deeptokyo's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bushism So, I found this article to be truly excellent, Essay from William Rivers Pitt as well as this segment from NPR anti-war sign made by a retired couple in Seattle who posted it on their front lawn and have now gotten orders for the sign all over the country. I'm looking for a word to describe this new form of government that is beginning to congeal around us. Some of my compadres over here on the left tend to jump to the word "fascism" with considerable ease and a bit too much alacrity, but this is inaccurate -- what we're dealing with isn't "fascism" at all. In fact, it's kinda the opposite, or maybe the inverse. One aspect of fascism, as I understand it, involves the nationalization of the means of production, and the economy's subjugation to the military aims of the State; but what we seem to have here instead is a situation where the military might of the nation is to be put at the service of economic interests. Similarly, rather than subordinating the individual to the State as in fascist systems, here the Individual is being elevated above the State(at least where the regime finds this convenient, as in tax policy --"you know better than the government where to spend your money"). In trying to describe the Bush regime's approach to the international arena,there are similar problems --"isolationist" became obsolete a long time ago,and "unilateralist" doesn't approach the scope of the Bush vision. For awhile, I was suggesting "FY-ism" (not as in fiscal year, but as in the obscene reflexive imperative) to characterize the Bushites' disregard for other countries' interests, but that was before the Bush Doctrine was published, which pushed the envelope farther than any of us could have dreamed. Now I find myself thinking of words like "hegemonism" and "dominationism," but even they don't capture the full flavor of it. I think we can do better than mere "Bushism" -- how about it? 2:46 p.m. - 2002-12-03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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