Fascism is back is Fashion

To my way of thinking, the art of good blogging may require more than simply recounting other people's facts, or reciting the contents of one's day, but must, of necessity, be brief. To that end, a precise and innovative juxtaposition is a useful tool.

On the topic of tools, today's juxtaposition is that of far-right ideologues, and their histrionic allegations of 'fascism'.

The progressive side of politics has often between too quick to throw out the 'f' word when denouncing an opponent. Today, 'fascism' has been re-appropriated by the right, and is used in conjunction with the term 'Islam', on a variety of racist and imbecilic sites of which these are but a limited sample. (Less often, but nonetheless regularly, such sites also peddle the utterly disproved notion that fascism is a variant of progressive, or even Green thought. This accusation is not even worth the time of refuting again). Before venturing to any of these sites, please be sure to wear gloves.

It is for good reason that 'fascism' is a term of fear and abuse - despite Marx's assertions to the contrary, fascism is the spectre that is haunting Europe, and much of the rest of the world, given that the destruction unleashed by the Nazis was without precedent or successor.

So what is fascism? I can think of no better, succinct definition than that provided by historian Robert O. Paxton:

Fascism may be
defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with
community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of
unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist
militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional
elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and
without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external
expansion.

Where have those of us of Antipodean extraction seen such a definition made manifest? We could start by point out certain riots that occurred in the Anglophone enclaves of suburban Sydney. Despite the post-hoc apologetics offered by the usual cohort of media brownshirts, who moved swiftly to blame the riots on the 'problem' of olive-skinned victims, evidence emerged of far-right nationalist groups attempting to galvanise support for a proto-fascist movement. The rationale for rioters was one of retaliation for alleged crimes by Muslim Lebanese youth. The reprisal consisted of street (or beach) rioting, by violent drunks, egged on by Australia's own bogan stormtroopers.

Whilst the riots themselves have, thankfully, not been repeated elsewhere in the country, the mentality underlying this has persisted. I shall call this the 'fascist mentality', without any attempt to be ironic or melodramatic. For, if we look at Paxton's definition, and examine some of the unpleasant media/Internet sources I listed above, we find a disturbingly close correspondence:

- 'Obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation and victimhood'; particularly in terms of the perceived evils of 'multiculturalism', and the perceived benefits apparently afforded to minorities. There are no shortage of examples from the sources above of commenters who loudly proclaim that white, middle-class Australia (or America) is the 'victim' of Islam. Note also that the 'elites', according to the perverse logic of far-right ideology, are not those with money or power, but with 'culture', that is, the intellectual left, compared to whom everybody is supposedly impoverished.

- 'Uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites'; we have seen how one such elite, Alan Jones, had his wrist slapped for his encouragement of the riots, and we have also seen how our fearless leader, Howard, was more than willing to accommodate such encouragement. The enablers of thuggery in the media (Bolt, Blair, Devine, et. al.) also reflect collaboration with 'elites'.

'Internal cleansing and external expansion'; It must be said that examples of 'internal cleansing' have been mercifully few and far between. All the same, the calls for such cleansing are sounding increasingly less like 'dog whistles' and more like outright barking. The will to 'external expansion' is expressed through Australian military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and through vicarious support for US and Israeli expansionism. It is profoundly ironic that many of the rightards who express the most virulent contempt for Palestinians, and the most uncritical support for Israel, are precisely those who, 70 years ago, would have been baying for Jewish blood, and debating, in the German and Austrian broadsheets, possible solutions to the 'Jewish problem'. Today they content themselves with the 'Islamic problem'.

One of the best refutations of anti-Semitic stereotypes that I have encountered is in James Joyce's Ulysses. In it, a character responds to the alleged financial deviousness of the Jews by retorting that a merchant is he who buys low, and sells high, Jew or Gentile. Whilst this is pure 'common-sense', it is also, incidentally, the properly Marxist response. We might also say, today, that a criminal is he who commits terror against others, whether Jew, Christian, Gentile, Muslim, or American Republican. Unfortunately, our rightards do not read Joyce; still less do they read Marx.

A contemporary fascism in Australia needs enemies, internal and external. The external enemies are to be found in the Middle East, whilst the internal enemies (Muslims, 'liberal elites') are relentlessly demonised in the media. 'Mooslims' now assume the place that 'the Rooskies' once held - an uncontrollable menace that is supposedly supported by the cultural elite. This is in spite of the fact that, even in the face of a monolithic superpower such as the USSR, communism never came remotely close to taking root in Australia or the US.

So what are we to make of this nascent fascism amongst our rightard friends? Slavoj Žižek mentions, in his latest book, The Parallax View, that the American expansionist project, of delivering Judeo-Christian values, 'freedom', 'democracy', 'justice', is not without its 'other'. That is to say, the sexual sadism, and senseless torture of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib is not incidental to America's project, nor is it a case of 'a few bad apples'. Rather, it is what Žižek calls the 'obscene underside', the perverse but inevitable corollary of American values of 'justice', 'freedom', etc.

The 'obscene underside' of this neo-fascism can be found in those conspiracy theorists who contend that 11/9 was the work of Jewish intriguers, who also, incidentally, control world finance and the media. These sorts of statements, quite rightly dismissed and ridiculed, are formally identical to the ravings of degenerate nationalist psychopaths, who pontificate about the 'growing threat' of conspiratorial Islam, and who cite the birth rates of various nations as 'proof' that the world is in the midst of an Islamic takeover. This, however, is no different to the 11/9 nutters who contend that the sciences of engineering or ballistics are 'proof' that the collapse of the Twin Towers was an 'inside job'. No reasonable person could abide by either theory, or accept the gross politicisation of science for such unenlightened ends.

It is striking that one paranoid conspiracy theory is routinely dismissed by individuals of all political persuasions, whilst the other is not merely tolerated, but openly supported by many sections of mainstream politics and media. Nonetheless, these are merely two sides of the same paranoid, proto-fascist coin, and are strictly equivalent. For an Australian or American to allege that Muslims are taking over the world is no different to the 1930's anti-Semites who ranted about Jews controlling world finance. That some terrorists and criminals have been Muslim is no more proof of the former than is the fact of some Jews being wealthy a proof of the latter. Of course, evidence makes little difference to these deluded souls, these botched human beings.The sooner such things are realised, the sooner the venom of these budding brownshirts, will be neutralised.

The Other Terror

With all this talk about swarthy, bearded doctors wanting to kill us all, one might be mistaken for thinking that nationalist fascist imbecility wasn't on the rise. Not so, it seems.

It is reasonably well-known that in Russia, and the former USSR states, anti-ethnic, anti-gay, and anti-everything nationalists have been on the rise. So too, in the US, proto-fascists and 'militias' still exist, though they are purportedly 'in a down cycle'. A recent article, written by a Hungarian member of Parliament, (ignored by our patriotic crusaders against terror around the world), pointed to the rise of ugly right-wing nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe.

It is still unseemly to mention such things. Though fascist movements wreaked more death and destruction within a short time-frame than any other ideology, one is apparently a 'moral relativist' to attribute evil to any political movement other than the left or radical Islam. According to our contemporary post-modern, right-wing ethicists, fascism is not nearly the same danger as Robert Manne, or the menacing hijab.

