Fascist America In 10 Easy Steps
The world fascism carries with it some pretty heavy baggage. It is a word that I use advisedly — and very seldom — in contemporary contexts because Hitler, Mussolini and their ilk were then and now is now, and mixing and matching can be perilous.
Having noted that, Naomi Wolfe dares to use the F-word in a commentary on the Bush administration in The Guardian. She writes that history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator takes to destroy constitutional freedoms and become a bona fide fascist.
Wolfe argues that George Bush seems to be taking all of those steps. From that perspective it is difficult to disagree and not shake one’s head over the man who presumes to lead us.
These are the steps:
(1.) Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
(2.) Create a gulag.
(3.) Develop a thug caste.
(4.) Set up an internal surveillance system.
(5.) Harass citizens’ groups.
(6.) Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
(7.) Target key individuals.
(8.) Control the press.
(9.) Dissent equals treason.
(10.) Suspend the rule of law.
It is especially important for Bush sycophants to click here and read the whole article before becoming apoplectic.
141 Responses to “Fascist America In 10 Easy Steps”
Almost, but not quite. At least in my corner of the European woods, when we say fascist, we mean fascist, not necessarily Nazi (which are just German Fascists). Mind you, it doesn’t mean anything better to us in Spain, since we had to suffer our own brand of fascism. It means “nazi-like”. Suffice it to say that to any European “fascist” carries images of brutality, of people being dragged away in the middle of the night, of TOTAL control of the press, of democracy being a distant dream. To a European, being called a fascist is something VERY serious, not to be bandied about casually.
Nobody-
“So now your saying Domajot I need a permit to pray in public?”
———————-
Do you even read a comment before attacking it?
I said you need a permit to hold a march, since you objected to marches by others.
Then i gave examples of where you are free to pray in public without permission. I could have added a dozen others, BTW.
Try to listen before you shout.
*does the running man thru the comments section*
CS-Listen, I know well enough that Bill Clinton was not a Stalinist, LOL- so if someone makes that accusation- I actually find it amazingly inept- it doesn’t insult me when l hear liberals called commies-because in a Communist society you lose your individual indentity and property for the good of the state—liberal values are just the opposite. It might be an interesting subject for debate, but I wouldn’t get offended by it.
CS- I reread my posts and I see that I said “Bush is no Hitler”- that its an exaggerated comparison, and that’s what I think. But I do despise the authoritarian tactics he’s used to limit the checks and balances on executive power. Unless you think he’s extremely competent and agree with all of his policies- I would think that would bother most Americans-not just liberals.
oh brother! Has anyone actually looked at the definition of fascism? “Fascism” does not, as nearly everyone here seems to think, equal “Nazi”. Fascism <> Nazi. Here’s what it means:
Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests inferior to the needs of the state, and seeks to forge a type of national unity, usually based on ethnic, religious, cultural, or racial attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, corporatism, collectivism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, and opposition to economic and political liberalism.
Well? Is there ANY part of that definition that you can say does not characterize the current direction of the country? Oh, and read the PATRIOT Act and Military Commissions Act before arguing that the administration has not embraced authoritarianism and totalitarianism. The Bush administration believes in concentrating as much power as possible in the hands of the “unitary executive”.
Pelosi a traitor? It is not treason to TALK to any world leader. Get a grip. It is treason to sell weapons to an avowed enemy, which Reagan, Ollie North, Cheney and Rumsfeld did. Reagan admitted this. He armed Iran to funnel money to a terrorist campaign against the elected government of a democratic country, against an act of Congress and the will of the people.
Treason, as defined by Oran’s Legal Dictionary is “…[a]…citizen’s actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation].”
No one in Congress has helped Syria or Iran make war against the USA. The only President to have done so was Reagan, with help from daddy Bush and members of the current administration, who helped Iran acquire weapons of mass destruction, after that nation had declared itself an enemy of the USA.
‘The left needs to understand that we are really, truly at war, fighting those who actually mean to kill us and destroy our culture and way of life. The goal being to create a worldwide islamic caliphate. Bush didn’t invent the threat of islamic terrism, it is a reality, a brutal violent reality innocent people are faced with all around the world from Africa to Thailand, Iraq, Israel etc.’
