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As I watch the news with images of the current and likely to continue disasters, especially natural but of course also person-made I wonder at the ongoing leftier-than-thou readiness toward the recurrent irony of the gifting of so-called "prizes," that ignores the one that might be more meaningful today, a Kropotkin Prize for the best ideas for any circumstance for implementing Mutual Aid. Which would include generating ideas for converting the massive outpouring of nationalistic love generated by the World Cup to life affirming enterprises, that could easily dwarf previous efforts by the entertainment industry.

I use the term "person-made" tongue-in-cheek as a reaction to currently trendy "white male privilege," not so much for the "white" part of it but for the male portion, as so glibly and unthinkingly emphasized in the Counterpunch article about multiplication in horsemen (italicizing "men") which unfortunately lacks a response option, which ignoring by intent or design (even if not by you) the immense contributions of Rice, Albright, Clinton, Thomas, among so many others who may remain in the shadows, Lady Macbeths, in promulgating and propagating some of the worst human disasters of modern times and reaping whatever benefits accrue from the idea that it is men only who are responsible because it is they who the buck stops at. Its not to say they are worse, simply that it is an unfortunate area that should they wish they could claim an achieved equality. The maxim might be "Take the stance, share the blame." And note that this should not be regarded in any way as an anti-feminism stance.

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and Chomsky gave a talk at the NYC Village Gate back in 1992 titled; "Creeping Fascism." In 2004 Giroux noted: "the specter of a creeping fascism is becoming a reality in the United States."

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I believe Giroux is quoted exactly that way in this piece and it is noted as 2004.

As for Chomsky, whatever was going in 1992, we had an actual fascist in the White House 2017-21 and he repeatedly and explicitly refused to acknowledge it, citing political economy and Robert Brady's 1938 (!!!) book to justify this head in the sand position. Robert Paxton, the author of the justly heralded historical study The Anatomy of Fascism, denied Trump's fascism for the same reasons as Chomsky and then finally and somewhat comically (for me anyway) had to drop his denial after January 6th ---- 99% way through Trump's fascist presidency. It's all pretty absurd.

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Jan 27, 2023·edited Jan 27, 2023

"If there will be a 'revolution' in America today, it will no doubt be a move to­wards some variety of fascism." -- 1969, Noam Chomsky in American Power and the New Mandarins, Pantheon Books, page 17.

"It would have taken a fair amount of foresight, at that time, to realize that the prediction would be proved accurate, with substitution of 'liberal imperialism' for 'fascism,' and that the United States would, in a generation, be employing the most efficient and most ruthless machinery in existence to ensure that revolutionary movements will not evolve according to their own laws, to guarantee that its own particular concept of civilization and justice and order will prevail." -- 1969, Noam Chomsky in American Power and the New Mandarins, Pantheon Books, page 311.

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Matt Rothschild from The Progressive' was careful not to over use the 'f' word over the past decades... until Trump came into office and showed his colors:

Trump's in Touch with His Inner Fascist

by Matthew Rothschild, Executive Director

February 18, 2019

Hi friends!

Thanks for coming out today...

Let me cut to the chase: Our democracy is in an existential crisis right now: Will our democracy hold, or will it succumb to Donald Trump?

You know, we’ve been told since we were little kids that we’ve got this tremendous system of checks and balances.

Well, guess what?

It’s not so tremendous.

https://www.wisdc.org/news/commentary/6301-trump-s-in-touch-with-his-inner-fascist

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I also agree that the US has been fascist for quite a long time now. When the Nazis, Mussolini, and Japanese were defeated in 1945, their axis was also called the 'The Anti-Comintern Pact'. Post 1945, suddenly the US takes up the reins and leads the world anti-communist alliance, and allies with a long list of murderous fascist dictators in every corner of the world. So we've been pretty hard fascist since at least 1945 (although you can easily argue for much earlier).

I mean, what more do you need? We ally with, arm and equip right wing military dictators that have a death count in the 10's of millions, we have a police surveillance state, a continuous war military worshipping state, the biggest prison population in the world with cops shooting dead over a thousand of our fellow citizens every year, mass propaganda and state media censorship, we've crushed with violence, torture, assassination, and political tricks every left populist and worker's movement since our founding. The only thing we don't have is a single demagogue leader under typical historical fascism - we have a veneer of democracy where every two years we trot out millionaires for us to vote for who will keep in place our corporate military police state. This is smooth transition corporate fascism with a thin veneer of democratic consent.

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RemovedDec 12, 2022·edited Dec 12, 2022
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But you see you just wrote paragraphs on the false premise that I defend the Dems. Do you even know that I am by far and away the most prolific Marxist critic of Obama, author of three books specifically dedicated to taking him and his capitalist war mongering party apart from a Marxist and anti imperialist perspective?! LOL. On top of which you seem to think Chomsky thinks the Dems are fascists, which is just an absurd thing to think. No he doesn't. Trumpenlefties like you want Lenin Prizes for figuring out what we all know in the radical world --- that the Dems are an awful capitalist-imperialist warmongering party of class rule and mass murder innvestigate stuff more before commenting. You justed wasted your time and mine! :)

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One of the recurrent calling cards of the red-browny trumpenlefty sorts is constant lecturing about the awfulness of the Dems to people who already know about the awfulness of the Dems and seeming to want to a Lenin Prize (of course maybe now you want a Putin Prize) for the discovery that the Dems are a lowdown dirtty capitalist imperialist party.

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