Nonetheless, the excellent Lenin's Tomb pointed me to this article about some would-be bombers recently, forgotten amidst the kerfuffle of the doctors-cum-terrorists:

Robert Cottage, 49, a member of the British National Party, is standing
trial in Manchester for amassing material for chemical bombs – and instructions
for making them -- in his home. The prosecution said Cottage was acting on the
instructions of a fellow BNP cadre, David Jackson, a respectable 62-year-old
dentist from Lancashire. Cottage's 29-year-old wife testified against him,
having originally reported his alleged plans to test chemical bombs to a social
worker – the tip that led to the men's arrest.

The BNP are the UK equivalent to fascism, and they believe that native Britons are being oppressed by a 'quasi-Marxist multi-racial experiment'. The article discusses the plans of the two co-conspirators:

The two allegedly planned the chemical bomb attacks as part of a "war between
the Asian culture and the White culture," Mrs. Cottage testified. In the UK,
"Asian" is used to denote those of Pakistani origin – overwhelmingly Muslim –
and by extension most other Muslims of less-than-alabaster hue.

The BNP members apparently believed that their party was but 'one crisis away from power', and were hoping to foment a race war. Not merely isolated terrorists aiming at a bit of random carnage, theirs is a plot to gain power in Britain through legitimate processes in addition to violence. One might wonder why the Australian or US media did not remark upon such a thing, in this era of terror:

Now here we have a duly accredited political party -- its members sitting
in local governments, its leader a Holocaust denier far more vehement and total
than, say, the president of Iran -- with its activists on trial for allegedly
conspiring to use chemical bombs as part of a "culture war" to plunge society
into crisis and take power. As such plots go, this one is far more credible than
the "liquid explosive" scare last year that threw the entire global air travel
system into panic and disarray. You'd think it might rate at least a mention
somewhere in the terror-haunted house of horrors that is the American media. But
it raised nary a blip.

In the Australia of 2007, to remark upon the rise of white fascism is to be truly 'politically incorrect'. Only Islamic terror 'counts' as terror. State terror is always legitimised, and proto-fascist organising does not rate a mention at all. No doubt, any attempt to even raise the issue of nationalist violence will be met with cries of 'moral relativism' coming from the conservatives, despite the fact the fascism is a far more dangerous threat than Islam ever has been, or ever could be. 'Evil' is only evil when committed by bearded zealots - these good patriots amassing chemicals, or organising riots in Cronulla are merely exhibiting a 'natural' response to a perceived threat.

So please, when you next hear or read about the 'ideological sleeper cells' apparently in our midst, please remember that when true fascism comes to Australia, it will be neither with a Koran, or a Swastika; it will be draped in an Australian flag, it will praise the Anglo-Saxon kinship of the USA and the UK, and it will espouse the virtues of 'Enlightenment principals', or at least the Right's version of these principles, which somehow do not preclude those of Evangelical Christianity. In short, fascism in Australia will be something that will probably go unrecognised, or, perhaps, if recognised by Australian, it will be as a friend, at least to many.

I shall write a lengthier post on the topic of 'terror' in the near-future. In the meantime, the anarchist slackbastard has plenty to say on the topic of home-grown, 'dinky-di' fascists, hoping to find new converts in Australia.

Whack-A-Mole

Many of the unctuous half-wits on the right-side of the blogosphere appear to be concerned with pursuing a kind of cultural hegemony. You can see this in those few who, having well and truly lost the argument, continue to bleat about the beauty and goodness of US invasions of Vietnam and Iraq, for instance.

Another commonplace is the notion that fascism generally, and Hitler, specifically, are somehow 'socialist' or 'leftist'. Unsurprisingly, whenever this claim is made, little evidence is offered in its defence, other than some guilt-by-association remarks about former Democrats (who are neither leftist nor socialist in any case), and some vague statements that Hitler controlled the German economy in a 'socialist' fashion. A young, intellectually-challenged boy illustrated this with some recent comments on my blog:

Hitler was a Socialist at heart. The Nazis controlled the economy and told the companies what to produce, they just didn't sieze them. Hitler was NOT ALL Right-Wing.


It is curious that rightists attack the Nazis on economic grounds, given that this was the only area in which they were somewhat 'successful', and considering that it is for war and genocide, not economic tinkering, that we revile them today.
Furthermore, if economic intervention by governments is definitional of either fascism or socialism, then virtually every post-war Western government must fall into one of the latter categories. Free markets, after all, do not exist except in textbooks (and certain third-world dictatorships, such as Colombia, or Egypt). The Bush administration 'controlled' the economy by contracting the likes of Haliburton and Blackwell to perform various tasks that formerly would have been the domain of the state. In this, the Bush presidency meets the rightard criteria for Hitlerism/socialism on economic grounds, to say nothing of the curtailing of civil liberties, or histrionic 'patriotism'.

We should also remember that, at the time of Hitler, informed leftists were bitterly opposed to fascism, on economic and other grounds. This is clearly demonstrated on the anti-fascist writings of Trotsky, Benjamin, Adorno and others around the time of Hitler's ascendancy. In both Italy and Germany, fascists came to power by way of alliances with a conservative coalition, the aim of both groups being to keep out the socialist left.

Finally, let us look at what an actual historian (Robert Paxton), rather than partisan pundit, has to say about fascism and the economy:

Fascism was not the first choice of most businessmen, but most of them preferred it to the alternatives that seemed likely in the special conditions of 1922 and 1933-socialism or a dysfunctional market system. So they mostly acquiesced in the formation of a fascist regime and accommodated to its requirements of removing Jews from management and accepting onerous economic controls. In time, most German and Italian businessmen adapted well to working with fascist regimes, at least those gratified by the fruits of rearmament and labor discipline and the considerable role given to them in economic management. Mussolini's famous corporatist economic organization, in particular, was run in practice by leading businessmen.

Peter Hayes puts it succinctly: the Nazi regime and business had "converging but not identical interests." Areas of agreement included disciplining workers, lucrative armaments contracts, and job-creation stimuli. (p. 145)

Fascist regimes functioned like an epoxy: an amalgam of two very different agents, fascist dynamism and conservative order, bonded by shared enmity toward liberalism and the Left, and a shared willingness to stop at nothing to destroy their common enemies. (p. 147) (source)

I'm sure that the shameless dissembling of the right will continue, on this topic as on others, but in keeping with the carnival spirit that inhabits this blog, I encourage everybody to continue playing whack-a-mole as often as is necessary.

Conservatism and Fascism

The following has been taken from Paxton's The Anatomy of Fascism:

Italian and German conservatives had not created Mussolini and Hitler, of course, though they had too often let their law breaking go unpunished. After the Fascists and the Nazis made themselves too important to ignore, by the somewhat different mixtures of electoral appeal and violent intimidation...the conservatives had to decide what to do with them.

In particular, conservative leaders had to decide whether to try to coopt fascism or force it back to the margins. One crucial decision was whether the police and the courts would compel the fascists to obey the law. German chancellor Brüning attempted to curb Nazi violence in 1931-32. He banned uniformed actions by the SA (Sturmabteilung, i.e. brownshirts - THR) on April 14, 1932. When Franz von Papen succeeded Brüning as chancellor in July 1932, however, he lifted the ban...and the Nazis, excited by the vindication, set off the most violent period in the whole 1930-1932 constitutional crisis. In Italy, although a few prefects tried to restrain Fascist lawlessness, the national leaders preferred, at crucial moments, as we already know, to try to "transform" Mussolini rather than to discipline him. Conservative national leaders in both countries decided that what the fascists had to offer outweighed the disadvantages of allowing these ruffians to capture public space from the Left by violence. The nationalist press and conservative leaders in both countries consistently applied a double standard to judging fascist and left-wing violence.

