The 10 tactics of fascism | Jason Stanley | Big Think

Fascism is a cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by immigrants, leftists, liberals, minorities, homosexuals, women, in the face of what the fascist leader says is a takeover of the country’s media, cultural institutions, schools by these forces.

Fascist movements typically, though not invariably, rest on an urban/rural divide. The cities are where there’s decadence, where the elites congregate, where there’s immigrants, and where there’s criminality.

Each of these individuals alone is not in and of itself fascist, but you have to worry when they’re all grouped together, seeing the other as less than. Those moments are the times when societies need to worry about fascism.

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Loyalty to the dominant group means law-abidingness.
06:00
And the minority group is by its nature not law-abiding.
06:06
Law and order in fascist politics means the members
06:10
of a minority group who accept their subservient role,
06:15
they’re law-abiding,
06:16
and the members of the dominant group
06:18
by their very nature are law-abiding.
06:20
By definition, the leader can’t violate law and order.
06:24
So law and order doesn’t mean justice.
06:27
Law and order doesn’t mean equality.
06:29
Law and order structures who’s legitimate and who’s not.
06:35
Everywhere around the world,
06:36
no matter what the situation is,
06:39
in very different socioeconomic conditions,
06:42
the fascist leader comes and tells you,
06:44
“Your women and children are under threat.
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You need a strong man to protect your families.”
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They make conservatives hysterically afraid
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of transgender rights or homosexuality,
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other ways of living.
06:58
These are not people trying to live their own lives.
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They’re trying to destroy your life,
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and they’re coming after your children.
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What the fascist politician does is they take conservatives
07:09
who aren’t fascist at all, and they say,
07:11
“Look, I know you might not like my ways.
07:14
You might think I’m a womanizer.
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You might think I’m violent in my rhetoric.
07:18
But you need someone like me now.
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You need someone like me ’cause homosexuality,
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it isn’t just trying for equality.
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It’s coming after your family.”
07:29
Fascist movements typically, though not invariably,
07:33
rest on an urban/rural divide.
07:36
The cities are where there’s decadence,
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where the elites congregate, where there’s immigrants,
07:42
there’s criminality, there’s Sodom and Gomorrah.
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In the city, there’s not real work.
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The pure, hard-working, real members of the nation live
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in the rural areas, where they work hard with their hands.
07:57
When our politicians talk about inner-city voters
08:00
or urban voters, we all know what they mean.
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Arbeit macht frei, “Work shall make you free.”
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This was written on the gates of Auschwitz.
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The idea is that the minority group, they’re lazy,
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and they need to be made to work.
08:17
Free labor.
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The minority group and the leftists,
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they’re lazy by their nature,
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and it gives them a work ethic.
08:25
Labor unions are run by communists
08:28
who are trying to make things easier.
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Hard work is a virtue.
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In liberal democracy,
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we don’t value people by how hard they work.
08:37
What would happen to disabled people who can’t work?
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They would then have no value.
08:41
It’s why the Nazis had the T4 program to murder the disabled
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because the disabled were Lebenunwertes Leben,
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life unworthy of life,
08:52
because to be valued was to be capable of hard work.
08:56
Each of these individual elements is not
08:58
in and of itself fascist,
09:00
but you have to worry when they’re all grouped together,
09:03
when honest conservatives are lured into fascism
09:06
by people who tell them, “Look, it’s an existential fight.
09:09
I know you don’t accept everything we do.
09:12
You don’t accept every doctrine.
09:14
But your family is under threat.
09:16
Your family is at risk.
09:17
So without us, you’re in peril.”
09:20
Those moments are the times
09:23
when we need to worry about fascism.

The Green Deal Will Make or Break Europe

The European Union’s new leadership has decided to invest much of its political capital in a plan to position Europe as the global leader in the transition to a carbon-neutral economy. But if too many constituencies feel as though they are being sacrificed on a green alter, the plan will never even get off the ground.

BERLIN – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s  to lead a “geopolitical commission” is about to face its first big test. European heads of state are meeting to discuss her proposed European Green Deal, a sweeping project that could either unite the European Union and strengthen its position on the world stage, or generate a new intra-European political cleavage that leaves the bloc fractured and vulnerable.

