Oh my god. Thanks to disinformation in the media, I can't believe you actually think McCain and/or Obama are for free markets. They are not! They are for govt intervention is markets, which IS FASCISM!

Please check out educational materials here. Including Austrian economic theory (fact).

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/education.php

Thank you for being interested in these important issues!

Granted, some of the people at these rallies are nutters, but what about the facism of the mainstream media that silences debate on issues like immigration? If you don't go along with the multicultural consensus you are quickly branded a racist, even if you're just suggesting border control should be improved. So much for a liberal democracy with open debate.

"Sorry, Tim but I believe the lack of perspective is yours. Only some people bother to critically think and come to a conclusion as to what their ideals are. The rest hop on the train of what is current as if they were picking out a pair of shoes. After a few years of deeply hypocritical opinions the resolve to call themselves Centrists."

So what? No reason the train can't go the other way. It happens all the time: Revolutions occur just as often as coups and juntas.

"I will call them non-thinkers. It is this group of people who truly decide the path of our nation. Meanwhile the thinkers in this country may rest assured that their not so easily manipulated vote was counted. Democracy breeds Fascism. Fascism is already here. Thinking people should be acting NOW. Instead(we as thinkers)squable over the headlines of the Replicrats. There is no fundamental difference between either candidate. It is one party. One direction. BIGGER GOVERNMENT. fewer liberties. REGARDLESS OF SKIN TONE. The next fascist government will not be racist. They will/are thoughtist."

They'll be both. The jingoist unity under which Republicans unite is racist as blacks, against Arabs and Muslims, and sometimes against Jews. They'll target homosexuals as well. The only differences as to who might be targeted from the Holocaust would be gypsies, the disabled and Jehovah's Witnesses.

I hear this a lot: "It's all about power" or "the only color that matters is green" or "regardless of skin tone". But that's simply not true and it never has been. Just like the Italians did not pick on Ethiopians by coincidence and the Nazis targeted ethnic groups, so too is American racism a force above and beyond the statist and the corporatist factors. For example, as much as we hear about fascism and so forth, most whites still have functionally a lot of civil liberties, but blacks don't need to be lectured about fascism and state oppression.

People are not going to act when you castigate them as sheep. If anything, polls show that the average, non-voting, politically apathetic American has a much better head on their shoulders than most of the so-called intellectuals.

Agreed, Harold (and it's odd that McCain is not arguing that), but to be totally fair while we should be skeptical of all politicians, the Dems have shown slightly less willingness to abuse the Constitution in the same manner as the present party, even when in control of the Congress. The executive order isn't a problem in very limited situations, but of course it is used far too often. Similarly, we need to slay the chimera of the line item veto.  And the executive branch has to be put back into its place.

But, remember, Harold: The ascension of the voracious Presidency has deeper structural causes, part of the democratic deficit caused by neo-liberal mandates. We need to challenge that deeper corporate problem.

Incidentally, it's bizarre to say that the losing campaign (McCain) can't harm us and in the same breath say that executive orders are dangerous. A McCain Presidency would be disastrous, allowing vetoes of the better legislation from Congress, conservative judges, etc.

"I think you have misinterpreted my point,probably due to my lack of writing skills. I do recognize that racism exists, I do understand that a black man will do more time than a white man for the same crime. I understand that"A good 5% of white Americans (that is around 10 million people) think that blacks are genetically inferior"(but I'm willing to bet that at least more than half these people are over fifty and on their way to meet their maker),but sexism also exists."

Actually, there's no reason to expect a disproportion of the genetic inferiority types to be old. While it is true that one would expect some diehard Southerners to be in that sweep, one would also expect Nazis and RaHoWa types to be dispro young because hate crime tends to be a young man's game. I don't know the actual statistics (Tim, any comment?), but I'd imagine the disproportion of the older is not very high.

"We all know that palin is a moron but regardless of what the "ignorant masses may say about a womans ability to lead, I would not say that you were ignorant to sexist views in america when you pick out legitimate flaws in her logic."