...

Conservative complicites in the fascism's arrival in power were of several types. First of all, there was complicity in fascist violence against the Left...Mussolini's squadristi would have been powerless with the closed eyes and even the outright aid of the Italian police and army. Another form of complicity was the gift of respectability...Alfred Hugenberg, Krupp executive of the party that competed with Hitler most directly, the German National Party (DNVP), alternately attacked the Nazi upstart and appeared at political rallies with him...But while Hugenberg helped make Hitler look more acceptable, his DNVP membership drained away to the more exciting Nazis.

We saw...that the Nazis received less direct financial help from business than many have assumed. Before the final deal that put Hitler in power, German big business greatly preferred a solid reassuring conservative...to the unknown Hitler with his crackpot economic advisors...[B]usiness contributions did not become a major resource for Hitler until after he attained power. Then, of course, the game changed. Businessmen contributed hugely to the new Nazi authorities and set about accommodating themselves to a regime that would reward many of them richly with armaments contracts, and all of them by breaking the back of organized labour in Germany. (pp. 99-100).


On the 'socialist' misnomer:


Fascists had also found a magic formula for weaning workers away from Marxism. Long after Marx asserted that the working class had no homeland, conservatives had been unable to find any way to refute him. None of their nineteenth-century nostrums - deference, religion, schooling - had worked. On the eve of WWI, the Action Française had enjoyed some success recruiting a few industrial workers to nationalism, and the unexpectedly wide acceptance by workers of their patriotic duty to fight for their homelands when WWI began foretold that in the twentieth century Nation was going to be stronger than Class.

Fascists everywhere have built on that revelation...As for the Nazi Party, its very name proclaimed that it was a workers' party...Mussolini expected to recruit his old socialist colleagues. Their results were not overwhelmingly successful. Every analysis of the social composition of the early fascist parties agrees: although some workers were attracted, their share of party membership was always well below their share in the general population. (p. 103).


Also, Wikipedia has some reasonable information about the Nazi's attempt to position themselves as a workers party that aimed to include the middle class, and which utterly rejected Marxism.

And whilst I haven't quoted the relevant passages at length, the final power grabs of both Hitler and Mussolini came courtesy of conservatives attempting to form coalitions. We can conclude that whilst conservative and fascism are not the same thing, neither has anything remotely to do with leftism, and leftism is not implicated in the rise to power of fascists in Italy and Germany.

Some reflections on ideology, Zionism, and fascism

In response to an excellent and timely piece by Richard Seymour, debunking the myth that fascism was a leftist political movement, I provided some brief thoughts of my own, when the subject turned to Zionism. I've done a little reading in this area of late, and this are my current thoughts, ever provisional:

I think there's a tendency to simplify Zionism. Zionism came in many different forms - left and right, religious and secular. The ruling ideology of Israel is probably best understood as simply violent national chauvinism, perhaps with a few Zionist features thrown in, but not strictly identifiable with Zionism.

I think also that the tendency for the lunar right to support Israel is tactical, in many cases. Paxton makes the point that if fascism were to come to the US, it would steer clear of the repugnant symbols of the fascism of old (i.e. jackboots, swastikas, etc). It makes sense that budding fascist groups would view Muslims as the enemy, and would therefore support the IDF's efforts against 'terrorism'.

...

Maybe the ruling powers in Israel have some fascist tendencies. However, when we look at the most belligerant of Israeli hawks, look at their rhetoric and, more importantly, their actions, there's little that's specifically 'Zionist' about it. They might as well be chauvinist thugs from Russia or anywhere else.
Obviously, we cannot ever accept Zionism as a legitimate solution if we are universalist and internationalist. That goes without saying. But I wonder if Zionism is to the ruling Israeli elite what German Romanticism was to the Nazis - a necessary, but hardly sufficient condition.

Rage is All the Rage

Since rage against Islamo-Fascism continues to be the new black this season, I thought I'd share a couple of relevant comments/posts:

As a woman, I really hate the way that the government of Iran treats women
in Iran. That does not mean that I want to bomb the women of Iran.

And:

Oh the Feminists hate Republicans
And Republicans hate the Feminists
To mock all Feminazis
Is an old G.O.P. rule
But during Islamo-Fascism Week
Islamo-Fascism Week
You’ll see Ann Coulter On Our Backs at USC
She’s helping Muslims seek
Their Feminine Mystique
Simone De Beauvoir’s really very
cool...

From here.

The Stalker (starring Iain Hall)

Serial cyber-stalker Iain Hall has begun sending me unsolicited emails in response to a comment I wrote on Grodscorp. After a couple of these emails, consisting of Iain's semi-literate rants about his 'troll', I pointed out to him his hypocrisy, by suggesting that he linked to some blogs that are hate-sites by any definition. The clowns at A Wanker's Haven, in particular, come to mind. Hall has used these correspondences as fodder for his latest post.

Hall basically tries 2 lines of argument. One, he suggests that I cannot criticise the bigotry of AWH, as apparently I support jihad. Secondly, in his emails, Hall repeatedly tries to claim that his detractors have 'threatened' him, and that his own stalking is/was entirely innocuous.

Firstly, it's uncontroversial to all but the most frothing at the mouth proto-fascists that AWH is an extremist hate-site. Others have pointed out some evidence for his, as have I. To put this in context, I have written a number of posts examining the rise of the radical right in the West, and discussed how the consequences of this rise are generally trivialised by the MSM, whilst Muslims (and gays, and um, Democrats voters) continue to demonised. I've also discussed the violent consequences of this ideology, in Cronulla, and elsewhere.

Our resident retard has, for some time now, given his uncritical support for this hate-site, saying that AWH's authors 'are courageous enough to stand up for our western society and tradition, which they vigorously and cheerfully defend.' The only tradition for which AWH stands is that involving brownshirts and jackboots, but naturally, this niceties escape Hall. To that end, back in July, after being the subject of many Hall posts, I wrote:

I've added Hallwatch to my
blog roll, something that will no doubt anger the subject of the said blog, Iain
Hall. Iain has a history of dubious online behaviour (which, in fairness,
appears to have improved somewhat of late), and Hallwatch functions as a kind of
psychoanalytic 'return of the repressed', making public all the stuff the Iain
disavows. Iain has often attempted to 'fisk', as he puts it, the present writer,
though his critiques don't go beyond cliches, slogans, and patronising ad
hominem attacks about my presumed age and political beliefs. All of this is
something I take with good humour. Perhaps Iain is even correct in believing his
right-wing mediocrity is a virtue; after all, it appears to be practiced in
company. And this company is the primary reason for my adding Hallwatch to my
blogroll. For as long as Iain gives support and links to those who agitate for genocide
and fascism, it is essential that his online 'conscience' be given a voice
on cyberspace. (July 2007)

These points were reiterated by me in my emailed responses to Hall, who has repeatedly badgered me about my 'support' for Hallwatch. Hall not only denies that AWH are proto-fascist in any respect, he accuses me of 'supporting jihad'. He repeated this claim via email, and I therefore challenged him to provide a shred of evidence for his assertions. His only 'evidence' has come today, when he has posted a quote of mine saying that we can 'readily explicate acts of terror' in countries that are occupied or at war. In this regard, I mentioned not only jihadists, but also the Tamil Tigers, and the Shining Path. Again, this statement is fairly uncontroversial, irrespective of your political persuasion, and it doesn't contain any endorsement of terrorism. Of course, we have not come to expect literacy from Hall.

