More On Space Fascism

I found that the television show Babylon 5 portrayed, unsympathetically, a fascist government taking control of Earth. And I found it all the more interesting how the universe of “Star Trek” seemed to show fascism in a positive light. EVERYTHING seemed to be under the control of Star Fleet. No or few independent entities (versus B-5’s Interstellar News, Universe Today, and Disney Planet). The moneyless society also struck me as creepy. No real economy. And the Trekkies seemed to drink the Kool-Aid by the gallon. As a Babylon 5 character might say: “Star Fleet is Mother, Star Fleet is Father”.

More On Space Fascism

You should consider why Harold Rosen, whose opinions you denigrated recently, is rich and you're broke. Let's say that your opinions about space are all boss and his all suck. Even so, Rosen made space profitable. Instead of spending so much time calling people idiots and fascists, he did real work. Most of it was good old-fashioned free enterprise too.

You should consider why Harold Rosen, whose opinions you denigrated recently, is rich and you're broke.

Thanks for the complete non-sequitur, Jim.

Being accused of having an ego by Rand Simberg is sort of like being accused of being promiscuous by Bill Clinton. But then again it is better than being called a fascist.

Q: 'What "job" does Mark Whittington imagine that he has that he fantasizes is being made more difficult by his imaginary "Internet Rocketeers Club"?'

I'll take that one for $200, Rand.

A: What is: 'Shill for ESAS by continually conflating it with the VSE so as to mask the true damage that it is doing to America's launch capability'?

Haha one person just doesn't manage to get that it's not about calling names and another manages to miss the actual derision (hint: the word ego isn't the bad part).

Are you two planning to knock your two blocks of wood together (it should be entertaining to let you guess what I'm referring to) and start a tour? ^_^

Anyway (and even more off topic) what's so fascist about Falling Down? Great movie and I don't care if it's fascist but I just don't see how it is. A guy finally flips and goes overboard in his effort to get back at the world and get his life, freedom, past, and future back, comes close to the most important things in his life but unavoidably fails, deeply tragic but not fascist

I think several points are being missed by the "NASA isn't fascist!" crowd that those of us are using the word thought was clear but apparently isn't.

1) Saying that someone is "fascist" suggests (at least to me) that they understand the term and do adhere to the ideology explicitly. Using the term "fascistic" suggests that while they may not adhere to the ideology, that in practice, they do appear to have commonality with actual fascists when it comes to deeds and actions. So in that sense, I instead suggest that NASA is "fascistic". Suggesting that the organization is explicitly fascist to me suggests that NASA HQ understands the ideology and adheres to it as a matter of policy. IMHO, they don't. But their deeds and actions do have fascistic characteristics.

2) Part of the point of Jonah Goldburg's book was to point that the word "fascist" means something and isn't just an epithet. And in the majority of the cases where liberals hurl the epithet at those on the right, that the history and ideology of fascism has more in common with liberal policies than most non-liberal (conservative, libertarian, etc) policies. Again, its not that liberals are "fascist". Most liberals don't even know the history and meaning of the word. But many liberal policies have very fascistic aspects to them, NASA being one good example.

I guess look at it another way: if the great fascist dictators of the past were to setup their own space program, how different would it be from the NASA/DoD oligarchy we have now? If the difference would only be around the edges and in some of the rhetoric then you can make a good case that NASA if 'fascistic'.

habitat says:

"A guy finally flips and goes overboard in his effort to get back at the world and get his life, freedom, past, and future back, comes close to the most important things in his life but unavoidably fails, deeply tragic but not fascist"

It is all about the application of force. The main character wanted to set things right and roll his life back to a happier time and place. He did so in a manner where he coerced people out of their free will to bend to his will.

Michael Mealing writes: "if the great fascist dictators of the past were to setup their own space program, how different would it be from the NASA/DoD oligarchy we have now?"

In the case of Nazi Germany at least, if their space program was anything like their V-2 rocketry program, it would employ slave labor. Which one could argue would be (a) better than those jews being gassed in showers (not much better, though, considering how many of them were worked to death in the V-2 program), and (b) different only "around the edges" --at least in any Nazi way of looking at the matter.

Let's look at it another way: if every major capitalist democracy had a space program, and they all looked pretty much like NASA, and if there were some fascist countries around still, and they had space programs, and they also looked rather like NASA, what other conclusion could one reasonably come to except: this is how governments typically do space programs, with nothing particularly fascist (or "fascistic") about it?

Anyway, you guys are all off the rails, from Goldberg on down. Complaining that people seem to get upset, and that few of them seem to understand you, when you use the word "fascist" as if it were a colorless political science term ... well, that is a little like making molotov cocktails and throwing them on the pavement instead of using regular highway flares, when your car is stalled on the freeway, and then wondering why passing motorists all think you could plausibly be charged with arson. You want me to admit that NASA is unnecessarily huge, largely nationalistic symbolism, sclerotically bureaucratic, and that it aligns itself with political priorities that result in lousy launch systems and little in the way of orbital infrastructure for sustainable space development? Sure, put me down for all that. I'm on record already. You want me to say that any of this (or all of it in aggregate) makes NASA fascist? Then I would line up with most other space advocates with any sanity (not to mention friends and acquaintances with past and present association with NASA) and call bullshit on you people. It's just attention-getting and inflammatory and doesn't do one single goddamned thing to advance rational debate on space issues. Grow up. Joshua Goldberg doesn't have to grow up -- he was born rich. The rest of us can't afford to become such Olympian snot-blowers.

In the case of Nazi Germany at least, if their space program was anything like their V-2 rocketry program, it would employ slave labor.

Yes. And if we'd said that NASA was a Nazi organization, you might have a point. But since we didn't, you don't. "Nazi" is not identically equal to "fascist."

Joshua Goldberg doesn't have to grow up -- he was born rich. The rest of us can't afford to become such Olympian snot-blowers.

All you seem to have in your quiver is an ad hominem attack on someone whose name you don't know, and whose book you haven't read.

Do you really expect us to take anything you write seriously?

Let's look at it another way: if every major capitalist democracy had a space program, and they all looked pretty much like NASA, and if there were some fascist countries around still, and they had space programs, and they also looked rather like NASA, what other conclusion could one reasonably come to except: this is how governments typically do space programs, with nothing particularly fascist (or "fascistic") about it?

Well, since this thought experiment never occurred (every major capitalist democracy does not have a space program, and there's only one with a manned space program--ours), and there are only a couple fascist countries around that do (Russia and China), we can't do the thought experiment.

But consider this thought experiment. Sputnik didn't happen, and we didn't have to select national heroes to go to the moon as soon as possible. What would the US space program look like in that event? I would submit that it would look a lot like NACA--a technology agency in support of private industry and military needs, without it being the focus of national pride, with heroic figures representing the nation, and it would have a lot of free-market competition. And NACA never had any fascistic features. Until it got absorbed into NASA in 1958...