GREAT POST FROM THE FIELD NEGRO REGARDING FASCISM IN AMERICA

From The Field Negro

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” 

Conservatives actually like to claim that it is liberals and not the right wing who are the real fascists in American politics. One of their more high profile thinkers even wrote a book about it. Yes, as laughable as it might seem, some clown named Jonah Goldberg actually found enough words to fill up a book with this theory.

Anyway, in case you were wondering what makes a fascist, I have found the following characteristics outlined in an article by a respected Doctor who has studied fascism. (Thank you twitter fam)

Read it and tell me who more fits the bill.

"Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

 

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. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

 

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to 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 and letters is openly attacked.

 

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." [Source]

 

America is a constitutional republic, right?

VETERANS ARE KILLING THEMSELVES-

What are you doing to help?
Video from Soldier Hard:

DAMMIT!  I can't get the video to play properly...so here is the link...watch the video and pass it on...if anyone can figure out the html embed code error, let me know or fix it...


Click here for Wounded Warrior Project

Click here for Redcon1 Music Group...

We must stand with our veterans...

Dying vet to Bush, Cheney:

‘My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come’

Jane C. Timm, @janestreet

11:01 AM on 03/21/2013

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4

Iraq War Veterans Aganst the War, protest outside the White House in Washington DC on March 19, 2013, marking the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war. The organizers launched the “right to heal” campaign, addressing the human rights violations in Iraq.(Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images)

Tomas Young joined the Army 48 hours after September 11, 2001 and was paralyzed just five days after arriving in Iraq in 2004.
Now, in hospice care and near death, he has penned a scathing letter directed at George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Young criticizes Bush and Cheney for sending him to Iraq, which left him “abetting your idiocy and your crimes,” in what he calls an internationally illegal war.
He concludes: “My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come.”

“I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.”

He continues:

“I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.”
 

We will pay for this war for decades...what more can be said?