Intro: "Anyone who doesn't believe that the US is an incipient fascist state needs only to consult the latest assault on civil liberty by Fox News (sic). Instead of informing citizens, Fox News (sic) informs on citizens. Jason Ditz reports (antiwar.com Dec. 28) that Fox News (sic) 'no longer content to simply shill for a growing police state,' turned in a grandmother to the Department of Homeland Security for making 'anti-American comments.'"

American flag behind barbed wire, and all that implies, 06/15/09. (photo: Public domain)

Incipient Fascist State

By Paul Craig Roberts, Reader Supported News

31 December 10

nyone who doesn't believe that the US is an incipient fascist state needs only to consult the latest assault on civil liberty by Fox News (sic). Instead of informing citizens, Fox News (sic) informs on citizens. Jason Ditz reports (antiwar.com Dec. 28) that Fox News (sic) "no longer content to simply shill for a growing police state," turned in a grandmother to the Department of Homeland Security for making "anti-American comments."

The media have segued into the police attitude, which regards insistence on civil liberties and references to the Constitution as signs of extremism, especially when the Constitution is invoked in defense of dissent or privacy or placarded on a bumper sticker. President George W. Bush set the scene when he declared: "you are with us or against us."

Bush's words demonstrate a frightening decline in our government's respect for dissent since the presidency of John F. Kennedy. In a speech to the Newspaper Publishers Association in 1961, President Kennedy said:

"No president should fear public scrutiny of his program, for from that scrutiny comes understanding, and from that understanding comes support or opposition; and both are necessary.... Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed, and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian law makers once decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment."

The press is not protected, Kennedy told the newspaper publishers, in order that it can amuse and entertain, emphasize the trivial, or simply tell the public what it wants to hear. The press is protected so that it can find and report facts and, thus, inform, arouse "and sometimes even anger public opinion."

In a statement unlikely to be repeated by an American president, Kennedy told the newspaper publishers:

"I'm not asking your newspapers to support an administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people, for I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed."

The America of Kennedy's day and the America of today are two different worlds. In America today the media are expected to lie for the government in order to prevent the people from finding out what the government is up to. If polls can be believed, Americans brainwashed and programmed by O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh want Bradley Manning and Julian Assange torn limb from limb for informing Americans of the criminal acts of their government. Politicians and journalists are screeching for their execution.

President Kennedy told the Newspaper Publishers Association that "it is to the printing press, the recorder of man's deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news, that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: Free and Independent." Who can imagine a Bill Clinton, a George W. Bush, or a Barack Obama saying such a thing today?

Today the press is a propaganda ministry for the government. Any member who departs from his duty to lie and spin the news is expelled from the fraternity. A public increasingly unemployed, broke and homeless is told that they have vast enemies plotting to destroy them in the absence of annual trillion dollar expenditures for the military/security complex, wars lasting decades, no-fly lists, unlimited spying and collecting of dossiers on citizens supplemented by neighbors reporting on neighbors, full body scanners at airports, shopping centers, metro and train stations, traffic checks, and the equivalence of treason with the uttering of a truth.

Two years ago when he came into office President Obama admitted that no one knew what the military mission was in Afghanistan, including the president himself, but that he would find a mission and define it. On his recent trip to Afghanistan, Obama came up with the mission: to make the families of the troops safe in America, his version of Bush's "we have to kill them over there before they kill us over here."

No one snorted with derision or even mildly giggled. Neither the New York Times nor Fox News (sic) dared to wonder if perhaps, maybe, murdering and displacing large numbers of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen and US support for Israel's similar treatment of Lebanese and Palestinians might be creating a hostile environment that could breed terrorists. If there still is such a thing as the Newspaper Publishers Association, its members are incapable of such an unpatriotic thought.

Today no one believes that our country's success depends on an informed public and a free press. America's success depends on its financial and military hegemony over the world. Any information inconsistent with the indispensable people's god-given right to dominate the world must be suppressed and the messenger discredited and destroyed.

Now that the press has voluntarily shed its First Amendment rights, the government is working to redefine free speech as a privilege limited to the media, not a right of citizens. Thus, the insistence that WikiLeaks is not a media organization and Fox News (sic) turning in a citizen for exercising free speech. Washington's assault on Assange and WikiLeaks is an assault on what remains of the US Constitution. When we cheer for WikiLeaks' demise, we are cheering for our own.

Paul Craig Roberts [ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan's first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of "Supply-Side Revolution: An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington," "Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy," and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of "The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice." Click here for Peter Brimelow's Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

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+72 # Elizabeth 2010-12-31 21:42

Fox thinks it's a country that we should all be allegiant to, but Fox is not run by Americans at all. Sure, we need to fix the foreign propaganda machines like Fox, and fix those who would stop Social Security (which is always paid for by the following generation. What the following generation needs is affordable education and jobs that offer a living wage, and the boomers won't have to worry about Social Security.) Let's pray that 2011 is a little better. At least the half-way health-care plan will let me keep my house: my husband's surgery, hospital stay, and chemo therapy would have put us out on the street just a few years ago.

0 # racetoinfinity 2011-01-01 01:10

I don't know how the new plan will help you until 2014 ?