Hall's rubbishy 'argument' in today's post doesn't contain anything other than a few non-sequiters, demands that I condemn jihad, and other garbage, presented in mangled syntax and backwoods dialect.

Secondly, in his various emails, Hall has exonerated himself for his long history of internet stalking. When challenged on his behaviour with Anonymous Lefty, and his name calling and threats to the employment of Mikey, for instance, Hall says:

I have brokered some sort of accommodation with the both Jeremy Sear and
Mikey Capital, I have made some rather big concessions in the process...There is
however one thing that you should realise about our learned friend and that is
that he did not start out posting as "Anonymous Lefty” His first blog was called
"Melbourne lefty" and he was not so precious about posting either his personal
details nor his own photo (which is how I got it from a google cache). It was
only after he was indiscrete about things that were going on in the law firm he
then worked for that he was forced, by him employer, to delete his
"Melbourne lefty blog" low and behold he then started his current blog with a
post begging for discretion from some of his blogging mates and tried to claim
anonymity.

Oh. Well that's not stalking then, is it...Hall also claims to have Anon Lefty's personal address, and considers himself a good sport for not having disclosed it.

Hall also defended his other flame-wars, in his typical chromosome-deficient prose:

You see what really started the fight was Sear coming over to my newly
created blog and demanding that I delete a piece I had written called
“being Anonymous” (in my archive) where I pointed out that we all leave clues
about our identity when we write on the net. This was inspired by an exchange
between Sear and another commenter about Andrew bolt knowing whom he was and
suggesting all kinds of grandiose conspiracies that Bolt would have needed to
find out who Sear is. Had he politely requested my discretion I would have been
happy to oblige but I have never taken to bully boy tactics and that was where
it all started.

Bully boy tactics? This accusation coming from Hall? He does not stop there folks:

You know what I have no guilt at all about the way that I have fought my
corner in the last couple of years but in reference to Mikey he himself
constantly refers to his obesity to his other health issues and at no time did I
ever threaten to inform his employer about his blogging in contravention to his
employment contract, but I did opine that such action would be possible. And do
you know why? Of course you don’t but you are willing to condemn me for it none
the less. So what you cite as facts are actually nowhere near as definitive as
you think.

That Hall has 'no guilt at all' does not, of course, make him 'innocent'. He continues:

Like wise my flame war with Everett is more nuanced than he would have
you believe, more to do with his objecting to my refering to his writing as
"stogey" than the matters that he claims and as for his harping on about
“Monster truck” what a crock that is (the full text of the correspondence is in
my archive) Everett likes to promote himself as some sort of science Guru but do
you know that he is just a student, and an undergraduate at that?

Perhaps if Hall became more student-like, he might give his readers a coherent sentence on occasion.

I won't continue with Hall's other emails; they go on an on. Suffice to say, Hall also accuses me of being Islamic, and of being 'ethically inconsistent' in opposing proto-fascism. Such slurs from the likes of him amount to a compliment, if anything.

I don't intend to waste further blogspace with this narcissistic half-wit. His own statements invite both condemnation (his unwavering support for the bigotry of AWH) and mockery (his inept attempts at blogging, stalking, and blogstalking). I see no cardinal sin in Hallwatch issuing a few broadsides. In any case, Hall's behaviour has become so notorious as to be the subject of an Encyclopaedia article, outlining his antics.

After all this unpleasantness, I'll leave readers with one of BB's satirical songs about Hall (to the tune of 'Candle in the Wind'), in which I find strange echoes of my own sentiments:

Goodbye Iain Hall

Thank fuck we don't know you at all

Or you might have got us sacked

Or even stalked us all

You crawled out of the woodwork

And you created a million blogs

All filled with piss and vinegar

Then again you had no job
And it seemed to us you live your life

Like a condom full of wind

Never knowing when to fuck up

So much shit to spin

We don't want to know you

You're a wanker mate

Your candles burned out, now fuck off

Forever would be great

UPDATE:

The intertubes have plenty of evidence of Iain; Hall's unhealthy obsessions:

http://thespinzine.squarespace.com/journal/2006/9/14/sex-and-the-blogosphere.html

http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/dentist_drilled/#111481

http://industrialdollhouse.blogspot.com/2006/03/im-cute-buy-me-something.html#c114360614911298691

http://mrpetehasachat.blogspot.com/2007/01/another-one-down.html

If I could be bothered with more Googling, I'm sure I could find plenty more about Hall's pathetic attempts to 'out' other bloggers, and his laughable efforts to fill the intertubes with bile against ideological opponents.

The Gentrification of Racism

Fascism, via other means...


In the Western World, the 20th Century was a battle, above all else, against fascism. It is convenient for some revisionists to suggest it was a battle against socialism - such revisionists invariably confuse the policies of the USSR with those of socialism itself.


Nonetheless, the ideology of the radical right persists in its attempts to
legitimise itself. To that end, the radical right, in Australia, at least, often
eschew the imagery and symbols of the Reich, whilst retaining similar
ideological underpinnings.


Since the vast bulk of people are repulsed by any politics that extols racial and religious discrimination, violence toward minority groups, vulgar Darwinian social and economic policies, and imperialism, it is necessary for the radical right to smuggle their doctrines into the mainstream vie other means.


These 'other means' are most frequently libertarianism and conservatism, of different sorts. Science, or at least a cartoonish version of it, is another vehicle for the radical right. Naturally, libertarianism, and even conservatism, are not explicitly and inherently racist. They do provide convenient shelter for would-be flag-wearing jackbooters.


Enter AWH blogger John Ray, he of the countenance below, and with a penchant for pseudo-intellectual justifications for bigotry:





Not to mention his witless followers, such as the increasingly embarrassing Iain Hall:

Would any responsible adult leave their children alone with either of these men?

Both bloggers recently wet their pants with excitement upon learning that Nobel Laureate, James Watson allegedly suggested that blacks were less intelligent than whites, primarily as a result of genes. The work that Watson and Crick undertook in relation to the structure of DNA was undeniably brilliant. Their forays into other areas, such as neuroscience, and eugenics, have been less successful. In any case, Ray and Hall appeared to see in Watson's comments a 'scientific' confirmation of their own long-held prejudices. Hall is non-committal (and characteristically irrelevant and illogical) in his conclusions; Ray is more circumspect, and simply cites an article verbatim, rather than offering comment.


An Aside on Intelligence
(I will offer a very brief aside on 'intelligence', as this concept is not the primary subject of my post. Simplistic nature versus nurture arguments are largely obselete, since these concepts are indiscrete. If we follow the theory of natural selection, 'nature' is itself determined by 'nurture'. Nature in turn may influence the sorts of nurture that one receives. Intelligence testing is predicated on the hypostasised warblings of the psychometricians. It serves a practical purpose for individuals. For instance, a child struggling at school may benefit from IQ testing, in order to establish his or her relative strengths and weaknesses, and 'learning style'. From IQ testing, we may learn that a child may benefit from greater 'chunking' of information, or may benefit from visual cues when presented with verbal stimuli. IQ testing is also a determinant in qualification for 'disabled' status. Other than these rather limited uses, I see little merit in IQ testing).

Why Science, Libertarianism, Conservatism?
When raising the proposition that Hall and Ray have seized upon Watson's comments as a result of their own racism, we can expect the same nonsense attempts at rebuttal. Namely, the 'PC' crowd have stifled freedom of speech, the 'enlightenment' tradition demands respect for all science (including, apparently, racist pseudo-science), and that these beliefs are consistent with conservatism and libertarianism.

