I think it's stupid to say they have always been fascist, but people definitely don't grasp what fascism is, they think it's people marching in nice grey uniforms on the street and concentration camps out in the open and if you try to call anything that's not that they call you stupid and overreacting
"All men are created equal"
is slave state
Always has been
Best not to use to academic language when dealing with those that Academia has failed so thoroughly. Or the ones who already know and don't care cuz they got enough of a kickback from kicking down.
Would you say it might apply to an openly genocidal state conquering its neighbors?
How about when that state also has up to 30% of its population by region in racial chattel slavery?
How about when the genocide is done and the slavery ended but it still enforces apartheid politics?
How about when it overthrows the government of any neighbor it disagrees with?
Invades other countries and kills millions?
But, hey. It's not technically fascism as long it's white men voting to do that, right? They usually weren't even Italian! It's stupid to call it fascism when it doesn't come from Rome!
Those are definitely trait you'd expect from fascism, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient to be fascist. Fascism is not just doing a bad thing. It's a very specific set of traits, which the US does not meet —in my opinion and any other informed opinion that I've seen.
Uh huh.
So when I kick down your door and execute you for not agreeing with me politically, it won't be a fascist action, good to know.
But, hey, as FUN LITTLE EXCERCISE let's look at Umberto Eco's 14 points.
1: The cult of tradition/syncretism
Fun Fact: we're based on a model of the Roman Republic. You know, the thing that conquered all its neighbors and turned into an Empire? It's not like we adopted any of their other symbols, right? Definitely don't have a fasces in the House Chamber.
It's not like the fastest growing religion in this country is the one where they pretend Jesus came to America to bless it specifically. Fuck Australia and South America tho.
2: Rejection of modernism
Ok, fair enough, never been a big failure of America until recently. America was founded on Enlightenment ideals, whether or not it lived up to them. Gosh, it's a good thing they haven't been dirty words in the right for a century!
3: Action for action's sake. Thinking is a form of emasculation.
Don't even try.
4: Disagreement is treason.
Okay, fair enough, we're a contentious bunch, and we can all agree that as long as they aren't a filthy commie we can all say the things we basically agree on.
5: Ur-fascism is racist by definition. Fear of differences is a primary motivation.
Bro. The genocides... Plural. And ever present.
6: Appeal to social frustrations.
I mean, literally how people get elected.
7: The obsession with a narrative.
The American Experiment (didn't invent democracy or republics btw). Manifest Destiny. The Lost Cause. American Exceptionalism. Even The Arsenal of Democracy. The Red Menace. The Deep State.
8: The enemy is both weak and strong.
The savage Indians need Civilization or they'll kill you in their sleep! Let's go take their land! These Africans are like children that need to be guided! They'll also kill you in your sleep! These commies are starving and will conquer the world!
9: Pacifism is treason.
Find an American that's an actual pacifist without being part of a weird religious cult (that actually reads the Bible)
10: Contempt for the weak.
Lol.
11: The cult of the hero.
The cult of individualism. See also: Lol.
12: Machismo and weapon fetishization.
...
13: Selective populism.
The silent majority. The educated voter. The landowners. The slave holders. The petite bourgeois.
You fucking done with your denial yet?
14: Newspeak. Fascism employs a deliberately limited vocabulary to stifle dissent.
Go unalive yourself, you deliberately blinded ostrich.
(Don't actually, but maybe grow the fuck up and realize that times we fought monarchists and Nazis doesn't change everything else)
So when I kick down your door and execute you for not agreeing with me politically, it won't be a fascist action, good to know.
It could be. They can do that without being fascist as well. It is neither necessary nor sufficient.
Im probably not going to go through all these, but for 1 your example is far too broad. Every single thing we make is inspired by other things in the past. That's how we improve. A cult of tradition is more like saying "we are the third Roman empire (third riech), and we are deserving of inheriting their history. We will enforce this idea and destroy anything counter to it." America does have better examples of this that what you used though. I wouldn't argue it doesn't have a cult of tradition.
For 8, that's also a bad example. I don't think there was an idea the natives were strong. They were just savage and violent. They needed us to "civilize" them was the (bullshit) idea. I don't recall seeing much ever about them being particularly strong, just murderous and evil. A better example, though you have to get fairly modern, is communism. It's both a useless form of government destined to fail, but also we need to send solders and spies all over to protect other countries from falling to it.
9 we do not have really. We are fairly jingoist as a nation, but it's never (or rarely) said to be treason to disagree. After 9/11 it would be hard to be elected whole disagreeing with a war, but Bernie Sanders did and has done fairly well politically and not executed for treason.
11 is not about individualism. It's about every person needs to live their life for the glory of the nation. Individualism is anti-hero. A hero should live their lives (and die) for others. Individualism is you should be self-serving.
Go unalive yourself, you deliberately blinded ostrich.
Wow dude. Wtf is wrong with you? What did I do to you?
(Don't actually, but maybe grow the fuck up and realize that times we fought monarchists and Nazis doesn't change everything else)
No. Obviously not. I never said such. Things change over time and the same nation could be fascist at one point and anarchist at another. Don't imply I said something that I didn't please. This is actually an argument against the US "always" being fascist though, because we haven't met all the traits you've listed at the same time, even using the examples you gave which I don't agree with. Any nation will meet all of those eventually if you give it enough time.
Also, these are traits of fascism. They are not definitionally fascist. Again, probably the main point of fascism is a dictatorship. Without that you can only be fash-ish not fascist.
The US has a centuries long history of genocide and enslavement that continue into today. All their power and wealth is predicated on this bloodshed in the here and now. And it was all done for the sake of private interests.
You deny that it was always fascism because you and your family are settler house servants in this scheme. You get a small piece of property and a middle class lifestyle in exchange for your implicit support for the US to continue to eat the bodies of he colonized and impoverished.
I don't deny it's fascism because I benefit from it. It's because imperialism is not the definition of fascism or we wouldn't have two very different words for that. You want to call it fascism because your political vocabulary apparently sucks. Fascism is not just a synonym for something bad, which I agree the US has done tons of evil. It just isn't that specific word.
My political vocabulary doesn't suck. You're a typical reactionary tankie that thinks that using Lenin's outdated analysis and calling it Marxism gives you the authority to dismiss the grievances of the colonized.
