One Wisconsin Now

The Bush Administration and some Republicans in Congress have started using the new buzzword "fascism."  This is a loaded term that has been both overused and misused. Since we will be hearing this term a lot as Bush and Company tour the country, we should try to understand what the word "fascism" really means and if the Administration is using it correctly. Below are listed several definitions and descriptions of the word.  Feel free to post any others in the comments section.

The Bush Administration and some Republicans in Congress have started using the new buzzword "fascism."  This is a loaded term that has been both overused and misused. Since we will be hearing this term a lot as Bush and Company tour the country, we should try to understand what the word "fascism" really means and if the Administration is using it correctly. Below are listed several definitions and descriptions of the word.  Feel free to post any others in the comments section.

The 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

The Free Dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com) notes, fascism/corporatism is 'an attempt to create a "modern" version of feudalism by merging the "corporate" interests with those of the state.'"

Giovanni Gentile originally wrote the entry for fascism in the Encyclopedia Italiana and it said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini later claimed credit for this definition.

Mussolini wrote, in a 1923 pamphlet titled "The Doctrine of Fascism", "If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation."

Former Vice President, Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945), made the following comment on fascists in a piece in the New York Times in 1944.  "They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."