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Is the USA a fascist state?

tauru | 05.05.2003 15:03

The 14 characteristics of fascism.


14 Characteristics of Fascism
Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, wrote an article about fascism which appeared in Free Inquiry magazine, a journal of humanist thought. Dr. Britt studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile). He found the regimes all had 14 things in common, and he calls
these the identifying characteristics of fascism.

The article is
"Fascism Anyone?," Lawrence Britt, Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20.

The 14 characteristics are:

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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be
almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional
gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is
homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes tht 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.

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

8. 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.

9. 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 is openly attacked, and
governments often refuse to fund the arts.

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.


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Any of this sound familiar?

tauru

Comments

Hide the following 16 comments

Turkey and Chickenhawks

05.05.2003 16:23

At least 11 of these points apply to the Republic of Turkey, one of the USA's "strategic partners" in the region.
I personally think the jury is still out on whether the USA is fascist but I don't believe it would need to be an exact copy of Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy to deserve such a designation.

The Crimson Expat


Invalid logic

05.05.2003 17:04

By this method of reasoning (simply listing points of similarity) you can easily prove that a hawk is a duck. Thus......

A hawk has feathers; a duck has feathers.
A hawk has wings; a duck has wings.
A hawk has two legs; a duck has two legs.
A hawk has two eyes; a duck has two eyes.
etc. -- I'm not going to bother with 14 points of similarity. You get the idea, and it should be OBVIOUS to you that no matter how many points I listed you should not be convinced that a hawk is a duck.

Wait a minute, you want to say, that's because both a hawk and a duck are birds; naturally they WILL have in common the things that are common to most birds.

Well gee whiz, fascism is a "political system", one of the possible methods by which humans govern their societies. It's going to have a great deal in common with other political systems. Thus you can have fraudulent elections under fascism; but also under almost any other system which includes voting.

Mike
mail e-mail: stepbystepfarm@shaysnet.com


Fascism

05.05.2003 18:09

Fascism and the most "liberal" forms of parliamentary democracy are simply different types of bourgeois rule. The repression and the "liberalism" are not invariably found in the category you would expect. For example, in "free" Britain, since 1969, over 1,000 people have died while being held in police cells, yet not a single police officer has been imprisoned because of any of these deaths. Conversely, in Nazi Germany, some political prisoners held in jails (though not concentration camp inmates) were allowed access to a defence lawyer.

The Crimson Expat


end result

05.05.2003 18:11

so what do deduce from all this ..
America has a lot in common with what is the accepted face of fascism .. no bout a doubt it ..
Mike is a bird brain and to take his point on a bit further
Falcons like the Hobby travel at speeds of new generation express trains anything up to 200kmph but Falco Subbuteo sounds like a game of table football, so it must be a clever ploy by those right wing anti jewish conspiracy theorists
the devious bastards get everywhere ..

Hobby


compromise

05.05.2003 19:01

Things are quite a lot worse in a true fascist, or police, state where the repression that is applied to outiders is to the most mainstream citizens as well. The knock on the door at night, the disappearances, the violent execution of all forms of dissent. The government may be doing all these things, but they have to pretend to their citizens they are not doing it.

It's almost fair to say that the US is "pre-fascist", in that it is getting close enough to slip into it.

goatchurch


For some silly reason

05.05.2003 21:24

NOTHING in my comment spoke to the issue of whether the US was or was not fascist, just that IF somebody wished to make that claim and present an argument to support that claim, THIS was not a meaningful way to go about it.

What SHOULD be done is to seek and point out features that are found in fascism and NOT (commonly) in other political sysytems and then show that THESE are found in the US.

Maybe a GENERAL discussion about fascism would be in order? For example, maybe we should FIRST decide upon "what" it is? Are there actual characteristics or are we simply defining "not what our ideology prefers" as fascist. See, there haven't been all THAT many actual examples that we have exhausted the possibilities. Just because we normally picture fascism as a "right" phenomeon, is that NECESSARILY so? For example, is it totally out of the question that you could have a "National Socialism" that was ACTUALLY "socialist" -- in the sense that communist sharing existed among "the people" but not for their slaves, those they occupied and brutally repressed, etc.

You'd like to say "impossible", but what humans have done before they could do again. How would you characterize classical Sparta, the Iroqouis Nation, etc.

Mike
mail e-mail: stepbystepfarm@shaysnet.com


why all this quibbling?

