Fascism- when did you realize that America was a lie?

[RainDog]

Obviously some people will respond deny that is our reality.
Go ahead and deny all you want. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything.

I'm sort of coming to terms with the reality that is America, and has been America, apparently, since the turn of last century. I've been reading Kevin Phillips' highly informative book, American Dynasty, and it's not simply an indictment of the Bush family. Whether he knew it or not, Phillips has written an indictment of our entire power structure as it has developed with the founding of Standard Oil.

Fascism is the govt of and industrial age. In post-industrial America, hopefully fascism will fall...but no doubt it will take many Americans with it.

Our government is fascist, and it's not limited to the right wing of our government, although they are the most blatant practicioners, and resort to jingoism the most readily.

Harriman, Dulles, the Rockefellers.

The DuPonts, Herbert Walker, Prescott Bush

Both democrats and republicans aided and abetted Hilter and bore no consequence for their acts of greed when they armed Hitler and helped to kill two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe.

And during this time, Americans were starving through a horrible depression brought on by the very greed of these financiers of fascism in Germany, Italy, and Spain.

The fear of communism was the boogeyman before. Fear of terrorism is the boogeyman now.

Funny how American citizens always pay for the treasonous acts of the powerful in this country, like the Bush family's alliance with the House of Saud, or the massive armament programs to the mujahadeen and the Taliban. or the selling of weapons to Iraq.

Right now, I still believe in ABB, but I am no longer so willing to think that any democrat will make any changes that really matter.

I'd like to be surprised, but I'm not expecting to be surprised.

Congress has the power to appoint a committee to investigate the lies about the Iraq war...yet Bush appoints every single member of that investigative committee.

Congress has the power to declare war, yet they gave Bush the right to invade any other nation at will, and without a threat of invasion to us. Congress voted to approve a war when they knew Bush was lying before the invasion.

Congress okays a deficit which will bankrupt the programs which were put into place to create democracy in America, because you do not have democracy in a nation with huge disparities in privlege and power between a small extremely wealthy elite and the rest of the nation.

Congress approves a tax cut for the wealthiest in this land, while forcing concessions from unions.

The majority in Congress, in the Republican party and with some democrats as well, pours scorn on the separation of powers, the separation of church and state, on the very foundations for our reason for being as a nation...

we were founded as an experiment, by people who thought that humans could rationally govern themselves and could create laws which would reflect an evolution in democracy, rather than the revolutions which were the norm in that day.

I do not know how to restore that democractic experiment in America. As it stands, it will not happen with a continuance of the status quo, and it seems that anyone who opposes the status quo is doomed to failure with a compliant media.

I feel like I am in mourning today after reading portions of American Dynasty.

[colonel odis]

1. it hit me on election night 2000

when the cameras went to the governor's mansion and they were asking bush about the florida returns not looking good for him.

there was something about his smirk that told me the fix was in. over the next three weeks we painfully came to realiize it.

[RainDog]

4. The 2000 election was a definite "I took the red pill" moment

I vaguely knew about the horrors of the Reagan/Bush era, but I had no idea just how craven that time was until after the 2000 election when I sought out more information.

I had absolutely NO idea about the fascists here who tried to kill Roosevelt because of the new deal (including members of the DuPont family), and I had no idea of how far back the Bush family had been complicit in support of fascism.

Why did the U.S. used to require people who wanted to be citizens to avow they were not communists, but they never required these same people to vow they were not fascists?

Fascism is just as much of a totalitarian system and just as much a danger to democracy as communism.

[peacetalksforall]

66. Absolutely...I will never forget the air of confidence

of William Bennett who was in the room with them and became their spokesperson for the evening - coming on after the declaration of a win for Gore...to say with that body and tone language...that it wasn't a Gore win.

I'd like to watch those films.

[Terwilliger]

2. I hear ya.

I agree in large part, and I hope we haven't already started to teeter past the brink.

[Brucey]

3. I agree with you, and there are many

who agree at least with most of what you are feeling, if not all. Fascism is the privatization of everything. Major corporations now control our government... and use it not as a benevolent dictator, but as selfish, greedy despoilers of the earth. They have the money, and therefore the power. Education and information are they're only enemies. They know that, so have taken control of the media and are beginning to take control of the schools and publishing houses. Revolution cannot happen without education and information. The Internet is still ours, and we must keep the campaign going.

[Darwin2002]

5. November 22, 1963. Actually, I didn't know it that day but my belief

grew out of the events of that day and have ever increased since clinton's impeachment

[RainDog]

8. It is an indictment in itself that Ann Coulter is on tv

after the things she and others did over the course of the Clinton presidency.

It astonishes me that Ollie North is a free man, and worse, that he gets paid to go on tv...and that the boy scouts think he is a good person to speak to young boys.

The equivalent would be if John Gotti were a talk show host...which, sadly, is not even beyond the realm of possibility for someone (not Gotti obviously, since he's dead.)

When I listen to C-Span and hear people who think that Fox is really "fair and balanced" or that Bush is who god wants as president...I feel pretty hopeless for the prospects of democracy here, when so many of those who would benefit from ousting the fascists are their greatest supporters.

[peacetalksforall]

67. Yeah, Ollie. So what is the difference between the young kids in Cuba

who are sent to a summer camp for 10 days which has been proclaimed to be a propagandist brainwashing event and our boy scouts and the propagandist brainwashing that someone like Oliver North can provide them.

They are ruining everything American.

