FASCISM -- WHAT IS IT?

Extracts from a letter to an English comrade, November 15 1931;
printed in The Militant, January 16, 1932
What is fascism? The name originated in Italy. Were all the forms of counter-revolutionary dictatorship fascist or not (That is to say, prior to the advent of fascism in Italy)?
The former dictatorship in Spain of Primo de Rivera, 1923-30, is called a fascist dictatorship by the Comintern. Is this correct or not? We believe that it is incorrect.
The fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses, with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the slum proletariat, and even to a certain extent from the proletarian masses; Mussolini, a former socialist, is a "self-made" man arising from this movement. ...

HOW MUSSOLINI TRIUMPHED

From What Next? Vital Question for the German Proletariat, 1932
At the moment that the "normal" police and military resources of the bourgeois dictatorship, together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium -- the turn of the fascist regime arrives. Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariat -- all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy.
From fascism the bourgeoisie demands a thorough job; once it has resorted to methods of civil war, it insists on having peace for a period of years. And the fascist agency, by utilizing the petty bourgeoisie as a battering ram, by overwhelming all obstacles in its path, does a thorough job. After fascism is victorious, finance capital directly and immediately gathers into its hands, as in a vise of steel, all the organs and institutions of sovereignty, the executive administrative, and educational powers of the state: the entire state apparatus together with the army, the municipalities, the universities, the schools, the press, the trade unions, and the co-operatives. When a state turns fascist, it does not mean only that the forms and methods of government are changed in accordance the patterns set by Mussolini -- the changes in this sphere ultimately play a minor role -- but it means first of all for the most part that the workers' organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat. Therein precisely is the gist of fascism....

 


See also:
- Where Big Corporations Have Become Our Government -
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power." ~Benito Mussolini, Fascist dictator of Italy

"Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism'. I'm afraid, based on my own long experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security." ~Sen. Huey Long
"Fascism is capitalism in decay." Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." ~
Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The next step in a fascist government is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other." ~Bertrand Russell



Obama Threatens Veto of NDAA 2013: Too Many Restrictions on His "Exclusive" Authority

... For example, Section 1033 of the mark-up version passed by the committee is pointed to by Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, as proof that habeas corpus is protected in the 2013 legislation. Here is the current text of that updated provision:
This section would state that nothing in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40) or the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (Public Law 112-81) shall be construed to deny the availability of the writ of habeas corpus in a court ordained or established by or under Article III of the Constitution for any person who is detained in the United States pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40).

The double-speak contained in that paragraph is impressive even for a Capitol Hill lawyer.
Read it very closely: The new bill does nothing to prevent the indefinite detention of Americans under the 2013 NDAA; furthermore, it only reiterates that habeas corpus is a right in courts established under Article III of the Constitution. That such a right exists in the courts of the United States has never been the issue. The concern of millions of Americans from every band in the political spectrum is that Americans detained as “belligerents” under the terms of the NDAA will not be tried in Article III courts, but will be subject to military tribunals such as the one currently considering the case of the so-called “Gitmo Five.” There is not a single syllable of the 2013 NDAA that passed out of the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday that will guarantee that Americans will be tried in a constitutional court and not a military commission.

See also at Infowars ("because there is a war on for your mind")

"As Americans look upon the treacherous legislation passed under NDAA 2012, it should first be remembered that the very bill President Obama threatened to veto was controversial due to the language the Obama White House itself pressured Congress to add to the bill, according to Sen. Carl Levin. "

see also Steve Colbert video:

Catch 2012: Stephen Colbert TEARS INTO Obama

 Over The NDAA Bill


FBI Terror Plot: How the Government Is Destroying the Lives of Innocent People

The FBI is using informants to stir up fake terror plots, destroying lives in the process.
June 14, 2012 |

How Wall Street and Washington Corrupted U.S. Democracy

by Jerome Roos on December 19, 2010
... In this respect, the haunting words of Franklin D. Roosevelt perhaps echo most ominously. Of all U.S. Presidents, Roosevelt was most directly and most violently confronted with the fascist threat during his Presidency in the 1930s and 1940s. It is therefore not surprising that he issued a desperate warning to the American people:
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism “ ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power."