by Stephanie Baselice
We encourage you to visit the author's blog, May Day Resistance
Like many people, I have been increasingly alarmed by the political shifts in my native USA during my adult lifetime. My first vote was against Ronald Reagan in 1984, and by my standards things have been getting steadily scarier ever since.
The advent of the Tea Party, and their recent entry into the realms of public office has been especially horrifying. Their clear intent of rolling back decades of progress on women's rights, gay rights, the environment, and other areas while simultaneously enhancing the power of already rapacious corporations to influence lawmakers and fleece the public is beyond appalling. Even more appalling is the clear willingness of many of us—especially those who call themselves conservatives--to tolerate human rights abuses and infringements of basic liberties in the name of national security. In that regard I hold with Benjamin Franklin, who once said “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety “. So imagine my reaction when I first saw Laurence Britt's 14 points of convergence of fascist societies. Reading down the list I felt a deep and growing dread. We were already hitting all 14 points! According to the article, Laurence Britt is a Political Scientist who analyzed the regimes of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia and discovered these 14 points of convergence. Here are the basic 14 points:
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.
14. Fraudulent elections.