We need to distinguish carefully between Hall and Ray in this matter. Hall is a credulous fool, but, until stupidity and love of ignorance become a doctrine, he cannot truly be considered an ideologue. Ray, on the other hand, likes to peddle himself as a kind of libertarian. You know, those fun-loving guys who are anti-tax, and pro-guns? (Presumably their utopia is Alabama). Libertarianism, whatever we may think of it, provides some far more respectable positions than anything on the radical, proto-fascist right. Though I don't agree with the libertarian perspective, it is not obviously racist in any way - see, for example, blogs such as Catallaxy, or Australia's LDP.

We can see that something like libertarianism provides a veneer of legitimacy to cretins such as Ray, by means of which they can peddle their race-hate.

Let us look at some of the evidence by which we can situate Ray, AWH, and their imbecilic followers with the radical right, rather than with the libertarians or conservatives (much less scientists). It goes without saying that Ray is of the school of thought that deems Hitler to have been a 'leftist', and repeatedly has said that Marx was a 'fascist'.

The Shame File - Fascist Tendencies Revealed
As I pointed out in a recent comments thread, there are several lines of argument that demonstrate the slithering proto-fascist inclinations of Ray and his clique of bedwetting poltroons at AWH:

1. AWH regularly calls for violence against Muslims and other minorities. This has been repeatedly pointed out by myself and other bloggers. This coincides with an increase in rightist, racist violence in Australia and the world. In Australia, asylum seekers are demonised, even whilst blacks are being bashed and murdered.

Unlike his sycophantic acolytes, Ray himself is sufficiently careful not to openly call for violence against blacks and Muslims. This does not prevent him from trying to provide a 'scientific' justification for such calls.

2. AWH ideology is warmly embraced by white supremacists. On 10/10/2007, disturbed AWH blogger Keef (aka KG) posted, word-for-word, the introduction of a post from another blog. Rather astutely, KG himself did not offer any comment on the diatribe he cited, this latter being a defence of right-wing extremism as regards racial matters.

Following the links, we come to the land of Norse myth, pornography, and Aryanism, by way of a nasty Scandinavian blog called the Gates of Vienna. Sure enough, we learn quickly enough why KG cited this post, given that it contains a turgid rant, replete with the following proto-fascist gems:

Numerous studies have demonstrated that people tend to prefer their own ethnic group above others. (Author cites one irrelevant study in support of this claim).

Guarding your identity is thus a universal human trait, not a white trait. In fact, it is less pronounced among whites today than among anybody else. (Hence the supposed need for a 'white' revival).

There are no Britons left in Pakistan, so why should there be Pakistanis in Britain?

There are not many Dutch people left in Indonesia, so why should the Dutch be rendered a minority in their major cities by Moroccans and others?

I suspect future historians will call this era the Age of White Masochism. (Probably not future Iraqi historians).

In amongst the charming banter of the comments thread, and between calls for whites to reconnect with their 'racial consciousness', who should turn up, but former member of the Australia First Party, and current member of the Anglo-Australian National Community Council, Darrin Hodges, warmly expressing his agreement with the sentiment of the post.

In fairness, Hodges' comments were more moderate than most of those found at AWH by the likes of KG or Tiberius. For a case in point, see the AWH defence of the Cronulla rioters, and deft avoidance of the fact that some of the said rioters distributed white supremacist literature. It is obvious that the AWH crew are the blood-brothers of Stormfront and the like, given that they share the same views on these matters.

It is therefore clear that, despite AWH's claims to the contrary, they are drawing water from the same ideological well as our friendly white nationalists, and have ventured far from anything that remotely resembles libertarianism or conservatism. I haven't the time or inclination to trawl the white supremacist blogosphere, but I'd hardly be surprised if there weren't more examples of good 'Anglo-Australian' nationalists cosying up to AWH.

3. AWH blogger John Ray openly supports racism. He has written about it numerous times, far and wide across the blogosphere. In fact, the number of blogs that this guy has makes Iain Hall's shameless efforts seem paltry in comparison.

It's not surprising that the radical right should seek to defend racism, and racialising theories. This fits neatly with their pre-existing prejudices, and provides them with good reasons to oppose any kind of progressive social policy.

Where do we begin with the racial theories of Ray and AWH? We could start with this AWH post by Ray, where he praises the use of racial categories. Nobody denies that racial categories exist within a given language. We might, however, debate the uses to which they are put. Ray helpfully points out some ways in which generalising on the basis of racial categories may prove useful:

And the generalization: "blacks are very crime-prone so it is safest to
keep away from them" is also a matter of fact and can be useful. And "white
flight" shows that most Americans act on exactly that generalization.

'Fact', eh? Ray gives his point further clarification here - 'once we have got to know an individual black person and found him peacable, it would be foolish to continue with avoidance behaviour towards him'. So if I've read this correctly, Ray is saying that whiteys should, as a general rule, avoid those awful 'crime-prone' blacks, as long as we make room for the exceptions, namely, any individual black person who Ray assesses as 'peacable'. Noice.

Pseudo-scholar John Ray is, like his fascist forebears, clearly obsessed with theories of race, having published mild racial theories in some social science journals. One wonders what the editorial board of these journals were thinking.

More revealing are Ray's many crap and hilariously unpublishable articles, most of which consist of an attempted debunking of Frankfurt theorist Adorno (by way of a woeful misreading), coupled with various defences of racism, such as the notion that racism is 'normal', and has nothing to do with either authoritarianism or individual neurosis. And down the slippery slide we go...

We might also take note of a 1979 article by Herr Doktor Ray, purporting to demonstrate that South Africa, in the throes of Apartheid, did not display any evidence of white racism. Obviously, there were plenty of non-consciously racist South Africans, but equally obviously, this was hardly universal. According to Ray, however, white South Africans were no more racist than any other white person. He sums up nicely:

In fact because the South African system keeps blacks "in their place".
South Africans might feel more free to be generous in their sentiments towards
blacks than members of many English communities would.

We have here a wonderful strategy for combating white racism - just keep the non-whites 'in their place'.

By all means, however, don't believe my view that Ray is a proto-fascist, who has dedicated his wretched life to peddling race-hate. In an article by Tim Wise, we learn that Ray has lavished:

praise for the “very scholarly” book on IQ by Christopher Brand, an admirer
of eugenics (policies to promote selective breeding of “superior people”), and
an adherent to the belief that blacks are intellectually inferior to
whites.

Again, noice. Wise provides another instructive passage on Ray:

In a more recent essay by Ray, on the opening page of David’s site for
October 8th, the author concludes that racism is not always bad, and is a rather
natural human instinct, suggesting, “Feelings of racial, national or group
superiority are natural, normal and healthy and can as easily lead to benevolent
outcomes as evil ones.”

