“Americans tend to see democracy and fascism as all-or-nothing categories. But it isn’t the case that there is a pure, static, ‘democracy’ in the white squares of a chessboard and a pure, static “fascism” in the black squares. Rather, there is a range of authoritarian regimes, dictatorships, and varieties of Fascist state, just as there are stronger and weaker democracies – and waxing and waning democracies. There are many shades of gray on the spectrum from an open to a closed society. (s. 20p)
[…]
Throughout this letter of warning, I will use the term fascist shift. It is a wording that describes a process. Both Italian and German fascisms came to power legally and incrementally in functioning democracies; both used legislation, cultural pressure, and baseless imprisonment and torture to progressively consolidate power. Both directed state terror to subordinate and control the individual […] Both were rabidly antidemocratic, not as a side sentiment but as the basis of their ideologies; and yet both aggressively used the law to pervert and subvert the law.
[…]
When I talk about a ‘fascist shift’ in America, I am talking about an antidemocratic ideology that uses the threat of violence against the individual to subdue the institutions of civil society so that they in turn can be subordinate to the power of the state.”
Naomi Wolf (2007): “The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot
“, p. 21f.
filed under: history
philosophy
politics
quote
usa
Aus einem Interview der Deutschen Welle mit Jean-Claude Juncker:
“Herr Premierminister, finden Sie es eigentlich nicht merkwürdig, dass jetzt vor allem jene nach dem Staat rufen, die sonst als Verfechter des Neoliberalismus ihn aus dem Wirtschaftsleben möglichst heraushalten wollen?
Ich bin so früh am Morgen zum Ironisieren nicht aufgelegt. Wenn wir heute Abend sprechen würden oder gestern Abend gesprochen hätten, dann würde ich meiner Verwunderung schon darüber Ausdruck geben, dass diejenigen, die eigentlich stets staatliche Zurückhaltung predigen, jetzt sehr beeilt sind, um nach der staatlichen Hilfe zu rufen. Im Übrigen beeindruckt es mich auch einigermaßen, dass die Angelsachsen, Briten und Amerikaner, die ansonsten ja auch für einen schmalen Staat plädieren, die ganze Staatsgewalt aufbringen, um diese rettende Aktion durchzuleben. Ich bin der Meinung, dass dies passieren muss, und stelle fest: Ideologien sterben, wenn die Wirklichkeit kommt.“
filed under: politics
quote
usa
“Geteilte Wertschätzung eines spezifisch experimentellen Weltzugangs” [via]
filed under: philosophy
quote
“The thing I hate most about advertising is that it atracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.”
Banksy – [via]
filed under: advertising
art
quote
streetart
My short stop-motion video The Astrotripper (with Tao) will be screened at the MiniMinute Festival in Münster, Germany.
The Festival describes itself as “devoted to the presentation and support of independent low-budget videos” and will take place from August 29th to 30th 2008 at the “Cinema” in Münster.
filed under: festival
me
screening
video
W. J .T. Mitchell, the renown Author of “The Pictorial Turn” has written a brilliant semiotic review of the HBO documentary The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.
“The Hooded Man reminds us of Jesus. A new kind of Jesus, admittedly, one whose tormented face is concealed from us, and whose poise at that moment was transformed by photography into an indelible icon of what a Christian nation accomplished in its crusade to liberate the Middle East”
W. J. T. Mitchell, The fog of Abu Ghraib: Errol Morris and the “bad apples”, In: Harper’s Magazine May 2008
filed under: philosophy
photo
quote
terror