You know what, Gus?
I’m not entirely sure I want to thank you for that article.
It was so much more comfortable w/ the wool pulled over my eyes.
I think we have an answer, now, for “how did they get into power” question re: Hitler & Mussolini.
What I’m not seeing (in initial reading) is what to do. Awareness is important…..but so is action. And how to work to turn things around………..

I have been watching this for years and this article is an alarm.
Little by little since the Reagan years we have been losing our civil liberties. And they keep telling us this is for our own good. We have all fallen for the hype of the corporate media. Eisenhower was so right when he warned of the dangers of the military industrial complex and how it might take the country over and the corporate media has only helped. When have we not been at war somewhere since the war to end all wars? Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War,Iraq — is Iran next? I cringed at the actions of Bush and Cheney. But they haven’t and won’t and we’ll lose more civil liberties as our government continues to war. Unfortunately, I don’t see a way out of this mess or how to gain back what we’ve lost.

Well you might be right, Bush wiretapped calls made by citizens looking to harm us..I never was harmed by that, cause I wasnt out to harm america. However in 6 months of this admin. They illegally denied first recievership with the automakers, and now have a real live Communist, Van Jones,as a Czar in the White House. I wasnt ever threated by any admin before this one..not to mention the “rat on your neighbor committee” just instituted to find those “fishy” emailers out to get them! PS that’s unconstitutional, go look it up in your fascist handbook ….plllllease

All that being said, and i’m not saying Paxton doesn’t make some excellent points, I really don’t think “we’ve arrived there” yet. There are still too many positive things going on too, freedoms in the process of being won and being won back, criticism of the quid pro quo still sounding forth and not being quashed, changing demographics…And I really don’t think the “demon exorcisms” stories equate with rounding up Jews and forcing them to wear the yellow star of David patch, ect. I’ve read some great things by Chris Hedges (“American fascists”) and even he, while issuing a strong warning, isn’t that alarmist.
Believe me, I take these things seriously, but I just don’t see it. Was the ’68 democratic convention violent and tension filled, yes, to put it mildly (and I’m fully aware those were REAL people out there and not corporate goons) but the sky didn’t fall then either. We have to be careful of turning into our opponents who erroneously carry picket signs bearing the swastika on them.

I agree with those who say we have not arrived there. Where we have arrived – it’s why I italicized the word – is a genuine fascist MOVEMENT that fits the details pretty closely. While no leader has risen yet, their obvious search for hero figures means that it’s a matter of time.
Its important to realize there is nothing inevitable about such movements succeeding. There were lots of fascist movements in Europe before WWII, and most did not succeed. If there is a silver lining, it is that Beck and Limbaugh and Hannity and Palin and others are now exposed as utterly contemptuous of America’s democratic standards of politics.
But we need to keep a very clear eye on these jokers – and those ‘conservatives’ who make excuses for them, like some recent visitors to this blog.
I will post Part 2 of this piece when it arrives. I suspect t will have the “what do we do” art. And I have my own ideas. As do many of you. Stay tuned.

My take on it is that the thugs who are showing up at the town hall meetings, and the Republicans who are bankrolling them and otherwise supporting them, have as their goal nothing less than the destruction of the democratic process in the United States. If these astroturfers’ antics are allowed to succeed at any level, then the perpetrators will feel empowered and emboldened, and democracy in the U.S. will likely be done for.
By the way, if anyone is looking here for the “spiritual” connection, try this quotation from the linked article:
After Labor Day, when Democratic senators and representatives go back to Washington, the mobs now being created to harass them will remain to run the same tactics — escalated and perfected with each new use — against anyone in town whose color, religion, or politics they don’t like. In some places, they’re already making notes and taking names.
If these brownshirt tactics prevail, the U.S. will not be a safe place for Pagans, or for members of other minority religions, for some time to come.

As much as I bristle when I start hearing the word Fascism thrown around, this article does well in trying to observe patterns in the past of Fascist movements to help try and predict whether we’re headed there or not. I would have preferred a clear definition of Fascism within the article, though.
I define it based on the merging of corporate power with the state along with right-wing philosophies which almost always brings in religious themes, themes of racial purity, anti-union, etc. The Republicans seem to be rather desperate right now, so I see them being more and more willing to accept extreme rhetoric.
However, I also hope in identifying these themes, people don’t take their eye off the ball in criticizing the Obama administration and the power of corporations. I voted for the guy, but things are looking more and more to me like Clinton II — better than Bush, but how much better I’m not sure.

Gus,
What do you recommend us ordinary citizens outside of the corridors of power do to help make sure this movement doesn’t succeed? As you know; I am heavily involved in Libertarian circles ~ blog was listed on the original Alliance of the Libertarian Left webpage. I know Libertarians and constitutionalists opposed to Obama’s plan, but they haven’t gotten involved in teabaggery fascism ~ was relieved to hear one say he wouldn’t participate due to not being a Republican whore (with all due respect to sex workers)
I consider Obama a lackluster pragmatic president but am opposed to a Republican Party coup. As of now; I can live a decent life under Obama ~ the same cannot be said for the reign of the thoroughly theocracized conventional right.

