Friday, March 31, 2006

Is President Bush a Fascist?


Wikipedia has this to say about Fascism...

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.

Project for the Old American Century draws parallels between American President George W. Bush and other Fascist leaders (e.g. Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet). I suppose one needs to admit that there is a matter of the degree to which each of these leaders ascribes to each of the practices, but still - there is a great deal of similarity.

And from the blog Bush Out (by Gandhi) comes this comparison (click here to read more)...

It's the Fascism, stupid. Michael Schwartz challenges a few media stereotypes:
We do not remember much of this now, but just after Saddam was toppled the American victors announced that a sweeping reform of Iraqi society would take place. The only part of this still much mentioned today -- the now widely regretted dismantling of the Iraqi military -- was but one aspect of a far larger effort to dismantle the entire Baathist state apparatus, most notably the government-owned factories and other enterprises that constituted just about 40% of the Iraqi economy. This process of dismantling included attempts,
still ongoing, to remove various food, product, and fuel subsidies that guaranteed low-income Iraqis basic staples, even when they had no gainful employment.

What do you think?

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