Bush,conservatives, and Fascism

Came across this, for all those who doubt Bush and the conservatives fascist like tendencies. http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

 

Remember though, Bush is not a real conservative. He's a neoconservative. Which is just another form of being a statist.

 

Your points are no more valid here than they were when I tore them down for you on the other thread.

If you are interested in the topic, you really should study fascism as both a political philosophy and fascism in practice. Reading, and believing the sort of material that that site presented only identifies you as one who will believe anything you are presented so long as it is in agreement with you. The one who put that site together either had no more working knowledge of facism than you, or does and has twisted his knowledge to the breaking point in an effort to mislead, and misguide folks like you who will gobble up any form of misinformation so long as it is anti bush.

Point 1. Any nationalism on the part of bush or the US in general is the faintest possible reflection of the military parades of lenin, stalin, and mao or hitler. Mile after mile of military hardware and high stepping soldiers punctuated by military marching bands. When a comparison is made of the two, any suggestion of attempted nationalism on the part of the US must logically be dismissed.

Point 2. Confusing the treatment of illegal combattants with the general treatment of all citizens of the leftist regimes is a standard liberal tactic and simply doesn't wash. You are not in danger of having soldiers break down your door and cart you away in the night if you speak out publicly against your government.

Point 3. Isn't it interesting how the left in this country is constantly attempting to make scapegoats out of the right? For every concievable thing.

Point 4. Refer to point 1.

Point 5. One look at the number of women operating within government from the highest appointed position down to the local level puts this sad little nugget to bed. Take a look at the fascist governments, or any of the governments of the great leftist despots and see how many women you find in leadership positions within government, if you can find any at all.

Point 6. The only government funded media that I am aware of in this country are NPR and PBS which lean decidedly to the left. As to government trying to control media via legislation, consider the attack on talk radio by the left via the fairness doctrine.

Point 7. We have an enemy that has attacked us multiple times on our own soil and has been attacking us, and our interests abroad for 3 decades. Our enemy has cells working within our own borders and has promised more and worse attacks in the futurre. Radical islam is not an enemy fabricated from nothing in an attempt to scare the population. When one has a stated and determined enemy, only the most irresponsible government imaginable would not make said enemy a national security issue.

Point 8. Which religion is it that the government supports and uses at the local level to influence and direct the people? Campaign and political speaking in churches is illegal and the only examples of such that I can recall have been democrats. Al gore gave lots of political speeches in church. Which church is it that the government recommends that you attend and how often do they tell you to go?

Point 9. Facism was all about controlling the means of production. Under fascist governments, only "party" men could own and manage business or industry. If they were not party men, they would lose thier business. Those "party" owners and managers were encouraged by the party to only hire and retain "party" workers. So tell me, when was the last time you lost your job or didn't get a job because of the political party you belonged to?

Point 10. Can you name for me a union or two that has been outlawed by government? Union membership has been dwindling for several decades and is presently at its lowest numbers ever, but that is due to poor leadership, involvement in other than labor politics, and general ineffectiveness rather than any direct or overt action by government.

Point 11. So now, professors and teachers can only get jobs if they are "party" men and women and teach the party line? Is the only work artists can find painting huge heroic murals of the fearless leaders?

Point 12. Which national police force are you under the impression is working here? Are you and your family in danger of being picked up if you speak out against the government?

Point 13. You aren't really going to inject cronyism into the conversation after the clintons are you? Two words. Billy Dale.

Point 14. You are aware, aren't you, that if you do any research you will find that democrats have been charged and convicted at a ratio of about 4 to 1 on election fraud related charges when compared to republicans. Stuffed ballot boxes, dead people voting, handing out cigarettes to homeless to get them to vote democrat, puncturing tires of busses slated to pick up retirees who lived in predominantly republican areas, etc., etc., etc.

