scholarly journals The Science of Fascism within a Democratic Framework: Part 1: Delinearized History of US Presidency

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafiq Islam

No USA president in history has received as much opposition as Donald Trump has from all three components of the Establishment, namely the financial establishment, the political establishment and the corporate media establishment. The election of Donald Trump to the office of presidency is marked with dozens of historical first events that are anything but lackluster, yet a bleak picture of Fascism has been painted to describe Trump. This is an extraordinary piece of disinformation, as no modern president has been more consistent in plainly saying what he will do regarding US military and geopolitical goals, both outside and in office. This, even though his stated position is clearly opposite to the wishes of the dominant cabal, supported by both parties, and to US foreign policy since WWII. USA history is not very long, but Trump presidency and his inaugural speech marked a historic starting point for this 'democracy'. Every sentence of Donald J. Trump's inaugural speech was a departure from diplomacy. Knowing what diplomacy actually means, it's a great step toward transparency. It is the best thing that happened in US political history. It is no surprise the Media established completely flipped, the political establishment gasped, and the financial establishment started to conspire a different strategy (George Soros declaring he wants Trump presidency to fail). In the mean time, the typically apolitical science and technology establishment declared Trump completely unfit for the office that he has just been elected to. Trump’s inaugural speech that contained phrases like, "It's time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget, that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots", was in sharp contrast to how Abraham Lincoln viewed America, when he said, "I, as much as any other man, stand in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race… I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races." Trump’s embrace of humanity and righteousness was reminiscent of Prophet Muhammad’s last sermon at the pilgrimage, where he said over 1400 years, "An Arab is no better than a non-Arab, and a non-Arab is no better than an Arab; a red man is no better than a black man and a black man is no better than a red man – except if it is in terms of piety." Yet, Trump took oath of office swearing on the bible used by Abraham Lincoln. In this two-part paper, the key research question answered is what Trump presidency stands for. In answering this question, the first part deconstructs some of the dominant theories of Fascism. Then, a delinearized history is constructed in order to understand how democracy, as applied in USA, has an inevitable outcome of achieving the same goals as a Fascist regime. The concept of religious extremism, including “Islamic terrorism” or “radical Islam” is also discussed with relevance to ‘war on terror’. The history of US presidency then shows that the office of presidency is used as a tool to advance a Fascist agenda, albeit being packaged as USA exceptionalism. The ground is set for part 2 that analyses the rise of Trump and the demise of DNC integrity, followed by deconstruction of various allegations against Trump.

Aspasia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-36
Author(s):  
Julie Hemment ◽  
Valentina Uspenskaya

In this forum, we reflect on the genesis and history of the Tver’ Center for Women’s History and Gender Studies—its inspiration and the qualities that have enabled it to flourish and survive the political changes of the last twenty years, as well as the unique project of women educating women it represents. Inspired by historical feminist forebears, it remains a hub of intergenerational connection, inspiring young women via exposure to lost histories of women’s struggle for emancipation during the prerevolutionary and socialist periods, as well as the recent postsocialist past. Using an ethnographic account of the center’s twentieth anniversary conference as a starting point, we discuss some of its most salient and distinguishing features, as well as the unique educational project it represents and undertakes: the center’s origins in exchange and mutual feminist enlightenment; its historical orientation (women educating [wo]men in emancipation history); and its commitment to the postsocialist feminist “East-West” exchange.


2019 ◽  
pp. 441-450
Author(s):  
Scott MacDonald

Russian-American filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin has made a series of films documenting Russia in the age of Putin, including the well-known Pussy Riot (2013), about the radical feminist performance group. This interview focuses specifically on Our New President (2017), which traces the Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump presidential race and the Trump election as depicted in Russian propaganda. Pozdorovkin’s film is a significant contribution to the recent history of recycled cinema. The political weaponizing of media to produce “fake news” is the focus of Our New President. Pozdorovkin demonstrates that in the 2010s propaganda is not so much misinformation carefully embedded in an otherwise informative context, but an attempt to overwhelm by creating total media confusion. He makes clear that in Russia the government controls all major news outlets and hacking into the online networks of other nations is considered patriotism.


1972 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 16-19
Author(s):  
Kenneth Kirkland

The subject suggested in the title is so broad as to make it rather difficult to decide what boundaries to draw around the study of various resources available to the historian or other social scientist who sets out to study labor history, the social history of Italian workers and peasants, and the political and intellectual history of socialism and other radical movements. Keeping in mind that the following discussion is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather an indication of the necessary starting point to begin an investigation is probably the best way to understand this note.


1972 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 16-19
Author(s):  
Kenneth Kirkland

The subject suggested in the title is so broad as to make it rather difficult to decide what boundaries to draw around the study of various resources available to the historian or other social scientist who sets out to study labor history, the social history of Italian workers and peasants, and the political and intellectual history of socialism and other radical movements. Keeping in mind that the following discussion is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather an indication of the necessary starting point to begin an investigation is probably the best way to understand this note.


Comunicar ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (28) ◽  
pp. 45-49
Author(s):  
Michel Clarembeaux

This paper gives a brief account of the history of media education in the French Community of Belgium using as a starting point the political, media and educational contexts. Afterwards, it explains media education in the Internet and media society and the integration of the press in the field of learning. Finally, the paper describes the educational challenges of reality-television, cinema and advertising. Partiendo del contexto político, escolar y mediático de la educación en los medios en la comunidad francesa de Bélgica, este texto hace un breve recorrido de la situación del país tanto anterior a 1995, como del organigrama que surge a partir de 1995 con la creación de un Consejo y tres Centros de Recursos. Posteriormente se conceptualiza la educación en los medios en el marco de la sociedad Internet y multimedia y la integración de la prensa escrita en la enseñanza. Se describe también la tele-realidad y sus retos pedagógicos, así como la educación en el cine y la educación crítica de la publicidad.


