A great series of essays at Orcinus: "The Rise of Pseudo Fascism"

David Neiwert has been reporting for years on the extreme right in America, and his blog, Orcinus, is one of the finest on the Internets. His new series on the rise of a new kind of fascism in America is absolutely horrifying, and provides the intellectual framework for what many of us here at DU have been thinking. This weekend he posted Part 4 of this series, "The Apocalyptic One-Party State," which suggests that if bush gets another four years, the repugs will be able to consolidate their power enough so that we will effectively move toward a one-party state. Part 3, "The Pseudo-Fascist Campaign," discusses fascism's driving force is the acquisition and use of power rather than a fixed ideology. It also discusses its leaders appeal to faith rather than reason.

Here's a passage:

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The conservative movement, as such, is an ever-shifting beast. Its drive is power, and as such it has gradually adopted the familiar architecture of another power-mad phenomenon of mass politics: fascism.

In The Anatomy of Fascism, Robert O. Paxton explains how fascism similarly adopted and dropped ideologies at will, according to its power needs (pp. 16-17):

The truth was whatever permitted the new fascist man (and woman) to dominate others, and whatever made the chosen people triumph.

Fascism rested not upon the truth of its doctrine but upon the leader's mystical union with the historic destiny of his people, a notion related to romanticist genius, though fascism otherwise denied romanticism's exaltation of unfettered personal creativity. ...

Fascist leaders made no secret of having no program. Mussolini exulted in that absence. "The Fasci di Combattimento," Mussolini wrote in the "Postulates of the Fascist Program" of May 1920, "... do not feel tied to any particular doctrinal form." A few months before he became prime minister of Italy, he replied truculently to a critic who demanded to know what his program was: "The democrats of Il Mondo want to know our program? It is to break the bones of the democrats of Il Mondo."

This fist-shaking style of response to normative political discourse, in fact, was one of the real hallmarks of fascism. It signaled, above all else, the rightness of power by virtue of its naked use to intimidate and silence dissent. To the fascist leader, diplomacy is a parlor game for the weak; what counts is the raw will of the man of action. Whether he is right is moot; what counts is his strength and resolve in the exercise of power.

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Part 1: The Morphing of the Conservative Movement
Part 2: The Architecture of Fascism
Part 3: The Pseudo-Fascist Campaign
Part 4: The Apocalyptic One-Party State

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/

It is a wonferful series, and very, very scary. And I can't recommend Orcinus enough, it is a wonderful blog, very thoughtful and well-written.

but Fascism, a philosophical perspective that made its presence known on the back of the American DIME, was about bundling together industry, government, and labor to advance a nation.

The Bushista could careless about the nation. They care about money.
THAT isn't fascism, it's simply uncontrolled greed acting under the guise of "liberal capitalism."

If we keep going off on the "Bush is a Fascist" rail siding, we'll never arive in time to affect the national election.

The bad guys are ALL about international corporate GREED.
Bush/Cheney's interest in open range economics is about dumping social responsibility.

If THAT is acceptable, we'd better see Dick Rutan about the possibility of building an interplanetary ferry to Mars or Europa. Why? Because in the BUSHWORLD there are the rich and would be rich (sucks you in with "investor class'), and the working poor. Bush isn't appealling to the middleclass because he knows he already smashed it. Our best chance is in a brave new world.