Has the US become a Fascist State?

"During election 2000, Bush paid campaign operatives posing as ordinary voters shoved people and banged on doors at the Miami-Dade canvassing offices in an effort to stop the Florida vote recount. Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said he detected "a whiff of fascism" in their tactics.

Some people criticized Nadler for drawing the comparison, but, of course, not all forms of fascism have to equate precisely to the classic form represented by Hitler or Mussolini. Fascism doesn't have to involve mass genocidal slaughter, nor does it have to be equal in degree to the fascism practiced by members of the Axis powers. Traits of classic fascism include: strong nationalism, expansionism, belligerent militarism, meshing of big business and government with a corporate/government oligarchy, subversion of democracy and human rights, disinformation spread by constant propaganda and tight corporate/government control of the press.

Today all of those conditions exist in our country to a degree.
Let's focus on corporate/government control of the press�specifically corporate control of U.S. television news networks. According to a March 24 article, "Protests Turn Off Viewers" by Harry A. Jessell, 45 percent of Americans rely on cable channels as their primary source of news, and 22 percent get most of their news from broadcast networks' evening newscasts. Only 11 percent rely on other forms of media as their principle source of war news.

Our corporate controlled TV networks might as well be state controlled, because they promote the war and Bush policies fairly consistently and have virtually eliminated all dissenting voices. NBC fired Phil Donahue despite his good ratings, saying in an internal network memo they didn't want to air Donahue's antiwar views. Peter Arnett was fired for giving an interview to Iraqi TV and merely stating the obvious on a number of issues. For example, Arnett said media reports of civilian casualties had helped the "growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war."

According to William Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Ballantine Books, 1950), the Reich Press Law of October 4, 1933, ordered editors not to publish (among other things) anything which "tends to weaken the strength of the German Reich . . . or offends the honor and dignity of Germany." The Nazis forced dissenting journalists out of business and consolidated the press under party control.

U.S. television news networks have been consolidated under the control of a handful of corporations. America doesn't need a "press law" prohibiting the airing of anything which might weaken the strength of Bush's war policies, because the corporate owners of today's television networks are in total agreement with the state.

It is irrefutable that corporate owners of American television networks want only pro-Bush, pro-war opinions aired, because those are virtually the only views that are in fact aired. The Phil Donahue and Peter Arnett firings, especially when coupled with the NBC internal memo explaining the Donahue firing, also indicate this is true.

Do the various TV networks do a good job of informing the public, or do they more often propagandize? Propaganda is aimed at the emotions, while news sources that disseminate factual information aim toward reason.

In Nazi Germany: A New History (Continuum Publishing, 1995), Klaus P. Fischer says Hitler promoted "a system of prejudices rather than a philosophy based on well-warranted premises, objective truth-testing, and logically derived conclusions. Since propaganda aims at persuasion rather than instruction, it is far more effective to appeal to the emotions than to the rational capacities of crowds."

If you've spent much time watching the pro-Bush, pro-war cable television news programs, you can't help but notice they manipulate (whether deliberately or not) the viewing audience's emotions rather than appealing to viewers' logic.

That is, instead of providing the American public with a broad range of necessary facts and varied viewpoints about the war, the TV networks exploit emotions by urging the audience to focus on and identify with the day-to-day plight of individual soldiers and their families.

There's nothing inherently wrong with empathizing with the troops. However, when that aspect of war news is heavily emphasized at the expense of hard facts and varied debate, the networks serve the purpose of managing the public mood rather than informing the public mind."

continued

www.onlinejournal.com...

Please do not respond unless you've read the article and wish to log data supported facts that counter the stats provided, or can make a reasoned argument.

Fascism
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
Oppressive, dictatorial control.


hmmm where have I seen this?

NYPD Claims to Destroy Database on Protesters' Politics
That's Right... Database on Protesters' Politics

New York City police this week ended a practice of questioning arrested anti-war demonstrators about their political affiliations and are destroying a database containing the information, officials said Thursday.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said he had been unaware of the practice but that it was stopped after civil libertarians complained that it violated the Constitution.

