At 4:13 AM on 96/07/18 Timothy C. May wrote:

It's a mark of what has gone wrong with this country that >ordinary citizens actually fear the midnight raids, the no-knock >searches, the "threat suppression" by ninjas.

I recommend an article sub-titled: Fourteen ways of looking at a blackshirt. I've excerpted particularily relevant pieces below. Eternal Fascism by Umberto Eco New York Review of Books (June 22, 1995) In spite of some fuziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, 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; any of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them to be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it. [...] 3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake. Action being beuatiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. [...] 4. 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. 5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks 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. 6. Ur-Fascism derive from individual or social frustration. [...] 11. 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. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural hapiness. By contrast, 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. [...] Franklin Roosevelt's words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by *peaceful means* (emphasis mine) to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task. ---------------------- If you set out to defeat an enemy because you despise what they do or say, make sure that you are different - not just stronger. Ciao, James