+69 # Anonymot 2010-12-31 21:46

I've finished the research for a novel that begins in Germany, 1930. You are absolutely right. The resemblances and drift make the nape hair stand up. No one there, like no one here was/is willing to believe it. Wait until out professional army and the private mercenary army are given orders. Soldiers Obey. We are becoming a castrated, docile public in a time of aggressive, politicised militarism.

It's very useful to hear your comments. Thank you.

Jack Siler

+12 # banichi 2011-01-01 00:40

Jack, I am also researching a novel on our money, sustainability, and what to do about it. I would be interested in hearing more about yours. I am extremely concerned about this issue.

+38 # racetoinfinity 2011-01-01 01:11

He's not the only one warning about it. See Naomi Wolf and to some extent, Glenn Greenwald, among others ringing the incipient fascist state warning bell.

+38 # bigkahuna671 2011-01-01 06:59

Say Jack, I'm glad that I'm not the only one who sees the incredible resemblance between Germany of the '30s and the U.S. of today. But go further, there's also a resemblance between Afghanistan of the '90s and the U.S. of today. Think about it, religious fanatics who claim they know what God wants and that anyone who opposes them is to be destroyed. Why, that could be the far right in America just as much as it was the Taliban. Now, for your Nazi/Germany parallels. Use of the Big Lie, aligning of the party with Big Business, wearing symbols declaring their patriotism - anyone who doesn't wear them is not patriotic, and controlling the media or muzzling it by outshouting any that opposes it (Fox News anyone?). I no longer call the GOP by their rightful name, I call them the Republifascists . Every time I see Tea Partiers attack the President by calling him a Nazi or portraying him as Hitler, then attacking him as being a Communist, I crack up. I don't think they realize that one is controlled by Big Money and the other is supposedly trying to make everyone the same (yes, I know, Communism only claims that, they don't do it). Anyway, way to go, but don't send it to St. Martin's.

+3 # coach777b 2011-01-05 18:46

This is right on target. This why the right wants to destroy public schools, rewrite history books and put all of their children in "Christian academies" or home schooling. They fear the truth that would come from reading Shirer, Lewis or Orwell. Wake up America, it's not coming, it's here!

+24 # Metcalf 2011-01-01 16:29

I watched the Rose Parade floats this morning and noticed another, subtle sign of growing fascism. The Reagan float with a statue on the front looking quite similar to the Saddam Hussein statue torn down by American troops. Portraying a leader as larger than life in public places is often found in cultures with dictators. There is a growing Reagan 'cult' in this country.

0 # Charlie Smith 2011-01-12 18:11

Anonymot, I am very glad someone else is paying attention. The core ideology of the Nazi Party was that Germans, and Nazis in particular, were the "victims" of all sorts of schemes by foreigners, liberals, socialists, academics and, of course, Jews. As late as the mid-30s they were perfecting the bizarre ideology of victimhood. It has taken Palin much less time; but she has their example.

+43 # Steffi Baca 2010-12-31 22:25

Amen! Bush and co did a good job of inculcating fear in Americans and we allowed it to happen.

+25 # Activista 2010-12-31 23:00

"murdering and displacing large numbers of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen and US support for Israel's similar treatment of Lebanese and Palestinians might be? IS creating a hostile environment that could? IS breeding terrorists"
- agree - and we are creating terrorism for generations to come. \
Obama speech in Cairo was good start - but now we are back - even worse than under the Bush.

George Soros: America Needs Denazification - check more - drives goebles types Murdoch media crazy.

+21 # DaveW. 2011-01-01 10:08

Activista, "and we are creating terrorism for generations to come." That's the whole idea isn't it? Perpetual war to "fund" the Military Industrial Complex as mapped out in the Project For A New American Century. All future legislation coming down the debauched pike in D.C. can be influenced/debased by the eternal specter of "we're at war." 9/11 was orchestrated by the Bush Administration, this country has never had any intention of capturing or killing former "ally" Osama Bin Laden (his is the requisite "face of terror" necessary to keep the masses cowering periodically) and Obama is merely another fully functioning cog in the gears of empire. Suggested reading: Konrad Heiden's "Der Fuehrer" written in 1944. "Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America,nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy,and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along,whether it is a Democracy or a Fascist dictatorship,or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice,the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. Continued.....

+30 # DaveW. 2011-01-01 10:12

All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Hemann Goering:Vice Chancellor of the Third Reich, speaking at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946.

+19 # Deep Blue 2011-01-01 00:37

@Elizabeth: No, Elizabeth, "the following generation" does not pay for the preceding generation's Social Security. Each participant pays for his/her own personal account. A trust account is similar to a personal savings account, which you pay into over the years.

I have received several statements from SS detailing the amount of funds available to me, and how long those funds will last. I don't know about you, but I will be dead before the money runs out, and well before SS needs to ask others to chip in om my behalf, so stop peddling nonsense, thank you.

+10 # DRA 2011-01-01 07:47

Sorry, the Social Security Trust Fund is full of IOUs from future taxpayers. Please read those statements they send you carefully. All they show is the amount of taxes you have been paid (already spent by the Treasury in exchange for bonds issued to the Trust Fund) and your projected monthly benefits. They don't show any balance in your "personal account." The taxes you have paid are likely far less than the projected benefits over your life expectancy. Also, read Alan Sloan's column in the 20 Dec Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/20/AR2010122004764.html). It's always the current workers that pay for current retirees under Social Security, one way or another.

