[QUOTE="sSubZerOo"]Fascism is ultra nationalism.. Things like the past 8 years in the Bush adminstration could be considered rather fascist in approach.. Such as the fact that the adminstration suggested that any kind of criticism towards them or the government is unamerican, unpatriotic.. Cowardly for letting the terrorists win etc etc.. This exact same thing was also done during the Cold War especially during the 50s where basically YOU had to be "proud to be a American" or you may be considered a commie.YourChaosIsntMe
Fascism incorporates ultranationalism, or generally does in application. Are you implying that all nationalism, or even most nationalism, is fascistic? The paragraph opening your following statement is, forgive me, hyperbolic sloganeering. First, the type of explicit ideological repression during not just the 50's, but from the late 19th century through McCarthyism (and in a more implied capacity in pop culture thereafter) has little correlation with the vague nationalism of American culture in recent years beyond the inevitable nature of gradual "progress,"*** the limitations of which all cultures are subject to.The Bush administration was certainly nationalist, but every administration is at least vaguely nationalist. The term nationalist has been skewed in the pop culture lexicon by the Nazis, National Front, KKK, and their analogues. The effect of the entertainment-news media needs their recognition here too, hahaha. Most importantly, nationalism is not expressly related to fascism; it exists in all political ideologies. I wouldn't consider anything the American government did throughout it's entire existence "fascist." Lamentable, disgusting, incorrigible, repressive, exploitative, and classist certainly, but in any way fascist? I've really grown weary of the ease which people use the word "fascist." Out of curiosity, are you implying Italian and German fascism, or ideologically pure fascism? If you would like to discuss political ideologies in vague terms, then we can use the terms more freely, but I don't think you intended for the word to be vague.
***Whatever the hell that word means.
Edit: As a sidebar, political theory, sociology, and history (or social sciences in general) were my first academic interests, and my current major (economics), I'm not opposed to a more thorough conversation. :)
Ideological.. And Bush was text book, he used nationalism in trying to push forward bills like the Patriot Act and allow torture even though it violated human rights and trampled over the Constiution.. But it was the "Patriotic" thing to do, and if you disagreed you were not a patriot, quite possibly a coward or a traitor.. Hell Kerry's smearing was based not only on claiming he was a coward, but they called him unamerican for standing up against the Vietnam War... This is not narrowing Bush down, because we had this kind of thing for the past 50 years for the Cold War.. Now we have a new Cold War, in which we are now going against Middle Eastern fundamentalism.
Log in to comment