This is true, but I fail to see the point. Our original discussion was about the emergence of fascism. You argued that most Americans wouldn't associate a neo-fascism with race. I said that this was a bizarre position given the widespread nature of institutional racism combined with widespread subtle racist and discriminatory attitudes held by whites. I presume your point here is that one can criticize Obama without being racist, which is absolutely true (in fact, one can criticize Obama quite strongly from an anti-racist perspective, given how anemic he is on issues of race), but that's neither here nor there to our original discussion.

"I asserted that there is this trend. It is a problem but it's not necessarily grandpa's racism but a fear of what most americans don't have a culture."

Yes, I'm sure it literally is a trend, but the original context of this discussion was exactly about the salience of race and racism. I brought up the specter of anti-Arab racism as part of a point about how ruling classes can get misled by their own racist dogma. The only way that your comments about culture could be a non sequitur would be if the culture point was the main phenomenon, not just a trend.

And again, I don't get the foundation you have for asserting that all these racist attitudes are just holdovers from Jim Crow or "grandpa". There are plenty of young, hip guys, whether frat boys or dudes playing Counter-Strike, who are perfectly willing to utterly totally racist things about the humanity and worth of "camel fuckers". I would like to imagine that the young are more enlightened, and polls show that in some ways they are, but it's not enough to eliminate the salience of race, especially since the evidence would indicate that as they grow up they get grandpa's racism too.

"This IS NOT SEMANTICS. I am an Atheist living in Utah and do to my lack of any legitimate higher education I work with the hillbillies that we are talking about. The reason they hate me or my(edit minority{it's impolite to talk about others})friends is because of cultural/thinking differences yet most of them(under 50) have no problem with a person of any race so long as they don't have an accent."

Well, I can't speak to your experience, but first of all let me say based on my own experience with Utah that I find it highly unlikely that these hillbillies are racially enlightened. If you have them take Implicit Attitude Tests, I bet you they will score like many whites do. If you ask them why they think blacks are poor, I bet you many will mention births out of wedlock or gangs or rap music or something. And so forth. And I can absolutely guarantee you that if their community became more than 15% black, they would move en masse if they had any choice. In any respect, this is anecdotal. Utah or your area may have unique traits that don't extrapolate. My comments apply to the majority of Americans.

But second, it still is semantics. Because as I pointed out, plenty of whites think the same thing, that it's just black culture they don't like but they're okay with black people, but that position IS RACIST, because it ascribes cultural traits to a group, imagines those cultural traits are vastly determinative, and causes them when they look at the group to be irrationally bigoted towards every member even members who clearly don't show the cultural traits they don't like, while they excuse whites who show those traits. Like I said: Whites sometimes rationalize culture, but they see race, making it still about race. The accent example is perfect. My mother is Quebecois and has a notable French accent, and yes, she faces some ostracism and mockery. But I guarantee you her treatment is nowhere near as bad, and wouldn't be in your town, as an Indian or an African with an accent. Fear and dislike of accents is at least part a racial thing, given how accents are likely to cluster in racial groups.

I honestly think that if you scratch a little under the surface, you will find quite a bit of racial hatred, racist attitudes, willingness to use racial slurs, etc. among the people in your area.

"I recognize that racism exists and amoung some groups even prevalent and I believe it is every well rounded individuals duty to stand up to it. I simply do not believe that the dark days ahead will be characterized by the mass graves of traditional minorities yet more likely by the mass graves of political opposition. The words on this page not only point out a true injustice but also slander everyone who is conservative. This only fuels the fire of hatred towards an opposing view. IN THE LONGTERM "POST BARACK" YOUR SIDE MAY LOSE. In which case it could be your grave or mine."

And I think this is a bizarre characterization. It has no historical precedent: While fascism varies in its usage of racism, it always uses it to SOME degree, because racism and nationalism are so closely intertwined. Whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Mussolini's Italy or Nazi Germany, racial (as well as religious, cultural, etc. outsiders) were castigated and assaulted. It has no resonance with present-day reality: The strongest fascist forces, the religious right, are incredibly racist. And it makes no sense given the actual institutions: Already, we are seeing that the democratic deficit has led to a racial war against blacks through the criminal justice system (and, some would argue, the military as well, where the military is used to get excess black youth who would otherwise be working and turn them to imperial uses, thereby killing a disproportionate amount of them and of the poor in general). But you are honestly arguing that a fascist society, one that amplifies present regressive trends, would be MORE enlightened than our present one. I am baffled.

