14 DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM
14 DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM
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America has all of the 14 defining characteristics of Fascism and, like sheep, we passively endure our fleecing : Allen L Roland
by Allen L Roland, Ph.D
14 DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM
: "1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of 'need.' The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc."
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
From Liberty Forum
http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?cat=&board=news_constitution&number
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Urge CA SofS McPherson to reverse decision on Diebold
http://www.opednews.com
Last Friday afternoon, as millions of Californians were preparing for their Presidents' Day holiday weekend, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson quietly re-certified Diebold electronic voting machines for the 2006 elections. Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and Quaker actvist. He is particularly interested in progressive morality and writes frequently on the ethical aspects of political and social issues. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022206A.shtml The charity issued a statement on behalf of Rizwan Ahmed, which said he had been interrogated by three Special Branch officers. It is claimed they went through his wallet and mobile phone to note personal details. Mr. Ahmed said: "[A female officer] asked me if I intended to do more documentary films, specifically more political ones like The Road to Guantánamo. She asked, 'Did you become an actor mainly to do films like this, to publicize the struggles of Muslims?'" .../.. 'They Chained You to a Hook on the Floor' Shafiq Rasul: "In Guantánamo you were sitting on your knees for ages. It was hot and you felt the sun burning your head. For the first month and a half, we never went out of our cells. They wouldn't let us pray; you couldn't stand up in your cell for the first two weeks. You weren't allowed to speak to the guy next to you. There was a hook on the floor and leg irons attached to the hook, and they put your hands between your ankles on the floor and chained you to the hook on the floor as well. They'd keep you there for five hours, six hours - you couldn't go to the toilet, you'd have to urinate, defecate where you are." http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022206B.shtml "At night; they woke us up every half hour for roll call. They put numbered bracelets on us. I was 161. They lined us up squatting; then we went back to sleep after they called us; then they woke us up again a half hour later. Psychologically, it was very hard. There were also detainees they left standing all night long. When they nose-dived, they'd hit them to stand them up again. In the end, the guys were so tired they fell down and let them hit them. I was terrified. I said to myself that given what they were doing to us, they could never risk letting us go. I said to myself: 'Mourad, they're never going to let you tell about this. You have to get ready to die.'" "At the end of a week and a half, they shaved my head and my beard, put a hood on me, and I left on a plane. They stuck patches on us that must have been sleep-inducing. We dozed. The plane set down after an hour and we changed planes. Then the trip lasted 24 hours. We didn't know where we were going. It was the Red Cross that told me a few weeks later that I was in Cuba." "We were undressed on arrival. They laid us on our stomachs and kicked us. There was a man with an Arab accent, a Lebanese, I think. He screamed in Arabic. 'What are you doing there; why did you go to Afghanistan?' Then we were led into a room where there was a doctor with a white scrub on. He listened to our chests and put on a glove to stick a finger in our anus. He photographed us naked and gave us red jumpsuits. We were in the provisional Camp X-Ray. There were about 350 people. There were people who had been arrested pretty much everywhere in the world. Six came from Bosnia, two from Zambia, an Afghan had been kidnapped in Mexico; two Algerians claimed they were captured by the Russian Mafia in Georgia. We stayed there for four months before we were transferred to Camp Delta, with cells made out of containers with the panels removed and replaced by grills. There was a Turkish toilet, a sink, and an iron plate that served as a bed, with a thin mattress on it." "Interrogations could take place at any moment of the day or night. On average, I was interrogated once or twice a week. Never by the same men. To go there, they made us run with cuffs and chains on our feet. They cut into our flesh, which bled. The interrogations could last two to fifteen hours. They took place in big rooms, with two-way mirrors on the sides. Sometimes we heard people behind them. The room was very lit up; there was a chair with a harness for the detainee and big air conditioners behind us. Sometimes they turned them on all the way. The questions were different from in Kandahar. They wanted to know everything about our life, our journey. They wanted to know everything about each stage. They said they were from the FBI. There were always two of them plus an interpreter." "There was another interrogation room, on which they had written 'Hell' in Arabic. If you didn't cooperate, you went there. It was a completely black room, with a bench fitted out with cinches like in a psychiatric hospital in the middle. There were enormous speakers on