+39 # maddy 2011-01-01 01:09

Nazism didn't develope over night but over a period of 10 years, and certainly started showing it's ugly head when the Bush regime came to be. Our Reichstag, the discrimination against Muslins, the --You are with us or Against, --Our HomeLand, invading of other CountrieS. The Tea Party Movement, just like the fasist American Liberty League of the 1930's , in which some of the wealthy, including the duPonts, Bush's grandfather, Prescott,were in favor of the Nazi party and tried to overthrow the government, oust FDR, to stop the New Deal to help the poor, and the Tea Party wishes to stop the help for the poor, along with the GOP. however, the Tea Party fascist Libertarians wish to take our country back at least 80 years, and Paul if elected or one of the same thought, even farther where women have no rights. Look out Palin and O'Donnell.

+36 # maddy 2011-01-01 02:15

Fascism started in Germany one section at a time, just like in Arizona, and kept going intil it conquered the country.
Martha

0 # Ellis D. Tripp 2011-01-09 09:12

Quoting

Fascism started in Germany one section at a time, just like in Arizona, and kept going intil it conquered the country.
Martha

And as of 1/8/2011 Arizona can claim to be the state where sitting congress members are shot down.

+67 # Barry 2011-01-01 02:26

It is a shame that we, in Europe, can clearly see the USA's decline into a fascist state while the Americans do not have the vision or perspective to see it on their own doorstep.

If you do not read history, you will remain a child. Herodotus 425 BC

+3 # YesWeWILL 2011-01-04 08:23

Well at least Athens went fascist over direct military pressure from Sparta; and Germany was driven fascist by the foreign-imposed treaty of Versailles.

And America?- 'the last, best, hope for free humanity' (apart from anarchy, anyway)- driven fascist by a crumbling little green piece of fiat currency, in combination with a few sub-100 IQ Faux News common-taters?

+2 # Ellis D. Tripp 2011-01-09 09:19

Quoting

It is a shame that we, in Europe, can clearly see the USA's decline into a fascist state while the Americans do not have the vision or perspective to see it on their own doorstep.

If you do not read history, you will remain a child. Herodotus 425 BC

Believe me, there are many of us who recognize this and have been observing it since the 1960s. Since JFK's assassination, to be specific. But America is a nation which spends 59% of its discretionary budget on the military and 4% on education, so it is no surprise that we as a nation have become ignorant.

+43 # George Baggett 2011-01-01 02:50

One can track the transition of the media to being the bidder of Corporations back to the Reagan era when the Fairness Doctrine was removed. Prior to that point the press was forced into some "equal time" for opposing ideas. With our Supreme Court having given away the second phase of corporate ownership of the US Government we should expect no less from the Corporate (fascist)owned media to act in any other way than to manipulate and use any means to obtain their ends. Given a poorly educated mass of serfs, a large portion rushes to the piles of USA Today and gathers around those TV screens in Airports that spew the "message." I ask, "Is the solution to this an attack on the MSM machine or to work towards educating the public through RSN and other outlets?" Throughout history, certain factions are known to accept propaganda to a greater extent than others, yet those who are immune must gather voices to make clear their failure to agree.

+25 # Peter Edler 2011-01-01 03:15

'Incipient' is a discrete term to describe US America's descent into a maelstrom of violence, torture and death caused globally. The best I can say about it is that it must be the national karma, a phase to go through on the road to better things. Germany no doubt has improved immensely since its nazi period. So there is hope, but I fear for the United States the worst is still to come.

+15 # DLT88 2011-01-01 07:33

Quoting

'Incipient' is a discrete term to describe US America's descent into a maelstrom of violence, torture and death caused globally. The best I can say about it is that it must be the national karma, a phase to go through on the road to better things. Germany no doubt has improved immensely since its nazi period. So there is hope, but I fear for the United States the worst is still to come.

Thank you for this post. I am having a hard time welcoming in this new year of further descent into fascism. It helps to look at the other side of the end of this present nightmare. Yes, we will suffer greatly for a time, but perhaps the people in the US needed to wake up and stop sleeping. Democracy is hard work, and we failed by being immersed in media entertainment. Now we shall pay. But Hitler did not succeed and neither will this current fascist breed. It will be over sooner, too, I feel. But not until we have suffered and learned the lesson. Then we will be stronger and not let it happen ever again.

+12 # peterjkraus 2011-01-01 08:59

Correct. But the learning curve in Germany really began with a devastated and divided country, millions of dead citizens, an economy in tatters, and a 50+year occupation by one or more foreign armies.

Think the U.S. would go for that?

+10 # Daniel Fletcher 2011-01-02 00:33

Peter, I don't think the US has much of a choice. At this rate, I am convinced that, like an addict that needs to completely bottom out before being able to respond to recovery therapy, our people will need to face the ultimate truths of the not so nascent fascism descending on us. The sheep evidently will not awake until the slaughter begins. Our stupid American Exceptionalism has it that we are the exception to reality even. My prediction is that we are militarily more vulnerable than we think, that we are not invincible, and that a time of consequence will come. At some point the world will decide it's had enough of our nonsense and what happened to Germany will be small in comparison. I don't hope for this one bit but rest assured there is a reckoning coming and it will come from both inside and out. The survival of the world may depend on this. Too many fail to realize that fascism has come to America, that Obama sealed the deal, and it will be hell to pay for this. Most don't seem to know that we ain't seen nuthin' yet.

