#Eco-Fascism

[elljayvee]

re: that last point, given how many people I, personally, one human living in a technologically advanced society, know who have lost newborn infants or had stillbirths? and how many other people I know who have children who are only alive because NICUs exist? Proving deliberate killing of infants vs plain old bad luck, in the absence of things like wounds from weapons, from archaeological evidence? Extremely unlikely.

really disheartening to see how much eco-fascist and eugenicist bullshit has embedded itself into writings about human relationship with nature. I was looking at a copy of a book in the library a while back called Humans Vs. Nature and found this (Discussing early human migrations in the Paleolithic)

To my great dismay, I did not record the source for this claim, But I found these pictures again, and of course I think...How do we know that?

How could we know that Paleolithic hunter-gatherers deliberately controlled their populations by periods of abstaining from sex? That would be incredibly hard to support using archaeological evidence. It seems easier to support infanticide using the archaeological record, so I was not initially troubled by that.

The author is also stating that Paleolithic humans killed their disabled. I have been searching high and low for evidence to support this claim and the closest I've come to any evidence regarding disability in the Paleolithic is this book chapter discussing whether or not it makes sense to assume compassion existed in pre-history. This book chapter gives the impression that the research has been...really dismal.

The two sides of the debate are essentially, "humans probably cared for their disabled in prehistory, because pathologies and injuries are common and they would have needed some kind of care" and "well maybe those people could survive just fine on their own and that's why they lived. We can't prove they were actually disabled."

Not an anthropologist, but I think it's pretty stupid to position a compassionless society as the "null hypothesis," especially based upon chimpanzees. Why would Paleolithic humans be more behaviorally similar to a relative separated by 5 to 13 million years of evolutionary divergence, than to their own descendants a mere few thousand years later????????

But the claim in Humans Vs. Nature isn't just that disabled people weren't cared for, it's that they were deliberately "eliminated," which is a statement with a much higher burden of proof. You would have to find the remains of disabled humans from that time period with clear evidence that they were killed because they were disabled, and you would have to observe this consistently in many sites, to come to the conclusion that it was a cultural norm.

We have many examples of elaborate, seemingly honorable burials for people that were apparently disabled and would have lived a long time with their disabilities. Nothing I've read has mentioned an archaeological record of killing people for being disabled, which would be a glaring oversight, unless it didn't exist, which I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

How did we get to the point where this kind of fucking bullshit sounds so plausible and correct that it makes it into a best selling book without anyone looking it up to see if it's true.

[ayin-me-yesh]

Going tbh, every time I see someone applauding Biden approving some environmental regulation in the U.S. while he's also sponsoring genocide in Palestine — while he's sending in the U.S. military (one of the world's biggest polluters) to attack Ansar Allah, while he's supplying Israel with arms that are killing thousands of people and destroying the Palestinian environment, while his government encourages Israel to exploit Gaza's off-shore oil reserves — it really feels like eco-fascism.

[jtoddring]

Greenwash, Lithium & Eco-Fascism

Proved: Greenwash Is Ecoterrorism, Eco-Fascism – and High-Tech, Neo-Feudal “Green” Imperialism Indigenous cultures in the “lithium triangle” of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia are being robbed, subjugated, poisoned and plundered, to make Teslas and cell phones. Corporate-state violence is the continuing norm, in response. Welcome to “Green” Imperialism. Cell phones, tablets, laptops and electric…

[hyperboreandad-82]

[hellyeahheroes]

How Fascists Are Taking Advantage Of Climate Change by Second Thought

[originalleftist]

Yeah, I'm immediately wary these days whenever anyone starts talking about "overpopulation". Because one, as noted above it's not really accurate- our Earth could handle the people it has a lot better if resources were more equally distributed. And two, when you frame environmental issues or shortages in that way, that there are just too many people, it immediately invites the question: "Which people need to be subtracted from the equation?"

It conveniently takes the focus off of the inequitable distribution of resources. And yes, it transitions very easily to blaming so-called "developing" (mostly non-white) nations, which due to the aforementioned disparities tend to have higher population growth.