Wise is not the first to have noted the proto-fascist tendencies of AWH's Herr Professor. Ray is the subject of a chapter on academic racism. I'd like to take the liberty of quoting some passages at length, just to make the nature of Ray's ideology entirely clear:

Ray himself holds some forthright views on racism. His book Conservatism
as heresy(81) includes chapters with such
appetising titles as 'Rhodesia: in defence of Mr Smith' and 'In defence of the
White Australia policy'. Ray also argues that it is "moralistic nonsense" to
denounce racism.
Well might Ray defend racism. He does not mince his words
when he writes about Australian Aborigines. Ray says that "aborigines are
characterised by behaviour that in a white we would find despicable . . . White
backlash is then reasonable. Unless we expect whites to forget overnight the
cultural values that they have learned and practised all their lives, they will
find the proximity of aboriginals unpleasant" (p.58).
Ray has conducted a
number of academic surveys in order to bolster his prejudices. For instance Ray
assumes that it is natural that whites should develop an antipathy towards
Aborigines:

"If, for instance, people suddenly find themselves living in close contact
with Aborigines and Aborigines happen to be in fact rather unhygienic in their
habits, some people previously without prejudice will start to say that they
don't like Aborigines." (p.261.)
Therefore Ray designed a survey to measure
white Australians' attitudes towards Aborigines, comparing those who lived near
Aborigines with those who lived further away.
The results of his survey
failed to confirm his prediction; Ray did not find that whites living near
Aborigines were in fact more prejudiced. Ray described his results as
"disappointing" (p.267). Instead of discarding his hypothesis, Ray still strove
to maintain his own prejudices; he searched around for reasons why his
questionnaire might not have obtained the correct results. Thus, even in the
face of negative results, Ray clings to what he calls his 'rational prejudice
model'.
Ray's prejudices do not just relate to Aborigines. Dr. Ray enjoins us
to "face the fact that large numbers of even educated Australians do not like
Jews or 'Wogs'." (p.70.) Ray writes approvingly of people who will

"among friends, exchange mocking misnomers for suburbs in which Jews have
settled: Bellevue Hill becomes 'Bellejew Hill' and Rose Bay becomes 'Nose Bay';
Dover Heights becomes 'Jehova Heights'." (p.71.)

Ray obviously has sympathy with the racists and anti-Semites. Many of the
people who make the comments Ray cites, are according to our Australian
psychologist "superbly functioning and well-adjusted Australians". In Ray's
opinion such people will "justly deny being racists" (p.70): n.b. the give-away
word 'justly'.
The main reason why Ray does not find such attitudes racist is
that he considers them perfectly logical. Thus he asserts that people "who don't
like sloth . . . may object to Aborigines. People who do not like grasping
materialism, will certainly find no fault with Aborigines but they may find
fault with Jews" (p.265).

It seems that Dr Ray, in an academic paper about psychology, is repeating
the racist and anti-Semitic assumptions that Aborigines are lazy and Jews are
'grasping materialists'. It is hard to find any other explanation for Ray's
continual defence of prejudice.
In his academic papers Ray has a tendency to
use some curious turns of phrase. Thus when he criticises, as he often does, the
classic work in the psychology of fascism, The Authoritarian Personality by
Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson and Sanford, he refers to "the work of these
Jewish authors" (see, for instance, the start of Ray's article in the
distinguished social science journal Human Relations).(82) This is not the standard way of describing
opponents' research, at least not since the days of Nazi Germany.
But there
again Ray is not exactly ignorant of the ways of Nazism. During the 1960s Ray
was a member of various Australian Nazi parties. In fact Ray has openly
described his seven-year association with Nazism (see, for instance, his article
'What are Australian Nazis really like?' in The Bridge, August 1972).

I will concede, from the outset, that I am intellectually merely a throwback to old-fashioned high theory and strident leftist. Perhaps a more enlightened soul can advise precisely how Ray's doctrines exemplify conservatism, libertaranism, or the Enlightenment project.

Clearly, in amongst these turgid attempts to produce biological theories of race, with a good deal of pseudo-psychological quackery, we are dealing with nothing other than an embittered, thorough-going racist, flailing desperately in an attempt to justify his bigotry. The evidence is irrefutable.

4. John Ray has lent his support to another noted bigot, disgraced Australian academic Andrew Fraser. Fraser taught at Macquarie University prior to being dismissed for peddling very similar racial theories to Ray, and has a long history of involvement in Australia's fledgling white nationalist groups. Fraser came to prominence after pursuing the argument that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites. He subsequently found it difficult to receive airtime in academia.

As you'd expect, John Ray claims to be in favour of free speech (except at his blogs, of course), especially where that speech concerns racial bigotry. Ray is also not averse to ignoring the appalling scholarship of his fellow-travellers. One presumes it was in that spirit of community-mindedness that Ray decided to lend his support to Fraser, to the extent of making the latter's vile defence of the White Australia policy available.

Ray says that his decision to publish Fraser's work was made because of his libertarian leanings. Nonetheless, as we've seen, Ray's preoccupations appear to revolve around race more than anti-statist censorship. Furthermore, he charmingly defends the article and distinguishes his own views from Fraser's, saying - 'I am not at all bothered by Australia’s intake of Asians, for instance.'

In sum, the phenonemon we have before us is an attempt to smuggle in a range of fascist belief systems under the aegis of more respectable right-wing views. Given the tendency of ideologues on the right to demand condemnation from of 'extremists' by 'moderates', the comrades and I will wait with baited breath for the genuine conservatives and libertarians to see Ray's racist drivel for what it is, and denounce it swiftly and sharply.

John Ray Redux

Back in October 2007, I wrote this post on AWH blogger John Ray (among others). My contention was primarily that Ray used a range of means to piggyback blatant racism onto more acceptable discourses (such as 'science', mainstream conservatism, libertarianism, 'anarcho-capitalism', and whatever else the guy hides behind).

In addition to this argument, there were, on my part, some ad hom attacks. These occurred in the context of Ray using mostly slurs to prop up his otherwise sloppy reasoning and impoverished arguments. They also occurred in the context of AWH being one of the most personally abusive sites on the Oz blogosphere, a site whose muppets call for violence against any who dare to disagree with their outlandish views.

I was therefore surprised, therefore, to find our sensitive soul, poor old Ray, engaged in special pleading. He makes virtually no attempt to refute any substantive points about his racism, preferring instead to focus solely on the ad hom remarks, as if they disqualified the broader thesis. Let us have a look at his pathetic attempts at rebuttal.

Within the last couple of days, I have been attacked by TWO Leftist bloggers! And note that they attacked ME, not any of the facts and arguments that I have put forward...They hate the truths that I have highlighted but they were so unable to refute those truths that all they could manage was an attempt to shoot the messenger.

Ray is not in possession of facts, much less 'truths'. As we shall see, he is hardly averse to 'shooting the messenger' himself.

And it is therefore MOST amusing that one of my recent Leftist critics had obviously trawled at great length through my autobiographical data looking for "dirt" and was able to come up with? Can you guess? Can you guess what he found to criticize? He criticized my POETRY!! What a good laugh I had about that! I doubt that any of my readers here would have been aware that in my long-lost teens I did write a bit of poetry. I put the poetry concerned online with the note that "I don't think much of it now" so criticisms of it leave me supremely unmoved.

If the poetry was trivial, and merely a byproduct of adolescent indulgence, why publish it in the first place? In any case, criticism of the poetry was not conducted on the basis of Ray's literary technique (which, incidentally, is poor), but rather, on his flabby and pompous self-importance, on the one hand, and his preoccupation with (ahem) racial purity on the other.

Ray then attempts to critique my original post. He commences inauspiciously, confining himself to picking up a spelling error. He goes on:

He then goes on to talk about my "hilariously unpublishable articles"! Wow! So how come over 200 of them did get published in mainstream academic journals? He is however not short of mental "agility". He then goes on to QUOTE from some of my published academic journal articles!

Frankly, I am surprised that anyone, anywhere, would publish Ray's rubbish. In any case, Ray is trying here to use the corollary of the ad hom argument, namely, the argument form authority. Furthermore, Ray's posts are hilariously unpublishable - his screeds on the 'psychopathy' of leftists, for instance, would not be admitted into scientific literature, and not, as Ray claims, because of some global communist conspiracy.

