The new GOP buzzword: Fascism

As I'm sure democrats around here are familiar with, I've got a real problem with the way language and reality are tortured by political movements to wrap serious, complex issues which must be understood into euphonic little catch phrases which conjure faulty analogies, dismiss the facts, and invite people to apply the answers to the last generation's problems to very different modern situations. My distaste for these simplistic answers is only matched by utter disgust with the rabid fanaticism with which they are embraced by people who obviously haven't spent enough time actually questioning the subject for themselves.

Chill ECK, I'm talking about the Republicans this time.
Not only has this administration made it clear that their opponents don't have a monopoly on immaturity, but it has proven to be far more tactically and technically proficient than their opponents in the employment of immaturity.

And in that contradiction lies a great question. Immaturity and proficiency do not typically go together. So is it just immaturity? Or is it a professional-grade effort to harness the immaturity of others for far more calculated reasons? (ie: propaganda as opposed to raw vitriol)

A series of observations:

1. Fascism is a form of totalitarian government related to corporatism, and infact stated to be one in the same with corporatism by Benito Mussolini. This is inherently incompatible with Islam, particularly in a nation that is not an Islamic theocracy. A Ba'athist nation cannot possibly be home to such a thing as "Islamofascism", nor can a democratic government in which there is serious opposition (there goes the Palestinian Hamas gov't.)... basically the only nation that even has a fighting chance of being branded Islamofascist is Iran.

This is not mere nitpicking but an important distinction with strategic implications. Fascism is centered in the state and the economy and can be confronted in those arenas. Islamic fundementalism is centered in the populous and the religious heirarchy, and must be confronted in those arenas.

The estimations and strategies derived from past experience with fascism are not applicable to the war on terror, hence the disparity between "werewolf" resistance in Germany and the resistance in Iraq.

Of course, that doesn't penetrate the partisan brain-shell. Some will actually claim that Iraq is no worse than occupied Germany was. I know a few dead people who might have an opinion on that matter...

but that leads us to yet another observation: I can't ask those dead people what they think because I have to ...

2. Support our troops! Looking at my truck, you would never know that I support our troops. I don't do bumper-stickers. Supporting the troops is an odd pursuit. I'm given the impression that it has a lot more to do with rallying behind the flag and the president and swearing to perservere through any failure, any embarrassment, and any better idea than with actually rendering any aid or comfort to the fighting men.

3. The opposite of "supporting the troops" does not appear to be opposing the troops. It is suggesting that maybe the troops don't have to fight, otherwise branded appeasement.
Interesting.
Let's look at the term appeasement in its most noteworthy historical context, namely the Sudetenland.
The power which was to be appeased demanded that they be given something that they did not have and could not normally peacefully obtain, and it was given to them so that there would not be a war. This of course only encouraged the agressor to demand more.
Does this fit the context of the war on terror? Who makes the demands? Iran? Iraq? Afghanistan? No. America made the demands. If America doesn't get what they want, there will be a war. It's not appeasement to not threaten war to get what you want- that's called being innocent of extortion. It is, ironically, our opponents who are given the choice to appease or not to appease.

And I'll close on the one I'll be accused of: anti-americanism. I'm a flippin American. L'État, c'est moi (and a few hundred million other people). How could I POSSIBLY be anti-me? America is not a policy, but a group of people. I'm against certain policies and for others. If Bush wants a hamburger but decides on steak, then by his own supporter's logic he is a bush-basher, because he has questioned his own policy. Clearly Bush is not a bush-basher if he changes his mind about dinner, just as I am not anti-American for disagreeing with the administration from time to time.


These political buzzwords are symptomatic of a division and dumbing down of American politics that if not soon countered through education and open discourse is going to destroy the most fundamental necessity for democracy, which is of course a public intellectually capable of weighing policy.

What say that all of us who don't live in battle-ground states have a write-in campaign to elect Thomas Jefferson again in 2008? Obviously he can't win but it would get coverage if we could get him enough votes and it would send an interesting message.

Fascist is an over used term to be sure. Mr. Bushes cronies and Mr. Bush, himself, have overused and misused the term virtually from the getgo. Fire the speechwriters...

