[SeaGypsy]

Lol! You must believe in the space doughnut to get on the space doughnut.

[PrestonSturges]

Holy smokes Cid, then we were facists before the term was even invented! I wonder if they had angry old white men back then too?

Hitler got a lot of his antisemitism from Henry Ford, whose 1920s newsletters were republished by the Nazis as "The International Jew." Henry Ford is mentioned in "Mein Kampf," and the Nazis gave him the civilian equivalent of the Iron Cross. I have heard he used to get Christmas cards from Hitler.

[Cid_Yama]

The lives and careers of both Samuel Bush and Prescott Bush are well documented. Yes, Prescott helped the Nazis through Union Banking Corp., but that Scherf nonsense is pure Hokum.

We don't need Birther nonsense to make the connection. That nonsense was probably created by the right to discredit the actual facts of the matter.

Prescott Bush married into a prominent family when he married Dorothy Walker, who's father was George Herbert Walker. Thus the name George Herbert Walker Bush for their child.

Herbert Walker's father was David Davis Walker who made his fortune selling dry goods to wagon trains heading west under the name Ely, Walker and Co.

The German connection started with Herbert Walker who arranged credit for Averell Harriman to acquire the Hamburg-Amerika Line in 1920. Herbert Walker became president of Harriman Bros. which did a lot of business with Germany.

When Harriman Brothers merged with Brown Bros and Co in 1931, son-in-law Prescott Bush became a senior partner in Brown Bros. Harriman & Co.

Bush and Harriman founded the Union Banking Corp, a holding company for Fritz Thyssen, a member of one of Germany's leading industrial families and an avid supporter of Hitler.

It was through Union Banking and Fritz Thyssen that America's ruling families were able to funnel money to the Nazis.

In 1942 Union Banking was seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act and their assets frozen.

So no more birther nonsense, the truth is enough.

[onlooker]

Yeah Cid whatever the real name of the Bush family, what nobody can discount is their participation in the funding of the Nazis directly or indirectly. So sorry it just seemed I had found alot of info detailing this change of identity. But no matter the relevant revelation is their betrayal of their own country. To think two of them have already been Presidents. Another is running for president as we speak. Only on this planet.

[Newfie]

They likely don't view it as betrayal of their country. Think, had things worked slightly differently they would have been in even better position than they are now. They likely view it as a "setback" or "delay" or "obstruction" on the path to true glory.

Your version is a technical difficulty to be overcome, apparently with some ease.

I suspect that, in their minds, from their perspective, they are the true patriots seeking glory for our country.

[Newfie]

We are headed for a long period of Authoritarian rule. Does not matter if you call it Fascist, or Communist, or Fundamentalist or Islamist, they are all the same in everything but the verbal cues they use on their subjects.

Humans are proving once again they are not good at ruling themselves and would rather take orders and whine about it than give orders and take responsibility for others. It just seems to be the way we are, humans seek an authority figure to follow so that they do not have to take personal responsibility for decision making.

+1000

I just started going through this thread, but thought this post by Tanda spot on!

[Newfie]

Whether it is the cycle in the decline and fall of civilizations that Tanada just posted or the predator prey population dynamics you see in ecosystems or the actions of an economy and stock market, there is this unavoidable cyclical nature and that we are all here witnessing and living through the decline part of this cycle of civilization is just a matter of fact.

And so one accepts this, plans for it, anticipates it, re calibrates ones expectations and deeply accepts that this is an unavoidable natural process.

Less freedom, less democracy, more authoritarian rule, etc.

I look at this from another view point which takes the human centric perspective off the table for a moment.

From the sheer burden of 7 billion consuming humans, what is better for the biosphere, a resilient middle class empowered with good distribution of wealth to meet their consumption desires or an increasingly authoritarian world with have and have nots.

Does greater disparity of wealth lessen or increase the burdens threatening our biosphere.

I dare post the question without a full opinion one way or the other. But it is rare that you see a question like this raised.

Excellent post Ibon.