It's just more divide and conquer scapegoating and deflection tactics by the wealthy and privileged, and there is a direct pipeline from concerns about "overpopulation" to eco-fascism and eugenics/genocide.

join the praxis discord - sign up - github

[nightmaretour]

Anti-technology people who insist they're not ableist crack me up. What about people who rely on machines to breathe, eat, keep their heart functioning, or otherwise stay alive? "Well not that technology, obviously!" Ok what about AAC users, people who use hearing aids, or otherwise use technology to interact with the world in ways they otherwise couldn't? "Not that technology, obviously." Okay, my mobile phone is my memory, my sense of time, my sense of direction when I get lost, my ability to contact someone when I need help. It is my personal freedom because without it I would need full time care and supervision. But yes, that technology, right?

I hate how technology is made and utilised under capitalism as much as the next guy, but to pretend that technology doesn't greatly improve the lives of countless people, or even allow them to continue being alive, is to be willfully ignorant to the existence of disabled people. A world without technology is a world where a lot of disabled people don't get to survive. Capitalism is the problem, not the technology. Technology can (and should) exist just fine without capitalism.

[antigonick]

Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. […] But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition [and syncretism]. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth. As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message. […]

Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism. [… For the Nazis], the rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life, but it mainly concerned the rejection of the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course). The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. […]

No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups [or other minorities]. [...]

To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. [...]

[B]y a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.

For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such a “final solution” implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism.

In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. [...] The Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality).

Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. [...] For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. [...] There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People. Because of its qualitative populism Ur-Fascism must be against “rotten” parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in 1984, as the official language of Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.

—Umberto Eco, in "Ur-Fascism or Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt”

[hero-israel]

The "Left" has been braying about fascism for years and yet, and YET, I know none of them have even skimmed a single sentence of Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco. If you've read it, you'll immediately start saying "Oh that's Hamas!" at basically every point he made.

Hamas has used some of the most conservative and harsh readings of Islamic theology to create a cult of tradition, they fundamentally reject modernity as an evil plague of the West, they call on Palestinians to "resist" and "struggle" and plan grandiose attacks like 10/7 with no real concrete long term tenable goals that can be gleaned- action for action's sake.

Disagreement is treason, that much is obvious. Children in preschool are taught to fear and hate Jews (fear of difference), and at the same time teach the "middle" classes that Jews are responsible for their economic hardship as if they aren't embezzling tens of millions of dollars from a global charity scam, that Jews are ever seeking to take more land and resources.

Hamas is obsessed with a Plot, that plot being every antisemitic conspiracy theory under the sun. They and their supporters believe all of them, or prime their own brains to stumble down those pipelines at a later date. My personal favorites include the Ben Gurion Canal Project, but they're all sub-plots of the Main Plot; Jews are seeking to supplant us.

Hamas frames themselves and Palestinian society as a whole as both too strong to consider humble negotiated peace, and to justify endless warfare, but also too weak to be responsible for their crimes, too pathetic for Israel to ever be justified in taking military action. It's a constant cycle of hyping themselves up as a group of badass radical warriors and then squealing "no fair" when Israel uses modern weaponry to swat them away.

I'm sure there's also contempt for the weak in Gazan society, but it doesn't immediately jump out at me from Hamas' propaganda machine (this is usually shunted onto Jews anyway, who are seen as effeminate and metropolitan, feeding into that simultaneous strength and weakness thing- Israel is weak and unworthy of life, but too powerful they're the bullies actually).

Hamas literally educates everyone to become a hero, they literally groom young boys into becoming radicalized child soldiers who do not have the frontal cortex development to resist such blatant brainwashing. It's literal child abuse. Palestinian women are pretty obviously seen as chattel who must breed the future army that will finally overwhelm Al-Yahood. There is no aspect of Gazan society that can exist for itself, it must all be part of the Struggle against Israel. And everyone, down to the tiniest baby, must play their part.

