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In reply to the discussion: Get One Thing Clear: NSA Domestic Spy Op Is FASCISM [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)200. ''Information Overflow'' and few know of ''Friendly Fascism''
Thank you for the excellent phrase. Unless one can shut it off, brain dumping is exactly what we all face, round-the-clock.
Regarding the other, it was coined by Bertram Gross, a scholar who saw how things weren't what they used to be. The new, "Friendly Fascism," would make all go-along to get-along. How many not on DU do you see who've noticed?
The Specter of Friendly Fascism
excerpted from the book
Friendly Fascism
The New Face of Power in America
by Bertram Gross
South End Press, 1980, paper
The Unfolding Logic
p161
... as I survey the entire panorama of contending forces, I can readily detect something more important: the outline of a powerful logic of events. This logic points toward tighter integration of every First World Establishment. In the United States it points toward more concentrated, unscrupulous, repressive, and militaristic control by a Big Business-Big Government partnership that-to preserve the privileges of the ultra-rich, the corporate overseers, and the brass in the military and civilian order-squelches the rights and liberties of other people both at home and abroad. That is friendly fascism.
SNIP...
Although the friendly fascists are subversive elements, they rarely see themselves as such. Some are merely out to make money under conditions of stagflation. Some are merely concerned with keeping or expanding their power and privileges. Many use the rhetoric of freedom, liberty, democracy, human values, or even human rights. In pursuing their mutual interests through a new coalition of concentrated oligarchic power, people may be hurt-whether through pollution, shortages, unemployment, inflation, or war. But that is not part of their central purpose. It is the product of invisible hands that are not theirs.
SNIP...
p168
Although friendly fascism would mean total ruin of the American dream, it could hardly come suddenly- let alone in any precisely predictable year. This is one of the reasons I cannot go along with the old-fashioned Marxist picture of capitalism or imperialism dropping the fig leaf or the mask. This imagery suggests a process not much longer than a striptease. It reinforces the apocalyptic vision of a quick collapse of capitalist democracy-whether "not with a bang but a whimper," as T. S. Eliot put it, or with "dancing to a frenzied drum" as in the words of William Butler Yeats. In my judgment, rather, one of the greatest dangers is the slow process through which friendly fascism would come into being. For a large part of the population the changes would be unnoticed. Even those most alive to the danger may see only part of the picture-until it is too late. For most people, as with historians and social scientists, 20-20 vision on fundamental change comes only with hindsight. And by that time, with the evidence at last clearly visible, the new serfdom might have long since arrived.
SNIP...
p190
This transformation would require a new concept of presidential leadership, one emphasizing legitimacy and righteousness above all else. As the linchpin of an oligarchic establishment, the White House would continue to be the living and breathing symbol of legitimate government. "Reigning" would become the first principle of "ruling". Only by wrapping himself and all his agents in the trappings of constitutionality could the President succeed in subverting the spirit of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Chief Executive Network, Big Business, and the UltraRich could remain far above and beyond legal and moral law only through the widely accepted image that all of them, and particularly the president, were fully subservient to law and morality. In part, this is a matter of public relations-but not the old Madison Avenue game of selling perfume or deodorants to the masses. The most important nostrils are those of the multileveled elites in the establishment itself; if things smell well to them, then the working-buying classes can probably be handled effectively. In this context, it is not at all sure that the personal charisma of a president could ever be as important as it was in the days of Theodore or Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, or John F. Kennedy.
It is no easy task to erect a shield of legitimacy to cloak the illegitimate. Doing so would require the kind of leadership that in emphasizing the long-term interests of Big Business and the Ultra-Rich would stand up strongly against any elements that are overly greedy for short-term windfalls. Thus in energy planning, foreign trade, labor relations, and wage-price controls, for example, the friendly fascist White House would from time to time engage in activities that could be publicly regarded as "cracking down on business." While a few recalcitrant corporate overseers might thus be reluctantly educated, the chief victims would usually be small or medium-sized enterprises, who would thus be driven more rapidly into bankruptcy or merger. In this sense, conspicuous public leadership would become a form of followership.
CONTINUED...
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Specter_FriendlyFascism_FF.html
That was about 1980 -- before October Surprise and Voodoo Economics and Trickle-Down Iran-Contra crack cocaine Amerikkka went full effect.
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So much Corporate influence on our government. I'm not sure who is running things anymore.
sabrina 1
Jun 2013
#1
I agree too, 1StrongBlackMan. Reasoned arguments. That's what I looking for. Not hyperbole.
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jun 2013
#58
Here's another example of a well-reasoned, well thought-out argument. Thank you!!!