My gut tells me that authoritarian rule is preferable. Only then do you have a group who can plan for the future of the planet. They may not do it, but there is a better chance. I'm reminded of the history of Dominican Republic where a strong man saved them from the horrors of Haiti.

[Newfie]

There are Facist, Democrats, republicans, Patriots, galor!

My Father was in the U.S. Merchant Marine during WWII. my Father In Law was in the Greman Army, wounded 3 times. I liked and respected both as decent humans and fathers. My Wife and I love one another.

Get the F' over it all, please.

What happened yesterday is interesting g and informative.

What happens tomorrow's is all you have control over.

Chose wisely, please.

[Cid_Yama]

They likely don't view it as betrayal of their country. Think, had things worked slightly differently they would have been in even better position than they are now. They likely view it as a "setback" or "delay" or "obstruction" on the path to true glory.

Your version is a technical difficulty to be overcome, apparently with some ease.

I suspect that, in their minds, from their perspective, they are the true patriots seeking glory for our country.

Had they succeeded in their coup ...

Great Britain would have had to capitulate after Dunkirk. Churchill would have been ousted and a Fascist government installed. France would have remained Vichy. No need for Germany to withdraw their military assistance to China, so probably no Communist takeover after the war. No need for Japan to join the Tripartite Pact. The US would have fought on the side of Germany against Stalin. France and UK would eventually have contributed to that endeavor.

Russia would probably have been defeated, they barely held off Germany with our assistance. If we had joined forces with Germany they would have been steam rolled.

The Netherlands would be located in the Dutch East Indies with their former lands, Luxembourg, Belgium and probably Denmark a part of Germany. Norway would be a fascist state. (and Quisling not a bad word.)

Poland would not exist, nor would have Czechoslovakia or Austria.

No Cold War. Lots of Genocide. There might have been a 'final solution' for blacks in the US.

It would have been a very different world indeed. I might have been raised as a Nazi and not known any better.

There would have been factory slave labor in the US just like in Germany. Conditions for the working class would have returned to that of the mid-19th century.

By now the whole planet might have been subjugated. One big happy playground for the Industrialists and ruling families and Hell on Earth for everyone else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiayZdPESno

[Newfie]

All true.

Are we not subjugated now?

Who knows for better or worse.

[Cid_Yama]

Are we not subjugated now?

Good point. Would definitely have been worse for the working class.

[Newfie]

Most likely.

What prompted my quip was you pointing out we have had 12 years of outright Bush rule. Sooooo, if they were Nazis then, are they erstwhile Nasis now?

Maybe this is what modern Faschisim looks like.

Here is one online definition
a system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized governmental control, belligerent nationalism, racism, and militarism, etc.

Given the rightward slant of USA politics in our lifetime one wonders if we truly have a two party system, or just Koch and Diet Koch?

[onlooker]

what for sure we have here in the US of A is this:
Plutocracy (from Greek πλοῦτος, ploutos, meaning "wealth", and κράτος, kratos, meaning "power, dominion, rule") or plutarchy, is a form of oligarchy and defines a society or a system ruled and dominated by the small minority of the wealthiest citizens.
Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning "few", and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning "to rule or to command")[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people
Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, (from Greek: κλέπτης - kleptēs, "thief"[1] and κράτος - kratos, "power, rule",[2] hence "rule by thieves").[needs copy edit] While literally it means a society based on theft, it is more commonly used derogatorily to point out a corrupt government or ruling class.

[ennui2]

My gut tells me that authoritarian rule is preferable. Only then do you have a group who can plan for the future of the planet. They may not do it, but there is a better chance. I'm reminded of the history of Dominican Republic where a strong man saved them from the horrors of Haiti.

I'm reminded of my nerdy AD&D roots. In that, alignment is on two axes. Good vs. Evil and Lawful vs Chaotic.