Laura- again: a bunch of sheepherders are not the Wehrmacht, They have no power over us unles we are asleep at the wheel. They cannot conquer us. Only we, in our arrogance, can defeat ourselves. McWorld-Mart is far more powerful than any religion, for greeed is the one thing that trumps all notions of God. Swamp them with cell phones, DVDs and blackberries, and the Moslems will become as narcotized to life as most in the West are.
Will Ryan: Hung is not the preferred, but an acceptable past tense of hanging. But, if you want real American political thuggery- look to the anti-abortion movement, not unions. I’ve dealt with both, and no goombah is as raving a fanatic as an anti-ab w a ketchup bottle.
True, thanks for the nuance.
Point is: it’s very serious. We do not take this lightly.
Joe- rename the comments section the Strawman section, for far more strawmanning occurs here than any reasonable discussion. This is a truth in ad thing.
Domajot,
The problem with skipping the preliminary discussions about what “my side” means when we use a particular expression and how “your side” interprets the meaning differently, is that we then can’t even discuss because it’s like we’re speaking different languages. If you want to avoid using those kinds of phrases that are open to different interpretations, well, that makes some sense (personally I think it’s better if we take the time to explain exactly what we mean by the phrases). But since you were the one who brought up the use of the term “moral relativism” as a criticism of “the right”, then you aren’t following your own advice. If you’re going to say that we shouldn’t use the politically charged catch phrases against each other, then I’d ask you to consider that you used one such phrase against conservatives right here in this thread.
C Stanley,
Be honest with us. The understood definition of moral relativism for conservatives includes a clause that it only applies to liberals.
Yes, you can pray in public. Get a permit, like the gays, and march praying.
I can read your mind. I can only read your words. Sounds like your telling me to get a permit to pray to me.
CS-
“you used one such phrase ”
———————–
Yes, I did, as an EXAMPLE.
If I could think of a newly minted slogan of the Left, I would have used that as an example.
On the whole, the Right has been more adept at coining slogans and maeketing them instead of expressing ideas clearly and honestly. When the Left does it (lately, though not historiacally), they tend to be more crude, and they lose ground for it.
I was addressing how we debate, not what we debate. Moral relativism is a serious topic to explore. When applied broadly, to denegrate those with a different opinion, it slides into the meaningless but potent area of negative campaign ads.
I despise those.
Clearly neocons have lost all credibility. They did it to themselves.
From http://www.moralrelativism.info/ –
According to moral relativism, it makes no sense to ask the abstract question whether a given act is good or bad. According to moral relativism, there is no goodness or badness in the abstract; there is only goodness or badness within a specified context. An act may thus be good for one person but bad for another, or good in one cultural setting but bad in another, but cannot be either good or bad full stop.
If moral relativism is true, therefore, then we should not ask whether an act is good or bad in the abstract, but only whether it is good or bad in a particular situation.
Overall, I think it is safe to say that as a whole, Conservatives are more likely to reject moral relativism, as defined above, than Liberals.
Simple statement, not a condemnation or approval of either position, just MHO.
Please, no bomb-throwing.
BTW- I get that the conservative commenters here are sensitive to the use of the word “fascist” used to reference the authoritarian tactics that the administration has used to shut out the other branches of government- just be aware that liberals are just as sensitive to the use of the word treason or traitor when it is used to reference opposition to these tactics or policies. It offends me to have the right calling Reid and Pelosi traitors- if they are in good conscience doing what they feel they need to do to end this war. They are not going to stand by and do nothing like leaders did in Vietnam, once it became apparent that we would not win.
Who needs historical comparisons to go into what Bush is about? The guy has done a tried and true method of obtaining control. Namely inflating an enemy to the point where the citizenry are so afraid they are willing to cough up their rights. Terrorism is a joke as far as national threats go, but to hear Papa Bush and the far right go on you’d think they 1000 ICBM’s pointed at the west instead of small arms, explosive belts, passports and boxcutters.
