Fascism

How Fascism Came: Chris Hedges (12/23/2024)

13 Ex-Trump Aides Back Kelly’s ‘Dictator’ Warning, Saying Trump Seeks ‘Absolute, Unchecked Power’ (10/25/2024) NYT

Donald Trump’s Hitlerian logic is no mistake (10/7/2024)

Project 2025 How Trump Loyalists and Right-Wing Leaders Are Paving a Fast Road to Fascism (2/14/2024)

Trump and the Republican party exemplify these five elements of fascism (6/17/2023) the Guardian, Robert Reich

Trump is a plutocratic authoritarian. As I have previously argued, it is fair to call him a fascist. He has repeatedly demonstrated this fact through his words and deeds both during the 2016 presidential election and now while serving as president. Timothy Snyder
14 Points of Fascism
Fascism is the political cultivation of our worst irrational sentiments, resentment, hatred, xenophobia, lust for power and fear. Rob Riemen: To Fight Against This Age, on Fascism and Humanism
Centralization of power in the executive, politicization of the judiciary, attacks on independent media, the use of public office for private gain—the signs of democratic regression are well known. The only surprising thing is where they’ve turned up. As a Latin American friend put it ruefully, “We’ve seen this movie before, just never in English.” Foreign Affairs: Is Democracy Dying ?
The late Italian writer and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi described how fascism arises not just by military force or police intimidation but by "denying and distorting information, by undermining systems of justice, by paralyzing the education system, and by spreading in a myriad of subtle ways nostalgia for a world where order reigned". Primo Levi quoted in The Cult of Trump, a Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control by Steven Hassan
"Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don't fall for it." Timothy Snyder
"Discussions about whether it could happen in the United States sometimes overlook that it did happen in the United States" Law Professor David A. Strauss in his contribution to Sunstein's book Can it Happen Here ?
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis (1935)
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e. the reality of experience) true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exists. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” Mussolini

Tucker Carlson is not an anti-war populist rebel. He is a fascist (4/28/2023) Jason Stanley The Guardian

J.D. Vance worried Trump could be ‘America’s Hitler,’ according to former roommate (4/18/2022)

America is now in fascism’s legal phase (12/27/2021) Jason Stanley in the Guardian.

Fascism’s Global Spread is Real — As Real as the Spread of COVID-19 (5/8/2021)

Why do the extremely wealthy tend to be fascists ?

Republicans have been headed toward Fascism at least since they tried unsuccessfully to overthrow FDR. They are helping, along with Russian allies, to spread it world-wide.

FDR was threatened with removal by deep-pocketed, American corporate Fascists. He devised a Second Bill of Rights to create a defense against it. Germany and Japan incorporated it, including universal health care, after WWII to resist a resurgence of Fascism, the U.S. did not.

Over decades, each Republican President has brought us closer until today, they have nearly succeeded in bringing Fascism to the U.S.

A right-wing authoritarian leader who is a pathological liar and instinctively allies with other authoritarians. Powerful broadcasters support his every word, formulate wild conspiracies that defy logic, and spread propaganda. Contradictory stories are fake news.

His cult-like followers feel they are highly nationalistic, exceptional, possess a superior culture, and believe the one true religion that must spread to others and so became a far-flung empire.

Behind the scenes, hidden from public view, corporations and big donors actually govern, so it is government for the rich. They mostly pick candidates from which voters choose. They oppose democracy and block Constitutional checks and balances, but Congress responds to them, not the people. For most people, voting for the right is not in their self-interest.

The dictionary definition of Fascism is rule by corporations. The latest Republican tax bill will increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion and reward the wealthiest and corporations. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people whose only obligation is to reward shareholders and that money is speech. Citizens United bestowed on them the right to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, and revoking the Voting Rights Act allowed Republican States to resume voter suppression and gerrymandering.

The wealthy get tax cuts. People burdened with heavy debt are sinking and insecure which tends to keep them quiet, religious, and support the right wing. It is a Republican scam.

They blame the poor, minorities, and other races for their problems, feel threatened by outsiders, so are racists, accelerate deportations, and build fortifications to keep ‘them’ out.

Corruption is rampant. The Courts are packed with acolytes, some unqualified. Many senior officials are jailed, but if they are loyal they have a good chance of being pardoned.

