Is the US a fascist state?

[glasnost]

Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

1. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

1. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

1. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread

domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

1. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

1. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

1. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

1. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

1. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

From Liberty Forum

On the basis of this is the US a fascist state? And the UK? Italy undoubtedly is.

No. It's not a fascist state. And it's incredibly naive even to bother asking the question, really. You could at least read up on, say, life under Franco or Pinochet (let alone the Nazis) and figure this out pretty quickly.

None of which is to let the US (and the UK) off the hook for the many bad things they do. But they're not fascist by any stretch of the imagination.

Who put Pinochet in power with a military coup? Just an aside.

You're naive to imagine fascism as jack boots, truncheons and desaparecidos.

Snooze. Read the link I posted before. If someone has the nous, will and courage to start a contentious thread that goes beyond the usual MN politics drivel at least give them the courtesy of reading it properly, considering the arguments and reading the links. Dunno why I bother.

Anyone with a mind open enough should really, really read this. Puts the case excellently for America being well on its way to becoming a Ceasarist fascist state.

www.opednews.com/articles/The-Day-America-Died-by-paul-craig-roberts-111003-824.html

I have no vested interests in the US government, and must cannot see where you got that from. I found your suggestion that I was trying to "pass myself off as an expert" to be insulting, as you were deriding me for something I was not doing.

I was merely indicating apparent inaccuracies and omissions in your descriptions. If you do not want to engage on those, I'll leave discussion to those who do not mind a non-factual basis.

Did you read that link I just posted meditrina?? Please do so and then give me your factually based opinion. I'd love it. Seriously. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with all this but I'm very, very, very worried.

I'll just post it again if that's OK with you.

www.opednews.com/articles/The-Day-America-Died-by-paul-craig-roberts-111003-824.html

Hahaha are you linking to an opinion piece by Paul Craig Roberts, conspiracy theorist and renowned anti-Semite?

Seriously, you can disregard anything he says...very prolific on 9/11 truther sites and other such nonsense.

glasnost, my grandparents got out by the skin of their teeth from a truly fascist state, unlike quite a lot of my other relatives: Nazi Austria. The US may be deeply flawed, but it is truly staggering to me that you see some kind of equivalence. The 21st century's closest approximations to fascist states are places like Syria, where thousands of people are being killed, where most citizens are much too scared to tell a journalist what they think of their government, where most journalists are employed directly by the state, where torture takes place on an enormous scale, etc etc. Or Saudi, where women can't leave their homes without a man at their side. Or Russia, where the FSB runs the government. Or China, where people are truly at the mercy of the state.

US citizens are incomparably freer than their Syrian, Saudi, Russian or Chinese counterparts. It's bizarre to focus on the US to the exclusion of all others.

Roberts is anti Zionist NOT antisemite. If you don't know the difference. Ha ha ha indeed.

Seriously I can disregard anything YOU say Diputandum.

It's bizarre to focus on the US to the exclusion of all others.

Is it, shilly? Perhaps the reason is they happen to be the globe's uberlords straddling it with their all consuming military industrial might? Last time I looked Syria doesn't have military bases all over the planet.

Yes I know the difference glasnost. The ADL consider him to be anti-Semitic and give some convincing evidence on their website.

Not refuting that he's a 9/11 nutter then?

What would the ADL be? Arab Defence League? Or arse, drivel, lies? (Your favoured choice of info source?)

Nutter? Anyone who dares cast a critical light on the official version of 9/11 events is a nutter? If they ever need fascist bully boy types again à la Mussolini's blackshirts I'm sure you'd make an excellent candidate.

Yes, it is.

The US is not the only major player on the world scene, by a long shot. China and Russia both have significant financial, economic and military muscle, and their power is growing. They frequently intervene in the affairs of other countries (cutting off gas to Western Europe; the Tutu debacle; polonium; endless economic espionage etc). Their regimes are much more vile than the US regime. Saudi is obviously hugely important to the rest of the world because of oil. These are not small players.

And you seem to be arguing that what happens to the Syrian people isn't worth focusing on because Syria isn't a large regime. For an avowed anti-fascist, that's a pretty strange line of reasoning.

As for Syria's regional influence: it controls Lebanon. It channels arms from Iran to Hezbollah, and thus helps provoke conflict in a tinderbox region. Small fascist regimes can cause regional and ultimately global conflict.

Sheesh shilly, that's some tautological contrivances going on there.

Care to actually point out the tautology, or are you just going to leave it as an ad hominem attack?

Huge fascist regimes can create small fascist regimes.

Is that the supposed tautology? Or is that an assertion? And if so, what did you think it proves?

We x posted slhilly.

We are used to being told Syria et al are totalitarian regimes and I agree that they are but it's silly to say because they are then the US can't be.

I started this thread about the US.

It's precisely because other nations could become hegemonic that the US is slipping into fascism.

www.newamericancentury.org/

The Anti Defamation League, Glasnost.

I'm definitely not a fascist though, just to be clear...do you see them everywhere now?

Ah, I see glasnost.

Tautology does not mean what you think it does. And I did not write that because Syria is a fascist regime, the US can't be. That would have been silly if I'd said it, but I didn't. I suggest you address what I actually said, rather than what you think I said.

I said:

• Nazi Germany was a true fascist regime
• The US was deeply flawed but was in no way comparable
• The closest we get to fascist regimes today are places like Syria, China et al. The reason I said "the closest" is that even the worst of these is not truly fascist.

I also made clear what kinds of behaviour by a regime could truly be described as fascist, in my view, and that these behaviours are common in places like Syria and are rare or non-existent in the US. US citizens can shout "I hate Obama and everything he stands for" as loudly as they like from the rooftops - something that Russians cannot say about Putin, that Syrians cannot say about Assad, etc.

Did you really intend to publish a link to an antisemitic publisher that's a favourite of Stormfront etc etc?

Did you read the OP and the 14 points slhilly AT ALL as I suspect you didn't.

I think the US is a NASCENT fascist state. Yes? It's a slippin and a slidin into fascism. The facilitator in all this is our blinkered refusal to see this.

And Obama counts not a jot so you can say what you like about him. He's a patsy. Try shouting loudly about Goldman Sachs from the rooftops as the occupiers are and just look at the treatment you get.

No shit looks like I came a cropper there.