Marxism and capitalism doesn't have stages. Where capitalism exists all of Marx's critiques apply. You use the tied old "muh imperialism" argument because you're a Russian chauvinist that fears that the fascist accusations could apply to current day Russia and the fallen Soviet Union.
Lol. Getting called a tanky for saying America isn't fascist. That's different. I don't know why you're talking about Russia.
Okay fair enough, you're just a western fascist stooge.
Why are you intent on muddling the meaning of words?
The guy you are arguing with conceded that America did bad things, just those things are called something else. What is it with the fetishization of this word in particular?
We can all agree:
Imperialism=bad
Fascism=bad
Imperialism definitionally is not fascism. Words have meaning for a reason.
It's pretty clear that your definition of fascism is heavily predicated on your feelings. And that judicious reservation of judgment is applied to actions that don't effect you while emotional appeals are applied when it does.
Man, it's so easy to dismiss an argument by saying someone is just arguing from emotion. I don't feel like anything I said had anything to do with emotions, but I guess it makes you feel like you won the argument so I'm glad that makes you happy. It doesn't make you right, but whatever.
You were given numerous material examples which you handwaved away. No one is dismissing your argument as emotional. It's emotional because you refuse to engage with the material evidence before you and retreat to unfalsifiable definitions that are based on your feels. This means no one can prove you wrong because know one can know "you're TRUE feelings"
Typical concern trolling, seen it a million times.
I didn't handwave them away. I explained why they were wrong, if they were wrong. Also, they aren't sufficient to call something fascist anyway. They are traits of fashism, not the definition of fascism. How have I refused to engage with "the material evidence?" I engaged with all of the comments and detailed my reasoning. I don't think I'm the one being emotional. I'm not the one trying to dismiss an argument by saying someone else isn't engaging in the correct method. I think you are possibly projecting.
Next thing you'll say is that a constitutional monarchy can't be a fascist state.
Why would I say that. That is a dictator. If they meet the other requirements, sure. They aren't just because they have a single person ruling, but they could be.
Ah, so some kind of Grand Council wouldn't count either?
I don't disagree that fascism has been part of the US always but it has been everywhere, it never went away, but it really came out with trump whether you think Trump is a fascist or just a useful idiot/ opportunist capitalist is up to debate imo. But his following has a large group of fascists.
They worship trump to an almost religious degree, they use fascist symbolism, they are predominantly white and believe they have a right to rule and be on top just because, they accept minorities and some lgb (not T) people as long as it lets them get into the position of power, then turn on them ( as seen by the many leopardsatemyface posts about gay republicans)
Fascism is a specific political ideology that has some telltale signs not just a collection if evil deeds, what's the point of using words if we bend the definition to whatever we want to say?
Man, at this point the word has no more meaning. The definition has been coopted and broadened so much that anything bad is a fash
That's imperialism, fascism is a very, very specific concept.
Lol, brainlet Lenin take.
What an emotional response
That's already happening. We just do it in otuer countries. Genocide denial included.vThis wasn't Fascist enough for the libs.
I am pretty sure England allowed the Anschluss and for Germany to take parts of Czechoslovakia before WW2, because they thought that would be enough for Hitler, so does that mean England was fascist?
so does that mean England was fascist?
The biggest imperial and colonial power of perhaps all of history? yeah probably
imperliasim and colonialism =/= fascism...
Why do you conflate two different things --both bad-- but cant distinguish the definitions for each? There's a reason we have separate words for Imperialism and fascism? There's a weird fetish for this word here and you are very intent on applying it for some reason.
I can distinguish the definition for each, which is why I'm applying the label. I'm just using a different definition than you.
To perpetuate supremacy and keep an in group and out group amongst all it's colonies and populations, something that they found necessary in order to be able to extract colonial goods and maintain property, they had to build a hierarchy. That hierarchy was partially based on race. The US was a colonial state and actively engaged in the genocide of the native americans, both before and after, so much so that hitler took notice and said, gimme a slice of that. This happened with basically every colony that England took, even their first ones, like ireland, where now a very slim population actually speaks irish. I don't really feel bad in calling that kind of behavior to be like, prototypically fascist.
Maybe if you were to define fascism as integrally privatizing other public goods, like mussolini and hitler did, then that might swing things a little bit, but america and england both went and did that later on and historically have had no problem with doing that. There's really not a good definition of fascism that I've ever heard that doesn't apply to america or england, other than "oh, well, those countries were super authoritarian", and then somehow they don't recognize, say, that america has 1% of the world's prison population and a massive police state, and the level at which we propagate authoritarian governments globally in order to further our own interests. The semantic argument that people try to hash out over definitions of fascism, it's not the real crux of the issue there, it's just a kind of obfuscation of the real talking point, which is that people aren't realizing the massive amount of bullshit the imperial core has been engaging in on a near constant basis for like the past couple hundred years, and precisely how bad it really is.
Why are we creating our own definitions for words? Fascism is a term used to describe a very specific form of governance characterized by elements not included in your description. Chief among them is ruling by a dictatorship and exclusive single party.
The things you described are indeed bad things, some which have been adopted and implemented by fascist regimes as well. But just because two people engage occasionally in the same practices it doesn't make them twinsies by definition. Sometimes me and my buddy wear the same shirt, but he's a communist and I'm a liberal. Just because we wear the same shirt sometimes it doesn't suddenly make him liberal or me communist.
Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement,[1][2][3] characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race
There is a strange fetishization of this word online and it has since lost any meaning it used to originally have because now every bad thing has become a fash. It's meaningless.
Tell me that you don't know what fascism is without telling me you don't know what real fascism.
What the USA has been for a long time is an oligarchy, and there are literal Princeton studies to support it. It's only now that it's following Russia into becoming full-fledged dictatorships.
Yeah, Trump's movement is fascist, and I'm sure that we'll be in some kind of fascistic autocracy if he wins the election, but I think what this meme is trying to describe is imperialism, not fascism.
That would make sense, imperialism and colonialism go hand in hand. Maybe fascism is the inevitable consequence of when expansion is no longer possible and the imperialism and its faux patriotism turns inward.
