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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (507427)	12/10/2003 10:09:04 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Respond to of 769670

Your definition is bunk. You label pro-business policies "corporatism" only so you can then equate them to fascism on the basis that Mussolini used that term. Do you even know what the term "corporatism" means? Pro-business policies no more make Bush fascist than believing in a strong national defense or in the need to take military action in a particular situation does. Clinton (Bill) was as pro-business as anyone in the White House last century. JFK, too - plus he was a Cold War hawk who got us into Vietnam. FDR came much closer to "corporatist" policies than any other president in our history and argued for US entry into WWII to fight Hitler long before Pearl Harbor. I don't hear anyone calling them fascists (although Stalinist communists in the US DID call FDR a fascist in 1932). Your labeling of Bush as "fascist" has no more meaning or rational basis than if I called Dean a communist because his proposed tax policies are confiscatory and redistributionist. It is nothing more than a label that the weak-minded use in place of reasoned argument. As for fascism, at its core, just as is at the core of communism or any other collectivist, authoritarian ideology, is the idea that the state (or "collective") is supreme - that the people exist to serve the state and have no individual rights that are not subordinate to state or collective interest. On top of that are the characteristics of militarism (and you're wholly ignorant of history if you'd equate wearing a flight suit, arguing for military intervention in Iraq, or the execution of that military action to anything having to do with Hitler or Mussolini), extreme nationalism (which is wholly different from patriotism), and brutal oppression of political opposition (don't even think about suggesting that's the case - it will only prove you are delusional). You might also be interested in knowing that Italian fascism arose from among the ranks of communism. Even many of Hitler's early supporters were disillusioned communists. Leon Trotsky said that fascism necessarily arises from the collapse of capitalism and democratic government as a result of a mass movement of the proletarian classes and petty bourgeoisie. In Italy's case, he said, it resulted from the betrayal of the proletariat by the petty bourgeoisie, with the latter forming the core of support and manpower for the fascist movement and government (otherwise, the movement could have progressed to communism). Sounds a lot like the Nazi rise in Germany, doesn't it? More importantly, is also sounds like the Baathist takeover of Iraq, especially when you consider the other characteristics of that regime. But it sounds nothing like George Bush, the Republican Party or the current state of political affairs in this country. Again, it is nothing more than a label applied by the lazy and ignorant to slander their opponents and avoid debating real issues in a reasoned manner. PS: Stalin considered all capitalism to be fascist. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and guess you wouldn't go quite that far, but I may be wrong as I haven't read many of your posts.