Colin Powell Endorses Obama on 'Meet the Press'
 

This is definitely not an average election! I was shocked to see/hear long-time Republican, Colin Powell endorse Barack Obama...but i was even more surprised to hear his negative thoughts about how the McCain camp is handling the campaign.

Video/Article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27265369/

I mentioned this where we were discussing it in the other thread, but it's really not that shocking (taking into account Powell's break with the current administration, and the low risk/high reward of endorsing Obama at this stage in the campaign).

KSig, I was surprised to here Powell speak about his distaste for the Republican party moving more to the right, with the selection of Gov Palin. I always thought of Powell being a more right leaning conservative... it appears he leans more to the middle--A position I once recognized McCain to be in. Does this surprise you, or has Powell always thought this way?

This is kind of BS. By what measure is Sarah Palin further to the right than Bush?

(maybe by limiting government spending or having more respect for civil liberties, but I don't think that's what Powell has in mind.)

Powell's pretty moderate - he's pro-choice, pro gun-control, and foreign policy-wise he's almost right down the middle. I'm not sure about his economic views, but otherwise he's about as moderate as it gets.

ETA: I think his military background and the fact he's Republican lead people to overestimate how conservative he really is.

I've never thought Colin Powell to be Republican.

At least he's pro-fascist now.

How exactly does endorsing the liberal candidate make Colin Powell "pro-fascist," especially since fascism opposes liberalism and supports strong nationalism and preparedness for war at all times?

It also encourages control of it's population through any means possible.

Obamas progressive taxation and willingness to assume more control over the wealth of a nation and with that, the freedom of a nation is fascism. Money is the means to live, the means to eat. If he assumes himself the dictator of what it is to live, that is fascism. Furthermore, his want to control medicine and health of the nation through Universal Health care which makes him even further in control of the American populace. I suppose you could claim him a Communist, but perfect Commies are for the eventual tearing down of the state.

Absolutely disgusting (although McCain is not much better, I always see economic control as a far worse thing than moral control)

This is true, but only to a point. Fascism--at least in its ideal form--endorses control of a population by very specific means (usually by extreme nationalism and militarism, and not by "any means possible." Fascism is also opposed to Communism and Socialism, by the way.

It seems to me that people tend to use the term not as a way to connect a politician's views to those of Hitler or Mussolini (textbook fascists), but as a slur against a political opponent.

Not to go on too much of a threadjack, but this has been an argument of political scholars for quite a long time. George Orwell wrote an article on the subject in the 1940s: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

I agree with you on this, and I don't think that the Bush=Hitler rhetoric by some helped any.

I got irritated about the Bush as a fascist rhetoric a few years ago*, and spent time thinking about it: even the methods and ideologies of Hitler and Mussolini aren't really as close in terms of economic systems as maybe one would think. And they sure as heck don't apply to either of the mainstream two party candidates in this election.

*not that Bush was great, but we were a far cry from fascist by any stretch of the imagination, and yet I knew people who really felt there were strong parallels. There are actually probably stronger parallels with fascism now after the bailout, depending on how one interprets "corporativismo."

I watched this this morning. I loved his responses. But he's a fellow JA-er so I love him regardless.

I also saw on our local station (WPLG) where TV head editor/anchor Michael Putney had a chance to interview McCain while he was down here for the rally at FIU. McCain was so out there. Mr. Putney would begin asking a question and McCain would interrupt, knowing that the question would be one that wasn't necessarily putting him in the best light (example: Putney began to ask about poll numbers being in Obama's favor and McCain would cut him off and start talking about polls that were in his favor). It's fine if he wants to steer his answer towards something that makes him look good. I don't blame him. But, let the interviewer at least finish the question! He made himself look not only rude, but as if he can't take the "heat".

Nazi stands for "National Socialist Party" FYI, and economically it was a very Socialist movement.

Windfall profits tax, anyone?

In practice, this is wrong.

Fascism = in practice Communism

Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the other great Commies of the 20th century were fascists. Especially by your standards of nationalism and readiness to go to war. F.A. Hayek said that "Socialism can be cut of any wood. A socialist can go through stages of fascism, theoretical communism, democratic socialism, etc".


This Machine kills Fascists.


I've become a big Woody Guthrie fan of late, especially the redo of his songs by Billy Bragg and Wilco in Mermaid Avenue.

I get hysterical
Hysteria
Oh, can you feel it (Oh can you feel it)
Do you believe it (Do you believe it)
It's such a magical mysteria
When you get that feelin' (When you get that feelin')
Better start believin (Better start believin')
Cause it's a miracle
Say you will, ooh babe
Hysteria when you're near

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TjPbeyHIO0


ETA: And I love munchkin's siggy

The architects of the party did not want to use the term "Socialist," because of the connections to left-leaning groups; instead, they used the term "socialist" to reflect their belief that the role of social welfare should be moved from the church to the state. There's a lot more to their use of the term "socialist," FYI.

The long and short of what I'm saying, and no one has yet to challenge this, is that most laypeople people use the term "fascist" as a way of hurling insults at someone whose political beliefs do not align with their own. In other words, it's a highly dramatic, downright hysterical, and utterly fallacious way of conducting political discourse.

Anyway, I haven't heard anyone else refer to Obama as "pro-fascist," so I'm going to call this as hysteria.

There's a great Orwell quote about this.

Is it in the article I referenced in my previous post?

Regardless of why they liked the word, they were in practice socialist, either nationalizing industries outright or using taxes, subsidies, and brute force coercion to force industries and people to act in concert with the way the national planning boards envisioned. There was also a huge attack on the profit motive, a concerted effort to bring low-income workers on board (it was originally the National Socialist Workers Party), and an attack on a lot of the moneyed interests in Germany. They were in every sense of the word a socialist party, just people like to pretend that extremist nationalism and socialism can't coexist. They very clearly have in a number of examples (like those cited by EW previously).


And equating people to fascists/nazis is idiotic and most people realize that. I think that's why no one is responding to you on that point, but to argue that "fascist" can never be compared to leftist parties due to their incongruent social policies is a dumb argument. If that's the case they can never be compared to right wing parties either due to their incongruent economic policies. But maybe that's the point, it was an odd mixing of political views which doesn't resemble any significant parties in existence today.

Sorry. I completely skipped that when I read the thread. My apologies.

ETA: looking at the time posted, I think I was probably composing my post right below yours when you posted it. I'm just that much slower.

Here's what I had in mind: "The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable.'" (ETA: I thought I did, but it's not linked in wiki, so who knows)

I had forgotten about it but came across it when I was looking up corporatism and fascism again on Wikipedia which is much lower-brow than your linked article, which I think I read a long time ago just on language generally.

Now there's some irony for you, Mr. Paulson. But yeah, EW, you're sounding a bit hysterical there.

You, and Mr. Orwell, are right.

Munchkin...you need to see some of the other places I have been on the 'net...Obama has been compared to Hitler and David Duke and it's really disgusting...there is a bit of hysteria going on but thankfully it's not visible yet from GC.

So was Bush -- both of them actually. And Reagan. It's par for the course is some circles.

Some people just don't know what to say out of their mouths.....

Outside of GC and Facebook, I'm not on too many sites where I have the opportunity to participate in political discourse, and I really want to keep it that way. This may not be the most hearty, but I'm really not that political, and this is as much as I can handle.

For the record, from an international affairs perspective,

(On the Left) Marxism -> Liberalism -> Moderate <- Realism <- Fascism (On the Right)

Fascism and Marxism are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. It stands to reason, however, that Marxism is solidly on the left (as is the US Democratic Party), and Fascism is solidly on the right. This is why:

According to The Globalization of World Politics, 2nd ed.,

Hitler's NAZI party did not practice the truest form of fascism - Mussolini did, at least ten years before Hitler's rise to power.

Your general point may be true when people are really paying attention to economic systems, but when you see lists like this:http://www.bushwatch.com/fascism.htm, you can see how the little that has to do with how the term is being thrown around.

Right - the term as thrown around is definitely an insult. I have to giggle to myself though when someone calls the candidate on the left a fascist, when really, if they were to the extreme left they'd be a Marxist.

Why Marxist rather than Communist?

And honestly, it might make sense to appropriate a different word for the extreme right wing position if the point is simply to describe the political position without all the totalitarian fun.

Marxism suggests an economic and social view. Fascism bring with it a whole boat load of associations that the far left position is equally as deserving of, and fascism typically doesn't even suggest economic implications to the average person.

In most instances when people use fascism, I think that they neglect the word totalitarian when it would work so nicely.

ETA: And it also seems to me that there is a more likely far right position that is laissez faire capitalism without the state actually serving or merging with the corporations.

Academics who study and write about international affairs prefer the term Marxist rather than Communist, that's all. It boils down to the fact that Marxists call for collectivization of industry (communism) AND lack of government (or really, lack of nation to raise government from as it's all based on class), and Fascists tend to call for corporation of industry AND totalitarianism.

Russia (or the USSR, rather) as a "Communist" country employed collectivization AND totalitarianism, therefore was not a true Marxist country.

So, purely used, either refers to BOTH the economic and political atmosphere of a given country.

Does anyone else find it interesting that Powell campaigned for John McCain in the republican primaries for 2000? What a difference eight years makes, either on the McCain side or the Powell side.

And this is where academics completely tip their hands and reveal their leftist bias.

On the left, we have a system that could function without totalitarianism although it never has, and on the right we have a system that at its end must be totalitarian.

Why would we assume that Marxism could be practiced without the authority of the state? Because Marx said so?

