What do you call a Religious/Corporate/Government controlled country?

It's not just a Theocracy. Right? Fascism? Fascism is Corporate/government control, but what is it when you throw the Dominionists/Fundamentalists/Religious wackos into the fray? The government and corporations already control this country. NOW we have the Fundamentalists trying to get their hold on us. What the hell do you call a country ruled by Religion/corporations/government all at the same time?

'bout covers it.

But kakistocracy is a great word.

Pronouce it for me would ya?

...yakistocracy, which, as we all know, is government by yaks. :P

but I think Clusterfuckocracy fits best.

I've been wondering a lot lately if we're not far from the American people actually asking the military to stage a coup *here*. Our government is being run by anti-humanity America-hating goons! And we're going to have to stop them somehow, and Nov 1996 might just be too late.

A disgrace.

where's my prize?

Of course... We're Democrats, no?

:toast:

nt

It works for me.

I'm feeling really discouraged, not seeing any way out of this for our country. It's like the nation has been taken over en masse by a cult that is taking over political power.

Reading this month's Harpers Magazine has got me even more depressed about things. :-(

FDR "A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward."
"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country."
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little."


Says exactly what's wrong......the ones who have too little are in the way of the neocons. And the ones who have too little multiply everyday because of the jobloss and continuing outsourcing of U.S. jobs to cheap labor foreign countries. We do need to always remember, those peacocks in DC are our employees and if they don't come though, they can be fired. Just too bad it takes an impeachment to get rid of some of them.

<snip>
Wake Up And Smell The Fascism

In "Fascism Anyone?," Laurence Britt identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism."

1.) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3.) Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4.) Supremacy of the Military
5.) Rampant Sexism
6.) Controlled Mass Media
7.) Obsession with National Security
8.) Religion and Government are Intertwined
9.) Corporate Power is Protected
10.) Labor Power is Suppressed
11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12.) Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13.) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14.) Fraudulent Elections

<more>
<link> http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

Also, read this piece:

<snip>


Now and Then- Part III
Hitler's Playbook: Bush and the Abuse of Power
by W. David Jenkins III and Sara DeHart July 4, 2002

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." (Benito Mussolini, Encyclopedia Italiana)

According to David Gergen (1999), the 2000 election was about raw political power. He termed it a hinge point in history. The last time the GOP controlled the White House and the Congress was when "Ike" was in charge and he didn't want to rock the boat. "Conservatives have very different ideas in mind if they can grab the helm now." What Gergen and other members of the media didn't mention to the American people is that if the Far Right could control the White House and Congress, they could also control the judiciary and the fate and face of America for generations to come. (Gergen, David (November 15, 1999). Editorial: A Hinge Point in History. U.S. News and World Report)

<more>
<link> http://www.oldamericancentury.org/dave300021.htm

ready to give to any freeper who dares to say a word to me about my bumper stickers. GREAT list to have. It's right there in black and white for the sheeple to read.

David Gergen's remark on the 2000 election pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? Scary as hell!

...in fact, here is the link:

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/49/articles/is_america_becoming_fascis.html

THAT is sad as hell. We are THERE. We are living it. :scared:

The "religious" part is only a veneer, empty rhetoric playing to the base, scattering a few crumbs to supporters while the corporation goes on to pursue its own agenda.

will have any control/power within the government?

I mean...does anyone here really buy Falwell, Robertson, and Dobson are anything other than money hungry CEOs in a mad power grab? It doesn't matter what icon you wear...if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Will they have as much power from within the government? Will we soon have praying in schools? Will it be illegal for gays to have relationships? Will abortion be illegal? How much POWER will they wield?

Hitler used overtly Christian overtones in some of his speeches, but even he held power over the churches at the end of the day. The clerics were appointed to the pulpit. They didn't appoint Hitler. Mussolini also did it in a similar fashion. Ultimately, the government itself, the cronies in big business, held the bulk of the power at the end of the day. Yes, they had a seat at the table of power, but they didn't hold the majority of the seats.

