Something To Think About

A blogger I really enjoy, Sabine at Interim Arrangements, posted this the other day and I felt compelled to repost. I’d love to hear what you think.

Fintan O'Toole writes today in The Irish Times:
Fascism doesn’t arise suddenly in an existing democracy. It is not easy to get people to give up their ideas of freedom and civility. You have to do trial runs that, if they are done well, serve two purposes. They get people used to something they may initially recoil from; and they allow you to refine and calibrate. This is what is happening now and we would be fools not to see it.
One of the basic tools of fascism is (. . .) the generation of tribal identities, the division of society into mutually exclusive polarities. Fascism does not need a majority – it typically comes to power with about 40 per cent support and then uses control and intimidation to consolidate that power. So it doesn’t matter if most people hate you, as long as your 40 per cent is fanatically committed. That’s been tested out too. And fascism of course needs a propaganda machine so effective that it creates for its followers a universe of “alternative facts” impervious to unwanted realities. Again, the testing for this is very far advanced.
But (. . .) there is a crucial next step, usually the trickiest of all. You have to undermine moral boundaries, inure people to the acceptance of acts of extreme cruelty. Like hounds, people have to be blooded. They have to be given the taste for savagery. Fascism does this by building up the sense of threat from a despised out-group. This allows the members of that group to be dehumanised. Once that has been achieved, you can gradually up the ante, working through the stages from breaking windows to extermination.
It is this next step that is being test-marketed now. It is being done in Italy by the far-right leader and minister for the interior Matteo Salvini. How would it go down if we turn away boatloads of refugees? Let’s do a screening of the rough-cut of registering all the Roma and see what buttons the audience will press. And it has been trialled by Trump: let’s see how my fans feel about crying babies in cages.

Comments

  1. anne marie in phillyJune 30, 2018 at 7:47 AM

    I don't recognize america any more. :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. DUTAJune 30, 2018 at 8:30 AM

    There's no existing democracy anywhere in the world. I thought there was perhaps in the USA , but no. I was wrong. Trump won the democraticly held elections , but the result was not accepted, and his opponents are constantly dehumanizing him.

    People are in some sick sort of love with the -ism words: racism, fascism, capitalism. Most of them don't even know the meaning of the words, and this kind of ignorance is very dangerous - it leasd to stupidly fake theories.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Debra She Who SeeksJune 30, 2018 at 8:45 AM

    I think this analysis is very true. That's why open, ongoing resistance and opposition is so important to short-circuit acceptance of these developments. Complacency about, or appeasement of, fascist tendencies is very dangerous.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Marie SmithJune 30, 2018 at 9:17 AM

    This is scary. It sounds too familiar from what is being reported in the US these days. Makes me think
    Canada won’t be far behind. The latest development about the children taken from their parents is incredible. There is no heart or empathy in that administration.

    I felt bad for Melania until I saw that coat the other day.

    ReplyDelete
  5. JeanieJuly 3, 2018 at 10:36 AM

    I saw this. And it is spot on. This is what is happening in our country and we must resist.

    ReplyDelete

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