Comment by tomrod | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomrod | Hacker News Reader

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Why do you think Covid, a public health emergency, was fascism, an inchoate merger of corporate interests that overthrow the rule of law?

Edit: cobbzilla, your comment disappeared on me, but to respond:

> Got it. Would-be authoritarians should definitely go to the public health playbook.

Covid responses were certain targeted towards incentives that they could be to push for responses believed to be the best for society, especially in domains were personal action may strongly deviate from social good.

We should never accept these actions as a normal operating procedure. In times of real emergency, such as Covid, natural disasters, and if the alleged events on the border were happening as claimed by right-wing propaganda news sources, the use of force is the purview of the government. We select them for this job during non-emergency times. For example, vaccine approval by the FDA is horrible slow. The time to change those standards isn't during an active disaster, but rather before or, less good, after.

Emergencies by definition need to be immediately addressed above all other priorities. A state of emergency is not indefinite. If someone claims it is, that is an exercise in authoritarianism all the same.

The word "fascism" appears nowhere in the source article.

Title and subtitle:

> Resist Authoritarianism by Refusing to Obey in Advance: From Nazism in Austria to the Milgram Experiment

The Nazis were Fascist, I judged that this does not need to be specifically cited especially given the context of both article and parent comment.

I’m curious your understanding of what the essence of fascism is. To me an essential part is mega corporations colluding with the government to force the people to do something they want.

Public health concerns, valid as they may be, ought to be accomplished without this kind of coercion, yet I sensed a very strong “obey in advance” mentality permeating from mainstream media.

apparently, it’s anathema to even talk about this.

I responded in my edit above to your original comment.

Per your request for a definition, I find my definition aligns to Wikipedia's definition.

> Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement,[1][2][3] characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.[2][3] Opposed to anarchism, democracy, pluralism, egalitarianism, liberalism, socialism, and Marxism,[4][5] fascism is at the far right of the traditional left–right spectrum.[6][5][7]

Your corporo-fascism is certainly one form. Remember in this context that "corporate interests" aren't specifically multinational businesses, but any group that, as a body, seek to take over a government at the exclusion of all other competing parties. Hence why fascism can be oligarchical authoritarism, religious based (like Dominionism), tehnocratic, you name it.

> mega corporations colluding with the government to force the people to do something they want

correct; that's why the Trump+Elon tryst, and all the billionnaires lining up to kiss the ring at the inauguration is so troubling

> apparently, it’s anathema to even talk about this.

you gotta be kidding - the government's response to Covid has been debated for years now, with some people vehemently against the lockdown measures, others vehemently for them. Also, those were State policies (since public health is the purvue of the states not the federal gov -- the Fed gov could only mandate its own employees).

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