Is the U.S. in danger of becoming Fascist?

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: feralkid

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
I don't think we are in danger. The government isn't taking such an active role in order to control the companies for the long-term, but to provide a way out of this morass. It isn't a buy and hold strategy, it is a buy and sell strategy with the intent to cleanse and release in a better position. That isn't fascism, that is trying to manage a crappy situation.

Not to mention the other catalysts for a fascist government just aren't there.

I don't have problem with the buy and sell strategy the government is taking on, what I have a huge problem with is the treatment of the GM/Chrysler bondholders. To me, it is facism when the government together with the politically connected union use their power to takeover much bigger piece of the pie when the bondholders had more money invested with equal claim right. It is sheer political bullying with disregard of the rights of individual bondholders.

I thought this kind of facist deal could only happen in China, where government and the connected landlords force farmers out of their land so they can take over the land and make profit.

You haven't a clue what fascism is.

To you, it is some term you read in a Republican talking points blog, and never bothered to check it out for yourself.

:thumbsdown:

Text book definition like what Mussolini and Hilter created? Maybe not. But using a failure in the society as an excuse to consolidate power in favor of individual rights? Check
(banking crisis to insert government power in all sectors and favor politically connected over individual bond holder rights)

Social division? Check (using Main street vs. Wall St. mentality to take away the rights of those associated with Wall St.)

Government interventionism? Check (do i really have to explain?)

With democrats pretty much taking over all three branches and a chrismatic Obama who can make any speech sing, and you have an mob of society who will do many unthinkable things, at least in the financial market front right now.

Wall street should be glad we haven't marched into their HQ's and put their heads on pikes after what they did to the world economy.

 

[EXman]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: feralkid

Originally posted by: rchiu

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
I don't think we are in danger. The government isn't taking such an active role in order to control the companies for the long-term, but to provide a way out of this morass. It isn't a buy and hold strategy, it is a buy and sell strategy with the intent to cleanse and release in a better position. That isn't fascism, that is trying to manage a crappy situation.

Not to mention the other catalysts for a fascist government just aren't there.

I don't have problem with the buy and sell strategy the government is taking on, what I have a huge problem with is the treatment of the GM/Chrysler bondholders. To me, it is facism when the government together with the politically connected union use their power to takeover much bigger piece of the pie when the bondholders had more money invested with equal claim right. It is sheer political bullying with disregard of the rights of individual bondholders.

I thought this kind of facist deal could only happen in China, where government and the connected landlords force farmers out of their land so they can take over the land and make profit.

You haven't a clue what fascism is.

To you, it is some term you read in a Republican talking points blog, and never bothered to check it out for yourself.

:thumbsdown:

Text book definition like what Mussolini and Hilter created? Maybe not. But using a failure in the society as an excuse to consolidate power in favor of individual rights? Check
(banking crisis to insert government power in all sectors and favor politically connected over individual bond holder rights)

Social division? Check (using Main street vs. Wall St. mentality to take away the rights of those associated with Wall St.)

Government interventionism? Check (do i really have to explain?)

With democrats pretty much taking over all three branches and a chrismatic Obama who can make any speech sing, and you have an mob of society who will do many unthinkable things, at least in the financial market front right now.

Wall street should be glad we haven't marched into their HQ's and put their heads on pikes after what they did to the world economy.

lol what a goober!

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Phokus

Oh yeah? Where were the mass tea parties during Bush term?

Well there were no 13% of gdp deficits under bush, had there been I am sure there would have been tea parties.

The tea party protests were originally created in protest of the stimulus bill, not in protest of Obama's budget. Interestingly enough, the spending of $700 billion in 2008 for bank bailouts did not ignite a single tea party. The spending of $787 billion in 2009 did.

Gee, I wonder what changed?

There was quite a bit of protest about the bailouts, just not enough to stop it. Care to remember which party has had control of the house and senate during that time frame.

Care to remember which president started the bailouts, started the executive branch powergrab, started record deficits himself, started the iraq war, started spying on it's citizens, and started waterboarding?

Care to remember which party almost stopped the bailouts?

