Observations over at The American Thinker:
A key characteristic of the reality of fascist thinking is rampant cronyism and corruption. Certain capitalists, wishing to ingratiate themselves with the state, are willing to fund the election of those in power in exchange for favorable government contracts and avoidance of regulatory wrath. Recently, much of Wall Street, Hollywood, the unions, major companies such as General Electric, and the super-wealthy such as Warren Buffett are willing to sleep with those in power and be used as props in any propaganda campaign initiated by the Obama regime.
The Obama administration has, through the Justice Department and other agencies, behaved exactly as many quasi-fascist regimes in the past — almost all of whom have been governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect themselves and their friends from accountability.
The term “fascism” has been redefined by the horrendous acts of Mussolini and Hitler, actions spurred by their megalomania and nationalism. However, the economic philosophy that is fascism is alive and well and being pursued in the United States by those whose desire it is to control the people of the country and reinforce their domestic power base, not to conquer the world. Yet the pursuit of the same tenets that motivated Franklin Roosevelt has prolonged and exacerbated the current economic disaster facing the United States.
Sadly, the crony capitalism inherent in the Senate Launch System is part of it. It’s bipartisan.
Fascism wasn’t “redefined” by Mussolini, it was invented by Mussolini!
The Gerbil still can’t see the forest for the trees. Back on your wheel, Chris! Run faster and faster. I’m sure it will help re-elect your saviour.
Nothing Obama is doing is fascism. Fascism is anti-union, militaristic, backward-thinking, and very pro-wealthy. It violently suppresses dissent, and ignores democratic processes by its very nature.
Anybody who confuses Obama with Mussolini is smoking crack.
How’s that for seeing the forest?
Fascism is anti-union? From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism, “In 1919, Alceste De Ambris and Futurist movement leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti created The Manifesto of the Italian Fasci of Combat (a.k.a. the Fascist Manifesto). […] The Manifesto supported the creation of an eight-hour work day for all workers, a minimum wage, worker representation in industrial management, equal confidence in labour unions as in industrial executives and public servants, reorganization of the transportation sector, revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance, reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55, a strong progressive tax on capital[…]”
So Fascism is both pro-union and progressive. Thank you for playing.
I think that like the communists they only allowed a single union.
Now Rick, you know it’s unfair to use actual history and facts. We’re supposed to let Chris and others make stuff up as they see fit.
None of what was listed in the Manifesto was actually implemented. In fact, the unions that were created were puppets of management, and forbidden from striking.
Not only that, two paragraphs down from the quote you pulled I read Beginning in 1920, Fascism began to make a shift towards the political right.[88] This occurred as militant strike activity by industrial workers reached its peak in Italy, where 1919 and 1920 were known as the “Red Years”.[89] Mussolini and the Fascists took advantage of the situation by allying with industrial businesses and attacking workers and peasants in the name of preserving order and internal peace in Italy.[90] (emphasis mine).
I’m not the one making stuff up here.
“Fascism is anti-union, militaristic, backward-thinking, and very pro-wealthy. It violently suppresses dissent, and ignores democratic processes by its very nature.”
Militaristic & ignoring democratic process: Like the wars in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and others.
Pro-wealthy: Look at Solyndra and other green companies that received $billions. Big wall street firms that supported Obama got excellent financing from the government and in the case of Goldman Sachs a no bid contract to buy back government securities.
Ignores democratic processes: NLRB enacting card check after congress had voted it down and the EPA enacting regulations that congress had voted down are just a couple examples.
Violently suppresses dissent: While not always violent there are many examples of suppressing dissent from the war on Fox to banning local news stations from having access to people in the administration for not towing the party line.
Flag@whitehouse.gov and attackwatch.com are both examples of trying to suppress dissent. Labeling any detractors as racist and bigots is also trying to suppress dissent.
But if you want violence just look at what happened after Obama unleashed the SEIU and other unions on the Tea Party protesters during the healthcare debate or a more recent example of the unionistas in WI. Those were party sponsored acts of aggression not random nuts.
Don’t bother. Fascism is whatever leftists say it is.
Ol’ Gerrib—faithful water-carrier for his beloved “Il Dufe.” The old it-can’t-happen-here mentality.
My wife was born in the Philippines and is a naturalized US citizen. She lived there for most of the Marcos dictatorship. One day, she said she was so embarrassed about the rampant corruption there, about how government officials from the lowest to the highest were on the take and how they bought votes. I told her that the Filippino politicians were amateurs. Here, politicians use hundreds of billions of dollars (now trillions) of other people’s money to buy votes and enrich themselves. It’s far worse today than in any of my memory with the possible exception of LBJ. That man was a crook of the highest order with his wife owning major stock portfolios in companies that were getting huge government contracts.
I’m pretty sure Fascism existed before Mussolini — it just hadn’t been given that name yet.
Ah Gerrib. Mussolini opposed unions only because his idea of fascism opposed multiple groups and individuals. He wanted something more like this, as one can read for themselves.
Chris, so you think Mussolini was right wing because he supported unions unless they didn’t do exactly what he, as a communist and socialist union organizer (one of his few jobs before siezing power) told them to do. How does that make him any different from Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, or Obama? Stalin didn’t tolerate strikes either, so in your eyes does that make him a member of the John Birch Society?
Mussolini was still so far to the left that those of us on the right can’t detect a difference over the round-off error in his leftyness, as he was already to the left of the communists, having embraced anarcho-syndicalism.
Keep in mind that the Fascist party leaders were never purged from Italian politics, and in their party’s latest incarnation they merged with the Italian Liberal party.
Since you’re against (Govt. allying w/ business) crony capitalism Chris, Sarah can count on your vote?
“No, it’s not fascism, because we’re not going to call it that.”–Kyle’s dad on SOUTH PARK.
Before “liberal” State-humpers and government-sniffers realized the definition applied to them and therefore had to be altered, the definition of “fascism” was so simple even Chris Gerrib couldn’t misinterpret it. At least in my high school Civics class the definitions went: “Capitalism: means of production controlled by the owners. Socialism: many or most of the means of production owned and controlled by the State. Communism: all the means of production owned and controlled by the State. Fascism: means of production technically under private ownership, but controlled by the State.”
Guess Gerrib paid as much attention in Civics class as he did in Economics and History. One wonders what he actually did in school other than let himself be inculcated with statism by his “liberal” professors.