"Wake Up and Smell the Fascism"

[swag]

(via Metafilter)

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

In "Fascism Anyone?," Laurence Britt identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism."

. . .

a rather provocative read, and an interesting perspective on our leadership and part of our populace.

Let the flamefest begin.

[Jack_Dawson]

1. I couldn't agree more

Why would anyone flame you?

[swag]

6. Why would anyone flame on this?

Here's an example of a somebody with a bee in his bonnet:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3078761

[mopinko]

2. goes better with mike

http://www.bushflash.com/14.html

[swag]

3. Tasty,

thanks.

[liberal N proud]

4. POAC vs PNAC

[opihimoimoi]

5. STUNNING IN ITS TOTALITY< AWESOME< SHOULD BE REQUIRED

READING for every American.

[HereSince1628]

7. I don't entirely agree,

Sure the checklist can be substantiated with a plethora of examples from US newspapers. I have more than 500 news stories that I collected from 2002 to 2003 during a personal project to substantiate my fear that the Bush Administration was taking the country into fascism.

But, and here is the big BUT. Whether you these 14 points or others you will find that they are generally also true of tyrannical behavior of all types and being behavior based criteria these lists tend to overlook critical ideological differences which can generate similar bad behavior.

One such difference between fascism and Bushism is that fascism places the good of the nation as a central concept, and despite all the flag waving and military marches Bushism really doesn't.

In fascism the people, industry and government were bound (the Latin term for bundling is fasces) together in a single body or "corporate" structure working on behalf of a nation.

The "US is going fascist" argument seems to fail badly on this point. Bushism lacks fascism's characteristic channeling of corporate activity to serve national interest. Indeed in Bushim national interest is twisted to serve corporate interest.

Bush is pushing for less and less regulation. Bush's economic/ political heritage is with those economic neoliberals who called Roosevelts' corporate regulation, and "big government programs" FASCIST!

Bush is pushing us not towards a fascistic nation but towards a laissez faire world order. Bushism's world is the one in which robber barons lived and prospered.

Where in fascism one's birth nationality may provide a person access to elite citizenship and an unfair priviledge in a "master race," Bush and his ilk are creating a world in which entry into the priviledged elite is predicated upon becoming (by effort or inheritance) an "owner" of "investments" and thereby the "capital" by which controlling interests leverage the lives of less fortunate people to the corporatists' personal advantage.

NO DOUBT BUSH IS PROMOTING A TERRIBLE FUTURE FOR FREE PEOPLE, but the future he is trying to create is one of _feudal economics_, a world in which competing corporate dynasties operate in a manner that makes the concept of the "nationhood" of a people unimportant if not obsolete.