Let's see:

Hitler killed some 17 million people, most of them solely for their race or ethnic heritage.

By comparison, George W. Bush has not even been rumored to have killed a single person based on race or ethnicity.

Hitler killed homosexuals.

Bush supports civil unions for homosexuals.

Hitler attempted to take over the world.

Bush has not attempted to colonize a single square inch of land or water.

Hitler murdered his political opponents.

Bush made no attempts to kill Gore or Kerry.


Clearly, some people need to learn that conservative and Nazi are not synonyms.

Oh, fott, you old fott, you gonna try pulling that jive, specious kind of phony reasoning on me??? I've heard it before and it's baloney. In the first place, this thread is comparing many aspects of fascist type systems, including the underlying economic changes, control of the media, propaganda as news, hyper-nationalism, military aggressiveness and unprovoked wars, control of government by big business and super-rich, widening gap between the rich and the poor (and everybody else), suppression of civil and human rights, torture, using religion as a tool of the state and vice versa, etc.. If people can see for themselves clear correlations between patterns common to previous fascist governments and patterns unfolding in America today, then we see it and you are not going to negate what we see or prove it false just by comparing a few aspects of one specific example of a fascist state at the height of its insanity and power, with America right now. You can't logically claim that because there is not an exact match then that 'proves' that what the rest of us are talking about is totally false. We're saying that there seems to be some deliberately engineered movement of the American political and economic systems in the direction of what would be recognized as fascism. We're not saying that 'Bush is Hitler' or that America is a full blown fascist state. Germany in the early to mid-thirties might be a better comparison that Germany in 1944.

In the second place, even your comparisons are kind of bogus. Get your facts straight. Hitler murdered about nine million in the camps, largely over race and ethnic roots, but the other deaths laid at his feet were the result of the wars and invasions. Russia lost many millions but it wasn't over race, it was over power and dominance. Your first point is disputable if you consider Bush's execution record as Governor of Texas. As President, Bush has now killed a lot of Arabs and Muslims, many of them civilians, and that may have a sort of 'white/christian superiority complex' tinge to it but mostly, I think, he's done it because he thinks that their country is sitting on top of 'our' oil. Hitler was a real nut-job and by the time he was stopped he had killed a lot of people. Having someone that crazy at the top is not some kind of requirement for a state to be considered fascist. Bush is more of figurehead for the neo/cons anyway. Moreover, this war with Iraq and, by extension, most of the Muslim world, that the neo/con-neo/fascists cooked up and dragged the US into with lies and deceptions, may, in the end, cause far more deaths than Hitler managed with his wars. The final score on that comparison is not in yet. Bush and the neo/cons have created many new enemies for America and some of them may be attacking us for generations. We have not even seen the first real counter-attacks strike our nation yet. We could lose millions of people in a day. Quite of few of the deaths that people blame on Hitler were, in fact, German deaths that occurred as a direct result of Hitler's wars leading to the Allied conquest. If several million Americans die in a retaliatory attack as a direct result of Bush's War on Iraq, will history blame him also? I sure will.

Your second point is laughable. Bush supports a Constitutional ban on gay marriage. The right wing, particularly the 'Christian' right, demonizes and scapegoats gays continuously. In any event, so what. You really think that Hitler killing gays makes that a primary identifying factor for fascism?

"Hitler attempted to take over the world." Well that's pretty much the neo/con plan too. Try reading the published papers of PNAC in the late 90's that detail their plans for American military hegemony and economic world dominance in the new century.

"Bush has not attempted to colonize a single square inch of land or water." Have you been living on another planet the last few years? Bush launched an unprovoked and illegal war of aggression against a nation that had not attacked us and was not an imminent threat to anyone. Two and a half years later America is still occupying that nation and has built over a dozen large, fortified, permanent military bases in that country. The neo/cons obviously never want to leave or give up Western corporate control of the oil. They probably never will unless the American people can somehow regain control of our political system and force a total pullout of our troops.

"Hitler murdered his political opponents.
Bush made no attempts to kill Gore or Kerry."
I think, at this stage of the game, physical assassination is a last resort of the far-far-right. Several of the strongest Democratic leaders have died under suspicious circumstances, notably Senator Paul Wellstone and Governor (soon to have been a Senator) Mel Carnahan. It's more politically expedient these days to utilize well financed 'character assassination', as was in fact done on both Kerry and Clinton and, to a lesser degree, Gore. And many others.

Lastly, your final point is also misleading. No one on this thread is saying that 'conservative' is a synonym for 'Nazi'. Many real conservatives in America would staunchly oppose fascism if they recognized it. Unfortunately, fascism seems to excel at wrapping itself in the flag as a disguise. Really we're mostly talking about the neo/con movement plus some deeper economic changes and corruption of the democratic process by money. These trends have reached a new intensity under Bush but they have been around for a long time. There has been an ever-increasing corporate struggle to dominate our government for well over a century now. The old barriers that were designed into our government or created later to try to prevent that from happening have largely broken down under the pressure of vast amounts of money so things are getting much worse now.