First of all, I don't believe you really believe or understand or accept race as institution. If one understands institutional racism, then one would realize that any reactionary force like fascism would have to deal with racism, and it's far more likely to amplify it than to eliminate it.

Second, I think you're simply not thinking of race as a parallel category to politics. If you did, you'd recognize that by DEFINITION if the Republicans are to go after Democrats, or fascist elements after the elements that opposed them, they would HAVE to go after blacks since blacks are overwhelmingly against the primary fascist current in our society. Maybe they would scrupulously avoid mentioning their race, but I highly doubt it.

As far as slandering people who are conservative: I argue against conservatives. Some offer interesting arguments, or arguments that aren't offensive. Your position, for example, that Obama is dangerous because if he wins his party will be in the majority in two chambers of government is a serious one, and one I had actually just only heard the day before reading your post in my Comparative Government class. When conservatives say something offensive or continue to argue down offensive lines or deny institutional racism based on foul logic, I of course get ired, but to call this slander and to further make the snide implication that this is anything like a fascist tendency is bogus and offensive. People here are overwhelmingly quite polite to people who often do not deserve it.

Honestly, Harold, fascism is NOT going to come from the Democrats. Institutionally speaking, it isn't going to come from the "Republicans", either, or at least the business party of them. Fascism tends to be very bad for the corporate elite: They like what they currently have, and a nationalist status quo with faux populist elements may benefit them in some ways but it harms them in others. Yet just as in pre-Nazi Germany, the Republicans have made a deal with the very forces they've unleashed. By barring progressive, secular political involvement through neo-liberal democratic deficit, the powerful have produced, structurally, a class of people who still want to participate in the system but now find their own outlet to be through religion. Religious groups lead to reactionary, far right politics, the type of which have taken over a lot of the Republican Party at the grassroots level. The Republican side of the business faction has to make deals with the devil. Think about the many ironies in the Republican Party: They talk about Main Street but assidiously serve Wall Street; many claim to be civil libertarians but also have to want to ban abortion and flag burning; and so forth. The Republican Party has to grant the religious conservatives what they want socially, because they can't grant them what they would need economically (policies to protect the working class) and because they need their ongoing support.

Now, the proto-fascist trend isn't inevitable, but as Tim points out if it comes it'll be because the religious, ultra-right, reactionary (and racist) factions of society will get tired of the measly gifts they get from the Republicans, fully take over the party, take over the political system, and then turn the society into a theocracy, as oh-so-many people I've interacted with desperately want to do.

"The people that I have "castigated" will never read this(or little else)therefore I won't resonate with them either way."

This is a silly copout. If you have this attitude here, it's fair to say you will have it elsewhere. But even if not, you've thrown it out into the ether. People read it, and some people who have those elitist ideas about people lock onto it. Your voice here is an expression of a long-standing elitist trend among intellectuals and the educated who, when they get into a movement, therefore invariably make those views part of the movement and make a vanguard party structure. It's the way these trends play out, virtually every time.

"The constitution triumphed by Hamilton(who ironically began the first abolitionist movement in America)was written on the idea that mob rule was lunacy. It was envisioned as a document that would create a meritocracy where the best and the brightest would be able to succeed and lead."

And the reason that they decided mob rule was lunacy had nothing to do with actual arguments against mob rule but was premised in the simple fact that they wanted to keep their wealth and have the society run by the "opulent minority". Yet their naivete here was astounding yet arguably forgivable. Because the same forces that kept the mob down were the forces that let modern capitalism ascend and completely take over the political system. Jeffersonians may have had contempt for the poor and for the "mob", but they also did not want an industrial society ruled by a super-rich elite. In fact, Jefferson near the end of his life had quite vigorous and angry things to say against the "banking incorporations" and "moneyed institutions".

In short, the Constitution's vision, or as Rocker would put it the vision of Democracy and Liberalism, crashed on the rocks of Capitalist Political Economy. This is NOT a meritocracy and