Author(s):  
Andrew Altman

Freedom of speech and religion are among the central values of modern constitutional democracies. Efforts to understand what these freedoms mean and why they are important, and to translate them into enduring institutional arrangements, constitute a major part of the history of such democracies. As the twenty-first century begins, the political and theoretical debates over these values are not the same as they were in the past. Although centuries of philosophical controversy and institutional experimentation have settled some issues, others have been raised, with some surprising twists. Constitutional democracies rest on the principle that all citizens are to be treated as free and equal persons under the law. The principle is the settled starting point for all reasonable debate about freedom of speech and religion, and it entails that the law must secure for each citizen an equal and extensive scheme of basic liberties, including the liberties of speech and religion.


1967 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Beddard

‘Promotion’, says Holy Scripture, ‘cometh neither from the east, nor from the west: nor yet from the south’. Clerical aspirants knew better than the psalmist the strange geography of preferment in Restoration England, where the return in 1660 of the Stuarts did much to encourage in churchmen a greater sense of direction and purpose. Our present study is to elucidate one particular period in the history of preferment, that spanned by the short-lived and little-known Commission for Ecclesiastical Promotions which sat at the height and at the helm of the Tory Reaction. To place the Commission in its proper perspective, however, something must be said of the Restoration Settlement itself. It was, of course, no accident that the hereditary monarchy and Anglican Church returned together. Sir Edward Hyde, foremost of the statesmen at the exiled Court and, from January 1658, lord chancellor to Charles II, had bent his energies to achieve this very end. Yet, for the Church, it was a re-establishment rather than an unqualified restoration, for the loyalist nobility and gentry-the real architects of Sion's delivery-were careful not to resurrect Laud's persecuting prelacy. To understand the changed circumstances in which the Church found herself, it is essential to take account of what was not, as well as what was restored. Neither the imperious Court of High Commission nor the self-incriminating ex officio oath was brought back. Shorn of the chief weapons with which she had formerly harried the more wayward of the political nation, the Church returned as part of the only workable constitution England had ever known, that is as a buttress of monarchy.


1997 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Chibnall

When Eusebius set out to write an Ecclesiastical History he claimed to be ‘the first to undertake this present project and to attempt, as it were, to travel along a lonely and untrodden path’. The claim was justified: there had been little room for religious history, even the history of pagan religions, in the works of classical historians and their imitators. Following the rules laid down by Thucydides, they concentrated on the political life of the present and its military consequences; they preferred oral to written sources, provided the historian had either been present at the scene of action or had heard reports from eyewitnesses. Both in method and in content Eusebius was an innovator. Since his starting point was ‘the beginning of the dispensation of Jesus’ he was entirely dependent on written sources for more than three hundred years; and, innovating still more, he introduced documents such as letters and imperial edicts into his narrative. Far from being political and military, his subject matter was primarily the history of the apostles, the succession of bishops, the persecutions of Christians, and the views of heretics. He was widening the scope of historical writing and using the techniques previously employed in the biographies of philosophers. It is not surprising that, once his work had been translated into Latin and extended by Rufinus and Jerome, it became the starting point for writers on ecclesiastical history for generations to come.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-226
Author(s):  
Tom Gerald Daly

AbstractOn 28 October 2018 the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro won the presidential elections in Brazil with 55% of the vote. This result has been viewed by many as yet another instance of the global rise of authoritarian populist leaders, grouping Bolsonaro alongside the likes of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, India’s Narendra Modi, or Donald Trump in the USA – indeed, Bolsonaro has been dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics.” The focus on Bolsonaro himself reflects the strong emphasis on executives in a rapidly expanding literature suggesting the emergence of a new form of would-be autocrat who is democratically elected but who hollows out democratic rule over time. However, this Article argues that, far beyond Bolsonaro, the Brazilian experience is an important case-study as it prompts reflection on three fundamental propositions. First, any analysis of liberal democracy as the perceived object of attack must be highly cognizant of the democratic “starting point” and history of a given state. Second, an excessive focus on executive-led assaults on democratic rule can impede fuller analysis of a broader suite of actors and factors relevant to the (declining) health of the democratic system. Third, authoritarianism is a more appropriate analytical lens than populism for identifying potential democratic threats, especially in the Brazilian context.


1993 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Jens Hohensee

The events of 1989, the annus mirabilis, have led to a great demand for new research and a re-thinking of the history of Eastern Europe. Those sources which were kept from us for years are now available, at least in part. As part of this process political scientists and historians of Eastern Europe are now concerned to fill in the gaps in our knowledge and provide the answers to urgent questions. A consequence of this situation has been a veritable flood of publications, of which eight have been chosen for review here. With two exceptions these studies have deepened our understanding of the issues involved. There are clear differences between the historians on the one hand and the political scientists on the other in terms of their starting-point and the questions they ask. Whereas the historians deal descriptively with the origins, trends and structures of the last centuries and place the revolutions of 1989/90 in their historical context, the political scientists proceed analytically and place greater emphasis on social, ethnic and economic factors. This dichotomy is demonstrated in the different problematics of the books under review.


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