The 14 characteristics of Fascism

Thanx for sharing your little violence fantasy, Gungie. (It's likely just one of many.)
We note how you went out of your way to indulge us with your vision of Holocaust and death.

Mighty "Christian" of you... (although I doubt if Jesus would be amused).

I aim to please. See if you like this one a bit better...

Well, ... yes, .... I mean, all conservatives show fascistic characterists, the governing conservatives in France are no exception.

gungasnake

I mean, I could understand that the previous pic is somehow related to fascism (at least some Jews died in that accident), but I can't understand the last one.

I think......

A train wreck?

A train off its track?

Both are good metaphors for the current state of the Democratic party?

(Just a guess, mind you, based on his prior post/illustration.....)

Tico, did you get your 'Brownshirt' and jackboots in the mail yet?

I'm still waiting on mine, I hope it comes before the big rally.

It willl suck if I have to kick in the doors and round up all these Democrat agitators for shipment to the 'Camps' in my jeans and a t shirt.

I am so stoked about the new armbands and the thought of 'President for Life Bush' leading us into the glorious future of the Fatherland.



Tico, do you sometimes get the feeling that you are one of the few sane people in an insane asylum run amuck?

I don't really want to hear about rounding up ordinary democrats; just the party's leaders. The ordinary little democrat you see in the street can be made into a republican for the right amount of crack, Thunderbird, or NightTrain, I mean, where's the need to round him up?

Iv'e been keeping a list...

So many P. Floyd references in this thread ... yet so few bonus boints to spread around.

The Danger of American Fascism
By Henry A. Wallace
The New York Times
From Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn (New York, 1944), edited by Russell Lord, p. 259.

Sunday 09 April 1944

On returning from my trip to the West in February, I received a request from The New York Times to write a piece answering the following questions:

What is a fascist?
How many fascists have we?
How dangerous are they?

A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion, or a political party.

The perfect type of fascist throughout recent centuries has been the Prussian Junker, who developed such hatred for other races and such allegiance to a military clique as to make him willing at all times to engage in any degree of deceit and violence necessary to place his culture and race astride the world. In every big nation of the world are at least a few people who have the fascist temperament. Every Jew-baiter, every Catholic hater, is a fascist at heart. The hoodlums who have been desecrating churches, cathedrals and synagogues in some of our larger cities are ripe material for fascist leadership.

The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned. The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.

If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort. They are doing this even in those cases where they hope to have profitable connections with German chemical firms after the war ends. They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.

American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.

The European brand of fascism will probably present its most serious postwar threat to us via Latin America. The effect of the war has been to raise the cost of living in most Latin American countries much faster than the wages of labor. The fascists in most Latin American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak and act like natives. Our chemical and other manufacturing concerns are all too often ready to let the Germans have Latin American markets, provided the American companies can work out an arrangement which will enable them to charge high prices to the consumer inside the United States. Following this war, technology will have reached such a point that it will be possible for Germans, using South America as a base, to cause us much more difficulty in World War III than they did in World War II. The military and landowning cliques in many South American countries will find it attractive financially to work with German fascist concerns as well as expedient from the standpoint of temporary power politics.

Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself.

Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after "the present unpleasantness" ceases:

The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups. Likewise, many people whose patriotism is their proudest boast play Hitler's game by retailing distrust of our Allies and by giving currency to snide suspicions without foundation in fact.

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate hate and distrust of both Britain and Russia. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

Several leaders of industry in this country who have gained a new vision of the meaning of opportunity through co-operation with government have warned the public openly that there are some selfish groups in industry who are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage. We all know the part that the cartels played in bringing Hitler to power, and the rule the giant German trusts have played in Nazi conquests. Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.

It has been claimed at times that our modern age of technology facilitates dictatorship. What we must understand is that the industries, processes, and inventions created by modern science can be used either to subjugate or liberate. The choice is up to us. The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people. It was Mussolini's vaunted claim that he "made the trains run on time." In the end, however, he brought to the Italian people impoverishment and defeat. It was Hitler's claim that he eliminated all unemployment in Germany. Neither is there unemployment in a prison camp.

