Walt Whitman called for people to “resist much, obey little.” Good advice for those living under an authoritarian government.
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Tag Archives: Fascism
These Are Times That Try Our Souls
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” Paine wrote, and his poem “Liberty Tree” backs up these sentiments. Happy July 4th.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged “Liberty Tree”, American Revolution, Thomas Paine Comments closed
Looking to Pollyanna for Help
Are Trump-opposing optimists being Pollyannish or do we need more Pollyannas? A look at Porter’s 1913 classic.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged “Look on the Bright Side of Life", Candide, Eleanor H. Porter, Monty Python, Pollyanna, Robert Hubbell, Simon Rosenberg, Voltaire Comments closed
Yeats Had Fascism’s Number
Poets in the 1920s and 1930s understood their fascists, including Yeats in this poem.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Second Coming", “Leaders of the People", Donald Trump, W. B. Yeats Comments closed
What to Make of Fascist Authors
In which I explore a Lit Hub article arguing that authors and fascists have things in common, which explains why certain authors have turned to the dark side.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Ed Simon, Eduard Limonov, Emily Bronte, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Leo Tolstoy, Merchant of Venice, Tempoe of the Golden Pavilion, War and Peace, William Shakespeare, Wuthering Heights, Yukio Mishima Comments closed
A.I. and the Tech Bro Accelerationists
AI is the darling of Silicon Valley accelerationists, who sound like the old Italian Futurists and who appear never to have read Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Andy Beckett, climate change, Ezra Pound, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Frankenstein, Greg Olear, Italian Futurism, Macbeth, Mary Shelley, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tobias Wilson-Bates, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Darkness at Noon in Trump’s America
Koestler’s novel “Darkness at Noon” applies only too well to rightwing “intellectual” and fascist advocate Curtis Yarvin.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Arthur Koestler, Atlas Shrugged, authoritarianism, Ayn Rand, Curtis Yarvin, Darkness at Noon, John Rogers, Joyce Carol Oates Comments closed
Flannery O’Connor’s DEI Revelation
In Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation,” we see the status anxiety that is driving many Americans towards reactionary politics.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Flannery O'Connor, racism, Revelation, status anxiety Comments closed
Artists Leading the Resistance
Artists like Bruce Springsteen are taking on Donald Trump, whose attacks on art and artists is straight out the fascist playbook.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Badlands", Bruce Springsteen, Donald Trump, Greg Olear, John Pavlovitz Comments closed