I lean more toward Niewert’s analysis than Robinson’s, in part because the tea-party hooligans haven’t been able to get any traction and in part because they haven’t crossed the line into outright violence against scapegoat populations.
No member of Congress is going to change his or her position on health care reform as a result of having his or her town-hall meeing disrupted by hooligans — especially, will not be intimidated into shifting from support to opposition. The member of Congress still holds the power; the tea-partiers can disrupt his or her feedback from constitutents but cannot compel a political outcome.
If some of the hooligans went into actual violence against Muslims — and they, my friends, not Pagan, will be the targeted minority if this happens — and the police did nothing, that would be a big sign of growing (not just incipient) fascism. But not even the violence has happened yet, let alone an apathetic police response.
It’s a bad situation and the tea-partiers make it worse, but by the same token it’s no time to panic.

The movement is in full swing, and it grows and swells with the generations that take in the rhetoric of the groups that propose these ‘solutions, like converting non-Christians, taking down the non-American regimes over there in (insert Middle Eastern Country here), take back America for Christ’, which they propose as the solutions to the ‘socialist and Godless revolution taking over America…the Pagans and Atheists need to be stopped’ (quotes from a conversation had with an admitted right-wing Christian in a bookstore).
These words were from a guy I met on the street, who assumed I was Christian. After his minute and half long tirade about the evil of Universal Healthcare (what he called Socialized Medicine), Pagans, Atheists and how Americans needed to defend their liberties by taking back America for Christ, I told him of my faith, Neopaganism. After he refused to hear a word I would say, and after several minutes of trying to speak with him civilly, debate or otherwise intellectually engage him, and his wife who eventually joined him, I thanked him for his time and left.
I’ve heard these same points repeated time and again; if your average right-wing Christian is saying these words, this is a cause for alarm.
It does not just smack of elitism or “my God is better than your God”, it smacks of a feeling, an entire religious movement, willing and readying to ‘take back America for Christ’. Even if all they support is the rhetoric, this gets people in line with their ideologies elected, who then try to impose these values and such on all Americans around them. How many more George Bushes are needed until people see this movement as a threat?
As if the last administration did not assault many of our most sacred liberties, the Obama administration still has not removed much of the Bush Doctrine practices, at least that I have seen. We still have black ops facilities to which our operatives are still authorized to take suspected terrorists from their homes with no respect to their rights or habeas corpus and hold them there indefinitely. I don’t know if even the definition of terrorist or terrorism has changed from the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, Section 802…so the door for charging people and hold them indefinitely on being suspected terrorists is still holding over this country, so far as I know. If this has changed please enlighten me.

The movement is in full swing, and it grows and swells with the generations that take in the rhetoric of the groups that propose these ‘solutions, like converting non-Christians, taking down the non-American regimes over there in (insert Middle Eastern Country here), take back America for Christ’, which they propose as the solutions to the ‘socialist and Godless revolution taking over America…the Pagans and Atheists need to be stopped’ (quotes from a conversation had with an admitted right-wing Christian in a bookstore).
These words were from a guy I met on the street, who assumed I was Christian. After his minute and half long tirade about the evil of Universal Healthcare (what he called Socialized Medicine), Pagans, Atheists and how Americans needed to defend their liberties by taking back America for Christ, I told him of my faith, Neopaganism. After he refused to hear a word I would say, and after several minutes of trying to speak with him civilly, debate or otherwise intellectually engage him, and his wife who eventually joined him, I thanked him for his time and left.
I’ve heard these same points repeated time and again; if your average right-wing Christian is saying these words, this is a cause for alarm.
It does not just smack of elitism or “my God is better than your God”, it smacks of a feeling, an entire religious movement, willing and readying to ‘take back America for Christ’. Even if all they support is the rhetoric, this gets people in line with their ideologies elected, who then try to impose these values and such on all Americans around them. How many more George Bushes are needed until people see this movement as a threat?
As if the last administration did not assault many of our most sacred liberties, the Obama administration still has not removed much of the Bush Doctrine practices, at least that I have seen. We still have black ops facilities to which our operatives are still authorized to take suspected terrorists from their homes with no respect to their rights or habeas corpus and hold them there indefinitely. I don’t know if even the definition of terrorist or terrorism has changed from the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, Section 802…so the door for charging people and hold them indefinitely on being suspected terrorists is still holding over this country, so far as I know. If this has changed please enlighten me.

“Well you might be right, Bush wiretapped calls made by citizens looking to harm us..I never was harmed by that, cause I wasnt out to harm america.”
Actually, Bush wiretapped many, many calls that had nothing at all to do with national security. Of course, Ellie and her ilk are all for this kind of action when one of their political leaders is in power. The minute she might become a target she gets all up in arms.
Good thing there are folks who have been fighting ALL administrations who try to push this kind of stuff down our throats. Might I suggest you join the ACLU, Ellie?

My apologies for the double post.