The billionaires who actually rule despise democracy and seek to restructure media, pack the courts, suppress voters, rig elections, and punish their political opponents. The world'ś largest prison population effectively suppresses minority voters and when they complete their prison term are still not allowed to vote in some States.

The Supreme Court with justices appointed by Republican Presidents [s]elected without the popular vote have slowly twisted the law to suppress democracy. Elections are gerrymandered, voter turnout suppressed, voting machines made vulnerable, foreign interference welcomed, anyway the Constitution is constructed in such a way that some voters are much more equal than others. That way, a diminishingly small minority of billionaires comes to govern. A corrupted Supreme Court ruled the President is now above the law. Depending which party wins, there may be an adjudicated criminal in office after the next election. Republicans, when in power, are above the law.

Fascism is not only about corporations. It is revolution from above. Like all right-wing movements, it is fueled by racism, sexism, class, fear of 'others', religion, hierarchy, all part of the culture war. It motivates human rights violations and is inclined to violence. Naomi Wolf documents 10 easy steps to Fascist America.

The 'conservative' movement, largely motivated by authoritarian religion, rejects science to disregard dire scientific warnings. There is a mass exodus of competent experts from public service, public health agencies are muzzled and people no longer trust them, many thousands of pandemic deaths result. Project 2025 aims to replace civil servants with Trump loyalists.

Be very skeptical because considerable information from right-wing media is propaganda and much government activity is secret.

The agenda of the Republican Party as exemplified by former President Trump. is not the agenda that people, when polled, actually want.

Military expansion is a core part of its agenda because it is yet another way to attack democracy. All of that is necessary to continue minority rule, and to suppress the working class.

Accelerated militarization puts the economy in overdrive. WMDs are expensive, so social programs and infrastructure are starved. To justify military expansion and the failed War on Terror other cultures are demonized, vast resources are consumed on empire.

We fought WWII to defeat Fascism, but since it is rising here at home, we may yet lose the war.

To be an advocate for peace in the US is to be considered a dissident worthy of law enforcement attention. The National Security State has implemented universal surveillance to guard against dissent.

Republicans have little or no compassion for others, so it is no surprise have the world’s largest prisons, go to Courts to reject DACA people who have lived nowhere else, build concentration camps with no regard the well-being of the incarcerated, many are children. Deaths are not uncommon. They think torture works and the leader promises to make it even worse. They bring back the death penalty, which has been rejected by developed countries.

So who would tolerate such a government ? Could be Nazi Germany before they found out they were doomed ? Or Could it be Republicans who seem to be oblivious to ending life on the planet as we know it ?

This looks like a Wiemar moment. Vote accordingly.

It should be clear what happens to Fascist States. In a nuclear armed world, a sensible policy would aggressively pursue peace and, as most countries have signed on to, complete nuclear disarmament. As a matter of public policy, however, sense is in very short supply.

"Tell Trump you didn't learn from Hitler. You can't fight on two fronts. You can't take on radical Islam and China. You will end up in the bunker, like Hitler." Milos Zeman, president of the Czech Republic in discussion with Steve Bannon.
"I am not easily shocked. But we are facing an emergency," the Yale professor Jason Stanley and author of the book How Fascism Works wrote on Twitter.
US vs Fascism

Corporations have given $50 Million in support of Voter Suppression since 2015,... (4/5/2021)

The American Abyss, A historian of fascism and political atrocity on Trump, the mob and what comes next (1/9/2021)

How to Keep the Lights On in Democracies: An Open Letter of Concern by Scholars of Authoritarianism (10/31/2020)

Fascism: A Concern (7/30/2020)

The Ugly Terror of a Fascist Abyss Lurks in the Background of This Pandemic (7/25/2020)

The Most Dangerous Phase of Trump’s Rule (7/10/2020)

Is This Trump’s Reichstag Fire Moment? (6/4/2020)

If They Walk Like Fascists and Talk Like Fascists… (5/15/2020)

Leading Civil Rights Lawyer Shows 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies (8/9/2019))