The problem I have with anarchists and libertarians is they tends to equate individual freedom with goodness. He or she doesn't realize that too much freedom = yeast in the petri dish. I don't believe that the decisions individuals come up with are necessarily the best for society as a whole, nor do I see a lot of evidence of consensus-based decision-making working. Democracy in the US tends to skew in favor of people getting suckered by the best pitch-men, because the average person is an ignorant rube. Also, most attempts at communes/ecovillages unravel because people simply can't seem to stay on the same wavelength. When they hold together, like with the Amish, there is usually a strong religious motivation, i.e. the strongman is figurative and floating in Heaven. And oftentimes people feel trapped into that situation by virtue of their family. So the solidarity that appears on the surface might not be quite so universal.

Building a civic society is a social contract in which people agree to forgo some of their immediate wants and needs for the greater good in return for everyone else doing the same. You know, taxes for roads, schools, fire department, things like that. Ayn Rand need not apply.

[Cid_Yama]

Yes, Ennui. For many the chaos of the playground was not a nice place. There need to be laws, because everyone will not be nice.

But that doesn't automatically equate to Authoritarian rule. That is why the founding fathers included checks and balances, that have since been undermined by money and power.

Limit wealth and power, including outlawing corporations, and you don't have that problem. Every business owned by an individual, who would bear full responsibility. Since wealth and power would be limited, businesses would necessarily be small. Lots of room for competition.

Had mankind not killed itself off, they might have had time to learn that lesson.

[Ibon]

When they hold together, like with the Amish, there is usually a strong religious motivation, i.e. the strongman is figurative and floating in Heaven. And oftentimes people feel trapped into that situation by virtue of their family. So the solidarity that appears on the surface might not be quite so universal.

Another question I cannot answer is if religion is dead as a binding force to hold cultures together. Recognizing the point you made here I have suggested in another post that severe consequences of human overshoot may have the silver lining of giving rise to an opposition movement with a sense of the sacred or a religiosity in terms of how we treat our biosphere. By the way, that is exactly what the roots are of the agrarian Anabaptists; The Amish, Menonites and Church of the Brethren (my fathers roots by the way). They emigrated as an opposition to the "evils" they perceived in the worldliness happening in Europe and followed this christian agrarian sect, free of automation and machines. It took a couple hundred years for the consequences of the Industrial Revolution to prove them right by the way

So, if we see that this happened once already in the case of the Anabaptists, my question still hangs in the air. Could we suffer such severe consequences that a sense of the sacred toward our biosphere emerges in a splinter group, creating the foundation of a new religion?

Or is religious sentiment dead?

Let me clarify my question. Existing religions are legacies of past conflicts. I know these religions are not dead. My real question here is if the largely secular modern world could be brought to their knees with severe enough consequences that this could rekindle a sense of the sacred?

[onlooker]

It is fascinating how on this thread we are delving into the psyche of individuals to try and explain why we are where we are and where we are going. In the end we must confront ourselves in the deepest of ways in order to go forward if their is a going forward. Cid I surmise does not think so. Others here seem ambiguous. The sum and essence of our ordeal to be played out is about what we humans see ourselves as and not as. So for those who say we will descend into barbarism well then it will be because that is principally who we are. We do have free will and we will be given an opportunity to utilize it. Gone will be mass marketing , gone will be talking heads of TV, gone will be all the belief systems and myths of our modern age. What will be left is the realization of our utter failure to have changed in time to prevent this unfolding catastrophe. So I do not know how that cannot but speak to the very soul of our being. In that sense religion and sacredness can be revived. It can revive in the common oath the survivors must make to follow a new set of creeds, beliefs and ethics. These will be the supreme law of the land. They will be the new God. Peace, Love and Harmony towards all and everyone. Simple but oh so profound and eternal in how this new Ethos applies to us.

[Newfie]

Just for the record, there is a group of researchers exploring the subject who have conclusive do we have NO free will.

I'm not convinced of its total absence, but I have come to believe that it is far more limited than we like to think.

[onlooker]

Newfie I wholeheartedly disagree, at any given moment we as conscious intelligent beings can chose to do something or not do something. I do believe we can easily be manipulated, deceived and that we tend to be habitual and compulsive. Nevertheless, we have free will by the very nature of what we are.