You might almost wish to remember that Bush deficits were only records in current dollar and not inflation adjusted dollar or related to gdp. Obama has smashed all the records and by all measures, but that seems to be ok now.

As far as surveillance and enhanced interrogation, obomas policys have changed little.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: sandorski
"Fascism" is possible in any Nation under any Political System. We must remain ever vigilant to avoid it.

Good point.

There was a novel written in 1935, "It Can't Happen Here', which warned the nation of the threat of fascism, with the fictional tell of how a fascist could be elected president.

It has some relevant messages for today.

Here's one reader's comments:

Surprisingly, Sinclair Lewis' darkly humorous tale of a fascist takeover in the US, "It Can't Happen Here," is not merely out-of-print, but also quite hard to find. As dated as it is (1935), its themes will be quite familiar to Americans today. It starts with the highly contested election of an oafish yet strangely charismatic president, who talks like a "reformer" but is really in the pocket of big business, who claims to be a home-spun "humanist," while appealing to religious extremists, and who speaks of "liberating" women and minorities, as he gradually strips them of all their rights. One character, when describing him, says, "I can't tell if he's a crook or a religious fanatic."
After he becomes elected, he puts the media - at that time, radio and newspapers - under the supervision of the military and slowly begins buying up or closing down media outlets. William Randolph Hearst, the Rupert Murdoch of his times, directs his newspapers to heap unqualified praise upon the president and his policies, and gradually comes to develop a special relationship with the government. The president, taking advantage of an economic crisis, strong-arms Congress into signing blank checks over to the military and passing stringent and possibly unconstitutional laws, e.g. punishing universities when they don't permit military recruiting or are not vociferous enough in their approval of his policies. Eventually, he takes advantage of the crisis to convene military tribunals for civilians, and denounce all of his detractors as unpatriotic and possibly treasonous.
I'll stop here, as I don't want to ruin the story -- I can imagine that you can see where all this is going.

 

[biostud]

In a "perfect" representative democracy every citizen has one vote and when the voting is over, those people who got most votes are the representatives of the people.
The representatives should hereafter work for towards achieving the policies they promised the voters.

However, as we all know it's not so simple and there are lots of influential groups, companies and persons who want to get their way, without being enrolled in the tiresome bureaucratic system we call democracy.

To me these hidden players are the greatest threat to democracy in the western world. They need to be exposed and their direct influence on the democratic process needs to be strictly controlled.

None of these players are democratic elected, but their influence based on how wealthy they are and how well they "lobby" for their agendas.

And until very recently and now still only to a small degree it's always the politicians who gets blamed
the problems in the society. What about the big companies? What about the insurance companies? the banks, the weapons technology companies, the green tech companies, the Christian organizations are they all just passive bystanders not to blame for anything?

If our democracy is going to survive we need to limit the non-democratic influence on our democracy, and we need to have media which can actually work independently of interest, be it economically or politically.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Surprisingly, Sinclair Lewis' darkly humorous tale of a fascist takeover in the US, "It Can't Happen Here," is not merely out-of-print, but also quite hard to find. As dated as it is (1935), its themes will be quite familiar to Americans today. It starts with the highly contested election of an oafish yet strangely charismatic president, who talks like a "reformer" but is really in the pocket of big business, who claims to be a home-spun "humanist," while appealing to religious extremists, and who speaks of "liberating" women and minorities, as he gradually strips them of all their rights. One character, when describing him, says, "I can't tell if he's a crook or a religious fanatic."
After he becomes elected, he puts the media - at that time, radio and newspapers - under the supervision of the military and slowly begins buying up or closing down media outlets. William Randolph Hearst, the Rupert Murdoch of his times, directs his newspapers to heap unqualified praise upon the president and his policies, and gradually comes to develop a special relationship with the government. The president, taking advantage of an economic crisis, strong-arms Congress into signing blank checks over to the military and passing stringent and possibly unconstitutional laws, e.g. punishing universities when they don't permit military recruiting or are not vociferous enough in their approval of his policies. Eventually, he takes advantage of the crisis to convene military tribunals for civilians, and denounce all of his detractors as unpatriotic and possibly treasonous.
I'll stop here, as I don't want to ruin the story -- I can imagine that you can see where all this is going.

