Protofascism Comes to America - The Rise of the Tea Party

[Octafish]

From Ted Rall:

Protofascism Comes to America

The Rise of the Tea Party

by Ted Rall
CommonDreams.org
July 22, 2010 by

Is the Tea Party racist? Democrats who play liberals on TV say it isn't. Vice President Joe Biden says the Tea Party "is not a racist organization" per se, but allows that "at least elements that were involved in some of the Tea Party folks expressed racist views."

Right-wing Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has received permission to form an official Tea Party Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives. It's official. The Tea Party matters.

SNIP...

But racism is only one facet of a far more sinister political strain. It's more accurate to categorize the Tea Party as something the United States has never seen before, certainly not in such large numbers or as widespread.

The Tea Party is a protofascist movement.

Robert O. Paxton defined fascism as "a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/22-1

Rall paints a pretty good picture of the situation, as well.

Picture:


Courtesy of The Bartcop Collection

[AlinPA]

1. The teabagger part of the republican party has taken over their party. More will join the caucus

or they will lose their seats.

[Octafish]

10. Remember when Pat 'Korean War Chicken' Robertson took over the GOP?

"The Grand Old Party is more religious cult than political organization." -- President of the Alamo City Republican Women's club, 1993

The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party

Same thing holds today, only they're skipping the sermon and going straight to the stoning.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. It's the corporate link that defines the 'baggers as fascists

In Corporatism and Comparative Politics, Sharpe points out that fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems - including the political system and the economy. How does this NOT apply to what corporations have been attempting with this phony-baloney 'grass-roots' movement?

[Octafish]

11. The Takeoff Toward a New Corporate Society

Absolutely. Corporate McPravda has people believing they are free...to serve the Master Race, or lords of the manor, or their betters on Wall Street.

A friend of one of my professor's from college wrote this, back when I was a young man:

Friendly Fascism

The New Face of Power in America

by Bertram Gross
South End Press, 1980, paper

EXCERPT...

The Takeoff Toward a New Corporate Society

p35
As American leaders-political, economic, military, and cultural- were preparing for the American Century, they rushed in to extend a protecting arm over the major capitalist countries, fill the vacuums left by their departure from former colonies, and seek decisive influence over all parts of the globe up to (or even across) communist boundaries. In response to each extension of communism, American leadership strove to integrate the noncommunist world into a loose network of constitutional democracies, authoritarian regimes, and military dictatorships described as the "Free World".

For conservative commentators, the word "empire" is more descriptive. It emphasizes the responsibilities of imperial leadership with respect to protectorates, dependencies, client states, and satellites, without suggesting the Marxist connotations of "imperialism."

... If this be empire, it is very different from-as well as much larger than-any previous empire. First of all, the "imperium" (to use another word favored by conservative observers) is not limited to preindustrial countries. It also includes the other major countries of industrial capitalism: Canada, Japan, the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (including Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey, and West Germany), Spain, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. In turn, instead of being excluded from America's preindustrial protectorates, the largest corporations in most of these countries share with American corporations the raw material, commodity, labor, and capital markets of the third world.
Then, too, U.S. imperial control is exercised not by American governors and colonists, but by less direct methods (sometimes described as "neocolonialism"). This has involved the development of at least a dozen channels of influence operating within subordinate countries of the "Free World":

* The local subsidiaries or branches of transnational businesses, including banks
* U.S. foreign military bases, which reached a peak of more than 400 major bases (and 3,000 minor ones) in 30 countries
* The C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies
* U.S. agencies providing economic and military aid through loans, grants, and technical assistance
* U.S. embassies, legations, and consulates
* The local operations of U.S. media (radio, TV, magazines, cinema) and public relations and consulting firms
* The local operations of U.S. foundations, universities, and research and cultural institutions
* Local power centers and influential individuals, friendly or beholden to U.S. interests
* Local armed forces, including police, equipped or trained in whole or part by U.S. agencies
* Subordinate governments-like Brazil, the Philippines, and Iran under the Shah-capable of wielding strong influence in their regions
* Transnational regional agencies such as NATO, the European Economic Community and the Organization of American States
* Agencies of the United Nations, particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

