OK, time to post again the 14 defining characteristics of fascism.

[Igel]

36. Suits China or the USSR, hardly fascist.

Of course, they flub the "religion" one. Then again, by comparison with the one really fascist state our religion is weak.

The corporation tie-in is more subtle. In the USSR the heads of corporations *were* the party bosses. In China, government officials and corporate heads merely influence each other a lot and it's hard to see which is "in charge." As the "religion" bullet point it's hard to apply directly.

If the US is fascist, think about what #14 is saying. That the Republicans--they're the opposition--are going to be the target of of manipulated smear campaigns.

The cronyism isn't rampant. Not by a long shot. It's more than it was in the US. But nothing like it was in the USSR, in China, even in Hitler's Germany. Perspective.

Free expression was banned for intellectuals and the arts. Seriously, you need some perspective. Similarity of sound, the applicability of a word in some sense doesn't mean identity of referent. My advisor was tenured at a large university. Because of a change in politics, his choice was to be tried or be exiled without a trial. He was an internal exile for 20 years. And he totally dropped and renounced his former research. It took 20 years to be forgiven, to build another scholarly reputation and be allowed to move back to his home town. He was lucky: He was allowed to continue to be a professor, to continue to work. A number of his colleagues weren't so lucky, and nobody ever knew who informed on them. He was never allowed to travel abroad. His father had been a writer: His father had the choice of writing the stories he was told to write, be a reporter as he was told, or be unemployed. He found a third choice: He drank himself to death.

If the US were fascist, Zinn would find himself in a black vehicle 3 a.m. tonight. The media wouldn't report it because it would never have happened. In a few weeks his colleagues would denounce him as anti-American, and either he would vanish or we'd read a note in which he confessed to being deluded and mistaken and accepted his retirement--anything to be able to serve his country and show loyalty to the Administration. At his own request, his writings would vanish from libraries and if you were found to have a copy it would possibly vanish from your bookshelf.