To be honest, it's not even the "they came for you" bit, they are just coming for themselves now. I mean, if the orange idiot succeeds in dismantling NATO and imposing sanctions on US trade, China will def be the new leading superpower.
NATO is what props the dollar up. They are trying to undo the change in foreign relations the US made in WWII, and they will def get back to the pre-WWII US as a result.
Including segregation, no rights for women and no labour rights. Basically back to the days off the robber barons. And the morons will still be blaming the libruls as they lie in their bed, unable to afford a hospital while dying from silicosis.
Someone made a good point on YouTube. What does Trump mean by "black jobs"? Aren't they just jobs?
He can't even not be racist at the best of times
if the orange idiot succeeds in dismantling NATO and imposing sanctions on US trade, China will def be the new leading superpower.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly fond of the Chinese government, but it's HARD for them to become worse than the US in terms of international policy, destabilizing progressive countries, and outright promoting coups against leftist governments. China has no Vietnam carpet bombing history, no Chile or Iran coup support history, no banana-republic support history... If China were to become the new leading superpower, there is definitely much more hope for renewed strength in leftist movements around the globe compared to the current state of affairs
China has an active genocide going on, recently effectively annexed Hong Kong, and is threatening Taiwan. They're also a dictatorship, while the US at least has some semblance of democracy. A country like that exerting their power over the world unchecked seems in no way better. Probably not really worse than the US either, at least whenever there's a republican president.
China doesn't have an active genocide against Uyghur unless you're willing to argue that the US has an active genocide against black people, if you want to compare any metric.
China isn't threatening Taiwan, Taiwan is recognized as a part of China by the US and basically all of the international community since decades ago. What Taiwan has are US bases. Imagine if China had military bases in Cuba and routinely had navy maneuvers between the island and Florida.
The US has no more semblance of democracy than China again by any metric, the decisions made by the US government don't correlate with the will of the overwhelming majority, and quite literally yesterday the supreme court ruled absolute immunity for the president in all official acts. The farce of the two-party system isn't convincing anyone anymore, and it may very well stop existing altogether if one of the two parties wins the elections.
China has no comparable history of violence, oppression, colonization and destabilization as the US does, and saying otherwise is purely and simply American exceptionalism. The examples are endless. Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Bolivia, Chile, Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Guatemala, Philippines, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela... China simply doesn't even come close to the level of destabilization, dictarorship, misery and death imposed by the US in third countries.
brain dead take.
Always a racist slave state? sure. A military cult since like 1910? sure. A broken oligarchy? sure.
Unfortunately much of the world is going in the same direction… really worrying to see. A third great war seems inevitable in our lifetimes
Are you saying a country built upon colonization, Genocide and slavery has a systemic problem of oppression?
We just need to vote harder for Genocide!
a country built upon colonization, Genocide and slavery
Which country wasn't?
Probably the two most unusual things about the US are that instead of either absorbing and assimilating, killing off, or enslaving the natives we mostly relocated them and that we imported most of our slaves from overseas instead of primarily enslaving the conquered people(s). I mean those, and we're one of the later examples of all of it in history.
Which country wasn’t?
America is an outlier. Concentration camps and intentional shipping Europeans overseas with the intention to colonize an 'unpopulated land (see "thinking the Natives weren't human")
Most of history lands were conquered and populations were absorbed into a kingdom. Occasional Genocides too place but wiping such an area to replace the natives is special. Not to mention it all happened just 250 years ago.
Adolf Hitler was literally inspired by how America wiped out all the brown natives and replaced them with the white Ubermensch.
We could start by agreeing on the definition of the term. Because 30s fascism is no more, and that is a fact. What constitutes fascism in todays world?
As an Argentinian, the USA meddled with my country via dictatorship whthin operation Condor. That amounts to fascism, or at least, a subtype of it.
I think Frank Zappa warned us about this...
It's authoritarian tribalism based on nationality. In other words the forced elimination of opposition, because of the belief in one's superiority. And since one's superiority derives from their nationality, it inevitably has to include some traditional values. Any in fighting is just arguing over the meaning of their nationality. I don't understand what people don't understand or how they keep getting it wrong.
Lol true
Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
As per the wikipedia definition, it does seem the USA has been fascist towards the rest of the world, just not towards its own citizens (overtly) until now...
So if we agree fascism can apply internationally but not domestically (which is not usually how the term is described) then the meme is accurate
As per the wikipedia definition,
You stopped real close to the top of that article.
So, we have an imperialism which has both historically been in place around the globe and constantly been effecting an in-group, which exists internal to borders, and an out-group, outside them. We also have a couple different in and out groups within the US. Black people, Native americans, you name a racial minority, we've done fucked up shit to them. So, pretty textbook so far. Violent military expansionism, imperialism, and high levels of domestic racism is what most people would probably tally up fascism to be as, colloquially. They might not even pick up on a dictator being a central component. We also have corporate capture, which is pretty solidly the case in america. We have an erosion of public utilities and infrastucture. We have a police state. Fervent nationalism, controlled mass media, blatant theocratic intervention, you know, we have all the classic markers of pretty much all the definitions.
The only qualification I can cook up is that we're presumably a "democracy", right, which I didn't really even think of as being a requirement. You can have a fascist democracy, it's just a democracy where not everyone can vote, which has always been a kind of tenuous characteristic of democracy at best. We went from wealthy, white male land owners being the ones to vote, to rapidly most everyone being able to vote, actually fairly recently, in the grand history of the US. Especially horrible once you factor in gerrymandering, segregation, white flight, and redlining, which means that the average black voter had much less say (and still does have much less say) than your average white voter. We also elect people, who elect people, with more or less vote weight on both a local basis through gerrymandering and more or less weight on a per state basis through the electoral college, in a fptp system, where a kind of nash equilibrium ensures that there's only gonna ever be two viable parties or candidates in local, state, or federal elections, for pretty much the majority of america.
So, we're a "democracy", but I would say that we're only a democracy insofar as a 5 month old fetus could be considered a human. We might consider athens to have been a "democracy", too, right, according to the formal definition, but if only white male landowners can vote, then that's already such a subset of the population that you might legitimately be closer to an oligarchy at that point. And both an oligarchy and a democracy can be plenty fascist. Hell, the germans arrived at their fascism through mostly totally legitimate democratic processes.
