For an appetizer, here’s a few stats to warm your heart today:
And from Matthew Fox on matthewfox.org, here’s another interesting tidbit:
Recently a political scientist, Dr. Lawrence Britt, wrote an article naming fourteen characteristics of fascism. He based his study on an examination of the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto and Pinochet. A summary of Britt’s points follow.
1. Powerful and continuing nationalism employing constant use of patriotic slogans, symbols, songs, flags.
2. Disdain for the recognition of human rights because security needs outweigh human rights which can be ignored.
3. Using enemies as scapegoats for a unifying cause.
4. Supremacy of the military.
5. Rampant sexism including more rigid gender roles and anti-gay legislation.
6. Controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security driven by a politics of fear.
8. Religion and Government are intertwined especially in rhetoric employed by its leaders.
9. Corporate power is protected — industrial and business aristocracies put government leaders into power and keep them there creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor power, which represents one of the few threats to fascism, is suppressed.
11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts and hostility to higher education along with censorship of arts or refusal to support the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent Elections.
Does any of this sound familiar?
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