Detectives from the department's intelligence division had questioned demonstrators as they were being processed for minor violations, such as blocking sidewalks. Their debriefing forms included questions about where the demonstrators attended school, their memberships in any organizations and any involvement in past protests.

"I don't think there are constitutional issues here," Kelly said. "We believe it was a legitimate question with no compulsion to answer."

Chris Dunn, associate legal director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said demonstrators were denied access to lawyers during questioning and were told that requesting an attorney would delay their release.

Kelly said the questioning was considered part of the routine arrest processing, in which suspects are asked such information as their name and address.

abcnews.go.com...

Move quick......this type of story does not sit out there long on sites like ABC "News"

Our corporate controlled TV networks might as well be state controlled, because they promote the war and Bush policies fairly consistently and have virtually eliminated all dissenting voices.

So very true, Mr. O'Reilly and his "no spin zone" is such a load of BS.

The Nazis forced dissenting journalists out of business and consolidated the press under party control.

How ironic.

How many times have you seen them cut someone off on cable news if they have an anti-war opinion, 95% of the time they wont give them the last word, or accuse them of being ignorant and blind to the facts. Any dissent is viewed as being un-american and un-patriotic. America is being dumbed down. North Korea seemed like a much greater threat, yet media doen't talk much about them, it's Middle East this, terrorist muslim that. Just like with Michael Moore, when they replayed it on Fox news, the only thing you could hear was nothing but boos, it did not happen that way. And how they give newscaster titles like "The Most trusted man in news" Or CNN they call themselves "The Most Trusted Name in News" Like they would never lie to you? I view 95% of the stuff Fox and CNN and MSNBC report as propaganda, yes there is some truth behind it but they don't always tell both sides, they only tell things that make Bush look great and that this war is a pushover and few deaths on either side and that the Iraqis love us. I was flipping channels yesterday and stumbled across religious channel and I stopped and watched because this guy had a one dollar bill and was talking about who designed it,and the all seeing eye and how it tied into occultism, then he went on to talk about Revelations. How we would have a collapse of the economy and that the antichrist would rise from the EU countries. Then he went on to say how great of a person GWBush is, and God Bless President Bush our protector.

Ironic?

oh and then the evangalist went on to condem the federal reserve... Yet he thinks Bush is the greatest human on the face of the planet.

To a degree, I think, was a very important phrase. Degrees mean alot.

To a degree, we resemble Nazi Germany, and to a degree NYC resembles the Soviet Moscow, and to a very small degree this nation resembles how the Evil Old White Men who started it envisioned it. But its not Bush who's led it the farthest away.

Nice to see you posting anti-Bush hate and propaganda, B-T, I thought you might have been picked up and thrown into a loony bin for that psychosis. Maybe that'd be a good thing, maybe they could help you.
We'd miss you, though.

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
To a degree, I think, was a very important phrase. Degrees mean alot.

To a degree, we resemble Nazi Germany, and to a degree NYC resembles the Soviet Moscow, and to a very small degree this nation resembles how the Evil Old White Men who started it envisioned it. But its not Bush who's led it the farthest away.

Nice to see you posting anti-Bush hate and propaganda, B-T, I thought you might have been picked up and thrown into a loony bin for that psychosis. Maybe that'd be a good thing, maybe they could help you.
We'd miss you, though.

I guess you either missed or ignored this part:
"Please do not respond unless you've read the article and wish to log data supported facts that counter the stats provided, or can make a reasoned argument. "

To quote your favorite politician: "I feel your pain!" I mean, we're going on three years of total denial in the face of evidence with you and your Bush love affair.....my friend, you qualify under battered wife syndrome!
So, I guess you have no problem with anything listed in the article or posts, huh? Mr. Bush can do no wrong? America can recover from everything he's implemented, but we were dealt a mortal wound by the Arkansas Cassanova and must turn a blind eye to the sins of the present so that we may focus on the past fables, huh?

we talked about this in class the other day while talking about facism in ww2, some ppl said the US was facist and that bush=hitler, but i just said to them your wrong bush is not hitler, if he was all the arabs would be in extermination camps and it would be marshall law

Give him time.....................give him time.