So, I mean, yeah, america's pretty much always been a fascist country, sorry to break it to ya.
thank you
This just isn’t true
How so?
Their killings of minorities were just run of the mill racism. A bottom up approach if you will
Based
And this is why 405000 Americans lost lives fighting against nazism and Japan imperialism? I do not belive how this is both offensive and stupid.
They did it to uphold Anglo imperialism. That's why they intentionally let the Holocaust happen and were fully prepared to integrate Nazi Germany into the international order after their invasion of Poland.
Also why they spent the next 60 years fighting to keep colonies from gaining independence.
This reminds me far right conspiracy theories
I seriously recommend you to read about imperialism. Imperialist nations (i.e. late stage capitalistic, industrialized nations, with sufficient accumulation of capital and sufficient development of monopolies, trusts and cartels, to the point of the most profitable action being the export of capital to other, poorer nations, with or without the consent of the locals), clash with each other in these attempts to expand their sphere of influence. This happened in WW1, WW2, and we're seeing it again with the Russian-NATO conflict which led to the Ukraine invasion.
Right, and the heroic Soviets also fought to combat the evil that were the Nazis, because they were natural enemies, no other reason no...
/s (just in case it wasn't obvious.)
Being a facist doesn't stop you from fighting other fascists, especially when those other fascists are fucking with your shit. The only difference until now was that the two parties managed to deadlock each other needing the support of an uncaring populace to gain total power. Once one ultimately wins, this whole "pillar of democracy" thing is over. Having literally only 2 parties for centuries is a bad omen for democracy.
oOoOO yet another damage control meme delivered to you by DNC.
Unless Biden steps down this week I think it is inevitable.
Thats prob gonna cause a repeat of the Democratic party post LBJ
I hadn't really ever directly connected the two, but yeah the Democratic party has always had problems organizing. Hopefully, if we are forced into a similar situation, we get it right this fucking time.
No parties like this bullshit two party Winner Takes all bullshit, if we're going to pretend like democracy is a viable option. If anything can be said of the differences between back then and now, I would guess that overall the Democratic party at least appears to be more humble in the past than it is now despite being humiliated by a clown is such as Trump. The party's and this country's eventual downfall I think could be boiled down to everyone that isn't in the Oligarchy's Breast Pocket, being unwilling to compromise or even speak their neighbors, who might disagree with them.
Either the left bites the fucking bullet and humble itself enough to figure out some way of getting through to at least a chunk of the Republican voter base, or get really comfortable with becoming fascist itself and propagating its own brand of violence, to the point of killing.
Unless trump steps down.
Terrorist shithole doing terrorist shithole things. They had a good run for over a hundred years. I hope Trump burns it to the ground.
Be me
Moran (sic)
"Lmao, when the US collapses, they totally won't make it everyone's problem"
Imagine it looking like Russia's collapse if Russia's military was the most expensive in the world with the among the best logistics, and 800 military bases across 70 countries. That's about the future of it.
It's so funny to me as a European that, to explain evil to US citizens, all you need to do is to swap "US" for "Russia" and suddenly everyone understands
Are you under the impression that Trump’s destruction of the US won’t involve him doing 10 times more terroristic things all over the world?
Or that the powers that will invade the power vacuum left by a US collapse wouldn’t instantly start resuming the exact same terrorism, and worse, that you are (with every righteous reason) opposing when the US is doing it?
He must be in the "but I did nothing, for I was not _____" stage.
A lot of people seem to be under the impression that if open fascists spouting fascist rhetoric at every opportunity take full control of THE MOST EXPENSIVE MILITARY IN THE WORLD, that it will just self-implode into a nice neat little controlled demolition.
Lmao that is naive at best. And actually wishing for it is downright stupid. I don't want Russia to collapse and kill itself, I want the scum leading their politics and militaries to be dealt with in the only manner befitting such filth. Anyone wishing different for the US or Russia, or ANY current or former world superpower that still has massive amounts of sway and firepower, is just wishing for collateral damage.
When shit hits the fan, it goes everywhere. When their backs are against a wall, they will strike out and take what they want, to hell with the fallout. Possibly literal.
A sad number of people just go "[large country] bad lol die" like their lives will be unaffected by such a massive global power shift.
100% right. It is the temptation for easy solutions.
Turns out all that was needed to eliminate war and oppression was to pick out one semi-democratic country that’s doing it, and don’t vote in their elections, and bingo! Fascists take over, country collapses, no war and oppression anymore. I am amazed it was so easy the whole time and people were wasting their time with all these other more complicated structures and efforts to get it done.
Of course the void will be filled by other terrorist nations. But none of them have the power and capabilities of the US. It's like replacing a shooter with a stabber. Still shit, but less so. Plus, who knows, maybe the EU will finally step up.
the power vacuum
power vacuums are fictions created by intelligence agencies to justify propping up regimes. they are not inevitable natural phenomena
Does your mommy know you're on the computer
they admin the instance with (last i checked) the largest lemmy community (c/piracy). does your mommy know you can't read?
America is sitting on enough nuclear ordinance to end the earths period of habitability… if she falls then who knows what happens with those nukes, is that really a future you want to risk?
People seem to forget that we actually maintain those things, and we are the only ones that have ever used one, well two. The only way the American collapse goes softly for the rest of the world is under a liberal or leftist government. They'll focus internally. Trump literally tried to use nukes multiple times in his last administration.
Even if a collapsing America doesn’t use it, I would be very concerned about all of it ending up in the hands of whatever successor state(s) and what they might do with it. A major concern of the world with the Soviet Union collapse was the status of the nukes and making sure random warlords and terrorist groups didn’t somehow get ahold of the nukes or fissile materials from the nukes since they likely couldn’t attain the nuke and launch code
I don't have a future.
Sounds like we should let Russia continue because they have nukes.
No but we have to be very careful about handling Russia because of it. The world was terrified when the Soviet Union collapsed because of all the nuclear ordinance they were sitting on now being potentially insecure. Luckily it didn’t get dispersed and used by random warlords fighting in a power vacuum, that time, there’s no guarantee the same happens if Russia or America fail as states now
The US losing their hegemony doesn't mean the US collapsing. Can, though. Still, an end in horror is preferable to an horror without end. It's hard to justify a terrorist nation with there might be more terrorism while it crashes.