 

Though you have put forth a well thought out and well written piece, the website stands up quite well. None the less, I'll try to refute your most glaring inaccuracies. Your first point seems to be that just because other tyrants have reveled in nationalism it's okay for the Bush administration to. Your second point is incorrect because the Patriot Act can and has been applied to U.S. citizens. Your fifth point totally ignores the Republican party's ingrained bigotry against a woman who has the gall to want an abortion. Your seventh point ignores the fact that the Republicans have not just "made" national security an issue, they've "used" national security as an issue. I believe fear-mongering is the term. Your eighth point ignores the fact that the Christian right almost "is" the Republican party in some parts of the country. Indeed, Bush would never have been elected without them. He is one himself and is indebted to such Christian leaders as Pat Robertson or James Dobson. Your ninth point ignores the fact that there can be no doubt that the Republican party is the party of big business. In particularly, big oil and logging as their anti-environmental policies have shown. Can there be any doubt that the Republican party's environment raping policies are but a pay off for campaign donations. Your twelfth point is more of that "If you've got nothing to hide" logic which has been a ploy of all fascist regimes. Other than that, some of your points are well taken but the website still stands up quite well. The similarities are both eerie and troubling.

 

Learn something and talk to me in the morning. Your entire rebuttal is just more indefensible hysterical handwringing on your part. Following the logic of the site you listed, I can make the case that the entire democrat party are child molestors because it is possible for me to cherry pick news about gerry studds having a sexual relationship with a minor. Or that the entire democrat party is involved in election fraud because numerous stories can be found about democrats being found guilty of election fraud. If cherrypicking a few articles is sufficient to make a case, then a case can be made to suit any point which is exactly what your site was all about.

If you want to argue fascism, you must first learn about fascism and you won't get any actual knowledge from sites such as the one you linked.

Point 1. It is apparent that you don't know exactly what nationalism is with regard to political parties. Refer to the soviet union or china, or WWII germany or italy if you are curious. Nationalism on a federal scale looks something like this.




When you see this sort of thing in DC, then you will have a case for nationalism.

Point 2. The patriot act is constitutional and was voted on and passed by both houses of congress, not one man as is the case in a fascist state.

Point 5. Abortion is about one human being allowed to kill another without legal consequence. Sexism as applied to fascism and the other failed leftist ideologies means that women were not allowed to hold positions of leadership.

Point 7. The fact that we have a deternined enemy makes national security an issue. Only an irresponsible dolt would think otherwise. Burying one's head in the sand and pretending that it isn't a national security issue is to play right into that enemies hands.

Point 8. I will repeat, which church are you forced to attend and which laws are used to force you to attend and which religious dogma does the state require that you adhere to? Your claims of religious this and religious that are no more than hysterical handwringing.

Point 9. Fascist governments controled the means of production. They required that business and industry owners be party members or forfiet their business and the owners were directed by the state to only hire party members. Supporting business is not the same as controlling business and using said business to force the average citizen to become a party member in order to simply hold a job.

This is a fine example of how little you know about fascism in that you can so easily be misled as to the actual nature of fascism and how it forced all citizens to become party members or face the life of the jews.

Exactly which environmental policy, and payoff to which donors? Are you talking about drilling in ANWAR? If so, then once again, you prove that you don't really know squat and are little more than a talking parrot for your liberal handlers.

Point 12. The fact is that there is no national police force and neither you, nor I nor any other citizen are in any danger of being carted off in the night for speaking out agains the government. Such a situation would be necessary in order to draw any actual parallel between fascist governments and the US.

The fact is that the site is a dishonest piece of work built for the express purpose of giving parrots like you something to say. I will repeat, if you want to talk about fascism, learn something about it first and learn it from a scholarly source, not an obviously biased place who will do and say whatever and bend the truth beyond the breaking point in an attempt to make an invalid point.

 

I think you clarified your position making your case with your last sentence. "Similarities"... you're not saying the Bush administration has pushed the country into a full blown Fascist or Nationalist State. You're saying there are tendencies, moves in that direction that trouble you. You are not alone. Hundreds of thousands of people if not millions see troubling traits.

