Use the definition of Fascism

[patrice]

"Liberal?" "Conservative?" these are *WORDS*, part of the verbal blather designed to stimulate knee jerk votes for the exclusive purpose of acquiring the power to stimulate more knee jerk votes. Those who create such rhetoric NEVER pay back the benefit they receive from those blind votes. This is the definition of Fascism and all of us should say so at every opportunity.

[Not4Bush]

1. DLC=Corporatism=Fascism

“One of the reasons we have such difficulty
perceiving our current conditions is our aversion
to this single word: fascism…
In any case, it is one of the most dangerous
forms of political myopia in which to indulge.
Italians, who invented the term fascism, also
called it the estato corporativo: the corporatist
state. Orwell rightly described fascism as being
an extension of capitalism. It is an economy in
which the government serves the interests of
oligopolies, a state in which large corporations
have the powers that in a democracy devolve to the citizen.”
Progressive Review , URL: http://prorev.com/fascist.htm

"The DLC doesn't represent any Democratic Party voters. Its masters include American and United Airlines, Aetna and New York Life Insurance, Microsoft, DuPont, the agribusiness and pharmaceutical industries, Citigroup and, until recently, Enron, among many others. The DLC is an organization conceived in the boardroom and dedicated to the proposition that moneyed interests trump all others. About two hundred corporations comprise its Board of Advisors (fee: $5,000), and nearly 100 pay the cost to be the boss on the DLC's Policy Roundtable ($10,000 each). For $25,000, around 30 corporate executives pretend to be Democrats as members of
the DLC Executive Council. Enron sat there, along with Philip Morris, Texaco, Chevron, and Dupont."--Bruce Dixon, The Black Commentator


"New Democrats" are not officially connected with the DNC. They have a very small grass roots presence, fewer than 10K after almost two decades in existence, which explains their disconnect with rank and file Democrats, a disconnect deliberately undertaken after Walter Mondale’s crushing defeat in 1984.

Rejecting Old Guard "liberal fundamentalists," such as feminists, organized labor, African Americans, Latinos, gays and lesbians, the DLC was originally founded to stem the defection of Southern Democrats from the party in the early 80’s.

Al From, a Capitol Hill veteran & former Carter aide, is the founder and CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council. The Council is essentially a business-funded think tank dedicated to “rescuing” the Democratic party from the excesses of the 60’s. They produce copious white papers and policy proposals in their misidentified Progressive Policy Institute. Mr. From has served for years on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, and is Chairman of the Board of the Corporation for Charter Schools. He "vigorously rejects the idea that the DLC shapes its views to cultivate its donors: 'Anybody who's familiar with the DLC knows that we do what we think is right.'" *

Bouncing around on social issues for the last eighteen years, depending on which elusive group of swing voters they have tried to capture–white working class, followed by “new economy” hyperbole, “soccer moms,” “office park dads,” “vital center” fence-sitters– the DLC has been consistent in promoting their core policies on welfare reform, smaller government, strong defense, tough on crime, fiscal discipline, free markets & free trade.

Meanwhile their annual budget has mushroomed from $400K to over $7M per year as the New Democrat Network, the fundraising arm founded by corporate lawyer Simon Rosenberg in 1996, has aggressively vetted and connected right thinking candidates with bi-partisan sources of campaign financing.

The DLC’s greatest success was getting Bill Clinton on the ticket in 1992, but their legacy is one of runaway corporate interests which have benefited spectacularly from lack of opposition to their agenda on either side of the aisle. And therein lies the challenge for grass roots Democratic Party activists. The DLC and the interests they represent would like us to just go away...and some of us already have...to the Green Party and to various single issue advocacy groups.

* Sources: Bruce Dixon, “Muzzling the African American Agenda with Black Help,” The Black Commentator, June, 2003.
Robert Dreyfuss, “How the DLC Does It,” The American Prospect, April 23, 2001.
John Nichols, “Behind the DLC Takeover,” The Progressive, September 2000.