Democracy to crush fascism internally must demonstrate its capacity to "make the trains run on time." It must develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels. As long as scientific research and inventive ingenuity outran our ability to devise social mechanisms to raise the living standards of the people, we may expect the liberal potential of the United States to increase. If this liberal potential is properly channeled, we may expect the area of freedom of the United States to increase. The problem is to spend up our rate of social invention in the service of the welfare of all the people.

The worldwide, agelong struggle between fascism and democracy will not stop when the fighting ends in Germany and Japan. Democracy can win the peace only if it does two things:

Speeds up the rate of political and economic inventions so that both production and, especially, distribution can match in their power and practical effect on the daily life of the common man the immense and growing volume of scientific research, mechanical invention and management technique. Vivifies with the greatest intensity the spiritual processes which are both the foundation and the very essence of democracy.

The moral and spiritual aspects of both personal and international relationships have a practical bearing which so-called practical men deny. This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy. Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world.

Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.

It should also be evident that exhibitions of the native brand of fascism are not confined to any single section, class or religion. Happily, it can be said that as yet fascism has not captured a predominant place in the outlook of any American section, class or religion. It may be encountered in Wall Street, Main Street or Tobacco Road. Some even suspect that they can detect incipient traces of it along the Potomac. It is an infectious disease, and we must all be on our guard against intolerance, bigotry and the pretension of invidious distinction. But if we put our trust in the common sense of common men and "with malice toward none and charity for all" go forward on the great adventure of making political, economic and social democracy a practical reality, we shall not fail.

For anybody who doesn't know who Henry Wallace was....

Wallace was FDR's last previous VP prior to Truman, a known communist who went on an excursion to Russia which included gulags, and came back and told people those gulags were a Russian vision of the WPA. Good farmers do not tolerate that sort of stupidity in their farm animals; a competent farmer with a pig or a chicken that stupid will take him out behind the barn and shoot him through the head.

Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in the words of Monty Python, "always look on the bright side of life!" There IS some good news from Tuesday's election.

Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists:

1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.

2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always wrong and you should never listen to them.

4. In spite of Bush's win, the majority of Americans still think the country is headed in the wrong direction (56%), think the war wasn't worth fighting (51%), and don't approve of the job George W. Bush is doing (52%). (Note to foreigners: Don't try to figure this one out. It's an American thing, like Pop Tarts.)

5. The Republicans will not have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate. If the Democrats do their job, Bush won't be able to pack the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. Did I say "if the Democrats do their job?" Um, maybe better to scratch this one.

6. Michigan voted for Kerry! So did the entire Northeast, the birthplace of our democracy. So did 6 of the 8 Great Lakes States. And the whole West Coast! Plus Hawaii. Ok, that's a start. We've got most of the fresh water, all of Broadway, and Mt. St. Helens. We can dehydrate them or bury them in lava. And no more show tunes!

7. Once again we are reminded that the buckeye is a nut, and not just any old nut -- a poisonous nut. A great nation was felled by a poisonous nut. May Ohio State pay dearly this Saturday when it faces Michigan.

8. 88% of Bush's support came from white voters. In 50 years, America will no longer have a white majority. Hey, 50 years isn't such a long time! If you're ten years old and reading this, your golden years will be truly golden and you will be well cared for in your old age.

9. Gays, thanks to the ballot measures passed on Tuesday, cannot get married in 11 new states. Thank God. Just think of all those wedding gifts we won't have to buy now.

10. Five more African Americans were elected as members of Congress, including the return of Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. It's always good to have more blacks in there fighting for us and doing the job our candidates can't.

11. The CEO of Coors was defeated for Senate in Colorado. Drink up!

12. Admit it: We like the Bush twins and we don't want them to go away.

13. At the state legislative level, Democrats picked up a net of at least 3 chambers in Tuesday's elections. Of the 98 partisan-controlled state legislative chambers (house/assembly and senate), Democrats went into the 2004 elections in control of 44 chambers, Republicans controlled 53 chambers, and 1 chamber was tied. After Tuesday, Democrats now control 47 chambers, Republicans control 49 chambers, 1 chamber is tied and 1 chamber (Montana House) is still undecided.

14. Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out -- and, more significantly, he's just not going to want to do all the hard work that will be expected of him. It'll be like everyone's last month in 12th grade -- you've already made it, so it's party time! Perhaps he'll treat the next four years like a permanent Friday, spending even more time at the ranch or in Kennebunkport. And why shouldn't he? He's already proved his point, avenged his father and kicked our ass.

15. Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn't ever need to pander to the Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear that he should spend these last four years building "a legacy" so that history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from office.

16. There are nearly 300 million Americans -- 200 million of them of voting age. We only lost by three and a half million! That's not a landslide -- it means we're almost there. Imagine losing by 20 million. If you had 58 yards to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go home crying -- especially when you get to start the next down on the three yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are coming!!!

17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of surprise in 2008.

Feeling better? I hope so. As my friend Mort wrote me yesterday, "My Romanian grandfather used to say to me, 'Remember, Morton, this is such a wonderful country -- it doesn't even need a president!'"

But it needs us. Rest up, I'll write you again tomorrow.

Yours,

Michael Moore
[email protected]
www.michaelmoore.com

Fascism and America Today
by Aldo Vidali

Monday, March 12, 2001 (gore2004us.com via APJP) -- I was raised in fascist Italy until age 17 and will never forget the ugliness of totalitarian control over people's lives. After two years in Brazil, I came to America in 1949 and wept when I saw the Statue of Liberty.

Today, in horror, I see all the unmistakable signs of a new wave of fascism, cleverly concealed behind pseudo-patriotic, Christian rhetoric.

To believe that the separation of powers will always protect the American people from tyranny or to deny the very possibility of fascism coming to power in the United States amounts politically to one and the same thing. By ignoring the covert nature of fascism, the will to fight against it is inevitably undermined.

Fascism came to power first in Italy in 1922 and soon Hitler, in great admiration of Mussolini, established Nazism in Germany. The Republican Florida coup used methods remarkably similar to both, including the corruption of the highest authorities in our nation.

America is now threatened by colossal multinational corporations. The new Republicans, having been bribed with an ocean of money, are at the service of these supranational powers and promote the deceitful view of their masters: that the federal Government is tyrannical and counter to the goals and ideals of "freedom-loving people." The new "compassionate-conservatives," i.e., the extreme right wing Republicans, promote greater state autonomy and fewer federal laws. They want us to forget that WE THE PEOPLE established a Constitution to protect our lives from foreign and internal enemies.

Behind Republican anti-federalism -- so staunchly upheld by George W -- is a shrewd "divide and conquer" ploy that would allow giant corporations to control the much weaker power of any single state. Naive as the plot may be, it has taken in millions of credulous middle class Republican voters. Promises of trillion dollar tax cuts and the rantings of the pseudo-Christian Coalition have exerted enough influence to cause many to vote for a return to the disaster of a Republican economy where only the rich prosper.

If you investigate carefully, you'll soon discover that these evil right wing forces want to create a private army to accomplish a series of theocratic/authoritarian goals allegedly to cleanse the "corruption" of America. They claim that the corrosive influence of the federal Government is "shown" through the existence of high taxes, restrictive gun laws, federal regulations (especially those protecting the environment from the greed of major exploiters, civil rights and reproductive rights), multiculturalism, sex education, and public education. Historically, these incipient fascist forces first opposed voting rights. Now they propose the abolition of one man-one vote, the institution of second-class citizenship, the persecution of women, people of color, those professing other belief systems (or none at all), and homosexuals.

Nazis prided themselves on their technology while clinging to ancient beliefs about "blood and soil." Neo-Christianoids or pseudo-Christians believe that the three important aspects of their eventual world dominion are: (1) a state-of-the-art satellite system (and its television broadcasts); (2) fundamentalist schools (with their emphasis on crackpot science and racist school texts); and (3) a fundamentalist church system in control of the state through cult control of congregations.