The persecution of Jews, gays, Gypsies, various minorities, etc. were simply ploys to divide the populace and distract them, while power was being further concentrated. It was and is a tragic ploy, but it is quite effective. The only question is whether one would allow principles to stand in the way of using such a ploy.

As I see it, the corporation has the religious right about where they want them--angry, protesting things like gay marriage, abortion and so forth. It's not in the corporation's interest to deliver all the religious right's demands; better to dole out little tokens every now and then, just enough to spur them on, keep them angry, keep them at their candlelight vigils and away from the corporation's actual business. The corporation will identify a few religious leaders and give them the illusion of power; the religious leaders will spend more time organizing rallies than paying attention to what's really going on (invading other countries for their resources, et al).

Which is what we are almost.

A marriage between theocracy and corporatacracy.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2005/02/15.html

The assets then became part of what Perkins termed the "corporatacracy," a global empire, largely based in the United States, that encompasses the highest echelons of corporations, banking and government. In what could be considered an unethical but not illegal manner, such countries are taken over without any military action, he noted.

instead of fascism as the ideology of the past century which most resembles our present movement of radicalism on the right.
Falangism began with Primo de Rivera and Franco in Spain and inspired Falangist movements in Lebanon and Latin America; Rivera was the originator of the Falange party and its primary martyr, Franco united the Falangists with the monarchist party in the "National Movement".
Falangism is a right-leaning extremism in that:
It is militantly traditional and nationalist, proposing the country's identity as understood from the past (even the past that only existed in the minds of rank sentimentalists like Ned Flanders dreaming of a 1950s that never was) to be the only possible way forward in the future (back to the future)
It is hostile to Marxian class struggle analysis, ANY economic analysis in fact, stressing the supposed unity of the past--which from a dispassionate or rational point of view may have been only the unity of class based oppression conducted by elites for their exclusive benefit.
Falangism is thus amenable to strongmen and Kings--Royalism in any guise--and amenable to authoritarian governments that may rule with quite modern totalitarian means, on behalf of an ancient monarchy, all the while robed in the trappings of the local cultural traditions.
It tends to be agrarian in sympathies hostile to urbanized workers--it speaks of and to "the Heartland", where chickens run around raw. Anything that smacks of the city, of the actual engines of economic production, of urbanism or urban culture is denigrated. The populism of Falange parties consists in flattering the self-regard of bumpkins in the hinterland and telling them that they are the salt of the earth, and their ways are the only real reason their country ever became great.
Economically, Falangism is basically identical to the Fascist "corporate state". While the masses are appeased with vanity puffing encomia to their holy, noble, but plainspun Heartland ways, the fatcats living quite untraditional, non-Heartland lives while directing the large companies are drawn into the councils of government and given a free hand to do whatever they like for the sake of the country's strength. Political intrigues amongst themselves may make them regret it, but initially they are delivered unto the Promised Land, and the state is basically placed at their disposal.
Falangism is openly religious and its paradoxical populism may extend even here. Falangists regard the idea of separation of Church and State as untraditional and evil: laws become more tinged with religious restrictions and religious justifications. The Falangist ideology may value the religiosity of ordinary people over the Church hierarchy, inasmuch as the Church hierarchy can often itself wish for a wall of separation between it and the state. Falangists would rather bypass the clerics and involve the people in religious activities and ceremonies under the direction of state leaders.

The Religion is just a means of ascent -- there's no spiritual or religious goal here. It's pure FASCISM.

Or, as I call it, hell.

Bush and his ilk didn't come from a vacuum. The problem is that more than half of the American electorate *want* to be governed by people like that.

The "innocent and well meaning electorate lead astray by evil media, big business and politicians" model is a very comforting one, because it means that it's all the fault of Them, rather than Us, but I don't buy it - I think the problem goes a lot deeper than that.

This is one of the reasons I'm glad I live in the UK.