Are we a fascist country?

[firefox]

The biggest question before us is "Are we a fascist country?" Of course, I can confidently say that we are. The definition of fascist is important to the answer, but those that read here regularly understand it is the promotion of the interest of industry over the interest of the common good a.k.a. the general welfare. The 14 points of fascism appear here regularly, so I think we can bypass the definition.

We have seen the oil industry walk into Cheney's office with maps of Iraq and we saw consolidation of 6 oil giants into 3 profit-sucking "corporate states" and by that I mean the new version of what once nation states and even city states.

The Medicare Bill of 2003 is the tell-all example and according to a recent writing of Krugman it will cost $8.7 trillion over 75 years in addition to what was already being spent. It was a bill actually written by industry, and passed with an official lie that it would not cost more than $400 billion over 10 years. There were bribes everywhere as key people and their relatives were let in on the future profits.

We have a MIC (military-industrial complex" that calls for perpetual war until the planet is taken and space is militarized so that the powerful that took control of the deadliest military every can attain global domination forever.

We have a pill industry that runs the FDA that is supposed to regulate it. We are sold drugs we do not need for illnesses that do not exist with an endless stream of messages. But try and find a graph of the US sales of prescription medicine as it as guarded a secret as the energy meetings with Cheney.

Anyway, I say the greatest question before us is "Are we a fascist nation?" My answer of course is for sure we are.

But the question will lead to the way things will divide as some of us seek to return to the mission statement of government as outlined in the Preamble. The thing I hate to see most is people taking the view that this is like sports where the division is along Republican and Democratic lines. This is not football. The system is rigged with a two party system where they both are just opposite sides of the fascist coin.

Things cannot change without the nation asking this question and rather yield to silence, I ask you- "Are we a fascist nation?"

[mike_c]

1. yes, for all the reasons you cited....

I think the larger issue is always going to be getting past people's instant aversion to the term "fascist" and their refusal to apply the simple definition of fascism to American society. An equally important term is "denial."

[firefox]

3. Fascism is a crucial term

There is a presence on this website that attacks the word and I say it is because it is important to the essential question that must be answered before fascim can be defeated. You have to recognize the problem before you can come up with a solution and the problem is fascism. Somebody else will follow and smash the word "fascism." Tough shit. The problem is fascism and it cannot be said with any other word.

It is hit the nail on the head time.

[mike_c]

4. "It is hit the nail on the head time."

You've got that right, brother. :toast:

[PATRICK]

11. How the term works

NOT as a complete equivalence to the Mussolini/Hitler/Franco phenomenon as far it is manifested in complete detail(political, economic, philosophical, nationalistic, etc) but as the mythic entity defeated as a monster. It is in the types of thuggery, the crimes, the totalitarianism, the corporatism, the war and genocides, the overthrow of democracy and gradual suppression of rights- that is the crimes and the defeat of monsters and criminals that makes the term both charged and accurate/inaccurate.

But it is more than an epithet(used quite freely by RW extremists to with even more creative projection stretching of the historical term). We use it because it defines the evil, the "loser", the enemy of democracy, the defeated enemy of the USA.

We use it because it still describes to a T the heirs(some direct) of the unpunished, undealt with fascists in the American elites who sided with Hitler and gave material and moral support even into the war. because the same types, the same crimes, the same results are pouring out like rats from a sewer.

We use it too as a sad comparison to how the democratic and decent elements of the majority have been such failures at stopping this poison
as to have abdicated the nation and become a party to war crimes, destruction of the Constitution, and lies, lies and damned lies.

All quibbling over historical definitions aside, we know the name of this demon and its older than "fascism".

And it must die as a recurring virus now- or we all do. Even the tyrants have helped rush us into a human world where such humans cannot possibly survive- and maybe no humans at all if democracy cannot deal with it.

The Bushes evil war profiteering and protected ambitions predate fascism(what happened to that noble sentiment to string up the WWI traitor arms merchant Bush?), but the heart and core of their dark dreams stand starkly revealed in the glorious flame out of the Third Reich, the triumphant supra- globalist empire of a thousand years(Heaven jeers!). We need not nor can afford another final lesson in these matters. PNAC has cost a lot of innocent slaughter and waste to produce greater catastrophes.