Most Neo-Christians in this post-Christian era are Christianoids who use the pulpits of various disguised branches of old Calvinism to promote an elitism that they hope will eventually replace democracy with a plutocratic oligarchy of the rich and Christianoid leadership. Their mission statement is a mixed blend of early Gnosticism, the anti-Gnostic Medieval Church, anti-Catholic Puritan ideology, anti-Luther/Calvinist Counter-Reformation, and a fascist view of the state as the ultimate expression of Christian faith. Rarely do we find among them devotion to the real teachings of Christ beyond the most superficial lip service. The Christian Coalition resembles Christianity as much as the Spanish Inquisition represented Christ's love and compassion.

Aware of the power of religious faith, Mussolini made his first act "The Lateran Pacts," an historical agreement between the Church and the Italian fascist government which secured the Vatican State and perpetuated medieval pre-scientific concepts of unquestioning obedience to the party elite and Church authority. These Pacts caused the destruction of constitutional government for nearly three decades until thousand of Allied soldiers lost their lives to rid the world of fascism and its German brand nazism.

As Alvin Toffler noted in "Future Shock", a "reversion to pre-scientific attitudes is accompanied, not surprisingly, by a tremendous wave of nostalgia." Right wing Republican campaign rhetoric suggests turning the clock back to an idealized version of 1950 America, forgetting that after half a century the world has irrevocably changed -- partially due to technological advances and progress on human rights.

At the Nuremberg Rally in 1934, Hitler said that "only brainless dwarfs" would fail to see that Germany had been the "bulwark against the Communist floods, which would have drowned Europe and its culture." He told his followers there that he had saved Germany from chaos caused by "Jewish intellectualism." Pat Robertson's Christianoid book, The New World Order, reading like a pamphlet from the John Birch Society, uses old Jew-hating references when touching on apocryphal Illuminati and Freemason conspiracies. His broadcasts are a stream of veiled insinuations about conspiracies.

David Barton, a right wing Christianoid of the first order, spoke at the 1993 Concerned Women for America convention about the Christian Reconstructionist creed. He says that the basis for American laws should be "whatever is Christian is legal. Whatever isn't Christian is illegal."

In the South, pseudo-Christians are targeting Jews for conversion. Coexistence and respect for diversity of opinion are no longer tolerable options. The primary agenda for America's right-wing/militia groups is to reject federal laws and regulations, treat people of color and women as second-class citizens, forcibly stop abortions and methods of birth control, execute homosexuals, and persecute Jews by accusing them of myriad evil conspiracies.

At the Nuremberg Rally, Hitler claimed "alien life and ideas forced on nations by Jewish intellectualism, which is racially without a basis, led to an alien, rootless state and internationally to complete cultural chaos." Buchanan, when still a member of the GOP, referred to a "so-called Holocaust survivors' syndrome," which he described in the New York Post (March 17, 1990) as "group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics."

This echoes white supremacist and Christian Reconstructionist groups that believe Jews are not the "real Jews." Christian Reconstructionists believe that their church is empowered to "advance Christ's kingdom in time and history." They claim that "the problem for the unconverted . . . is a lack of submission," and that the Bible commands "the godly to take dominion in the earth" and "reconstruct" it according to their interpretation of the Bible.

George Bush's advocating federal financing for "faith based" social programs is only the first step toward removing the separation of church and state. At one point, Hitler claimed that by stigmatizing Jews he was "doing the work of the Lord," and religious leaders as well as the average German applauded.

Leaders of paranoia exploit the confusion and anger of their followers by focusing it on whatever element of society they want to blame for problems. Ultimately, impressionable simple minds persuaded by absurd alarmist arguments conclude that killing the scapegoat eliminates the problem.

We have seen this in Nazi Germany, in Red China, in Cambodia, and recently in Bosnia and Kosovo (George W didn't know where Kosovo was -- maybe Dick Cheney can help him find it on the map).

One of the most typical features of fascism has been what Umberto Eco calls an "appeal to a frustrated middle class." Supporters of the extreme right wing are people worried about their jobs, especially those who haven't updated their skills or those stigmatized by some as "The Great Unwired" because they are not computer literate. The geographic distribution of Republican majority states supports this contention, for in the 2000 election they took the states with less Internet traffic and lost where people have daily access to online media.