__________________
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. " --Noam Chomsky

Okay, even if you're saying that the current administration is comparable only with pre-World War II Nazi Germany, I can still give you a comparison:

In the 1930's, Hitler encouraged anti-Semitic violence, forced Jews to wear identifying Stars of David and seized all Jewish businesses.

The current administration has done nothing comparable to Arabs, members of the Islamic religion or to anyone else.

Hitler banned opposing political parties.

The Democratic Party and other parties far left of it still exist.

Hitler took over territory by stealth even before World War II.

Again, no one in the current administration has attempted to colonize any land.

Hitler massacred homosexuals in the 1930's.

Bush supports civil unions and Cheney openly opposes the idea of an anti-gay marriage Amendment.

I am not a neoconservative, just in case that is what you assumed. If you want to label me, I'm more of a paleoconservative with some libertarian leanings. My point isn't that Bush is a great leader; I recognize that he is a mediocre one. My point is that comparing the current administration with Nazi Germany or any form of fascism is like comparing the Democratic Party to the followers of Stalin or Mao.

except for communsits, socialists, masons, homosexuals, and of course Jews.... remember, he had the SS destroy all of these groups to the best of their ability.

Great posts ForceoftheTruth, said pretty much everything on my mind and more.

Its ridiculous to even compare the two. (just like comparing Hitler and Bush)

Thank you very much. My posts are sometimes boring, but I try to use common sense, or at least my understanding of it.

No, that's not what I am saying. If you had bothered to read the whole thread, you would know that we have been comparing the current situation in America to a variety of fascist style governments that have flourished briefly in the last 60 years or so. Not "comparable only with pre-World War II Nazi Germany".

Did you even bother to read my answer to your previous post? Repeating the same points I picked apart before doesn't make them any more germane to the topic. It just makes you look like a pig-headed fool. Picking out a few points where there is no exact correlation between America under Bush and Germany under Hitler proves nothing about whether or not America is moving in the direction of fascism. The articles and essays posted on this thread bring up many points of correspondence between previous fascist style governments and events currently unfolding in America. I notice you don't even try to address those points but rather you just keep insisting that if Bush doesn't round up homos and gas them, then we are in no danger of creeping fascism. Fine, keep your head stuck in a hole in the sand and refuse to see what's going on because it upsets your personal mythology about America. Our country has gone thru great changes in some fundamental structures in recent decades but many of the changes seem to have been slipped in below the radar for most Americans.

To remind you of what was said in one of the articles I posted previously:
"The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.

If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful.

American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact.

They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism..."

VP Henry A. Wallace gave the country a very insightful and very prescient warning about the dangers of home grown American style fascists. Too bad we didn't listen very well. You insist on saying that if Bush isn't doing exactly what Hitler did, then what he is doing can't be called 'fascist'. I'm afraid you are missing the point.

__________________
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. " --Noam Chomsky

You conclusion seems to be the same as saying that because a dog has eyes, ears and a tail like a cat, then that must mean it is really a cat. You want to discuss the similarities, but not the differences.

Your argument seems disingenuous to say the least.

__________________
My Political Blog (Updated Oct 3rd) - Which Flame Warrior are you?

Really? Which ones? Oh, I remember - I disagreed with you. Therefore my conclusions must be pathetic. Silly me.

Actually the list was created from a logical process of observations and conclusions - no nose-picking involved.

Ah, but that is one reason why my list is superior. You see, Britt should have bothered to define fascism before he tried to identify its characteristics. While political scientists can't agree on a specific definition, I believe many would find Britt's "14 characteristics" far too encompassing...

To some the word "fascism" refers only to Mussolini's Italian 'Fascisti' government.

To others it is the Merriam-Webster's definition: a "political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition."

Still others, like Britt, favor a much broader and more ambiguous interpretation. I believe that Britt's 14 characteristics were an attempt (perhaps an unconscious one) to hijack the definition and make it broader in scope than it was originally intended.

Great example. As I pointed out, my list describes the much more standard and accepted definition of fascism.

Kind of splitting hairs here aren't you? Remember I asked...
I said vastly different. Besides, private property under Metaxas and Salazar was an illusion. Your property was private only until the state decided it was needed.

Ah, but I have. Which brings us to the second reason my list is superior - it is fairly objective and easily quantified. Everyone can test every characteristic on my list for themselves to determine if their government is fascist.

All I can do here is point out the obvious: if America were as fascist as you think, we wouldn't be able to even have this discussion.