American fascist energies today are different from 1930s European fascism, but that doesn’t mean they’re not fascist, it means they’re not European and it’s not the 1930s. They remain organized around classic fascist tropes of nostalgic regeneration, fantasies of racial purity, celebration of an authentic folk and nullification of others, scapegoating groups for economic instability or inequality, rejecting the legitimacy of political opponents, the demonization of critics, attacks on a free press, and claims that the will of the people justifies violent imposition of military force. Vestiges of interwar fascism have been dredged up, dressed up, and re-purposed for modern times. Colored shirts might not sell anymore, but colored hats are doing great. American Fascism: It Has Happened Here by Sarah Churchwell
The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection." Henry A. Wallace, 1944
"...the combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism, and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favor of an imperial presidency. We are on the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation is started down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play - isolation, overstretch, the uniting of forces opposed to imperialism, and bankruptcy. Nemesis stalks our life as a free nation." from Chalmers Johnson's book 'Nemesis' subtitled 'the last days of the American republic.
UN vote on Fascism

Can we stop tiptoeing around the fact that Trump is behaving like a dictator? (2/15/2020)

'There need to be mass protests': Authoritarianism experts say time is running out for Americans to stop Trump (2/12/2020)

Since 1945, more than a third of the membership of the United Nations - 69 countries - have suffered some or all of the following at the hands of America's modern fascism. They have been invaded, their governments overthrown, their popular movements suppressed, their elections subverted, their people bombed and their economies stripped of all protection, their societies subjected to a crippling siege known as "sanctions". The British historian Mark Curtis estimates the death toll in the millions. In every case, a big lie was deployed. John Pilger 2/26/2015

Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley explains why he claims President Donald Trump's politics are akin to fascism,

(Why) Capitalism Implodes Into Fascism (10/21/2019)

How Hitler Pioneered ‘Fake News’ (10/16/2019)

Leading Civil Rights Lawyer Shows 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies (8/9/2019)

Yes, 'Send Her Back' Is the Face of Evil—I Know Fascism When I See It: Jason Stanley (7/19/19)

Henry Wallace on Fascism

It Can Happen Here: Timothy Snyder (7/12/2019)

Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Fascism’ Claim Too Extreme? (7/4/2019)

Why Fascists Storm Bookstores (5/20/2019)

What the GOP learned when the wealthy tried to overthrow FDR and install a fascist dictator (3/24/2019)

How to fight fascism from a position of strength (2/15/2019)

The US Not Immune to a Fascist Takeover by a Demagogue (2/18/2019)

America Is on the Road to Becoming a Fascist State (10/6/2018)

WHAT IS TRUMP? (11/2018)

How Trump Fuels the Fascist Right (11/20/2018)

Signs of Creeping Fascism Are All Around Us (11/14/2018)

If You are not scared about fascism in the US, you should be. (10/15/2018)

Is America Now a Fascist Country? A Look at the Ten Pillars of Fascist Politics (9/21/2018)

American Fascism (9/17/2018)

Full-On Fascism: Trump Makes the Transition in his War on the Press (9/11/2018)

I survived the Warsaw ghetto. Here are the lessons I’d like to pass on (9/5/2018)

Why It Can Happen Here, We’re very close to becoming another Poland or Hungary. Paul Krugman (8/28/2018)

From Hypocrisy to Fascism (8/7/2018)

Expert on Nazi Germany Explains How 'Average' Citizens Enabled Hitler — Just Like Trump: 'Ordinary People Will Do Horrible Things' (8/6/2018)

Trump, Obama and the Nature of Fascism (7/4/2018)

Fintan O’Toole: Trial runs for fascism are in full flow (6/26/2018)

It Can Happen Here, Cass R. Sunstein (6/2018)

Noam Chomsky on Fascism, Showmanship and Democrats' Hypocrisy in the Trump Era (6/20/2018)

Will We Stop Trump Before It’s Too Late? Madeleine Albright (4/6/2018)

How to Kill Democracy in Four Easy Steps (4/2/2018)

Springtime for Sycophants (3/13/2018)

Antisemitic incidents in US soar to highest level in two decades (2/27/2018)

