10 steps to fascism

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

Absolutely terrifying. I wish people would wake up - I love the references to Britney, Idol, Anna Nicole... ther eis more to life than that crap being fed to you by a media controlled by a few and designed to have you dumb and enslaved. People, just wake up and look around you! Please! For the sake of us all!

Yeah, I think the US has danced around those steps a few times before. The real question is whether the US can bounce back.

The US government is not just conducting a war against Islamic extremist agents, but a war on freedom and opposing viewpoints. Whether it's just paranoid America, or something overall more sinister...

Is a white non-Muslim going to conduct a violent attack against his fellow citizens?

"Terrorist" has become the new "Communist", but in a much more perverted form. Anyone who is overly vocal in criticising Bush and his policies is at risk, almost. The next US president, if they try to revert these policies, are they at risk of being assassinated?

However, Bush, at the moment, seems like Hitler lite. Whilst there have not been such extreme crackdowns on opponents as in the Nazi regime, the Bush administration is definitely showing signs of anti-liberty and fascist leadership. Think cold-war McCarthyism: returned with a 21st-century twist.

The world changes.... nothing stays the same forever. Perhaps this decade will end in significant upheaval. I can feel it in my bones.

The US and UK economies, at least, are both suffering majorly. The price of oil is going up, and will continue to go up and up and up and up until it hits the ceiling. Both governments have launched crackdowns on freedom and independent thought.

China is becoming a superpower.

Russia is a major player in the energy market.

A second cold war, perhaps?

Oh, speculation, it's fun.

That essay reeks of BS and chips! America is not Fascist, and their is very little chance of this happening.

America is not headed towards a governmental fascist state at all. Fascist states have been shown to, in almost every instance, crumble as easily as the democracies that preceded them. What we are headed towards is a global corporate police state. I, for one, cannot believe that someone as stupid as Bush could actually wield such power effectively (unless he's smarter than he lets on). What is happening is this: Large companies (think Halliburton) give a large campaign donation to a certain candidate (Bush) to nominate a certain running mate (Cheney). In exchange, Cheney grants Halliburton (which he still has stock options with) no-bid contracts to provide for all sorts of business ventures in Iraq and areas affected by Katrina.

In effect, a multinational corporation/conglomerate/what have you becomes so rich that they're able to buy the world, and then a future that is even more grim than a fascist state awaits. Not only will many of the fascist restrictions be in place, but people will be forced to work 90 hours a week just to make enough money to buy basic provisions (sold at inflated prices, of course). The main force that eventually overcomes a fascist state is that voice of the people that said fascist states expend much effort to supress. Well, a corporatist state has options available to it that fascist states do not: the tools of McCarthyism. If any voices dissent, the corporation merely has to "blacklist" the dissenter, that is, to deny them access to any money (through long work hours for substandard wages) at all, and once the voices fall silent, the dissenters have been pacified and can be "plugged" back into the system. It's efficient, preserves the productivity that the dissenters would not provide if imprisoned or killed, and it avoids the controversies surrounding genocide.

We, as a global community, are headed for far worse waters than fascism (or even the most hard-line collectivism) ever was. If any of you out there are Trekkies, just think about the Borg and you will catch my meaning... to corporations, people are just cogs in the grand machine.

Wouldn't the great corporate state BE a variant of fascism? I mean, fascism is often noted for its corporatism, what would the major difference be? I suppose there wouldn't be an aggressive foreign policy if they bought the world, but that seems minor.

The depression is coming in about 2 yrs now, they've been slowly pitting the people against one another through this "culture war" between the right and left, so when the depression hits the people will tear each other apart. At the end of it, people desperate for order will actually beg the government for the RFID chips, so the government will not have to force it on society, people will willingly give up their wrists in chains to the government, not even realizing that this is what they had in mind all along.

Historically speaking, it should happen in 2009.

They happen every 80 years and have done for centuries now, and always once a new and brilliant technology becomes accepted by approx 90% of people and thus stops its capacity for further rapid growth. In 1929 - the last time - it was the motor car; this time it'll be the internet.