Its worth noting that the G20 are seeking to continue free trade and punish protectionist tendencies, rendering "The Fascists began to impose significant tariffs and other trade barriers" as pointless to the discussion.
Just as Mussolini did (in slightly different words), Obama repeatedly talks about using government to "leverage" private investment for the greater good.
So did David Hume, who is now presumably a "classical liberal fascist", or something. Besides, no matter what the President says, its going the other way, socializing the losses, to the detriment of society, in order to prop up the lifestyles of a far smaller amount of private figures.
Meanwhile, his close ally Barney Frank introduced a bill to give the Treasury Secretary the power to set all salary levels for all employees of any companies in which the government has a capital stake.
ZOMG MEDIOCRE FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY = FASCISM. For real? If the government is the capital stakeholder, it can do anything up to and including give the entire company's liquid assets to Barack Obama's puppy as a birthday present. And quite frankly, that has some appeal, if only for the novelty value.
As George Will has written, Congress has delegated so much economic authority to the Treasury, the Fed, and the president that the Constitution itself has almost certainly been shredded in the panic.
Well its certainly a good thing George Will was around all those other times to scold panicking governments intent on shredding the Constitution. Oh, wait.
Meanwhile, in Congress's rush to pass a huge expansion of "national service" programs, almost exactly as outlined by Obama in a 2007 speech, few congressman likely realized that the details included "campuses" with "superintendents" of uniformed youth, formed into "cadres," and indoctrinated even in math and science classes in the ideals of "service learning" financed through a "social innovation fund" funneled through favored "community organizations." (ACORN, anyone?) Even elementary school students would be recruited for these government-sponsored efforts.
ACORN is, after all, the Illuminati, and since "[t]he quintessential liberal fascist isn’t an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade-school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore", it would make sense to bring the teachers in, too. You wont be laughing when the Peace Corps break down your door and force you to watch Rachel Maddow re-runs and Michael Moore films 24/7, no siree (ironic aside: Neoconservative theorists have said as bold as day they intend to use war to brutalize the nation and turn it from its soft, decadent state into an imperial nation of blood and iron, and
this is considered more fascist?
Puh-leeze).
As the Washington Examiner editorialized, it all sounds like a "creepy authoritarianism" on the loose.
Plus ca change, as our fine French allies would no doubt snicker.
Since when was it government's role, as Obama claims, to "invest" in all sorts of new technologies
I mean, who uses this stupid fucking "internet" anyway?
The stadium speeches in front of a Greek emperor's columns. The permanent campaign, the deliberate ubiquity. The "public service" radio ads with the president himself urging national service upon us. The iconic imagery on campaign materials. The millennial language about his own election as the moment when seas stopped rising and Earth started healing and about the need to "save the planet." The traveling abroad with an official entourage of 500 people (and a limo nicknamed "The Beast"). The fawning media. The simplistic slogans chanted over and over.
Yeah, Bush was kinda fascist, now you mention it. What do you mean you were talking about someone else?
Finally, there is Obama's elevation of raw science to what he calls its "rightful place" as an end in itself, as if divorced from questions of morality. As Charles Krauthammer wrote, "how anyone as sophisticated as Obama can believe this within living memory of Mengele and Tuskegee…is hard to fathom."
...Krauthammer said, as he urged on the nuclear holocaust of the state of Iran.
To be clear, none of this is to even come close to equating the Obama administration with Nazism. The conflation of Nazism with fascism is a gross misunderstanding of history; the original fascism and Nazism are entirely different breeds of vipers, with the latter being far more deadly.
Sure. He's a fascist, but you don't mean that in a bad, Hitler way. Also, for real? I guess Hitler being inspired by Mussolini and constantly drawing comparisons between Il Duce and himself and, I don't know, considering him
an ideological ally with the same essential goals and beliefs sure sounds like a good case for a link between fascism and Nazism. But, you know, I only spent 3 years studying Nazi Germany and European interwar history, so what would I know?
The diminution of liberty, the enhanced state control, the indoctrination of youth, and the cult of the leader all violate basic tenets of the American experiment.
"Except when a Republican does it".
Already, there is an organized movement afoot to repeal the 22nd Amendment that limits presidents to two terms.
Yeah, its a good thing previous leaders, like Bush, didn't harbour any
dictatorial ambitions, isn't it?
The thing that most annoys me about the American right is their hypocrisy makes it impossible to take them seriously at all. Because they are a bunch of hysterical, paranoid fantasists who spend their time projecting their own worst traits onto their enemies, I am inclined to disbelieve them from the outset - knowing full well that if their guy were the one doing such things, they would be enthusiastically cheerleading it on without so much as a worry in the world.
