We Now Live in a Fascist State

[Ocean Breeze]

But fascism under a stretched definition is coming inexorably from we the people and not from the usual suspects.

on what do you base this???

That would suggest that "the people" are choosing it.

 

[jimmoyer]

I've modified a previous post and added a few more new thoughts:



I see the source of fascism coming from a increasingly urban way of living for most of this planet. Too many people living too closely must by necessity come up with many rules governing our behavior. This of course will limit many activities we might want to do.

A rural outlook always rails against those rules.

In addition I see the liberal desire for stem cell research running headlong into a Frankenstein future we cannot stop.

I see our desire for convenience with credit cards and debit cards creating databases that assail our privacy greater than any American President could hope to do.

I see the spectre of fascism now in our lives of convenience. I see mothers wanting to know the longitude and latitude of their children with a cell phone and a GEO locator. I see bosses wanting to know if we are in stall number 3 in the bathroom.

Convenience, my friend, to know where anyone else is at any given time.

There are other things we people are choosing to have and it creates quite a system of controls over our lives.

Our desire to perfect our perceived imperfections will result in creating biological programmable robots without the electrical plug, and in our own image will we aspire to create a race of beings we think will have none of our wasteful inefficiencies.

In our desire for perfection and convenience we will forever dominate others who think differently.

 

[jjw1965]

I see our desire for convenience with credit cards and debit cards creating databases that assail our privacy greater than any American President could hope to do.

I see the spectre of fascism now in our lives of convenience. I see mothers wanting to know the longitude and latitude of their children with a cell phone and a GEO locator. I see bosses wanting to know if we are in stall number 3 in the bathroom.

Convenience, my friend, to know where anyone else is at any given time.

There are other things we people are choosing to have and it creates quite a system of controls over our lives.

Our desire to perfect our perceived imperfections will result in creating biological programmable robots without the electrical plug, and in our own image will we aspire to create a race of beings we think will have none of our wasteful inefficiencies.

In our desire for perfection and convenience we will forever dominate others who think differently.

All a part of an agenda thats been here longer than you or I.
It's called the New World Order.

Set up a surveillance system to track everyone on the planet, not only cameras but chips for everyone.

Set up a cashless society, use the chips in place of credit cards, cash and ect.

Stem cell research to cloning, so that the ones who rule the sheep will live longer to do it.

 

[jimmoyer]

The important matter here is that we are all complicit in this change. All our righteous indignation is easy when it has one person to focus its ire, but how does indignation retain its fine flame when it has to look at these matters of blackberries, podcasts (spooky name), stem cell research, cameras on every street, urban attitudes influencing all of our laws, databases created for our convenience ?

We see liberal attitudes ridiculing the Christian right for feeling skeptical about the slippery slope of stem cell research?
We will create a new Frankenstein and a lot of us will like how we created a better one than the scary story we read as kids.

We no longer have "an expectation of privacy" and most law in western nations have built up quite a legal system based on that concept.

Credit and money supply depends on shared data, and accountants trying to limit health costs will depend on technology to find out what kind of person they are ensuring.

I find the power of a Saddam or Bush to be pipsqueaks compared to this unstoppable assault on who we are today.

I also find that the urban dweller little appreciates how his environment influences his/her political thinking.

Most urban people require more services and thus more taxes to pay for them and that kind of situation circumscribes their lives.

 

[jjw1965]

 

[Ocean Breeze]

American Nazis rise to power gaining ever more popular support




The white supremacist movement in America, with its close links to the powerful Republican movement and the influential Christian right-wing, goes directly to the heart of the US regime. Its affects on major decisions in both domestic and foreign policy are easy to discern for those who care to look. Many Americans respect and even idolize Hitler and the fascist Third-Reich of Nazi Germany, some doing so more openly in recent days.

Hitler as a historical figure is buried beneath almost impenetrable layers of war-time fear and lies, and a mountain of post-war propaganda accumulated over more than half-a-century. It is impressive that he can rise from his grave at all, let alone with such a positive image.

The unspeakable truth is, Hitler did have some good ideas, and indeed he derived his power directly from the strength of his popular appeal among ordinary people. Yet the Hitler secretly worshipped in modern America is not the real Führer; he is a myth; the familiar hateful, racist characature portrayed in allied propaganda.

Traditionally, American neo-Nazi groups, most famously the Ku Klux Klan, have behaved like secret societies. Some of their views and actions are simply too extreme for public consumption. But times are changing in America, and the Nazis are rapidly gaining support as their propaganda message receives increasing exposure and acceptance through the corporate-controlled medium of American popular culture.

hmmm. 8O

 

[moghrabi]

RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

What makes Bush different than Hitler? Hitler burned the Jews in ovens, Bush burning Iraqis with daisy chain bombs. Bush is more sophisticated killer.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

I wouldn't say he's more sophisticated, Mogh. It's that the technology has advanced.

