Rumsfeld- "Critics are morally and intellectually confused Nazi appeasers."

[freedomburns]

Rumsfeld seems to be projecting here.  Somehow he seems to think that the kettle is black, or then again, maybe it's the pot.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/29/rumsfeld.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

...In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration's critics as suffering from "moral and intellectual confusion" about what threatens the nation's security.

Addressing several thousand veterans at the American Legion's national convention, Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failed efforts to appease the Adolf Hitler regime in the 1930s. "I recount this history because once again we face the same kind of challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism" he said.
(clip)
"But it is apparent that many have still not learned history's lessons," he said, adding that part of the problem is that the American news media have tended to emphasize the negative rather than the positive.

He said, for example, that more media attention was given to U.S. soldiers' abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib than to the fact that Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith received the Medal of Honor.
<...>

__________________________________________________________

I find it ironic that the Bush administration invokes the Nazis to condemn its critics when part of Dubya's money comes from grandfather Prescott Bush's financial alliance with the Nazis. 

'On October 20, 1942, the US Alien Property Custodian, under the "Trading With the Enemy Act," seized the shares of the Union Banking Corporation (UBC), of which Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder. The largest shareholder was E. Roland Harriman. (Bush was also the managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman, a leading Wall Street investment firm.)

The UBC was established to send American capital to Germany to finance the reorganization of its industry under the Nazis. Their leading German partner was the notorious Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, who wrote a book admitting much of this called "I Paid Hitler."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804615535/102-6396902-4320134?v=glance&n=283155

Among the companies financed was the Silesian-American Corporation, which was also managed by Prescott Bush, and by his father-in-law George Herbert Walker, who supplied Dub-a-Ya with his name. The company was vital in supplying coal to the Nazi war industry. It too was seized as a Nazi-front on November 17, 1942. The largest company Bush's UBC helped finance was the German Steel Trust, responsible for between one-third and one-half of Nazi iron and explosives.

Prescott Bush was also a director of the Harriman Fifteen Corporation, (this one owned largely by Roland's brother, Averell Harriman), which owned about a third of the Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation, the rest owned by Friedrich Flick, (a member of Himmler's "Circle of Friends" who donated to the S.S.).

Republican Presidential candidate Bush's great-grandfather, Bert Walker, helped organize the Harriman investment in the Hamburg-America Line of ships, of which grandfather Prescott became a director. It was seized on August 28, 1942 because it was used to give free passage to Nazi propaganda and propagandists, and had earlier shipped guns to the Nazi's private armies to assist their takeover of Germany.

Further examples would be more tedious than shocking. But, given these evil financial dealings, how did Prescott later become a Republican Senator, and George H.W. become President? Well,the two leading attorneys for these Bush-Harriman-Nazi deals were John Foster Dulles, later Secretary of State under Eisenhower, and Allen Dulles, future head of the CIA.'

<...>

http://www.lpdallas.org/features/draheim/dr991216.htm

Yes, it is ironic.  And yes, Rumsfeld is using a desperate tactic to deflect attention away from failed policies.  It's obvious to me.  It's also quite obvious to Kieth Olberman:

Video of the most moving and articulate thing you will see on TV all year:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/30/keith-olbermann-delivers-one-hell-of-a-commentary-on-rumsfeld

TRANSCRIPT: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240

See the video, though.  Keith's passion for the subject comes through.

"Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth; and that, I am sure, is the ultimate and sincere object of us both. We both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves."
--Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson would be proud of him.  (Murrow, too, I think.)


fb

[Smash255]

He really needs to be Fired

[angus]

No doubt that comparing any anglophone to Neville Chamberlain is a good way to light a fire under his ass, but Senator Jack Reed calls the comparison an imprecise analogy and points out the the German, Italian, and Japanese fascist movements overtook governments, formally and officially, for a period, whereas "islamofascism" really hasn't.  It's a loose movement, more difficult to deal with.  German and Italian and Japanese fascist governments used conventional armies.  Our current enemies do not.  Reed has also pointed out that while such inflammatory diatribes may have emotional appeal, they confound an already serious problem by glossing over the complexities we now face in fighting terrorism.  I agree with Reed. 