The Internet reveals how the powerful bonds of industrial society that we have depended on -- law, common values, standardized education, and cultural productions -- are rapidly changing due to the Information Revolution. So far, the ignorance of conservative old wealth has failed to understand what these changes mean, and by embracing and financing a fascist plot to install into power the abysmally ignorant George W Bush and his corrupt family, they have clearly demonstrated their inability to understand that the Information Revolution has already triggered as much economic and social upheaval as was brought on by the Industrial Revolution.

For the GOP to resort over the last eight years to medieval power intrigues -- from the Contract with America to the Florida Coup -- is to court a major ecological and economic catastrophe.

In the Middle Ages, lepers and Jews were accused of plotting to usurp Christian governments by poisoning the drinking water. Jews were accused of spreading the Plague by poisoning wells. Jews and witches were accused of ruining crops, and spreading sickness and heretical beliefs. In Nazi Germany, Jews were accused of undermining the sanctity, economy and solidarity of German society. The accusers turned out ultimately to be destroyers of Germany. Today the extreme right wing still conceal their KKK white sheets in their sordid skeleton closets. They persecutes homosexuals, resists equal rights for women and minorities, and opposes environmental sanity, which is our only chance to secure enduring economic prosperity. The far right pseudo-Christians and other assorted kooks and fuzzy thinkers accuse "secular humanists" and their "evil Jewish henchmen," ecology scientists, human rights advocates, environmentalists, and "gender feminists" of being the enemies of society.

Christian lecturer and reactionary Wilma Leftwich said that the One World Government plot is led by "secular humanists." She says that "they" want to impose marriage and child taxes, a sweeping two-child family policy, offer economic incentives for birth control, put fertility control drugs in the water supply, restructure the family through the "feminist/socialist movement," and actively encourage increased homosexuality.

In August 1995, James Dobson of Focus on the Family claimed that "sexually decadent gender feminists" were plotting to take over the U.S, a typical fascist method of hate promotion. In the same speech, he accused godless Chinese of subsisting on a diet of aborted [female] babies -- a peculiar, ancient libel traced to a 6 or 7 AD tract known as Pseudo-Methodius. Dobson and Rush Limbaugh are the epitome of the neo-fascist. This war-promoting libel also rears its ugly head in ludicrous, Neo-Christianoid folklore that bears an uncanny resemblance to old folktales of witches practicing infanticide to feed an army of intelligent, musical toads with the power of human speech!

To reveal these American neo-fascists evil intentions, one need only observe the transparent resistance of the illegitimate Bush government to enacting hate crime legislation and to giving support to the establishment of an international court against war crimes to protect humanity from the horror of genocide. Clearly, fascists, knowing their own hatred and evil intentions, are not about to help set up any legal instruments that will punish crimes they expect to commit themselves when their hoped for time to reach for total takeover comes. Florida 2000 was only a preview of coming attractions.

Today there is a parallel between the economic and social milieu of the US and Nazi Germany, especially in the debate over health care. Then -- as now -- the central issue was who should receive what kind of care, and for how long. In Nazi Germany, medicine was considered a national resource reserved only for people who showed the greatest prospect of recovery and future productivity. Adherents of eugenics -- from Nazis to promoters of the National Institute of Health's Violence Initiative --claim that everything from criminal/violent behavior and alcoholism to rampant unemployment and labor unrest can be blamed on "faulty genes."

Adherents to this social/political movement also believe in inferiority of some races and superiority of others -- a view that extends to various ethnic groups and social classes as well. Nazis had their forced sterilization and euthanasia laws; courts decided a person's "value" to society. It is incredible to realize that America had the Johnson Act, which authorized more than 60,000 eugenic sterilizations between 1907 and 1941. (Most state sterilization laws were not repealed until after the 1960s.) Republicans need not worry. Compassionate Dick Cheney, who believed Nelson Mandela should spend the rest of his life in prison, will whisper in George's ear ideas of "final solutions."

Today, the "compassionate conservatives" consider legislation that limits welfare recipients to five years' worth of benefits in a lifetime. They are uneasy about aid to the elderly or to AIDS victims. They passed "three strikes" laws so that anyone who may have broken a law three times can be locked away forever, even for stealing a single loaf of bread. This law is a fascist dream come true; consider the manner in which innocent people have been framed by law enforcement departments, especially in Texas and Florida.