+9 # Harold R. Mencher 2011-01-01 10:14

Peter, I've thought about this for a long time, & the problem with your argument is that in the past, there has always been other wannabe empires waiting in the wings to overthrow an existing empire. For example, during & since Nazi Germany, there were 3 countries that were vying to become world empires waiting in the wings for the fall of Nazi Germany. They were Russia, China, & the United States. England & France already had their empires.

But, in today's truly international world, it seems that Russia has dropped out of the running, & China is the only one left vying to replace the United States. It's my contention that the U.S. is in fact rotting from the inside out, not as a nation, but as a democracy. We don't have one anymore. But, as a nation, the U.S. is, & will remain, the most powerful nation on earth perhaps on a permanent basis. The only thing that could change that fact will be the next major world war because only wars tend to destroy empires & create new ones. Unfortunately, the next war will most likely involve the massive use of nuclear weapons, & you know what that will ultimately mean? No more empires & no human race.

+9 # peterjkraus 2011-01-01 12:11

Harold, I agree. It's the unthinkable confronting us: the path toward that end may mirror the German path to destruction, but the Wiederaufbau, the reconstruction on a new, better basis, will almost certainly not happen - simply because there's nothing to rebuild and nobody to do it.

Which leaves only the peaceful option: a new political/economic system that guarantees equal rights and livability for all. We're hoping, but not holding our breath.

+7 # Harold R. Mencher 2011-01-01 13:56

Did you ever play the game of "Chicken" when you were a kid? You know what I mean. The U.S. has gotten away literally with murder for many decades now. We continue to push the limit. We promised Mikhail Gorbachev in the early 1990s that if Russia would allow the two Germanys, East & West, to unite & the breakup of the Soviet Union into its individual states as sovereign nations that we, the U.S., would not interfere militarily or politically into the internal affairs of these new nations. That agreement was violated almost immediately by the Bill Clinton admin & then by the Bush admin. The U.S. & its military proxy in Europe, NATO, now literally surround Russia with some of these old Soviet states containing U.S./NATO military bases.

The U.S. is also pressuring China & North Korea militarily in China's own backyard so-to-speak, & we've gotten away with it. But, one day, the U.S. is going to push Russia & China one step too far & all hell will break loose.

The U.S. has been playing the game of "Chicken" for a very long time now, and, one day, it's going to blow up in our face, & that will be all she wrote for the human race. MAD still exists.

+5 # Daniel Fletcher 2011-01-02 01:05

Aw Harold...probability would favor you, but...isn't MAD dependent upon our ability to track the source of incoming missles? So how does MAD work if small, strategically located nuclear devices detonate across our country planted by paid mercenaries who can't even identify their employer? There are scenarios in which large scales of attack could occur on our own soil from ambiguous sources. In our empire building we seem so blind to the blowback that Chalmers Johnson has so eloquently written about. In the end though, if we cannot live without global domination, ultimately we will not live at all. I still believe the highest pinnacles of the military industrial complex and the leadership that supports it can be infiltrated and no technology will ever trump a determined 5%. We did not defeat Vietnam. We will not prevail in Afghanistan and Iraq in the end short of killing them all into submission. When enough people have nothing left to lose, I still believe a miracle can happen. They expel so much energy propagandizing and brainwashing us for a reason. They know they can be defeated. It is their intention to convince us otherwise and to hide their vulnerabilities . Consider this.

+3 # Daniel Fletcher 2011-01-02 00:41

I would almost agree Harold, but the internal rot you speak of could mean more than the death of democracy. Our blinding hubris leaves us vulnerable to assault from within, and yes, very participated in by the outside, in ways that could be crippling, even mortally wounding. And who would the US launch nuclear missles against if small tactical weapons went off across the landscape? I'm talking about atypical scenerios against which an all out global nuclear war would not necessarily be the outcome of a militarily defeated U.S. Further, the cost of empire still could become so great as to be unsustainable. Asymetical warfare can be incredibly complex and guerrilla warfare is harder to overcome than most realize. And China cannot be discounted, which I don't think you're actually doing. It's that they could make us irrelevant economically, and an empire that the world could come to ignore. What good would empire be if the world's markets shut us out completely? Are we going to nuke other economies into submitting to ours?

+4 # Harold R. Mencher 2011-01-02 09:23

Where'd you come from, Daniel? You seemed to have gone on a permanent vacation. When you come back, you come back with a loud roar, don't you?

My theory is this, Daniel. The U.S. is like a jealous ex-boyfriend or an estranged husband or ex-husband, the kind that believes that if they can't have her, than no one will, even going so far as doing away with his ex-girlfriend or ex-wife at the cost of even his own life, if you get my meaning.

Before we had nukes, it wasn't a problem, at least one that could destroy the whole world with the push of a button. Now, the jealous ex-boyfriend or ex-husband can destroy the whole world if they feel that they are losing their grip.

As I stated in a previous posting, the U.S. has been playing the game of "Chicken" for a very long time against countries like China & Russia, countries that have enough nuclear weapons, a long with us, to destroy the whole world many times over. If the day comes when either, or both, China & Russia draw a line in the sand & say no more, & the U.S. attempts to call their bluff because of the jealous ex-boyfriend scenario, the human race will be gone in an instant.