I mean, I don’t want the world ending in nuclear fire, no matter the alternative.
I think it's stupid to say they have always been fascist, but people definitely don't grasp what fascism is, they think it's people marching in nice grey uniforms on the street and concentration camps out in the open and if you try to call anything that's not that they call you stupid and overreacting
"All men are created equal"
is slave state
Always has been
Best not to use to academic language when dealing with those that Academia has failed so thoroughly. Or the ones who already know and don't care cuz they got enough of a kickback from kicking down.
Would you say it might apply to an openly genocidal state conquering its neighbors?
How about when that state also has up to 30% of its population by region in racial chattel slavery?
How about when the genocide is done and the slavery ended but it still enforces apartheid politics?
How about when it overthrows the government of any neighbor it disagrees with?
Invades other countries and kills millions?
But, hey. It's not technically fascism as long it's white men voting to do that, right? They usually weren't even Italian! It's stupid to call it fascism when it doesn't come from Rome!
Those are definitely trait you'd expect from fascism, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient to be fascist. Fascism is not just doing a bad thing. It's a very specific set of traits, which the US does not meet —in my opinion and any other informed opinion that I've seen.
Uh huh.
So when I kick down your door and execute you for not agreeing with me politically, it won't be a fascist action, good to know.
But, hey, as FUN LITTLE EXCERCISE let's look at Umberto Eco's 14 points.
1: The cult of tradition/syncretism
Fun Fact: we're based on a model of the Roman Republic. You know, the thing that conquered all its neighbors and turned into an Empire? It's not like we adopted any of their other symbols, right? Definitely don't have a fasces in the House Chamber.
It's not like the fastest growing religion in this country is the one where they pretend Jesus came to America to bless it specifically. Fuck Australia and South America tho.
2: Rejection of modernism
Ok, fair enough, never been a big failure of America until recently. America was founded on Enlightenment ideals, whether or not it lived up to them. Gosh, it's a good thing they haven't been dirty words in the right for a century!
3: Action for action's sake. Thinking is a form of emasculation.
Don't even try.
4: Disagreement is treason.
Okay, fair enough, we're a contentious bunch, and we can all agree that as long as they aren't a filthy commie we can all say the things we basically agree on.
5: Ur-fascism is racist by definition. Fear of differences is a primary motivation.
Bro. The genocides... Plural. And ever present.
6: Appeal to social frustrations.
I mean, literally how people get elected.
7: The obsession with a narrative.
The American Experiment (didn't invent democracy or republics btw). Manifest Destiny. The Lost Cause. American Exceptionalism. Even The Arsenal of Democracy. The Red Menace. The Deep State.
8: The enemy is both weak and strong.
The savage Indians need Civilization or they'll kill you in their sleep! Let's go take their land! These Africans are like children that need to be guided! They'll also kill you in your sleep! These commies are starving and will conquer the world!
9: Pacifism is treason.
Find an American that's an actual pacifist without being part of a weird religious cult (that actually reads the Bible)
10: Contempt for the weak.
Lol.
11: The cult of the hero.
The cult of individualism. See also: Lol.
12: Machismo and weapon fetishization.
...
13: Selective populism.
The silent majority. The educated voter. The landowners. The slave holders. The petite bourgeois.
You fucking done with your denial yet?
14: Newspeak. Fascism employs a deliberately limited vocabulary to stifle dissent.
Go unalive yourself, you deliberately blinded ostrich.
(Don't actually, but maybe grow the fuck up and realize that times we fought monarchists and Nazis doesn't change everything else)
It could be. They can do that without being fascist as well. It is neither necessary nor sufficient.
Im probably not going to go through all these, but for 1 your example is far too broad. Every single thing we make is inspired by other things in the past. That's how we improve. A cult of tradition is more like saying "we are the third Roman empire (third riech), and we are deserving of inheriting their history. We will enforce this idea and destroy anything counter to it." America does have better examples of this that what you used though. I wouldn't argue it doesn't have a cult of tradition.
For 8, that's also a bad example. I don't think there was an idea the natives were strong. They were just savage and violent. They needed us to "civilize" them was the (bullshit) idea. I don't recall seeing much ever about them being particularly strong, just murderous and evil. A better example, though you have to get fairly modern, is communism. It's both a useless form of government destined to fail, but also we need to send solders and spies all over to protect other countries from falling to it.
9 we do not have really. We are fairly jingoist as a nation, but it's never (or rarely) said to be treason to disagree. After 9/11 it would be hard to be elected whole disagreeing with a war, but Bernie Sanders did and has done fairly well politically and not executed for treason.
11 is not about individualism. It's about every person needs to live their life for the glory of the nation. Individualism is anti-hero. A hero should live their lives (and die) for others. Individualism is you should be self-serving.
Wow dude. Wtf is wrong with you? What did I do to you?
No. Obviously not. I never said such. Things change over time and the same nation could be fascist at one point and anarchist at another. Don't imply I said something that I didn't please. This is actually an argument against the US "always" being fascist though, because we haven't met all the traits you've listed at the same time, even using the examples you gave which I don't agree with. Any nation will meet all of those eventually if you give it enough time.
Also, these are traits of fascism. They are not definitionally fascist. Again, probably the main point of fascism is a dictatorship. Without that you can only be fash-ish not fascist.
The US has a centuries long history of genocide and enslavement that continue into today. All their power and wealth is predicated on this bloodshed in the here and now. And it was all done for the sake of private interests.
You deny that it was always fascism because you and your family are settler house servants in this scheme. You get a small piece of property and a middle class lifestyle in exchange for your implicit support for the US to continue to eat the bodies of he colonized and impoverished.
I don't deny it's fascism because I benefit from it. It's because imperialism is not the definition of fascism or we wouldn't have two very different words for that. You want to call it fascism because your political vocabulary apparently sucks. Fascism is not just a synonym for something bad, which I agree the US has done tons of evil. It just isn't that specific word.
My political vocabulary doesn't suck. You're a typical reactionary tankie that thinks that using Lenin's outdated analysis and calling it Marxism gives you the authority to dismiss the grievances of the colonized.
Marxism and capitalism doesn't have stages. Where capitalism exists all of Marx's critiques apply. You use the tied old "muh imperialism" argument because you're a Russian chauvinist that fears that the fascist accusations could apply to current day Russia and the fallen Soviet Union.
