comfy
But I still like the unix motto, about doing one thing well
I prefer this because it does give me more (<_< , >_> , <_<) liberty to choose what my devices do. I want to control my computers. For my phone, I avoid many apps because I don’t their company to have my personal information, or because I don’t trust them. I consider having banking apps on my phone to be a risk I don’t want to take. It also seems like bundling could have security implications, such as having a messaging app and finance app so interconnected that a flaw in one could facilitate access to the other (but I do say that naively, this is not security advice or insight).
We also see a lot of people saying “I don’t use Facebook, but I just have [Facebook Messenger/Marketplace]”, so there is a very real-world case where people don’t want the whole package bundled.
But I certainly acknowledge the downsides of this. I abandoned Debian partly due to outdated apps, but also partly because my disparate preferences created a Frankensteinian mess which didn’t have the smooth interoperability of a DE-centres OS (like Ubuntu-flavours or Mint) or the interoperability we see in that video, where the map is connected smoothly to the ride hire. I can see the metaphor of the collectivism/individialism dichotomy at play there too.
Cool slogan, but that is an extremely tough thing to do in any capitalist state, let alone the USA.
As long as workers are armed, the state will demand the cops are armed tenfold. And what solution is there except organizing enough to actually threaten the state? This is actually that tough.
It’s a tough two-sided situation, because open-carry laws were what allowed the Black Panthers to defend people against police.
This time, the problem isn’t the guns but that Nazis are there and comfortable enough to get together and hold them. If there were no guns, it would still be a problem, they just make it worse.
I think a missing part of this is that neo-Nazism (which I assume you include in neofascism) is overall not an intellectual movement with an understanding of such classes. Outside of the niches, a lot of neo-Nazis and perhaps even many fascists of the 30s seem to just understand it as ‘super racism and nationalism’ and some conspiracy theories about Jews and Cultural Marxism. My point being, it’s likely that lower-class people will embrace it like many embrace the US Republican Party-style culture war - I (intuitively) doubt they’re all booj because there just aren’t that many petit booj to account for it.
Although, obviously, even if my point is valid, you’re right that a petit booj has a personal interest in delaying their proletarianization.
Like someone else said, taking amphetamine-like stimulants wasn’t something exclusive to Nazi Germany’s military during that war and other stimulants are used today, although they were famous for Pervitin.
Some people may know of Aimo Koivunen, a Finnish (Axis) soldier on ski patrol who was the first documented case of methamphetamine overdose in combat. The article is short and to-the-point so I won’t copy-paste it, but they had a hell of an adventure.
Thanks for the detailed reply, it makes more sense to understand this from a global perspective, as an international effect of US mass media, the change in perceptions of African-Americans post-Civil Rights Era, and distinct from mere nationalism. Removing this issue from nationalism also resolves the paradox of why ‘White’ foreigners were treated so differently from ‘Black’ foreigners; the issue isn’t nation but negative Black stereotypes spread abroad.
I don’t have time right now to reply in-depth, but its worth mentioning even African-American media can often be very critical of the ‘gangster’ cultures too, some popular examples which come to mind are the comic strip The Boondocks (and the cartoon adaptation) and the pop rap song Gangsta’s Paradise lamenting the damage it causes. There are real cultural issues which are amplified by mass media, both news and entertainment. Obviously African-Americans aren’t the only group with negative cultures associated with them – consider rednecks and Latin gang cultures as other US examples – but unfortunately, as you’ve pointed out, the harmful and threatening gangsta culture has become the international face.
As a side note, it just surprises me that the horribly-exploitative colonizing nations, which can be understandably stereotyped as ‘White’, haven’t also had a similar racial demonization. I suspect its similar to here, where the rich haute thief with a smile is looked over but the poor petit thief is a brute.
Maybe in theory fascists could create that in-group/out-group distinction without race or ethnicity being the dividing line, but I think that there will always be some kind of bigotry involved.
I believe that fascists could effectively use state nationalism in place of race and racism. They debatably did in Italy. I say debatably because they flip-flipped a lot – even just skimming the Wikipedia page on Italian fascism and racism will get you stark contradictions like Talks with Mussolini (1932), “Race? It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today” while talking of “our Aryan and Mediterranian race” in speeches ten years before and enacting the Racial Laws in 1938. So I believe it was used as a tool at times, but it wasn’t essential in its rise or necessary at any time. We can look at Amercia, despite its infamous racism, and see the real chavanistic, bigoted power its patriotic unity as the USA has.
I agree that there will always be some kind of bigotry, I just think racism is convenient but arbitrary, and we should be alert to other forms of bigotry even if racism is absent. As for anti-foreigner bigotry (whether racial or nationality), I suspect that’s intrinsic, it can’t be replaced.
I’m pretty sure those are just talking points meant to lure in rubes, or are meant to apply only to the in-group when they take power.
This is entirely possible. Even in hindsight, it can be hard to tell sometimes between what is sincere and what is propaganda.
re: ecofascism
Agreed, bad example from me.
Umberto Eco
Added to my reading list, thanks :)
It’s not useful to consider the USA fascist. If fascism is capitalism in decay, neoliberalism is capitalism in stride.
Where fascism tries to put the state above all, neoliberalism has purchased the state. Where fascism demands our class struggle halt, neoliberalism proudly yells ‘keep going; we’re winning’. Where fascism has silly bullshit idealism about their nation and its spirit, neoliberalism is cold and individualist, and won’t even spare the ruling demographics from its greed.
They’re both capitalism and they both want us dead. But we must understand the differences if we want to fight them most effectively. Fascism’s weaknesses don’t always apply to liberalism, and vice versa.
and AES countries have nationalist traits
Agreed with the anti-colonial national liberation struggles being reasonable, although I am critical of (for example) present-day Chinese nationalism among civilians (or perhaps more specifically when it becomes national chauvanism, which from what I understand may be unfortunately widespread). While stories I’ve heard of the Korean War suggest a healthy class consciousness and a certain empathy towards oppressed groups among the US PoWs, a couple of Chinese citizens I’ve spoken to nowadays report that US racism has crept in among the nationalists (racial stereotyping about wealth and criminality which I’d rather not repeat, and attitudes towards interracial relationships reflecting those differing stereotypes).
This is a bit of a disjointed rant, but my point is that nationalism is a dangerous road, although I haven’t studied it enough to know what situation or amount or type is fine (if any), and how to ensure socialism remains relevant in an anti-imperialist nationalist revolution.