the walls and projectors on the ceiling. They bound the detainees and put on the music full blast, often techno music. "There was also a special team of five guards, who intervened in anti-crowd gear with big Plexiglas shields. They came in making a rhythmic 'Hou hou hou' sound, tapping their feet. It was very impressive. They came into a cell really fast, their shield in front. You felt like a bus ran into you. Some guards behaved well. I remember one who secretly brought me a cup of coffee he handed through the bars. Some told us that when they got back to the US, they'd tell what they had seen." "Many Suicide Attempts, but None Successful" "At one time, we had books brought by the Red Cross, then they were forbidden. They only left us the Koran. Boredom made us crazy. Sometimes we got mail, but they censored it by crossing out passages. Sometimes, they'd just leave a final line: 'That's all the news from the family.' It was a real torture." "There were many suicide attempts. At least one a day in the time just before I left. As far as I know, no one ever succeeded. The guards took men who tried to hang themselves with their bed sheet down very fast. They were sent to the crazy’s bloc. There was also an isolation camp where they put people they thought were dangerous. No one knows what went on in there. The Red Cross had no access. I think about it often." "Three times, French policemen came to interrogate me. The first time, there were eight of them. Two asked questions; the others around asked for details. They behaved properly. They knew what was happening in Guantánamo. They told us to hold on; they couldn't do anything. Two Americans were present for the interrogations." "I learned I was going home two days before the day of departure. A Yemenite said to me: 'Mourad, you're French. You're going back to a country where there are laws. Tell what's happening here.' I have no hatred, no anger. Only incomprehension. I understand that Americans had to respond to September 11. But they have prisons in America. Maybe I made a mistake by going to Afghanistan, but I didn't deserve Guantánamo." http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022206C.shtml "Despite the many twists and turns that have brought it to this point, including the disconnect between the expectations articulated in the orders of this court and the court of appeals and the anesthesiologists retained by (the prison), the court nonetheless recognizes and respects the importance to the state of proceeding with the execution," Fogel wrote in his ruling. The judge specified that the fatal dose had to be administered in a way that left "no reasonable doubt" that it was relatively painless. The situation rekindled debate about the death penalty and made San Quentin Prison's death chamber an arena for a moral clash between the medical creed of protecting life and voter-backed capital punishment. "What is being asked of us now is ethically unacceptable," the original anesthesiologists said in a written statement delivered to the press by officials at San Quentin, across the bay from San Francisco. The warrant authorizing Morales to be put to death as punishment for rape and murder expires at the end of Tuesday, and would have to be re-issued by the original California trial judge. That judge has gone on record urging that Morales be spared death because of what appeared to be dubious testimony against Morales by a jailhouse informant. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022206H.shtml Why did we fall for it? How in the world could so many otherwise coherent liberals get so fooled? I count myself among them. At the same time I felt it was bogus, I didn't hit the streets in protest over invading Iraq at first. Why? My little brain keeps spinning around and I keep coming back to the same answer and I don't like it. It's unnerving, uncomfortable, and the kind of idea that the mind just wants to reject out of hand because it's just too difficult to grasp. It wasn't Bush's 16 words, and it wasn't any connection to 9/11. I think that the main reason Bush was able to get away with getting us into this war was that Colin Powell said that we had to. Powell's presentation to the UN was not intended to impress the UN (It didn't, by the way.). That speech was for us. That speech was to sell this war to Americans, and it worked. Powell had become such an icon, the closest thing to a hero that our country had seen in a long time, that it was simply not possible to not believe him. He was so respected and admired on both sides of the aisle that it was patently inconceivable that he could sit up there and lie to us. Could Colin Powell have lied to us? Making Powell Secretary of State was the most important thing that Bush did to legitimize his administration. In spite of all the party hacks and cronies and ex-Senators who had lost to dead people, the General was there, and he had that magic effect. He made you feel like somehow, in the end, everything would be all right. Powell's name had been bandied about as a Presidential candidate with bipartisan support. When's the last time that happened? He had a dignity, an aura of integrity, a sort of a moral righteousness (the real kind, not the fake Pat Robertson kind) that literally glowed around him. So when he spoke that day, even if you didn't really buy all the evidence, the creative part of the brain would kick in and fill in the blanks. Surely he knows more information that he can't tell us. It's top secret, right? That's Colin Powell up there, for Pete's sake! If he says we need to invade Iraq, then who am I to disagree?