+3 # DaveW. 2011-01-02 10:29

Daniel, We are not going to "nuke" other economies into submitting to ours." This would be tantamount to committing suicide and the leaders of countries who hold nuclear weapons are far,far too fat and happy to contemplate suicide. This is why I always argue that N.Korea or Iran won't blow the world up if they obtain nukes. Do I advocate they're having them? Of course not. But they too realize the ramifications of "using" them and their leaders are too pampered and pompous to give up the lifestyle they feel they so richly deserve. Nuclear war will only happen when people who feel they have nothing left to lose turn to that "final solution." As it is, the acquisition of Nuclear weapons simply "moves you up" the bartering chain and gets you a seat at the table with the big boys. Could some rogue group obtain and fire off a missile or more? Yes, and that for me, is the real fear. As long as these goddamned things exist the possibility for that to happen also exists. I just read recently that the U.S. is spending 85 billion dollars on NEW nuclear weapons. Also, on a side note, take a look at what the U.S. military is doing in Guam. But we can't blame Obama can we?

+1 # William Shannonhouse 2011-01-02 17:28

I wouldn't take your theory too seriously given that self-interest is not the main motivation necessarily of anyone's behavior. A rudimentary knowledge of human psychology shows that people are motivated by conflicting psychological impulses, and the will to destruction is in there along with the instinct for self-preservation. Otherwise no one would do anything contrary to their own best interests, and people do that all the time.

0 # Daniel Fletcher 2011-01-02 22:09

I guess we can't. That would be Obama bashing. (Sheesh)

+4 # William Shannonhouse 2011-01-02 17:25

Your point is exactly why the CIA, supposedly an intelligence-gathering enterprise -- and who believes that anymore? -- and now widely accepted for the extra-leagal secret police force that it is, is now engaging in ECONOMIC subversion of other countries, blatantly representing the interests of corporate America with just a pretense of defending us against political threats. It's a weapon of economic imperialism, and not for America, but for the multinational corporations who have supplanted the nation states. Just who do you mean when you refer to "America" anymore? The huge conglomerates who are hiring overseas at the same time they are complaining about paying taxes to support unemployment benefits at home?

+7 # Ralph Averill 2011-01-01 03:40

Can someone give me a link on the Fox News(sic) thing with the grandmother?

+1 # Harold R. Mencher 2011-01-01 12:19

Quoting

Can someone give me a link on the Fox News(sic) thing with the grandmother?

I don't know if you got your answer yet, but here's a link to that incident:

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/12/28/citing-facebook-posts-fox-news-turns-in-indiana-grandmother-for-terror-link/

+1 # Ralph Averill 2011-01-01 13:40

Got it. Thanks a lot.

+18 # Mike in Charlotte 2011-01-01 04:22

JPaul Roberts article is frighteningly true. There is another revealing piece that readers should know about. It is titled "Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Facism" and it is viewable at:

http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

We live in a very very scary time and place.

+4 # William Shannonhouse 2011-01-02 17:35

Yeah, but guess what? Even the Leave it to Beaver 50s were scary. It's always scary. In fact, it's always the end of the world. People have the delusion that there was some idyllic time and place away from the razor's edge of mortality, but that has never been, not since you crawled out of your mother's womb -- and even then you just weren't aware of where you were or what was happening. People still seek comfortable obliviousness but it's the nature of life itself to be caught in a matrix of creation and destruction that has existed since the beginning of time. This will never end

+37 # PAJohn 2011-01-01 04:42

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."
If you haven't, please read Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel, "It can't happen here". Not his best but certainly prophetic.
The futurists, those who predicted a takeover of civilization by RUR, Rossum's Universal Robots, got it wrong in envisioning humanoid machines.
In fact civilization has already been taken over by malicious, inhumane, self-absorbed, self-consumed automata - with devastating consequences for humanity, called corporations.
Our own Supreme Court granted them personhood back ca 1886 in the Santa Clara decision - in fact a clerical error by a Justice’s clerk - and latterly in the 2010 Citizen’s United decision, granting corporations equivalent status to human beings under the law.
Humans are now the worker ants that service the needs of their corporate masters. We consume their products/waste, tend to the damage they do to the material, social and cultural environment and provide the h/money necessary for them to grow, reproduce, proliferate, battle with, and destroy, each other and extend their dominance over their original creators.

+6 # Papabird 2011-01-01 06:32

I just finished the book "The Moral Animal by Robert Wright. In Darwinian terms PA John's comments are well in concert with evolution. We have proven the new science of social evolution as Wright outlines in his book. We are the worker ants.

+3 # Activista 2011-01-01 10:11

Robert Wright: NONZERO
www.nonzero.org
is a classic - please read - based on game theory - we act as primitives - all is zero sum game - only one is winner - and we know who "won" in America.

+9 # giraffe 2011-01-01 09:19

"Our own Supreme Court granted them personhood back ca 1886 in the Santa Clara decision - in fact a clerical error by a Justice’s clerk - and latterly in the 2010 Citizen’s United decision, granting corporations equivalent status to human beings under the law."

