Doomsayers

[drmeow]

Am I the only person who gets really sick and tired of the "OMG this horrible thing is going to happen" declarations without any suggestion for how to stop it or prepare for it. Here's one of the latest:

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/132155/does_america_face_the_risk_of_a_fascist_backlash_/

If its not inevitable, is there anything I/we can do to stop it?
If it is inevitable, is there anything I/we can do to prepare for it?

Is the point of the article just to incite fear?

[pnutbutr]

1. right there with ya nt

[Towlie]

2. I think it should be taken very seriously. I'm upvoting it on Digg and Reddit.

http://digg.com/political_opinion/Does_America_Face_the_Risk_of_a_Fascist_Backlash

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/85vmc/does_america_face_the_risk_of_a_fascist_backlash/

[drmeow]

3. I'm not saying it shouldn't be taken seriously

But now I'm thinking, "I've just read something that should be taken seriously and I have not idea what the F*CK to do." In other words, I have fear with no knowledge or ability to either combat the fear or combat the likely event that I fear. This, in turn, is likely to cause me to shut down - to stop reading things like this because I might become paralyzed with fear. Its a similar dynamic to the boy who cried wolf.

[stillcool]

4. I think the point of the article..

is to raise concern. And, I think awareness can avert crisis, or at least prepare you for it.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. That article should be mandatory reading

Edited for clean-up.

No, to paraphrase you, this horrible thing is NOT necessarily going to happen. Not if we realize that it COULD happen if we slack off after a few victories. The whole idea isn't to incite fear -- it's to keep us thinking about the stakes of Liberalism. We on the left have had a very bad habit of struggling and fighting diligently until we get a few laws passed, then just giving up. The Right sustains its efforts, and so has never really gone away.

The German example is important because it is a worst-case scenario. Godwin's Law is usually twisted into a way to ridicule discussion of the issues that led to Nazism and Fascism. But as we can see, there are lessons to be learned from that era that we can't afford to ignore, no matter how ironically hip we may want to appear. Learning from the French and Russian revolutions is acceptable and encouraged; so should we learn from the world's disastrous Fascist "experiment".

There are many things that could lead us to states of gloom and doom -- peak oil, climate change, pandemic influenza, and so on. All such threats can be planned for and avoided, or at least minimized. The key isn't to simply worry and fret over them happening, but to take an active part in making sure that they don't. Sure, if there's an asteroid the size of China bearing down on us, there won't be much we can do. In the case of a supervolcano eruption, we can only plan to survive it. But these are much less likely than political decay or resource mismanagement. We have control over them, and we'd be fools if we didn't at least try to avoid trouble.

The article is excellent, and it deserves to be widely read. The Left MUST work for sustainable and popular political change this time. The job will be big, and it will be tough, but it will reward us with generations of liberty and the kind of wealth that is backed not with gold, but with the human spirit.

A wiser man than me once said, "Don't mourn -- organize". Well, don't panic -- organize.

--d!

[Towlie]

6. Right, so rec this thread! I did.

[drmeow]

7. if we slack off after a few victories.

My point is that it needs to say that.

"The whole idea isn't to incite fear -- it's to keep us thinking about the stakes of Liberalism."

I think it does a great job at inciting fear and thinking about the stakes of liberalism isn't enough.

"All such threats can be planned for and avoided, or at least minimized."

Again, the article should say that - or, better yet, give some pointers.

I don't disagree with the need to read about these things - but instead of:

"The world is going to end" I'd prefer

"The world is going to end unless we ..." or "The world is going to end so here are some things to think about preparing."

[chrisa]

8. You mean the impending...

Civil War?
Fascist Takeover?
Robot invasion?