Can you tell us where to find this GOP definition of statism?
Why don't you tell me why you insist that all the progressive are proposing is "statism?" Obviously, it is based on a specifid definition of statism, like statism limited to economics?
You seem to be saying that there are progressive leaders who do not believe the state has the authority to control every aspect of the economy. Using words like "every" sets a bar at unreasonably high levels so I am going to change your statement. You seem to be saying that there are progressive leaders who do not believe the state should or has the authority to control most aspects of the economy. Can you support that?
What I am saying is that most progressive leaders do not believe in economic statism in the long range, but do believe that, in cases of severe economic downturn (not provoked by "progressives" by the way), when private businesses and corporations are unable or (as it is occuring at this time) unwilling to hire to give an economic boost, only a government intervention can provide that boost. It was true for the great depression, and it is still true today. That doesn't mean that government intervention in a healthy economy is promoted or encouraged by most progressives. It isn't!
So if the GOP is demonstrating social statism not by advocating control of most aspects of social life but merely by increasing their attempts to control social life then we should apply the same standard to progressives.
Scrap the challenge above and support the idea that the progressives are not attempting to increasingly control the lives and labors of the people of the US?
The GOP IS demonstrating that they want to control every aspect of society, from women's body, to bedroom encounters, to religious expressions, and to marriage laws. Even to the extend of rewriting history books, and imposing their own "view" of family and "appropriate relationship" to school children!
The GOP is also attempting to increase control of government on labor by trying to abolish LABOR SUPPORTED Unions.
Next, returning to the definition we started with, can you support the idea that the GOP wants to control most aspects of peoples social lives? Does the GOP want to make sodomy illegal? Do they want to force gay people to get a license from the state to get married?
I have given several exemples of "Social statism" by the GOP, and YES they do want to force their social norms on gay people, not by "forcing them" to get a licence from the state to get married (in fact, just the opposite) by refusing to acknowledge the CHOICE that people make of their partners. . .by trying to impose a narrow definition of marriage that eliminate the right of people to choose who they want to marry. . .I believe there is even a new movement in Mississipi to reinstate as UNLAWFUL interacial marriage!
Corporitism is hardly only exercised by the right. As far as I can tell all congressmen and politicians do it about the same amount on either side of the aisle. If you have evicence that it is done more by one side let us know. (in a new thread)
Corporatism is supported by GREED, greed for money, and greed for power. While it is true that you find SOME of those people on both side of the aisle, it is obviously much more frequent on the RIGHT side of the aisle. Why don't you show evidence that this is not true?
A dictionary would tell you quickly what statism means and that corporatism and fascism are not the same.
I beg to differ. Corporatism driven to the extreme (as it has been in the last 10 years) does engender fascism.
The New Fascism, or Corporate Statism, American-Style
Submitted by asilber on Wed, 2004-06-30 12:45
asilbers blogHere's the most recent installment about a subject I have discussed many times before:
Hundreds of U.S. military and government officials routinely leave their posts for jobs with private contractors who deal with the government, a process that has eroded the lines between government and the private sector, according to report released by a watchdog group on Tuesday.
"There is a revolving door between the government and large private contractors where conflict of interest is the rule, not the exception," said the report by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a Washington-based group that monitors military expenditures.
"The revolving door has become such an accepted part of federal contracting in recent years that it is frequently difficult to determine where the government stops and the private sector begins," adds the report, titled"The Politics of Contracting."
The document says that the current contracting system where current and former public servants use their positions for private gain means powerful private contractors can potentially rig the system in their own favor.
The group examined the current top 20 federal government contractors from January 1997 through May 2004 and found that in fiscal year 2002, those top 20 contractors received over 40 percent of the 244 billion dollars in total contracts awarded by the federal government.
The group says that it also identified 291 instances involving 224 high-ranking government officials who moved to the private sector to serve as lobbyists, board members or executives of the contractors.
The report found that at least one-third of the former senior government employees who went to work for or served on the board of a government contractor were in official positions allowing them to influence government contracting decisions, and that accountability rules were not enough to control them.
And, I referred to "fascism," not "Hitler, or Nazism," so. . . Godwins law doesn't seem to "fit!"