"That the [New York] Times, the networks, and other mainstream media outlets have been unable to communicate the degree to which our institutions are threatened by this Nazi-friendly administration is part of the reason that Trump and company can get away with what they do—aided by their own media cheerleaders at Breitbart, the Rupert Murdoch empire, and elsewhere. Where did the Nazi-admiring Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka go after he was forced out of the administration? To Fox News and the Heritage Foundation. Where did Trump go to get the racist (doctored) videos of alleged Muslim violence against Christians that he recently retweeted? From the deputy leader of a fascist political party in Britain." Eric Alterman writing for the Nation
"It's plain to see we have fallen into the bog of fascism when the two political parties are nourished from the same corporate feed- bag; when a single party dominated by corporations and devoted to their interests controls the executive, both houses, and the judiciary; when corporations and government have become merged to the end that often no clear distinctions can be made between them; and finally when war and the threats of war rule our nations agenda. The evidence is nearly irrefutable that the democracy envisioned by our founders has, in major ways, failed." Gerry Spence's book "Bloodthirsty . . .
“I am conservative, fiscally responsible, an ecumenical Christian and an American patriot who clearly understands fascism and clearly sees this is exactly what is going on within the Bush administration. Karl Schwarz
...we can look forward with confidence to character-building bankruptcies, picturesque bread riots, thrilling cavalcades of splendidly costumed motorcycle police. Lewis Lapham (Harper's Magazine Oct. 2005)
Fascist Thought

14 Points of Fascism

Fascism Is at the Door Step': Michael Moore Asks Bill Maher If People Are Ready to Die to Protect Democracy from Trump (6/30/2018)

Increasingly a Necessity: A 15-Point Guide to Surviving Authoritarianism (12/12/2017)

Fascism, American Style (8/28/2017)

The Nations that Accept Nazism Today (8/23/2017)

A Plea for Nonviolence: Fighting Fascism in Trump’s America (8/21/2017)

Fascism is Undeniably American (8/17/2017)

Him ... His election that November came as a surprise…

How U.S. Race Laws Inspired Nazis (4/21/2017)

The Reichstag Warning (2/26/2017)

We Have a Year to Defend American Democracy, Perhaps Less ... Timothy Snyder, Yale History Professor (2/13/2017)

Donald Trump Just Took One of His Biggest Steps Toward a Full-on Dictatorship (2/3/2017)

Congratulations, America — you did it! An actual fascist is now your official president (1/21/2017)

Post-Fascist Europe Tells Us Exactly How to Defend Our Democracy (1/15/2017)

Daniel Ellsberg: We're About to See a Fascist Regime Take Office in Washington (1/10/2017)

The Ethical Bankruptcy of the US Ruling Elites Paved Way for Trump (9/22/2016)

The Christian Right and the Rise of American Fascism (Chris Hedges)

Snowden's revelation that Washington has used Google, Facebook, Apple and other giants of consumer technology to spy on almost everyone, is further evidence of modern form of fascism - that is the "abyss". Having nurtured old-fashioned fascists around the world - from Latin America to Africa and Indonesia - the genie has risen at home. Understanding this is as important as understanding the criminal abuse of technology. John Pilger

"So far, I've seen nothing to eliminate the possibility that Bush is on the same course as Hitler. And I've seen far too many analogies to dismiss the possibility. The propaganda. The lies. The rhetoric. The nationalism. The flag waving. The pretext of 'preventive war'. The flaunting of international law and international standards of justice. The disappearances of 'undesirable' aliens. The threats against protesters. The invasion of a non-threatening sovereign nation. The occupation of a hostile country. The promises of prosperity and security. The spying on ordinary citizens. The incitement to spy on one's neighbors - and report them to the government. The arrogant triumphant pride in military conquest. The honoring of soldiers. The tributes to 'fallen warriors'. The diversion of money to the military. The demonization of government appointed 'enemies'. The establishment of 'Homeland Security'. The dehumanization of 'foreigners'. The total lack of interest in the victims of government policy. The incarceration of the poor and mentally ill. The growing prosperity from military ventures. The illusion of 'goodness' and primacy. The new einsatzgrupen forces. Assassination teams. Closed extralegal internment camps. The militarization of domestic police. Media blackout of non-approved issues. Blacklisting of protesters including the no-fly lists and photographing dissenters at rallies." from Truthout.

" ... autocratic regimes seek only to gain absolute political power and to outlaw opposition, while totalitarian regimes seek to dominate every aspect of everyone's life as a prelude to world domination. Arendt discusses the use of front organizations, fake governmental agencies, and esoteric doctrines as a means of concealing the radical nature of totalitarian aims from the non-totalitarian world. A final section added to the second edition of the book in 1958 suggests that individual isolation and loneliness are preconditions for totalitarian domination." Wikipedia on Hannah Arendt's book: The Origins of Totalitarianism

"I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." FDR 11/4/1938

How Fascism Works from Revolution Books on Vimeo.