Is that supposed to be comparable to Bush or Obama? I can't tell.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: feralkid

Originally posted by: BarrySotero

Originally posted by: IGBT
it's going to happen under the guise of enviromentalism. the green slime eco-KOOKS will have their way. For awhile.

Have you ever listened to Obama's "Special Advisor for Green Jobs" Van Jones? I actually find him more interesting than Obama (political styrofoam imo) but he's a blatant communist who thinks the "greening of the ghetto" (his term) will save the planet and address social injustice. He says a car has 8000 parts but so does a windmill so we can make the latter instead of the former. It's weird stuff man.

Chairman O would bust up economy to kick one group of people to the curb to try to make a flaky pipe dream economy and move it over to another group - who are not very bright but will make good Greenshirts for Obama. If people were so smart they would have seen this coming during election because the guy was like was obviously a radical who had no biz being on FBI no less pres. The greenest thing about Obama is his slimey nature.

Will a 'red' help blacks go green?
White House appoints 'radical communist' who sees environment as racial issue


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/i...PAGE.view&pageId=94771

Winnar?

Uh, WorldNetDaily? Don't they advocate murdering gay people.
Yep.

Loser?

 

[feralkid]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: feralkid

Originally posted by: BarrySotero

Originally posted by: IGBT
it's going to happen under the guise of enviromentalism. the green slime eco-KOOKS will have their way. For awhile.

Have you ever listened to Obama's "Special Advisor for Green Jobs" Van Jones? I actually find him more interesting than Obama (political styrofoam imo) but he's a blatant communist who thinks the "greening of the ghetto" (his term) will save the planet and address social injustice. He says a car has 8000 parts but so does a windmill so we can make the latter instead of the former. It's weird stuff man.

Chairman O would bust up economy to kick one group of people to the curb to try to make a flaky pipe dream economy and move it over to another group - who are not very bright but will make good Greenshirts for Obama. If people were so smart they would have seen this coming during election because the guy was like was obviously a radical who had no biz being on FBI no less pres. The greenest thing about Obama is his slimey nature.

Will a 'red' help blacks go green?
White House appoints 'radical communist' who sees environment as racial issue


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/i...PAGE.view&pageId=94771

Winnar?

Uh, WorldNetDaily? Don't they advocate murdering gay people.
Yep.

Loser?

I meant Winnar 111 is back like Drac.

 

[MovingTarget]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: Craig234

Surprisingly, Sinclair Lewis' darkly humorous tale of a fascist takeover in the US, "It Can't Happen Here," is not merely out-of-print, but also quite hard to find. As dated as it is (1935), its themes will be quite familiar to Americans today. It starts with the highly contested election of an oafish yet strangely charismatic president, who talks like a "reformer" but is really in the pocket of big business, who claims to be a home-spun "humanist," while appealing to religious extremists, and who speaks of "liberating" women and minorities, as he gradually strips them of all their rights. One character, when describing him, says, "I can't tell if he's a crook or a religious fanatic."
After he becomes elected, he puts the media - at that time, radio and newspapers - under the supervision of the military and slowly begins buying up or closing down media outlets. William Randolph Hearst, the Rupert Murdoch of his times, directs his newspapers to heap unqualified praise upon the president and his policies, and gradually comes to develop a special relationship with the government. The president, taking advantage of an economic crisis, strong-arms Congress into signing blank checks over to the military and passing stringent and possibly unconstitutional laws, e.g. punishing universities when they don't permit military recruiting or are not vociferous enough in their approval of his policies. Eventually, he takes advantage of the crisis to convene military tribunals for civilians, and denounce all of his detractors as unpatriotic and possibly treasonous.
I'll stop here, as I don't want to ruin the story -- I can imagine that you can see where all this is going.

Is that supposed to be comparable to Bush or Obama? I can't tell.

Heh, the story is kinda before their time. In a system like we have where the two parties are two sides of the same coin, it could easily be either - or both.