Fear of this shadowy organization has been used to allow the gov’t to wiretap whomever they like and imprison people without trials or lawyers. We now torture prisoners like the bad guys in movies I saw when I grew up. Basically everything I used to really be proud of in our gov’t has been flushed down the toilet because of the unreasoning fearmongering of the right. Ironically its the left who are considered pussies when if the right would grow a pair we’d still have Habeus Corpus intact.
Is this the same Naomi Wolf who served as Al Gore’s fashion consultant in 2000? A damned attractive woman, if I remember correctly.
Her argument would have appeared less risible had she posited the rise of an “intellectual” thug caste. I guess she found it hard not to pander to the Ur-Left’s fear of peacenik-bashing construction workers and hippie-murdering rednecks.
Nic Rivera, Green Dreams, and (for the moral relativism post) Austin Roth, thanks for the clarity.
Nobody: You quoted Chuck Prez quoting me about National Interest. I consider myself a true liberal (though I also consider myself a true conservative). If you’d care to debate the issues about national security, I’d be very happy to engage with you in an informed discussion. I won’t call you politically incorrect (I couldn’t care less) but I may get offended. I do think I can refrain from insulting ad hominem attacks. I’ll start by saying that I think most geopolitical strategists, regardless of party, are barking up the wrong tree when it comes to the idea of America’s best interests.
Sincerely,
NT White
Michael & Lynx,
Do you get the impression we Euros are having a whole different conversation here, unheeded by our friends across the cyberspatial pond?
Regards, C
Nathaniel White.
Chuck prez issued a rebuttal and then another demanding a response from me. I replied.
We are debating (quite poorly I might add) Its not Fascism if Christians do it. A blanket statement that goes to the heart of the lefts attack on Bush using every means at their disposal.
However if you want to address each item above then you too are barking up the wrong tree because they are not even associated with Christians. They are associated with our government. Christians did not do any of those things. Politicians did. Now if those politicians happened to be Christians does that mean all of Christianity is EVIL
I say no. This article quite clearly is saying yes.
To debate the merits of points 1 thru 10 requires one premise that both sides must agree to and I do not believe you and I could even agree on the framework for the debate.
The USA is at WAR. Yes or No. You would most likely say no and therefore you would be correct in asserting that items 1 thru 10 above are being abused. However if we are in a war, then presidents from George Washington thru George Bush have done the above to protect the citizens of this country and we did not slip into fascism.
Uh, no. But I guess if you define it in a silly way and then turn around and apply your silly definition of it to a conservative argument, then object when we say that the argument was not an example of moral relativism except in the sense of your mistaken understanding of what the term means, well, then yeah, I guess we do exempt our own arguments from that.
And Doma, I wasn’t talking about you using an example of that for illustrative purposes, I was talking about this:
What I’m trying to say is that your statement “evil is evil, good is good” is a mistaken understanding of the concept of moral relativism. What you are saying there is that EVERYTHING has to be black and white and you are advancing the argument that this is how many conservatives see the world. But really the concept of moral relativism (and our disdain for that) is that we don’t accept that there are NO black and white issues, that everything has to be put on equal moral footing even if clearly one thing is more morally correct than the other.
So no, you were not just mentioning how these things sometimes get bandied about and distort the conversation, you were doing some of the bandying yourself (probably not purposely, but that is why I tried to clarify what conservatives actually mean when we complain about moral relativism, which is not what you explained it to be.)
13 straw men since my last post. C’mon Joe- call this the Strawman section, not comments.
CS- you’re quick. Now it’s 14.
Cosmo The strawman counter.
Every argument that he does not agree with is a strawman. 1 trillion and 1 times.
Nobody – that, too, was a strawman. And so is this post!
We’re off to see the wizard….
OK, now that the thread has completely unraveled I can ask: is it just me or does the guy on that poster look like Hugh Laurie?
Nobody: First off, thanks for getting back to me.
Second, I’m not interested in a “what’s wrong with Christians” discussion for probably the same reason you find such a discussion problematic:
1) I was raised Christian
2) Christians have done many wonderful and horrible things, but those things may be better assigned to humans in general rather than Christians in particular.
IMO, the “It’s not fascism when…” poster uses the word Christians where it might better make its point with the word “we”. Of course, I don’t know for certain what the poster’s creator (artist) means, but the point I’d like that person to be making is that we, too, however much a light on a hill we suppose ourselves to be, may fall into the snares of authoritarian militarism.
