Reply #9: Agree with this. Corporate neoliberalism is the problem, not classic fascism... yet.

[backscatter712]

The word fascism gets thrown around way too much, sometime by us, but most often by the right-wingers, especially demagogues like Glenn Beck.

But as far as real fascism goes, we're not there yet. But we're a lot closer than we should be.

Yes, there are fascist tendencies at work, as seen with the teabaggers - they've got the palingenetic, ultranationalist populism.

The scary part is that the teabagger movement came together when corporate interests, in the form of Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, began supporting the proto-fascists by jumpstarting the movement with some astroturfing, providing money, media attention, organization. That made the movement grow and metastasize.

Fascism really grows when it's got support from the rich elites - it grows from a few fringies ranting and raving in basements to full-sized authoritarian political movements when the back-scratching arrangement is in place. When the corporate elites start funding and boosting the proto-fascists, naturally, the proto-fascists will reciprocate by giving them goodies as the movement grows, and that's when the movement really gets dangerous.