1/ Who created the Freikorps? The socialist chancellor Ebert. What were the Freikorps? A group of paid merecenaries. What does this teach us about contemporary America during a crisis of democracy?
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3/ What does this mean when democracy is in crisis? Answer: it becomes logical to use civilian contractors as substitutes for the state, perhaps domestically. This, more than anything Trump does, sets the path towards fascism.
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4/ Sociology of the Freikorps: petit bourgeois but w/ aspirations to nobility. A uniquely German social form, perhaps. But who most resembles this demographic in the US? It is Southern men of a former military background. The tradition of smallholding combined w/ mil hierarchy.
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5/ This is one reason why this demographic is particular reviled in the mass media. It is a useful reserve for the system, since its men bleed for America. But it is also a threat to the system.
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6/ Hypothesis: Growing domestic tensions & political division in the US will result in an expansion of private military contractors being used to perform state functions. Trump is not US fascism, but will bring about conditions whereby something v like a Freikorps will emerge.
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7/ In other words, what was developed by the left—as with Ebert’s use of the Freikorps—will aid the radical right. An interesting little dialectic.
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End of conversation
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