Ray, like a fat asthmatic boy trying to outrun a doberman, subsequently attempts to refute the charge of racism:

I DO quite happily make statements about race and racism that are of a kind that would have been regarded as perfectly normal thoughout all of human history -- but which have just in the last few decades become furiously excoriated.

Lot's of things in the 'last few decades' have become 'furiously excoriated'. Smallpox is one. Racism is another. That Ray assures us that his comments would have been perfectly acceptable in 19th Century Alabama, or 18th Century England, does not, in fact, mean that they are not racist.

The only reasonable definition of racism that I can see is something along the lines of "harming a person solely because of his race" but to a modern-day Leftist, just discussing race is "racism".

Constructing arguments along the lines of racial purity, condemning whole swathes of people for the supposedly 'racial' basis of their purported inferiority, and calling for violence against other races all look like 'harming a person' to me. Plenty of people discuss 'race' and 'racism', as well as genetics - few object to this. If anything, it is Ray's fellow-travellers who deride attempts to discuss race and racism. We have long seen how the rightist media attack the humanities departments in which these topics are given scholarly consideration. Obviously, Ray's ludicrous generalisations here are not substantiated.

And in the simple-minded theology of the Left, a racist would definitely have to be an antisemite so how to explain my unwavering support for Israel? Most of my blogs actually display an Israeli flag -- yet I am not Jewish.

I can't think of any 'leftist' who equates racism solely with anti-Semitism. Ray's retort here is of almost unbelievable stupidity. It is entirely possible to be pro-Israel, and nonetheless violently oppose the emancipation of other racial, religious and national groups. It is obvious that many members of the radical right have, ostensibly, a pro-Jewish, pro-Israel attitude - this in no way diminishes their contempt for Muslims, Africans, inter alia. If anything, the radical rightists and lunatic Christian Zionists like Ray are bigots precisely in their attitude to Israel, insofar as Jews as a category escape vilification only when they can be instrumentalised to the rightist's cause. This is a topic I shall expand upon at some later date.

Ray continues to ramble, as he slides into senescence, about how Hitler and fascism were 'leftist'. He is not alone in this folly - see the 'Hillary is fascist' crowd - but this proves only that imbecility is often practised in company.


Most amusingly, Ray claims to have 'comprehensively' refuted all allegations of racism, and he links to a rebuttal of an article cited in my original post, be a chap named Mehler. The article rightly points to Ray's love of enjoining others to embrace racism, and notes his obsession with racial categories, his contempt for various racial and religious groups, and his history of joining neo-Nazi groups. Ray attempts to respond:

To a Leftist, just mentioning the word "race" makes you immediately suspect. And I have never hesitated to say that I believe that race is real and that it does make a difference. And that is one reason why I have never bothered to reply to that specific article until now.

Has anybody seriously denied that race is real, or that it makes a difference? And is this what Ray has actually argued, given his posts include praise for Apartheid (based on the latter's 'benefits' for blacks) and endorsements of racism as 'normal' and 'beneficial'?

Ray spends a paragraph trying to use the word 'leftist' as a term of ad hom abuse. The Mehler article noted, correctly, that when radical rightists such as Ray invoke names such as 'Adorno', or the Frankfurt School, this is actually a mere codeword for 'Jewish'. Ray himself draws explicit attention to this. When called on his own racial obsessions, Ray attempts to wriggle free of the net by way of his own laughably inept ad homs:

[Mehler] also seems to find some awful significance in the fact that I referred to the Adorno group as "Jewish". He is perfectly right that one would not normally refer to the ethnicity of an academic author unless it was particularly relevant in some way. But in this case it IS relevant.

Ah, I see. Adorno = Jewish, therefore Adorno, in Ray's words, cannot 'be objective about Nazism'. Nice. Wonderful supporter of Jews.

[Mehler] also says that I write "approvingly" of people who use mocking names for Jews. That tends to suggest that I approve of such names. I do not. But I do find that many of the people who use such names are normal and non-psychopathological.

Ray here employs typical rightist tactics - diversion, obfuscation, and impugning of motives. The 'psychopathology' of those who employ racial slurs was never at issue, at least, not in this discussion. The racism of these epithets, apparently endorsed by Ray, stands, irrespective of where such phenomena sit in the DSM-IV. This is yet another distinction that our great scholar fails to grasp.

Rather charmingly, Ray responds to claims that he joined Nazi groups by conceding them, but adding, 'It was only for research!'. I suspect that Hugh Grant must once have used the same excuse to Liz Hurley, when caught with Divine Brown.

Finally, in his attempted defence of himself, Ray once again reiterates his delusional position on leftism and fascism, and concludes with a series of addenda, almost all of which are mere personal attacks on others:

It will be apparent from what I have written above that I regard Billig's criticisms of me as being no more than cheap shots. I am amused therefore to note that "Billig" is an Ashkenazi name which in fact means "cheap".

And this cretin has the audacity to cry - 'But they pick on me!'.

Ray and many (though not all) of his cronies are thorough-going racists, and they continue to peddle hatred on ethnic and religious grounds. Just the other day, his comrade was linking to a well-known white supremacist site, claiming it as authoritative on the topic of Muslims. Furthermore, Ray and his sycophants continue to sockpuppet me, attributing to me comments on their site that I have not written. I have written to them about this, and have suggested that use my ISP to verify my identity, but they refuse to respond in any way, other than to continue the sockpuppeting.

How sad, for one's arguments to be so woefully inept that you need to create opponents simple enough to leave them unscathed. And for ad hom king Ray to bitch and moan about his opponents at all merely ensures that he can add the title of hypocrite to his well-earned moniker of half-wit.


UPDATE: I see that another blogger has come up with a response to Ray, very similar to mine. It's hilarious that Ray and his fellow defenders of Der Vaterland allege, with a straight face, that it is the 'liberals' who are fascist. In addition, I've seen that the AWH bigots continue to call explicitly for genocide against Muslims, and continue to employ the sockpuppet. I guess there's little more than one can expect from these freaks - after all, there are no 'moderate' fascists.

Chomsky on 2009

Here's a wide-ranging interview transcript with the indefatigable Noam Chomsky. Some highlights:

On the economy:

In fact, if you look today, it's quite striking to see the advice that the Western powers are following, the programs that they're following, and compare them to the instructions given to the third world.

So, say, take Indonesia again. Indonesia had a huge financial crisis about ten years ago, and the instructions were the standard ones: "Here is what you have to do. First, pay off your debts to us. Second, privatize, so that we can then pick up your assets on the cheap. Third, raise interest rates to slow down the economy and force the population to suffer, you know, to pay us back." Those are the regular instructions the IMF is still giving them.

What do we do? Exactly the opposite. We forget about the debt, let it explode. We reduce interest rates to zero to stimulate the economy. We pour money into the economy to get even bigger debts. We don't privatize; we nationalize, except we don't call it nationalization. We give it some other name, like "bailout" or something. It's essentially nationalization without control. So we pour money into the institutions. We lectured the third world that they must accept free trade, though we accept protectionism.

On party politics in the US:

I mean, we basically are a kind of a one-party state. I think C. Wright Mills must have pointed this out fifty years ago. It's a business party, but it has factions—Democrats and Republicans—and they're different. They have somewhat different constituencies and different policies. And if you look over the years, the population has—the majority of the population has tended to make out better under Democrats than Republicans; the very wealthy have tended to make out better under Republicans than Democrats. So they're business parties, but they're somewhat different, and the differences can have an effect. However, fundamentally, they're pretty much along the same lines.

