Fascism Unmasked

by Stephen Fleischman

Defining Fascism is a little like describing an elephant in the dark. It depends on what part of the animal you’re touching. If you’re holding the trunk, you can say it’s a fat snake. If you’re holding the tail you can say it’s a whip.

There’s a rancid smell of fascism in the air lately and nobody is doing anything about it; like the apathy of the German people before the Reichstag fire in February of 1933. Political scientist, Dr. Lawrence W. Britt, published the results of his study of Fascism in Free Inquiry Magazine defining 14 of its characteristics, but he, too, describes the symptoms, not the cause.

Let’s go to the source—Benito Mussolini, strongman of Italy before World War II, who instituted Fascism and coined the word.

Mussolini defined Fascism as Corporatism. When corporations take over government by whatever means, by buying up politicians or getting their hands on the wheels of power, they are merging corporate power and government—that’s Fascism. All the other depredations of democracy follow.

It’s a dictatorship; it’s a loss of freedom; it’s condoning torture: it’s controlling mass media; it’s fraudulent elections. It can be all of those things.

Sound familiar? Where did Habeas Corpus go? Who’s violating the Geneva Conventions? Who’s surveilling American citizens without warrants? What is Guantanamo Bay? A concentration camp? Harboring enemy combatants at the moment, but being prepared for naughty, dissident American citizens one day, maybe?