 

[MMMike]

Re: RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

What makes Bush different than Hitler? Hitler burned the Jews in ovens, Bush burning Iraqis with daisy chain bombs. Bush is more sophisticated killer.

Maybe you need to read some history books. Do you not know anything about WWII or the Holocaust? I get it... that you don't like Bush's politics and think that the war in Iraq was not justified, but to compare whats happening now to the Holocaust is more than distasteful... it is disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

Perhaps he has read the history and recognises the disturbing trend that Bush is following.

 

[Andygal]

RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

I know very little about what went on in WW2 but I know enough to see strong parralells between what went on in Germany in the late 1930's and what is now going on in the US. It's the same kind of idealogy, but with religious fanaticism mixed in. Not a good combination.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

That's the thing Anygal...those who support Bush like to point at the end results of Hitler's actions, demand exact parallels, and say that we aren't there yet. They don't like looking at the beginning of Hitler's reign though.

 

[moghrabi]

Re: RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

What makes Bush different than Hitler? Hitler burned the Jews in ovens, Bush burning Iraqis with daisy chain bombs. Bush is more sophisticated killer.

Maybe you need to read some history books. Do you not know anything about WWII or the Holocaust? I get it... that you don't like Bush's politics and think that the war in Iraq was not justified, but to compare whats happening now to the Holocaust is more than distasteful... it is disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I don't think my parallels are distateful at all. If you like what Bush is doing, then you should hail Hitler. Enough going in circles. Both wars are unjustified criminal acts of the highest magnitude. Or maybe you count Jews or other races as superior to others????

 

[ElPolaco]

The one built in safety feature we had for quite a while was the disunity of the right--the neocons, paleocons, libertarians, the hate right. The most frightening thing that happened last election was the paleocons supporting the neocon candidate eventhough they opposed his foreign policy. The religious thing is kind of scary because there has been an effort by the neocons to influence the Catholic church and mainline Protestants. My church has been a particular target (Catholic). Big neocon names in the church are McClosky, Deal Hudson, George Weigel, Michael (not the other one) Novak etc. Their big periodical is Crises magazine and EWTN network has many of them on (but also some paleocons). The neocons have never gotten over the former Pope not supporting the Iraq invasion. However, the neocons have taken advantage of the "support the troops" rhetoric to get Catholics to support the war.

 

[Vanni Fucci]

While the systems of surveillance of lawful citizens has been quietly implemented over the past 10 years or so, systems that I find remarkably distasteful and wrong, I find the US feigned attempt at educational reform to be far more sinister a spectre...

No Child Left Behind demands yearly testing of every student, and incentives for those that meet the benchmarks...those that don't are required to reform to bring the school up to the standards that the state has set in its benchmarks...

Seems like a good idea, except that the state does not provide the money necessary to reform schools that don't meet the requirements, so that those schools that need the money most, and the students that attend them, are in fact left behind...

There is evidence that the No Child Left Behind Act has effectively institutionalized racial segregation that was defeated over 50 years ago with Brown vs. Board of Education...

Caucasian families are fleeing inner-city schools at an alarming rate, and more affluent families are opting for private schooling leaving inner-city schools with a predominantly poverty-stricken, non-caucasian student body...

It seems the state wants only caucasian students from affluent families to get an education...but is it an education they are getting, or the aptitude for taking tests? Will their ability to make decision fuction outside of a multiple choice environment, or are they being conditioned to think and react a certain way to a given set of circumstances?

All this appears to be designed to allow only those who are able to pass the benchmark tests to continue their education in university or college, and with the exceedingly costly tuitions at those institutions of higher learning, the bar is raised even more...

I suppose it must have frustrated the neocons to see so many non-caucasians attending Harvard or Yale, despite their every attempt to keep them out... :roll:

All of this is happening right now in the US, but I foresee in the next 5to 10 years a similar enactment here in Canada, as our own homegrown neocons step up their assault on the "disadvantaged".

 

[Ocean Breeze]

The White House cabal
By Lawrence B. Wilkerson, LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from 2002 to 2005.


IN PRESIDENT BUSH'S first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security — including vital decisions about postwar Iraq — were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New America Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2002 and 2005.

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But it's absolutely true. I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.

Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift — not unlike the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy. This furtive process was camouflaged neatly by the dysfunction and inefficiency of the formal decision-making process, where decisions, if they were reached at all, had to wend their way through the bureaucracy, with its dissenters, obstructionists and "guardians of the turf."

But the secret process was ultimately a failure. It produced a series of disastrous decisions and virtually ensured that the agencies charged with implementing them would not or could not execute them well.

I watched these dual decision-making processes operate for four years at the State Department. As chief of staff for 27 months, I had a door adjoining the secretary of State's office. I read virtually every document he read. I read the intelligence briefings and spoke daily with people from all across government.

