The American Spectator

Bill Bailey| 3.29.09 @ 10:57PM

I resist using words like 'Fascist,' but yes Obama is behaving like a Fascist.

stmichrick| 3.29.09 @ 11:03PM

This is the definition of Fascist; look it up.

Last week, prior to this total flameout, Wagoner was reduced to seriously entertaining gasoline taxation to the $4/gallon level because he knew that would be the only way the public would want to buy the 'green' cars he would be forced to build.

Pathetic.

Obama plans for healthcare are totally fascist; they will allow some private participation at first, but they determine the rules of the market. As such, private companies will be at a disadvantage by design.

JJC| 3.29.09 @ 11:08PM

This was really alarming to see, but frankly is it a surprise to anyone?

Like many, I knew that this day would come, and you better believe that there will be more to follow.

Bill Bailey| 3.29.09 @ 11:21PM

Hey guys, we should be proud of ourselves.

DISSENT IS PATRIOTIC, remember?

Angel| 3.30.09 @ 12:42AM

I knew the little b@stard was a mini Hitler. Chicago pond scum. ACORN--AFL/CIO are his Brown Shirts.

Willey| 3.30.09 @ 12:46AM

It's the frog in the pot story. To boil a frog, merely place it in a pan of lukewarm water and GRADUALLY increase the flame beneath it. The frog won't notice until it is boiling. I guess we're in the pan right now and Obama is starting to turn up the heat.

Osamas Pajamas| 3.30.09 @ 2:52AM

I like the Randian solution from the novel "Atlas Shrugged." In that sotry, the humanitarian thugs hijack companies "in the name of the people" and the owners blow them up or burn them to the ground, saying, "Hijack THIS, you bloodsuckers."

The scorched-earth approach leaves b@stards like OhBummer --- who couldn't invent a !!@#%&!! paperclip --- to strut around and grimace and denounce Ayn Rand's little book, "The Virtue of Selfishness," while the economy sinks in the quagmire of his socialist greed --- for wealth which he has not earned and does not deserve.

Barack Hushpuppy OhBummer is our very own Hugo Chavez. C'mon, lads! Kick over the bloody coffee tables and give him some entertainment he'll never forget!

ruth| 3.30.09 @ 2:56AM

Like your style, Osama's PJs!

Typical White Person| 3.30.09 @ 4:03AM

The Typical White Person has learned of some newly proposed car models Americans can expect in the coming months and years, models that reflect our new sense of unity and purpose as our government now enters into the auto business for you and me.

Congress has has put forth the following Proposed Models:

* The Chevy Analogy (by Gary Ackerman, which comes with a free Custom Grille by Congress)
* Chevy QUICK (buy) SILVER
* Saturn Bad-aura
* Saturn (room without a) Vue
* Chevy Malibu Carbon Credits
* Chevy ALASKA pickup
more models

John| 3.30.09 @ 7:51AM

1. I majored in the history of Modern Europe, with a special concentration on Europe since 1900. Five Great-Uncles and a Grandfather faught in WWII... One Great Uncle in WWI... so the interest was personal.

2. This IS FASCISM, Peroid. There is no reason other than the craven cowardice that causes men to run for the tall grass when the propaganda goon squads come out to play. What happens is the brow beating will soon be followed by other beatings. There were three Fascist movements of the early to mid 20th century. Mussolini, Hitler, and Wilson. Yup. The Deomcrat Party was the third leg of the Fascist stool. It got its whiff of state power during World War I, and never looked back. It is now fulfilling its century long goal of controlling everything from a political-economic elite.

3. The fundamental lack of spine in GM's managment is telling. Waggoner should have told The White House to shove an SUV sideways into some inconvenient bodily oriface... Waggoner should have taken his company into an orderly and intelligent bankruptcy, and then come out of it with operations in right to work states... cleared labor decks... and a less counter cometative market model based on a 5-7 year car ownership pattern and fairly stable market.

4. This gives me hope for Chrysler... if it has the guts enough to sign the deal with Fiat, pare back and combine its operations. No more separate dealirhips for the three brands.. Chrysler makes high end luxury models, Dodge makes performance family cars and trucks, and Jeep makes Jeeps... And none of them compete with the other. It might actually make it.