Trump Is an Eerily Perfect Match With a Famous 14-Point Guide to Identify Fascist Leaders (12/6/2016)

Facing Down Trump’s Demagoguery: Lessons From Weimar Germany (7/22/2016)

Rise of Donald Trump Tracks Growing Debate Over Global Fascism (5/28/2016)

This is how fascism comes to America (5/18/2016)

The American Fascist (3/8/2016)

Trump is a Fascist (2/17/2016)

Is Donald Trump a Fascist? (2/10/2016)

Anne Frank's Stepsister: Trump 'Is Acting Like Hitler' (1/28/2016)

Does Fear Lead to Fascism ? (12/7/2015)

Yes, Donald Trump is a fascist.

New Poll Finds GOP Fascism is Real (9/15/2015)

Worse than Hitler (8/24/2015)

It's Not Fascism When We Do It

What is Fascism ? (9/30/2014)

Fascism USA

35 Countries Where the U.S. Has Supported Fascists, Drug Lords and Terrorists

The Rise of A New Fascism (6/20/2013)

So Who's the Fascist Here ? (5/21/2012)

Fascist America: Have we finally turned the corner ? (5/1/2012)

Is America Yearning For Fascism ? Chris Hedges (3/29/2010)

Inverted Totalitarianism: How the Bush regime is effecting the transformation to a fascist-like state. (5/1/2003)

Chomsky warns of risk of Fascism in America (4/12/2010)

US is Facing a Weimar Moment (3/16/2009)

Is America Yearning for Fascism ? (3/30/2010)

Antifascist Calling

Former White House Speechwriter suggests military coup could oust Obama (10/8/2009)

Right-Wing American Terrorists Issue YouTube Threat (10/7/2009)

Gore Vidal: We'll have a dictatorship soon in the US (9/30/2009)

Fascist America: Are we there yet ? (8/9/2009)

My 1933 Nightmare

Neo-Nazis are nothing new on the American scene.

Naomi Wolf: It Can Happen Here (video)

How did it happen in Germany 1933 ?

The Bush-Nazi Connection (From the NH Gazette)

Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism

So here's the question: Can what happened in Germany in the 1930's (and '40s) happen here ? Look carefully at these 14 points of Fascism. It is the sheepish submissiveness that leads to creeping fascism.

The dictionary definition of fascism: government controlled by corporations.
Hmm. We seem to have that. Then there are the other characteristics: the yearning for a mythical past (MAGA), the exceptionalism, the zenophobia, attacks on democracy, anti-intellectualism, corruption, the strong-man head of state, the justification of pre-emptive war, the media propaganda, the underclass (racial or economic.) the universal surveillance, mass incarceration, the erosion of civil liberties, the militarization, the drive for empire, and don't we have all of those ?

George W Bush's grandfather participated in the failed coup of business titans against President Roosevelt. They planned to replace our democracy with a fascist regime modeled after Adolf Hitler's.

Let's not make the same mistake (video).

Germany was certainly an advanced country, but major media helped to put in place a head of state who increasingly demanded more power. Here the FCC, with strong Republican backing, is working to further consolidate media so that a small number of favored corporations can provide only the official story. Media concentration means that only the official word is broadcast, and it is done by a lap-dog, corporate press. Cable news broadcasts are hatchet jobs on Democrats. US major media were cheerleaders for the war in Iraq even though most of the public had strong doubts. Media dissidents were suppressed.So much for a free press. The first amendment has been shredded.

they came for the foreigners

Elections were highly suspect in both of the Bush elections. Right wing partisans manufacture election machines that can be hacked. A partisan Supreme Court called it.

"Fascism should more appropriately be called CORPORATISM because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini (from Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor). It is no surprise that Corporations are writing our new laws: making bankruptcy harsher, undermining environmental safeguards, making prescription cost uncontrollable, weakening food safety, concentrating media, undermining union organizing, and in general asserting the most regressive policy ever pursued by so-called 'Christians'. Repeal of the estate tax will benefit only the very wealthiest (which tells you who is really running the show.) It appears that all of our regulatory agencies have been taken over by industries that they are supposed to control. It is accompanied by super patriotism.

