The U.S. has fallen to fascism, where will you go?
Fascism: everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. If you can freely choose to leave then that's a strong indicator that your nation is not fascist.
... yet.
Edward Snowden’s Escape from Hong Kong [audio]
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Re: Edward Snowden’s Escape from Hong Kong [audio]
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work with some wealthy people. This is a fun topic and favourite topic--if the U.S. fell to fascism, where would you go. The most popular answe is Argentina. The most interesting is Kerala.
Fascinating! I wouldn't have called either of those. Why Argentina?
If you have hard currency it's one of the more beautiful countries in the world.
Re: Edward Snowden’s Escape from Hong Kong [audio]
#63The story begins around 18:30. After listening to these folks explain the situation of refugees and their legal status in HK, one wonders a bit why EJS decided to go there as his first stop.
I work with some wealthy people. This is a fun topic and favourite topic--if the U.S. fell to fascism, where would you go. The most popular answe is Argentina. The most interesting is Kerala.
I'd do Ireland or New Zealand.
Re: Edward Snowden’s Escape from Hong Kong [audio]
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trump was called a fascist because he wanted to create a registry of muslims and spent a good while castigating Mexicans before somehow attempting to walk it back. He was called a white nationalist because he courted extremely controversial figures like David Duke. I do think people are often too quick to go to extremes when using terms like "fascist" and "socialist" (abused by both sides), but I don't think it's a s…
>because he courted extremely controversial figures like David Duke. Did he? I haven't really followed this, but I can't remember seeing anything even remotely suggesting this.
He regularly retweeted white nationalist posts.
Re: Edward Snowden’s Escape from Hong Kong [audio]
#65The U.S. has fallen to fascism, where will you go?
I don't think you can describe the democratic election of a president who wants smaller, not bigger government as "fascism". It suggests a pretty poor understanding of the fact that fascism is pretty narrowly defined, and not another word for "thing I don't like"
Fascism doesn't mean "Nazis". Fascism is a form of government that pursues nationalist polices and advocates for self-sufficiency, including public-private industrial partnerships with chosen winners.
Many of the more wacky people surrounding Trump are almost certainly a modern American spin on fascists. The major test of Trump as President will be whether he will let those folks define his presidency (the way Cheney usurped Bush 2) or whether he will kick them to the curb. He lacks political allies, so watching the trusted family members he surrounds himself with is crucial to understanding what is happening.
Politically, a major part of the conservative movement originated from the "western convservatives", whose funders are people who run extraction industries (oil, mining) who joined "conservative democrats" (ie. southern racists) after civil rights. Western conservatives hate government because any government intervention (except for giving them leases on Federal land) increases costs. A great resource to learn about the early days of this phenomenon is Robert Caro's series of biographies of Lyndon Johnson -- particularly "Master of the Senate".
Re: Edward Snowden’s Escape from Hong Kong [audio]
#66Re: Edward Snowden’s Escape from Hong Kong [audio]
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
No but Trump was/is promising to jail the opposition, promising to curb freedom of press, and generally using the language of fascism. I recently read for the first time Burkes rhetorical analysis of Hitlers Mein Kampf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Hitler's_%22Ba... These tropes show up all over political speech of course, but I think it is undeniable that Trump has pulled together an unusually large…
> Trump is no Hitler Well, Hitler was no Hitler either. Until he suddenly was. The thing is, power is continually being increased and concentrated in the hands of fewer people, thanks to technology (which by definition has an exponential rate of growth of efficiency). Technology can make the transition from "weak democracy" to "fascism" potentially instant. And that is the danger.
Great point. "Efficiency" in government has negative implications.
Re: Edward Snowden’s Escape from Hong Kong [audio]
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Maybe India as a last resort (India's protected the Dalai Lama for many decades). India didn't exactly have to put anything on the line for this considering the Dalai Lama was sponsored by the CIA when he first went into exile... Edit - downvotes but no response? It's well known that the CIA was involved in the Tibetan uprising that forced the Dalai Lama into exile, and that he was on their payroll at the time. Not…
>just documented history People from HN expect links when you use such words. Could be the reason for downvotes I guess.
This is common knowledge if you're even remotely aware of Tibet issues. It's an easy thing to forget that not everyone knows about this stuff. At my university in the 90s, Free Tibet was a thing and it was impossible to not learn about!
Re: Edward Snowden’s Escape from Hong Kong [audio]
#69The U.S. has fallen to fascism, where will you go?
US falls to fascism...where to go? I think its a science-fiction scenario at this point. Trump is a petty authoritarian with a history of scamming and self-promotion. He will do some amount of damage but nothing irreversible state-side. The best thing to do is to stay where you are. There are enough sane rational people to turn things around if everything really goes to hell. Mainstream republicans won't go "all the…
This has been said the whole time, "Ah it's not a big deal", "ah he can't do much" but we keep underestimating him and now here he is, president elect.
Re: Edward Snowden’s Escape from Hong Kong [audio]
#70The U.S. has fallen to fascism, where will you go?
Please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN. The ideological and partisan tangent you bestowed upon us with this one is what we're trying to avoid here.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13276396 and marked it off-topic.