5. GM is toast, and the burn and scrape kind at that.

Sad day for the US. The collusion between big labor, big business, and big government is choking the life out of American business.

Looks like a sub plot for Star Wars and Emperor Palpatine... doesn't it?

r/John

Deborah| 3.30.09 @ 8:21AM

This isn't just a whiff, they're stinking up the place. The country needs to face what is happening because of the lack of checks and balances of a left-wing President and leftist Congress combined with a lack of oversight from the Pravda press.

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." -- James Baldwin . Face it, America -- and the compliant press needs to do its job.

JP| 3.30.09 @ 8:21AM

GM currently employs about 96,000 union worksers; but it supports over 1 million retirees. It is the health care costs of these retirees that is running the Big-3 into the graveyard. The Big-3 during the last decade have spent more on retiree health care than any other one item. They cannot put more into R&D because they are spending so much to support 50 and 60 year olds trips to the doctor's office. To put it another way, even with its very popular Cadlillac brand, GM is losing money hands over fist. There is not one model which turns a profit. Thier healthcare costs for retirees is so high, that GM has become nothing more than a healthcare dispenser for union retirees and thier families.

Dean| 3.30.09 @ 8:23AM

I can imagine that Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, is breathing a deep sigh of relief right now. Mulally was the only CEO of the Big 3 to say "no thank you" to a government bailout, effectively preventing the Obama administration from "helping" Ford.

First, AIG and now GM, which CEO will be fired next? Hopefully the fear of having Rahm Emanuel and Lil Timmy Geithner in their shorts will encourage all companies to "Just Say No" to government bailouts.

JP| 3.30.09 @ 9:27AM

Dean,
Much the same thing occured in Nazis Germany when the local Nazis Gauleiters began to demand that firms like Wertheims, Dammler Benz, Krupps, and Bayer fire any Jews that sat on thier boards or staff senior positions. Since the goverment dispensed with so much taxpayers money, these firms had little choice but to comply.

The German noun for partnership is Gesellschaft. A basic tenet of Fascism is the idea of a "public-private" partnership (ie business-goverment partnership). Of course, in the long run, the partnership isn't that between equals. The federal goverment always enjoys the upperhand by virtue of its unlimited reach into taxpayers pocketbooks, its ability to imprison, and its monoploy on writing new laws. Businesses of course benefit by having a "partner" that can demolish thier competitors. In the end, though, the federal goverment wins -as GM is finding out.

This entire sordid mess known as the Big-3 Bailout was really about the unions. If GM declared bankruptcy in December (which should have been thier only option), a federal bankruptcy judge would have forced the UAW and GM to re-write thier current contracts. This would have freed GM of its legacy costs, but also this would have weakened the union membership (and its purse). The Autobailout really was nothing more than a UAW bailout. GM's inability to pass future union costs onto bondholders (no investor in his right mind is buying GM bonds right now) cost Wagonner his job. Obama knows he cannot continue to subsidize GM forever, but he does enjoy the power to lecture and control one of America's industrial giants.

The lesson here goes back to the 90s. The Big-3 thought they could avoid a costly UAW strike by giving into the union's every demand. Afterall, they could just pass off these legacy costs onto the consumer. The late 90s were fat years as SUVs produced very large margins. They did not anticipate the coming surge of Nissan, Hyundai, Toyota and Honda. The Big-3 saw thier marketshare erode during the 2000-2007 timeframe. And with each succeeding year, the retirees ranks began to swell. Going back to 2001, the Big-3 began to hemorrage money (mainlydue to UAW pension and healthcare benefits). The consumers did not cooperate, it turned out. The recession hit in 2007, and the liquidity crisis soon followed. This isn't the first time the Big-3 and the UAW conspired to stick it to the consumers. But it may be the last.

Jeremiah| 3.30.09 @ 9:43AM

This is typically weak. Vadum is not the brightest bulb on the tree is he?

Does Vadum, I wonder, have any clear, distinct idea of what fascism is?

