RE the various arguments over the word "Fascist"

[Matsubara]

There is a lot of rancor about whether or not the term fascist applied to the present government and/or administration.

At first, I argued the side that yes, it is fascistic, and our country has flirted with fascism from time to time for almost a century.

Read up on people like Henry Ford or Father Coughlin, Joe McCarthy. It's an ever-present danger we have to be vigilant against, especially in a nation where moneyed interests basically call the shots.

But that's the semantic argument. Assuming that I'm right, and we've crossed the line into a form of "friendly" fascism that wears a pinstripe suit rather than a brownshirt, how useful is it to say so?

Yelling "They're fascists!" in people's face brings to mind "Meathead" making his strident arguments to a dismissive Archie Bunker. In that sense, in the realm of public debate, using the word too much is probably counterproductive and tends to make the person using it seem hysterical. Besides, labels are a lot less effective in persuading people than facts and putting a human face on issues.

That being said, under a broad definition of "Fascist", I think that the present US government and administration do qualify, but that's an argument of semantics. The term is not especially useful in furthering a progressive agenda.

But whenever a Bush policy bears a strong resemblance a Nazi or fascist policy, it's perfectly reasonable, if not a civic duty, to point that out.

Use of terms like "Homeland Security" (Fatherland) and "unlawful combatant" (hikokumin - "un-Japanese") make people with any grasp of history nervous for good reason. There was a time when Mussolini made the trains run on time and the German middle class felt secure, happy and free in the knowledge that their Führer was fighting to stamp out the Jewish menace and protect them from threats like... Poland and Czechoslovakia. The apparatus that reassured them that they were doing the right thing was only different from Fox News in that Fox News is much more sophisticated, and is not owned DIRECTLY by the government or Bushco.


The fact that there is still some semblance of representative democracy functioning in the US today doesn't mean we should breathe easy. The sweeping powers claimed by this administration with little opposition show just how vulnerable our own government is to the kind of changes that were brought about in the German democracy after Hitler assumed the Chancellorship and his thugs burned the Reichstag. For now, the chances are the US government won't go that far, because it's easier to keep people under their boot as long as there is some remaining illusion of freedom.

A totalitarian scenario only becomes likely after an economic collapse of severe proportions. And after 6 years of utterly unsustainable borrow-and-outsource economic policies, that doesn't seem at all farfetched to me.

[cspanlovr]

1. Bertrand Russell says: Fascism is capitalism untempered by democracy..

Short and sweet definition. What do you think?

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Personally, I think we're closer to a Plutocracy

but Fascism sounds much scarier. :shrug: