This is fascism, and we should say it clearly ... while we can

[LiberalArkie]

Sixty million people died in World War II, but fascism won. It didn’t win on the battlefield. It didn’t win right away. It won because the same fears, the same greed, the same hatred that fueled its growth in the first part of the twentieth century never went away. The symbols of fascism became anathema, but the causes … went deep. And gradually, slowly, one step at a time, all those vices became first tolerated, then treated as virtues, and then as the only acceptable view.

Godwin’s Law—the contention that any argument will eventually come round to warnings about Hitler—is twenty-five years old, but for much longer than that, we’ve been taught that the use of that... f-word, is not to be taken seriously. Sure, every government program, new or old, is open to accusations of communism and warnings of a slippery slope toward some failed dictatorship. That’s expected. But to even acknowledge our long, stumbling lurch to the right; the building force of corporate power; the relentless need for war; a police whose power of enforcement is divorced from law; a preening nationalism that rewards the full rights of citizenship only to those who fit an ever-narrower mold… You can’t call it fascism. People will only laugh.

It was French poet Charles Baudelaire who said “the finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist." The finest trick of the modern fascist? The same. Nothing is ever fascist. It’s just “very conservative.” And this week’s very conservative, is next weeks middle of the road.

After all, what politician could be taken seriously who didn’t accept the completely middle of the road position that we should value the safety of the populace over the preservation of rights? Forget that oath. The top job of the president is to keep the American public safe, no matter what that takes.

Snip


http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/29/1453681/-This-is-fascism-and-we-should-say-it-clearly-while-we-can

[nashville_brook]

1. “the finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist." -- spot on

[Bonx]

5. I really hate that tired-ass quote.

So many fundies wear that like superman's cape.

[hifiguy]

2. Damn straight.

[leveymg]

3. +billion

[raouldukelives]

4. K&R

"We went there when we we turned greed—the kind of sick, envious greed that makes people value the rich over the poor and corporations over individuals—into not only a virtue, but a cornerstone of our nation cemented in place by repeated Supreme Court rulings that certify the preeminent position of wealth and corporate power."

The only thing that ever trickled down from the Reagan revolution was the ethics and morals they displayed for all to emulate. What was then radical, is today, the daily bread and butter of many.