[Beam Me Up]

58. JFK Assassination

I was only a teenager but I KNEW what we were being told about the assassination was a lie. How did I know? Call it paranoia, call it intuition, call it whatever you want. I could see government officials were LYING. I did not know what the truth was but THEY were LYING.

Once I began to see one lie, I began to see lies everywhere. I began to see that our whole framework of governance is a fabric of lies. Are there good people in government--people who believe in and try to implement the rule of Constitutional law? Of course. Do they always succeed? Of course not. There are groups and ianterests--most of them with great wealth--most of them ruthless--that distort the system to their advantage.

The Constitution was established to protect us from tyranny--foreign and domestic. It has failed. Until we identify, uproot and extinguish that nest of vipers that hides behind the veil of media reality, we will remain SUBJECTS of this tyranny.

BMU

[Media_Lies_Daily]

65. Yep, and people with the same political beliefs are in control once again.

[theshadow]

6. I'm Having A Flashback....

I was a youngster during Vietnam but can remember the violent protests here in the US and the ease with which the college students were calling America fascist. Today, the equivalent is "racist"... an easy one to throw out when the speaker wants a quick and dirty put-down. In reality, it's no different than when a right-winger yells "Communist".

We are not a perfect country and contrary to the Conservative's line, it is very patriotic to talk about this imperfections, including the ones you listed. There are a lot of definitions of facsism, and there could be a hundred messages on here each with its own. It's getting fashionable to dilute and remodel it to fit the argument that "it's here". Your concerns are well founded, just look at that ghoul Ashcroft, but I don't think we're close to crossing that line.

[LiberalVoice]

7. It started about 4 months ago...

I was well aware of the wrong doings of the * administration but, I had faith that it could be changed. Until I swiped the propaganda buzzing around my face away. No matter Democrat, Republican, Liberal, or Conservative, things will never change. Our freedoms don't exist. Changes will never really help the common man.

Until the system is destroyed.

[DerekG]

9. October 2002....

The month when Hillary Clinton, Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman and half of the Democrats participated in the Gulf of Tonkin of the 21st century.

I am young, and I had always thought that the Democratic Party was the stalwart opposition to the madness of the right wing. I thought Bill Clinton was a great leader who was a victim of ideologues.

But there was that Iraq vote, and I couldn't understand how so many senators and representatives failed to see what I, a 21 year old, could see.

Serendipitously, I became acquainted with the works of leftist historians.

I learned about Clinton's hand in the Iraqi sanctions and Operation: Columbia, as well as his dismantling of civil liberties and social programs at home; of Carter's support of oppressive governments in Latin America (oh, I forgot, he was the "human rights" president); of the escalation of the Vietnam War under several Democratic administrations; of Harry Truman's forging of the National Security State, and that his decision to drop two atomic devices on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was needless and evil.

The good/evil dichotomy that existed between the two parties was forever shattered. "The People's Party" had as much blood on its hands as "The Grand Old Party."

I donate to Dennis Kucinich now, for I have no faith that the "frontrunners" would turn us back from the abyss.

I just don't know, anymore.

[peacetalksforall]

69. I sometimes feel that the Democratic Party is there to keep

the myth alive.

We have weaklings in there representing the right wing by their vote.

Kucinich and Wellstone are/were a few exeptions.

[Malva Zebrina]

10. election 2000

and the debacle of the thugs trying to shut down the counting.

Also, the sight of Jesse Jackson being assisted off the stage by police because of the threatening presence of those thugs.

Outrage that Gore did not express outrage and neither did anyone else, exept for the Black Caucus.

Outrage that the people of the United States just stood by, passively, without uttering a word of protest, and still to this day, are not inclined to utter one word of protest against this evil man who has murdered thousands of innocent people by propagating a lie and selling it to the Ameican people when he knew it was not the truth. He is a war mongering, war criminal at this point.

Get the idiot out--his village in Crawford is searching for thier missing idiot.

[beanball]

28. The village idiot

you are so right Marianne,we the people allow an idiot to run(ruin) our country.

[anarchy1999]

35. Crawford is not his village!

Send him home to Connecticut or at best the outer reaches of Midland/Odessa, TX.

His home is not at the remfg pig farm in Crawford. All PR, period.

[Solly Mack]

11. Sometimes I feel like I'm rubbernecking a slow motion train wreck...

Just watching the demise...unable to turn away and curiously removed.

Other times I feel it to the bone...cutting me and sapping all energy..

I want to recoil from the words "America is a lie" and scream NO!...but I can't..cause deep down, where it counts, I think she is too.

I'd like to one day see America become everything her hype claims she is... (being the selfish person I am, I'd like that to happen in my lifetime)

but there will be lifetimes for those who come after me...and perhaps that's why I still fight. As disheartening as it seems, maybe our moment in time is to fight for the future moments of others. People we will never know who will inherit the legacy of fighting for other people they will never know...and maybe it's just that simple...the struggle for freedom is the struggle to overcome our own losses and leave a world behind where things are still possible....where hope is kept alive...and while part of me whats to believe that..the other part of me screams out that this is just another aspect of the BIG lie. Because unless we can achieve a true sea change...hope is just another carrot to lead the donkey with....and do I really want future generations to wake up one morning and ask themselves "why did our (cultural/societal) ancestors lie to us?"..."why did they perpetuate the lie, knowing it was a lie?"...Think how that moment felt for for you. When you realised you had been sold a false bill of goods...I don't want to do that to others...