The solution is always the same. You can bring them down now or pay a greater price later(and be too exhausted to root them all out). It is not an issue or a word, but a conflict with criminals.

But by all means they have earned the epithet in blood and chains and their own warped warbling of hideous glory.

[gumby]

18. Dang,

that was good!

Evil is Evil is Bush is Evil is Fascism is.........

[mahina]

2. Yes, very sadly,

and I don't think people are smart enough to care. We are narcotized to others' suffering and lack the imagination to see that our own in inevitable if we don't shut this monster down.

I agree with you 100%, especially with the point that this is not a sport like football but the future of the world we are talking about.

[salinen]

5. From outside America

it certainly looks Fascist. Pre-emptive resource theft. Backing out of non-proliferation treaties. A totally *ucked up U.N. hire. Gulag in Cuba.

From inside, it smacks of ultra right wing christo industrial anti-labor racist homophobic materialistism. In other words, it's trying awfully hard to resemble fascism.

[acmejack]

6. Without a doubt.

So we know the disease, do we know the treatment to save the patient?

[ninty]

7. Revolution!

[firefox]

9. The answer is to ask the question

The CIA has manipulated elections for "the Company" abroad for many years. Do you think that the election results are not being manipulated here?

What I am asking people to do is to ask the question since the media and the politicians that could speak on the floors of Congress do not. In conversation people need to zoom out to the max and ask the biggest question before us- "Are we a fascist nation?" Forget the bullshit on the media and every other issue and make the first thing out of your mouth the most important.

I used to comment at CannabisNews all the time as p4me and then Virgil. I chose Virgil because of a translation of his work that I can no longer find. In that translation Virgil said that in writing "to say at once what needs to be said at once."

That is where I am. I am saying at once what must be said. We can all move to a collective answer with thousands of bookmarks of individual answers if we only ask at once the question that needs asking- Are we a fascist nation?

[Zorra]

8. Yes, and IMO it is time to start referring to all republicans as fascists.

Because that is what they are.

[rwenos]

10. "God's Party"

Bumperstrip I saw today in LA suburb south of LAX (NOT Orange County):

On a plain white background, blue type with the words "PARTY OF GOD" -- but the trick is that behind the capital "D" in blue is a bright red "P", indicating clearly an identity between GOD and GOP.

When we put this together with all the Bush Administration's promotion of corporate power (mentioned by previous posters), plus the use of the United States Military to protect those interests . . .

it's pretty clear that the US is trending fascist right now.

By the way, it's an excellent idea to call most Republicans fascists. It unsettles them enough they usually start screaming insults, a sure sign one has drawn blood.

[Clark2008]

12. 12 Warning Signs of Fascism

[democraticrevolution]

13. Possibly semi fasict

Corpratist most likely you are correct. It's a mixture of timocracy, oligarcy, theocracy, and corpratism aka fascism. Democracy may still be there as the republic still exists. This nation has gone through era's like this before. You had your gilded age and robber barons. I feel that we are strong enough to overcome what is in power now, eventually. The only thing I fear is that there won't be a new generation ready to seize the duty to reform. The youth which I am a part of being 26 or somewhat apathetic and that is where the real danger lies.

[chknltl]

14. Hitler Youth

I was monitoring Mr Conyers site where folks were sending him words of encouragement inre. his noble work with "memogate" when the freepers began showing up. Nazi Hitler-Youth is what I kept thinking while reading their venomous rantings.
Your point that we are fascist hits home for me even more strongly in light of that.

[smoogatz]

15. Great question. It's close.

But we're not entirely there yet. If this were a true fascist state, for example, the first thing the government would do is round up everyone that posts here and send us all to Gitmo. I'd call it a pre-fascist state, with the hard right looking to fully consolidate its grip on power. There are four major "symptoms" to watch out for between now and 2008. If any three of the four take place, consider moving to Canada:

1.Continued marginalization of the press. We're currently in a pattern in which prominent news organizations that dare to run with stories critical of Bushco are being set up with bogus information and then blasted for publishing it as fact. Look for this situation to get worse--when reporters, editors, producers etc. who refuse to carry Bushco's water are threatened repeatedly with criminal sanctions, we're very close to tipping over the edge.

2.Hijacking of the federal courts. Again, the process is already underway, and there's damned little the Democrats can do to stop it. If Bushco succeed in stacking the SCOTUS, they can act with absolute impunity in any arena they choose. There won't be anything anyone can do to stop them from using the Homeland Security pretext to investigate, prosecute and jail their political opponents as "terrorist sympathisers." If Clarence Thomas suddenly looks like a moderate on the SCOTUS, watch out.

3.Election "reform." Beware federal laws requiring computer-assisted voting. If, in '08, the Republican candidate is a heavy underdog (more than ten points, say), don't be too surprised if there's another terrorist attack--or at least the threat of such an attack. Don't be surprised if martial law is declared and the elections are "temporarily" suspended. Do pack your bags, however, and apply for Canadian citizenship.

4.Scapegoating. Every dictator worth his salt needs a good scapegoat--otherwise, who can we blame for the crappy economy, destruction of the middle class, debt peonage, and suspension of civil rights? Bushco has several viable scapegoats: muslims, gay people, Hollywood, liberals, scientists and intellectuals of all stripes, Kim Jong Il, and what's-his-name down in Venezuela. They don't have Saddam to kick around anymore, and that means one of the above is about to get their ass shock-and-awed, big time. Forget Osama--a good scapegoat has to be slow, weak and unsuspecting. Don't wait around until they come for you!

[rwenos]

17. The "Argentina" Test

I'd add one more test to your excellent BIG FOUR. It is to start noticing when people start disappearing. Not politicians (too public), but ordinary people going down for stuff like tax evasion.

Tax returns were the instrument of oppression used by the Nixon Administration, which got as close to true fascism as we have since the 1930's.

Another marker -- although this one would indicate the horse was truly out of the barn: cancelled elections, even at the local level.

[smoogatz]

19. Yep--good call.

Taking down the political opposition on trumped-up charges (tax evasion, morals--a la Clinton, etc.) is a time-honored means of consolidating power.

And yes--if elections are cnacelled or suspended, time to move to Vancouver.

[bearfan454]

16. If not then close to n/t

[Cats Against Frist]

20. I think "yes" for none of the reasons you cited :)

I think all of those things make us a corpo-fascist, or corporatist nation. What makes this nation fascist is the mythology -- the magical thinking and the cultural supremacy -- holding tight to a revisionism that doesn't exist. Namely, of course, this is the "freeper mentality."

For instance: I was reading a thread over at Retard-o Land that knocked both modernity and the Enlightenment, in the same breath -- of course, most of the posters were psycho right-wing Catholics (who are a bigger problem than the charlatans of right-wing protestantism, any day). What followed their trashing of modernity, however, was a diatribe on how the "libruls want to take the ten commandments out of our history." It would behoove these people to understand that the foundation of our country rests on a CONGLOMERATION of religious beliefs and philosophies, and that this devil called "modernity," and its imp friend "the Enlightenment," are the mother and father of "Democracy." They are the two things that peeled authority away from the corrupt church and the dastardly king -- giving birth to the idea of equality -- giving birth to our nation.

The left -- altruism, Rousseau, the Anti-Federalists, etc., can lay as much of, if not more, claim on the governance of this country. What this competes against, however, is a patriarchal narrative, using the mythology of religious paranoia and fear to structure society, according to pre-modern hogwash. It is no less "social engineering" than the most aggressive finger-waggling at the authoritarian left and the "collective program." It is a fight for social order -- a social order that IS NOT ABSOLUTE, and never has been. Hence, the magical thinking -- the hearkening to an idealized past, complete with re-birth narratives, cultural supremacy, revisionist history, superstition and mythology.

The other thing that scares me is that these things can be piped in, due to "national consciousness," which is created by the national level of discourse and national branding -- everyone hooked up to the same mind meld, if you will.

This country is more than fascist, it's the "ID GONE WILD." Between the fundies and the empire builders, the Bush worshippers and the American Idol fans, it's damn near a textbook psychological malady.

[Selatius]

21. Read my signature.

[Lone_Wolf]

22. I'd say we are in a primordial stage of fascism

That being said, we are definately closer to fascism than we are to democracy.

[AP]

23. Merger of government and a few corporations? Yes.