Fascism, I've mentioned it a few times. I read this post last night on the subject. It is very interesting. He makes a point about how de Tocqueville in his book Democracy in America spoke of a new kind of oppression not yet seen in the world:

The kind of oppression with which democratic peoples are threatened will resemble nothing that had preceded it in the world; our contemporaries would not find its image in their memories. I myself seek in vain an expression that exactly reproduces the idea that I form of it for myself and that contains it; the old words despotism and tyranny are not suitable. The thing is new, therefore I must try to define it, since I cannot name it.

Amazing, de Tocqueville foresaw Fascism. In the post he also introduces a new term Dolchstoßlegende -- Legend of the Stab in the Back. It was the theory, in Germany, that the reason they lost WW I was because the war effort had been weakened from within by Communists and Jews on the home front. He cites examples and makes a hypothosis that those who are against the Iraq war -- whether from the beginning or have since joined in -- will be blamed, like the Jews and Communists in Germany after WW I, for losing this war.

So de Tocqueville foresaw a new kind of oppression. This brought to mind another concept I encountered last year. It's called the The Cycle of Democracy and it was wriiten by 18th century historian Alexander Tyler:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years.

These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.

As I look at this we are in the apathy to dependency stage of the cycle. That is where Facsism comes in. As the government, corporations and military become one we become dependent on them for our security and survival or so we are lead to believe. Don't believe me? Well look who's voting themselves money from the public treasury. They do this as roads and public schools crumble. As heath care skyrockets. As the income gap continues to increase. As corporate earnings skyrocket becuase of the benifits from recent tax cuts and I'm sure war spedning. So ya' see it looks like we are in a viscous cycle.


- posted by Mom/Dad @ 8:39 AM