The following definition comes from the website of King's College. The full text can be found here:
Fascism can be defined as a political attitude and mass movement that arose during time between the first and second World War. Fascism is the attitude of giving full interest in economic, social, and military power to a dominant race or state lead by a single dominant leader. Fascism basically rejected the idea of Socialism, Capitalism, and Democracy. Fascism’s are single-party dictatorships characterized by terrorism and police surveillance. It focuses on ethnicity and “our” race being better than “your” race. Fascism isn’t limited to one culture alone. Each culture can believe that it is better and each person can consider himself to be better than his fellow man. Fascism is used to categorize censorship and oppression. Ones who take away freedom from others can be considered fascist.
In this day and age of reactionary political correctness, it is often seen as going too far to label someone as a "fascist." This is, of course, discounting the fringe mania of the past few years wherein a compromising American President has been repeatedly called everything from a socialist to a Nazi to, yes, a fascist for the egregious crime of wanting people to have affordable access to private-run health care. Yet, for all of the furor and hatred on the far right of the current American political spectrum that has been given not only credence by right-wing leaders, but has been embraced by several prominent Republicans, there is little to none of the same boisterous opposition and loosely-reality-based hyperbole coming from the opposite direction.
It is not hyperbole or out of the question to label the current dangerous right-wing shift as a movement toward fascism in America. The last time fascism began gaining ground in the western world followed the Great Depression, a time of great uncertainty, fear, and anxiety after the collapse of the worldwide financial market. Here again we are faced with crisis, both foreign and domestic, and it is not unfair nor untruthful to say that regular, everyday Americans are afraid again. In all honesty, they have every right to be.
However, fear is irrational and will often lead to a suspension of disbelief when it comes to facts, truth, decency, decorum, and compassion. The very idea is "I need to worry about myself, and I need a leader who will take care of me and no one else." This selfishness is understandable, but at this time when our outlook is bleakest that we all should be banding together the most... but we won't while we still have leaders who want to stoke those fires of fear and ignorance for their own greed and personal gain.
Here are definitions from the link above:
Fascism is the attitude of giving full interest in economic, social, and military power to a dominant race or state lead by a single dominant leader.
This is today's Republican party, plain and simple. Mitt Romney said that he was not worried about the very poor. Weeks later, the hard-right governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, claimed that the current President, Barack Obama, was licking his wounds after a tough debate by hiding out in "one of the most liberal places in the nation." This would be a standard claim... if it was not referring to the capital city of Walker's own state, Madison. This statement is openly practicing divisive policy and statements, seeking only to give support to those who believe, think, and act like themselves. This Republican party is going out of its way to "other" anyone who doesn't join in lock step with their policies, as evidenced by the expulsion of formerly moderate Republicans like Dick Lugar in Indiana for favor of more "ideologically pure" candidates who are championing a far-right, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-woman agenda. This is policy and thought put in place to champion one group: America's new wealthy, landed aristocracy.
The plan is, in the words of Scott Walker, to "divide and conquer." If you turn the different groups of Americans against each other, and encourage such fanatical bonding inside those groups, the American population is weak and easy to exploit. Like dough improperly stretched on a pizza pan, you get pockets of half-baked mess and the rest of it gets burned. There was a small amount of fuss made over a comment made by Mr. Romney's campaign during a disastrous trip to England that the current President, a man of African-American descent, did not have the correct "Anglo-Saxon values." A Romney surrogate has been quoted as saying that "this President needs to learn how to be an American." Signs and t-shirts have shown up urging Americans to "put the white back in the White House," and directly preceding the last presidential debate a surrogate of Fox News claimed that the President would "throw spears" at the debate. This racially charged rhetoric against what should have been a landmark, America's first black president, further lends credence to the fact that today's Republicans are pursuing a fascist policy.
Fascism’s are single-party dictatorships characterized by
terrorism and police surveillance. It focuses on ethnicity and “our”
race being better than “your” race.
This current Republican party has been chastised for wire-tapping American citizens without warrants. Recently, the Republicans have taken aim at removing abortion rights for American women, citing faulty science and backwards doctrines in order to justify seemingly knowing what is best for the young women of this nation, even going so far as championing and passing legislation that requires women to undergo state-mandated, forced, and unwanted vaginal probings. Several Republican controlled legislatures are now trying to make it harder to vote for a disproportionately minority segment of their populations. A Republican senator was quoted as saying that the Republican party needed to excite within its base "angry white guys" in order to win the last Presidential election. Every policy choice and rhetorical movement in the Republican party, particularly since the year 2010, has been to marginalize and attempt to hold on to power for a group of Americans than are seeing their percentage of the population and their power within the American system wane as a new and increasingly racially mixed generation begins its rise. There is no other word to describe this drastic shift in the Republican party towards racist, sexist, and classist policies than Fascism.
At Your Service,
Doremus Jessup
