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there's a problem with this thread, but it follows i think from the particular style of dave emory--the guy behind spitfire---whose style of operating the thread mimics. what you are typically presented with by emory is a thicket of research results made up of sequences that are often of interest held together by a logic of association that seems to come mostly from immersion in the research process itself and not necessarily from anywhere else. i used to listen to emory's show when i lived in the bay area--it was always like this.
here's the problem another way, as i see it.
a) if you assume that the present american political context can be characterized as neo-fascist---well, the premise is not remarkable, really--i think that the case can be made pretty easily---look around you for fucks sake---but the case hinges on a way of thinking about fascism as a recurrent possibility, and so as a kind of ideological form. in which case, as we've been through before here, fascism is a broader category than the german instance--it includes a range of political regimes--these have some tendencies in common, but are distinct or particular in other ways--as follows from a radical nationalist ideology. you'd expect that, yes?
if the objective is to demonstrate that the present american political configuration can be understood as neo-fascist in many respects, the center of the demonstration would be a working model for or definition of fascism. it wouldn't make sense to reduce the category to "nazis" because in a very direct way, you'd undercut your own analysis. the demonstration would then move through aspects of american political or ideological activity and link it back to elements in the model. you'd probably use previous instantiations of fascism to both develop the model and as ground against which the figure of the american model would stand out.
this doesn't really seem to be dave emory's project.
he seems to want to demonstrate *direct* linkages between *nazi* party officials and american officials--which means that the center of his research pertains to the periods around world war 2 (before, during, after...you know). ok so fine.
b. IF the case being made here was about the periods emory's research addresses, then this would be a historical thread with maybe some disturbing parallels that could be explored into the present---but emory does not stop with stuff like that. and so we land here:
c. it is the way linkages are constructed on the basis of this material that tend to make emory's information paranoid.
this presents you with a problem.
you can refer to this type of work as paranoid because of the methodological problems that it is riddled with---and see for yourself--how does this stuff move from one time-frame to another? what kind of logic enables one to move via familty lineage alone, to say x is the grandfather of z so therefore...
you can refer to is as paranoid in its overarching design and still find the information interesting--even as it presents you with a choice as to whether you find it interesting enough to take the time to push apart the way it is presented in emory's writing/radio shows and think about it.
at the same time, there is something kind of amazing about this research work that dave emory has been doing---seemingly by himself--for a very long time. it is an remarkable edifice.
but it has *fundamental* problems at the level of how it's structured.
so what do you do with this?
i don't see the decision to put it in paranoia as problematic BECAUSE of the way this guy--not host, but dave emory--constructs his arguments.
and it is because inattention to method can do this to the evidence that emory's whole project seems to me self-defeating. in terms of getting what i take is his desired effect--an elimination of fascist tendencies in the american ideological universe, such as it is--he is his own worst enemy.
he does all this work and DESPITE that work, he operates with logical connectors that are so tenuous that you can dismiss all of it.
all that said, he's a bizarrely effective radio speaker. this information, presented in a way that is spread over an hour of listening, makes for a good tale.
but i treat it as a tale because of what i said above.
i see the objections to this being moved, but frankly i think that the emory model set it up.
and it's a shame, as it always is with emory, because like i said at the outset and a couple other times i'm sure, there is a ton of interesting bits in here--factoids, sequences, etc.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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