John D. Froelich| 3.30.09 @ 10:30AM

Time to pull the plug on the Detroit Zombies!

Warpublican| 3.30.09 @ 10:34AM

Why is the right wing such idiots? This is the whiff of facism? A company comes crawling on its knees begging the taxpayer to save it, and we do so on the compromise that the men who trashed the company resign - and this idiot Vadum calls it facism? Does he suppose that Hitler gave choice to the German industry taken over by the facist regime?
Morons...

Thomas| 3.30.09 @ 10:40AM

This is just the beginning. Fascism is a form of totalitarian socialism as is Communism. The end result of both governing philosophies is the same. The citizens of the nation become the chattel of the State and its leadership. The nation becomes a slave state. I seem to remember a small disagreement, in this country in the 1860's, over that issue. Do we really want to go back to that situation?

stmich(TrollControll)Rick| 3.30.09 @ 10:47AM

Jeremiah;

You seem to be the only one here who does not know what fascism is.

Please prove me wrong.

Bill Bailey| 3.30.09 @ 10:49AM

Jeremiah is a liberal troll retard. The term Fascism is clearly explained in the blog post. Get thee gone, f***tard troll.

DaveinHackensack| 3.30.09 @ 11:18AM

Did you smell a "whiff of fascism" when the government fired and replaced AIG's CEO last year?

Bill Bailey| 3.30.09 @ 11:33AM

DaveinHackensack: Yes.

g50| 3.30.09 @ 11:35AM

Really, this is stupid. GM agreed because the bailout deal is good for them, and it's probably good for our country as well. Furthermore, this isn't bossing around, this is an agreed symbolic measure designed to show the American people that tough decisions are being made, and nothing is sacred as those decisions are made, including the most powerful individuals in the company. Rick Wagoner is a good guy but it's not like they had to fight about this - no doubt he can see the wisdom in taking this for the team. After all, he's rich and well connected enough to not have to work. So, it's very simple and pretty smart politics. Is it fascist? Only to the extent American politics as a whole can be called fascist.

MT| 3.30.09 @ 11:48AM

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck--it's fascism.

Bill Bailey| 3.30.09 @ 12:31PM

Listen, g50 a.k.a. David Axelrod, you are lying through your teeth. You write " this is an agreed symbolic measure designed to show the American people that tough decisions are being made." Symbolic measures don't occur at gunpoint. This is a political purge intended to show industry who's boss.
So many trolls on this blog. They should require registration in order to make comments.

Bill Bailey| 3.30.09 @ 12:31PM

And leftists HATE being called Fascists. This means we should keep it up.

John| 3.30.09 @ 12:49PM

I'm afraid this sort of hyperbole is what makes conservatism look silly these days. If anyone deserved to go it was Wagoner who by just about every measure (som, stock price, roi) has run GM into the ground. GM is getting a huge govt bailout to stay in business, which it should in my opinion, so we the taxpayer or our representatives aka the govt has a right to decide who should be the top manager in the company just as it did in the case of AIG which is a somewhat analagous situation. If Vadum thinks firing Wagoner makes Obama Mussolini I don't think he's going to get many takers for the proposition, and he makes himself and conservatism look ridiculous off the wall in the process.

adam hartung| 3.30.09 @ 1:13PM

This is what happens when you lose your position as #1. It doesn't take long for people to start envisioning a world without you. GM started on the road to irrelevant years ago by focusing internally rather than on the market - missing all major shifts and becoming also-ran. Obama's team is telling everyone (auto and banking) that if you can't prove you know where the market is heading and demonstrate you can get back in front, then there's little reason to support you. Read more http://www.ThePhoenixPrinciple.com

Higgins My Boy| 3.30.09 @ 1:21PM

2010 will be a referendum on Obama, just as 2006/2008 were referendum on the GOP.

Jose Von Hussein| 3.30.09 @ 1:22PM

Good grief - I thought conservatives were all about "personal responsibility" and such. Apparently, when you run a company into the ground and the government bails you out (at your behest), it's then called fascism when the government says, "You're still running it into the ground - time for somebody else give it shot, who is perhaps even competent and visionary."

