14 Characteristics of Facism

www.bushflash.com...

www.slate.com... - Sandra Day O'Connor forecasts dictatorship

www.eisenhower.archives.gov... - Eisenhower's Farewell address which warns of a rise in military power which we must guard against at all costs. Even on the personal level.

History repeats itself and when it does it's a bitch. Buckle up. It's going to be a rough one.

posted by Crazy_Mr_Crowley: “Sandra Day O'Connor forecasts dictatorship . . Eisenhower's Farewell address which warns of a rise in military power which we must guard against at all costs. Even on the personal level. History repeats itself and when it does it's a bitch. Buckle up. It's going to be a rough one. [Edited by Don W]

Lookee Here, C/Mr/C, are you suggesting our Founding Fathers established an economic oligarchy in these United States of America? Are you suggesting that we should change President’s Day to Mussolini Day? Are you saying our democracy is a sham, that it is tweedle dee, tweedle dum? Are you saying there is no difference in the major political parties? Are you saying our Congress does not work for us, but works for who pays them? Are you claiming the corporation's hand picked minions do their bidding first and then give the appearance of serving the country second? Are you saying Ike’s Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson of GM, had it right when he said,” What is good for GM is good for America?” Was he the early precursor for VP Cheney and the Halliburton Empire? That there is no such thing as “insider” trading unless you are an outsider?

Humph! Are you saying America is a proto-fascist state? Run out of places like Benton, Arkansas and not out of the nation’s capitol? Wow!


[edit on 4/20/2006 by donwhite]

hmm. okay.

Well I was just saying it for all the non-believers that are lurking around here. We have one great philosopher who seems hard at work cracking away some no it couldn't possibly happen here arguments so I figured where there's one there's two.

And no the nation wasn't created this way it just deteriorated this way.

[edit on 20-4-2006 by Crazy_Mr_Crowley]

Firstly, did anyone else expect to see a list with 14 points for this thread? I mean, wouldn't that make sense if you are going ot discuss it?

Dr. Lawrence Britt in Fascism Anyone?

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
   
2. Disdain for human rights
   
3. IDing enemies or scapegoats as a unifying cause
   
4. Supremeacy of the military
   
5. Rampant sexism
   
6. Controlled mass media
   
7. National Security Obsession
   
8. Religion and government intertwined
   
9. Corporate powe protected
   
10. Labour power supressed
    
11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
    
12. Obsession with crime and punishment
    
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption
    
14. Fraudulent Elections

All of this is presented as simply propaganda against Bush. Any of these points could be applied to Clinton or practically any other US president.

More importantly, most of them have nothing to do with Facism. Rather, and I haven't read the book, and perhaps the book makes a better arguement for these points, but the flash presentation simply seeks to attach the label of "Evil" to Bush, and use an argument from authority (referencing a Dr., etc) to support that emotive labeling.

Nationalism, I grant, is at the core of fascism. Nationalism was also what permited the US revolution to take place, but it would be difficult to show that the republic the founders created was more fascist than the empire it withdrew from.

Protection of corporations and the cutting down of unions? That is not fascism. Fascism is where the people, as a whole are treated more like a labour union, where the state takes over the operation of business, and guarntees the publc's economic well being, giving them jobs, social security, labour, etc.

The flash states that religion is intertwined with government, this is true of hitler, but not especially true of say mussolini or franco. Also, its meaningless to say that, because Bush is religious, that therefore he is a fascist. It doesn't matter how many appeasl to religion he makes in his speeches, its whats going on in the operation of government. Mussolini restricted, officially, the vatican to its palatial grounds within the city of Rome. And all religious authorities in nazi germany became lorded-over by the nazi party itself, while a new religion and qausi-religious beleifs were used to implement government policy. Bush has done some things like this, such as giving government funds to organizations that provide a public service and are fundamentally religious. Thats hardly fascism. Then it throws in some slur about 'even though those policies are in conflict with the religion'. So now the makers of that flash video are the religious authorities that we should all be turning to to learn about what religion is??

They note supremeacy of the military, especially in teh face of 'social problems at home' , while showing a picture of poor people. Bush created this? The US has been spending such a large amount of money on its military for generations now, its not a republican thing, not a democrat thing, and its not a new thing. Whats more, the military isn't supreme. The majority of US tax dollars are not spent on the military, and the military is also entirely voluntary. In fact, the very idea that the State is supposed to be providing social services, land, homes, jobs, etc, to the People, is a fascist idea, so who is this guy kidding?