Dick Cheney, like Newt Gingrich, voted to end school lunches, so that more children might learn from hunger. In Nazi Germany, they advocated reducing rations for the aged, people with terminal diseases, repeat offenders, and the mentally ill. What passes as "tough-on-crime laws" in the mind of the ugly right wing mob is no different from the Nazis' judgment that "some have no right to live."

Fascism involves a "system of sexual dictatorship devised to impose arbitrary moralistic values in the individual in the interest of state approved authoritarian marriage and family where the male will is absolute." Hitler said that "the emancipation of women is an invention of Jewish minds." Today, the extreme right wing frets that "secular humanists" are restructuring families through the "feminist movement," and actively encourage increased homosexuality. The fear of "sexual freedom," viewed as sexual chaos and sexual dissipation by pseudo-Christian reactionaries like Ashcroft, works hand in hand with a fear of economic freedom for ordinary citizens. Welfare is for corporations. Tax cuts are for the rich. Let the people get trickle down crumbs and keep unemployment and low wages going so the bottom line for the rich may continue to grow fat. Those distorted fears are being fostered by the conservative who want to conserve not nature, a people's well being, or freedom, but only their bottom lines and privileges. Their unsurpassed hypocrisy lurks behind all calls for "safeguarding only Christianoid culture," which, in the final analysis, amounts to a racist, intolerant, techno-plutocracy trying to appear as civilization.

The "Christian" Coalition had no problem agreeing with Buchanan when he declared that "our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free." What may follow are goose stepping SS (State Secret Police) with Christianoid crosses on their armbands.

Fascists like to use simple language and concepts, a rhetoric that appeals to simple-minded thugs. Fascists constantly attempt to win the support of functional illiterates, the ignorant, and fuzzy thinkers. George W is a case in point: the perfect puppet with papa pulling the strings. Note how George avoids careful analysis and thoughtful commentary on issues. Note that Al Gore's intelligence was disparaged during the 2000 election by the captive media.

Al Gore and the Liberty Movement are strong and will remain strong because they adopt intelligence to protect freedom. America's Federalist Papers are not the kind of literature Bush, Cheney or Greenspan could ever understand or apply.

To realize the cretinism prevalent in the extreme right point of view, consider its claims that "women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measure of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism" as males.

George had his coup, so let us call it for what it is: AN ILLEGAL FASCIST POWER GRAB. "The election is over" bray embarrassed Republicans. Let's forget the fight. Let's come together and move forward." One can only accept a fair loss, not deceit, mob action, or thievery. Would anyone in his right mind accept a car thief's plea," Please forget it! I stole it and it's mine now!!!" while the thief is still driving the car he stole?

Neo-Republicans are against everything America stands for. They and their corrupt court accomplices annihilated the votes of all American citizens. The crime of the century is not forgivable until corrected. We must never forget it for a single day.

Shouldn't that MM post above have been more appropriately posted in the wallowing in self-pity and gnashing of teeth thread?

Here we are 3 years later and we are still a democracy and Bush has been re-elected with a majority of the voters in America. Imagine that.

Where's Apisa? I'd like to hear how the wailing and gnashing is coming along in the nudist colony...

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.


2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.



4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.


(Clinton's 80-day bombing campaign over Serbia)

5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.


(according to democrats, all cultures are equal...)

6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes' excesses.



7. Obsession with national security. Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting "national security," and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.



(a nation which was insufficiently obsessed with national security (Carthage)...)

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite's behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the "godless." A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.

George Washington's Farewell Address:



9. Power of corporations protected.

But no protection for the small businessman, including doctors and dentists, who are the legal prey of the trial lawyers' guild....

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

Or a rogue political party largely financed by corrupt union practices and officials...

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.



12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. "Normal" and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or "traitors" was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.



13. Rampant cronyism and corruption....

(democrats don't do that, BWWAAAaaaaaahahaha...)

14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.



http://www.townhall.com/bookclub/hewitt.html




Sure. In fact it has been ringing alarm bells and raising red flags far as I'm concerned for the last fifteen years or thereabouts. That's why I vote against democrats these days.

The actual territorial division's a lot worse than that from the vantage point of the dems: