"Eternal fascism" - Any of this sound familiar?

[trof]

NOTEBOOK
On message
By Lewis H. Lapham
Harper's Magazine, October 2005
(Lapham commenting on Umberto Eco's essay on "Eternal Fascism")

The tenets of Eternal Fascism:

The truth is revealed once and only once.
(By the "state".)

Parliamentary democracy is by definition rotten because it doesn't represent the voice of the people, which is that of the sublime leader.

Doctrine outpoints reason, and science is always suspect.

Critical thought is the province of degenerate intellectuals, who betray the culture and subvert traditional values.

The national identity is provided by the nation's enemies.

Argument is tantamount to treason.

Perpetually at war, the state must govern with the instruments of fear.

Citizens do not act; they play the supporting role of "the people" in the grand opera that is the state.
http://www.marxmail.org/lapham.htm
If this is not straight out of the Karl Rove/Karen Hughes playbook, I don't know what is.

Excerpts from Eco's essay here:
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html

"In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it."

[trof]

1. Well, I thought it was germain, anyway.

Plus, I wanted to use the word "germain".