[Inmate Trump]

Rumi....oh Rumi..

[Citizen James]

Dr. Strangelove lives.

[The Duke]

Only a buffoon on the scale of Keith Olbermann could make me defend Donald Rumsfeld.

Olbermann claims his opponents are always incompetent facists who are always wrong and does so in black and white language.  He fear mongers even as he condemns fear mongering and he claims omniscience even as he warns us about those who would do so.  His self contradictions are obvious, yet he utters them without a hint of irony.  He speaks in vague terms because he has no specifics.

[angus]

Apparently he isn't one of Carl's favorite talking heads either.  Carl has posted commentary about Keith and his Countdown show often.  This is one of my personal favorites:

You have to remember that Oberman is an extremely sick. extremely left wing nut case.

He hated Mother Theresa.

Of course, Olbermann is a gasbag and he's as sensationalistic and as obtuse as anyone on his or any other network, with the possible exception of Nancy Grace.  <shudder>  He also has a weird Bill O'Reilly fetish, or overly aggressive and unhealthy envy of O'Reilly's show, and mentions O'Reilly about once per week.  Of course, O'Reilly is a sensationalistic, opinionated gasbag as well. 

Still, I think Secretary Rumsfeld is not helping when he makes this comparison, mostly for the reasons stated by Senator Reed.

[minionofmidas]

I agree that most of Rumsfeld's critics are far too appeasing towards him.

[Storebought]

Apparently he isn't one of Carl's favorite talking heads either.  Carl has posted commentary about Keith and his Countdown show often.  This is one of my personal favorites:

You have to remember that Oberman is an extremely sick. extremely left wing nut case.

He hated Mother Theresa.

Of course, Olbermann is a gasbag and he's as sensationalistic and as obtuse as anyone on his or any other network, with the possible exception of Nancy Grace.  <shudder>  He also has a weird Bill O'Reilly fetish, or overly aggressive and unhealthy envy of O'Reilly's show, and mentions O'Reilly about once per week.  Of course, O'Reilly is a sensationalistic, opinionated gasbag as well. 

Still, I think Secretary Rumsfeld is not helping when he makes this comparison, mostly for the reasons stated by Senator Reed.

Maybe so, but besides Rumsfeld (and by extension Bush and Cheney), who else has articulated, let alone implemented, any means to actually stop the movement Sen. Reed so aptly describes as nebulous?

And, no, an international "police action" against one specific group is not sufficient (since it has already been established that one group may disband and start another with the remains of another cell).

[dazzleman]

Apparently he isn't one of Carl's favorite talking heads either.  Carl has posted commentary about Keith and his Countdown show often.  This is one of my personal favorites:

You have to remember that Oberman is an extremely sick. extremely left wing nut case.

He hated Mother Theresa.

Of course, Olbermann is a gasbag and he's as sensationalistic and as obtuse as anyone on his or any other network, with the possible exception of Nancy Grace.  <shudder>  He also has a weird Bill O'Reilly fetish, or overly aggressive and unhealthy envy of O'Reilly's show, and mentions O'Reilly about once per week.  Of course, O'Reilly is a sensationalistic, opinionated gasbag as well. 

Still, I think Secretary Rumsfeld is not helping when he makes this comparison, mostly for the reasons stated by Senator Reed.

Maybe so, but besides Rumsfeld (and by extension Bush and Cheney), who else has articulated, let alone implemented, any means to actually stop the movement Sen. Reed so aptly describes as nebulous?

And, no, an international "police action" against one specific group is not sufficient (since it has already been established that one group may disband and start another with the remains of another cell).

^^^^^^^^

I can't stand Reed.  He speaks about the tactics and means used by the islamofascist aggressors, and tries to use the differences with World War II tactics and means as a way to avoid the necessity of standing up to the aggression.  In the end, tactics and means are just that, and different tactics and don't vitiate the need to have a strategy to deal with them.

Reed said precisely nothing, as intended, because he has nothing to say.

