Fascism Anyone? by Laurence W. Britt

[phishhead]

Article is from Free Inquiry magazine:

Free Inquiry readers may pause to read the “Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles” on the inside cover of the magazine. To a secular humanist, these principles seem so logical, so right, so crucial. Yet, there is one archetypal political philosophy that is anathema to almost all of these principles. It is fascism. And fascism’s principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for. The cliché that people and nations learn from history is not only overused, but also overestimated; often we fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm.

We are two-and-a-half generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany, although constant reminders jog the consciousness. German and Italian fascism form the historical models that define this twisted political worldview. Although they no longer exist, this worldview and the characteristics of these models have been imitated by protofascist1 regimes at various times in the twentieth century. Both the original German and Italian models and the later protofascist regimes show remarkably similar characteristics. Although many scholars question any direct connection among these regimes, few can dispute their visual similarities.

Beyond the visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi. This, of course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

For the purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[kalian]

1. Gee...

Sounds awefully familiar.
I guess humans are dumb afterall and are doomed to repeating
history.

[Salviati]

2. Here's the link for anyone who wants it

Free links, get 'em while they're hot!
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm

[sam sarrha]

3. FASCISM (fash' iz' em) n.

1. A philosophy or system of goverment that advocates or exersizes a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and busisness leadership, together with an ideology of beligerant nationalism. but you have to go to a dictionary older than 10 years, when the corperations merged the publishers they rewrote the defination.