While these channels of influence have frustrated the efforts of any U.S. ambassador to establish personal control and have pushed final coordinating responsibilities to the level of the White House and the president's National Security Council, the net result has been a remarkably flexible control system in which competing views on strategy and tactics make themselves felt and are resolved through mutual adjustment. When serious mistakes are made, they can be corrected without injury to the dominant sources of a system that can adjust, however painfully, to the loss of any single leader, no matter how prominent. During the Korean War, when General Douglas MacArthur erred in driving through North Korea toward the Chinese border (which brought the Chinese into the war and lost the U.S.-occupied portion of North Korea to the capitalist world), he was promptly replaced. When President Lyndon Johnson erred in overcommitting U.S. troops and resources to the Indochinese war, he was pressured into retiring from the 1968 presidential campaign. Moreover, when new conditions call for new policies, the leaders of transnational corporations may move flexibly where political and military leaders fear to tread-as with corporate initiatives in commercial relations with the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba.
Moreover, the economic functions of subordinate countries now go far beyond those described many decades ago by Hobson and Lenin. Many Third World countries have become, or are about to become.:

* Markets for raw materials, particularly wheat produced in the United States, Canada, and Australia
* Sources of trained technicians and professionals who may then move through the so-called "brain drain" into the skilled-labor markets of the major capitalist countries
* Channels for mobilizing local capital which may then be invested locally under foreign control or repatriated to finance investment in the industrialized countries
* Sources of low-cost labor for transnational subsidiaries which then manufacture industrial goods that are marketed in the major capitalist countries as well as locally.

This last point bears special attention. There used to be a time when industrialization-often referred to by the magic word "development"- was seen as the road to economic independence. As it has emerged, however, industrial development has usually been a process of converting preindustrial dependencies into industrial dependencies. Previously, many left-wing revolutionary movements aimed to throw off the yoke of imperialism by joining with the native capitalists in "national revolutions." What has often happened however, is that the local capitalists have supplanted the old landowning oligarchs in trying to cooperate with, rather than break with, foreign capital. Instead of "ugly Americans" or Europeans meddling in their affairs, many Third World regimes are increasingly manned by Americanized Brazilians, Anglicized Indians and Nigerians, and Westernized Saudi Arabians and Egyptians. As dependent industrialism grows, moreover, its roots spread deeply into the state bureaucracies, in the universities and among the managerial, technical, professional, and intellectual elites. As this happens, military control or the threat of a military takeover becomes somewhat less essential and the military themselves became more civilianized, if not even subordinate to corporate economic interests. Thus a huge infrastructure of dependency is developed which Susanne Bodenheimer sees as "the functional equivalent of a formal colonial apparatus." In fact, external controls are now internalized in domestic institutions, and the new infrastructure may be more powerful than any previous colonial apparatus.


SOURCE:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Friendly_Fascism_BGross.html

Based on what passes for skill-sets today, I know I am not worthy to serve Übermann. And I certainly wouldn't serve such scum if I was.

[lib2DaBone]

17. Not to forget RW Psychopath and Medicare Fraudster Rick Scott

Rick Scott running for Governor... "I wasn't "convicted" of Medicare fraud.. I was only "Investigated".

"That is why I am qualified ...".

Rick Scott.. The Human Cock Roach

[Octafish]

18. LOL -- ''Human Cock Roach'' is way overqualified for the GOP. Ask Jeb Bush...

Lower taxes. For whom, Scott? Rich doctors?

Jeb and Miguel Recarey

SNIP...

IMC was run by Cuban-American Miguel Recarey, a character with a host of idiosyncrasies. He carried a 9-mm Heckler & Koch semiautomatic pistol under his suit coat and kept a small arsenal of AR-15 and Uzi assault rifles at his Miami estate, where his bedroom was protected by bullet-proof windows and a steel door. It apparently wasn't his enemies Recarey feared so much as his friends. He had a long-standing relationship with Miami Mafia godfather Santo Trafficante, Jr., and had participated in the illfated, CIA-inspired mob assassination plot against Fidel Castro in the early 1960s. (Associates of Recarey add that Trafficante was the money behind Recarey's business ventures.)

Recarey's brother, Jorge, also had ties to the CIA. So it was no surprise that IMC crawled with former spooks. Employee résumés were studded with references to the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Cuban Intelligence agency; there was even a fellow who claimed to have been a KGB agent, An agent with the U.S. Office of Labor Racketeering in Miami would later describe IMC as a company in which "a criminal enterprise interfaced with intelligence operations."

Recarey also surrounded himself with those who could influence the political system. He hired Jeb Bush as IMC's "real-estate consultant." Though Jeb would never close a single real-estate deal, his contract called for him to earn up to $250,000 (he actually received $75,000). Jeb's real value to Recarey was not in real estate but in his help in facilitating the largest HMO Medicare fraud in U.S. history.

Jeb phoned top Health and Human Services officials in Washington in 1985 to lobby for a special exemption from HHS rules for IMC. This highly unusual waiver was critical to Recarey's scam. Without it, the company would have been limited to a Medicare patient load of 50 percent. The balance of IMC's patients would have had to be private -- that is, paying -- customers. Recarey preferred the steady flow of federal Medicare money to the thought of actually running a real HMO. Former HHS chief of staff McClain Haddow (who later became a paid consultant to IMC) testified in 1987 Jeb that directly phoned then-HHS secretary Margaret Heckler and that it was that call that swung the decision to approve IMCs waiver.

Jeb admits lobbying HHS for the waiver, but denies talking to Secretary Heckler -- and denies as well the charge that his call won the HHS exemption. "I just asked that IMC get a fair hearing," said later. After the IMC scandal broke in 1987, Heckler left the country, having been appointed U.S. ambassador to Ireland, a post she held until 1989. (Heckler is now a private citizen living in Virginia. We left a detailed message with her secretary, outlining our questions, but she declined to respond.)

In any case, the highly unusual waiver by federal officials allowed IMCs Medicare patient load to swell -- to 80 percent -- and the money poured in. At its height in 1986, IMC was collecting over $30 million a month in Medicare payments; in all, the company would collect $1 billion from Medicare. (Jeb would not discuss the IMC affair with Mother Jones. But in an opinion piece he wrote for the Miami Herald last May, he insisted that he had worked hard for IMC, looking for real-estate deals, and had earned his $75,000 in commissions. While acknowledging making a telephone call to one of Heckler's assistants on IMC Is behalf, he claimed the waiver was not granted on his account. The allegation of a connection, Jeb wrote, "is unfair and untrue.")

Despite Jeb's involvement, trouble began brewing for IMC when a low-level HHS special agent in Miami, Leon Weinstein, discovered that Recarey was defrauding Medicare through overcharges, false invoicing, and outright embezzlement. Weinstein had been following Recarey's activities since 1977, and as early as 1983 he believed he had enough information to put together a case. However, he found his HHS superiors less than receptive; they took no action on Weinstein's information.

But Weinstein kept digging and in 1986 renewed his investigation of Recarey and IMC -- and again his HHS superiors blocked the probe. "Washington just refused to pursue my evidence," Weinstein, now retired, told Mother Jones last spring. "And they made it perfectly clear that I was not to pursue IMC. When I did, they threatened me and threatened my job."

CONTINUED...

-- Bush Family Values in 1992 Mother Jones.

Lovely people! And, oh! So, Social. As in National Socialist.

[bobthedrummer]

21. Sinclair Lewis also had that foresight-the "Corpos" from "It Can't Happen Here" are with US n/t

[ixion]

3. Actually, it's always been here. Alexandar Hamilton was a fascist

and he was there before the ink was even dry on the Constitution.

[Octafish]

12. The things one learns: ''The Corrupt Origins of Central Banking''

This wasn't Goldman Sach's fault, then.

The Corrupt Origins of Central Banking

Mises Daily: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Central banking has been a corrupt, mercantilist scheme and an engine of corporate welfare from its very beginning in the late 18th century. The first central bank, the Bank of North America, was "driven through the Continental Congress by Robert Morris in the Spring of 1781," wrote Murray Rothbard in The Mystery of Banking (p. 191). The Philadelphia businessman Morris had been a defense contractor during the Revolutionary War who "siphoned off millions from the public treasury into contracts to his own … firm and to those of his associates." He was also "leader of the powerful Nationalist forces" in the new country.

The main objective of the Nationalists, who were also known as Federalists, was essentially to establish an American version of the British mercantilist system, the very system that the Revolution had been fought against. Indeed, it was this system that the ancestors of the Revolutionaries had fled from when they came to America. As Rothbard explained, their aim was

To reimpose in the new United States a system of mercantilism and big government similar to that in Great Britain, against which the colonists had rebelled. The object was to have a strong central government, particularly a strong president or king as chief executive, built up by high taxes and heavy public debt. The strong government was to impose high tariffs to subsidize domestic manufacturers, develop a big navy to open up and subsidize foreign markets for American exports, and launch a massive system of internal public works. In short, the United States was to have a British system without Great Britain. (p. 192)

An important part of the "Morris scheme," as Rothbard called it, was "to organize and head a central bank, to provide cheap credit and expanded money for himself and his allies. The … Bank of North America was deliberately modeled after the Bank of England." The Bank was given a monopoly privilege of its notes being receivable in all tax payments to state and federal government, and no other banks were permitted to operate in the country. It "graciously agreed to lend most of its newly created money to the federal government," wrote Rothbard, and "the hapless taxpayers would have to pay the Bank principal and interest."

CONTINUED...

http://mises.org/daily/3167

Did they have white shoe law firms in those days, too?

[Overseas]

4. K&R! //nt

[Octafish]

13. From what I can see, these fascist turds started here in the good ol' USofA.

Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection

Of, course, they ran into a rough patch for a while...

Reinhard Gehlen

Then, they found their way back into the fold, as it Abwehr, eh, were...

Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

The reason I keep bringing this up is that it really would be nice to see this more widely known -- "nice" as in "good for the country" as in "good for democracy."

[centerdem]

5. Divide and conquer

Teabaggers want the poor and middle class to fight, then welcome anyone stupid enough to not see thats exactly what they are doing into their open arms. What these suckers dont realize is that they will be the conservatives lap dogs.

[Octafish]

15. The lapdogs of ENRON midlevel management were SO surprised.

Enron scandal: The real crime

The ENRON turds were OK with it, as long as it was some little old lady in Fremont or wherever who was left holding their bag. When it happened to them, oh, how they cried.

[RagAss]

6. They wait in line to suck my ass !

[Octafish]

16. There may not be enough time in a human lifespan to administer justice that way.

You do bring up an interesting suggestion, however. Make the turds learn the truth:

Racist and anti-communist

Glenn Beck champions U.S. pro-Nazi text

By Caleb T. Maupin
Workers.org
Published Jul 9, 2010 11:12 PM

EXCERPT...

Beck’s anti-communism is not new, either. But he made clear his dedication to the capitalist system and racism on June 4 in a pseudo-historical lecture on his radio show. Proclaiming that the author “was doing the same things that we are doing now,” Beck promoted “The Red Network,” a book written in 1934 by virulent anti-communist Elizabeth Dilling.

The book is a tract of conspiracy theories attempting to link high government officials in the Roosevelt administration with the U.S. Communist Party and the Soviet Union. It is full of confused logic, giant leaps and baseless presumptions.

Dilling would have you believe that the very government that had just sent the National Guard to mow down communist-led strikers in Minneapolis and San Francisco was itself controlled by the Kremlin. Dilling’s text stands out, however, for its unapologetic racism and support for the newly installed regime of Adolph Hitler in Germany.

It apologizes for the massive repression and arrests of Jews by the Nazi regime, saying that most of the victims were only “Russian Jews” bent on “Red terrorist revolution” and that “German nationalist Jews” would remain untouched. Dilling portrayed the Black liberation movement as communists manipulating oppressed people to inflame them against whites.

SNIP...

While White House journalist Helen Thomas was accused of anti-Semitism and forced to resign for defending the Palestinian people, Glenn Beck can openly champion the writings of a Nazi and continue to earn millions. What better exposes the two-faced capitalist ruling class and media?

SOURCE: http://www.workers.org/2010/us/glenn_beck_0715/index.html

It's nice to see someone calling a fascist a fascist these days. Same for racist.

Thank you for volunteering to stand up to them, RagAss.

[seafan]

7. Florida roots of today's Tea Party will haunt us for years to come.

We now have Marco Rubio as a result.

One the Tea Party's most dangerous traits is unwavering moral certainty.




Rubio's rise linked to tea parties, July 11, 2010

Daytona Beach, February 2007: 30 people gather at a medical billing office to hear a young Miami politician.
All they know about him is that he's about to become the speaker of the Florida House, and he supposedly shares their growing anger over property taxes and government spending.

.....

The base has gotten Rubio far, but his strength will be tested as the campaign moves to the general election. While he has raised the money to compete on TV -- the ultimate battleground in Florida politics -- he still has to show he can appeal to more than hard-line conservatives and tea partyers.

Already, momentum has cooled with Crist dropping out of the GOP primary to run as an independent. The conflict and contrast that riled up Rubio's supporters and drove a media story line has been sapped.

And Rubio's record on property taxes invites questions about his effectiveness. His ideas were big but mostly failed, even though his party controlled the Legislature.

.....

Rubio said the idea for the property tax plan -- eliminating the tax on homesteads in favor of a higher sales tax -- grew out of his ``100 Ideas'' concept.

.....

The tea party as it is known today has been traced to a laid-off auto worker who moved to Florida and staged a small protest Feb. 10, 2009, at Obama's rally for the stimulus in Fort Myers.
This took place nine days before CNBC commentator Rick Santelli's lively discourse that invoked the historic term and became a YouTube sensation, with more than a million views.

But the property tax revolt shows the seeds were already planted.

``We did tea parties before they were cool,'' said Patchett, the activist from Volusia County.

The day after the Tallahassee rally, the House passed Rubio's tax swap. That was as far as it would go.

.....

Ah, yes, Rubio. The "100 Ideas" guy.

How'd that turn out? Not.


Another loser idea of Rubio's: Eliminate Florida's wild lands protection funding.



And while all of this Tea Party love lavished Rubio, he was living high on the hog at taxpayers' and political contributors' expense.

Nice ethics there.




Octafish, just keep on shining your light.

[Octafish]

19. You too, seafan!

Wish I'd seen this:

This is one individual who must never be allowed anywhere near the White House.

Turned up when replying up thread. Wish I'd seen it two years ago. Here's old news for you and conspiracy fodder for those who connect dots for fun and knowledge:

The Bush Family: A Continuing Criminal Enterprise?

Gary W. Potter, PhD.
Professor, Criminal Justice
Eastern Kentucky University

The S&Ls, the Mob and the Bushs

During the 1980's hundred of Savings and Loan Banks failed. Those bank failures cost U.S. taxpayers over $500 billion to cover federally insured losses, and much more to investigate the bank failures (Pizzo, Fricker, and Muolo, 1989; Brewton, 1992; Johnston, 1990). More than 75% of the Savings and Loan insolvencies where directly linked to serious and often criminal misconduct by senior financial insiders (Pizzo, Fricker and Muolo, 1989: 305). In fact, less than 10 percent of bank failures are related to economic conditions, the rest are caused by mismanagement or criminal conduct (Pizzo, Fricker and Muolo, 1989: 305).

A good example of the Savings and Loan failures can be found in the activities of Mario Renda, a Savings and Loan insider who often worked in close collaboration with organized crime (Pizzo, Fricker and Muolo, 1989: 123-126;302). Renda served as a middle man in arranging about $5 billion a year in deposits into 130 Savings and Loans, all of which failed (Kwitny, 1992: 27). Many of these deposits were made contingent on an agreement that the Savings and Loan involved would lend money to borrowers recommended by Renda, many of whom were organized crime figures or people entirely unknown to the banking institution involved (Kwitny, 1992: 27).

