Comment by littletimmy
10 years ago
By murder, by torture, by imprisonment, by the terrorism of armed forces, they have subjected the intelligent and humane parts of the nation and seized power with the view of furthering the glory of the Fatherland.
^ The terrorism of armed forces part is particularly important. We tend to think that terrorism is something crazy non-state actors do in religious or delusional fervor, but it is really just the use of violence to achieve certain political ends. This is precisely what the American army started doing around the world after World War II. If you include psychological manipulation with it as well, as recently evidence by the disclosure that the DOD was paying NFL to propagandize during games, we get a very concerning picture of the role of the US military in today's world and in the US itself.
In this gloomy state of affairs, the brightest spot is America. In America democracy still appears well established, and the men in power deal with what is amiss by constructive measures, not by pogroms and wholesale imprisonment.
^ How dated that sounds. Wonder what Russell would say about the America of today, with the oligarchy entrenching itself to replace a democracy, a wide-scale militarization of the police, a pogrom against Muslims in some southern states, the wholesale imprisonment of African Americans, and the popularity of near-fascist leaders like Donald Trump.
"a pogrom against Muslims in some southern states"
That's just untrue. A pogrom is an organized massacre of an ethnic group - it's not happening, in southern states or anywhere else in the US.
littletimmy, how about citing sources for these extraordinary claims ("a pogrom against Muslims in some southern states")? I can't believe it wouldn't be widely known in the current "politically correct" environment.
Even if you are now aware that "pogrom" wasn't the right word to describe something "against Muslims" that is worrying you, please do write what that is.
your reply was not to littletimmy so he may not answer you. However it is possible he was talking about things like this:
http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2015/11/armed-protesters-...
Whilst not a pogrom it certainly does lay the ground for some future issues. All you have to is consider the reaction if Muslim Americans decided to use their 2nd ammendment rights to protest christian or jewish churches, whilst covering their forces and armed with semi automatic weapons.
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He created the Russel Tribunal, so I guess he will not be very happy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal
Very interesting, I'd never heard of this. Thanks.
Oh man, I hadn't heard about the DOD thing. Here's a link for anyone too lazy to look it up themselves
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/defense-military-tribute...
$6.8 million in the context of the US defence budget doesn't seem that big a deal to me - that's a rounding error in terms of the Pentagon recruitment budget (which appears to be in the range of low tens of billions).
NB I'm not trying to be pro-military - just noting that armed forces everywhere need to recruit and they will have to spend money to get their message out there and a football game seems as good a place as any. I've seen military sponsorship of school level rugby games here in the UK.
its not so much the amount of money spent but the propaganda nature of the activity. As said by senators involved in bringing this to light, most people would assume it was being done to support soldiers not as part of a remunerative arrangement, as the National Guard also said they work well as a recruitment tool. In any other format the fact that something is a paid advert (when it is designed to look like normal programming/article/editorial) usually has to be clearly stated. This is nothing of the sort.
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>it is really just the use of violence to achieve certain political ends.
That's not terrorism, that's just war. All wars use violence to achieve political ends. Terrorism is the use of the fear of unpredictable attacks against a civilian population to prompt a high-impact political response, like war or revolution. Not all violence is terrorism.
Stay-behind paramilitary organizations like Gladio were associated with old-fashioned terrorist attacks in Italy.
> How dated that sounds.
It's also somewhat idealistic. After all, it was only in 1920 (13 years before the essay was written) that in the US women got the right to vote. And even today in some states felons are not allowed to vote.
Edit: And of course people under 18 also don't have the right to vote.
And women voting in Switzerland: only since 1971:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_Switzerlan...
1971 on the national level. On the cantonal level, it was between 1959 and 1972 that women voting was introduced in most cantons. Only the two Appenzells hold out until 1989 and 1990.
But you have to remember that in Switzerland, the people had to vote in this. Only 12 years earlier in 1959, 2/3 of the voters voted against it. In 1971, 2/3 of the voters voted for it. A big turnaround in a short time.
Do you really think that most countries would have given women voting power when they did it if they'd asked the voting people (that is men at the time)?
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1991 actually: In 1991 following a decision by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, Appenzell Innerrhoden became the last Swiss canton to grant women the vote on local issues
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Donald Trump is near-fascist? I thought he is fascist through and through.
He's not coherent enough to be any one thing in political terms.