As in Germany, a terrorist incident became the pretext for a pre-emptive war. (See 9/11)The Germans staged an Anshluss, where the US invaded Iraq in 'Shock and awe'. At Nuremberg pre-emptive war was regarded as a war crime. The pretexts for war in Iraq have all been found false. Major media didn't bother to notice. If 'democracy' were healthier in the US, it might be more credible as a motive for war in Iraq, but it has its problems in the US as well. Congress all but abandoned its Constitutional obligation to determine when we go to war, just as it failed to act as a check on the Presidency.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been a primary enabler of Fascism. Decisions for Corporate supremacy, selection of Bush Jr, nullification of the voting rights act, suppressed union rights, and others  removed government from the people and gave it to the corporations. That is Fascism, by definition.

Bush, in signing statements, asserted that he can challenge or ignore laws passed by the Congress. He has ignored international law when it does not suit him. His ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, who was appointed in spite of the Senate, made ultimatums. Bush proclaimed "You're either with us or against us." Since Congress did no oversight, war profiteering, privatizing, torture, rendition, were accomplished in secrecy. Secrecy is, of course, a major restraint to democracy. Although Presidential power expanded as soon as he was able to declare a state of war, the power of the office has expanded with the line item veto, fast track authority, lack of Congressional oversight, Bush minions have been justifying an imperial presidency.Diplomacy is forgotten and the Pentagon has taken control. Constitutional checks have been all but eliminated.

Military spending has increased to a level that dominates the economy. Many of the previously civilian functions are becoming militarized: police, border security, public health, ... We spend more on our standing army than the rest of the world combined. Eisenhower warned about allowing the military-industrial complex to grow out of control, but our media has a very short memory and rewrites history to specification.

Since military spending is so out of control, health care, higher education, pensions, and other social programs are drying up. Bush's plan to privatize Social Security was largely recognized for what it is, a plan to further weaken a fairly solvent program that would ultimately destroy it. Wall street brokerages would create millions of new accounts though, and they would be the major beneficiary. All plans to 'reform' Social Security will result in cuts. US industry has largely migrated to low wage countries. Wealth trickled up and most of the people sunk.

Immediately, after 9/11 ,Civil liberties were severely curtailed. The "Patriot Act" allows the government to monitor borrowings at public libraries, telephone companies turned over their records for data mining, internet search history has been turned over with little objection. The Congress has passed a bill that requires States to issue drivers licenses with RFID tags that will allow everyone to be tracked. Bush claimed the right to monitor phone calls without court oversight. Commercial records from credit cards and so on, formerly kept from the government, are now resources for data mining as well. Regularly we read about entire databases of personal records that have been stolen, but our politicians don't think we need the privacy protections that are demanded in Europe. The passive, pacified electorate has not demanded it.

Say NO to Fascism

The wall came down in Berlin years ago, but who would have imagined that they would be built again on US borders ? US Concentration camps are being readied as well. Watch what you say. Republicans always need a victim to blame and they have created one in the form of the 'illegal alien'. Immediately we have an underclass of millions of people who will lose any rights that the Constitution might have defended. Rather like the Germans did to their underclass.

Bush and the "Neocons" that accompanied him, publicly declared their intention to reshape the middle east. Chalmers Johnson describes hundreds of military bases scattered throughout the world, and concludes that the US is building an empire. Most people don't think about it. We didn't vote for empire, and it is a very bad idea, but our politicians think we won't notice. It is no surprise that Bush has promised a long, endless, war.

Like Hitler, Bush cast himself as a religious savior. His general has said that his god is bigger than the Muslim god, so we have been thrown back to the crusades. Kevin Philips and others opined that we are headed for a theocracy. The war can easily be mistaken for another crusade.

Scientists who do not agree with the Republican doctrine are dismissed. Because they are heavily funded by fossil fuel polluters, the GOP denies global warming.

The US now meets all of the criteria for a fascist state: readiness for a strong dictator, a government that grossly violates human rights, corporate control of all branches of government, degraded civil liberties as a result of the "Patriot Act", the large bureaucracy that is the national security state, a military that takes resources from all other public purposes, media that has all of the qualities of journalism that we deplored in Pravda, sham elections,a corporate oligarchy that rules for their own profit, and an expanding empire.