The Machismo is so blatant it should be comical. But you don't gang rape Jewish women and humiliate and torture kids if you're secure in your masculinity. I mean, there is something emasculating about being constantly beaten and seeming to have no hope for your political goals... while also constantly telling yourself that you're a proud virile warrior and you and the People have the strength of will to accomplish anything... but then these people you see as subhuman and like kind of queer if you think about it... well they utterly crush you every time. And that is all to say nothing about how Hamas relates to feminism and gay rights. And also how Eco describes the Macho Fascist as using weapons as an ersatz phallic symbol and we see so many teenage boys in Gaza being handed guns and it's like oh... this one section of the essay could take years to unpack when it comes to Hamas.

And Hamas definitely treats the people of Gaza (if not all of Palestine) as having one will and one voice, individuality is not considered. We've seen them and their spineless NGO simps refuse to acknowledge that many many Gazans criticize them, protest against them, hold them equally responsible for their current suffering as Israel. There is no One Singular Leader who claims to represent Gazans/Palestinians but that could change at any moment honestly.

And I don't see any evidence of Newspeak, but I don't know Arabic so I don't know. I do see the Western Leftist allies of Hamas engage in Newspeak like behaviors though. But that brings me to my ultimate point of this long ass ask. The Western Hamas girlies are literally, not only legitimizing a fascist organization even though they purport to hate fascism more than anything. They're starting to reproduce fascist talking points, fascist ways of thinking, in their own activism and their own lives! They're starting to think, talk, and act like fascists when it comes to Israel and Palestine, and to Jews more broadly. They're entirely unaware of this because to recognize Hamas as fascists would be to add a LOT of gray into their black and white worldview. When they appropriate the Palestinian national struggle for their own narcissistic delusions of popular revolution in the West, they're taking actual fascist propaganda produced by a fascist organization and applying it to their own lives.

tl;dr, by every metric laid out by Eco, Hamas are fascists, the people who support them and make apologetics for them are (maybe unknowingly) becoming more like fascists themselves, the next few years and decades are going to thoroughly suck but Am Yisrael Chai.

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[originalleftist]

THANK YOU for refuting the "overpopulation" narrative.

Always, ALWAYS be deeply suspicious of someone who argues that the Earth is "overpopulated". Because the moment the argument becomes "there are too many people", it opens the door for the question "Which people should be subtracted?" Now consider that the countries with the highest populations and population growth don't tend to be wealthy "developed" Western nations (which consume the most), but poorer "developing" non-Western nations... can you see where this argument is going?

Blaming environmental crises on "overpopulation" allows the rich and powerful to shift the blame onto the poor, powerless, and "foreign"/non-white. And is opening the door for eugenics, eco-fascism, and ultimately genocide to be the "solution", rather than the rich having to give up some of their wealth.

[beifong-brainrot]

One thing that always intrigued me in tlok is that it seems to subvert fascism's typical attachment to masculinity and machismo (per Umberto Eco's "Un-Fascism" essay), with characters like Lin, the Earth Queen and Kuvira all feeling decently 'fascist-coded'.

Where Azula in atla was much more explicitly displaying a fascist patriarchy using femininity and women, but still keeping them in a subservient role, tlok gives these women much more agency and control.

There's of course the argument that these women are assigned more masculine qualities, so the whole 'love for machismo' thing remains intact. Especially when often the male counterparts of these women are presented as weak, often in a more traditionally 'effeminate way', which is particularly visible in the contrast between Wu and Kuvira. So it could probably be the fictionalised version of the trend we see in fashion and gender presentation of some female conservative politicians where they seem to be trying to tread the fine line of being "masc enough to be taken seriously by their misogynistic peers, while fem enough to not get the trans allegations", while also looking down at traditionally feminine things. (Like when Marjorie Taylor Greene insulted Jasmine Crockett over having fake lashes)

But Hou-Ting is also presented as more feminine, and Lin and Kuvira also aren't completely masc characters, so idk. This is just me thinking outloud lol. But with tlok's portrayal of female-on-male abusive actions, I find tlok's relation to 'traditional' gender roles and behaviours a fascinating subject.