Obama is not the CEO. He didn't even "install" a new CEO. He's simply said, "Get your sh*t together, or you won't get any more bailouts."

I guess like every other conservative that prefers lockstep adherence to ideology over reality, those here supporting this article apparently aren't in favor of supporting personal responsibility in Rick Wagoner's case. They'd simply prefer to hurl vacuous insults.

Funny how that works for conservatives. And now, since many of you also can't handle any criticism whatsoever, let the calls that I am a "liberal troll" begin! (And the few of you who can actually think, please offer some thoughtful, intelligent rebuttals.)

Heather H| 3.30.09 @ 1:25PM

Funny that the corrupt incompetent liberal garbage posing as 'government' is firing a CEO for incompetence. Nobama and his fascist buddies should be fired and then frog marched to jail.

Paul in Colorado| 3.30.09 @ 2:07PM

Did they really think they could sell their souls to the Federal government and not have to pay up? Their total disconnect from reality was made clear on their first trip to DC. Sixty years of arrogance is not without consequences.

By the way, who mourns for Hudson, Desoto, and Packard?

Brandon| 3.30.09 @ 2:11PM

i agree with this article. Its disturbing to see the fascist trends show up in our white house.

Bill Bailey| 3.30.09 @ 2:18PM

John, you're probably a Concern Troll, but nonetheless this is hardly hyperbole. Leading minds in the right-blogosphere agree with Vadum: http://blogometer.nationaljournal.com/archives/2009/03/330_wagoner_is.html
Is America a Fascist state? No, not yet, but it is heading down that road and we should be concerned.

JohnR22| 3.30.09 @ 2:24PM

I'm tired of people exaggerating by using the terms "fascist" and "nazi". Usually this nonsense comes from the Left, but here it's coming from the Right.

But, I do agree that Obama has made a huge mistake here. Wagoner here or gone is not significant. But sending the signal that bailed out companies will now be subject to Obama's personal whims (like a king or pasha) plays right into every paranoid conservative conspiracy theory out there.

BTW, did Obama also demand the head of the UAW resign? Or did I miss that?

STFU| 3.30.09 @ 2:27PM

So let me get this straight... The government asks the CEO of a company on the brink of going under to resign and that's a bad thing? Facism? Obviously you don't understand the meaning of the word. Right wingers are a bunch of loons..

DaveinHackensack| 3.30.09 @ 3:11PM

"DaveinHackensack: Yes. "

At least you are being consistent.

John| 3.30.09 @ 3:20PM

Bill Bailey| 3.30.09 @ 2:18PM

No Bill I'm an old fashioned conservative who believes that if you say stupid things most folks tend to think you are stupid. Claiming Obama is a fascist because he, or really his advisors on the matter, decided it was time to can Wagoner is totally absurd to two thirds of Americans. The longer you and those who think like you keep peddling this Palookaville stuff the longer it's going to take for conservatives to be taken seriously again.

Bill Bailey| 3.30.09 @ 4:04PM

There was no claim, John the Concern Troll, that Obama is a Fascist. The claim was that America is heading down the road to Fascism. There is a difference.

lynnrockets| 3.30.09 @ 4:18PM

Who the hell is Obama to fire a CEO of a major American company? What is wrong with you people? No REAL Conservative would agree with Obama's fascist actions. Troll.

JPM| 3.30.09 @ 4:18PM

I'm against Fascism, and government interference in the marketplace in general, I'm a fiscal conservative libertarian. But arguing that Obama is acting like a Fascist here is just ridiculous. If the Federal government is going to be giving loans to these companies (which I don't believe they should, they should have been allowed to go into Chapt 11 bankruptcy from the start), then they should have reasonable conditions for the loans.

Was Obama right to ask for Wagoner to leave? I can't say - but what I can say is it is up to the Companies to accept the conditions in order to take the loans. Obama didn't force Wagoner out, he's not forcing the companies to hire and fire, and he's not forcing them to take deals with foreign companies either. The companies are free to reject the bailout money and figure a way out on their own.

