "interests." We may have won the cold war, but we lost our soul in the process. We need to find it again. Not for the terrorist's sake -- they couldn't care less -- but for our own. I do not seek to blame us for what happened in any way, but I do want to see us learn from it. There are responses to this message:
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