I knew that what I was observing was not what Congress intended when it passed the 1947 National Security Act. The law created the National Security Council — consisting of the president, vice president and the secretaries of State and Defense — to make sure the nation's vital national security decisions were thoroughly vetted. The NSC has often been expanded, depending on the president in office, to include the CIA director, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Treasury secretary and others, and it has accumulated a staff of sometimes more than 100 people.

But many of the most crucial decisions from 2001 to 2005 were not made within the traditional NSC process.

Scholars and knowledgeable critics of the U.S. decision-making process may rightly say, so what? Haven't all of our presidents in the last half-century failed to conform to the usual process at one time or another? Isn't it the president's prerogative to make decisions with whomever he pleases? Moreover, can he not ignore whomever he pleases? Why should we care that President Bush gave over much of the critical decision-making to his vice president and his secretary of Defense?

Both as a former academic and as a person who has been in the ring with the bull, I believe that there are two reasons we should care. First, such departures from the process have in the past led us into a host of disasters, including the last years of the Vietnam War, the national embarrassment of Watergate (and the first resignation of a president in our history), the Iran-Contra scandal and now the ruinous foreign policy of George W. Bush.

But a second and far more important reason is that the nature of both governance and crisis has changed in the modern age.

From managing the environment to securing sufficient energy resources, from dealing with trafficking in human beings to performing peacekeeping missions abroad, governing is vastly more complicated than ever before in human history.

Further, the crises the U.S. government confronts today are so multifaceted, so complex, so fast-breaking — and almost always with such incredible potential for regional and global ripple effects — that to depart from the systematic decision-making process laid out in the 1947 statute invites disaster.

Discounting the professional experience available within the federal bureaucracy — and ignoring entirely the inevitable but often frustrating dissent that often arises therein — makes for quick and painless decisions. But when government agencies are confronted with decisions in which they did not participate and with which they frequently disagree, their implementation of those decisions is fractured, uncoordinated and inefficient. This is particularly the case if the bureaucracies called upon to execute the decisions are in strong competition with one another over scarce money, talented people, "turf" or power.

It takes firm leadership to preside over the bureaucracy. But it also takes a willingness to listen to dissenting opinions. It requires leaders who can analyze, synthesize, ponder and decide.

The administration's performance during its first four years would have been even worse without Powell's damage control. At least once a week, it seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval Office and cleaned all the dog poop off the carpet. He held a youthful, inexperienced president's hand. He told him everything would be all right because he, the secretary of State, would fix it. And he did — everything from a serious crisis with China when a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was struck by a Chinese F-8 fighter jet in April 2001, to the secretary's constant reassurances to European leaders following the bitter breach in relations over the Iraq war. It wasn't enough, of course, but it helped.

Today, we have a president whose approval rating is 38% and a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We have a secretary of Defense presiding over the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched armed forces (no surprise to ignored dissenters such as former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White).

It's a disaster. Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal every time.

the word "cabal " is not used lightly around here.. :x

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Re: RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

What makes Bush different than Hitler? Hitler burned the Jews in ovens, Bush burning Iraqis with daisy chain bombs. Bush is more sophisticated killer.

Maybe you need to read some history books. Do you not know anything about WWII or the Holocaust? I get it... that you don't like Bush's politics and think that the war in Iraq was not justified, but to compare whats happening now to the Holocaust is more than distasteful... it is disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: sooooo patronizing. :x


Hitler had his concentration camps........and the bush cabal has it's secret prisons. Difference??? Bush's malignancy is spread world wide.......and Hitlers was localized.. Amazing what a few yrs makes.

 

[moghrabi]

RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

Thank you Ocean for summarizing some history books in a sentence or two for our friend here MMMike. Seems to be one of Bush's Cabal. eh mikey???

 

[MMMike]

Re: RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

What makes Bush different than Hitler? Hitler burned the Jews in ovens, Bush burning Iraqis with daisy chain bombs. Bush is more sophisticated killer.

Maybe you need to read some history books. Do you not know anything about WWII or the Holocaust? I get it... that you don't like Bush's politics and think that the war in Iraq was not justified, but to compare whats happening now to the Holocaust is more than distasteful... it is disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: sooooo patronizing. :x


Hitler had his concentration camps........and the bush cabal has it's secret prisons. Difference??? Bush's malignancy is spread world wide.......and Hitlers was localized.. Amazing what a few yrs makes.

No the difference is that Hitlers camps were set up to systematically eliminate a people. Men, women and children were stripped of their property, tortured, summarily executed, starved to death, experimented on like guinea pigs, and gassed to death by the millions. Millions more of his own soldiers and his allies and enemies perished on the battlefields.

Quite a bit like today, huh? As bad as you think Bush's transgressions are, how can you possibly equate that with the Holocaust? Give your head a shake. Morons :roll:

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: We Now Live in a Fasc

So Bush hasn't moved on to medical experiments and gassing...yet.