identify a fascist state today! :: Nov 11, 2004
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 titled "Fascism Anyone?" and appears in Free Inquiry's Spring 2003 issue on page 20.
The Identifying Characteristics of Fascism
by Dr. Lawrence Britt
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottoes, 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 the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or through sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in wartime, 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 are almost always governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions, and who 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 the assassination of) opposition candidates, the use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and the manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
NOTE: More annotations to come...
DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?
Posted by BIGGITY @ Jan 04, 05
Time to invest in a house in Switzerland?
Posted by mivox @ Jan 04, 05
Good riddance. We won't miss you.
Posted by Beer Phantom @ Jan 20, 05
ROFL... Way to hide behind a pseudonym, Mr. Big Man! Not to make you feel bad, but I stopped being afraid of "phantoms" when I was a small child.
Posted by mivox @ Jan 20, 05
The same right for you to "rant" is given to me to hide behind any pseudonym I choose. It's America right? I just think that if Switzerland is such a great place, what's keeping you? All I ever hear from the Bush bashers is how rotten this country is and how we ought to be more like Europe and the like. Well, great, don't let the door hit you in the behind on the way over. If you think double digit unemployment is better, 70% income tax rates are wonderful, and socialized medicine is the best thing since sliced bread, I'll give you my frequent flyer miles for a one way ticket.
I never implied that you should be frightened, I just think you should follow through with something that you seem so passionate about, i.e. this country sucks, Bush is a criminal, global warming is going to kill us all, social security is just fine the way it is, the rich are screwing the poor, we need nationalized healthcare, blah blah blah. I know socialism when I see it. Why not go live somewhere where they really practice it and you can see what a wonderful system it really is?
Posted by Beer Phantom @ Jan 21, 05
Oh sure, you have every right to use a pseudonym... but I always find it amusing when people act like they have all these big, strong principles, and getting all personally nasty with those who disagree with them is just great, but they don't have enough confidence in their attitude and convictions to put their name behind it.
As for me hating this country, nothing could be further from the truth, but you probably won't believe that. I happen to think our constitution is one of the finest governing documents ever drafted, and one of my biggest problems with our government is their apparently cavalier attitude about gutting our constitutionally-granted civil liberties.
See, I don't hate this country at all. I hate a government who thinks they should be able to track my bookstore purchases and library records without my explicit consent. I hate a government who thinks they have the right to dictate to the rest of the world how their own sovereign nations are run, at the cost of god knows how many US military members' lives and limbs by the time they're done. I hate a government that pushes propaganda saying dissent is "unpatriotic" or that I'm a "terrorist sympathizer" because I speak out about my personal convictions (without hiding behind a pseudonym).
In case you (and our government) have forgotten, our country was founded by dissidents who believed no-one should be forced to toe the party line by the British or any other government. Our independence was fought for by men who hid behind trees to shoot and ambushed the militarily superior British forces whenever possible, rather like terrorists or guerillas, because they believed people should be free of tyranny.
Now you (and my government) are telling me that if I don't shut up and agreeably go along with our current administration and it's ill-advised actions, I'm the enemy? I must hate my country? I should leave? In your single-minded zealotry, you have become an embodiment & representative of exactly the kind of ideological tyranny that our country was founded in opposition to.
Oh, the irony.
Posted by mivox @ Jan 21, 05
Oh, and the whole arresting and detaining US citizens indefinitely without informing them of the charges against them, or allowing them to contact an attorney or family member, or bringing them to trial... yeah, that's another bad one.
A few pertinent quotes, from former presidents, famous capitalists, famous fascists and other notable non-Socialists throughout history:
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." -Dwight D. Eisenhower
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." - Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816
"A slave is he who cannot speak his thoughts." - Euripides
"We're NOT a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: A government by the wealthy." - Ramsey Clark, former U S Attorney General
"Of all forms of tyranny, the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy." - John Pierpont Morgan
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini
"The real truth of the matter - as you and I know - is that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson." - President Franklin D Roosevelt
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power." - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is DESTROYED." - President Abraham Lincoln, 1865
"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an INvisible government owing NO allegiance and acknowledging NO responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today." President Theodore Roosevelt, 1906
"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws." - President John Adams
Posted by mivox @ Jan 21, 05
The problem with the analysis of 'fascism' given in the original article is that the word's scope is stretched so far as to virtually lose any real meaning. Most of the points given as definitions could easily apply to virtually any dictatorial regime in history including marxist ones.
Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile).
Of the above I would only count Mussolini's Italy as truly fascist. Hitler's Germany was a variation of fascism but with the crucial add-on of anti-semitism, and a kind of occultism. The other regimes were merely old fashioned militarist dictatorships with only very superficial resemblance to fascism.
Fascism as developed in Italy in the 20's was ultimately a very Italian ideology. It was radical, revolutionary, very modern, very twentieth century, (originally) socialist, anti-church, and based on mass plebiscitary democracy.
The problem today is that left wing people tend to use it to refer to anything they don't like and as i said it becomes a pretty useless term for discussion or analysis.
Posted by patung @ Apr 03, 05
Well, on the one hand, the first definition given by dictionary.com is:
fas÷cism n.
1. often Fascism
1. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
And that leaves quite a bit of room for interpretation. On the other hand, if you want to hold the definition of fascism to only mean that one specific Italian political movement, then clearly there is no other context in which it could be used.
Personally, I would argue that the definition of many words evolves over time based on changes in popular usage, and while the generic left-wing use of "fascism" to describe any marginally opressive gov't policy is overstepping the bounds by a wide margin, the current accepted definition of the word has outgrown its original specific meaning, as evidenced by the fact that political scientists not only use it to describe many more regimes than Mussolini's, with a high degree of agreement as to which regimes should bear the label.
Not to mention, Mussolini's own description of Fascism (written in the 1930s for the Italian Encyclopedia) is more encompassing than your own, and includes the statement that Fascism is the opposite of Marxist Socialism.
But hey, thank you for taking the time to actually make an intelligent, educated comment on this. :-) That's really rare.
Posted by mivox @ Apr 03, 05
I don't say it can only be restricted to Mussolini's Italy. Hitler was a fascist, Mosley in England was a fascist, the Falange in Spain were fascists, and there were probably a lot more that i don't know about.
Political scientists should know better, others may not. It's like 'genocide'. The word gets stretched so far as to become confusing and weak.
Posted by patung @ Apr 03, 05
books gone wild