[G_j]

12. Reagan's election via the Oct. surprise

although the murders of JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcom X should have made it clear, I held a glimmer of hope. The final nail in the coffin for me was the Iran Contra Congressional white wash.

[peacetalksforall]

72. Exactly - I feel the same way about the Iran-Contra

After all the K and X killings, I still owned the myth.

Watergate seemed to be bi-partisan and I still owned the myth.

I thought I was alone and too ignorant that I felt so much outrage at the Iran-Contra theft. The idea that these arrogant fools thought they could operate a secret sub=government.

The massacres and banking thefts in Latin America.

The growing dis-allowance of protests.

The ugly attitude of making killing righteous during Vietnam when it was clearly stated that we also went there for earth resources. The ugly attitude of naming everyone unpatriotic if they protested. The inability of many to believe that you could support the unknowing youth and still protest the killing and lies.

The growing problems of believing the news.

The growing line crossing of religion and a secular society.

The character assasssination and total waste during the war against Clinton. The demands that Democrats never sin.

The lights coming on at the realization of the marriage of bankers, currency traders, IMF, IT, media, intelligence, military, corporations, constitution rewriters and those think tankers who run it through there possibility tests and help plan the agenda with the help of the British and various contracts with leaders around the world over the decades.

Sublimate the people. Keep them quiet and dumb. Keep them struggling.

[RainDog]

13. the F-word and America

I haven't read the McGowan book, but I thought the second paragraph here talking about American denial really nails it.

http://www.swans.com/library/art8/gowans26.html

David McGowan has few doubts. "The current political system in place in the United States at the dawn of the twenty-first century is fascism," he writes in Understanding the F-Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion. "Of course, we don't call it that. We like to call it 'democracy.' Nonetheless," MacGowan adds, "it looks an awful lot like fascism."

Try an experiment. Call America anti-Communist, jingoistic, expansionist, militarist, call it racist and governed by business parties which are indistinguishable on the fundamentals, point out that Americans are inclined to equate dissent with lack of patriotism and to discourage dissent accordingly, and most Americans will agree. Tell them America is fascist (for what is fascism, but all of these things together?) and they'll react as if you just said "fuck."

McGowan isn't the first to argue that America is fascist, but maybe he's the first to do so without pulling punches, kind of like a George Carlin willing to say shit, fuck, cunt, piss, mother-fucker, cock-sucker, and tits in public, where 'respectable' comedians shy away, afraid of offending -- and therefore, losing -- audiences.

In 1935, Sinclair Lewis, best known for his novels, Main Street and Babbitt, wrote It Can't Happen Here, a tale of an American president who becomes a dictator to save his country from welfare cheats, promiscuity, runaway crime, and a liberal press. Enraged by the fascism sweeping Europe, Lewis wrote his novel as a rejoinder to its title. Yes, fascism can happen here, he warned. Of course, Lewis didn't say fascism had happened in the US. He only said it could happen. And he supposed that dictatorship was equal to absolutist rule by a single person.

[madrchsod]

14. when i started reading about

the history of the labor movement in the united states. that was back in the mid 60`s, then the civil rights movement solidified my opinion that America is an imperfect system of government.

[RainDog]

17. all govts are imperfect systems

it is impossible to have a perfect system, but it is possible to hav a system which is actually true to our enlightenment ideals (see the What is Fascism essay below).

Our nation was founded on principles which were openly hostile to Machiavellian ideas of rule.

Our current govt leaders in the republican party, and who knows about the democrats, openly admire and desire to emulate Machiavelli and openly honor him as their political inspiration.

So, our govt is a lie because it is not a democracy, which is the bill of goods we are sold as our birthright as American citizens.

I don't know about you, but I never sold my birthright...and if you know the story about Jacob and Esau, you know the travesty of every agreeing to such a "bargain," and worse to being tricked into it.

[RainDog]

15. Berlet's "What is Fascism?"

I think this is such an excellent essay.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/WhatisFascism.html
What is Fascism?

by Chip Berlet

(Adapted from preface to Russ Bellant's book
"Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party," )

"Fascism, which was not afraid to call itself reactionary.... does not hesitate to call itself illiberal and anti-liberal."

--Benito Mussolini

...The seeds of fascism... were planted in Italy. "Fascism is reaction," said Mussolini, but reaction to what? The reactionary movement following World War I was based on a rejection of the social theories that formed the basis of the 1789 French Revolution, and whose early formulations in this country had a major influence on our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

It was Rousseau who is best known for crystallizing these modern social theories in . The progeny of these theories are sometimes called Modernism or Modernity because they challenged social theories generally accepted since the days of Machiavelli. The response to the French Revolution and Rousseau, by Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and others, poured into an intellectual stew which served up Marxism, socialism, national socialism, fascism, modern liberalism, modern conservatism, communism, and a variety of forms of capitalist participatory democracy.

Fascists particularly loathed the social theories of the French Revolution and its slogan: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."

*** Liberty from oppressive government intervention in the daily lives of its citizens, from illicit searches and seizures, from enforced religious values, from intimidation and arrest for dissenters; and liberty to cast a vote in a system in which the; majority ruled but the minority retained certain inalienable rights.

*** Equality in the sense of civic equality, egalitarianism, the notion that while people differ, they all should stand equal in the eyes of the law.

*** Fraternity in the sense of the brotherhood of mankind. That all women and men, the old and the young, the infirm and the healthy, the rich and the poor, share a spark of humanity that must be cherished on a level above that of the law, and that binds us all together in a manner that continuously re-affirms and celebrates life.