This is just simple accepted thought among political theorists. I never said Marxism works. I just said that for it to be Marxism, it must be collectivization and lack of government. And yes, because Marx said so. He gets that right because he came up with the world view.

My grad school was anything but leftist. Considering I studied Security and Intelligence studies within the perview of an MPIA, we couldn't afford to lean too far left and we couldn't afford to be taught by those who leaned too far left or we wouldn't be able to find jobs.

ETA: Fascism wouldn't be fascism without the totalitarianism. Hence why it has to fulfill both the economic and political criteria in order to be fascism.

Maybe, but it might not make sense to set the spectrum up like that and if you lean right, it probably bothers you more. There are philosophies we could place on the right that would no more require totalitarianism than the definition of Marxism does, and yet, political theorists go with fascism.

How many of your professors will be voting for McCain, do you think?

ETA: go back and look at your definition of fascism in your text box. On the left we have a clearly defined if completely unpracticed ideal and on the right we have fascism. We can't say exactly what it is, but it's the opposite of Marxism and it requires totalitarianism.

Communism also lies on the left, just not as extreme left as Marxism as it requires government.

The left side of the model (in more complete detail) tends to read:

Marxism -> Communism -> Socialism -> Liberalism

I would say a handful, at least. My grad school was a mixed bag because it offered Masters' Degrees in Public and International Affairs (Global Political Economy, Security and Intelligence Studies, and Human Security), Public Affairs, and International Development. Those who were not SIS professors, I don't know.

I do know, however, that several of MY professors voted for Bush both times. As far as McCain goes, with some of the problems plaguing that campaign and with my distance from the school now, not sure.

If Marxism is the extreme left (the accepted view, purveyed by Marx himself) and fascism is the opposite of Marxism, then fascism is in its correct place if it's at the extreme right. I'm not understanding your problem with the model.

My problem is that Fascism isn't the opposite of Marxism in any real sense, nor does it really reflect the extension of many aspects of the right, anymore than the dissolution of the state reflects an extension of the left.

We can set it there because it's convenient to do so, but if you really start thinking about it and you have any sympathy for the right, problems emerge almost immediately.

At this point, we all just accept that spectrum for theoretical purposes and I know it would be the right answer on a college test, but it doesn't hold up when you start thinking about it, particularly if you are thinking about it economically, unless the idea that underpins your thinking is that Marxism would have these good ideal traits: economic equality and complete freedom from other aspects of the state. What would be the opposite bad traits? We'll call that fascism and put it on the other end. The right deserves the opportunity to put forth its own idealized standard to oppose Marxism, rather than being saddled with a system that by its very definition is totalitarian. Libertarianism makes as much sense as an economic opposite of Marxism.

I'm glad you changed the last sentence there. I'm neither left nor right in this argument. Fascism is as much an extension of the right as communism is on the left. However, fascism and Communism are not true opposites, because they share totalitarianism. That is what makes Marxism the opposite to fascism.

I'm sure liberals that are compared with Marxists are just as offended as conservatives are when compared with fascists. At least they should be.

Any extreme is bad if you ask me. I'm left, but I'm much closer to the middle than most people realize, especially with economic issues.

I don't remember what I changed in the last sentence. It wasn't my intention to address you specifically even in the original form.

I don't think being called a Marxist is nearly as inflammatory as being called a fascist for all the reasons mentioned earlier in the thread, but also because of fascism being thought of as racist and totalitarianism and Marxism being an idealized wonderland.

Economic opposites in political systems could share totalitarianism. And if only one side of the political spectrum gets to claim individual rights, why don't we just label the spectrum from Individual Liberty to Totalitarianism.

Here's what it boils down to: do you believe that a system could exist that provided economic prosperity to most members of a society without collectivization? Could this system also be non-totalitarian? Could this system perhaps function without the state?

If so, why is the spectrum Marxism to Fascism rather than Marxism to what for now, I've decided to call Ugaalum94ism.

Here is the point that I've been trying to make this ENTIRE thread. What makes Marxism opposite to Fascism, particularly, is that they are opposites in BOTH criteria, rather than sharing one and being opposites in the other.

A conservative may think that liberals make Marxism a wonderland. Some do. Most liberals would rather not be compared with Marxists, who, to laypersons reads Communists.

The spectrum is what it is. If you want to change that, write a book and get it taught in millions of IR classes. It's not Individual Liberty to Totalitarianism because Communism employs totalitarianism yet is still on the left. Again, what makes Marxism opposite to fascism is that Marxism is lack of government PLUS collectivization and fascism is heavy government (opposite) PLUS corporation (opposite). The spectrum boils down more to economics plus worldview than it does political basis for a state.

Both systems are flawed and are hard to maintain - Marxism on the point that absence of government is bound to create issues in terms of those seeking to rule, and fascism on the point that eventually those under totalitarian rule will revolt.

I think that recent international history has proven that once a state goes too right or left of center it has a hard time maintaining its stability.