They site government control of the media, but show a logo for FOX. Now, most people on ATS, I suspect, would agree that there is government control of the media in general, but this flash seems to suggest that its just FOX, not cnn, nbc, the newspapers, etc etc. In a fascist state, all those entitites would be owned by the state. In the US, none of them are. FOX is made up of a bunch of lunatics who think that everyone else in the media is an evil scumsucking liberal and that they, the creators of FOX, need to counter-act all that evil liberal scumsuckiness. Stupid? Yes. Fascict era governmental control and ownership of Media? No. Even if Bush personally owned FOX, its a single channel. Hitler controlled The Media, not just a single media outlet, he controled the radio, tv, film, and printing presses.

Disdain for the arts and intellectuals? Fascism and Nazism have a disdain for sober rationalism and scientific empiricism, not intellectuals and the arts. Fascist governments support the arts, and, historically, the avante garde in germany and italy were supportive of the fascists or the cultural and intellectual milleiu upon which fascism stands for support.

The human rights charge is slippery. Under fascism, you don't have rights. In the US, you do, and they are protected. Yes, the government might cheat and listen to your phone calls or internet communications, its illegal, and its a problem. Yes, the US tortures and abuses prisoners overseas, its wrong, and should be stopped, the claim that its not 'official policy' notwithstanding. And yes, the US government has arrested a US citizen, revoked his citizenship, and detained him in a military brig and started to try him as an enemy combatant, that stopped, and there is civilian overview in that ongoing case, it was a bad idea, but also, a single instance. That it was single instance certainly doesn't excuse it, though there are arguments from precedent for it (from when the US was fighting the actual fascists), but it certainly doesn't stand as support for some overall trend torwards specifically fascism in the US.

The rampant sexism charge is silly. The US culture, and certainly government, is one of the less sexist groups globally. Not the least, and sexism does exist in the US, but the worst excesses of it come from the media and general public, with the exploitation of women as sex objects. IF you want to point to sexists in the US today, don't look to the guys putting women in charge of national security, the state department, or their own election campaigns. If sexism and exploitation of women is fascist, which is argueable in itself, then P Diddy is more Hitleresque than Bush.

National security is something every government should be 'obsessive' over. Providing security from dangerous outside forces is one of the very purposes of government. The scapegoating charge is absurd. Bush has constantly stated that the terror wars aren't against muslims. Also, Hitler made the jews out as scapegoats for esoteric things wrong with germany, that they secretly made germany loose the war, that semitic culture is poisonous and inferior to germano-aryan culture, etc. Bush has said 'terrorists attacked us, we are going to kill them'. Identifying an enemy that is literally plotting to attack you is NOT scapegoating. 911 didn't happen because americans are bad people, or because of poor US intelligence, it happened because al-Qaida chose to attack the US, and was able to carry it out. They're not the scapegoats, they're the perpetrators.

As far as cronyism, since fascism puts government officials in charge of the affairs of business, its difficult to say its cronyism, it can certainly lead to cronyism, but there is nothing in the ideology of fascism that calls for cronyism, nor was cronyism a specific and characteristic aspect of actual fascist regimes.

The obsession with crime and punishment charge is laughable. The US is so uninterested in crime that it doesn't even bother to have enough space for all its prisoners. One of the more popular shows on television now stars, focuses, and in a sense excuses, the worst kind of criminal behaviour, mafiaism, not to mention that hip hop is a glorification of criminality. Again, P Diddy, not Bush. The US is so unconcerned with crime, that it can barely even execute a guy who admits that he was part of the 911 attacks! Or arrest a massive mob of admitted illegal immigrants. Both bush and kerry appealed to 'foreign' spanish voters in spanish, Hitler never went to a synagoge for a photo-op, or joked in yiddish with rabbis while gnoshing on bagels.

As far as fraudulent elections, Bush won that election, in every single recount done, and under every estimate and re-projection. He didn't get the most popular votes. But so what, Hitler did, Hitler won the elections legitimately. He didn't raise an army and steal his way into the chancellry, he got brought in through liberal democratic processes.

The only real problem is that America isn't a full fledged Police State yet. I see the Flash as a warning of where everything is heading. I agree about the Clinton comment. It doesn't really matter who the President is. It's the corporations influence that really runs things. In hindsight Clinton isn't really much of a liberal. He was more of a left leaning conservative.

I recently watched a video called Sir No Sir: GI Revolt and they showed videos from the Democratic Convention and the clashes between the police really showed the vailed facism. Thats what it has been in the last few decades. Vailed facism.

On part of the last two elections they are just way too sketchy. The 2004 I think more so because of the convienient lack of paper trails and a whole other list of things.

2004 election was when I figured something was up. I didn't know much about secret societies until I found out that Bush and Kerry were into the Occult and Skull and Bones. Thats when things started to fit into place.

And this is why I dislike the united states

call me a terrorist, call me unpatriotic, call me a commie(thethe last 2 are true)
but there is a lot wrong with this country and one of the things wrong is noone wants to get up from watching fox news(controlled) from the couch to do anything about it

[edit on 4/21/06 by TristanBW9456]