This is what fascism as an ideology was reacting against--and its support came primarily from desperate people anxious and angry over their perception that their social and economic position was sinking and frustrated with the constant risk of chaos, uncertainty and inefficiency implicit in a modern democracy based on these principles. Fascism is the antithesis of democracy. We fought a war against it not half a century ago; millions perished as victims of fascism and champions of liberty.

[Mari333]

16. Today I suddenly realized how selfish I was to have children

and now they are all on their own, and god only knows what will happen to them in this country. I am angry with myself for having them now, angry because I gave them life, and now they are living it in this quasi fascist farce of a country.
Im so angry and tired. Im tired of thinking of the terror they will face , the terror my grandchildren will face, and the terror my stepson will face in Iraq.
Sometimes, I just want to lay down and die, rather then know what they will all have to go through.
I cant live in denial. I wish I could. But when you know that any minute your loved one could die, its too much to bear. Just thinking of what the future is for my kids, my stepson whose future in this war is so uncertain, and my grandchildren..I now wish I wouldnt have given birth to them in this country..
I should have gotten them all out LONG ago.

[RainDog]

18. hugs to you

I have two sons, and I can only imagine the pain you deal with each day, worrying about your sons' safety.

I'm not sorry I have my sons because my sons are not owned by the state, and neither are yours.

My sons give me hope that a future is possible.

[lostnfound]

59. Understandable. But in another way - give them more credit, Mari333.

Six months after 9-11, I walked around my neighborhood with my baby in a stroller. A neighbor started to chat with me, about her baby. She said, "I'm so afraid for my baby, the kind of world he is going to grow up in."

I said, "yes, I thought that too once..but you know, there's another way to look at it. Have faith in him, and put it in your head to remind him, "YOU can help make the world a better place." There's things that he can do that you and I can't do; he isn't born as helpless or blank-slate as he looks..inside his soul is an ocean of traits and resources that he brings to the world."

Because that attitude is empowering.

[Malva Zebrina]

19. Maybe the lesson should be what parents teach their cildren

to automatically adore a leader simply because conventional wisdom declares it must be so, or to automatically latch on to, and adore any person--to be a lemming--to be a groupie worshipping the current popular writer without considering what his/her actual postualates an actul record consists of

The best thing we can give our children, imo, is the ability to think for themselves and not to get all caught up in another person's agenda, no matter how tempting, because of all the hype, the music, the banners, the perks in actually "knowing" a famous person and all of that. It is best to teach our children to be independant thinkers.

When one gets older, one realizes that this type of activity-blind support or support out of loyalty without personal contemplation, is really a selling of the individual soul. Usually the reason for it is that they desperately want to be in a peer group. This is an indication of youth--once matured, the individual does not put much faith in this type of activity--because first of all, he/she usually by that time, has children of their own to raise and the focus changes.

A very famous person once said " the unexamined life is not worth living" and that means one is uniquely and personally responsible for his/her own perceptions and will not fare well by jumping on the bandwagon of others for the sake of being in the "in crowd" and accepted amongst their peers, so they think.

[RainDog]

36. absolutely. and teachers should tell the truth

our schools are like factories, as I read from someone else, to turn out compliant citizens who question nothing and respect authority simply because it exists, not because it is right.

fundie schools are even worse, and they are so prevalent in the south, is it any wonder that the south remains so stuck in regressive social stances?

I heard Cornel West speak the other night, and he, too quoted Socrates' statement that the unexamined life is not worth living.

America refuses to examine the truth of our past and our present.

This is why we will become a pariah nation, more and more, until the people of this country demand good govt and an end to corporate ownership of our political system.

[moof]

20. moof stands with raindog

If only there was a way to argue you were mistaken.

No way to be sure what lies ahead,

but it does look like it's going to be pretty.

[Nlighten1]

21. I'm feeling ya Raindog...

I have come to that conclusion long ago...welcome aboard the cynic express...I don't believe we can trust anyone in Washington.

[Karenina]

22. I had known it for some time

and remained in denial in order to function. In '92 Clora Bryant and Dorothy Donegan cornered me at a functon at Local 47. They both "impressed upon me" the importance of getting my "skinny black ass" as Aunty D put it, outta there. I protested that my kids were young and I would not be able to take them with if I did so. Early in '94, Jan.17 4:00am to be exact, I heard a LOUDER demand. At that point my boys said, "Go for it" and I will NEVER regret having done so.

I live in the land where the seriously funky fascist shit went down. I watch the land of my birth from afar through DU, so often shaking my head while holding it in my hands...

TODAY I am energized. As goes the U.S. so goes the world. It's been pretty outrageous, but today I'm confident. JOB ONE is the *dauphin frontman's mask gets ripped off. He's a slimy-smirking-shirking-slacker who thinks the "rules" don't apply to him. He may be about to discover otherwise.

He can only get a pass THIS time if y'all give it to him. Do me a favor... DON'T. The ROTW realizes what they're dealing with and there's already hell to pay...

[beanball]

31. Bush the five S dude or dud.

thanks Kerenina.

[BrotherBuzz]

23. The first one hundred days of this Misadministration...

I can't pinpoint the exact day I realised it, but I can say with certainty that the first one hundred days of this Bush* administration erased everything I had worked for and believed in. Thirty years of work and dreams - gone, like it never existed! Weird, it seemed that everything bad was announced on Friday afternoons, too.