As I've said before when you take the Left way out past American standards the end of the scale would be socialism. When you take the Right way out past American standards the end of that scale can easily lead you to either Fascism, theocracy or some combination of the two.

It's good to look at the extremes even if we are not in that situation at this time. Seemingly good ideas when run out to an extreme can turn into terrible, unfair policies. "McCarthyism is a good example," coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist pursuits. Today the term is used more generally to describe demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.

 

Just stick the word "pseudo" in front of Fascism. It will make it harder for Palerider and others to argue.

Pseudo Fascism in America doesn't have to look exactly like Fascist states of the past. There doesn't have to be a Gulag or direct gov't control of industry, because like it was noted before, the similarities are there.

 

I see that you don't know much about fascism either. For your information, fascism is nationalistic socialism. Have you ever taken a look at what the respective governments of hitler and musollini did? Pure socialism. Fascism is socialism for one state.

Fascism is socialism conjoined with extreme with nationalism. Communism is socialism with international aspirations. In its approach to education, its economic agendas and social policies, fascism was thoroughly socialist by any definition of the word.

Perhaps you should take time to actually learn what fascist governments did before you suggest that they are right wing. Consider for example, some planks from fascist platforms.

We ask that the government undertake the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate opportunities for employment and earning a living

To this end, enormous public works programs were instituted to provide jobs and benefits for citizens.

The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and for the good of all. Therefore, we demand:...an end to the power of the financial interests.

We demand profit sharing in big business.

To these ends, fascist required owners and managers of business and industry to be party men. Failure to remain an upstanding member of the party resulted in the loss of ones business and subsequent replacement with someone who was a party man. Government, in essence, controlled the means of production and therefore every citizen's livelyhood

We demand a broad extension of care for the aged.

In order to make possible to every capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our entire system of public education...We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents...

The governments of both germany and italy instituted public scholarship programs that essentially paid for any student to attend college that wanted to attend college.

The government must undertake the improvement of public health -- by the greatest possible support for all clubs concerned with the physical education of youth.

You like the idea of single payer healthcare, thank the fascists, it was their idea and it was implemented in both germany and italy.

In addition, fascists institued the 40 hour work week, an employer could not simply terminate an employee. An employee had to be given a 4 week notice of his impending termination during which time the employee could appeal to the government to keep his job. Even the poorest citizen could take extended vacations at state subsidized resorts, and the list goes on and on.

The fact of the matter is that if you weren't a jew, fascist states were socialist paradises.

 

Actually it doesn't make it more difficult. Sticking pseudo in front of the word if you are trying to associate it with anything conservative only highlights the fact that you don't know anything about fascism either.

Any action that increases the size of government, or makes government more intrusive into one's life is a move to the left. The logical end of the philosophy of the left (including facism and nazism) are the great leftist tyrannies of the 20th century.

Anyone who would suggest that fascism is a product of right wing thinking clearly doesn't know much about either. In order to be considered conservative, a legislative act must reduce the size of government or restrict its possible intrusions into one's life. Conservativism is about small government. The logical end of the conservative philosophy is a small constitutionally accountable federal government that would look very much like the one that existed when this country started. The federal government would do little more than negotiate international treaties, deliver the mail, and see to the protection of the borders. Public welfare programs would be products of, and supported by the states in which they existed.

No rational argument can be made to suggest that a philosophy that is based on small, non intrusive, accountable government is behind any socialist regime whether it is the internationalist socialism of the soviet union and china, or the nationalist socialism of the fascists, or the nationalist racist socialism of the nazis. If the regime includes government intrusion into the lives of its citizens, or a welfare state, it simply is not conservative in nature.

 

I never suggested Fascism was "right wing thinking" or associated it with traditional conservative philosophy.

