Ruminations – 3aug19

George Rebane

Our favorite double-dummy communist, Umair Haque writing in Medium, continues his dive into the abyss of ideological idiocy with his latest essay attempting to explain ‘fascism’ to American readers.  In a piece titled ‘America Is Collapsing Into Fascism Because Americans Still Don’t Understand Fascism’ he does a great job of confusing the matter even further on his journey into regions of history and semantics in which he is a complete naif.  It’s worth a read though, if only to understand how our lightly-read are swayed.

George Will’s The Conservative Sensibility is the latest book to go on my reading list.  The sometimes conservative commentator has enjoyed a long career purveying his right of center ideology in the media (a regular on NBC, MSNBC, WaPo, and the National Review).  Will is both an anti-Trumper and an anti-Republican who shares my belief that our country’s march to collectivism has passed the tipping point, and that conservatism is in a terminal decline – the “Right’s losing battle against progressivism.”  (more here)

For a little light-hearted, local comical relief, I direct your attention to Terry Lamphier’s ‘Grass Valley’s burning desire for growth’.  There I challenge you to discover Mr Lamphier’s point of the article, save his eternal opposition to the county’s growth.  The man continues his established tradition of writing articles both long-winded and opaque.

Comments

[Don Bessee]

Speaking of lightly read -

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/08/03/poll-less-than-half-of-college-students-think-america-is-a-superpower/

;-)

[George Rebane]

DonB 1203pm - And even Breitbart has trouble with English. Should read 'Fewer than half of college students ...' because college students can be enumerated and are not a continuum. Aarghhh!!

[Don Bessee]

They are not going to listen in the rush to out left each other in the socialist dem clown car. In fact they have gone so far left the clown car is only running on its left 2 wheels! -

Maher then pivoted to lecturing the Democratic candidates about who they should direct their message to, and what that message should be: “The voters that Democrats need to win moderates — who have Trump fatigue will vote against a good economy, I think — just to get back to normalcy. But they won’t trade it away for left-wing extremism. You say you want a revolution? Well, you know, you gotta get elected first.”

Maher went on to say that because of “Trump fatigue,” Democrats should run on a platform of, “Elect me and we can stop talking about him.” He added, “All Democrats have to do to win, is to come off less crazy than Trump. And, of course, they are blowing it.”

Then Maher made an ignorant joke that the Democratic contenders are “coming across as unserious people who are going to take away all your money so migrants from Honduras can go to college for free and get a major in America sucks.”

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/trump-fatigue-defanged-bill-maher-171957058.html

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

“Our favorite double-dummy communist, Umair Haque writing in Medium, continues his dive into the abyss of ideological idiocy with his latest essay attempting to explain ‘fascism’ to American readers.”—- Dr. Rebane.

While not on the exact topic of the meaning of fascism through double-dummy Umair’s glass eye, if you really want to confuse things, make communism and Nazism legally synonymous. Everybody has an agenda.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/communism-and-nazism-are-now-legally-synonymous-ukraine

[Russ]

Currently reading National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy

According to the Sunday Times Books of the year.

A crucial new guide to one of the most important and most dangerous phenomena of our time: the rise of populism in the West

Across the West, there is a rising tide of people who feel excluded, alienated from mainstream politics, and increasingly hostile towards minorities, immigrants and neo-liberal economics. Many of these voters are turning to national populist movements, which pose the most serious threat to the Western liberal democratic system, and its values, since the Second World War. From the United States to France, Austria to the UK, the national populist challenge to mainstream politics is all around us.

But what is behind this exclusionary turn? Who supports these movements and why? What does their rise tell us about the health of liberal democratic politics in the West? And what, if anything, should we do to respond to these challenges?

Written by two of the foremost experts on fascism and the rise of the populist right, National Populism is a lucid and deeply-researched guide to the radical transformations of today's political landscape, revealing why liberal democracies across the West are being challenged-and what those who support them can do to help stem the tide.