[Rob]

islamofascist aggressors

Not quite on topic, but the Nation recently published a devastating critique of the term "Islamofascism":

... more important, "Islamo-fascism" conflates a wide variety of disparate states, movements and organizations as if, like the fascists, they all want similar things and are working together to achieve them. Neocons have called Saddam Hussein and the Baathists of Syria Islamo-fascists, but these relatively secular nationalist tyrants have nothing in common with shadowy, stateless, fundamentalist Al Qaeda--as even Bush now acknowledges--or with the Taliban, who want to return Afghanistan to the seventh century; and the Taliban aren't much like Iran, which is different from (and somewhat less repressive than) Saudi Arabia--whoops, our big ally in the Middle East! Who are the "Islamo-fascists" in Saudi Arabia--the current regime or its religious-fanatical opponents?

...

"Islamo-fascism" looks like an analytic term, but really it's an emotional one, intended to get us to think less and fear more. It presents the bewildering politics of the Muslim world as a simple matter of Us versus Them, with war to the end the only answer, as with Hitler. If you doubt that every other British Muslim under the age of 30 is ready to blow himself up for Allah, or that shredding the Constitution is the way to protect ourselves from suicide bombers, if you think that Hamas might be less popular if Palestinians were less miserable, you get cast as Neville Chamberlain, while Bush plays FDR... 

Suddenly it's just a detail that Saddam wasn't connected with 9/11, had no WMDs, was not poised to attack the United States or Israel--he hated freedom, and that was enough. It doesn't matter, either, that Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites seem less interested in uniting the umma than in murdering one another. With luck we'll be so scared we won't ask why anyone should listen to another word from people who were spectacularly wrong about the biggest politico-military initiative of the past thirty years, and their balding heads will continue to glow on our TV screens for many nights to come. On to Tehran!

"Islamo-fascism" enrages to no purpose the dwindling number of Muslims who don't already hate us. At the same time, it clouds with ideology a range of situations--Lebanon, Palestine, airplane and subway bombings, Afghanistan, Iraq--we need to see clearly and distinctly and deal with in a focused way. No wonder the people who brought us the disaster in Iraq are so fond of it.

[dazzleman]

islamofascist aggressors

Not quite on topic, but the Nation recently published a devastating critique of the term "Islamofascism":

... more important, "Islamo-fascism" conflates a wide variety of disparate states, movements and organizations as if, like the fascists, they all want similar things and are working together to achieve them. Neocons have called Saddam Hussein and the Baathists of Syria Islamo-fascists, but these relatively secular nationalist tyrants have nothing in common with shadowy, stateless, fundamentalist Al Qaeda--as even Bush now acknowledges--or with the Taliban, who want to return Afghanistan to the seventh century; and the Taliban aren't much like Iran, which is different from (and somewhat less repressive than) Saudi Arabia--whoops, our big ally in the Middle East! Who are the "Islamo-fascists" in Saudi Arabia--the current regime or its religious-fanatical opponents?

...

"Islamo-fascism" looks like an analytic term, but really it's an emotional one, intended to get us to think less and fear more. It presents the bewildering politics of the Muslim world as a simple matter of Us versus Them, with war to the end the only answer, as with Hitler. If you doubt that every other British Muslim under the age of 30 is ready to blow himself up for Allah, or that shredding the Constitution is the way to protect ourselves from suicide bombers, if you think that Hamas might be less popular if Palestinians were less miserable, you get cast as Neville Chamberlain, while Bush plays FDR... 

Suddenly it's just a detail that Saddam wasn't connected with 9/11, had no WMDs, was not poised to attack the United States or Israel--he hated freedom, and that was enough. It doesn't matter, either, that Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites seem less interested in uniting the umma than in murdering one another. With luck we'll be so scared we won't ask why anyone should listen to another word from people who were spectacularly wrong about the biggest politico-military initiative of the past thirty years, and their balding heads will continue to glow on our TV screens for many nights to come. On to Tehran!

"Islamo-fascism" enrages to no purpose the dwindling number of Muslims who don't already hate us. At the same time, it clouds with ideology a range of situations--Lebanon, Palestine, airplane and subway bombings, Afghanistan, Iraq--we need to see clearly and distinctly and deal with in a focused way. No wonder the people who brought us the disaster in Iraq are so fond of it.