Many would argue that the Bush administration HAS increased the size of gov't and made the gov't more intrusive into one's life. You will obviously justify this with the "enemy who wants to destroy us" rhetoric.

 

The premise of this thread is an attempt to link fascism to conservativism. Any suggestion that adding "pseudo" in front of fascism would make it more difficult to argue is a suggestion that fascism is "like" conservativism in some way.

I would argue that the bush adminsitration has increased the size of government as well and that he has increased the intrusion of government into people's lives. I would also argue that bush is not conservative and that the republicans lost the last election, not due to the war, but because of their discernable shift away from conservativism to the left. That shift, however, is hardly substantial enough to suggest kinship with fascism either as political theory or fascism in practice.

Any attempt to draw parallels would (as was the case with popeye's effort) only highlight ones lack of knowledge of what fascism was or how fascist governments operated. Folks like popeye only know fascism in reference to the holocost and the war. The german and italian governments were fascist long before the war started and both were socialist heaven. Wartime actions are hardly a valid indicator for any political philosophy other than how socialst regimes might react when faced with the pressures of war and the bugetary deficits associated with socialist governments. If that were the truth, any number of arguments could be made against democrats since it was a democrat administration that developed and dropped the only atomic bombs ever used against another nation.

By the way, are you arguing that we don't have a stated and determined enemy that has promised to attack us until we capitulate?

 

I should've reviewed the premise of the thread then, because although i do not believe that traditional conservative philosphy has any parallels to fascism at all... I do believe that the Bush administration has and will continue to practice pseudo fascism.

I think the shift, parallels, and similarities ARE enough to suggest that fascism has found a newer, stronger host. For a failed political philosophy to come back it has to recreate itself somewhat. that is what i see in the Bush administration.

and the polls showed that the #1 issue during the mid terms was cronnyism and corruption.

I don't lack the knowledge of what fascism is. I happen to disagree with you. I don't think political philosophies have to look exactly like their predecesors failures.

I am arguing nothing of the sort. I'm plainly stating that when painted into a corner with the facts, that is the rhetorical excuse used by someone such as yourself.

 

Since it is the "Old American Century" that the cited site longs for, seems a foolish arguement to make if you compared the "nationalism" of today, to that of WWII America thru the 50s.

uuuuhhh what citizens have been subjected to "torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc"?
BS hyperbole that has nothing to do with reality.
Aaaand certainly, again, WWII America compared to today makes this another foolish arguement.

???? Abortions were illegal in the "old American century" and Hitler legalized them for the non aryans.

Again you dont seem to be familiar with America of the 1900s.

Republicans are free market capitalist. If you know anything about fascist, they are not.

 

Do you have a source for this? I can't find anything indicating this...for example, I find the following when searching for convictions (as opposed to rumor):

March 2007 http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20070314_the_real_voter_fraud/:
The Justice Department’s own statistics show that of 87 ballot-fraud convictions obtained since the department launched its “voter integrity” initiative in 2002, 17 were for noncitizen voting and another six were for multiple voting. Most of the cases involved vote-buying schemes hatched by local politicians in Kentucky, West Virginia and elsewhere.

87? That's not much at all and mostly in local politics, no mention of party breakdown.

If I were to consider "rumor" - there would be the disturbing allegations that the Justice department under Gonzales focused primarily on convictions of Democrat fraud (according to statements made by some of it's lawyers in the attorney firing scandal).

According to http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/updates/election_administration.html?AID=973:

There are no reliable, officially compiled, national or even statewide statistics on voter fraud. Even though many criminal acts associated with ‘voter fraud’ are classified as felonies, voter fraud fails to appear in the F.B.I.’s uniform crime reports. There are no publicly available criminal justice databases that include voter fraud as a category of crime. No states collect and public statistics on voter fraud.


I suspect it occurs in a pretty even distribution across party lines and has more to do with local power politics then party politics.

 

No more then the way the right blames liberals for everything that has ever gone wrong in this country ....