 

[FaaR]

I'd worry about certain countries in Europe going fascist long before the US ever comes close.

Russia's already more than halfway there, for obvious reasons; the gov't breeding cults of personality around political leaders, repression of journalists and free speech, far-reaching corruption inside the state, police and the military. Not to mention the recent invasion of Georgia, and ongoing threatening behavior towards certain ex-USSR states and former eastern Europe states; both in words and turning off its gas pipelines in the middle of winter...

Italy's not far off, with Silvio Berlusconi at its helm, a disgusting sexist self-obsessed greedy toad of a man who is politically liaisoned with far-right racist extremists and has publically admitted admiration of Mussolini, who's been indicted for corruption more times than most of us can remember and had parliament create new laws to nip those indictments (or any new ones) in the bud. ...And, he personally controls basically all national TV channels in the country either directly (by owning them), or through government means with state-owned Rai.

Right-wing influences are also rising in many Euro countries right now; Denmark, Belgium and others.

 

[vhx]

Unfortunately it seems people still haven't discovered it doesn't really matter which party is really in power. Sure the talking points may change (abortion, torture, Iraq, Iran, Isreal, etc) but the general direction is pretty much the same. Fairly simple to keep everyone bickering and pointing fingers at eachother, all while scaremongering about terrorism and the economy. Meanwhile the government continues to be more invasive and grab at more power for itself (and corporations) while treating the population as enemies (1+ million US citizens on terrorist watch list with no proof) while trying to strip away rights (soon 'terrorists' will no longer be able to buy guns, [as if the the real terrorists passed background checks in the first place], Patriot Act, etc).

It works every time; they get away with it, and no one ever learns. /sigh

One thing I particular LOVE are the warped excuses and turn arounds they use for everything to push their agendas.
"I have a bill here to control information and websites on the internet, because of child porn we need to protect children at any cost!"
"Uhhh I don't think controlling the internet is the right direction we should be taking."
"SO YOU ARE FOR ABUSING KIDS AND CHILD PORN?!"

 

[manowar821]

It's an oligarchy, and it has been for decades, but it tends to appear as a socialistic fascism in some ways... It's the thought that counts.

In any case, those who vote in either party are far too socially restrictive/conservative, meaning people on both sides of the political spectrum like to have things their way or the high-way. I don't know many true social liberals, and the ones I do know are smart enough to know that voting in a fixed two-party system is a waste of time. Our leaders are picked for us, before we even know which candidates are available in both parties.

OLIGARCHY, study up on it.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: MovingTarget
Heh, the story is kinda before their time. In a system like we have where the two parties are two sides of the same coin, it could easily be either - or both.

As it was Craig who posted that, it clearly was about Republicans because in his eyes Democrats are infallible beings of pure light.

However you're right, it could be any of our modern day "leaders."

 

[Docnasty]

lol @ all the people in this thread who insist the United States is a Democracy. No wonder our country is so screwed up, people don't even know what form of government we [are supposed to] have!

Try Constitutional Republic.

 

[Docnasty]

Originally posted by: vhx
Unfortunately it seems people still haven't discovered it doesn't really matter which party is really in power. Sure the talking points may change (abortion, torture, Iraq, Iran, Isreal, etc) but the general direction is pretty much the same. Fairly simple to keep everyone bickering and pointing fingers at eachother, all while scaremongering about terrorism and the economy. Meanwhile the government continues to be more invasive and grab at more power for itself (and corporations) while treating the population as enemies (1+ million US citizens on terrorist watch list with no proof) while trying to strip away rights (soon 'terrorists' will no longer be able to buy guns, [as if the the real terrorists passed background checks in the first place], Patriot Act, etc).

It works every time; they get away with it, and no one ever learns. /sigh

One thing I particular LOVE are the warped excuses and turn arounds they use for everything to push their agendas.
"I have a bill here to control information and websites on the internet, because of child porn we need to protect children at any cost!"
"Uhhh I don't think controlling the internet is the right direction we should be taking."
"SO YOU ARE FOR ABUSING KIDS AND CHILD PORN?!"

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This