We can do something - and that is attack the 2010 Supreme Court decision BECAUSE that decision is UNCONSTITUTIONA L - can you marry a corporation (etc)? NO. That decision included "convenient" parts of the constitution to justify such an outrageous decision (sic). At the same time the decision (sic) trampled my LIBERTY guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Now any foreigner with $$ can sway our elections as happened in 2010. Keep writing and phoning your Congressional people. Some take "out of state" emails.

The President has the power to NOT support that decision (sic) so write to him too.

HNY - get active. You go granny. Link? So we can complain in her behalf

0 # Daniel Fletcher 2011-01-02 01:08

You are correct PAJohn, and the nation is ripe for the anarchists it seems.

+10 # Tom Chalkley 2011-01-01 04:43

I agree with Roberts but there's an irony in his invocation of Kennedy, whose "best and brightest" got us mired in Vietnam and labored to keep the realities of that conflict secret. The press conspired in that atrocity for many years.

+5 # Papabird 2011-01-01 06:33

And The Bay of Pigs

+11 # breezi 2011-01-01 08:23

Kennedy was murdered precisely because he opposed the escalation of the Vietnam "conflict" and questioned the Bay of Pigs invasion.

+4 # Anne Baldwin 2011-01-01 05:07

As Fred Reed recently said: "All we need is a short Austrian."

http://fredoneverything.net/BurningtheKoran.shtml

+19 # trottydt 2011-01-01 05:22

The last sentence says it all:

"When we cheer for WikiLeaks' demise, we are cheering for our own".

Let us "take sleep and mark death"

+15 # WinterBV 2011-01-01 06:14

Fox News is not news but has become a very dangerous arm of people who do not think in terms of the next generation, much less seven generations forward.

+22 # Richard Schmidt 2011-01-01 06:31

It's why I have dubbed Fox, The Faux News Network, with their motto, "We lie, so you don't have to." They're all Fascist News All the Time. But they're owned by Rupert Murdoch, so that would warrant a "Duh". He's the one who's explicitly anti-American. The rest of the Faux News hirelings are simply paid shills.

+5 # giraffe 2011-01-01 09:22

FAUX is now an acronym = thanks. Don't forget to include the Turtle from KY and Boner whose acting lessons allowed real tears to flow one minute only to plow our grandkids with a demand for the corporations to keep their money and send our jobs overseas.

+21 # S. Wolf Britain 2011-01-01 06:46

As Naomi Wolf has been, I too have been "screaming" about the rise of fascism in the U.S. since at least 2006, but nobody listened. Just as in Germany during the rise of fascism, no one believes it. And now that some people are coming to believe it, it may be too late because we didn't listen sooner. We're already well down the slippery slope.

The "pre-'Gestapo'" are already visiting millions of completely innocent Americans; who, if they're visited by "Homeland (In)Security" in the first place , most of us assume must be guilty. (I'm one of the people who has been visited, so I know.) It starts out with "soft-fascism" like that, and then escalates more and more. We ain't seen nothin' yet.

wolfbritain.com

+10 # S. Wolf Britain 2011-01-01 10:55

The Citizens United decision is the downfall of the U.S., as the corporate takeover of Germany and/or influence through the Nazis was the downfall of Germany and over ten million innocent lives, and countless millions more lives of soldiers on all sides. We are sliding right in to a repeat of history, and it's already happening all around us. None of us is safe. The police in "America" are already arresting people simply for asking questions. It's all downhill from here as we inexorably slide deeper and deeper into fascism, and reap fascism's unavoidable consequences, the extermination of millions of innocent people, this time millions of innocent Americans for not blindly bowing down to evil and the corporate-fascist, militarized police state being rapidly erected in the United States:

truth-out.org/2010-person-year-the-us-supreme-court66461

prisonplanet.com/we-are-change-chicago-arrested-for-asking-dr-oz-about-vaccines.html

+30 # jimmyjames 2011-01-01 06:48

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

+13 # william reimann 2011-01-01 08:25

Dear Jimmyjames:
Perhaps it would be polite to identify the quotation (First they came for....). it's by Dietrich Bonhoefer, a churchman in nazi Germany, later executed by them.

+7 # S. Wolf Britain 2011-01-01 08:58

No, William, please get your facts straight: His name was Martin Niemöller, and he didn't die until 1984. He was imprisoned in both the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps by the Nazis, but he was liberated, along with all of the other still-living prisoners, by the Allies in 1945.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came ...

+5 # S. Wolf Britain 2011-01-01 10:29

Dietrich Bonhoefer was allegedly involved in an attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler; and, for that "crime", he was executed by the Nazis at Flossenbürg concentration camp on April 9th, 1945, twenty-three days before the Nazis surrendered to the Allies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

+2 # Harold R. Mencher 2011-01-01 12:23

Quoting

No, William, please get your facts straight: His name was Martin Niemöller, and he didn't die until 1984. He was imprisoned in both the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps by the Nazis, but he was liberated, along with all of the other still-living prisoners, by the Allies in 1945.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came ...

The correct link is as follows:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came

without the "..."

+2 # S. Wolf Britain 2011-01-01 13:58

Thanks. I thought I remembered seeing the "..." after the URL.