Lol. Getting called a tanky for saying America isn't fascist. That's different. I don't know why you're talking about Russia.
Okay fair enough, you're just a western fascist stooge.
Why are you intent on muddling the meaning of words?
The guy you are arguing with conceded that America did bad things, just those things are called something else. What is it with the fetishization of this word in particular?
We can all agree:
Imperialism=bad
Fascism=bad
Imperialism definitionally is not fascism. Words have meaning for a reason.
It's pretty clear that your definition of fascism is heavily predicated on your feelings. And that judicious reservation of judgment is applied to actions that don't effect you while emotional appeals are applied when it does.
Man, it's so easy to dismiss an argument by saying someone is just arguing from emotion. I don't feel like anything I said had anything to do with emotions, but I guess it makes you feel like you won the argument so I'm glad that makes you happy. It doesn't make you right, but whatever.
You were given numerous material examples which you handwaved away. No one is dismissing your argument as emotional. It's emotional because you refuse to engage with the material evidence before you and retreat to unfalsifiable definitions that are based on your feels. This means no one can prove you wrong because know one can know "you're TRUE feelings" Typical concern trolling, seen it a million times.
I didn't handwave them away. I explained why they were wrong, if they were wrong. Also, they aren't sufficient to call something fascist anyway. They are traits of fashism, not the definition of fascism. How have I refused to engage with "the material evidence?" I engaged with all of the comments and detailed my reasoning. I don't think I'm the one being emotional. I'm not the one trying to dismiss an argument by saying someone else isn't engaging in the correct method. I think you are possibly projecting.
Next thing you'll say is that a constitutional monarchy can't be a fascist state.
Why would I say that. That is a dictator. If they meet the other requirements, sure. They aren't just because they have a single person ruling, but they could be.
Ah, so some kind of Grand Council wouldn't count either?
It's only fascism when it's effects me you see.
Doing evil things =/= fascism.
Fascists do evil things, so do others.
I think this is the best video on fascism https://youtu.be/5Luu1Beb8ng?si=Bfyx8qpyz9EbuFQX
I don't disagree that fascism has been part of the US always but it has been everywhere, it never went away, but it really came out with trump whether you think Trump is a fascist or just a useful idiot/ opportunist capitalist is up to debate imo. But his following has a large group of fascists.
They worship trump to an almost religious degree, they use fascist symbolism, they are predominantly white and believe they have a right to rule and be on top just because, they accept minorities and some lgb (not T) people as long as it lets them get into the position of power, then turn on them ( as seen by the many leopardsatemyface posts about gay republicans)
Fascism is a specific political ideology that has some telltale signs not just a collection if evil deeds, what's the point of using words if we bend the definition to whatever we want to say?
Man, at this point the word has no more meaning. The definition has been coopted and broadened so much that anything bad is a fash
That's imperialism, fascism is a very, very specific concept.
Lol, brainlet Lenin take.
What an emotional response
That's already happening. We just do it in otuer countries. Genocide denial included.vThis wasn't Fascist enough for the libs.
I am pretty sure England allowed the Anschluss and for Germany to take parts of Czechoslovakia before WW2, because they thought that would be enough for Hitler, so does that mean England was fascist?
The biggest imperial and colonial power of perhaps all of history? yeah probably
imperliasim and colonialism =/= fascism...
Why do you conflate two different things --both bad-- but cant distinguish the definitions for each? There's a reason we have separate words for Imperialism and fascism? There's a weird fetish for this word here and you are very intent on applying it for some reason.
I can distinguish the definition for each, which is why I'm applying the label. I'm just using a different definition than you.
To perpetuate supremacy and keep an in group and out group amongst all it's colonies and populations, something that they found necessary in order to be able to extract colonial goods and maintain property, they had to build a hierarchy. That hierarchy was partially based on race. The US was a colonial state and actively engaged in the genocide of the native americans, both before and after, so much so that hitler took notice and said, gimme a slice of that. This happened with basically every colony that England took, even their first ones, like ireland, where now a very slim population actually speaks irish. I don't really feel bad in calling that kind of behavior to be like, prototypically fascist.
Maybe if you were to define fascism as integrally privatizing other public goods, like mussolini and hitler did, then that might swing things a little bit, but america and england both went and did that later on and historically have had no problem with doing that. There's really not a good definition of fascism that I've ever heard that doesn't apply to america or england, other than "oh, well, those countries were super authoritarian", and then somehow they don't recognize, say, that america has 1% of the world's prison population and a massive police state, and the level at which we propagate authoritarian governments globally in order to further our own interests. The semantic argument that people try to hash out over definitions of fascism, it's not the real crux of the issue there, it's just a kind of obfuscation of the real talking point, which is that people aren't realizing the massive amount of bullshit the imperial core has been engaging in on a near constant basis for like the past couple hundred years, and precisely how bad it really is.
Why are we creating our own definitions for words? Fascism is a term used to describe a very specific form of governance characterized by elements not included in your description. Chief among them is ruling by a dictatorship and exclusive single party.
The things you described are indeed bad things, some which have been adopted and implemented by fascist regimes as well. But just because two people engage occasionally in the same practices it doesn't make them twinsies by definition. Sometimes me and my buddy wear the same shirt, but he's a communist and I'm a liberal. Just because we wear the same shirt sometimes it doesn't suddenly make him liberal or me communist.
Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement,[1][2][3] characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race
There is a strange fetishization of this word online and it has since lost any meaning it used to originally have because now every bad thing has become a fash. It's meaningless.
Tell me that you don't know what fascism is without telling me you don't know what real fascism.
What the USA has been for a long time is an oligarchy, and there are literal Princeton studies to support it. It's only now that it's following Russia into becoming full-fledged dictatorships.
Yeah, Trump's movement is fascist, and I'm sure that we'll be in some kind of fascistic autocracy if he wins the election, but I think what this meme is trying to describe is imperialism, not fascism.
That would make sense, imperialism and colonialism go hand in hand. Maybe fascism is the inevitable consequence of when expansion is no longer possible and the imperialism and its faux patriotism turns inward.
Why not both
To be honest, it's not even the "they came for you" bit, they are just coming for themselves now. I mean, if the orange idiot succeeds in dismantling NATO and imposing sanctions on US trade, China will def be the new leading superpower.
NATO is what props the dollar up. They are trying to undo the change in foreign relations the US made in WWII, and they will def get back to the pre-WWII US as a result.
Including segregation, no rights for women and no labour rights. Basically back to the days off the robber barons. And the morons will still be blaming the libruls as they lie in their bed, unable to afford a hospital while dying from silicosis.
Someone made a good point on YouTube. What does Trump mean by "black jobs"? Aren't they just jobs?
He can't even not be racist at the best of times
Don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly fond of the Chinese government, but it's HARD for them to become worse than the US in terms of international policy, destabilizing progressive countries, and outright promoting coups against leftist governments. China has no Vietnam carpet bombing history, no Chile or Iran coup support history, no banana-republic support history... If China were to become the new leading superpower, there is definitely much more hope for renewed strength in leftist movements around the globe compared to the current state of affairs
China has an active genocide going on, recently effectively annexed Hong Kong, and is threatening Taiwan. They're also a dictatorship, while the US at least has some semblance of democracy. A country like that exerting their power over the world unchecked seems in no way better. Probably not really worse than the US either, at least whenever there's a republican president.
China doesn't have an active genocide against Uyghur unless you're willing to argue that the US has an active genocide against black people, if you want to compare any metric.
China isn't threatening Taiwan, Taiwan is recognized as a part of China by the US and basically all of the international community since decades ago. What Taiwan has are US bases. Imagine if China had military bases in Cuba and routinely had navy maneuvers between the island and Florida.
The US has no more semblance of democracy than China again by any metric, the decisions made by the US government don't correlate with the will of the overwhelming majority, and quite literally yesterday the supreme court ruled absolute immunity for the president in all official acts. The farce of the two-party system isn't convincing anyone anymore, and it may very well stop existing altogether if one of the two parties wins the elections.
China has no comparable history of violence, oppression, colonization and destabilization as the US does, and saying otherwise is purely and simply American exceptionalism. The examples are endless. Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Bolivia, Chile, Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Guatemala, Philippines, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela... China simply doesn't even come close to the level of destabilization, dictarorship, misery and death imposed by the US in third countries.
brain dead take.
Always a racist slave state? sure. A military cult since like 1910? sure. A broken oligarchy? sure.
Fascist? defs heading that way. Not always.
You clearly don't know tour hustory.
France going the same direction.
Unfortunately much of the world is going in the same direction… really worrying to see. A third great war seems inevitable in our lifetimes
Are you saying a country built upon colonization, Genocide and slavery has a systemic problem of oppression?
We just need to vote harder for Genocide!
Which country wasn't?
Probably the two most unusual things about the US are that instead of either absorbing and assimilating, killing off, or enslaving the natives we mostly relocated them and that we imported most of our slaves from overseas instead of primarily enslaving the conquered people(s). I mean those, and we're one of the later examples of all of it in history.
America is an outlier. Concentration camps and intentional shipping Europeans overseas with the intention to colonize an 'unpopulated land (see "thinking the Natives weren't human")
Most of history lands were conquered and populations were absorbed into a kingdom. Occasional Genocides too place but wiping such an area to replace the natives is special. Not to mention it all happened just 250 years ago.
Adolf Hitler was literally inspired by how America wiped out all the brown natives and replaced them with the white Ubermensch.
We could start by agreeing on the definition of the term. Because 30s fascism is no more, and that is a fact. What constitutes fascism in todays world? As an Argentinian, the USA meddled with my country via dictatorship whthin operation Condor. That amounts to fascism, or at least, a subtype of it. I think Frank Zappa warned us about this...
It's authoritarian tribalism based on nationality. In other words the forced elimination of opposition, because of the belief in one's superiority. And since one's superiority derives from their nationality, it inevitably has to include some traditional values. Any in fighting is just arguing over the meaning of their nationality. I don't understand what people don't understand or how they keep getting it wrong.
Lol true
As per the wikipedia definition, it does seem the USA has been fascist towards the rest of the world, just not towards its own citizens (overtly) until now...
So if we agree fascism can apply internationally but not domestically (which is not usually how the term is described) then the meme is accurate
You stopped real close to the top of that article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism#By_scholars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism#Umberto_Eco
So, we have an imperialism which has both historically been in place around the globe and constantly been effecting an in-group, which exists internal to borders, and an out-group, outside them. We also have a couple different in and out groups within the US. Black people, Native americans, you name a racial minority, we've done fucked up shit to them. So, pretty textbook so far. Violent military expansionism, imperialism, and high levels of domestic racism is what most people would probably tally up fascism to be as, colloquially. They might not even pick up on a dictator being a central component. We also have corporate capture, which is pretty solidly the case in america. We have an erosion of public utilities and infrastucture. We have a police state. Fervent nationalism, controlled mass media, blatant theocratic intervention, you know, we have all the classic markers of pretty much all the definitions.
The only qualification I can cook up is that we're presumably a "democracy", right, which I didn't really even think of as being a requirement. You can have a fascist democracy, it's just a democracy where not everyone can vote, which has always been a kind of tenuous characteristic of democracy at best. We went from wealthy, white male land owners being the ones to vote, to rapidly most everyone being able to vote, actually fairly recently, in the grand history of the US. Especially horrible once you factor in gerrymandering, segregation, white flight, and redlining, which means that the average black voter had much less say (and still does have much less say) than your average white voter. We also elect people, who elect people, with more or less vote weight on both a local basis through gerrymandering and more or less weight on a per state basis through the electoral college, in a fptp system, where a kind of nash equilibrium ensures that there's only gonna ever be two viable parties or candidates in local, state, or federal elections, for pretty much the majority of america.
So, we're a "democracy", but I would say that we're only a democracy insofar as a 5 month old fetus could be considered a human. We might consider athens to have been a "democracy", too, right, according to the formal definition, but if only white male landowners can vote, then that's already such a subset of the population that you might legitimately be closer to an oligarchy at that point. And both an oligarchy and a democracy can be plenty fascist. Hell, the germans arrived at their fascism through mostly totally legitimate democratic processes.