Fair enough - I will now. Let us take for example the first of his "14 characteristics"...

"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."

Here Dr. Britt makes no distinction between "nationalism" and displays of patriotism. Exactly at what point does patritotism become nationalism? If I fly a flag on my front porch on Memorial Day, am being patriotic or fascist? How about if I fly a flag and it's not Memorial Day? How is this quantifiable? Answer it isn't - it's completely subjective.

Or this one:

"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 is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts."

How is "disdain for the arts" defined? Book burning? Or according to Dr. Britt, are you a fascist if you simply oppose increasing the budget of the NEA? What if like me, you believe that funding art is not even a legitimate function of government? Then I suppose you are an uber-fascist?

I could go on and on, but again, the point is that these are completely subjective and therefore erroneous conclusions.

Git-R-done!

Seriously, I have great respect for the opinions of academics, and consider them carefully. But ultimately, this is no substutute for thinking for yourself.

You got things backwards again, merx, as usual. I disagree with you because your conclusions/opinions are pathetic. Even if I wasn't here, they would still be pathetically unintelligent and misinformed.

"You believe", as usual, without any reference to actual facts. Have you checked with some political scientists to see if they disagree with Dr. Britt? No, of course not. It's easier for you to just decide, sans data, what you think "many would find".

The really good, accurate definitions of fascism, are found in older dictionaries from the 40's, 50's & 60's that were written by people who had actually seen (and probably fought) fascism up close and personal as the German Nazis and Imperial Japan slaughtered millions in their campaign to conquer the world. I think these older definitions have become a bit embarrassing to modern Republicans as their "great war President" tries to lead America down much the same road that Hitler took Germany.

FASCISM – “A philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism.” - The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, New College Edition, copyright 1969, printed 1976. (also)
- “A political philosophy and movement of extreme nationalism, militaristic imperialism, suppression of civil rights, and opposition to democratic social progress, expressed through the efforts of a fanatic minority to seize complete political power.” - The Grosset Webster Dictionary, revised edition, copyright 1947, printed 1978.

You talk like 'definitions' are written in stone and brought down from the mountain. LOL. A definition is supposed to be a common reference point for what people mean by a word and this sometimes changes over time. Since WWII there have been a number of other governments/dictators that pretty much everybody has recognized as being what they would call 'fascist'. Dr. Britt studied some of those governments and identified some common characteristics that they all shared that seem to distinguish fascist style governments from most others. Certainly there is some amount of overlap with other autocracies that might not be specifically termed 'fascist', but not anywhere near as much overlap and vagueness as your boogers.

What kind of braindead response is that? Greece was ruled by a military junta, not "a dictator. So your list is not very accurate or specific to just 'fascism'.

Oh, so countries have to be "vastly" different from your 'list' before it doesn't apply? LOL. So even if, in some of these fascist countries, there was no "expropriation, redistribution, or nationalization of private property", that doesn't matter because 'they could have if they had wanted to'? Good example of a pathetic conclusion.

No you obviously haven't. If you had you would know that some of the overly vague items on your list just don't apply to some of the fascist countries that Dr. Britt studied. Most of the items on your list aren't specific to what people recognize as fascism but instead could as well apply to absolute monarchies, oligarchies and 'communist' dictatorships.

Your list is a joke, not 'superior'. You made it up because you can't handle the fact that, by most objective standards, America has been dragged in the direction of fascism by Bush and the neo/con-artists.

Another cop-out based on your idiotic two-valued logic that says that if we aren't totally fascist right now then we are absolutely, completely not fascist right now. The point that I and many others have been making is that America is moving towards a more fascist type system under the current Bush Administration. Our home-grown proto-fascists don't have to suppress "this discussion", they just have to prevent such discussions from being widely disseminated thru the MSM.

"The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

How silly can you get? Ordinary "displays of patriotism" are not what he is referring to and if you had really studied the matter you would realize that.
Flying your flag on Memorial Day, or any other time, is 'vastly' different from the "constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia" to keep the people whipped up into a constant frenzy of hyper-nationalism in order to generate support for aggressive wars, persecution and torture of supposed 'enemies', and other horrors. How many more flags do we all see everyday now then we would have seen 5 years ago - 100 times, 500 times? Flags are now ubiquitous on buildings, cars, lapels, billboards, ads and many other places.

Here's some examples:

Bush's new economic plan cuts funding for arts, education

Aaron Kraft
Staff Writer
Orbis
February 26, 2003

Yet another victim of the Bush economic plan, funding for the arts in education has been cut considerably. Because of Bush's unfair tax cuts for the wealthy, the United States is now forced to make up for the large deficit by slashing various programs. Although he ran on a platform that emphasized education, President Bush sadly sees the arts as an expendable part of a child's learning process.