What term do you favor Rob?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

islamofascist aggressors

Not quite on topic, but the Nation recently published a devastating critique of the term "Islamofascism":

... more important, "Islamo-fascism" conflates a wide variety of disparate states, movements and organizations as if, like the fascists, they all want similar things and are working together to achieve them. Neocons have called Saddam Hussein and the Baathists of Syria Islamo-fascists, but these relatively secular nationalist tyrants have nothing in common with shadowy, stateless, fundamentalist Al Qaeda--as even Bush now acknowledges--or with the Taliban, who want to return Afghanistan to the seventh century; and the Taliban aren't much like Iran, which is different from (and somewhat less repressive than) Saudi Arabia--whoops, our big ally in the Middle East! Who are the "Islamo-fascists" in Saudi Arabia--the current regime or its religious-fanatical opponents?

...

"Islamo-fascism" looks like an analytic term, but really it's an emotional one, intended to get us to think less and fear more. It presents the bewildering politics of the Muslim world as a simple matter of Us versus Them, with war to the end the only answer, as with Hitler. If you doubt that every other British Muslim under the age of 30 is ready to blow himself up for Allah, or that shredding the Constitution is the way to protect ourselves from suicide bombers, if you think that Hamas might be less popular if Palestinians were less miserable, you get cast as Neville Chamberlain, while Bush plays FDR... 

Suddenly it's just a detail that Saddam wasn't connected with 9/11, had no WMDs, was not poised to attack the United States or Israel--he hated freedom, and that was enough. It doesn't matter, either, that Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites seem less interested in uniting the umma than in murdering one another. With luck we'll be so scared we won't ask why anyone should listen to another word from people who were spectacularly wrong about the biggest politico-military initiative of the past thirty years, and their balding heads will continue to glow on our TV screens for many nights to come. On to Tehran!

"Islamo-fascism" enrages to no purpose the dwindling number of Muslims who don't already hate us. At the same time, it clouds with ideology a range of situations--Lebanon, Palestine, airplane and subway bombings, Afghanistan, Iraq--we need to see clearly and distinctly and deal with in a focused way. No wonder the people who brought us the disaster in Iraq are so fond of it.

What term do you favor Rob?

I can't speak for him, but I favor the correct and actual term: Islamism

Islamists are not fascists, they have very little in common with any actual fascist ideology. Most fascist movements in Islamic countries are rather at odds with Islamists usually. You may not like either them or fascism, but that hardly makes it the same thing. You don't like communism either, but you would never call them "Islamocommunists"

[??????????]

I prefer the term Islamofascist which is overall pretty accurate.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I prefer the term Islamofascist which is overall pretty accurate.

The Christofascists are quite bad too.

[freedomburns]

Not to mention the Jewofascists and the Bhuddofascists.

[dazzleman]

I prefer the term Islamofascist which is overall pretty accurate.

The Christofascists are quite bad too.

Yes, of couse.  So many of them are flying planes into buildings and pulling off suicide bombings.  I read about it in the paper every day.  There's obviously no connection between radical islam and terrorism.....there's just as much of a chance that a terrorist belongs to any other religion, particularly Christianity.  Right?

[freedomburns]

I prefer the term Islamofascist which is overall pretty accurate.

Wrong.  Totally wrong.  And allow me to tell you why.  The fact that we would never as a society accept terms such as Christofascist or Jewish-fascist only serves to illustrate the point I am making.

First, you need to buy a dictionary.

From The American Heritage Dictionary - "A philosophy or system of government that is marked by stringent social and economic control, a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator, and often a policy of belligerent nationalism."

Islamic religious extremism is a movement, it is not a government and it has no national boundaries. Moreover, there is no single leader who could be called the dictator of this movement.  Mussolini, arguably the originator of fascism, defined fascism as a corporate controlled government. That definition comes closer to describing the government of modern-day United States than it does the radical fundamentalist Islamic movement.

Let's examine this idea more closely using Laurence Britt's 14 Points of Fascism.

Analysis of seven fascist regimes (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia) reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity.

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. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6.)  Controlled Mass Media: Sometimes the 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 is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

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.

Here is the entry for fascism in Wiki:
"Although the broadest definitions of fascism may include every authoritarian state that has ever existed, most theorists see important distinctions to be made. Fascism in Italy arose in the 1920s as a mixture of syndicalist notions with an anti-materialist theory of the state; the latter had already been linked to an extreme nationalism. Fascism in many ways seems to have been clearly developed as a reaction against Communism and Marxism, both in a philosophic and political sense, although it opposed democratic capitalist economics along with socialism, Marxism, and liberal democracy. It viewed the state as an organic entity in a positive light rather than as an institution designed to protect collective and individual rights, or as one that should be held in check. It tended to reject the Marxist notion of social classes and universally dismissed the concept of class conflict, replacing it instead with the struggle between races, and the struggle of the youth versus their elders. This meant embracing nationalism and mysticism, and advancing ideals of strength and power as means of legitimacy, glorifying war as an end in itself and victory as the determinant of truth and worthiness. An affinity to these ideas can be found in Social Darwinism. These ideas are in direct opposition to the ideals of humanism and rationalism characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment, from which liberalism and, later, Marxism would emerge.
Fascism is also typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic. The fascist state regulates and controls (as opposed to nationalizing) the means of production. Fascism exalts the nation, state, or race as superior to the individuals, institutions, or groups composing it. Fascism uses explicit populist rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and demands loyalty to a single leader, often to the point of a cult of personality.
Fascism attracted political support from diverse sectors of the population, including big business, farmers and landowners, nationalists, and reactionaries, disaffected World War I veterans, intellectuals such as Gabriele D'Annunzio, Curzio Malaparte, Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger to name a few, conservatives and small businessmen, and the poor to whom they promised work and bread. In countries such as Romania and Hungary (and to a lesser extent in other states), Fascism had a strong base of support among the working classes and extremely poor peasants. The broad appeal of support for Fascism makes it different from other totalitarian states.
The word has become a slur throughout the political spectrum since the failure of the Axis powers in World War II, and it has been extremely uncommon for any political groups to call themselves "fascist" since 1945. In contemporary political discourse, adherents of some political ideologies tend to associate fascism with their enemies, or define it as the opposite of their own views.


From this we can conluded that 'Fascist' does NOT = Islamic extremist.  Islamic CONSERVATISM does NOT = Islamic FASCISM.  Fascism is a totally different animal. It involves close ties between business and government.  It is a reactionary, anti-liberal totalitarian political philosophy, usually with a strong component of ethnic nationalism, that glorifies the State as supreme. The Islamists simply are not operating under this model. It is the wrong word. Religious fanatics aren't fascists; anyone who tries to argue that they are is obviously either deeply ignorant of what fascism actually IS, or employing the word in a propagandistic manner.   Fundamentalist Muslims (or Christians) are no more 'fascists' than a Democrat is a Communist.  Of course, If this were thirty years ago, you'd be saying "Islamocommunists" with equal ignorance.

fb

[??????????]

When you were listing fascist tendencies I thought you were going to say "Iran" at the end. Which would be an absolutely accurate fit. Iran is a Islamofascist country.

[freedomburns]

When you were listing fascist tendencies I thought you were going to say "Iran" at the end. Which would be an absolutely accurate fit. Iran is a Islamofascist country.

Possibly.  But, I feel like we might be able to find a more accurate term for that administration, as well.

[??????????]

When you were listing fascist tendencies I thought you were going to say "Iran" at the end. Which would be an absolutely accurate fit. Iran is a Islamofascist country.

Possibly.  But, I feel like we might be able to find a more accurate term for that administration, as well.

Yeah, you're damn right about that! Just the other day the police came to my neighbors door and hauled them off to jail because they put a sign for a Democrat in their yard. Then when I was walking downtown the cops beat up a woman and hauled her off because she wasn't properly covering her head. And in my mail last week I got a flyer to lead a "Bush Youth" organization, pretty snappy uniforms, brown with little Christian cross armbands, they seem pretty neat.

