Has America become fascist?

The 14 Defining Characteristics of Fascism

By Michael Hampton

August 27, 2005 --Tim West at Liberty for Sale argues that America has adopted these 14 defining characteristics of fascism. Read them for yourself and think long and hard about them.

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

   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 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. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

   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 sympathetic media spokes people and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is common.

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

   8. Religion and Government 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 in  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 and letters is openly attacked.

  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 typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

It CAN Happen Here!

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.”

--Sinclair Lewis, author of It Can’t Happen Here, 1935

For the first time since the Nixon era, Americans have reason to doubt the future---or even the presence---of democracy. We live in a society where government conspires with big business and big evangelism; where ideologues and religious zealots attack logic and the scientific method; and where the ruling party encourages xenophobic nationalism based on irrational, manufactured fear. The party in power seems to seek a perpetual state of war to hold on to power, and they are willing to lie, cheat, and steal to achieve their ends. The question must be asked: Are we headed toward the end of American democracy?

Nobel Prize-winning author Sinclair Lewis depicted authoritarianism American-style in his sardonically titled dystopian novel: It Can’t Happen Here, published in 1935.

Now, best-selling political journalist Joe Conason argues that it can happen here-–and a select group of extremely powerful right-wing ideologues are driving us ever closer to the precipice. In this compelling, impassioned, yet rational and fact-based look at the state of the nation, Conason shows how and why America has been wrenched away from its founding principles and is being dragged toward authoritarianism.

Joe Conason is a national correspondent for The New York Observer, columnist for Salon.com and head of the National Institute Investigative Fund. In 2007 he wrote: “It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush.”

It Can Happen Here is a must-read if you want to understand that America is undergoing a transition, who is responsible, and why.

“The history of mankind is a history of the subjugation and exploitation of a great majority of people by an elite few by what has been appropriately termed the 'ruling class'. The ruling class has many manifestations. It can take the form of a religious orthodoxy, a monarchy, a dictatorship of the proletariat, outright Fascism, or, in the case of the United States, corporate statism. In each instance the ruling class relies on academics, scholars and 'experts' to legitimize and provide moral authority for its hegemony over the masses.”

   -- Ed Crane

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It's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end.

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