Equally good examples of financial misconduct in the Savings and Loan scandal is found in the activities of the Bush family. In some cases Bush family members helped skim Savings and Loan funds which were delivered to outsiders as a part of deals involving lucrative payoffs to bank directors. In other cases, members of the Bush family intervened to influence decisions involving highly speculative and unsound investments involving loans that would not be repaid if the venture was not profitable. And finally, the Bush family’s political connection served to protect those guilty of misconduct in the Savings and Loan scandal (Kwitny, 1992: 24).

Neil Bush: Taking Down Silverado

SNIP...

Neil Bush also profited enormously from another company on verge of bankruptcy. Apex Energy paid him over $2000,000 in salary and oil deed compensation payments while teetering on the edge of bankruptcy (Failing firm paid Neil Bush big salary, 1992).

Neil Bush’s small oil company also seemed to profit from its political connections when it was awarded a 1987 contract to drill for oil in Argentina (Bush 's Son Misses Deadline For Reporting “Inside” Sale,1991).

Jeb Bush: Influence Peddling for a “Bust-Out” Scam

But, Neil Bush was not the only Bush brother involved in the Savings and Loan collapses. Jeb Bush’s, the current Governor of Florida, curious relationship with Miguel Recarey is another illustration. Recarey was a long-time business associate of Tampa organized crime figure Santos Trafficante. Recarey also fled the U.S. facing three separate indictments for labor racketeering, illegal wiretapping and Medicare fraud (Freedburg, 1988: A1). Recarey’s business, International Medical Centers, was the largest health maintenance organization for the elderly in the U.S. and had been supported from $1 billion in payments from the Medicare program. International Medical Centers went bankrupt in 1988 (Freedburg, 1988: A1; Royce and Shaw, 1988: 4). When International Medical Centers went under it left $222 million in unpaid bills and was under investigation for $100 million in Medicare fraud (Freedbrug, 1988: A1; Frisby, 1992: G1). The U.S. Office of Labor Racketeering in Miami referred to Recarey and his company as “the classic case of embezzlement of government funds ... “a bust-out operation” (Freedburg, 1988: A1)

Jeb Bush’s role in this saga being in 1985 when Recarey’s attempt to create his “bust-out scam” corporation ran into a federal regulation that said no HMO could get more that 50% of its revenue from Medicare (Freedburg, 1988: A1; Royce and Shaw, 1988: 4). Jeb Bush intervened on Recarey’s behalf with Helath Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler and one of her top aides. Convincing them to waive the regulation in the case of Recarey’s company (Freedburg, 1988: A1; Royce and Shaw, 1988: 4). In addition to Jeb Bush’s intervention, Recarey had paid $1 million to senior Republican lobbyists in Washington, who were also working the staff of Health and Human Services in pursuance of a waiver (Freedburg, 1988: A1; Royce and Shaw, 1988: 4). In addition, Jeb Bush had contacted Secretary Heckler earlier about complaints from doctors over the quality of International Medical Centers’ care and allegations that Recarey had embezzled funds form another hospital (Royce and Shaw, 1988: 4). Jeb Bush told an aide to Secretary Heckler that “contrary to any rumors that were floating around concerning Mr. Recarey, that he was a solid citizen from Mr. Bush’s perspective down there , that he was a good community citizen and a good supporter of the Republican Party” (Royce and Shaw, 1988: 4).

CONTINUED...

http://critcrim.org/critpapers/potter.htm

Oh yeah. Recarey and Rubio are the tip of la lanza. Then again, you knew that, seaf'.

[Ian David]

8. Fascism- See also:

The Doctrine of Fascism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Doctrine of Fascism" ("La dottrina del fascismo") is an essay written by Benito Mussolini. It was first published in the Enciclopedia Italiana of 1932, as the first section of a lengthy entry on "Fascismo" (Fascism). The entire entry on Fascism spans pages 847-884 of the Enciclopedia Italiana, and includes numerous photographs and graphic images.

<snip>

A key concept of the Mussolini essay was that fascism was a rejection of previous models: "Granted that the XIXth century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the XXth century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State."

