6) Mass media is subject to government control: fear is used as a motivational tool by the government, but in some cases, the media are controlled indirectly by governmental regulation or through media spokespersons who are sympathetic to the government. Censorship, especially in wartime, is common.
7) Obsession with National Security: Fear is used by government to justify government secrecy and obscure governmental actions that might be of questionable legality or constitutionality.
8) Religion and government are intertwined: Governments of fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology are common from government leaders, even when the major tenents of the religion are directly opposed to government policies.
9) Corporate power is protected: The industrial and business leadership of a fascist nation are often the ones who put government leaders into powers, creating a mutually beneficial government/business relationship with the power elite.
10) Organized labor is suppressed: Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, and is often in opposition to corporate domination, labor unions are eliminated, co-opted, or severely repressed.
11) Disdain for intellectuals and the arts: Fascist governments tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, academia and intellectual professions. It is not unusual for professors, journalists, and other intellectuals to be censored or arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked and government often refuses to fund the arts, or reserve government funding to ideologically approved works. Science, when not in agreement with the government's projected myth, is disregarded and belittled.
12) Obsession with crime and punishment: The police are usually given almost limitless power to enforce criminal laws. People are often willing to overlook police abuses and to agree to limit civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with extensive powers, sometimes with special protections from judicial jurisdiction.
13) Rampant cronyism and corruption: Fascist nations are almost always governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use government power to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon for national resources and treasures to be appropriated or stolen by government leaders.
14) Fraudulent elections: Sometimes elections in fascist countries are a complete sham. Often elections are manipulated by smear campaigns involving patent untruths (or even assassinations) of potentially threatening opposition candidates. Legislation is used to control the numbers of voters, or political boundaries are manipulated to the advantage of the ruling party. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to shape or control elections.
Recognizing that Britt was writing with the Bush presidency in mind, it is worth pointing out that radical Islam fails to fall within his definition of fascism, although other national governments of the 20th and 21st centuries qualify. Without resorting to the illustrations provided by Britt in his essay, it is possible for any reasonably well informed observer of the contemporary political scene in America to recall a number of governmental actions fitting under Britt's list which unquestionably fall within the recent history of the Bush administration. The exercise of listing examples of fascist behavior is a good parlor game for objective students of politics as well as partisan critics of Bush and his Republican administration.
The use of pejorative terms to demonize political opponents is too well established as an effective propaganda tool to expect that the President will cease to use it. However, the Islamic extremists he wishes to vilify do not technically merit the appellation of fascist. It is important to use words carefully and accurately if we are to retain the possibility of political discourse. The President and his enablers among journalists and commentators should be called to account for demonstrably inaccurate and inappropriate characterizations. This is particularly true in cases where the pejorative term is demonstrably more applicable to Bush than to the Islamic terrorists, reprehensible as they unquestionably are.
Ph.D. University of Oklahoma 1971. Retired, emeritus status since 2004. Senior administrative positions in academic affairs at State University of New York, University of Evansville, Oklahoma State University, Eastern Illinois University. Held faculty rank and taught political science at SUNY Plattsburgh, University of Evansville, Oklahoma State University, and Eastern Illinois Universitiy. Academic specialization, political theory, public law, American political institutioins.
Fascism may have been coined by Mussolini but it was practiced in front of all countries to see by the US back in the late 19th and early 20th century when US trusts ran the government and eugenics was the craze among elites. Corporatism and fascism where used interchangably in the 1920s and 30s.
The American empire follows the practices of the British empire closely, with the exception that no people are needed to exploit the mercantile system the US has developed that includes all places that the US has a military presence and/or puppet government.
The US is a set of multinational banks, corporations and world wide military/intel presence to raid nations of their natural resources and treasury through amoral loan sharking (WTO, IMF and USAid), covert and overt regime change. This is all ok with the American people as long as long as they stay happy, satisfied and ignorant.
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Jim Reinhart (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments)
on Friday, August 25, 2006 at 10:41:03 AM
Actually, one of my colleagues who is retired from Texas A&M read the article prior to posting and observed that by Eco's list, several US administrations have shown affinities with fascism, including those of some liberal democrats. That is open to interpretation, I suppose, and depends upoon how one reads American history. Personally, I find that capitalist corporatism, a hallmark of the country's economic history since about the time of the War Between the States, always carries with it a tendency toward the style of government that could slip easily into fascism, or at least Pseudo-fascism as defined in the article.
My purpose in writing was not to paint Bush or any prior administrations with a fascist brush, but merely to point out that there are scholars have drawn benchmarks to aid in the definition of fascism, and that Bush had inappropriately applied the term to the militant Islamisists whom he wishes to vilify. It appears to me, as I point out in the article, that the Republican Bush administration comes much closer to meeting the criteria established for fascism than do the Islamic fundamentalists at whom he is throwing the label. I hoped that I might help to point out the irony in the situation.
I appreciate your comment, and thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.
Charles Evans
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Charles M. Evans (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Friday, August 25, 2006 at 2:12:33 PM
The Irony of it all comes with some pain included.
Thanks for viewing my comment. Your article is a great comment on the irony of a fascist calling theocrats something they are not. Orwell's word usage is very prevalent in this administration. Euphemisms seem to be outdated to describe reality now. It makes me laugh while feeling the pain of it all. Thank you for having the courage to write about the topic and opednews for posting it.
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Jim Reinhart (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments)
on Friday, August 25, 2006 at 2:24:54 PM
Wonderful article! You should also check out the article written by Vice President Henry Wallace during World War II. It seems that the Bush (Busholini?) regime has borrowed the Fascist technique of fear mongering and war scares to intimidate democratic opposition. As the "master," Benito Mussolini is reputed to have said: "When the war drums beat, all laws grow silent."
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Tom Sciamanna (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 24 comments)
on Saturday, August 26, 2006 at 9:01:57 AM
Thanks for pointing out Wallace's remarks. I find him to be one of the most interesting characters of the New Deal period. I appreciate your kind words about the article.
Charles Evans
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Charles M. Evans (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 at 4:38:01 PM
Thank you for your article about the definition of Fascism. I was particularly interested in item 9 in your list of attributes,
9) Corporate power is protected: The industrial and business leadership of a fascist nation are often the ones who put government leaders into powers, creating a mutually beneficial government/business relationship with the power elite.
A definition of Fascism that I have heard (from Thom Hartmann) to be attributed to none other than B. Mussolini. I understand that there is some reason to doubt the accuracy of the attribution, but Mussolini is said to have defined Fascism as more aptly named corporatism. It is the political system in which political power is in the hands of corporations.
I'd be interested in what you might have to say about this.
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PrMaine (8 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 246 comments)
on Saturday, August 26, 2006 at 1:08:47 PM
Thanks for your interest in the fascism article. Mussolini wrote in the Encyclopedia Italiano that fascism might better be called corporatism. Reference is made to this in the article, and the quote from the Encyclopedia is printed in its entirity. Certainly gives Americans cause for reflection considereing the recent political/economic history of the nation. I appreciated your note.
Charles Evans
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Charles M. Evans (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Saturday, August 26, 2006 at 6:44:24 PM