To rush through this re-certification, the Secretary of State had to go back on his word -- twice -- and violate federal and state law in the process. Compounding this travesty is that the re-certification is based solely on the views and recommendations of people on the Secretary's payroll.
This is unacceptable!
Urge Secretary of State McPherson to reverse his decision on Diebold -- email him today!
The Secretary of State based his decision on what he called an "independent audit" -- which was really a review of the Diebold machines conducted by a board that he appointed himself. The results of this study were kept secret from you and every other California voter until after the Secretary made his decision to give Diebold the green light.
There was absolutely ZERO public review or input before this decision was made. That's not how you restore public confidence in California elections.
Why is Secretary McPherson so intent to rush through this Diebold certification?
Where are the results of tests conducted by the federal "Independent Testing Authorities?" McPherson told us last December that he wouldn't even consider Diebold's application until those tests were done.
And why didn't McPherson allow experts and the general public to review and comment on this latest report BEFORE he decided to flip-flop on the issue and re-certify these Diebold machines?
Urge the Secretary of State to reverse his decision to re-certify the Diebold machines -- and schedule a public hearing to independently review new and damaging information about Diebold's machines!
This report determined that "there are serious vulnerabilities" with the Diebold machines "that go beyond what was previously known."
Don't you think that Californians deserve voting systems without "serious vulnerabilities?"
Urge Secretary of State McPherson to stop the re-certification of these Diebold machines until we know the facts -- send him an email today!
So, just to recap the facts here:
* The Secretary of State's own rushed secret study points out "serious vulnerabilities... that go beyond what was previously known," yet the Secretary decided to re-certify the machines.
* There has been absolutely no opportunity for public comment or review on these latest findings.
* The Secretary of State told us he would wait for test results from the federal "Independent Testing Authorities" before acting on Diebold's request to re-certify its machines. He didn't do that.
* The Secretary of State said any voting machine in California would have to meet all federal laws, rules, and regulations. These Diebold machines fail that test -- especially by using "interpreted code" that is banned by the Election Assistance Commission.
* The Secretary of State said any voting machine in California would have to meet state law. These Diebold machines violate state law because they don't provide an audible "read-back" of the machines' auditable paper trail for blind and visually-impaired voters.
What could Secretary of State McPherson possibly be thinking?
Tell Secretary of State McPherson to put his decision to re-certify the Diebold machines on hold now!
Thanks so much for your help on this critical issue. The integrity of California's state elections system is at stake.
Sincerely,
Debra Bowen
California State Senator
P.S. I'm pursuing many other actions as well, including compelling voting machine vendors and the Secretary of State to appear before the State Senate. But right now it's important for Secretary of State McPherson to hear from all of us directly, since it was his decision on Friday to certify Diebold's machines -- and it is his responsibility to hear the facts and comply with the law.
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The recent news cycles, impelled as they are by the GOP, have been masterful. The Cheney shooting and subsequent media frenzy surrounding that episode occupied an entire week, the very week that followed three news stories on the previous Friday that would otherwise have been quite difficult to deal with directly.
After a week of hearings into the FEMA response to Katrina that saw Michael Brown laying blame on the DHS and claiming the White House knew from the first moment that New Orleans was flooding, Friday came along and we learned that Scotty Libby was fingering Cheney as the White House leaker-in-chief. That same day, news that former CIA official Robert Pillar, the man in charge of Middle East intelligence, was making claims that
intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made,
which simply reinforced the already known content of the Downing Street Memos.