Mussolini recalled and destroyed all available copies of "The Doctrine of Fascism "in April 1940 after he had second thoughts about certain phrases in it. (O'Sullivan, 1983) However copies in Italian and English survived, and are available in many libraries around the world.

Quotations

The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people. (p. 14)

Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle. Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State. (p.15)

It may be objected that this program implies a return to the guilds (corporazioni). No matter!... I therefore hope this assembly will accept the economic claims advanced by national syndicalism. (p. 24)

<snip>

The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporate, social, and educational institutions, and all the political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organised in their respective associations, circulate within the State. (p. 41).

<snip>

The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and usefu instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production.

State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management. (pp. 135-136)

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doctrine_of_Fascism


Also:

Most folk don't grok what a novel concept that the Great American Experiment was and is. They don't remember that Great Britain's government at the time was a fusion of the feudal and the corporate in a proto-fascist state. The primary stockholders of the British East Indies Company were the Royal family, the House of Lords and over half of the House of Commons AND they simply voted their company (themselves) a set of tax breaks designed to hobble (wipe-out) Colonial enterprise. The Colonists did more than declare war by an act of civil disobedience . . . They declared humanity free to assume self rule and capable of governing themselves.The Colonials did more that declare war by an act of civil disobedience . . . They declared humanity free to govern themselves.

It is that freedom that the Tea Baggers protest.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2010/04/daily-topics-friday-april-16th-2010#comment-15636


Jim Garrison on Fascism
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?address=389x7643280&az=view_all

The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger, by Chris Hedges
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/the-christian-fascists-are-growing-stronger-by-chris-hedges/

Fascism, Plutocracy, or Autocracy
http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2010/07/fascism-plutocracy-or-autocracy

Fascism Coming to a Court Near You
Corporate Personhood and the Roberts' Court
by Thom Hartmann
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/06-0


FASCISM IN AMERICA?

<snip>

Although most Americans remember that Harry Truman was Franklin D. Roosevelt's Vice President when Roosevelt died in 1945 (making Truman President), Roosevelt had two previous Vice Presidents -
Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.

"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist i the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word "fascist" - the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)

As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled "The Doctrine of Fascism" he wrote, "If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.

More:
http://www.heartcom.org/fascism.htm

The 1930s: Nazis Parading on Main Street
Part 2: Republicans, Nazis & Elections
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/1930sp2.html

[HopeHoops]

9. "Proto"???

:wtf:

I'd say it is the real deal.

[G_j]

14. right on Ted

good piece.

[bobthedrummer]

20. K+R: we are well past protofascism as you and I and Ted Rall and many here at DU well know n/t

[MikeNY]

22. Tea Party is still better than neocon rule by force

I don't agree with calling everyone I disagree with "protofascists". I would rather see the Republican Party wipe that stupid smirk off their faces and own up to the mess they created with their voodoo foreign policy and crazy economic policies. But then, we might have to stop spending over a trillion dollars a year on the Democrat side too, eh?

[bobthedrummer]

23. So you say, MikeNY-we've been under non-totalitarian fascist rule since the installation of BUSH/

CHENEY.

The topic here, as I understand it in my small person way, is the privatization of government (corporate fascism) by an elite. I used to think there would never be a worse choice for VP on an American political ticket than George Wallace's partner Gen. Curtis LeMay-until Sarah Palin--the "elite" darling of the Teabaggers

Speaking of elite-check out this early 1960's picture of members of Yale's Fence Club aka Psi Upsilon-there's John Dimitri Negroponte (1st US Intelligence "czar") in the back and look at William Henry Trotter "Bucky" Bush (banks, WellPoint etc.) and Porter Goss (former Chair of House Intelligence Committe and CIA Director) together in that front row what was then protofascists...

Quite the Club
http://www.ctrl.org/boodleboys/qclub.html

[reformist2]

24. I think we'd get better traction calling them reactionary, not fascist.

It would be a bit less inflammatory and a lot more accurate, imo.

[bobthedrummer]

25. I, for one, disagree reformist2 n/t