Ignoring experts who have repeatedly justified their value in education, Bush has cut funding for the arts by $30 million for fiscal year 2003. In fact, he is calling for a total cut of $1.8 billion, cutting 57 valuable educational programs in the process. With so many programs frozen with last year's funding, schools in fact have less money with which to work.

Bush made a promise by naming his highly publicized bipartisan bill the "No Child Left Behind" Act; this is a promise he has failed to keep. Since the bill went through, there has been a Republican effort to block all funding for the mandates of the bill. By holding schools accountable for funding while they face budget calamities, and by denying federal assistance in the form of funding to education, President Bush has in fact taken away in chance for this bill to succeed.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest losers in Bush's budget has been the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). For fiscal year 2004, he has once again recommended flat funding, while zeroing out any funding toward arts in education.
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Published on Thursday, February 19, 2004 by Knight-Ridder
CD News Center

Bush Administration Accused of Suppressing, Distorting Science

by Seth Borenstein

WASHINGTON - A group of more than 60 top U.S. scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and several science advisers to past Republican presidents, on Wednesday accused the Bush administration of manipulating and censoring science for political purposes.

In a 46-page report and an open letter, the scientists accused the administration of "suppressing, distorting or manipulating the work done by scientists at federal agencies" in several cases. The Union of Concerned Scientists, a liberal advocacy group based in Cambridge, Mass., organized the effort, but many of the critics aren't associated with it.

"If an administration of whatever political persuasion ignores scientific reality, they do so at great risk to the country," said Stanford University physicist W.H.K. Panofsky, who served on scientific advisory councils in the Eisenhower, Johnson and Carter administrations. "There is no clear understanding in the (Bush) administration that you cannot bend science and technology to policy."

The report charges that administration officials have:

Ordered massive changes to a section on global warming in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2003 Report on the Environment. Eventually, the entire section was dropped.
Replaced a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fact sheet on proper condom use with a warning emphasizing condom failure rates.
Ignored advice from top Department of Energy nuclear materials experts who cautioned that aluminum tubes being imported by Iraq weren't suitable for use to make nuclear weapons.
Established political litmus tests for scientific advisory boards. In one case, public health experts were removed from a CDC lead paint advisory panel and replaced with researchers who had financial ties to the lead industry.
Suppressed a U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist's finding that potentially harmful bacteria float in the air surrounding large hog farms.
Excluded scientists who've received federal grants from regulatory advisory panels while permitting the appointment of scientists from regulated industries.

"I don't recall it ever being so blatant in the past," said Princeton University physicist Val Fitch, a 1980 Nobel Prize winner who served on a Nixon administration science advisory committee. "It's just time after time after time. The facts have been distorted."

Russell Train, an EPA administrator in the Nixon and Ford administrations who spoke on the protesters' behalf, described the Bush administration's treatment of science and scientists as so "dictatorial" that it was causing good scientists to leave the federal government.

James Zahn, a former Agriculture Department microbiologist, said he discovered accidentally that pig farms in southwestern Minnesota, northern Missouri and Iowa were emitting airborne bacteria. Because pigs are often fed antibiotics, Zahn speculated that airborne bacteria from farms could include drug-resistant bacteria, which, if breathed by humans, would make them harder to treat when ill.

Zahn presented his findings at a scientific conference in 2000, but the Bush administration stopped him from publishing his data 11 times between September 2001 and April 2002, he said. When Danish researchers sought to learn more about his work, Zahn wasn't allowed to share his techniques.

"It was truly a new problem with potential impact on human health," Zahn said.

The protest occurred on the same day that the independent National Academy of Sciences released its study of the Bush administration's plans for global warming research. The national academy's report warned strenuously about the dangers of politicizing climate change science, but said the Bush research plan was on the right track, though it noted that it was underfunded.

James Mahoney, who directs the global warming research plan, acknowledged that the Bush administration had cut the research budget from $2.2 billion this year to $1.96 next year.

William Schlesinger, the dean of the School of Environment at Duke University in Durham, N.C., participated in the academy's study and the scientists' protest. He gave the Bush administration's climate plan a grade of B-.

But, he added, the Bush administration's science policy is too politicized and gets a "D." He said, "Scientists are very disappointed at this administration's use and regard of science."

Copyright 2004 Knight-Ridder

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
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You could go on and on but it would almost certainly be just as stupid and irrelevant as this previous drivel. You have no point because you are 'completely subjective' and your totally 'erroneous conclusions' are truly pathetic. Dr. Britt identified objective criteria, common to the seven fascist states he studied, that are there to see for anyone who actually looks. You've chosen to avoid looking at the facts of the matter and instead just want to play with abstractions in your head. You are in a state of denial and are just trying to pseudo-rationalize it.

__________________
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. " --Noam Chomsky