We are at a point, reminiscent of past great empires, where a single strong-man claims power, where the legislature becomes ineffective, where civil liberties melt away, where the military becomes the dominant power, where we embark on an endless war, where the government goes broke, where the domestic economy becomes one of bread and circuses, and then, sometime after that, we will be destroyed. The obvious lessons of war in the last century are that they are rapidly becoming more destructive. The rest of the world is angry. What happened to Germany in 1945 could be much worse here if we continue on the current course. Every empire in history has come to a sad end. With extensive modernisation of nuclear weaponry, should it be different this time ?

The Authoritarians: Bob Altemeyer (Download the pdf.)

How the System Works

Harper's Magazine: We now live in a Fascist State

Turn Off the Life Support: America is Dead

Heading for martial law ?.

20,000 more troops for Domestic Security (12/1/2008)

Red Alert: story here.

Martial Law Threat is Real. Have a look.

Another Milestone on the road to Serfdom (3/8/08)

That's why we should see that Republicans are removed from office.

http://www.worldcantwait.org/

Where were the good Germans ?

The Bush-Hitler Connection (video)

http://raenergy.igc.org/republicanfascistparty.html

A status report: Idaho Observer- Police state USA

and a warning from Sandra Day O'Connor

http://www.johnkaminski.com/

Fascism

Did the dream disappear ?

Senator Byrd is correct to equate Bush with Hitler

Yesterday and Today: Nazis and the Righteous Right
by Donna Glee Williams  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8735.htm

http://villagevoice.com/news/0601,mondo1,71442,6.html

Chuck Baldwin's comments.

Bringing down a Tyrant.

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps

My America Project

November 19, 2007

Originally published by the Guardian.

Order your copy of Naomi Wolf's " The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot."

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all:

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps. [more]

Americans Have Lost Their Country

The Bush-Cheney regime is America's first neoconservative regime. In a few short years, the regime has destroyed the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, and the remains of America's moral reputation along with the infrastructures of two Muslim countries and countless thousands of Islamic civilians. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17216.htm

America: Freedom to Fascism (the Film)

Outlook

Bush used war to expand the power of the Presidency, cloaked his activities in secrecy, engaged in illegal conduct including torture, wiretapping, renditions, He destroyed critical records so that there would be no trail. He denied Congress access to information so that there would be no oversight. When there was a call to investigate, as after 9/11, staffing was carefully done to whitewash. Congress acquiesced. Corporations ruled. The Military budget took off and is still headed upward.

Bush's lasting legacy are his appointees to the Supreme Court, who have made corporate supremacy the law.

Obama has not rolled back much of it, not even the stain of Guantanamo

So there is a legitimate concern that we can be overcome by fascism. We are on a trajectory for a strong-man head of state, an empire that necessitates an overwhelming military, a severe curtailment of civil liberties, unrestrained corporate power, social programs that ignore the general welfare, unrestrained police power, elections that are of doubtful integrity, and right-wing media that keeps us ignorant and pacified. We are overextended not just financially, but in many ways. Environmental collapse is likely in this century.

It is not clear what would make our institutions respond to people, but I see no counter to all this bad news.

MIAC Report

Video

Jason Stanley on Democracy Now ! (9/4/2020)

If You Are Not Scared About Fascism, You Should be.

Yale Professor Jason Stanley Identifies 10 Tactics of Fascism: The “Cult of the Leader,” Law & Order, Victimhood and More in History, Philosophy (10/26/2021)

“The End of America”: Feminist Social Critic Naomi Wolf Warns US in Slow Descent into Fascism

The End of America: Naomi Wolf (Watch it on-line for free.)

George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

Fight GOP Fascism: Chris Hedges

The Rise of Pseudo Fascism by David Neiwert (pdf) February 25, 2005

Bibliography

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Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps of Power: Gerry Spence

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It Can Happen Here
In light of the series of laws passed in Congress and precedents set by the Bush administration, people have good reason to doubt the future of democracy and the rule of law in America. By Joe Conason / Thomas Dunne Books (2007)

Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush: Joe Conason.

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It Can't Happen Here: Sinclair Lewis

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Fascism in Action: A Documented Study and Analysis of Fascism in Europe (Free to Download)

IBM and the Holocaust, Edwin Black

The Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer

McCormack–Dickstein Committee

The official German report: Nazi penetration, 1924-1942 by Rogge, O. John (Oetje John), 1903-1981

The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men: Eric Lichtblau

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America: Annie Jacobsen
Timothy Snyder on Tyranny