In my never ending quest to explain that the government in Starship Troopers isn't any more fascist than our very own...
Fascism is:
Any program for setting up a centralized autocratic national regime with severely nationalistic policies, exercising regimentation of industry, commerce, and finance, rigid censorship and forcible suppression of opposition.
First! It's not an autocracy. It's a representative democracy with a different eligibility requirements for both the candidates and the voters. Not enough information is given in the text to determine how centralized government power is, but we can infer that it's not too different from 1959 USA.
No evidence is given showing that the federation is any more (or less) nationalistic than 1959 USA.
We have Juan Rico's own father as an example that the regimentation of industry, commerce and finance are decidedly not following fascism.
Emilio isn't a citizen. He cannot vote. He's, therefore, not a Party member. Yet he owns a company that manufactures something. He mentions, in passing, that his business is not on a war footing in a way that says that it's his decision. He makes his own arrangements to leave the business to Juan should he not survive his eventual decision to join the Army; he even got to choose his own caretaker while he was away.
Free speech is mentioned in little different terms than we would in regards to censorship.
By the standards of the people attributing fascism to Starship Troopers, Stripes is also fascist!
And real true fascism is National Socialism done Italian Style. Nothing more, nothing less. National Socialism being a strong government that controls indirectly all aspects of the people's lives.
ReplyDeleteAny attempt to redefine Fascism as anything other than Italian National Socialism as practiced by Mussolini is false and has as much truth behind it as labeling homosexuals as 'Gay,' which used to be a synonym for 'happy,' which many 'gay' people are decidedly not happy.
Fascism and Naziism have both been redefined by 'the elite' and the 'enemedia' and the 'school systems' as something that is conservative-based and right-wing-based, which is decidedly not true. Compared to actual international socialism and communism, yes, fascism and national socialism are 'right(er)' political believes, because international socialism and communism is complete direct government control of all aspects of people's lives. Having that difference, direct control vs indirect control, is still very 'left wing.'
Amen! The movie, while fun to watch, did a huge disservice to the work as a whole which is where people get the idea that it's a facist government. From what I understand, the director made their uniforms look like nazi uniforms and gave the setting facist trappings because he didn't like Heinlein. Such a shame that a good novel will be remembered like this just because someone had an axe to grind.
ReplyDelete-RF
Mr Verhoeven hates all things military because of his childhood experiences in WW2.
DeleteToo many Hollywood people let their libtard political leanings ruin a good thing.
DeleteWriters like Heinlein cause a lot of issues with liberals because they don't quite know what to do.
-swj
As far back as the 1940s, George Orwell pointed out in one of his essays (which richly repay reading; there's a collected version of them out there) that "fascist" had just become a general term for "something I don't like." D--g H-ol-rs-n whined about "fascism" when he was kicked out of an amateur-press group because he couldn't keep his fetishes under some kind of control.
ReplyDeleteAh... DH... Interesting character he is. Studeaker fan... Fan fan... and Fan of... ludicriously and unrealistically gravity defying bosums.
DeleteA guy with a lot of talent if he could control his fetishes and focus onto things that were profitable.
I liked the guy, but I can understand why some people find him a little off-putting.
-swj
If Doug could have taken no for an answer when someone didn't care for his art he'd have more friends.
DeleteIf he'd been able to accept that no matter his skill level (which I admit is quite high) his fetishes would put potential employers off, he might be a Big Deal in the comic-book world.
DeleteI was there when Gerb tried to have that conversation with him a few times. I mean Gerb wasn't exactly the poster child for conformity mind you, but he was trying to tell Doug that he needed to at least pretend to fit in to get ahead. Even in a fairly tolerant of divergent thinkers business like comics.
Delete-swj
I think I was there! Something along the lines of, "You have to learn the rules so you can mouth them to the mundanes long enough to let you in the door." "You don't have to like them, you don't have to agree with them, but if you want what you say you want you're going to have to pretend to follow them."
DeleteYeah, that's essentially what Gerb's message was and pretty nearly in those words at least once. Gerb was a wise man really. If Doug had been able to take his advice great things could have happened.
DeleteLong live the Gerb. He is missed.
-swj