Rick wrote:

DSK wrote:

Now that is spooky. Anything at all could be forbidden... usually
governments that forbid taking pictures are outright dictatorships... next
thing you know, Ashcroft will declare that voting has been suspended until
further notice, due to terrorist threats.

Not just "usually" it is a glaring red flag indicating a
totalitarian regime. We are not far away already.

I would love to see the law that prohibits taking
photographs though, it smacks more of Bu****e wishful
thinking than practice, at least for now.

Yeah, look for "internal passports" and, if the polls
dictate it, something "happening" just before the election
that requires martial law and a postponement of elections.

Bush and his handlers are taking us into dark waters.

Rick


An historian from Spain I met recently told me the Bush Administration
reminded him very much of the fascist Franco regime that held his
homeland by the throat for so many years.

Here are some thoughts from one of the fathers of fascism. See if you
notice any parallels between what Mussolini described and what is
happening now in the United States:

Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the
development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the
moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual
peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a
renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of
sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy
and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet
it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into
the position where they have to make the great decision -- the
alternative of life or death....

(Ah, yes...war alone...a prestatement of the "Bush Doctrine")



....The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and
despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and
conquest, but above all for others -- those who are at hand and those
who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after...

(Getting nervous yet?)


....Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and
repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical
application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that
it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone
can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the
immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can
never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical
process such as universal suffrage....

(Well?)

....Fascism denies, in democracy, the absur[d] conventional untruth of
political equality dressed out in the garb of collective
irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress....

....Given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of
Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the
twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and
Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may
rather be expected that this will be a century of authority...a century
of Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism
it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and
hence the century of the State....

(A Century of Authority, from the Republican right-wing, no less)


The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character,
its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in
comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be
conceived of in their relation to the State.

(John Ashcroft uber alles...)


The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force,
guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a
collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording
results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and
has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic"
State....

(Ah, yes...the "ethic" state...)



....The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient
margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all
useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the
deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State
alone....


(Are we under orange alert? May we read and carry our almanacs again?)


....For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of
the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite
a sign of decadence.

(Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria(?), the Moon...)


Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence,
are always imperialist; and renunciation is a sign of decay and of
death. Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies
and the aspirations of a people, like the people of Italy, who are
rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude.
But empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a
deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects
of the practical working of the regime, the character of many forces in
the State, and the necessarily severe measures which must be taken
against those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement
of Italy in the twentieth century, and would oppose it by recalling the
outworn ideology of the nineteenth century - repudiated wheresoever
there has been the courage to undertake great experiments of social and
political transformation; for never before has the nation stood more in
need of authority, of direction and order.

(Severe measures, indeed...)


If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand
signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time.
For if a doctrine must be a living thing, this is proved by the fact
that Fascism has created a living faith; and that this faith is very
powerful in the minds of men is demonstrated by those who have suffered
and died for it.

(We're becoming what we fought in World War II. )




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