I realize I’m not really debating here, just clarifying an imaginary point I’m attributing to a piece of political propaganda. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure Naomi Wolf didn’t blame Christians for anything in particular, so when you say,
>Now if those politicians happened to be Christians does that mean all of >Christianity is EVIL
>I say no. This article quite clearly is saying yes.
I’m not sure which article you’re talking about.
On to “the war”…
(Third)
1) You won’t catch me saying that the US Government is currently Fascist, although I do see various steps toward Fascism (and not just recently — Nic Rivera posted a good review of US history above, and as you point out, various presidents from Washington to Lincoln to Bush have pushed the boundaries of executive power in what they called “war”).
2) Congress gave Bush permission to use force, and he invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. That looks like war to me. I can’t say it’s not war, and I wouldn’t want to try. On the other hand, the “war on terror”? Let’s use a separate heading…
3) IMO, declaring war on abstract concepts is one of the great public policy debacles of the 20th Century, updated by the current administration to become one of the great debacles of the 21st (though it is still a young century). The War on Poverty and the War on Drugs both failed to eliminate their opponents. In fact, some would argue that, like Prohibition, the War on Drugs just made things worse! Of course, this is the sort of argument that a loony free market advocate like me might typically point out, so you may wish to close your ears. The War on Terror has so far increased Fear (a synonym of Terror, or a close ally, depending on whether you believe abstract concepts like these are allied to other abstract concepts). But let’s drop the abstract concepts and get back to the actual violence…
4) September 11, 2001 was a terrible tragedy, and the people who committed this vast crime were mass murderers. Their greatest hope (and the hope of all those who wish to wage “holy” war) was that the families and countrymen of their victims would treat their attack, not as a reprehensible crime, but as an act of war. Civilian casualties, collateral damage, are dignified, permitted, by war. The rhetoric of jihadists who fantasize about a global caliphate claims that the murder of innocents is wrong, but that if innocents die as a side effect of attacking the soldiers, infrastructure, and symbols of the enemy, this is permissible. I believe this rhetoric is incorrect, and that it masks or excuses the purely criminal activities of terrorism, but we should keep in mind that we use similar words to excuse our use of explosives in the context of urban warfare, as do all industrial powers. For this reason alone, we should stay far away from calling mass murder of civilians an act of war. To call it war aids the moral cover-ups of terrorists.
5) Terrorism is the tribal violence of the 20th and 21st centuries — brutal, illegal and ethnic, attempting to gain political goals by intimidating voters and politicians. As many of our politicians have said (hey, politicians I agree with!) the terrorists hope to destroy our way of life. Although I don’t think that’s the only goal, or even a universal goal, of terrorist jihadists, I do think that we lose something vital for every civil liberty we give up. Instead of thinking of this situation as a brief war that might be resolved in five years, I believe we must consider it to be a lasting situation. The ways we respond to terrorism will shape how a whole generation grows up, what our entire nation considers normal or permissible. For this reason, we must live during this time as we believe best for all times.
I would rather accept a risk of injury in a terrorist attack for myself and my loved ones than give up the liberties on which our country was founded. It is true that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, and some would say he trampled on states’ rights as well. His presidency — and his life — passed quickly, though, together with the war he fought. The United States is still healing from that conflict, but we came out of the war while he still lived. Habeas corpus was restored. If our Congress and our President had recently defined a particular enemy that we could beat in a particular time, the war would be over before protests against loss of civil liberties could really get going! In the current situation, however, we have a “Long War”, a war of Orwellian proportions. People have been fighting tribal conflicts for as long as we’ve had tribes. Unless we develop a global government with which all people are relatively happy, there will still be murderers who hope to achieve political goals by killing civilians in spectacular ways. Since we’re not about to get such a global government (and I’m not saying we should have one), we ought to do what we can to fight such violent crime within the bounds of the Constitution and our nation’s laws.
Okay, I’m done.
Sincerely,
NT White
Gee, wasn’t this constructive.
I’m not sure what I find most appalling, the sheer ignorance of history, or the deeply held desire to demonize anyone who disagrees with your political ideology.