05.05.2003 21:46

More like Nazi
And with all the occult underpinnings

dh


The Master Says:

05.05.2003 22:16

When there is dispute, perhaps we should defer to a universally recognized authority:

"Fascism should be called 'corporatism', for it is the merger of corporate and state power."

. . . . . Benito Mussolini

Chris Herz
mail e-mail: lildemocracy@earthlink.net


America ,Israel and Saddams Iraq.

05.05.2003 22:53

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - America - yes. Israel - yes. Iraq -yes.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - America - (recently) yes. Israel - for years, yes. Iraq - yes.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - America - (recently) yes. Israel - for years, yes. Iraq - yes.

4. Supremacy of the Military - America - yes. Israel - for years, yes. Iraq - yes.

5. Rampant Sexism - America (despite Condoleeza) - yes. Israel - definitely. Iraq -no (!) (women were well educated and often promoted in Saddam's regime - big up to the man!)

6. Controlled Mass Media - America - yes. Israel - no (or so I understand - Haaretz is still free). Iraq - yes.

7. Obsession with National Security - America- yes. Israel - yes. Iraq - yes.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - America - yes. Israel - by definition. Iraq - not at all.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - America - of course. Israel - debatable, but probably not true. Iraq - no.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - America- yes. Israel - definitely not. Iraq - yes.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - America - how else did they become so thick? Israel - definitely not. Iraq - no.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - America - it's going that way. Israel - not so far, unless you count the occupied territories. Iraq - yes.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - America and Israel stand together. Iraq - yes.

14. Fraudulent Elections - America - obvious. Israel - not quite so obvious, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. Iraq - yes.


Final score -America 14, Israel 9, Iraq 10.

I leave it up to the reader to analyse the UK in similar fashion (I think that at present, we'll perform about as well as America).

Bri.

Brian


Real nature of fascism-bring colonialism home

06.05.2003 01:51

This 'analysis' of fascism is no better than many other previous efforts, which tend to exceptionalize fascism based on particular cases. The essence of fascism is that it brings home to the metropole the methods of rule that are consistently applied in the colonies. Instead of seeking a mass base in the colonial settler population, fascism seeks to mobilize and 'incorporate' large sections of the 'homeland' population in a radical reorganization of society through propaganda, militarization, scapegoating, as opposed to the 'normal' means of consensus-building including offering a share in the booty of empire to various subordinate classes. All the features of colonialism -- slave labor, genocide, denial of all democratic rights -- which have been carried out equally by republican, democratic, monarchical, dictatorial and other empires -- are brought home and brought to bear in the 'fatherland/homeland' under fascism. The US as a society has always had elements of fascist rule in its political, economic and social structure because the US is a settler colonial society, in which nations and peoples are colonized inside the "domestic" borders. SO genocide, slave labor, denial of voting rights, scapegoating, incorporation of lower class strata into the state apparatus, were all early features of the US, not waiting for the 20th century and Hitler or Mussolini.

Michael Novick
mail e-mail: antiracistaction_la@yahoo.com
- Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/ara_losangeles


People Flee Fascism

06.05.2003 05:19

Yhe US receives over 2,000,000 new immigrants per year - the vast majority from Asia, Latin America and Africa. These immigrants are all eligible for citizenship and most ultimately become citizens. Every person born in the US is automatically a citizen, regardless of the status of his or her parents. How does this compare to a fascist state?

P.S. If you want to see a real fascist, you should go to your English parliment and see your BNP representatives in action.

Bob


QUACK, QUACK........................

06.05.2003 05:37

Just one answer to this, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is a ....................!!!!!!!

Redkop


doh?

06.05.2003 11:16

you talk of the immigrants who come to the USA every year, they come because they are victims of poverty, civil war, genocide,

6billion people
4billion live on less than $2

take a hint,where do you think you get your NIKE trainers from.
they goto usa to escape,many from countries which the US supports oppressive rulers..Iraq, indonesia,saudi...

ser


remember "Im the dictator" ?

07.05.2003 13:20

remember bushs remark in one of his inaugural speeches ?

"this thing would be a whole lot easier it if were a dictatorship... so long as IM THE DICTATOR (laugh) "

remember


Is the IRA a fascist organization?

14.10.2004 20:47

Is the IRA a Fascist organization? It fulfills at least the first criteria.

Al Raine