On healthcare in the US:

I mean, for decades, the healthcare issue has been right at the top of domestic concerns, for very good reasons. The US has the most dysfunctional healthcare system in the industrial world, has about twice the per capita costs and some of the worst outcomes. It's also the only privatized system. And if you look closely, those two things are related. And the privatized system is highly inefficient: a huge amount of administration, bureaucracy, supervision, you know, all kinds of things. It's been studied pretty carefully.

On the potential for a rise in fascism:

Now, if you listen to early Nazi propaganda, you know, end of the Weimar Republic and so on, and you listen to talk radio in the United States, which I often do—it's interesting—there's a resemblance. And in both cases, you have a lot of demagogues appealing to people with real grievances.

Grievances aren't invented. I mean, for the American population, the last thirty years have been some of the worst in economic history. It's a rich country, but real wages have stagnated or declined, working hours have shot up, benefits have gone down, and people are in real trouble and now in very real trouble after the bubbles burst. And they're angry. And they want to know, "What happened to me? You know, I'm a hard-working, white, God-fearing American. You know, how come this is happening to me?"

That's pretty much the Nazi appeal. The grievances were real. And one of the possibilities is what Rush Limbaugh tells you: "Well, it's happening to you because of those bad guys out there." OK, in the Nazi case, it was the Jews and the Bolsheviks. Here, it's the rich Democrats who run Wall Street and run the media and give everything away to illegal immigrants, and so on and so forth. It sort of peaked during the Sarah Palin period. And it's kind of interesting. It's been pointed out that of all the candidates, Sarah Palin is the only one who used the phrase "working class." She was talking to the working people. And yeah, they're the ones who are suffering. So, there are models that are not very attractive.

Ideas - Online Reading Group

I'll be missing in action for the latter months of 2008. When I return, I'd like to set up an online reading group. I envisage that this would be set up on another blog, and would possibly be a group blog. The idea would be for a group of us (and a small group is fine) to work through some meaty texts. Debate and discussion of the text would be encouraged (though not idiotic trolling unrelated to the text), individuals from different backgrounds would be welcome to contribute.

Does anybody have any interest in this sort of idea? If the answer is yes, do you have any proposals as to what it might look like?

Some areas of interest to me are philosophy, politics, history, psychoanalysis, and literature. It seems more worthwhile to me to attempt to work through difficult texts rather than straightforward ones. Having said that, novices are welcome. The aim of all this would be to create a shared online resource, and raise the level of discourse on the blogosphere up a notch or two.

Now whilst I have grand plans of returning late this year to launch into a reading group that looks at Marx's Grundrisse or Lacan's Seminar VII, for instance, I'd like to trial this idea with something much smaller, to see how it works. If it inspires a few dedicated readers in Melbourne, the discussion could also relocate off-line to somewhere suitably scholarly, like a bar. There's also a possibility that discussions could be filmed or audio-taped.

The format I have in mind is that each chapter/passage/few pages would be scheduled in advanced. One reader (probably me in the first instance) could then provide a brief bit of background and response to said chapter/few pages. Everyone else could then respond as they see fit.

Anyway, here are some suggestions for the trial run:

Politics - Maybe a short paper by Marx, or Lenin, or maybe Trotsky's paper on fascism. There are many online resources in this area, which is helpful, as it means people can access the texts for free. Hardt and Negri are also good for a laugh.

Philosophy - Badious and Zizek keep churning out interesting papers on a regular basis, though something a little less contemporary could be an option if people are interested. Some of this stuff is also available online.

Psychoanalysis - Since this area links up with the above two in many ways, as well as a plethora of other areas (sexual politics, anthropology, etc), I think it could be quite interesting if people arrive with an open mind. Some suggestions - Freud's Mourning and Melancholia, for instance, or Lacan's paper on the Mirror Stage.

Literature - I'm less inclined to delve into fiction as the blogosphere (and real world) have lots of reading groups that discuss the latest bestsellers. However, maybe as a trial, we could look at one of Nam Le's recently-published short stories, for instance.

Anyways, I'm very open to suggestions, and I encourage one and all to comment here or email me. A reading group of one is just going to be me taking notes (which I do already), and it's going to be a little sad to broadcast that over the blogosphere. So find something you like, and spare me blushes of embarrassment.

Until then, I'm off to Sydney in a couple of days to spread subversion for a short while. I might check out that bookshop belonging to that Gould chap. I hope to hear from you all in the near-future.

In Lieu of a Proper Post...

I thought I would give a shout out to some of the newer or lower-profile blogs on the Australian blogosphere. Mine isn't particularly high-profile either, but any publicity is better than none.

Madd McColl has written an excellent piece on the conservative commentariat's obsession with maligned LaTrobe historian, Robert Manne. McColl asks why Manne draws such derision from 'the right'. I suspect the answer may have something to do with the fact that Manne is actually 'one of them'. Manne, of course, is no unwashed leftie, and the fact that he manages to be reasonably conservative and demonstrate a concern for human rights, logic, and opposition to being a pro-Howard shill, must get up the nose of Pearson, Bolt, and the rest of the culture warriors.

Speaking of Bolt, the latter has eulogised the great director Bergman today. As we would expect, he takes the opportunity to have a swipe at Australia's culture industry, asking why Australia has no Bergman of its own. Again, the answer may have something to do with clowns like Bolt denouncing almost every artistic or intellectual endeavour as the work of sneering 'elites'. Australia does have 'great' artists - Patrick White is the foremost example in my mind - but these people do not enter the annals of right-wing history, for the obvious reasons.

Ales has a provocative post challenging some common assumptions about violence against women. Such violence remains a major issue in Australia - any police officer you speak to will have numerous anecdotes about the 'domestics' to which they frequently respond. Such anecdotes do not account for the unknown number of unreported incidents, to which there is no response. I encourage everybody to have a look.

The Bureau of Counterpropaganda is back, and remains an excellent read. The thoroughly internationalist perspective it offers is a good antidote to the insularity that often pervades the Australian blogosphere.

I've added Hallwatch to my blog roll, something that will no doubt anger the subject of the said blog, Iain Hall. Iain has a history of dubious online behaviour (which, in fairness, appears to have improved somewhat of late), and Hallwatch functions as a kind of psychoanalytic 'return of the repressed', making public all the stuff the Iain disavows. Iain has often attempted to 'fisk', as he puts it, the present writer, though his critiques don't go beyond cliches, slogans, and patronising ad hominem attacks about my presumed age and political beliefs. All of this is something I take with good humour. Perhaps Iain is even correct in believing his right-wing mediocrity is a virtue; after all, it appears to be practiced in company. And this company is the primary reason for my adding Hallwatch to my blogroll. For as long as Iain gives support and links to those who agitate for genocide and fascism, it is essential that his online 'conscience' be given a voice on cyberspace.

Finally, just to show that I have a sense of humour, I feel obliged to share one of the most bizarre, wrong, yet oddly compelling blogs I have come across recently. Purportedly written by a young person who is a self-proclaimed 'Stalinist', this guy shares his attempts to bring 'revolution' to his school. I have no idea whether it is a piss-take, but at least one reader appears to have taken it seriously.

More substantial posts will appear soon, and I thank those who have the patience to keep returning to this site, in spite of my sporadic posting.