They are making the decision to come hat in hand to the government for the cash, and that is why they are deciding to accept the conditions with which the money comes.

That is an important distinction though - the companies are making these decisions, the government is not forcing them.

MT| 3.30.09 @ 4:22PM

Did Dodd or Franks get fired? These two corrupt thugs and their liberal social engineering policies were responsible for our financial meltdown. This is just a fascist witch-hunt out to destroy capitalism. Drip, drip, drip.

lynnrockets| 3.30.09 @ 4:24PM

Clean up GOVERNMENT first; their corruption and unconstitutional power-grabs are our most pressing threats.

MT| 3.30.09 @ 5:05PM

You're wrong if you're saying the government didn't force some companies to take the money. Wells Fargo is one, and there are several more financial institutions that were coerced into taking government help. Don't think you know what you're talking about.

Bill Bailey| 3.30.09 @ 5:11PM

Well done, MT. JPM is a troll justifying Obama's heavyhandedness.

rockets| 3.30.09 @ 5:14PM

Say it, Bill. Just say it! OBAMA IS A FASCIST!! Now, don't you feel better?

JPM| 3.30.09 @ 6:38PM

Whatever, if you want to go to extremes and foam at the mouth with radical conservatism, feel free, I get the feeling for some of you nothing Obama could do would be good enough just because of who he is. Your attempt to dismiss my point as "trolling" simply because I don't agree with you is inane.

I'm at least encouraged by the fact the government is going to require some assurance the companies have a future with which to pay back the loans before they are granted, because they shouldn't be granted at all, but if they are, flushing money down the toilet on a failed business model with no chance of reclaiming it later is just foolish.

And I'm not talking about Wells Fargo, I'm talking about GM & Chrysler, my discussion is merely on the auto-industry right now. No one is holding a gun to their figurative heads and saying: "Take the money. We're going to control you. You have no choice." These companies have come crawling looking for handouts and that is the reason they are accepting the loan conditions because they've messed up so bad they can't seem to find a better way out.

I want to be clear - I don't agree with Obama on this. These loans shouldn't even be an option. These companies should have been forced into Chapter 11 months ago, Bush should have never given them the money to begin with. Chapter 11 Bankruptcy was and continues to be the best option for dealing with this problem. The Unions are the primary problem here, their non-competitive labor cost structure and legacy costs are choking the industry, and put on top of failed leadership at the highest levels, these companies are royally messed up. I see the non-union Southern Right to Work states as the future of the American Auto-Industry. Chapter 11 would have given GM & Chrysler the leverage they needed to get out from some of these untenable labor contracts and become more competitive.

But since it's apparent the government is going to continue to intrude in the free market and prop up these failing businesses, I think the best we can hope for is making sure before we give them more money we have some assurance they're going to be able to become competitive and pay it back.

lynnrockets| 3.30.09 @ 8:07PM

You didn't specify which industry you were talking about. Auto makers have been controlled by liberal democrat environmental restrictions for years. The exorbitant costs of green regulations and the unions (both liberal demos interest groups) have bankrupted Detroit. Obama and his morons' liberal policies are responsible for the failure of our auto industry. They are fascists. Any 'real' Conservative knows this. Troll. Liberals NEVER give power back.

JPM| 3.30.09 @ 9:22PM

I'm not a social conservative, I'm a fiscal conservative, so feel free to question my "real" conservative credentials all you like. I'm a Libertarian.

Government in general has a horrible record of giving power back whenever they take it, conservative and liberal alike, that's not a liberal only thing, unless you're completely blind.

So go ahead and call me a troll if it makes you feel better, it doesn't bother me in the least. I'm not wrong on this though.

The situation could be worse. Obama could continue to pump money into the failed auto-industry and prop up corrupt unions and do so without reserve, that would 0nly make things worse. What we have with the conditions for the loan is at least a chance for the auto-industry to fail to meet them and be denied any further government money - and a chance to get them into Chapter 11 where they belong.

That's realistic.

