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.

I did read the post. I thought it was overblown amd absurdly focused on the US to the exclusion of truly scary places like china etc. For example, Goldman Sachs, whom you assert cant be criticised without retribution, was described in print by a US journalist as a bloodsucking vampire squid. No one gets tortured or disappeared for being rude about Goldman. Happens all the time in china

Am quite mortified re. that link I hastily posted about the ADL. I stand by the opinion it's a Zionist organisation that paints anyone who dares criticise the Israeli regime as antisemitic but the booksellers are, indeed, well dodgy. I'm half Jewish too so you can imagine how gutted I am.

Would like to know whether that journalist who dissed Goldman Sax was mainstream press.

I think the US has many problems that are likely to get worse before they get better.

But I do think the list by "Dr" Britt is an absolute load of codswallop. It's a classic case of begging the question. If you compose a not particularly accurate list of a nation's supposed faults while being careful to only include those that you claim, with little or no justification, mark out Fascist states, then when you arrive at the startling conclusion that the US is a Fascist state it's largely meaningless. It's like saying "Mice have four legs, and fur, and two eyes, and ears, and look! So do lizards! (if we pretend lizards have fur, anyway). On this basis is a mouse a kind of lizard?"

A lot of the things on that list are factors in all sorts of different regimes from communist to fascist. Scapegoating of enemies? That's been true for as long as there have been societies. It's nothing unique about fascism it's pretty much endemic in humans. Links between religion and government? Again, that's been the case for millennia. Hell, for a lot of that time there wasn't any real division between religion and government because they were effectively the same thing. The US does, at least, have some clear laws about division between religion and state even if many of its citizens thinks those laws are wrong.

And a fair number of the things on that list are accusations that are flat-out untrue for the US: there is a free press in the US and constitutional protection for freedom of speech is regularly upheld in the highest courts. And I have never seen any wholesale disdain for academics or intellectuals.

I could go on, but I'm sure I will very soon be accused of being closed-minded and/or some kind of shill for Uncle Sam. Ho-hum.

www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

What are they prepared to do to stay at the top of the food chain?

Still it's nice to see MN politics is so unfascistic and accommodating to all opinions and pluralistic and open to debate.........isn't it? And not at all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Let's have his conversation again in a few years. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm glad that you've recognised that you are able to air your opinions and have other people air theirs in such an open and public way and with no threat of the state taking action against you for what you write.

As you say, that's because this is not a fascist state.

Yet.

I think most states verge right on the very edge of fasicm, it is only the reasonable thinking majority of the population that keeps it in check.

Ooh, how deliciously gnomic.

But let's not forget that we haven't been invaded by Pinheads from the Planet Spud... yet

And the Royal Family hasn't been publicly revealed as shape-shifting lizards... yet

And I haven't posted this message and got back to what I should be doing... yet

Oh. Now I have.

'But let's not forget that we haven't been invaded by Pinheads from the Planet Spud... yet'

Did you watch the Labour Party Conference?

meditrina I think there may have been a misunderstanding yesterday.

my post Tue 04-Oct-11 15:58:17 that starts flim and flam? was actually to glasnost not to you. She seemed to think the whole government was one big crowd who made laws when they felt like it.

Will catch up with the rest later.

Whole globe waits with bated breath while onagar catches up with the rest and dispenses a pearl of wisdom later on.

"She seemed to think the whole government was one big crowd who made laws when they felt like it". Ooh no they don't do 'orrible lickle fingz like that, do they?

My own take on a fascistic mind.

Wilful ignorance, insecure need to suck up to the big boys (girls), inability to admit you're wrong, intransigence, adhering to a group mentality, having unswerving faith in those in power, kneejerk derision of things you don't understand.

Or in layman's terms: yer usual MN politics thread.

glasnost, the journo who talked about Goldman Sachs wrote for Rolling Stone magazine. You can read it here:
www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405

The quote was instantly sensational and was repeated and dissected ad nauseam in all the press.

You don't really think that the media hasn't been busy criticising the banks, do you? You could reasonably argue that it's all after-the-fact, but fascist societies do not allow criticism at all, neither before nor after-the-fact.

If it makes you feel better to think that anyone who disagrees with you is doing so for scurrilous reasons, then go ahead.

glasnost, generalised insults to everyone else rather than engaging with the arguments is hypocritical given your complaint and does you no credit. It's also pretty close to breaking the MN rules of being courteous to one another.

In addition, it's pretty close to demonstrating Godwin's law...

Rolling Stone mag? Hmm not exactly CNN is it?

Yep slhilly. Selective use of the term "insult" is a tactic that's been honed to delegitimise anything an opponent has to say.

A fascistic mind noone is immune from.

MN rules of being courteous? Do me a favour. You had me taken in for a bit.

"I think most states verge right on the very edge of fasicm, it is only the reasonable thinking majority of the population that keeps it in check."

paulapantsdown your post has been the most evenhanded of the responses I've had so far to my courageous thread. It's exactly because the reasonable thinking majority is getting increasingly thin on the ground as evinced by the majority of the posts on here that I fear for our democracies.

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. (E. Burke. Ta, claig.)

Oh glasnost, you're sounding fixated on the argument for argument's sake now. Why does it matter that the article was first published in Rolling Stone, given that it was repeated ad nauseam across every major news outlet in the US? How do you think you've proved your point about the US being a fascist society this way? Would the US be less fascist if it was CNN? I mean, really...

I have no idea whatsoever what your next post is about. But I find it pretty distasteful that you, a half-Jewish poster, should edge close to calling me, a Jewish poster, "fascist": "A fascistic mind noone is immune from", you said. An early memory for me is my Omi telling me about hiding in an attic while a Nazi parade went past her in Austria. Thanks a bunch for implying I'm of the same mindset as the people who terrified my Omi.

Jeez. Is Israel not fascist in its treatment of the Palestinians? Just because you're Jewish, half Jewish or a thousandth bloody Jewish doesn't make you immune to having a fascist MINDSET. I'm realizing you just don't geddit. You see fascism as intrinsically linked to jackboots, siegheiling etc. Try substituting that word you don't get - fascism- with authoritarian. OK? Now. See how you get along.

slhilly there's a part of me hoping you're a troll. You as Jew should be more vigilant than most to any whiff of fascism.

Seriously people? Both of these statements are unacceptable:

'But I find it pretty distasteful that you, a half-Jewish poster, should edge close to calling me, a Jewish poster, "fascist":'

'You as Jew should be more vigilant than most to any whiff of fascism.'

People are people.

Snorbs:

'I'm glad that you've recognised that you are able to air your opinions and have other people air theirs in such an open and public way and with no threat of the state taking action against you for what you write.'

Robin Hood airport anyone? And there were those kids who were jailed for writing words on Facebook. Perhaps that all passed you by?

Glasnost, that's just ridiculous. You've mentioned jackboots, not me. I've mentioned terror, torture and abduction as being central parts of fascism

I'm not familiar with the Robin Hood Airport incident you're referring to Katherine, but the Facebook arrests were down to trying to incite a riot and not just expressing an opinion.