Ah! the joys of leftism in America.
CS, Nat, Richard – Sorry, all strawmen. Try again.
Richard Horton- Well hell Dick, it was the neocon that started hate rhetoric in the first place. Guess you love it when it works one way. You self rightous piece of crap.
CS-
Please don’t interpret my thougnts for me; because you are mininterpreting them.
Again.
1. There is the concept of moral relativism, usually applied to the Left by the Reight. The concept as a theory is described pretty much as you say, with nice gray areas and all the rest.
2. When it comes down to debating on an actual issue, though, the notion is used differently. Then it becomes a case of ‘we know what the evil in this case is, and if you don’t see it that way, you are a moral relativist’. At his point, there are few gray areas, and it is, indeed, black and white.
I was using an example to point to what actually happens in debate when someone uses labeling.
In effect, rather than write a long dissertation on sloganeering, I chose the shorter approach of accenting the highlights by using an example. To understand, you have to be able to jump from the abstract position, to an acual one, when it’s used in debate to score a political point.
Good Lord – the same old “American Fascism” chestnut is back. Nic Rivera’s history was good, but let me add a few more comments, which will doubtless not please Miss Wolf’s supporters. While it is popular among some on the left to argue that the Bush administration is busy building a police state, I think the complaint is a stretch. Still, Nic is correct – both Democratic and Republican administrations have cut corners and trespassed on the liberties of citizens when they deemed it expedient to do so. Some recent examples from the Clinton administration include the seiges of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that the religious and political beliefs of Weaver family and the Branch Davidian sect are too far out on the fringe for my tastes. But here’s the thing – these folks were right wing folks on the fringe, people who were preceived as dangerous religious right wing loonies by the mainstream left in the Clinton administration. Armed confrontations developed – complete with shoot outs and dead women and kids in both cases. And how many women and kids have the feds shot during the Bush administration? Calling George Bush a “Nazi” by implication as Wolf does is really well beyond the realm of reasoned discourse for most people away from the Kos Kids.
A conservative can easily go down Wolf’s list and provide examples of how the Democratic presidents have behaved badly; the problem is, it is not a party thing, it is a power thing, as Nic shows. Lord Acton was correct: “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Orson: Well said. Clinton’s gestures toward Fascism were scary. Corruption is not exclusive to any one human group. Still, we ought to object when we see it rear its ugly… whatever. IMO, the supposed categories of “right” and “left” mask the true shortcomings of our current political elites — most of us give at least 50% of politicians a free pass, just because they’re on “our side”. They are not, of course, as you point out. When we debate public policy, as US citizens, we need to keep in mind the tendency of both parties toward violent excess.
Austin Roth: Strawmen? You’re kidding, aren’t you.
Nathaniel White- thoughtful comments – I enjoyed the fact that you didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction like some others here.
Domajot,
I’ll refrain from adding anything more even though I’d like to, because I can see that I’m getting under your skin as usual and because this side discussion is distracting from the main one (some of the commenters above have done a great job in pointing out the core problem of excessive govt power grabs).
Nat – Yes, I was kidding. Just making fun of cosmoetica.
Austin: So this WAS constructive. Funny, it doesn’t look that way. Thanks for the correction.
White Agent: Thanks for proving my point for me.
Orson Buggeigh: “both Democratic and Republican administrations have cut corners and trespassed on the liberties of citizens when they deemed it expedient to do so. Some recent examples from the Clinton administration include the seiges of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas.”
I don’t buy it. Lets review the chronology:
August 1992 – shoot-out at Ruby Ridge.
January 1993 – Clinton sworn into office.
February-April 1993 – Standoff at compound in Waco, Texas.
The Ruby Ridge incident occurred before Clinton took office, which hasn’t prevented Republicans from blaming Clinton for it. Waco occurred because an inexperienced administration basicly allowed career officials to do what they wanted. It appears that Clinton then fixed the problem, because we haven’t seen incidents like Ruby Ridge or Waco since then.
“It is not a party thing, it is a power thing”
If that’s the case, then why didn’t abuses like Ruby Ridge and Waco continue to occur while Clinton was in office?