The G.O.P. as Dr. Utopia

This 1948 cartoon, conceived as a warning of the dangers of State Capitalism (Soviet style Communism), Fascism & other forms of totalitarianism, stands on its own as a warning against Conservatism & the Bush administration. "The style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism." "When most people hear the word 'fascism' they may think of the racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler. It is true that the use of force and the scapegoating of fringe groups are part of every fascism. But there was also an economic dimension of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and '30s as 'corporatism', which was an essential ingredient of Mussolini's and Hitler's tyrannies. So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a model by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe." "Fortune magazine ran a cover story on Mussolini in 1934, praising his fascism for its ability to break worker unions, disempower workers and transfer huge sums of money to those who controlled the money rather than those who earned it." "Few Americans are aware of or can recall how so many Americans and Europeans viewed economic fascism as the wave of the future during the 1930s. Yet reviewing our past may help shed light on our present, and point the way to a better future. So I want to begin by looking back to the last time fascism posed a serious threat to America." "In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel 'It Can't Happen Here', a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy — those concerned with individual rights and freedoms — as anti-American. That was 69 years ago." "One of the most outspoken American fascists from the 1930s was economist Lawrence Dennis. In his 1936 book, The Coming American Fascism — a coming which he anticipated and cheered — Dennis declared that defenders of '18th-century Americanism' were sure to become 'the laughing stock of their own countrymen'. The big stumbling block to the development of economic fascism, Dennis bemoaned, was 'liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights'." "So it is important for us to recognize that, as an economic system, fascism was widely accepted in the 1920s and '30s, and nearly worshiped by some powerful American industrialists. And fascism has always, and explicitly, been opposed to liberalism of all kinds." "Mussolini, who helped create modern fascism, viewed liberal ideas as the enemy. 'The Fascist conception of life', he wrote, 'stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual.' ( In 1932 Mussolini wrote, with the help of Giovanni Gentile, an entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism. You can read the whole entry at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall... ) "Mussolini thought it was unnatural for a government to protect individual rights: The essence of fascism, he believed, is that government should be the master, not the servant, of the people." Living Under Fascism Davidson Loehr 7 November 2004 First UU Church of Austin http://www.uua.org/news/2004/v...

Channel: Comedy
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: PizzaAndTacos

Length: 09:30
Rating: 4.38
Views: 6615

Tags: Bush  Conservative  Fascist  George  GOP  politics  Protofascist  Republican  W.  

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