[minionofmidas]

Incomplete notes on these points...

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.

Certainly, all of these are correct.

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This, while *largely* correct regarding the regimes studied, is not really an intrinsic part of fascism - not to mention, certainly not an identifying mark as it exists in lots of non-fascist societies as well.

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Censorship in war time exist(s/ed) almost everywhere. The stress in the "other cases" part belongs on "controlled by" - otherwise the statement reads as if some fascist regimes suppress the media and others don't, ie as if media control were not an intrinsic part of the fascist agenda.

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Actually, *voluntary* labor unions are suppressed and are replaced with compulsory labor unions with very little real power, of which the employers are also members. Of course, this applies to Stalinism just as it applies to Hitler's Germany or Salazar's Portugal.

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And other times they do not exist at all.

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I'm missing an emphasis here that Socialist thought is by definition internationalist, and that a Socialist movement that loses sight of this fact is always in danger of lapsing into Fascism. It is no surprise at all that Mussolini was once an important member of the Italian Socialist Party...

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No. Englightenment rationalism only went so far really - Rousseau is nothing if not a mystic. Fascism is certainly rooted (in part) in the enlightenment tradition.

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I can never read that hateful term, "Islamofascist", without developing an urgent desire to introduce the author to a kettle.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

Not really; most fascist regimes have seen religion as a, potential (and that word is important IMO), threat and tried to neutralise it as a threat, rather than use it to spread the word. I've got quite a lot of stuff on this somewhere (but can't find it...), but I seem to remember that religious doctrines were often perverted by virulient (sp?) nationalism, party cultism and so on.
IIRC the relationship between the state/party and the sham-church the Nazis set up, was somewhat similer to the relationship between the state/party and the sham-unions they set up, although it's been a while since I've read anything about it.
There's a big difference between theocracies and fascist states IMO.

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...or that Oswald Moseley was once a leading (if mistrusted by his collegues) Labour M.P.
Or that there's something eeriely proto-fascist about the last stages of Joseph Chamberlain's (once a leading leftwing (for his time and class) radical... I think he did actually call himself a Socialist on occasion early on) long career.

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I always thought that it was amongst the lower middle classes, that support for Fascism was strongest?

[minionofmidas]

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.

Not really; most fascist regimes have seen religion as a, potential (and that word is important IMO), threat and tried to neutralise it as a threat, rather than use it to spread the word. I've got quite a lot of stuff on this somewhere (but can't find it...), but I seem to remember that religious doctrines were often perverted by virulient (sp?) nationalism, party cultism and so on.

Not necessarily a contradiction - the two things can go hand in hand, and did in Nazi Germany. Mind you, the Spanish and Portuguese regimes were devoutly Catholic.

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Yes, I think that was part of fb's point as well.

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...or that Oswald Moseley was once a leading (if mistrusted by his collegues) Labour M.P.
Or that there's something eeriely proto-fascist about the last stages of Joseph Chamberlain's (once a leading leftwing (for his time and class) radical... I think he did actually call himself a Socialist on occasion early on) long career.[/quote]Or, of course, what the Soviet Union developped into once they gave up hope of immediate world revolution and set upon to erect "socialism in one country".

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I always thought that it was amongst the lower middle classes, that support for Fascism was strongest?
[/quote]In a sense, peasants, even the poorest (as opposed to farm laborers) belong to the lower middle classes. And in another sense not. Of course, note the "in countries such as Romania and Hungary" that is part of this sentence - then again, Protestant agricultural areas were Hitler's best areas in Germany.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not necessarily a contradiction - the two things can go hand in hand, and did in Nazi Germany. Mind you, the Spanish and Portuguese regimes were devoutly Catholic.

True. Still, it's a point that had to be made

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Yes, but that's a given

And here's a rather pathetic example; Robert Kilroy-Silk!

Mind you, it's also quite easy for conservative nationalists to slip into fascism; most of the people that followed Moseley into the predecessor to the BUF or who were members of the Right Club (I think that was it's name) were Tories (and the electors of Galloway re-elected one of them in 1945).

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Fair point. Which reminds me, didn't you post some Weimar-era election results a year or so ago?