I want my country back!

[RichM]

24. When Bush stole the 2000 election & the media didn't "notice."

That's when I realized it was all a lie.

[nini]

29. Same here. I haven't been the same since.

There were lots of things over time that should have sunk in deeper, but after that election, I have no doubt anymore.

[dpibel]

41. Was just talking to a friend

Told her I came to the realization recently that I've lived the last three years in a sort of daze. I just couldn't, at some level, accept what happened in Nov/Dec 2000. It was simply surreal to watch the slavering dogs in action; the Supremes opinion was out of Kafka.

And it's just gotten worse and worse.

But the real hell of it is, the vast bulk of my fellow Americans are going about their business like nothing happened, merrily cheering on the ass-kickings being administered to people in defenseless third-world countries, and blithely supporting an enormous fake of a Fierce Warrior Chieftain.

I feel rather like the Donald Sutherland character in the first remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

[LeahMira]

25. It has been so since the start...

I'm sort of coming to terms with the reality that is America, and has been America, apparently, since the turn of last century.

Well, think about the people who originally came here to this continent. They were looking for wealth, or they were religious malcontents who thought they were holier than everybody else.

Even in colonial times, people like Daniel Boone went to what was to become Kentucky because living by the rules was too confining. As settlers moved farther west, the government in Washington had a harder time keeping them reined in, to the point that Washington more or less gave up and let them have their way a lot of the time.

Now, starting with Nixon IMO, that "mentality" has come back and taken over Washington. I think it will probably take something from outside this country to change the way things are. It won't be nice for anyone, but it will have to happen if the rest of the world wants to survive.

[RainDog]

47. The American Revolution was a revolution against corporations

The East India Company, in particular, represented all that was wrong with that King George. The Boston Tea Party was a political action against the favoritism of King George to this corporation as a form of punishment to the colonies.

George introduced Coercion Acts which was, basically, an economic embargo on Boston to punish them for the tea party action, but other cities broke the embargo and sent food and other goods to the Boston colonists.

The colonists called King George's Coercion Acts by another name: The Intolerable Acts.

Jamestown was basically a corporate expansion for King George. The British founded corporations to expand their empire, and we were one cog in that wheel.

the intro. to this essay online talks about some of this.

http://www.totse.com/en/politics/corporatarchy/162762.html

[shance]

26. Its been a gradual admission as I have become more conscious

and aware of the truth.

I come from WASP, white Republican roots, and there was no way I would have been able to fully awaken without disconnecting from that world for a while.

It is sobering in a way to realize how the planet and all the creatures on it have been so negatively and devastatingly affected due to our industrialization and greed driven system that worships the dollar while insisting it does nothing of the sort, but I have to say there is a calm within me now that I never had before.

There is still the anger and passion, but I am less driven by fear, because I think there is a freedom that comes with knowing the truth. No doubt it can be depressing at times, but we have to search and find the meaning and the next step to what our process is on this planet while we are here. Its usually a lot of different things.

When I saw this thread it was like another affirmation that somebody gets it. I think one way of giving our blessed beleaguered planet some oxygen of truth is to write and find ways to bring this type dialogue into conversations with people. Build relationships with those you have things in common with like sports or the arts or whatever and begin to throw out alternative thought. Also, salons and reading groups are a great way to stir creative thought. You could start a book group and your book could be the Kevin Phillips book or one which would really cause people to think contrarily to what weve been taught to think.

So many things I could add. Wonderful thread and I hope youll continue to post other insightful posts.

thanks**

[RainDog]

51. Yes. Truth brings freedom from fear

what a beautiful post. thank you.

I have been engaged in a conversation with my community on these very issues since the 2000 coup, although at that time I did not recognize the pervasive and cross-party nature of the corporate overthrow of democracy.

I do not see this as a "vast conspiracy," but rather as a process when the checks and balances of democracy break down and are not challenged by anyone in govt with the access to power to lead America back to our roots.

There IS a vast population of Americans --just look at the numbers who came out to protest the invasion of Iraq, or the numbers who support MoveOn, or the numbers who called their representatives to reject the FCC changes.

Like you, I am not from a "granola" background, and I do not look "counter-culture." Neither are so many who have protested this administration.

I don't say this to denigrate people who have been ahead of the curve in understanding the danger of global corporate dictatorship. They brought these issues to the consciousness of so many of us trying to raise families and pay the grocery bill.

I am grateful to them.

They have finally made me realize that if we ordinary Americans do not get out in the streets to protest what is and has been happening to our country, we face a fate no better than the subjects in any other banana republic.


I see and hear from more and more people who are

[Nay]

27. For me, it was Reagan being elected TWICE, and

people actually LIKING that demented old fool because he was like their "kindly old uncle." :puke: I still have a scrapbook of news stories about what Reagan did/said -- to remind myself how much of an old fraud he was.

I felt better after Clinton, and 2000 threw me in the doldrums again. Haven't climbed out yet.

[Astarho]

30. When I read Plato's Republic

and noticed the section on Oligarchy was a more apt description of us then Democracy was.

[Deja Q]

32. Corporations control America. Not the people or the politicians we elect

Corporations give $ to politicians and get favors in return...

It's bizarroworld.

And, especially in recent years, their thrusting of fascist methods (DMCA, security cameras everywhere, 'intellectual property' lawsuits, spoofing a corporation's logo and getting sued (which is a joke and violates the spoofer's FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT, et cetera) onto us all has gone full thrust...

