LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

This may or may not be relevant...but applications to the Air Force Academy are down nearly 25%. I wonder if it's the rape scandal or the revelations about the Dominionist takeover that caused the drop? It's the largest application drop for any of the service academies, including West Point, where graduates are almost certain to be sent directly to Iraq upon graduation.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY bennu_)

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed
to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.


Does any of this sound familiar?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

I just took a look at the community stats, and we're just about to bust 300 registered users. Color me totally astonished. This community started out as a little 'hobby horse' of mine, and in the last six months has really grown. And that doesn't even count the 'casual' readers who are not Live Journal users.

So, welcome aboard, newcomers- I hope that you are enjoying this community. I am getting ready to purchase a paid account for it so I can do a proper blogroll and other features for it. So watch out for 'tweaks' ahead.

As the creator of this community, I am curious about how you found it, and what you think of it. I am well aware that we have a very eclectic mix of people here who bring a wide spectrum of experience and interest to this place. It is gratifying that there is enough interest in this often difficult subject to bring people here to talk about it- for a long time, this was a very solitary interest.

Again, welcome aboard. Keep finding and posting interesting articles- this is a participatory community.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY bennu_)

Someone posted this in a craigslist forum. I thought it was worth sharing:

"What designed the designer?"
By raising the question of the need for a designer for objects with irreducible complexisty, ID also raises the question, "what designed the designer?" By ID's own arguments, a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex. Unlike with religious creationism, where the question "what created God?" can be answered with theological arguments, this appears to create a logical paradox, as the chain of designers can be followed back indefinitely, leaving the question of the creation of the first designer dangling.

One ID counter-argument to this problem invokes an uncaused causer - in other words, a deity - to resolve this problem, in which case ID reduces to religious creationism. At the same time, the postulation of the existence of even a single uncaused causer in the Universe contradicts the fundamental assumption of ID that a designer is needed for every complex object. Another possible counter-argument might be an infinite regression of designers. However, admitting infinite numbers of objects also allows any arbitarily improbable event to occur, such as an object with "irreducible" complexity assembling itself by chance. Again, this contradicts the fundamental assumption of ID that a designer is needed for every complex object, producing a logical contradiction.

Thus, according to opponents, either attempt to patch the ID hypothesis appears to either result in logical contradiction, or reduces it to a belief in religious creationism. ID then ceases to be a falsifiable theory and loses its ability to claim to be a scientific theory.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY allisburning)

And if anybody hasn't seen Get Your War On yet --

http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war.html

(Remember that the first one is from 2001)

.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Thanks to kyburg for this article. From Sojourners (registration required):

Debunking traditional gender roles

by Sandra Dufield

SojoMail 6-08-2005

The attempt by House Republicans to keep women from serving in military combat support and service units is a tangible example of a broader conservative agenda concerning the place and function of women.

Seeing their "family values" motto becoming a staple in the American vernacular, many right-wing religious conservatives are attempting to make another plank of the Republican Party platform a part of the American psyche by promoting traditional roles for men and women.

Armed with claims of "tradition" and a narrow interpretation of the Bible, many religious conservatives believe the best way for men and women to have a successful marriage is when the husband is "the leader" and has final decision-making authority and the wife submits to his leadership and decision-making.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

This may or may not be apropos, but I was at my book group tonight at the annual "choose the books for next year" meeting. I proposed "God's Politics," Jim Wallis's book on conservative religion in politics.

Not only was the book selected for next March, one of the other members said that *four other book groups* in our area will be reading it this year. And several people said that they wanted to read it because they were so horrified by the way that the religious right has co-opted political discourse in this country.

Looks like the word is definitely getting out.