Dr. Laurence W. Britt in his article,
Fascism Anyone? in Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 23 Number 2 has assembled 14 tell-tale signs of fascism for our benefit by compiling a list of fascist all-stars and all-star regimes and comparing their and their governments' common traits to those of the current President (coincidentally, George W. Bush) and his policies.
You can find the original Britt article
here. You can find an exciting video production of the same naked truth
here.
My counterpoints to "fascist giveaway number one" may be found
here, to number two,
here.
Now to point three,
"Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause."
(A key to the proper regard for Dr. Britt's third
charge observation? Notice his use of the "/" as an equals sign. Enemies = Scapegoats. Q.E.D. I admit I like the device for its potential. Consider "PhD/liberal apologist" and "fascist-expert/political-hay maker" as compact but not necessarily fair or accurate equivalences--powered by nothing more than the innocuous and scholarly slash. But is it really fair to analyze/preach that way? Only Dr. Britt may know.)
Says the Dr. in point three: "The most significant common thread among these [all-star fascist] regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people's attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice--relentless propaganda and disinformation--were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite "spontaneous" acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and "terrorists." Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly."
We all know the above is true. Hitler, for example, blamed the Jews for all his people's problems, but so do our
enemies scapegoats who bombed the World Trade Center (blame the Jews
and The Great Satan). And so do our
enemies scapegoats who tried to blow up ten American transatlantic airliners bound from Heathrow to the US. And so do
enemies scapegoats world wide who are sworn to the destruction of America, the annihilation of Israel, the universal application of Islamic Sharia law and.... you know.
Dr. Brit, respectfully; Is it not fair to characterize as "enemies" those who clearly wish to destroy you? Is it intellectually repulsive, Dr. Britt, for a nation to unify in purpose and deed in the hope of not allowing an enemy to succeed against it?
These questions need to be answered before we can take point three seriously. Your argument at this point, without benefit of an insightful response, seems spurious/stupid.