[uncanny-tranny]

I think as we grow up, we have to be really conscious of romanticizing the world we grew up in in order to scorn how the next generations are growing up.

Nostalgia isn't inherently bad, but especially in political spaces, be very wary of this idea that there is an Ideal Past we must Harken Back To.

It sucks to feel left behind, but such is the human condition. It isn't bad to feel nostalgic, but that doesn't mean that these new generations are inherently "lost" and "need to be saved (by you)", and I think that is very important to remember and try to be conscious of.

[jtoddring]

Greenwash & Eco-Fascism

Climate change is real, but the WEF billionaire-run, corporate-fascist oligarchy is not the saviour of humanity or the Earth – they are the principle devourers of both. We need to be perfectly clear on that. We do need a Green New Deal, but one that promotes, defends and strengthens freedom, democracy, and vibrant, ecologically sound, robust economies and employment, rather than destroying all…

[flinny-so]

"Leftists" who are against this are eco-fascists. I know some people may not like to see themselves that way but that is the word that meets the definition. Change your opinion or accept the label.

I am a marxist btw.

Some people don’t want to hear this but sometimes accessibility is not sustainable or eco-friendly. Disabled people sometimes need straws, or pre-made meals in plastic containers, or single-use items. Just because you can work with your foods in their least processed and packaged form doesn’t mean everyone else can.

[spooniestrong]

On this #EarthDay , I'd like to talk to you about EcoAbleism or EcoFascism 💙🥄

[ #ecoableism / #ecofascism is “a failure by non-disabled environmental activists to recognise that many of the climate actions they’re promoting make life difficult for disabled people”. It’s important to be aware of eco-ableism not only to make this movement as inclusive as impossible, but also because climate change has a disproportionate impact on disabled people. People who are disabled should be heard and seen, not excluded!" (- Fran Haddock) ]

We exist in a diverse society of different people with different abilities and needs, and banning ANYTHING whether plastic bags or straws or bottled water or anything else is NOT the answer.

There are people who RELY on things that might not be environmentally friendly. That doesn’t make those things or those people bad. Truthfully the greatest harmers to the environment is big corporations dumping toxins into the environment. Not the little things like normal individual contributions from day to day life, even if amassed together collectively.

So pretty please, stop thinking banning ANYTHING is going to do enough good to fix things? It’s just shifting the burdens you might not be aware of from one person to another, while leaving the true perpetrators of environmental catastrophe totally immune from consequences.

- Admin 2, D.W.

#SpoonieStrong 💙🥄

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[reasonandempathy]

What is the most illogical and dangerous idea in politics?

Fascism.

I’m sure fascists might take issue with that, but almost every definition of fascism recognizes that it in inherently contradictory, which is covered up for by a sense of aggrievement and the emotional investment of fascists to allow them to ignore the cognitive dissonance.

A lot of its core tenets can be explained by an incredibly hierarchical, selfish worldview (guns for me, gun control for thee; free medical care for me, death camp for you), but the Strong-Weak Enemy is inherently contradictory, with the easy example being the Nazi idea of Hebrew People.

They are inherently a lesser race who is weak, petty, and Objectively Worse And Dumber Than Us, but they’ve also managed to craftily and sneakily take control of the entire globe and have the entire world playing to their tune.

Quoting Umberto Eco, “the disciples of Fascism must feel humiliated by the enemy’s wealth and power, but feel nonetheless that they can defeat the enemy. The enemy is both too strong and too weak.”

You can see a similar dynamic play out in a number of fascist regimes or fascist politicians. Benito Mussolini put socialists as a whole into this territory, as explained by Marla Stone. Socialists actually made a common target for this sentiment, since they are typically the edge of acceptable politics that are opposed to the core tenets of fascism; it delegitimizes socialist politics while also reliably building fascist support.