“One of the reasons we have such difficulty
perceiving our current conditions is our aversion
to this single word: fascism…
In any case, it is one of the most dangerous
forms of political myopia in which to indulge.
Italians, who invented the term fascism, also
called it the estato corporativo: the corporatist
state. Orwell rightly described fascism as being
an extension of capitalism. It is an economy in
which the government serves the interests of
oligopolies, a state in which large corporations
have the powers that in a democracy devolve to the citizen.”
Progressive Review , URL: http://prorev.com/fascist.htm

[newyawker99]

3. Hi Not4Bush!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[smallprint]

2. more quotes and definitions

"Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism
as it is a merge of state and corporate power."
Benito Mussolini

from thirdworldtraveler.com:

A class of political ideologies (and historical political regimes) that takes its name from the movement led by Benito Mussolini that took power in Italy in 1922. Mussolini's ideas and practices directly and indirectly influenced political movements in Germany (especially the Nazi Party), Spain (Franco's Falange Party), France, Argentina, and many other European and non-European countries right up to the present day.

The different "fascist" movements and regimes have varied considerably in their specific goals and practices, but they are usually said to be characterized by several common features:

1.Militant nationalism, proclaiming the racial and cultural superiority of the dominant ethnic group and asserting that group's inherent right to a special dominant position over other peoples in both the domestic and the international order

2.The adulation of a single charismatic national leader said to possess near superhuman abilities and to be the truest representation of the ideals of the national culture, whose will should therefore literally be law

3.Emphasis on the absolute necessity of complete national unity, which is said to require a very powerful and disciplined state organization (especially an extensive secret police and censorship apparatus), unlimited by constitutional restrictions or legal requirements and under the absolute domination of the leader and his political movement or party

4.Militant anti-Communism coupled with the belief in an extreme and imminent threat to national security from powerful and determined Communist forces both inside and outside the country

5.Contempt for democratic socialism, democratic capitalism, liberalism, and all forms of individualism as weak, degenerate, divisive and ineffective ideologies leading only to mediocrity or national suicide

6.Glorification of physical strength, fanatical personal loyalty to the leader, and general combat- readiness as the ultimate personal virtues

7.A sophisticated apparatus for systematically propagandizing the population into accepting these values and ideas through skilled manipulation of the mass media, which are totally monopolized by the regime once the movement comes to power

8.A propensity toward pursuing a militaristic and aggressive foreign policy

9.Strict regulation and control of the economy by the regime through some form of corporatist economic planning in which the legal forms of private ownership of industry are nominally preserved but in which both workers and capitalists are obliged to submit their plans and objectives to the most detailed state regulation and extensive wage and price controls, which are designed to insure the priority of the political leadership's objectives over the private economic interests of the citizenry. Therefore under fascism most of the more important markets are allowed to operate only in a non- competitive, cartelized, and governmentally "rigged" fashion.

**********

Friendly Fascism - by Bertram Gross - quote

"Don't think that modern fascists are like Hitler or Mussolini. Today's Big Government-Big Business tyrants are just as willing to use violence. But they do it more efficiently than the old-time fascists-- with higher tech and lower costs to them. They have the best looks, politicians, celebrities, and control mechanisms that money can buy. Yes, their own conscience tells them that true democracy would be nice. But suppressing their conscience, they under- mine the rights of the working and middle classes. Their operating principle is "Might, Money, Male, Murder-- and also White--Make Right." They wreck the environment. They fool you, rule you, use you, abuse you--and make you like it. They divide you by race, sex, class, and nationality. But they fear the power of the powerless. They're afraid of what you could do if you get off the boob tube and drugs, out of the night clubs and cut-throat competition--and work with others for equal rights."

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/

[burr]

4. How is fascism disposed of?

It isn't done by supporting "electable" Democratic candidates who embrace fascist principles in an undemocratic system. It isn't done by turning our backs on those who see the path which our nation is traveling, and recognize that only an underground movement may save us now.

Democracy did not stop the Nazis or the Fascists in Italy or Germany. It took courage..the courage of Italian partisans in underground operations against the neo-Fascists. It took the courage and deaths of those in the Maquis, the uprising of the interior French Forces and Guerrilles against the Nazis. And it took the suffering and deaths of many young Greeks in the Elas movement during the Nazi occupation of their country, many of these wounded Greeks came to America to start new lives and businesses. But only after risking everything for liberity, justice, and a better future. What else do humans have to live for?