Another kickass article on fascism

[undergroundpanther]

http://www.texaschapbookpress.com/filicide07chap6.htm

We walked right up to the edge of the abyss of child-murder--which is of course always self-murder, the same brink over which so many well-intentioned societies have plunged before us, we walked to the edge of unrestrained tyranny, dropped a few of our children into the abyss, and backed off. "No," we said. "Not that." We had finally found a price for classic, historical success that was higher than we were willing to pay.

What happens if Oedipus doesn't claw his eyes out, if Orestes doesn't kill his mother, if Agamemnon refuses to sacrifice lphigenia, if God doesn't throw Adam and Eve out of Eden, if Abraham refuses to sacrifice Isaac, if we and God never send Jesus to the cross, if Hamlet refuses to be his father's avenger, if Frankenstein gives his son a hug? What happens if a nation with a long history of filicidal behavior and a long tradition of judging success by the competitive standard where victory = good and defeat = bad--what happens if such a nation refuses to win a simple little war against a hopelessly out-classed small nation?

One thing that happens is that voices of doom are heard in great number, and they are right in their apocalyptic warnings--though not in the way they think. We were in Vietnam because we are not only our fathers' sons, we are also still trying to be our fathers. We got out of Vietnam because we somehow realized that if we won, we would lose. We realized that the only way to win was to lose. In the middle of a very bloody little war during which we had repeatedly made our fathers' old choice of mortal combat, we slowly changed our national mind and took the first step toward choosing mortal embrace by putting down our weapons and walking away. That it was an epochal gesture of breath-taking courage and beauty is a fact we are obviously having a hard time in recognizing.