We had a chance in our area on the AM radio to hear a Sunday night talk show that was on par with the very much missed Jim Bo Hannan. And on Bill Cunningham's show we got critical information in a more casual talking atmosphere. To me, that's important with these big topics like AI and border issues and drugs because we're all trying to find balance between hardliner and do nothing, especially as Christians and contemporary American Republican or Democrat.
Back in the 90's when women were assessing things like role and tone-required, and how we "come across" we went through some comic relief in types of women. This was a window for everyone to peek at that tendency to typecast and steteotype. It was almost like choosing baby names coming up with "the right name" for "the kind" of women being portrayed.
No one liked hysterical woman. No one. You couldn't even approach her to see if one side or the other of an argument, or any kind of solution might be possible to whatever it was making the woman do that. She had a sort of energetic hum that could accelerate rapidly into full blown. "Just give her some space," even a military-type woman who'd encountered every kind would say to everyone else. Even to look upon hysterical woman would be to "call a siren" or threaten to interrupt flow. Though no one thought to weaponize her until one day when we really needed someone who wasn't corporate to "pitch a fit." Not even sure she knew...we'd set the stage for the sparks to fly. No one had to jab.
Getting word from the Southern Border last night did not come from hysterical woman, but it did come from a woman who was able to humanize events there without doing activism. This was someone who really has a sense of the "big picture" and an ability to connect, in person, with the people involved in the different capacities of involvement. And, it's really important for all of us to honor that every situation has degrees of involvement as well as official roles of the involved. The woman's reportorial style was informative of her sources as well as giving us information (even though some of the information shows people being in a transitional phase, lacking micro-mangement directive, and on front lines where situation is always fluid).
She was even able to reveal that on the human side of IMMIGRATION there's an aspect of feeling for people who were "sold a bag of goods" and are encountering, now, a totally different deal. For a few seconds she brought up it's hard to watch. And suggested that for people choosing not to ride a roller coaster on this issue, not to watch. The "issue" currently has the focus of stemming a tide of criminality that happens to involve the borders, and, a Homeland sort of visitor and citizen.
By don't watch she isn't/wasn't telling people to "turn a blind eye." And, to do so would be/is akin to people in a communism not seeing violence that occurs even as the day or night presents as perfectly normal. And, there's always a lot of stuff implicit and explicit attending any suggestion or order. Rather than obsess or get all hysterically piqued, she also seemed to be saying, find your level of engagement.
Passmore takes us back to a kickoff of maybe unnecessary chaos, Auiges-Mortes, France, 1893. A summer's August when "...unfounded rumors that Italians had killed three French workers triggered a veritable manhunt against the unlucky migrants" (1, Fascism). The day after "...police escorted as many Italians as possible to the railway station" (1). The narrator of this literature is "watching" and tells, "On the way the frightened workers were savagely assaulted by Frenchmen" (1).
By way of affixing a context for a topic like genocide, Samantha Power in A Problem From Hell tells, "I had been reporting from Bosnia for nearly two years at the time of the playground massacre...[people had] long since given up hope that the Nato jets that roared overhead every day would bomb the Serbs into ceasing their artillery assault on the besieged capital..." (xii). [In general] "...not especially alarmed..." (xii ?) when Bosnian Serb forces began attacking the so-called 'safe area' of Srebrenica (July 6th 1995). "I thought that even the Bosnian Serbs would not dare to seize a patch of land under UN guard" (xiii, intro, A Problem From Hell).
The updating person on the Bill Cunningham show (2-2-2025) let people know she'd gone ahead and is using PPE, Personal Protective Equipment, in the U.S. border area. Doing so especially because "cartel" actors are heavily invested in people and drug trafficking that requires transportation and boundary/territory infiltrating. So far, there has been some shooting. And in the real life space between policy and "on the ground" human life can get hurt, or worse.
One of the biggest differences in border maintenance after September 11, 2001 was that being attacked was a call to arms in terms of implementing a surveillance assistance to management of our issues/problems. And, there were continuities of management styles and chain of command potentialities under Republican versus Democratic adminstrations and atmospheres/environments in the differing time periods (1990's/post9112001).
It is worth noting that Passmore cites Yugoslavia as a "poor country" which didn't have a level of development-needed for the organization of mass political parties. And, still there was violence.
As Europe (not like I was there; it's been a long time since I've studied this stuff; I have to rely heavily on the materials in an increasingly paperless world...we so feel stumble-ly when we start thinking and expressing) and the Middle East came into modern times....
Well, there was a lot of jostling about for resource and "power". People had different experiences of the "old world" and being on earth. And people, some people, had fresh ideas. Some ideas were innovations on traditions or continuities; some were "radical" or quite different than tradition. Some of the ideas were people trying to make things work better. And some of the ideas were bouncing around and collided with others and/or got blended with other ideas. And the whole time modernity was catching on in system ways. "OH! Now we need to feed four hundred people! Bigger bread ovens? Or maybe more ovens? Or maybe, maybe we bring the bread to all the people after we keep the same ovens and bake for longer!"
"Maybe."
The maybe, maybe's of ideas had to match up with actualities like funding and investment of time and physical space. Plus, "success" and "failure" would depend on personality and peoples' personal circumstances as much as implementing ideas.
In the key dictatorships, the take over of people-to-people space by power over forces happened through degrees of influence. The will of the people was not always clear "by majority".
Passmore cites the Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco as somewhat a fascist. Seems a contradictory phrase unless we take into account the historical evidence that shows that a state of fascism, like a state of communism evolved. So over several decades political theory found form.
The Spanish Franco actually led a military uprising against the Spanish Republic (1936). And by the end of the ensuing civil war he'd established a fortified dictatorship which lasted until his death in 1975. That part of the movement with real support for Franco was a fascist component called the "Falange Española". The Falange was committed to a particular form of corporatism called "national syndicalism".
There are several places in the book Fascism where Passmore divulges more details on "national syndicalism" which came to the fore as coalition and "corporatism". Groups within groups. Exclusionary and inclusionary.
The Spaniards were aiming to be freer of business and state control than Italian and German versions of corporatism. The Falange also advocated for/demanded land reform. And, like Internationalist Communists, were interested in the nationalization of banks and credit. All the groups trying to form into hierarchies with dictatorial leadership sought ways to bind everything together and in this way, be done with inner power struggle.
National syndicalism NOT being a Constitutional upstart/aspect of group-being had all the wiggle-room of "coalition". And we can see where not having constitutional-grounding aided in a general slide into contentious ethnic strife where some people use violence to force, and some people do not. Fascism itself was neither established party nor royal rule.
Passmore writes, "The diverse origins of those who became fascists underlines, once again, the contradictory nature of fascism, and reminds us that fascists disagreed amongst themselves about the very essence of their movement" (30). So here, we see how confusion about foundation coupled with confusion about AIM created an element of confusion.
Looking at soon...
The survivals of religion and nation through such actions as the Lateran Pact and the birth of the U.S. Constitution.
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