Are we moving toward fascism?

[Voyager]

@Magiver

Uh huh. You would have been fine if Bush had a narc web site?

He only listened into my calls without the proper authorization.
You have any evidence that the identities (if any) on this mail are being used for nefarious purposes? Or is it just more paranoia? You know, the kind that’s so afraid of losing rights in Democratic administrations and ignores much worse abuses in Republican ones?

[Magiver]

@Voyager

He only listened into my calls without the proper authorization.
You have any evidence that the identities (if any) on this mail are being used for nefarious purposes? Or is it just more paranoia? You know, the kind that’s so afraid of losing rights in Democratic administrations and ignores much worse abuses in Republican ones?

Did they repeal the Patriot Act?

[Voyager]

There is a big difference between tea party types and the town hall meeting disruptors. The tea party people may be patsies, but I don’t recall them doing anything outside the bounds of normal discourse. The town hall people are trying to prevent citizens from hearing information from their elected officials.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Magiver

Did they repeal the Patriot Act?

Most of it has been repealed piecemeal by the courts, and the roving wiretap bit in Title II will end on December 31, 2009. The Obama administration has pledged not to renew it.

[Knorf]

Thuggish groups trying to disrupt reasoned political debate have been around since colonial times. Nothing new, nothing that threatens our democracy in any substantive sense. At least, not yet.

[Magiver]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Most of it has been repealed piecemeal by the courts, and the roving wiretap bit in Title II will end on December 31, 2009. The Obama administration has pledged not to renew it.

Would that be the Title II President Obama voted for in 2006?

[BrainGlutton]

@toadspittle

Meh. There’s a BIG difference between disrupting town hall meetings with noisy blowhards and disrupting town hall meetings with armed paramilitary groups.

It’s approximately the same as the difference between gonorrhea and syphilis.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

One burns less?

[Jerseyman]

When has the USA NOT been the world’s leading fascist state? When Abe Lincoln was in charge perhaps? So they shot him.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Jerseyman

When has the USA NOT been the world’s leading fascist state? When Abe Lincoln was in charge perhaps? So they shot him.

I hear we were demoted from 1932 to 1945 or so.

[Kozmik]

@Fear_Itself

Asking questions is not fascist. Shouting down the congressperson hosting the townhall, or others trying to express themselves rationally is fascist. Do you not see the difference?

Ask a question; get an answer.

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

@Dick_Dastardly

That pretty much sums the current GOP up, doesn’t it? That’s them in a nutshell really.

Pretty much…

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

@BrainGlutton

No, a democracy turns fascist when a desperate minority tries that and wins. Not gonna happen here.

I feel like it isn’t a plausible outcome either. But… Bill O’Reiley inspired that moonbat to shoot that abortion doctor. Townhall meetings are being disrupted. Anti-intellectualism is rampant. A few months ago officials were talking seriously about the secession of Texas. Increase the collusion between the grassroots and the elites and magnify the scale and… well, could it happen in 2009 America or not? The Republicans are starting to creep me out.

[Shodan]

@MeDrewNotYou

I don’t think the rest of the country will let that happen. The wingnuts are going to do something stupid and the mushy middle will turn against them. I believe this because of the way the country reacted to Sarah Palin: the more they found out how crazy she was, the more they abandoned her (I’ll look for polling if anyone wants it).

Please do look for polling - the last I heard, Palin was the most popular female politician on the national scene - much more so than Pelosi or Reid, both of whom were lower in their approval ratings than Palin. Or Bush, for that matter.

Regards,
Shodan

[mswas]

I don’t think the conservative tea bagger leadership is smart enough to implement it.

[RTFirefly]

@Olentzero

The eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency were not fascist. Nor did they move the country towards fascism. (A lot of the last forty years have seen the growth of a police state in the US, but that is not the same thing.) The country is not in the same sort of political crisis that Germany and Italy were in the 1920s and 1930s (although absence of real economic recovery would go a long way towards provoking one) and therefore there is no precarious balance of power for the fascists to tilt.

Thanks for providing a bit of healthy perspective, Olentzero.

And good to see you back here, Commie Bastard!

[Spoke]

The funny thing about the current set of disruptive thugs showing up at town hall meetings is that they are mostly gray-headed geezers, unlike the 1920s variant. Geriatric fascists don’t worry me so much.

[Burton]

I understand the points raised in the OP and have had similar thoughts. I’ve also thought that in some ways criticism of the health care backlash does look wrong. However, there are dissimilarities, liberal adults do not really engage in the same type behavior. (maybe PETA does) but generally I think mainstream liberal adults would rather have conversations and information than seek to disrupt and act as a herd of unthinking cattle.

[BrainGlutton]

John J. Reilly’s review of Fascism: A History, by Roger Eatwell. Highly recommended – deals with the ideology (in an intellectual sense) of fascism and the possibility of fascist resurgence.

[athelas]

Fascism is a political philosophy that supports an alliance between a strong central government and political alliances between government and large corporations.

And now, I give you Robert Reich, SecLabor under Clinton:

I’m a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I’m appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry’s lobbying arm to buy their support.

Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. That’s basically the same deal George W. Bush struck in getting the Medicare drug benefit, and it’s proven a bonanza for the drug industry…

In return, Big Pharma isn’t just supporting universal health care. It’s also spending a lots of money on TV and radio advertising in support. Sunday’s New York Times reports that Big Pharma has budgeted $150 million for TV ads promoting universal health insurance, starting this August (that’s more money than John McCain spent on TV advertising in last year’s presidential campaign), after having already spent a bundle through advocacy groups like Healthy Economies Now and Families USA.

Let me remind you: Any bonanza for the drug industry means higher health-care costs for the rest of us, which is one reason why critics of the emerging healthcare plans, including the Congressional Budget Office, are so worried about their failure to adequately stem future healthcare costs. To be sure, as part of its deal with the White House, Big Pharma apparently has promised to cut future drug costs by $80 billion. But neither the industry nor the White House nor any congressional committee has announced exactly where the $80 billion in savings will show up nor how this portion of the deal will be enforced. In any event, you can bet that the bonanza Big Pharma will reap far exceeds $80 billion. Otherwise, why would it have agreed?

I want universal health insurance…But I also care about democracy, and the deal between Big Pharma and the White House frankly worries me. It’s bad enough when industry lobbyists extract concessions from members of Congress, which happens all the time. But when an industry gets secret concessions out of the White House in return for a promise to lend the industry’s support to a key piece of legislation, we’re in big trouble. That’s called extortion: An industry is using its capacity to threaten or prevent legislation as a means of altering that legislation for its own benefit. And it’s doing so at the highest reaches of our government, in the office of the President.

Reich, as a Democrat and UHC supporter, prefers to blame Big Pharma for subverting democracy, but I would take his argument a step further. The Obama administration is engaged in pushing forward a highly ambitious but controversial agenda, from universal healthcare to climate change legislation. In each case, rather than governing from the center, his aims are as far from the center, as immoderate, as he thinks he can get away with - and as a result, he runs into heavy opposition making it a coin flip whether the bills will pass or not.

So far, so good, plenty of presidents do this. BUT, what he now does, instead of trying to convince the American people that his way is the best, is go to all the relevant special interests and start cutting deals. In exchange for their support, he will give them a hand in shaping the bills. If they oppose him, then they get no skin in the game. Now this is lobbying on steroids - mandatory lobbying! It’s a highly hypocritical move for a politician who bloviated during the campaign about opposing special interests in Washington, and a disturbing trend for democracy.