We can't govern ourselves. We want other people to do things for us. I see this repeated ALL THE TIME.

What else can be said?

Let's hope the next Dem can do something. Dean and Kerry have said just the right things. Doesn't mean they'll follow through, but they're saying the words that have given me enough hope.

[Snappy]

33. Plutocracy/Oligarchy

Is America A Plutocracy? by James Glaser
July 16, 2002

Plutocracy -- Government by the wealthy; a ruling class of wealthy people
I would like to say no, but any sort of look at Washington will tell you different. Our current administration is pretty much made up of wealthy corporate executives, both friends of the President and his father. Almost the second coming of the first Bush Administration in some areas. Wealthy, what is wealthy? Up here in Northern Minnesota, those that have their farm or home paid for are about close as we get to wealthy.

http://www.jamesglaser.org/2002/p20020716.html


The Bush-Cheney ticket: the politics of plutocracy

By Barry Grey
26 July 2000

The combination of Texas Governor George W. Bush and Richard Cheney as the Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates epitomizes the open domination of American politics by the representatives of wealth and power.

A Primer On the Corporate Seizure of America's Agenda. He can be reached by email at [e-mail] . For more on Mr. Hartmann's book, see http://unequalprotectioof n.com ighted, so permission to reproduce it is unnecessary. Richard W. Behal Lands (Island Press, 2001).

For a description of the book, a synopsis, and further information, go to http://www.rockisland.com/~rwbehan/.

[RainDog]

34. The Legacy of Slavery in America

While fascism is a modern notion, based upon modern ideas of monopolies, monopolies have been the poison in the well of democracy in this country since our founding.

It amazes me that so many in this country refuse to come to terms which that legacy here.

How long has it been since slavery was declared unconstitutional? --and how long after the civil war did it take war criminals in the south until they undermined the Union yet again by undercutting reconstruction?

The Germans have undergone a long and somber examination of their past in relation to Hitler, yet we still have people who think it is perfectly reasonable to have a confederate flag as part of a state's emblem.

Can you imagine the outcry if any province in Germany adopted a swastika as part of its flag?

It is only because of the complicity of those in the highest levels of our govt at the state and federal levels that the racists in this country are not shamed and ostracized.

(Jeb Bush, what will you do for the blacks in your state? Jeb: probably nothing. okay, he was wrong, he made sure he denied tens of thousands of them the right to vote.)

[mouse7]

37. 9/11 when there were no fighters in the air.

I knew the Election was stolen in 2000, but I was still thinking things happen to align properly to allow Dumbya to steal Florida and the election.

When 9/11 happened and there were no fighters protecting the second tower or the Pentagon, I realized we had just been given the red pill in suppository form.

[Kickin_Donkey]

38. I realized that America was a lie on December 13, 2000 ...

the day after the Supreme Court made its ruling to steal the election for Bush. On the day after, there was silence. Nobody gave a shit. The media not only didn't notice, it started to actively prop up Bush. That's when I knew America was a lie.

[LibDemAlways]

39. I have to agree.

I was enraged. The day the members of the Congressional Black Caucus rose to challenge the election and couldn't get one senator to sponsor them was the nail in the coffin. The day the illegal fraud was sworn in was a day of mourning for me. I put a big black ribbon around the tree in front of my house, and have had one on my door ever since. The idea of America is dead. We're living on a ghost ship.

[Seldona]

40. Fascist? Hardly.

The simple fact that you write what you did proves otherwise.

Are there fascist elements at work? Obviously.

But what seperates us from truly crossing that line is our redress of grievances. And last I noticed this was still in play.

In a truly fascist country, you would be hunted down and silenced. That isn't going to happen. Not yet.

As I pointed out there are those who would prefer fascism. I believe Bush himself wished for a dictators position vs. an elected President.

But the numbers are against him. People are seeing through it all.

No one can get away with fooling people all the time in an open society.

I will agree we are moving in that direction.

But fear of terrorism aside, I have 100% faith that the American people will see for themselves the direction these people are taking us in, and do whatever it takes to stop it.

Just my two cents worth.

[Q]

42. Please tell us how 'redress of grievances' is still in play?

- Protestors are rounded up and put in 'pens' where they can't be heard by the government OR the free press. They're shot, gassed and 'investigated'.

- Your cartoon stereotype of fascism doesn't apply in modern times...when populations can be controlled by means other than 'hunting down and silencing'. Citizens don't need to be 'silenced' in a country where the government media won't report what they have to say.

- Call it a 'kinder, gentler' fascism. Stop thinking in terms of goons going around with guns silencing people. This simply isn't necessary in a time when the media works for the government.

[Karenina]

45. How to keep the American people

from "seeing for themselves."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=33666

Welcome to DU! :toast:

[RainDog]

46. "Friendly" fascism is possible with a complicit media

http://www.totse.com/en/politics/corporatarchy/162762.html

Fascism and nazism relied on centrally-controlled propaganda campaigns that cleverly co-opted the language of the left (the Nazis called themselves the "National Socialist German Workers Party"-while persecuting socialists and curtailing workers' rights). Both movements also made rational use of irrational symbols-scapegoating minorities, appealing to mythic images of a glorious national past, building a leader cult, glorifying war and conquest, and preaching that the only proper role of women is as wives and mothers.