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jun 2013
#59
Be prepared, I have been told lately that the Constitution is not the law of the land. That
sabrina 1
Jun 2013
#216
IMHO, FDR was the best president we've ever had, but he made mistakes. Horrible mistakes!!!
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jun 2013
#220
Don't think I'm naive about the history of the New Deal. I'm not suggesting that there NEVER
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jul 2013
#239
We are far more likely to die for lack of Health Care in this country than from a terror attack. The
sabrina 1
Jun 2013
#224
I think you and I are probably breaking on opposite sides of the NSA issues, but I wanted
HardTimes99
Jun 2013
#177
Fascism is the merging of corporatism with the state,. private control, not a single dictator.
Civilization2
Jun 2013
#206
Labels are a tricky thing and defining labels trickier still. Robert O. Paxton, in
HardTimes99
Jul 2013
#232
You argue that Bush's voluntary relinquishing of power means nothing because said power
HardTimes99
Jul 2013
#240
Fact is they don't have to whisk us off to a gulag,. so why bother. They are confidant that,.
Civilization2
Jul 2013
#245
Naturally, the corporatists here will be not only denying that definition, and using strawmen
Zorra
Jun 2013
#81
The post was ABOVE, you did not read it. You know what you know that's for sure.
xtraxritical
Jun 2013
#182
The Bush disaster family, everywhere you look, everywhere something stinks, every time you follow
Fire Walk With Me
Jun 2013
#11
Do you honestly believe there wasn't a drive back then to collect info on EVERYONE?
Spitfire of ATJ
Jun 2013
#91
''Money trumps peace.'' -- George Walker Bush*, ''president'' of the United States, Feb. 14, 2007
Octafish
Jun 2013
#128
He doesn't seem to understand any of the issues and instead erects a strawman.
reusrename
Jun 2013
#87
This is all very nice but read the piece. All three of your "primary concerns" are addressed,
ucrdem
Jun 2013
#129
Hitler or Stalin, Right or Left matters not. This is Police State Authoritarianism.
Spitfire of ATJ
Jun 2013
#15
We should acknowledge the existence of a "shadow government" that transcends administrations.
reusrename
Jun 2013
#48
Agree, totally. That's why I spend time posting on DU. Most people have no idea...
Octafish
Jun 2013
#163
I recall that she committed suicide, but had no idea about the circumstances and what might have
SleeplessinSoCal
Jun 2013
#175
This is really odd. After posting this yesterday, Cinemoi was removed from our lineup
SleeplessinSoCal
Jul 2013
#259
It is fascism, with a lack of opposition from virtually all of our politicians.
AnotherMcIntosh
Jun 2013
#31
I think the trend is to try to wield power vigorously, to show the US American people
Judi Lynn
Jun 2013
#35
Glad you've noticed. I've posted on this topic on DU since September 12, 2001.
Octafish
Jun 2013
#121
I made my response about Binney, who has been out of the NSA picture for some time.
randome
Jun 2013
#100
No, you show they aren't because based on human history you are the one actually making the
TheKentuckian
Jul 2013
#234
I always refer to Dr. Lawrence Britt's 14 characteristics of fascism...
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jun 2013
#62
Even the old style fascism only exploited nationalism as a means to power.
kenny blankenship
Jun 2013
#89
It's such a drag when Amy Goodman interviews irrelevant people just for the hell of it. n/t
Waiting For Everyman
Jun 2013
#172
How will the Facists running our government run a single payer health care system?
JoePhilly
Jun 2013
#118
Frank Zappa, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky once got a few seconds to talk about it on TV.
Octafish
Jun 2013
#140
IIRC, only 800 people were arrested and only 4 killed in order to put down the uprising in Iran.
reusrename
Jun 2013
#170
But..but...it's "not as bad" Fascism unlike the Republican brand of Fascism.
Tierra_y_Libertad
Jun 2013
#162
Whew! At least we have a label for it. I was losing sleep trying to think of one.
Buzz Clik
Jun 2013
#174
So which of those two parties is going to jail the Wall Street bankers? Which direction
GoneFishin
Jun 2013
#219
It's an illusion of opposition. Whenever the interests of the 1% conflicts with the 99%, the 99%
GoneFishin
Jul 2013
#235
What part is ''teabagger''? The NAZI parts? The Wall Street parts? The neocon trickledown parts?
Octafish
Jul 2013
#248
It does. So, you're a critic. Please, tell me what's wrong with what I posted.
Octafish
Jul 2013
#257
They haven't the decency of the Thought Police in "1984" where Inner Party members could turn off BB
bobthedrummer
Jul 2013
#265