TheAgitator.com
Email of the Day
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008In response to my most recent Fox News column, someone named John Klemme writes:
Wow, what a puff piece. This article exemplifies the drivel that I would expect out of Fox News.
This douche says, “This isn’t capitalism. It’s a peculiar kind of corporatist socialism, where good risks and the resulting profits remain private, but bad risks and the resulting losses are passed on to taxpayers.”
Sorry, when you have privatization of profits and socialization of losses, that’s fascism. They want you to believe that what they’re doing is for the common good, not for the individual. It’s collectivist bullshit. Not a mention of the legality or unconstitutionality of the matter. Not a mention of derivatives. I wish that the government was only going to be $400 billion in the hole at the end of this year. What was this guy’s name – Radley Fuckhole ?
I’m a little alarmed that Mr. Klemme was somehow able to track down my real name. I had it changed years ago. It was hard growing up a Fuckhole. Especially for my brother Seymour.
What about your dad, Dick? Did he change his name, too?
Or his sister Ima…
It was no piece of cake for your sister Ima.
Nothing personal Radley. This whole bailout thing has got me pissed off. Touché.
This bailout isn’t fascism, but the McCain campaign’s “country first” signs definitely are… Socialism is for “the greater good,” fascism is for “my country, right or wrong.”
Wow that 3rd paragraph is so crazy and aimless. Privatizing of anything, let alone something positive like profits, can hardly be viewed as fascism. What planet is this guy from?
Did he really think you were defending the government there? Also, there is nothing illegal or unconstitutional about corporate bailouts.
Well played putting his full name in the post. Next time he’s googled by a potential employer, up pops this nifty little email.
Luke G. beat me to the submit button.
Poli Sci 201
Actually, fascism is misunderstood by many, largely owing to ignorant mass-media mouthpieces conflating the term with totalitarianism or dictatorship. Fascism is a government/business partnership, also known as corporatism. Instead of the government directly employing the mechanisms of state, it outsources traditional public government functions to (ostensibly) private business. Thus, the high priests of government ensure that the infinite stream of money stolen from the productive classes funnels directly into the bank accounts of their industrial partners in crime, wherein the elite get their enormous cut and the crumbs fall down to the masses.
America is fascist to the same degree that Nazi Germany or Italy was in the early to mid-20th century. Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt all compared notes and there is a written record of Hitler sending complimentary letters to Roosevelt on his imposition of the New Deal.
The cognitive dissonance that one feels on reading this history is that obviously Nazi Germany was more overtly totalitarian than America is, so the comparison seems false. But upon close examination, Nazi Germany and America are equally totalitarian, it is just more subtle and well-concealed in America. The anarchist philosopher Ronn Neff wrote of “polite totalitarianism” in America. Discover the truth for yourself.
As for the douche who wrote that idiotic letter, I always felt that not feeding trolls was the best strategy. Too late for that I guess.
John Klemme has anger management issues. John, perhaps some Xanax?
Sounds like this fella wanted a rehashing of the crisis (what about derivatives?) and some opinion to reinforce his own preconceived notions — I thought that sort of behaviour was vary rare on the Internet….hmmm
or your sister Iona Fuckhole
Is that a Norwegian name?
Don’t forget Radley’s cousin, I’m A Stupid Moron With An Ugly Face And Big Butt And My Butt Smells And I Like To Kiss My Own Fuckhole.*
What? Too obvious?
(*I apologize non-Simpsons fans, for whom this comment is even less funny than it is otherwise.)
Say hi to your aunt Anita.
The things people will say in an email that they wouldn’t dare say to your face.
What an ass!
Actually, Fascist economics is based on the idea of collectivizing the economy by heavily regulating established businesses. You can think of it as “decoupled Socialism” wherein the state merely bosses businesses into following state policies, rather than taking over full, daily control and controlling them as a government ministry.
Both Fascism and Socialism seek similar outcomes. Most people just get stuck on stupid with their methods, as though the methodological differences are so extreme that the shared goal is rendered irrelevant.
It’s also ironic that people call Fascism a distinctly right-wing phenomenon when the originators of Italian Fascism were devoted Marxists who had the intellectual honesty to admit that Capitalism was actually thriving, not dying. The reason that Fascism actually somewhat works, where Communism doesn’t, is that the Fascists went back to the drawing board and revised their theories to mesh Marxism with the reality that they were actually seeing. Marxists are like scientists who are so passionately devoted to their theoretical models that no amount of data to the contrary will convince them to revisit them.
We’re all fuckholes at some time or another. You just have to catch us on the right day.
I always thought fascists where just defined as “the people on the other side of the issue”
Well now we know the Balko family secret. The Former Fuckhole Family reunion is a tight knit one.
I cannot help the irony that corporate socialism IS fascism, as is national socialism. Arguing semantics is a waste, besides does anyone think that Radley could get the term fascism past FOX News censors when applied to the good old USA.
We are witnessing the largest bank robbery in the world, and your stocks and pensions are already in someone’s pockets. You just haven’t received the notice.
See ya at the reunion,
Formerly Fascist Fuckhole
I thought Fascism was the Italian political movement led by Mussolini.
I’m still not quite sure why he was so angry with your column.
also, to the guy with the simpsons quote: Never appologize to non-Simpsons fans who won’t get the reference. They should appologize to you for not being Simpsons fans.
Damn, this guy has a really mean way of mostly agreeing with you. It’s funny, almost everyone thinks these bailouts are a bad idea, but the government is no longer even pretending to listen.
I agree we are arguing distinctions without differences, and that we mostly agree (and possibly agree 100%) except for semantics.
My main point was the difference between the classical definition of fascism and the modern American common usage definition of fascism. The existence of competing definitions of fascism serves a very useful Orwellian purpose for the the ruling class in its quest to impose doublethink on the masses.
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” J.W. Von Goethe
In retrospect, naming the triplets Justina, Theresa and Alexander were bad choices.
While many argue that the economic policies of so-called fascist states has become the basis of economic policies in social democracies, to say that America, as a whole, is more fascist than Nazi Germany is a reach too far. Since we seem so keen to quote Orwel, let’s start there:
“The word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else… almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.” – George Orwell, What is Fascism?. 1944.
That is just as true today as it was in 1944. I see the cynic attempting to draw a parallel of America to Nazi Germany by pointing to our economic policies, and completely ignoring the core of Nazism, which was the superiority of race, with the state and individual beneath it.
I think it’s a reach much too far to call America fascist on the basis of economic policy alone considering the tenets of protection built-in to our Constitution and upheld by our Supreme Court. While some of our economic policies in regards to finance may have parallels with fascism, to call our entire country, or even our entire economic policy fascist
It’s not funny to mock other people’s names.
Heywood isn’t going to say it, but his wife’s name is Amanda.
Radley, you better believe I’m still pulling for you buddy, or my name isn’t Michael Hunt.
I’m John Klemme, but not the one that wrote that comment. I did a search for my name and found this post. That jerk is ruining my good name by posting that crap. Thank a lot buddy!