Bill Bailey| 3.30.09 @ 10:49PM

Obama wants to save the United Auto Workers at all costs. He wants to nationalize the auto industry and give it to the workers. If they go into Chapter 11 he loses control so he won't allow them to go into bankruptcy.

lynn| 3.31.09 @ 12:15AM

What Conservative President has made Obama's blatant power grabs? If you can't discern the difference between Obama and George W, I don't know if we can really understand one another. And, I'm no W fan. I'd like to kick his a$$. Obama is a socialist and so is the demo party--he has no checks on his power mongering inclinations. W could only go so far--we would have nailed him if he'd tried this crap. I didn't mean to insult you--trolls are tricky sometimes.

Angel| 3.31.09 @ 12:18AM

I still think Obama is a marxist; his mentor Saul Alinsky was. Soros, ACORN and the AFL/CIO make me feel very uncomfortable. They are not into power-sharing.

Jack| 3.31.09 @ 8:37AM

I see this in a little different light. While I'm no fan of Obama, I understand his placing caveats on GM before throwing more money at them. It seems to me there SHOULD be conditions before the government gives out money to prop up a business. More importantly, those conditions provide a very good incentive to run your business profitably so you don't need a government bailout. If Wagoner had run GM profitably he wouldn't have been put in this position to begin with. To me, going through a Chapter XI reorganization would have been much better than going to the government for a handout. With government, there are ALWAYS conditions to be met before they hand you more dollars. This whole scenario is an abject lesson on how NOT to run your business. Bottom line: if you want the government to stay out of your boardroom, run your business profitably and don't ask them for help.

lynnrockets| 3.31.09 @ 10:47AM

It's almost impossible to run your business profitably when government liberals force you to accept their onerous environmental restrictions and you are forced to be responsible for over the top benefits' expenses of thuggish unions. Corrupt liberals like Team Obama and inflexible unions have led to Detroit's destruction: Just like the liberal social engineering policies of Dodd, Franks and ACORN that have destroyed the financial industry. How convenient that the fascists are there to pick up the pieces. This is just a liberal/socialist/marxist power grab. Try to put lipstick on that pig, Jack.

Kevdo| 4.7.09 @ 5:47PM

Oh, please! You right wingnuts are running out of nasty names to collar Obama with. I guess 'socialist' wasn't harsh enough and didn't rile the goofball-nut set so it's now 'fascist.'

What a bunch of losers you all are.

DanMingo| 4.7.09 @ 8:30PM

There is a whiff of Fascism emanating from the Obama White House.
Hmmm; I thought they aired out all that sulfurous Bush smell. Guess not.

BHO| 4.8.09 @ 9:03AM

Man, you wingnuts are HILARIOUS! You guys are really losing your $hit over this, aren't you? But that's the way your minds work... you tune in to Rush, Hannity, Beck and Savage so they can feed you the talking points for the week and tell you what you should be outraged about!

In your mind, there is nothing Obama can do right. If he hadn't placed the condition of Wagoner's resignation, you would have bashed him for that too!

"Look at him, throwing money into the pit, no accountability as to his performance as CEO" or some such crap.

Your lizard brains are so very predictable, the way you throw out those buzzwords you've been trained to react to, like Pavlovian dogs...

"socialism, fascism, Marx, Stalin, spread the wealth, communism, Hitler, liberal, democrat, corrupt thugs... ACORN!"

If you conservatives ever want to get back into any sort of relevance in government, you need to take your tin foil hats off, stop listening to the propaganda garbage talk radio and FauxNews, and really try to think objectively. Maybe a trip to a deprogramming camp would help.

The only conservatives on this thread who express their thoughts in a rational, well-thought-out and level-headed manner are JPM and Jack. The rest of you are just wingnut parrots.

Zelator| 4.8.09 @ 11:30AM

I am sure that none of this balloon juice has anything to do with the right-wing coming to grips with having a nigger in the White House who is not cleaning something...

Obama is not a fascist, no matter what dictionary you use. He is not a liberal either - he is just a player.

Let's see... Wikipedia sez:

Fascism is a radical, authoritarian nationalist ideology. Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state. Fascists believe that nations and races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in combat against the weak. Fascist governments forbid and suppress all criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement.