As political theorist Michael Parenti points out, historians often overlook fascism's economic agenda-the partnership between Big Capital and Big Government-in their analysis of its authoritarian social program. Indeed, according to Bertram Gross in his startlingly prescient Friendly Fascism (1980), it is possible to achieve fascist goals within an ostensibly democratic society. Corporations themselves, after all, are internally authoritarian; and as they increasingly dominate politics, media and economy, they can mold an entire society to serve the interests of a powerful elite without ever resorting to storm troopers and concentration camps. No deliberate conspiracy is necessary, either; each corporation merely acts to further its own economic interests. If the populace shows signs of restlessness, politicians can be hired to appeal to racial resentments and memories of national glory, dividing popular opposition and inspiring loyalty.

In the current situation, "friendly fascism" works somewhat as follows. Corporations drive down wages and pay fewer taxes (through mechanisms outlined above), gradually impoverishing the middle class and creating unrest. As corporate taxes are cut, politicians (whose election was funded by corporate donors) argue that it is necessary to reduce government services in order to balance the budget. Meanwhile, the same politicians argue for an increase in the repressive functions of government (more prisons, harsher laws, more executions, more military spending). Politicians channel the middle class's rising resentment away from corporations and toward the government-which, after all, is now less helpful and more repressive than it used to be-and against social groups easy to scapegoat (criminals, minorities, teenagers, women, gays, immigrants). Meanwhile, debate in the media is kept superficial (elections are treated as sporting contests), and right-wing commentators are subsidized while left-of-center ones are marginalized. People who feel cheated by the system turn to the Right for solace and vote for politicians who further subsidize corporations, cut government services, expand the repressive power of the state, and offer irrelevant scapegoats for social problems with economic roots. The process feeds on itself.

Within this scenario, Pat Buchanan (and similar ultra-right figures in other countries) are not anomalies, but rather predictable products of a strategy adopted by economic elites-harbingers of a less-than-friendly future that could ensue if "moderate" tactics for the consolidation of power were to fail.

[Ani Yun Wiya]

43. To my eyes...

At least since my childhood in the 1950's.

[Lost4words]

44. December 12, 2000 n/t

[KG]

48. no specific epiphany. more of a slow awakening to the realities.

[RainDog]

49. friendly fascism- the frog in the pot of water

I found this website with exerpts from Grossman's book, Friendly Fascism. It was written before the current administration, 9-11, or the election theft of 2000. nevetheless, the warnings are startling.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Friendly_Fascism_BGross.html


The emerging militarism of friendly fascism is somewhat different. lt is global in scope. It involves weapons of doomsday proportions, something that Hitler could dream of but never achieve. It is based on an integration between industry, science, and the military that the old-fashioned fascists could never even barely approximate. It points toward equally close integration among military, paramilitary, and civilian elements. Many of the civilian leaders-such as Zbigniew Brzezinski or Paul Nitze-tend to be much more bloodthirsty than any top brass. In turn, the new-style military professionals tend to become corporate-style entrepreneurs who tend to operate-as Major Richard A. Gabriel and Lieutenant Colonel Paul L. Savage have disclosed-in accordance with the ethics of the marketplace. The old buzzwords of duty, honor, and patriotism are mainly used to justify officer subservience to the interests of transnational corporations and the continuing presentation of threats to some corporate investments as threats to the interest of the American people as a whole. Above all, in sharp contrast with classic fascism's glorification of violence, the friendly fascist orientation is to sanitize, even hide, the greater violence of modern warfare behind such "value-free" terms as "nuclear exchange," "counterforce" and "flexible response," behind the huge geographical distances between the senders and receivers of destruction through missiles or even on the "automated battlefield," and the even greater psychological distances between the First World elites and the ordinary people who might be consigned to quick or slow death.

What will daily life be like under friendly fascism?

In answering this question I think immediately of Robert Theobald's frog: "Frogs will permit themselves to be boiled to death. If the temperature of the water in which the frog is sitting is slowly raised, the frog does not become aware of its danger until it is too late to do anything about it."

Although I am not sure it can ever be too late to fight oppression, the moral of the frog story is clear: as friendly fascism emerges, the conditions of daily life for most people move from bad to worse-and for many people all the way to Irving Kristol's "worst."

To Fusfeld's trio of more unemployment, taxes, and inflation, however, we must also add a decline in social services and a rise in shortages, waste and pollution, nuclear poison and junk. These are the consequences of corporate America's huge investment in the ideology of popular sacrifice and in the ``hard times" policies that have US "pull in the belts" to help THEM in efforts to expand power, privilege, and wealth.

[many a good man]

57. MUST READ: Friendly Fascism by Bertram Gross

It looks like its been re-issued. I wanted to doubt this book when it came out twenty years ago but upon reflection I find that it is entirely prescient now. This book, along with Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, made me first seriously consider the possibility of a new form of fascism in this country. After a seeming respite during the Clinton years, it has finally hit home.

Consumerism is today's opiate of the masses. Combined with the elegant propaganda derived from the advertising and PR industries, I am convinced Americans may very well wake up one day and find themselves in a society that is not at all free. Our supply of the opiate will be gradually cut off and the propaganda/PR industry will offer up many villains. A true test of our character will then emerge...

[MoonRiver]

50. December 12, 2000 a day that will forever live in infamy.

On that day a vile and corrupt majority SCOTUS defied the US Constitution and committed treason against the Republic by selecting the American president.

I knew it was all over that day unless Americans rose up in mass to resist the coup. The turn-out in this Democratic presidential primary indicates to me that the tide is finally turning. O8)

[AVID]

52. July 4 1986

First day as Coca-Cola Internation Marketing Intern.

