Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

[Joseph Tracy]

On Jan 7, 2012, at 7:31 PM, alice wellintown wrote:

>>> Wherever man is, there is war, slavery, genocide.
>> Is there war, slavery and genocide in your neighborhood? None where I am . Most humans for most of history have not killed or made slaves of other humans. This is accomplished by coercion and criminal plots to steal others wealth. There will always be a minority of criminally inclined people, but they don't need to be the organizing force of our human existence.
> 
> Glad to here you live in a safe world free of war and crimes against
> humanity. I don't live in such a world and I don't buy your view of
> human nature. There is not an elite who are criminally inclined and
> the rest of us poor and powerless who are subjected to their power
> struggles.
Your misinterpretation feels deliberate. I referred to my own neighborhood. Most places you can go there is no war, no genocide, and criminality is reasonably contained. It is certainly obvious that I acknowledge the presence of wars. There is an elite who are criminally inclined and there are many good leaders too. The poor really are often subjected to various power struggles and sometimes initiate their own troubles. Why do you want so badly to put words in my mouth rather than respond to what I say?
> 
> 
>>> Those who study the primate we call man and the violence he/she is
>>> prone to, do better when they contrast these horrific events.
>>> 
>>> Because the devil, we might say, the human, is in the details / differences.
>> what you are saying seems pretty silly considering the inherent nature of human discourse. Are you really saying that meaning can only be derived from differences, never similarities?

> 
> No, that is not what I said. What I said is that it is better to
> contrast them and that those who compare them often do so by ignoring
> the specifics, the details, the particulars,  and thus fail to gain
> understanding of these unique, though all evil and horrific,  events.
Well I think both comparisons and differences are equally valuable in evaluating large historic patterns. To me there is no better in this process. I see that I rather overstated my question by saying only and never. Too strong. That isn't what you said. As far as the argument that "those who compare them often do so by ignoring the specifics....." That is a generality with little relevance to a close reading of this thread.  
> 
>>> Those who lump them together,
>>> with absurd comparison,
>> How do we learn from evil patterns if we refuse to compare what we do to such patterns?  I think it would be better to show the exact location of the absurdity of what I said than to merely label it.
> 
> Well, it is absurd to equate Nazi Germany and the US. This was, though
> it now appears you've back off from this claim, the thrust of your
> argument.
I never made any such claim and you cannot produce it from this thread or you would.  I said that the victims of America's history of mass killings and land theft would find these historic distinctions of little interest or importance.

I don't believe in equations, nothing is exactly equal to anything else. Even hydrogen atoms are all distinct in location. 
The defining qualities of fascism exist in the US along a continuum  of action, belief and structure.  The US is unique in how it manages, expresses and refuses those fascist patterns.  But there is and has been a growth since WW2 of  many troubling things:  aggressive wars,  violent interventions, self serving effforts to plant military regimes in other countries, the  disparity of wealth, the power  and rapid  growth of the military industrial empire, demonizing political language, duopolostic control of politics by corporations, the growth of a fanatic and hateful right wing. There is very little Jewish anti-semitism, but growing hatred  and spite for native Central Americans and  both semitic and non semitic  Muslims.

Apart from post Pearl Harbor or the land grab from native peoples  our wars have been top down not bottom up.