To say, however, that they are the only ones using scare-tactics would be rather on the myopic side, don't you think?

On just this site alone, and on many, many others that I've viewed (please don't ask me to source them, it was rather random surfing, and I didn't really keep track , sorry...) elsewhere, there is equally myopic fearmongering headed the other way...cancelled elections...inside job terrorist attack to justify martial law...we've all seen it. Thread upon thread of it, going on for pages...how the evil neocons are out to get us...or how the evil Bush family rules everything from behind the scenes (they must be channelling the arch-fiend Prescott Bush). Not all of the fearmongering is so over the top obviously, or comical...

The gop is out to highjack social security...or is it the dems this week? I lose track.

The fearmongering goes both ways and one is just as foolishly myopic as the other.

Just my two cents...

The Vagabond

Exellent points, you got my vote, I can't never would have come with a great view of the agenda behind fascism as you has done.

Great.

Originally posted by marg6043
The new GOP world Fascism

Actually, it's Islamicfacism. THAT is the new word.
mdfay.blogspot.com...

[edit on 9/6/2006 by FlyersFan]

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Actually, it's Islamicfacism. THAT is the new word.

mdfay.blogspot.com...

[edit on 9/6/2006 by FlyersFan]

I know Flayers is just that is taking a metamorphosis to suit agendas. One of them is the tagging of (If you do not support the war on terror you most be a supporter of terror and a terrorist)

Trust me I already has been called terrorist supporter in these boards

But I am ok is just political mind games.

For Rumsfeld to be calling people Fascist is indeed a case of mote and beam. And Vagabond - excellent points, particularly the one about appeasement. Iran is refusing to appease the US at the moment, and look where that's going. Iraq actually tried to appease the US, but what always happens when confronted with that is that the US raises the bar and keeps raising it until they have to go in.

It's not always possible to find it on the net, but Umberto Eco's essay 14 Ways to Recognise a Brownshirt is the basis of the "Old American Century" article, and is an excellent primer on what Eco calls "Ur-Fascism". For some time now I've been thinking that the US is sliding towards a fascist mentality, and by looking at the Eco essay or the POAC site, and ticking off the points, you can chart the US decline into fascism for yourself.

Some of the points, at random, are:

• use of lies in public discourse and to mould opinion
  
• the cult of action - "we have to do something"
  
• the cult of the leader
  
• veneration for tribal totems (like flags)
  
• "God is on our side" (SS soldiers had "Gott mit uns" belt buckles)
  
• state and private corporations intertwined
  
• repression of dissent - "you're either with us or against us"
  
• repression of sexuality
  

And of course there's the famous quotation from Hermann Goering:

“Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Here is the definition of Fascism according to Dictionary.com (Sorry, I don't have a webster's handy)

Fascism: 1. (sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

2. (sometimes initial capital letter) the philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism.

3. (initial capital letter) a fascist movement, esp. the one established by Mussolini in Italy 1922–43.

Note the, "forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism... emphasizing an agressive nationalism and racism".

I easily see those qualities the various terrorist groups of the Mideast.

"regimenting all industry, commerce, ect..."

Now what exactly do you think they'd be doing if they managed to secure power in the mideast, controlling all of that oil?

They look like fascists to me. They're even islamic. So... Islamic Fascism. I don't see what the fuss is about.

Rummsfield might be wrong to call Bush opposers appeasers of fascism, but I think that's an unrelated issue to the term itself.

For all who doubt a political connection between corporatists and fascism and Bush should read this link carefully:


www.911-strike.com...

Can it happen today : YES

Look to the rise of fascism or extreme nationalism that tries to capture a mythical love of country in the supposed distant past in China now. It is being supported by the corporatists.

The conservative Republican/hard right/neo-con behavior is the one that most closely resembles Fascism than anyone else but then again these people are masters of projection... if you want to know what they are up to and are really about look to what they accuse their opponents of... its always a mirror opposite of the reality.

Why not just call conservatives the Pot & Kettle Party from now on.

They're hypocrites, extremist religious fundamentalists committing terrorism in foreign countries and undermining freedom and liberty with theocratic law at home, and what do they always say?