So, I mean, yeah, america's pretty much always been a fascist country, sorry to break it to ya.
thank you
This just isn’t true
How so?
Their killings of minorities were just run of the mill racism. A bottom up approach if you will
Based
And this is why 405000 Americans lost lives fighting against nazism and Japan imperialism? I do not belive how this is both offensive and stupid.
They did it to uphold Anglo imperialism. That's why they intentionally let the Holocaust happen and were fully prepared to integrate Nazi Germany into the international order after their invasion of Poland.
Also why they spent the next 60 years fighting to keep colonies from gaining independence.
This reminds me far right conspiracy theories
I seriously recommend you to read about imperialism. Imperialist nations (i.e. late stage capitalistic, industrialized nations, with sufficient accumulation of capital and sufficient development of monopolies, trusts and cartels, to the point of the most profitable action being the export of capital to other, poorer nations, with or without the consent of the locals), clash with each other in these attempts to expand their sphere of influence. This happened in WW1, WW2, and we're seeing it again with the Russian-NATO conflict which led to the Ukraine invasion.
Right, and the heroic Soviets also fought to combat the evil that were the Nazis, because they were natural enemies, no other reason no... /s (just in case it wasn't obvious.)
Being a facist doesn't stop you from fighting other fascists, especially when those other fascists are fucking with your shit. The only difference until now was that the two parties managed to deadlock each other needing the support of an uncaring populace to gain total power. Once one ultimately wins, this whole "pillar of democracy" thing is over. Having literally only 2 parties for centuries is a bad omen for democracy.
Oopsie poopsie
oOoOO yet another damage control meme delivered to you by DNC.
Unless Biden steps down this week I think it is inevitable.
Thats prob gonna cause a repeat of the Democratic party post LBJ
I hadn't really ever directly connected the two, but yeah the Democratic party has always had problems organizing. Hopefully, if we are forced into a similar situation, we get it right this fucking time.
No parties like this bullshit two party Winner Takes all bullshit, if we're going to pretend like democracy is a viable option. If anything can be said of the differences between back then and now, I would guess that overall the Democratic party at least appears to be more humble in the past than it is now despite being humiliated by a clown is such as Trump. The party's and this country's eventual downfall I think could be boiled down to everyone that isn't in the Oligarchy's Breast Pocket, being unwilling to compromise or even speak their neighbors, who might disagree with them.
Either the left bites the fucking bullet and humble itself enough to figure out some way of getting through to at least a chunk of the Republican voter base, or get really comfortable with becoming fascist itself and propagating its own brand of violence, to the point of killing.
Unless trump steps down.
Terrorist shithole doing terrorist shithole things. They had a good run for over a hundred years. I hope Trump burns it to the ground.
Imagine it looking like Russia's collapse if Russia's military was the most expensive in the world with the among the best logistics, and 800 military bases across 70 countries. That's about the future of it.
It's so funny to me as a European that, to explain evil to US citizens, all you need to do is to swap "US" for "Russia" and suddenly everyone understands
Are you under the impression that Trump’s destruction of the US won’t involve him doing 10 times more terroristic things all over the world?
Or that the powers that will invade the power vacuum left by a US collapse wouldn’t instantly start resuming the exact same terrorism, and worse, that you are (with every righteous reason) opposing when the US is doing it?
He must be in the "but I did nothing, for I was not _____" stage.
A lot of people seem to be under the impression that if open fascists spouting fascist rhetoric at every opportunity take full control of THE MOST EXPENSIVE MILITARY IN THE WORLD, that it will just self-implode into a nice neat little controlled demolition.
Lmao that is naive at best. And actually wishing for it is downright stupid. I don't want Russia to collapse and kill itself, I want the scum leading their politics and militaries to be dealt with in the only manner befitting such filth. Anyone wishing different for the US or Russia, or ANY current or former world superpower that still has massive amounts of sway and firepower, is just wishing for collateral damage.
When shit hits the fan, it goes everywhere. When their backs are against a wall, they will strike out and take what they want, to hell with the fallout. Possibly literal.
A sad number of people just go "[large country] bad lol die" like their lives will be unaffected by such a massive global power shift.
100% right. It is the temptation for easy solutions.
Turns out all that was needed to eliminate war and oppression was to pick out one semi-democratic country that’s doing it, and don’t vote in their elections, and bingo! Fascists take over, country collapses, no war and oppression anymore. I am amazed it was so easy the whole time and people were wasting their time with all these other more complicated structures and efforts to get it done.
Of course the void will be filled by other terrorist nations. But none of them have the power and capabilities of the US. It's like replacing a shooter with a stabber. Still shit, but less so. Plus, who knows, maybe the EU will finally step up.
power vacuums are fictions created by intelligence agencies to justify propping up regimes. they are not inevitable natural phenomena
Does your mommy know you're on the computer
they admin the instance with (last i checked) the largest lemmy community (c/piracy). does your mommy know you can't read?
America is sitting on enough nuclear ordinance to end the earths period of habitability… if she falls then who knows what happens with those nukes, is that really a future you want to risk?
People seem to forget that we actually maintain those things, and we are the only ones that have ever used one, well two. The only way the American collapse goes softly for the rest of the world is under a liberal or leftist government. They'll focus internally. Trump literally tried to use nukes multiple times in his last administration.
Even if a collapsing America doesn’t use it, I would be very concerned about all of it ending up in the hands of whatever successor state(s) and what they might do with it. A major concern of the world with the Soviet Union collapse was the status of the nukes and making sure random warlords and terrorist groups didn’t somehow get ahold of the nukes or fissile materials from the nukes since they likely couldn’t attain the nuke and launch code
I don't have a future.
Sounds like we should let Russia continue because they have nukes.
No but we have to be very careful about handling Russia because of it. The world was terrified when the Soviet Union collapsed because of all the nuclear ordinance they were sitting on now being potentially insecure. Luckily it didn’t get dispersed and used by random warlords fighting in a power vacuum, that time, there’s no guarantee the same happens if Russia or America fail as states now
The US losing their hegemony doesn't mean the US collapsing. Can, though. Still, an end in horror is preferable to an horror without end. It's hard to justify a terrorist nation with there might be more terrorism while it crashes.
I mean, I don’t want the world ending in nuclear fire, no matter the alternative.
That's what Russia is telling us as well