And as though that weren't enough ugly news, air force veteran and former National Security Council aide, Heather A. Wilson (R-NM), chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, called for a full Congressional inquiry into the NSA wiretapping program.
And then Dick Cheney shot a guy.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ken_ande_060221_masters_of_message.htm
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http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bob_burn_060221_why_america_fights_3f.htm
..President Dwight Eisenhower’s famous farewell address to the nation. On his last day in office, the former five-star general warned, “We have been compelled to create a permanent armament industry of vast proportions… The total influence, economic, political, even spiritual, is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
.../...
Next, Jarecki cut to TV footage of Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, boasting that in the Iraqi invasion, America’s new bombing technology is 90-95 percent accurate. Rumsfeld claimed that there would be very few civilian casualties; our ordinance is only killing bad guys. Then the documentary flashes a graphic on the screen: Approximately 50 new-generation smart bombs were used in the opening days of the Iraq war. All missed their targets.
What happened? Was the technology faulty? Was Rumsfeld deliberately lying? Was the military actually targeting civilians? Was the intelligence bad? Was it all of the above? Jarecki doesn’t provide answers. He followed a provocative thread but didn’t tie off the end. The writer-director failed to provide what seems to be the obvious conclusion: America’s military-industrial complex tricked the Department of Defense into paying zillions of dollars for weapons that don’t work.
That’s illustrative of the general problem with Why We Fight. It asks important questions, but doesn’t provide substantive answers. Most of the probable audience for the film already knows that the military-industrial complex is bad for America; they just don’t know what to do about it. Nor, apparently, does Eugene Jarecki.
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.../... It was also revealed yesterday that two actors and the former Guantánamo Bay detainees who they played in the film were stopped by police under anti-terror laws when they returned from Berlin. Reprieve, a human rights group, said Mr. Ahmed and Mr. Rasul and the actors who played them - Rizwan Ahmed and Farhad Harun - were among a group of six "detained" at Luton airport last Thursday.
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"In One of the Interrogation Rooms, the Feeling the Brain Was Going to Dissolve"
The spotlights flashed very strong, very fast bursts of white light. It seems that that [room] makes you feel like your brain is going to dissolve. Some people stayed there two days."
"They made us take lots of medicine. They said that it was for tuberculosis, tetanus, or malaria. They were little pills with no marks on them. They were round, sometimes a little thick. They gave us headaches or made us throw up. We thought they were doing experiments on us, since, later, nurses asked us questions about the effects. There were also vaccinations - I think I got five of them - and blood samplings. I had nausea, diarrhea, and constipation. Once they gave us an injection that made a bulge in our arms they came to measure with a ruler."
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http://www.usalone.net/cgi-bin/oen.cgi?qnum=184
Urge CA SofS McPherson to reverse decision on Diebold
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? This Diebold pestilence is gratuitous FRAUD, and you Mr Secretary of State of Cal-e-fornification should be IMPEACHED and/or shot as a TRAITOR. And I should speak respectfuly to the abetter of dictatorship, the sultan of subjugation of the poor and miserable?
If you ever had a thought of decency in your cranium, we plead for your token assistance to get one speck of integrity into this system. Brainwashed sheep is bad enough. TOOB_FED Sheep with ZERO ACCESS TO HONEST information is bad enough. What remains of "America" does not deserve to be TOTALLY TRAMPLED BY TYRANTS. NO COUNTRY can ever say it has a "GOVERNMENT" when the vote-counting is all subject to rigged hoaxed absurd fraudulent 'voting machines'.
You must truly have no conceptualization of any God whatsoever. Eternal damnation is much too nice for your serpent-tongued proto-fascist RR GOP crowd.
R.I.P., Ha! Methinks, NOT.
wtchoax@gmail.com RSVP Mr Two-face.
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posted by USSSlavebation @ 2/22/2006 10:45:00 pm
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