U.S.A freedom to fascism

[rounder]

I think when everyone in america comes to see -- may 2008 --- come and go then they may be intrested in this movie by aaron russo called america freedom to fascism. best movie ever made by a real american, seach google video for aaron russo. i hope everyone sees this film, and tells everyone they know to watch it or look it up. here is the main site tho www.freedomtofascism.com

[Trev]

I watched the interview with him yesterday, if the film is half as good it will be brilliant.

Trev.

[ken_behrendt]

Just so everyone knows what "fascism" is supposed to mean:

Definition: [n] a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)

In other words, a fascist government is really a dictatorship with an extended political organizational structure to it. However, it is the dictator or those appointed directly by him who decide who will run the various government departments. Usually, there is some form of voting in such systems, but the votes are restricted to those who are members of a dictator sanctioned political party. Since the average person in the street is not a member of this party, he or she is not allowed, via voting, to partake in the political decision making policy. A prime example of this would have been the Nazi Party in Germany that rose to power in the early 1930's.

However, such systems do not come to be overnight. Often they are started with the best of intentions by the stronger members of a society and are intended to protect the average citizen of the state. But, as we all know, "the road to Hell is paved with 'good' intentions". Somewhere along the line, the most powerful individual rises, often with much innocent bloodshed, to the top and begin to view the average person as a potential "enemy of the state" (or at least of the dictator) and it becomes necessary to begin restricting individual freedoms for the average citizen.

Such systems cause so much irritation to the average citizen of a state or even to political insiders that the dictator eventually is assassinated. Then, the next in line, if he is still alive, slides into place and, after promises to "correct" the injustices of the previous regime, begins to repeat its methods. Usually, such a system can only ended when some external military force invades it and puts an end to it.


I, for one, consider the United States of America to still be far, far removed from what a true fascist state is. Yes, there have been some recent curtailments in individual civil liberties in this country. But, I think this is entirely understandable in the immediate aftermath of one of the worst enemy attacks on our native soil in our history. I always ask myself what restrictions would have been imposed, say, in Russia or China if 9/11 had happened there! No doubt, they would be far tighter and in place longer than anything in the USA.



ken

[scott]

I'm glad it is all so clear to you Ken, but there is another way to understand "fascism" that you might want to consider.

excerpt:

...In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, "write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?"

Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.

"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. 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."

In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word "fascist" - the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)

As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled "The Doctrine of Fascism" he wrote, "If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.

In 1938, Mussolini brought his vision of fascism into full reality when he dissolved Parliament and replaced it with the "Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni" - the Chamber of the Fascist Corporations. Corporations were still privately owned, but now instead of having to sneak their money to folks like Tom DeLay and covertly write legislation, they were openly in charge of the government.

Vice President Wallace bluntly laid out in his 1944 Times article his concern about the same happening here in America:

"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. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."
[...]
In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism the Vice President of the United States saw rising in America, he added, "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."

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0719-15.htm

[rounder]

Snce aaron russo want everyone to see this movie he has put it up for free at google under the video heading ''freedom to fascism'' i suggest you watch it. i hope everyone here watchs this film.

[Trev]

The link is here :
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... to+fascism

[primemignonite]

Scott...

A very interesting and informative link you provided us all about Fascism, mostly from many decades ago, and all obviously gone un-heeded. It is succinct, eloquent and to-the-point.

I would recommend that all Americans study what it says and means, 'till well memorized!

Apparently, IT came to roost here in the US, concurrent with the Civil War, or just after.

The Fourteenth Article in Amendment was the Fascists' first manifesto here; ever afterward, all to become ". . . subject to . . .", yes, as in 'SLAVE', and the States' duty and rights to manage and positively control the central government, began a slow, incremental erosion process, JUST AS WAS PREDICTED would happen!

[A quick study of the Anti-Federalists objections to the proposed ratification of the Constitution as expressed in their Papers, will reveal ALL that has now come-to-pass, and FAR worse than even they imagined! Can we learn anything from this; will we?]

Now they take the orders coming from old Wa. DC, rather than giving them!

[Recommended: STUDY of the case for elimination of the Seventeenth Article in Amendment. Any truth in the matter will soon become manifest thereby, and rational reasoning for it's elimination, crystal-clear.]

Behold below, the seemingly first appearance of this most loathsome signal of the then-new Roman Civil Law power, implanted onto American soil. It appeared on the Lincoln Memorial Stamp, issued just post his richly-deserved, but way too late demise.

Lincoln's WAR PARTY did it, and have been at it ever since. [Everything IS "just business", you know.]

DO NOTICE how the sharpened edges of the hatchet heads are MOSTLY HIDDEN behind the banner, the lower tips only just showing, essentially yet to be revealed.

The image is extremely magnified when properly accessed, and when so-done, all the details of this delightful 'message' to their posterity, may be seen. It stands as powerful circumstantial evidence of intent.

Does this not provide us now, with an explicit message from then, to the effect that the end of "sweet liberty", as it was described so lovingly and eloquently by first patriot, Patrick Henry, was soon to draw neigh?

I, for one, am well satisfied that it did, and just as it was intended to!

I am not amused, as too many others pretend to be, they who imagine all to be right for their worthless, personal comfort's sake, nor do I accept that any 'rough spots' are but mere aberrations born of temporary necessity, and soon to disappear.

On-the-contrary!

It is absolutely not so for both cases. The legalistic 'color of law' chains thrown around us successively, NEVER, EVER "disappear". [Does anyone care any longer to take more than fleeting notice of this FACT?]

The 'Jefferson Remedy' - ". . . every twenty years, or so . . ." would have been the correct one for use long ago, but now 'they' would see everyone 'become no-longer', in order to escape authentic justice at the hands of the righteously-enraged, which should be US, right now, if we still had spines in us!

In our country, SUPREME EVIL is now firmly afoot, and so far, proceeding triumphant, observing no meaningful opposition upon the horizon . . .

James