I read the article, Mr. Nutter-Butter, but I still felt the need to state what I stated. What, only those who respond IAW your beliefs need respond?

I nevfer said we couldn't recover from the insidious maneuvering made by Clinton, although the nuclear secrets sold for his personal gain may kill us in the end, and whatever wrongs this administration does we can correct as well, although your ideas of wrongs are misperception so far.

The biggest detriment will be any deals made with the U.N. and the dimishment of our sovereignty. I don't see that happening with this administration. Of course, I might be wrong. He might haul off and do that during his second administration. That way he can play both sides.

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
I read the article, Mr. Nutter-Butter, but I still felt the need to state what I stated. What, only those who respond IAW your beliefs need respond?

Come on Thomas, you know I am for anybody throwing their two cents where they like - it's just that on the points, laid out as they are with supporting data, a response should be something that refutes in kind.
For example, the Clinton myth of the nuke design theft happening on his watch I refuted with the data of when the theft occured ( on Saint Ronnies watch from Los Alamos with a Bush boy running the security contract) and when it was tested by China ( on Poppa's watch in 1991). That's what I'm looking for, not pie-eyed cultism denials that anything Republican has got to be good.

Okay Bout Time , here's a fact for your very first sentence...Those counties in Fla. you mentioned were ran (operated) under democrat contol. The young lady who designed the so called "butterfly ballot", a dem too. Worked on Algore's campaign team. The stylus used to vote was only designed to punch one ballot at a time...more would cause your so called "hanging chads". Here's another fact, only after Mr. Bill daily showed up on the scene did the count start to change by the thousands, Mr. Daily, who has been charged in election fraud in Chicago along with his father. The question we all should have been asking instead of what constitutes a hanging / dangling chad is how were they made? From 2 to 3 ballots stacked together at the same time..(end justifies the means mentality) according to the manufacturer. Just some widely known facts that are really no secret by any means and not hard to find.

The "Bush stole the election" cultic crap is getting old and goes in the face of the facts, so there's no need in addressing that.

As far as your information that refutes the ChinaGate issue, do you remember where it is?

Another thing, you wrote a piece a while back explaining why you believed that cutting taxes no longer will work for increasing revenue and making the economy better. Would you mind travelling down that path again?
Did you ever think I'd be asking you for information? Other than your intense and psychotic, not to mention unrealistic hatred for everything conservative, I think you are a decent guy and one who might hold some useful information!!

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
The "Bush stole the election" cultic crap is getting old and goes in the face of the facts, so there's no need in addressing that.

As far as your information that refutes the ChinaGate issue, do you remember where it is?

Another thing, you wrote a piece a while back explaining why you believed that cutting taxes no longer will work for increasing revenue and making the economy better. Would you mind travelling down that path again?
Did you ever think I'd be asking you for information? Other than your intense and psychotic, not to mention unrealistic hatred for everything conservative, I think you are a decent guy and one who might hold some useful information!!

I think you're a decent guy too, just too 'ultra' in too many areas, most noteably conservatism. Which, if you haven't noticed, is not what the Boy King is by any stretch. There exist no fiscal responsibility or conservative economic practice in his administration: the only window dressing that has the Con voting bloc's attention is that he targets the same areas for reduction, namely, social programs. I don't think there are any responsible conservatives who support school districts having to cut vital programs and switch to a four day school week because of Fed cuts.
Meanwhile, his rapant spending in other areas is the exact opposite of 'conservative'.
I would employ the 'search' feature on this site for my posts on economics 101 and how Dim Son has failed the course.
Seriously, I never used it until recently & it's smokin'!

I didn't find anything under economics 101. Was this info off the top of your noggin? If so, I think it is worth reiterating. I'm not sure that I agree, but I do think the concepts are worth looking at and talking about. I don't think the democrats have any game plan but national ruination, but if the JFK/Reagan economics are no longer viable, we need to alter it to where it will work.