[RainDog]

56. how did that get through to you?

when they made you drink the carbonated kool-aid?

[LifeDuringWartime]

53. like probably the rest of the replies

election 2000

[Kitsune]

54. All government is authoritarian.

Even if it starts out relatively non-authoritarian, it quickly finds it in its interests to become increasingly more authoritarian. Fascism is just a particular (and extreme) version of this.

The word for what America is isn't Fascism; it's Americanism. The same loathsome factors at play today were at play when this nation was founded. True, the governing class doesn't seem to care much about maintaining the facade of freedom as much as they used to, but with someone like B*sh in office it's pretty hard to hide the fact that the entire thing is a complete and total farce.

Then again, I'm one of those crazy people who makes Eugene Debs look like Pat Buchanan, going around talking about how all authority is evil and that the only sort of governing body people should recognize at all is one dedicated solely to coordinating surplus and defict of needed materials/goods/services/whatever for the benefit of those suffering the deficit on behalf of those with the surplus, so you should probably take everything I say with a somewhat substantial grain of salt. ^^;;

[Mrs. Overall]

55. When I turned off Corporate Media News

and began watching the programming on Free Speech TV, including Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.
This completely revolutionized the way I view the US, as I have learned about the "controlled" way in which we receive information about our government and world matters.
Amy Goodman (Democracy Now) was talking about the Plame case, Halliburton, lack of WMD, Cheney, etc.... months before mainstream media dared to touch these stories. And by the time these stories were picked up, they were sanitized.
Through Free Speech TV, I have also become aware of how difficult it is becoming to protest/dissent in this country and how censorship is becoming a norm.
I have been very disillusioned.

[GreenArrow]

60. During the Reagan years

.

[dolo amber]

61. You nailed my feelings

Especially with this line:


"I'd like to be surprised, but I'm not expecting to be surprised."

I had to take a political hiatus a few years ago, because I care far too much and was sick of constantly feeling lied to. Any small shred of idealism I had left died after the sElection of 2000.


I'd like to be surprised, but I'm not expecting to be surprised.

[bloom]

62. 1975

Maybe before - but that is the year that I know for sure.

I don't even know what all I read - but I do remember reading about the US not helping the Jews in the 30's. And other things that led me to question the government. Growing up with Watergate didn't help, eitiher.
______________

I keep hoping and I don't know why. Hillary has been a huge disappointment for me because I really felt that in '92 she was idealistic and wanted to make real improvements and I don't think she is anymore. Now it seems to me that Hillary has become one of the "Stepford" Politicians.

I think I still had hope that people from the liberal 60's would try to make a difference, someday. She had seemed like one who had the desire to try.

____________
I was looking at opensecrets.org today. Contributors to Bayh:

Carlyle Group $17,424
Pro-Israel $124,188

It made Kerry look better.

Looking at contributions, Bayh looks worse than Lugar. I advocate ABPNAC. It's not enough to just target Bush.

___________

Still looking for hope, I guess.

If I didn't have any hope, I wouldn't vote.

[spanone]

63. When the Supreme Court installed bush* in the White House

[Hippo_Tron]

64. Twas a graudal process...

Patriot Act was a HUGE hint and then there was Bush's privatization of social programs, no child left behind, calling liberals unpatriotic, eventually it all became clear that we are living under a fascist regime. But I think that any decent democrat winning the white house in 2004 or 2008 will be a glimmer of hope.

[loudnclear]

68. Your most important statement ....and I agree with it.

"Right now, I still believe in ABB, but I am no longer so willing to think that any democrat will make any changes that really matter."

And that is precisely why i am a staunch Kucinich supporter until the bitter end.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

70. I don't think America is a lie.

The idea of America, the REAL America, still has life. I'll admit that there are forces trying to wreck the experiment, but there's always hope. There's nothing wrong with America that can't be cured by what's right with America.

[nolabels]

71. You didn't have pull the book off the shelf, you could of read here also

Reading about it here gives it more flavor, more contextual advisement of people who know a lot and others you know little but want to ask questions.

We will win against these Fascist in the end. They know it and this one of the fears that keeps them motivated to pull all stops for moral judgment to be adhered to. Another great fear they have is even losing one battle, witness Nixon.

I think they have much to fear now, much of what they are doing today is way worse than Nixon era. They think they have a lock on dissemination of information with all the media outlets they have bought up, but even here at DU you can see that it's not true.

[RainDog]

73. Yes, I have been reading here for a while...

and I have thought that we had a fascist regime in power since the 2000 coup.

the interesting thing about Kevin Phillips is that he has the bona fides as a life-long republican who became an independent since Bush came to power.

He wrote The Emerging Republican Majority in 68 or so, and, to his shame, is credited with Nixon's "southern strategy."

To have someone with his credentials, who is as mainstream as they come, to warn that our very democracy is in danger because of the current group in power is a powerful statement in and of itself.

I wish that the republicans in Congress who are not part of the Bush junta would create a coalition to support each other and oppose the Tali-born-again Bush faction.

If they would do this, along with the dems, America could be spared much harm, and maybe even they and the dems could start entrepeneurial incentives to get America on the right track with renewable/alternative energy work that really matters...not that hydrogen crap.

To make the oil sheikhs in America marginal, you have to stop letting them right the laws to favor themselves and their industry and the wars which also benefit them.