"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?" --Mahatma Gandhi
"You have rights antecedent to all earthly government. Rights that cannot be repeated or restrained by human laws." --John Adams
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Political Scientist, Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. I had found this on the Internet several years ago or somebody sent them to me. They came across my mind this morning when I was listening to The War On Democracy podcast and Andrew was talking about the politics of fear. So I went looking and found them again.
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I think they are worth sharing, mainly because democracy is a fragile form of government. It's up to the people to maintain our freedoms. The problem is that in America, everybody is too busy to worry about maintaining democracy. We have kids to take care of, mom and dad are both working and just getting out to vote is not on the minds of many Americans.
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The other problem facing Americans as our democratic form of government is gradually being eroded is fear. Edmund Burke wrote in England twenty years before our American revolution, "No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."
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Many Americans have caught on to the Bush administrations use of fear to manipulate the political process. Remember the famous and dramatically delivered "mushroom cloud" speech President Bush gave? Condi Rice repeated it in speeches later. Many folks really thought that Saddam Hussein was going to shoot nukes at us and kill us all.
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It didn't help the situation any when the media became the administrations biggest cheerleaders and flatly refused to investigate if any of this was true. MSNBC fired reporter Ashley Banfield when she asked the tough questions. Phil Donahue got the ax from MSNBC as well when he tried. Our media failed us and America thought the great bogey man was going to come across the ocean and that we've "got to fight them over there so we don't fight them over here."
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Of course the real bogey man is Osama Bin Laden and Bush said he didn't really care if we found him or not. So now we've got the man responsible for 9/11 hiding out on the Afghanastan/Pakistan border and Pakistan DOES have nukes.
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The bait and switch worked and America got scared and we've spent billions of dollars for the wrong war in the wrong country and killed the wrong dictator while Bin Laden remains loose.
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All of these things were on my mind this morning as I "did the google," as Dubya says and founds Britt's 14 defining characteristics of fascism: -
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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