How many Islamic countries are Fascist?

[hootinholler]

I've noticed the meme this year seems to be the IslamoFascists are comming to get us. It seems to me this administration are the fascists and I don't know enough about Islamic countries to know which ones are fascist states. Pre-emptive use of term? You can't call us fascist because we're fighting fascism?

Am I alone here?

-Hoot

[aquart]

1. The Republicans always accuse others of their own faults.

They got "fascist" out there because it's such a perfect description of themselves, that they wanted to water down its value as an insult. Or a truth.

Fortunately, the practice is invariably useful in pointing toward areas that require serious investigation.

[porphyrian]

12. Yep. Branding and framing, framing and branding. - n/t

[malaise]

14. Bingo n/t

[jimshoes]

2. It sounds scary

so the wingnuts use it to scare the whakadoodles who believe anything Faux newz broadcasts. It kinda works because the 28%'ers don't know any better.

[ellenfl]

3. based on my understanding of the meaning

of the word, as originated by mussolini, none of the islamic countries are fascist. fascism, simply put, is rule by corporation. most middle eastern countries are more accurately oligarchies, imo, and ruled by families who have inherited their power.

ellen fl

[Colobo]

7. Correct. The problem most of them have is their extreme social conservatism.

[wuushew]

4. 0.00000

nil, nada, not, zero

[Selatius]

5. To be sure, most Arab countries are most definitely authoritarian, but the previous poster is right

Fascism, as coined by Mussolini, isn't what most of these countries are. They're hereditary dictatorships in many cases or oligarchies. The US must not realize the incredibly thick irony of claiming to stand for democracy while calling many of these hereditary dictatorships valuable allies. The Arab street is wise to this, which is why there is so much distrust of US intentions in the region and so much anti-American feeling.

[pscot]

6. None

Fascism requires a corporate component. The state and the business community collude to control the masses. Sort of like what we have here.

[Rick Myers]

8. Fascism is directly contrary to any Islamic law

[hootinholler]

10. That's interesting...

I knew Islam has strict rules about lending money without usury.

-Hoot

[BoneDaddy]

9. Theocracy and fascism are often opposites

Both,however, are deplorable in my eyes.

[Igel]

11. They're 'fascist' in the same sense that a

progressive grad student in my year's cohort intended when he found out I was in a conservative Xian church and screamed at me that I was a 'fascist'.

The church had no real corporate component, it even preached not to vote or sit in judgment on a jury. Nonetheless, there were some groups that wanted to control such things as gay rights and even women's rights. And those groups are often, even here, improperly (and, may I add, misleadingly) called 'fascist'. I wasn't carrying any bundle of sticks with an axe embedded amongst them, in any event.

However, since Mussolini doesn't get to define how Americans in 2007 use the string of phones that I'll transcribe as <'faSIst>, with S standing for a long-S and I for the small caps variant of i (in nice IPA transcription), it doesn't really matter what Mussolini said.

In other words, the word's achieved polysemy. Deal with it. (Which, in this context, does not mean 'deal' in its earliest identifiable meaning, 'part' or 'a share', cognate with Russian delit' "to divide", because basing synchronic definitions on diachrony is, well, a bit of linguistic naivete bordering on wilful stupidity. In any event, one still has to deal with polysemy. Oh. And language change.)

[hootinholler]

13. askin the AM crowd