Re: [cs-pdcdca] Re: [ProgSoc] A questions

[alister air <baitoven@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, Rosanne Monique Hodgekiss wrote:

> Alister,
> it's truly a wonderful thing to cross foils with someone with a heart for
> political science, so here goes again..

Sure.  Use Free Software.  .wgetrc can have all your wget options in it -
including your username/password if your proxy requires authentication.
This email is On Topic.  Partly.

> Yes, this is true, although no-one ever saw Chairman Mao and his buddies
> displace themselves hundreds of miles to take upon themselves a yoke in
> the name of "cultural revolution". We still have society stratified
> between those who rule and are ruled. Or as Orwell said: "All people are
> equal, but some are more equal than others".

Indeed.  Hence fields (in my example, professional, but in Mao's example,
actual fields with actual crops) being applied to people.  Some Linux
distributions are more equal than others too.

> But the funny thing about all this is that Fascist states and brutal
> dictatorships did/do exist. It's nice to hate it in retrospect but better
> to understand why these decisions were made in the first place. Why did a
> number of states turn to Fascist leadership after the Depression? Why does
> the so-called "greatest democracy" put up with phony elections (to take a
> leaf from Michael Moore) and unjustified wars, regardless of world
> opinion? If you ask me, there are degrees of Fascism visible in current
> events- now that is something to be truly appalled about.

Right.  Yes, they exist, and I'm pretty sure those who live in them aren't
hating them in retrospect (or any other backup software).  The "decisions"
you talk about were rarely (if ever) democratic.  Hitler started off
getting votes, but stopped needing them well before the invasion of
Austria.  To understand fascism is to realise why it happens - as
Mussolini said, its other name is Corporatism.  The state controls the
people for the benefit of corporations.  This is more or less a
description of the US.  While processes exist to allow for democracy in
theory, in practice they're worthless.  Free speech?  Only if you can
afford it.  GWB's election warchest was US$50,000,000 - hard to match
that.  In addition, less than half the voting age population in the US
bother to cast a vote.

> Plato had an artisan class to handle the latter problem, if I do remember
> correctly. It was their sole purpose to educate, entertain and inspire the
> population.

CIrcuses without bread.  At least the Romans realised that both were
required.

> Unfortuanately, this would ultimately have the effect of removing the
> arts from the "common people" whilst furthermore restricting creativity
> to simply upholding state policy.

Quite.

> Ok, change that to Christian. Sorry, I momentarily forgot how uninspiring
> Reformation artworks are. Moralistic still lifes drive me nuts. :)

Orthodox Christianity too?

> The theory behind Christian states becoming Fascist is that they are so
> used to blindly consuming doctrine anyway (no one be offended- I still
> have to visit god's house every sunday and he still hasn't left me a note or a
> pizza in the oven..!). Fascism does bring momentary stability to a society
> gone mad. Germany was an industrial powerhouse during the war and was
> not far off domination of the sea. The thing is, it was hardly designed as
> a permanent fixture.

Well, that could also include Spain and Portugal.  Except that doesn't
explain post WWII fascism, such as that found in South Korea, Singapore
and Malaysia and Indonesia (the latter two are 'Muslim' about as much as
Australia is 'Christian' from what I understand).  I don't understand why
some people think stability is something to be achieved in its own right
and independant of anything else.  After all, the most stable state of
humans is when we're dead.

> Anyway, back to Java. Parry, riposte!

Sure.

A.



-
You are subscribed to the progsoc mailing list. To unsubscribe, send a
message containing "unsubscribe" to progsoc-request@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au.
If you are having trouble, ask owner-progsoc@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au for help.