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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJim Sciutto: The clearest and most concise definition of fascism I've seen - a word often thrown around without much...
Link to tweet
2/11. The people who told you that Russia was not fascist were, if possible, more wrong.
3/11. Fascism is might over right, conspiracy over reality, fiction over fact, pain over law, blood over love, doom over hope.
4/11. Fascism advances every injustice. Its victory will leave us serfs of a vengeful nature, of relentless technology, and of unquestionable oligarchy.
5/11. Analytic clarity is needed for political clarity. If you do not know what you face, you do not know how to act.
6/11. Once named, fascism can be defeated. Indeed, once named it can be easily defeated.
7/11. Russian fascism must lose on the battlefield. Americans can bring this about by supporting courageous Ukrainians.
8/11. American fascism must lose at the ballot box. Americans can bring this about by organizing, canvassing, phone banking, donating, and voting.
9/11. We know from history that fascism can lose. And we know today the contests that must be won.
10/11. Compared to challenges that others face around the world, our odds in 2024 and 2025 are excellent. Americans have chances, not excuses.
11/11. A defeat of fascism is not a negation. It is an affirmation: of a future that can be more beautiful, more just, and more free.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1793288021783031909.html
gab13by13
(22,100 posts)we cannot normalize what Magats are doing.
peggysue2
(10,948 posts)A defeat of fascism is not a negation. It is an affirmation: of a future that can be more beautiful, more just, and more free.
demmiblue
(37,082 posts)lastlib
(23,659 posts)Thank you, Prof. Snyder, for penetrating the fog with clarity and insight.
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Wild blueberry
(6,775 posts)Thank you.
erronis
(15,842 posts)The only reason people espouse fascism is because they want to exert power over others.
There are no big policy goals, just enough to throw turmoil into normal discussions.
Normal people such as the Germans in the 1930s and the magats in the 2020s don't care about the "issues". They want what their leaders tell them to want. And the leaders want pure power.
markodochartaigh
(1,284 posts)Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html
Elessar Zappa
(14,323 posts)Never thought about it like that but it makes perfect sense.
NanaCat
(2,332 posts)From Harper's Magazine March 1964:
Layzeebeaver
(1,721 posts)He deserves the National medal of Freedom
I truly believe that.
DC77
(107 posts)Fascism="Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power ― Benito Mussolini.
I was always taught, classically, it is the merger of government and business.
calimary
(82,039 posts)Using the 3/11 one in the next Call to Action email that my Indivisible group issues every week.
William Seger
(10,812 posts)Fascist propaganda sounds like populism, but it's actually the opposite: An authoritarian, supporting (and therefor supported by) the elites.
Faux pas
(14,799 posts)Where is Jim anyway? He's one of my favorites, did cnn dump him?
Skittles
(154,013 posts)surfered
(884 posts)Igel
(35,540 posts)Russia is fascist.
Militaristic. Nationalistic. Authoritarian. "Religion"? Not sure what Mussolini's or the Nazi hierarchy "religion" was, but a religion is a set of values, rites, and practices, and not all religions require a deity, historically and etymologically. Recent re-definitions are excluded in this as superfluous.
The economics also match up well--a well fleshed-out "industrial policy" that's corporatism in some sense, where private industry serves the government.
Fascism was 1/2 a political theory and 1/2 an economic theory. Remember, both Mussolini and Hitler hated capitalism--fascism is as far from capitalism as Stalin and Mao were. Everything in the state, nothing out of the state, everything for the state. The state is firmly in control of social and economic life. Civil society abides by the government's writ--as does meaningful industry. (Local fishmongers, meh.)
I oppose all forms of authoritarianism. Socialist and fascist. (We haven't had "communist"--which, by definition, can't be centralized. The USSR was "communist" but what's the second "s" stand for? Communism was the goal, socialism was the then-current means.)
NanaCat
(2,332 posts)The military even wore belt buckles that proclaimed, 'Gott Mitt Uns' = 'God with us.' Hitler repeatedly asserted that Christianity was the religion of Nazi Germany, and proclaimed himself a 'warrior for Jesus.' He also got many of his ideas for how to deal with the Jews from Christian history: The Holocaust almost exactly follows the plan Martin Luther laid out in his execrable, 'On the Jews,' and the Nazis even conducted Kristallnacht, their first major hatefest against Jews, on the anniversary of Luther's birth. The gold stars were a variation on the gold crosses that Cathars had to wear to identify themselves to one and all as heretics--a law passed in France at the insistence of the church.
And speaking of the Cathars, Hitler believed a whole bunch of loopy conspiracy theories related to them, similar to the nonsense Dan Brown peddles in the execrable, 'The DaVinci Code.'
Many of Hitler's most infamous cohorts were Catholic or raised Catholic: Goebbels, Mengele, and Heydrich, to name but a few. And it is a hard fact that the many minions who carried out the Holocaust and other abuses on the population in the name of the Nazi regime were Christians. Atheists tended to get murdered in Nazi Germany, because, like Jews, Hitler associated them with 'degeneracy' and Communism (Communists were his first target for death by concentration camp).
Mussolini was an atheist, but, like Stalin, he supported Christianity for the masses. He was the one who made The Vatican its own country in a blatant sop to Italy's conservative Catholics.
Another example of the deep ties between fascism and Christianity, particularly Catholicism, is Franco's Spain. He explicitly associated his regime with conservative Catholicism, and he was brutal to anyone who wasn't of that faith. He was a vicious anti-Semite and considered atheism a 'malign influence,. Repression of everyone not Catholic was rife.
The argument about that second S in the USSR is ludicrous, because the USSR was about as socialistic as the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was democratic. It was window dressing, not a genuine stance. Any country can slap a descriptor into their brand name, but it means nothing if they don't live up to it.
Really.
DENVERPOPS
(9,130 posts)But the simplest definition of FASCISM I ever heard was: A MERGING OF GOVERNMENT AND CORPORATIONS..........
We are indeed, a millimeter away, from them being able to re-name our County from the United States of America, to:
Corporate Tyranny of America, or United Corporations of America.............
The Uber Rich, here and abroad, along with all U.S. Corporations, and some foreign, invested a phenomenal amount in getting
"Citizens United" to become law.......
Martin68
(23,474 posts)NanaCat
(2,332 posts)For a Twitter audience. Since he's a renowned expert on authoritarian regimes, I can assure you he has a full definition of the term that he can provide for you, and one that will exceed whatever your definition could possibly be.
Martin68
(23,474 posts)Miriam-Webster is very accessible: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such 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.
That's not so hard to understand, is it? But the concept that it is a political philosophy is essential, and the definition above doesn't allude to it all.
Javaman
(62,608 posts)The Mouth
(3,193 posts)Academics and journalists do NOT get to just redefine words as they wish, in my opinion.
"Fascism" means one political party control of a capitalist state with an implicit Nationalist and expansionist emphasis. Not "I don't like that person/party/bill so it is Fascist'.
Yes, it is a word thrown around by lots of people, left and right, who have no clue what it means.