OK - now someone explain to me what on earth Obama has to do with fascism...

Benito| 4.8.09 @ 1:47PM

Zelator: "OK - now someone explain to me what on earth Obama has to do with fascism... "

Easy: Glenn Beck said so! The blogs say so! Rush Limpbaugh said so! That's enough for me! ditto! ditto! ditto!

Matthew Weber| 4.9.09 @ 1:49PM

Ridiculous. This pathetic tantrum is the best you can do? Read Cicero, for God's sake; if you're going to smear someone with an irrelevant insult, at least do it with style and a modicum of pizazz. As political discourse, this is weak sauce indeed.

Larry the Liberal| 4.11.09 @ 5:16PM

Just when I thought (There I go thinking for myself. ) I had been dipped in the most paranoid pond on the net, lo and behold I come to this site. This is what makes America strong. Free speech. We all now know if soemone says their opinion is the same as most posters to this site we can run away and hide from them. Incredible lack of ability to look at a situation without grabbing the right-wing book of favorite dribble. GIVE ME MY OPINION! GIVE ME MY OPINION! GIVE ME MY OPINION! Please read a book instead of thinking. You aren't equipped for such matters.

Sara| 4.15.09 @ 9:27PM

Here we have a blog post where the definition of fascism is intertwined with the fear-mongering and truth-twisting in order to give the "Obama is a fascist" smear more credibility. You're obviously much smarter than the amatuers who are out on BlogSpot ranting.

However, this is still an appeal to fear/emotion, and the wrong application of the word "fascist." What you've done is taken a small part of the definition of the word and applied it to one incident, calling it fascism, while implying all the while the whole, ugly weight of evil fascism.

Obama has also been called a socialist, and really, the only thing in common between socialism and fascism is this government control over industry issue. Calling him a "socialist" is more accurate than fascist, for many many reasons but mostly that one is far-left and the other is far-right, but that name-calling didn't work during the election. Maybe because it's been thrown around for the last 50 years, and anti-Commie fears aren't as intense in this post-USSR world. Sure, we got China, but they're not really the same.

Remember, guys, fascism is Hitler, Mussolini, gas chambers, dictators, no free speech (criticism of a thing someone says is not a denial of that person's free speech, just criticism, so learn to take it), and repression much more awful and sickening than some failed CEO being told that if his company wants help, he's gotta step down. Well, duh.

Mark Abell| 5.3.09 @ 11:28AM

Obama isn't a Socialist, at least not in the sense of Democratic Socialism. Obama received $980,945 from Goldman Sachs, $806,299 from Microsoft, $790,564 from Google, $657,268 from Citigroup, $650,758 from JP Morgan and Chase, $547,951 from Time Warner, $541,251 from National Amusements, $522,019 from UBS AG. If he was a Socialist, like Cynthia McKinney(Green) whose top contribution was $2300 or Ralph Nader(Independent) whose top contribution was $9,200, he would emphasize a) Clean Energy projects-there are barely any in his stimulus, b) Universal Healthcare, which he has taken OFF the table, c) 350mph high speed trains would get built(as our found in France) But, he is doing neither a,b, or c. According to my criteria, Obama is not a Socialist but a hawkish corporate-Clintonite-Democrat.

Ares Vista| 6.22.09 @ 1:38PM

We are on the road to fascism, and we are getting there FAST. Americans have become so spoiled, self-centered, and greedy that we can't even fight for ourselves. American soldiers have fought and died so we may have freedom, and we're just pissing it all away.

Carl Peter Klapper| 6.25.09 @ 3:00PM

This is far worse than Mussolini's fascism. We have added a few other bigs:

1. big political parties;
2. big financial combinations, including Goldman Sachs and George Soros; and
3. big media, comprised of both "news" and entertainment.

On this latter "big", note the Obama's direct attacks against Fox to the exclusion of every other major network. Now I do not agree with everything coming out of Fox, far from it, but when a single news network is attacked by a Presidential administration that indicates to me that it is the only remaining vestige of a free press in television land.