The need for concerted action is clear. The Green Deal is a response to accelerating climate change, which poses an existential threat not just to Europe but to the entire planet. The problem does not observe national borders, and thus requires collective global action. But the transition to a carbon-neutral economy also offers far-reaching opportunities. With the right strategy in place, Europe can boost its own technological innovation and deploy carbon pricing and other fiscal policies to protect European labor markets from being undercut by lower-cost production in China and elsewhere.

Moreover, through the European Investment Bank, the EU already has a tool for  massive stores of capital for investments in infrastructure, research and development, and other essential areas. And, as Adam Tooze has argued, by issuing green bonds and other “safe assets,” Europe can secure greater economic independence from other powers and start to establish the euro as a global currency.

But alongside this positive vision are more dystopian scenarios in which the climate-policy debate creates geographic and socioeconomic divisions and fuels a populist backlash. Although climate change touches everyone, its effects are asymmetric, as are the costs of undertaking a transition to a carbon-neutral economy. The danger for Europeans is that the unequal distribution of the costs and opportunities will fuel a culture war between

  • east and west,
  • urban and rural, and so forth.

This European debate is an echo of a broader global challenge. Many Eastern European countries still depend heavily on coal for energy generation, and thus fear that the push for carbon neutrality is an underhanded form of protectionism by advanced economies like Germany. Poland’s energy minister, Krzysztof Tchórzewski, has dismissed as “a fantasy” the notion that Poland – which relies on coal for 80% of its electricity – could achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and estimates that the costs of such a transition would approach €1 trillion ($1.1 trillion).

But, in addition to the east-west divide, the Green Deal could also create political rifts within every EU member state. French President Emmanuel Macron has tried to position France as a global climate leader. But his government’s attempt to raise taxes on fuel last year backfired when millions of gilets jaunes (“yellow vests”) took to the streets in protest in late 2018.

The European Council on Foreign Relations has conducted in-depth polling to understand policy preferences across Europe, and we have found climate policy to be a particularly divisive issue. On the surface, around two-thirds of Europeans in most countries polled think that tackling climate change should be a priority, even if it means curtailing economic growth. But up to one in four people do not think that climate change is a real threat, and are far more worried about Islamic radicalism and the rise of nationalism.

The gilets jaunes are not an isolated phenomenon. Recent elections have shown how a program like the Green Deal could become a useful punching bag for populists and parties like the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany and Rassemblement National (National Rally, formerly the National Front) in France.

Critically, once you move from asking people whether climate change is a problem to how it should be addressed, concerns about socioeconomic fairness and the distribution of costs prove hugely divisive. Even in the European Parliament, where 62% of MEPs were elected on green-inspired platforms, only 56% agree that the EU should be pursuing a rapid transition to a low-emissions economy. Moreover, only one-third of MEPs are prepared to take tough action against companies with large carbon footprints.

Generally speaking, then, there are two possible futures for European climate policy. The Green Deal could become Europe’s chief new cause, lending momentum to European integration and strengthening the EU’s global position vis-à-vis China and the United States. Or, it could become the next “refugee crisis,” a singularly potent issue that divides Europe between east and west, and that mobilizes populist forces within countries across the bloc.

To make the first scenario more likely, EU leaders need to listen less to moralists like the young climate activist Greta Thunberg, and more to  who understand that paying off reactionary forces has long been part of the price of progress. The only way to shepherd the Green Deal to successful implementation will be to offer large fiscal transfers to the laggards, so that they, too, will have a stake in the clean-energy transition. Without European unity, there can be no effective European response to climate change.

The Last Chance to Defeat China and Win Back the Cyber Domain?

Two months ago, when Zooming In did a story on Huawei and global 5G deployment, Huawei was poised to take control of much of the world’s cyber domain. We talked about the national security implications of that prospect. And we observed the U.S. efforts to raise awareness of that risk. Two months later, when we did another story on this topic, we realized the world knows Huawei a lot better through these efforts, but Huawei’s momentum has not stopped. In fact, Huawei and China are playing a grander game. They have a brilliant strategy that is working well with the very nature of a crony capitalism. Can this battle still be won by the free world? And what does it take to win? Let’s find out in this edition of Zooming In.
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