+11 # fredboy 2011-01-01 09:17

Yes, this process takes root very quickly as evident in the German experience.
The key is hatred: you've got to define perimeters and lines between groups, show (or concoct) differences, then inspire vicious action.
This is what differentiates us from other species--they compete but for the most part get along. We hate, despise, take, and kill.
Sort of gives that term "humane" a nasty turn, doesn't it?

+6 # SkDo 2011-01-01 10:02

Yes, quickly indeed. One need only look at the RSN article about the Ivory Coast descending into genocide (houses are being marked per tribe distinctions, mass murders appearing in the last few weeks in buildings full of bodies, etc.)

Our fascist German-esque descent appears to be slower and more methodically planned, as the article suggests. Certainly, "the prison state" does come to mind as the parallel to what we are moving towards.

+15 # kalpal 2011-01-01 09:58

No right wing government has ever been benevolent to its citizenry. Faux News is part and parcel of a right winger's intent to subdue this nation and its citizenry and force the voters into become peasants rather than equals in a society. Once Murdoch got away with bribing Nwt Gingrich he understood that our national legislature was open to bribery and extortion in all matters.

+14 # futhark 2011-01-01 10:07

America is getting to be more like Orwell's Oceania in 1984 than like Nazi Germany. I think it would be difficult to get Americans away from their comfortable seats in front of their televisions, computers, and other gadgets long enough to have a rousing torchlight parade or a nice, hot bookburning. On the other hand, we have had an obvious and major false-flag event occur in our recent history, with the government's implausible explanation being accepted as absolute truth and used as a tool to bludgeon opposition and recruit support for military aggression and terrorism on the other side of the planet.

The plutocratic oligarchy continues to expand its economic and political hegemony at the expense of all other living things.

+10 # barryg 2011-01-01 17:13

This is the first time I have seen a reference to 911 on RSN albeit in an obtuse manner. This shows how powerful the glamour hovering over us created by the fascist truly and scarily is. The collapse of the WTC was the third coup after Kennedy assassination and selection of GWB by the supreme court. I was trained in demolition in the Navy and have a degree in physics so the cause of that catastrophe was painfully obvious and is well proven since. It was the causus belli of the taking away of our rights and the kickoff of the last phase of the Nazi takeover that started with Truman and the national security act of 1948.

Very few want to discuss it yet a discussion of the evidence should be all over RSN and other democracy supporting sites. If even the people on this site will not look at it what hope is there of getting the masses to look behind the propaganda that has them completely mesmerized into becoming consumer units, kept animals, of a fascist state

+2 # Capn Canard 2011-01-02 10:00

well said #barryg ... I believe it is the profit motive that is at the base of all these actions. My solution? I propose that one would need to get rid of the monetary system. But how do we remove a profit motive? Of course most people will become cognitively lost without having the status quo upon which to base all action of an economy. I suggest a shift from a Quantitative paradigm to a Qualitative paradigm. Instead of how many or how much, perhaps we should ask how good or how helpful? All these ideas from JFK to 9-11 to wars on Poverty, Drugs, Terror, Iraq, Afghanistan etc etc are perhaps more about the money(access to markets etc) than the philosophical truth. It is Orwell's Oceania wrapped in a cozy blanket of distraction. Never mind the dead soldiers, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

+10 # Truth Not Myth 2011-01-01 12:52

If you were to tell the average citizen that the People of America today bear a kinship to the 'Good Germans' of the Nazi era, they would vehemently deny this for the good reason that they really do NOT know the truth about the take over of the Nazis in Germany OR for that matter that Germany at that time was one of the Three Industrial Superpowers along with America and Great Britain AND that it had the distinction of being the Capital of serious ART and CULTURE in the world as well. They had the most profound Art and Culture of any nation at that time before Hitler came to power. Americans have never been so informed about this because it would blow the image of the nation of Germany being just a bunch of ignorant Farmers who as popular wisdom would suggest were genetically inclined to Militarism, this of course confirmed by their earlier War with France, etc.

NOT SO, they were like US is the Truth, a people Proud of their own heritage as the reason Hitler found it so easy to inflame the Nationalistic Passion as he did and could indeed Happen HERE as well.

AND in fact it IS Happening right NOW!

Glen Beck would feel great in a Black Shirt and Swastika.

+3 # S. Wolf Britain 2011-01-01 14:05

Yah. The Glenn Becks of the U.S. remind me of the newscaster in the movie, "V for Vendetta", who "V" kills. That movie certainly has its problems, not least of which is the "hero" of the story torturing Natalie Portman's character to supposedly make her stronger; as if evil, especially the evil of torture, is ever justified under any circumstances; but every American should watch that movie and "get" its message. Of course, though, most of them would never "get" it.

+1 # Kurt Lauenstein 2011-01-05 18:30

Why does one suppose that so many Nazis were welcomed into the USA after WWII? Werner Von Braun wasn't the only Nazi. FDR had to fight to continue the Lend Lease program to Britain over the Republican objections because so many of them sympathized with the Nazis.

+9 # Capn Canard 2011-01-01 13:37

I don't think the Fascism is INCIPIENT any longer. Our status quo is in fact the Corporate State, i.e. Fascism. We have whole cable networks devoted to praising wealth! Read that Chris Hedges article on "Brave New World" and "1984". I agree that we have been pacified with the drugs of distraction: TV, electronic games, no draft of soldiers, NFL, MLB, NBA, Hollywoood, Oprah, Today, Good Morning, and even NPR. Have a Bud. All of it distracts our attention. Once our attention is lost, then what's next? the Thought Police and Orwellian tactics? BTW, Glenn Beck is a brown shirt.

