14 Points of fascism and the Bush presidency

[Raymond]

14 Points of fascism

Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses

If Mussolini defines fascism as "the merger of corporate and
government power" what does that make the K Street project?


In his original article, "Fascism Anyone?", Laurence Britt
(interview) compared the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco,
Suharto, and Pinochet and identified 14 characteristics common to
those fascist regimes. This page is a collection of news articles
dating from the start of the Bush presidency divided into topics
relating to each of the 14 points of fascism. Further analysis of
American Fascism done by the POAC can be read here.

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 the 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.

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

 

[Topaz]

The term "Corporatism" derives from Catholic doctrine and has nothing
to do with corporations or capitalism.
Corporatism was derived as a substitute for Marxism, a third way, so
to speak. Corporatists are hardly pro-big-business and anti-labor.
Chas
corporatism
"All those engaged in a common enterprise, particularly as a means of
making a living, have a common interest and should deal with
government through their leaders as, for example, educational workers,
or workers in agriculture, rather than 'horizontally' as laborers,
clerical workers, managers, and so on."
Source:
David Miller et al., eds, The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political
Thought (Oxford, 1987)
Of course Mussolini did not mean that corporations as in the USA
should have more power or profits.
Here are parts of a post about Mussolini written by a very
anti-Mussolini person. He has done his homework though and cites many
books which are also anti-Mussolini and anti-Fascist. These are some
things they admit:

"He had a profound contempt for those whose overriding ambition was to
be rich. It was a mania, he thought, a kind of disease, and he
comforted himself with the reflection that the rich were rarely happy"
Here Hibbert (1962, p. 47) is describing a lifelong attitude of
Mussolini that continued right into his time as Italy's Prime Minister
- when he refused to take his official salary.
"There was much truth in the comment of a Rome newspaper that the new
fasci did not aim at the defence of the ruling class or the existing
State but wanted to lead the revolutionary forces into the Nationalist
camp so as to prevent a victory of Bolshevism.
even after coming to power, to take drives in the country with his
wife and stop at various farmhouses on the way for a chat with the
family there. He would enjoy discussing the crops, the weather and all
the usual rural topics and obviously just liked the feeling of being
one of the people. His claim to represent the people was not just
theory but heartfelt. And he never gave up his "anti-bourgeois"
rhetoric.
His policies were basically protectionist. He controlled the
exchange-rate of the Italian currency and promoted that old favourite
of the economically illiterate - autarky - meaning that he tried to
get Italy to become wholly self-sufficient rather than rely on foreign
trade. He wanted to protect Italian products from competing foreign
products.
By 1939 he had doubled Italy's grain
production from its traditional level, enabling Italy to cut wheat
imports by 75% (Smith, 1967, p. 92).
He made Capri a bird sanctuary (Smith, 1967, p. 84) and
in 1926 he issued a decree reducing the size of newspapers to save
wood
pulp. And, believe it or not, he even mandated gasohol - i.e. mixing
industrial alcohol with petroleum products to make fuel for cars
(Smith,
1967, p. 87). Mussolini also disliked the population drift from rural
areas
into the big cities and in 1930 passed a law to put a stop to it
unless
official permission was granted
he advocated private enterprise within a strict set of State controls
designed, among other things, to prevent abuse of monopoly power
(Gregor, 1979, Ch. 5).
....a big expansion of public works and a great improvement in social
insurance measures. He also set up the "Dopolavoro" (after work)
organization to give workers cheap recreations of various kinds (cf.
the Nazi Kraft durch Freude movement). His public health measures
(such as the attack on tuberculosis and the setting up of a huge
maternal and child welfare organization) were particularly notable for
their rationality and efficiency and, as such, were rewarded with
great success. For instance, the incidence of tuberculosis dropped
dramatically and infant mortality declined by more than 20% (Gregor,
p. 259).
"instituted a programme of public works hitherto unrivalled in modern
Europe. Bridges, canals and roads were built, hospitals and schools,
railway stations and orphanages, swamps were drained and land
reclaimed, forest were planted and universities were endowed."
In 1929 Mussolini and Pope Pius
12th signed the Lateran treaty - which is still the legal basis for
the existence of the Vatican State to this day - and Pius in fact at
one stage called Mussolini "the man sent by Providence". The treaty
recognized Roman Catholicism as the Italian State religion as well as
recognizing the Vatican as a sovereign state. What Mussolini got in
exchange was acceptance by the church - something that was enormously
important in the Italy of that time.
the great hatred that existed in prewar
Germany between the Nazis and the "Reds". And the early Fascists
battled the "Reds" too, of course.
The 1919 election manifesto, for instance, contained policies of
worker control of industry, confiscation of war profits, abolition of
the Stock exchange, land for the peasants and abolition of the
Monarchy and nobility. Further, Mussolini never ceased to inveigh
against "plutocrats".
He wanted a harmonious and united
Italy for all Italians of all classes and was sure that achieving just
treatment for the workers needed neither revolution nor any kind of
artificially enforced equality.
This made Italian Fascism a much more popular creed than Stalin's
Communism. This is perhaps most clearly seen by the always persuasive
"voting with your feet" criterion. Mussolini made no effort to prevent
Italians from emigrating and although some anti-Fascists did, net
emigration actually FELL under Mussolini. Compare this with Stalin and
the Berlin wall.
Mussolini gained power through political rather than revolutionary
means. His famous march on Rome was only superficially revolutionary.
The King of Italy and the army approved of him because of his
pragmatic policies so did not oppose the march. So this collusion
ensured that Mussolini's "revolution" was essentially bloodless.
His considerable popularity for many years among a wide range of
Italians shows how effective his recipe for achieving that was.
In his "corporate state", Mussolini was the first to create ...a
system of capitalism under tight government control. And his corporate
state was one where the workers had (at least in theory) equal rights
with management.
REFERENCES Amis, M. (2002) Koba the Dread : laughter and the twenty
million.
N.Y.: Talk Miramax
Carsten, F.L. (1967) The rise of Fascism. London: Methuen. Funk &
Wagnall's New Encyclopedia (1983) Funk & Wagnall's Galbraith, J.K.
(1969) The affluent society. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Gilmour, I.H.J.L. (1978) Inside right. London: Quartet.
Greene, N. (1968) Fascism: An anthology. N.Y.: Crowell. Gregor, A.J.
(1979) Italian Fascism and developmental dictatorship Princeton, N.J.:
Univ. Press.
Hagan, J. (1966) Modern History and its themes. Croydon, Victoria,
Australia: Longmans.
Hibbert, C. (1962) Benito Mussolini Geneva: Heron Books. Herzer, I.
(1989)
The Italian refuge: Rescue of Jews during the holocaust. Washington,
D.C.:
Catholic University of America Press
Horowitz, D. (1998) Up from multiculturalism. Heterodoxy, January.
See: http://www.cspc.org/het/multicul.htm Lenin, V.I. (1952)
"Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder. In:
Selected Works, Vol. II, Part 2. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing
House.
Martino, A. (1998) The modern mask of socialism. 15th John Bonython
lecture,
Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney. See
http://www.cis.org.au/Events/JBL/JBL98.htm
Muravchik, J. (2002) Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism
San Francisco: Encounter Books.
Smith, D.M. (1967) The theory and practice of Fascism. In: Greene, N.
Fascism: An anthology N.Y.: Crowell.
Steinberg, J. (1990) All or nothing: The Axis and the holocaust
London:
Routledge.



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