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Over the course of the last couple of months, David Neiwert has been writing a series of articles entitled "Rush, Newspeak and facism" on the potential for fascism in the United States. He's a journalist who has extensive experience in this field; his articles are well worth your time. I don't really have anything to say about these, which makes me a bad blogger, but sometimes you just have to pass along the important links.

• Part 1: a discussion of the nature of fascism.
• Part 2: why the left shouldn't abuse the term "fascist."
• Part 3: more on what fascism really means, and the "Patriot" movement.
• Part 4: the Patriot movement as proto-fascism.
• Part 5: how the memes of the Patriot movement are transmitted to mainstream thought.
• Part 6: Bush's relationship with the religious right.
• Part 7: more on transmitters -- the people who carry ideas from the extreme right into the mainstream.
• Part 8: political and religious transmitters, from Trent Lott to James Traficant to Pat Robertson.
• Part 9: media transmitters who pick up the rhetoric of the Patriot movement and make it palatable.
• Part 10: why Limbaugh's tactics work and how they pull the mainstream right towards the extreme.
• Part 11: the fringe doesn't look like the fringe, and can't be assumed to be marginal.
• Part 12: a case study in Kalispell, Montana and a call to arms.

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Hey, looks like I called it! Chirac's interested in the Chile proposal. I didn't think that was actually likely, but I did note it would be a clever diplomatic move. Via Den Beste, who thinks it's another chance to mock Chirac and rather misses the problems it might cause Tony Blair.

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Despite it all, I took some time this weekend to have a nice quiet breakfast and so forth, and since I broke away from my Neighborhood Diner obsession I thought I'd take note of it. Also, I wanted to write about something peaceful.

I went down to the Rosebud Diner in Davis Square, since I needed to pick up comics anyhow. I hadn't been so impressed by it last time I went there, but this time I got the steak omelette and man that was the right choice. Fairly tender steak and lots of cheese, and I'm sure it says something about me that meat and cheese together make up most of my ideal meals. The coffee, well... the great thing about the Rosebud is that you don't so much have to worry about the coffee, cause when you're done with the meal you can saunter on down to the Someday and veg out for hours on comfy chairs drinking quality black manna. Very nice.

I also read a solid chunk of Deadhouse Gates, the second novel in the Malazan Empire sequence, whilst at the Someday. Sequence? Cycle, epic, something like that. I must admit that while writing my previous entry on the Malazan Empire books I caught myself being pleased about the prospect of reading thousands of pages of comforting sameness. Sometimes I get lazy; what can I say? However, Deadhouse Gates leaves the vast majority of characters from Gardens of the Moon behind and sets out on completely new territory. Also, Erikson's dropped a lot of the Glen Cookisms and found more of his own voice. (Sorry, Kruppe, but once one's read the Mocker it's hard to miss the echos.)

Thus, I'm feeling better about my frothing fanboy nature. I have confidence, and I have a novel set on a whole new continent to read. It made for a nice morning.