+10 # Truth Not Myth 2011-01-01 15:49

Again as Chris Hedges made clear in his book 'The Decline of the Liberal Class' the reason that not just Obama but the Democrats generally have not stood up to the Repugnants but Laid down for them is because first of all they are Birds of a Feather as Politicians all beholden to the Corporate State and because there is an insufficient number of people ready to Push Obama and the Dems in a more progressive direction other than the Progressives themselves who have been successfully marginalized. The Liberals are no longer Marching in other words but sitting on the sidelines enjoying their quality of life pleasures and this is true of the People generally, they do not like Bad News or any News really, they just want to have Fun and not have to take anything too seriously. And SO we have seen a Take Over of the Media by the Right Wing while the voice of the more enlightened has been STIFLED. Glen Beck and O'Reilly and Rush can run their mouths with impunity but you'll notice that there are FEW if any real Leftists provided Air Time anymore even on PBS. The justification for this of course in regard to the Networks being that they are under Corporate Control and Poll Driven.

+6 # Sheila Cee 2011-01-01 20:52

For years I have feared what is happening now to our country. It amazes me that people are so blind.

If you want to know how long the plan to take over this country has been in the works, read "Family of Secrets, The Bush Dynasty, The powerful Forces That Put It In The White House, And What Their Influence Means for America." by Russ Baker. It clearly shows what the wealthy have been up to since the beginning of the 1900's.

i am in full agreement with writers before me that we, as a nation and a people are about to enter into a nightmare which may, literally, destroy this country and, very well, the rest of the world.

As ancient civilizations have fortold, 2012 may be the end of the world. How sad......all because of the greed of the sociopaths that control our governments.

+4 # scougar 2011-01-01 22:14

separate 'markets' and their activities that exchange goods and services from 'politics' that protect rights. local neighborhoods are the only place to begin--from one human to another behaving on principles conducive to peace and prosperity.

'markets' work best when serving the needs of others and 'politics' works best when ensuring the rights of all equally

+2 # Hillarion of Sudbury 2011-01-02 18:31

Regarding C.D., the assemblage of video clips of the collapse of WTC7 convinced me. The roof stayed horizontal for several seconds.

A most interesting site.

Sad to think that such a once-fine organization as NIST apparently gave in to political pressure.

I'm horrified to think it, but did we very secretly actually /arrange/ for a modern-day counterpart to the Reichstag fire?

I'm possibly risking my future by posting this. I'm not a cat, so I have only one life; it's the possibility of torture that worries me.

Nevertheless, I'm being passionately unAmerican by refusing to be afraid of the "terr'ists".

Will be in my mid-seventies soon, and I'm very glad to be as old as I am. I might not want to live much longer. It's the young folk I worry about. Their lot may become horrid.

WZBC in the Boston area broadcasts some very interesting and worthwhile programs for several hours a week.

+3 # RedDeer 2011-01-03 08:42

Just finished reading "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", by Wm. Whiter, published 1959.

Consider reading it ( a big task, because it isnover a 1000 pages), but it is loaded with footnoted research regarding how post WW 1 Germany was drawn into the terrible condition of Fascism.

+6 # TheCoyote 2011-01-03 14:45

America, since colonial times, has always been ruled by fear. Since before the American Revolution the powers-that-be, the wealthy, and later the corporatists, have erected a series of boogeymen to distract our attention from the six-hundred pound gorilla in the room: class.

We've always been a society divided by class barriers of wealth and privilege but by using a variety of boogeymen those at the top of the social heap have persuaded the rest of us to ignore the inequalities endemic in our society and unite against a common and frightening enemy. Those shadowy enemies have been many and varied over the years: the French, the English, the Mexicans, the Spanish, Filipinos, Bolsheviks, Trade Unionists, Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and now Muslims (and I'm sure I've forgotten some).

This is the first time since the Great Depression when the glaring inequalities between the top 1% (those taking 26% of our national product) and the rest of us have been so obvious and glaring that some are beginning to notice.

Perhaps this time Americans will finally wake up to the real source of so much of our misery.

+5 # Siggy 2011-01-03 17:50

'The price of freedom is eternal vigilance' not my quote? Thomas Jefferson's. There is someone who will always take your freedom away. The fight over censorship is nothing new. Nor is political correctness. The semantics just change.

+2 # andrewtn1 2011-01-04 07:27

"No one snorted with derision..."

False. If you think nobody in the media is criticizing the Afghan war, you need to diversify your news sources. For example, try watching MSNBC occasionally. Not all, but some of their pundits criticize the official Afghan mission and activity regularly. And while MSNBC's evening line-up spends more time criticizing Republicans, they also regularly question or even deride the Democrats too. Criticism of govt is alive and well on MSNBC today.

And while Faux News does often seem to be fully hand-in-hand with the GOP, Fox did at least air a bit of criticism lately about "Congress" for opposing the 9/11 responders care ... even if they did appear to be trying to avoid mentioning that it was the Republicans who were standing in the way of the Dems efforts to do the right thing.

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