O, and just let me say, MS NBC is a big ball of disgusting, obsequious MERDE! (pardon my English)

Cindy| 7.29.09 @ 10:55PM

Read the definition for fascism, try Wikipedia. Read the article on Fascism at http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html. You will love. If you can read this with an open mind and apply it to contemporary events, you may be enlightened. It is shameful that social studies has become one our worst subjects in primary education. Perhaps this situation has made the entire recent series of events possible.
I will pass this on as told to me. A man left the city to live in the country. He purchased 12 acres of pasture and wooded land. He decided the easiest way to maintain his property was to buy a goat. Goats will eat most anything, so he fenced his property and purchased four. The goats had a mixture of grass and weeds and a creek for fresh water.
The man's wife watched the goats feed and drink and named each of them. Then she decided they should not have to drink from the creek and had a self-filling vessel delivered and the goats began to drink from this vessel and not from the creek. Then she decided to feed the goats. she had special goat food delivered each week.The goats stopped grazing. Now the man with the 12 country acres has four goats that he feeds and waters and he mows his property weekly. People for the most part are alot like the goats they will take the easiest way. Subtly, the wife destroyed the natural instincts of the goats. They probably didn't notice what was happened to them either.

Fitz| 8.15.09 @ 8:50AM

So glad we're finally having an open discussion about modern American fascism.

As such, any honest discussion on the topic must also include:

1) Guatanamo Bay, torture, and extraodinary rendition

2) Suspension of Habeas Corpus via the Patriot Act

3) Wars of choice waged under a banner of conservative-Chrisitan moral supremacy

4) Purging of dissenting opinons, political and otherwise, within the government

5) Creation of categories of people deemed "undeserving" of equal or human rights, most recently immigrants and homosexuals

6) No fly lists with over a million names including the names of political dissenters

7) "Dixie Chic" burning rallies

8)Warrantless domestic spying and eaves dropping

9)Claims of executive privelage that continue to spit in the face of our Constitution

10) Flagrant propagandizing of the American public and the manipulation of 9/11 to pursue wars of choice

11) Calls by conservative politicians and media outlets to round up / expel dissenters for being "un-American"

12) Mass arrests and brutalization of peaceful dissenters, protestors and journalists at or near Republican political events and the refusal of main stream media to cover it.

13) Flagrant rebuff of treaty obligations under the UN and Geneva Conventions as mandated by our Constitution

14) Xenophobic demonization of Muslims and people of Middle Eastern heritage

15) Smear campaigns my national conservative media figures and outlets with patently false allegations against dissenting academics that inspire vile retribution and threats or acts of violence, at times even against their families.

And finally,
16) The inability of this nation to honestly confront both what happened and what nearly happened during the Bush years or to pursue any level of justice.

And, in the spirit of academic honesty, President Obama has not revearsed any of this and the longer he goes on allowing it to happen, the more implicated he becomes in the normalization of this mutated America.

In truth, there is still a lot of debate about the definition of fascism. Do you go with Muscolini's corportism, with Hitler's racial supremacy, or swomething else? I think the frightening things is that the American version is both more subtle and all encompassing of these other forms.

I would encourage anyone who has not already done so to read the essay called "The Danger of American Fascism" by Henry Wallace, Vice President 1944.
http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw23.htm

Carl Peter Klapper| 11.6.09 @ 6:06PM

I go with the Mussolini corporatism as being the definition of fascism since he started it. As such, my main concern is with the structural shifts rather than with symptomatic abuses of the new power those shifts allow. We can go on and on futilely chasing the tail of real or imagined injustices and never address their underlying cause: the financial/political/media complex. The linchpin is the power of political parties, especially at the lower levels. Far too many local contests have devolved into popularity and unpopularity contests involving national figures. Instead of asserting local rule, e.g. by creating municipal medical departments providing free medical care locally, we are electing placeholders for Bush or Obama, doing nothing locally and deferring to the national powers to "save" us with a "public health insurance option" or "Homeland Security" legislation. That assures us a national corporatism where national business and national government talk across the table of national "debate" becoming indistinguishable as the pigs and men in "Animal Farm".

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