Wilhelm Reich’s Mass Psychology of Fascism is as powerful an analysis of fascism as you will ever read. I recommend it. He transcends label and “names” and, instead deals directly with the very deliberate and calculated behavior of fascists in their very organized efforts to control all action and thought of the masses. It was written in Germany in the 1930′s and was banned and burned upon publication as Reich fled for his life. Any attempt to understand fascism must include a reading of this book.

While many elements of society are attacked by fascism (intelectualism, feminism, pacificism, etc), all expressions of fascism are rooted in greed and control. Ignorance, belligerence, oppression, repression, xenophobia, religion, culture war, bread and circus media, censorship, war and militarism, patriotism, legal/illegal substance controls, hate mongering, class warfare, crime/punishment ciulture, prisons, and the countless other evil expressions are simply tactics used to maintain control by a very select few.

If the tactics are making an indivdual’s life miserable, he/she/they will focus on those tactics and, many times, limit or focus their view of fascism narrowly as relates to individual instances of fascistic behavior. However, Fascism is a vast and broad collection of activities controlled by the very few who control the production, finance, media, etc. — Corporate Overlords.

When Benito Mussolini defined fascism in a nutshell and let us in on a very big little secret, he was revealing way more than the casual nature of his remark seemed to portend:

“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”

Welcome to DisneyLand.

Again, find and read Reich’s Mass Psychology of Fascism. While it focuses on German Fascism in the 1930′s his explanations of how mass psyche is manipulated is very easily and quite frighteningly transposed onto our world today. It will change the way you look at every aspect of modern life from Education to the Sunday Funnies, Sex to Religion, Crime and Punishment, Politics, The Poor, and especially Rush, his Minions and all media.

Your point is reasonably well taken. I guess certain forms of communism are indeed focused on economic growth. But I am not so sure that Marxism is (or even, e.g., Amish communism). Of course, part of it depends on how you define economic growth, which is dicier, I would imagine, than those who talk glibly about n’th quarter growth rates would like to admit.

Oy vey. Did they really mean this? “Medically, it [abortion] is defined as miscarriage [or other] before twenty weeks’ gestation, which is considered nonviable. It is the murder of an unborn child” …

Aside from the fact that they’ve just be fiat decided there is no such thing as “late term abortion” (so hence the laws about it are off the books?), they are saying miscarriage is murder! WTF? I think that tells us all we need to know about them, eh?

And killing a non-viable clump of cells is murder? If one gets an apendectomy, is one a murderer?

Oy vey.

resulting in or caused by its death.

Well, honestly, an embryo or fetus does “die” in the medical sense when an abortion is performed. I mean, your skin cells die all the time, as do many other cells throughout your body. Performing an abortion results in death for the cells concerned.

As usual, the real catch here is how “embryo” and “fetus” are defined. If someone defines them as fully living human beings then we have a problem. But if the definition is “a clump of cells that could potentially be a human being,” then the now-corrected definition on Wikipedia seems very reasonable to me.

An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death. This can occur spontaneously as a miscarriage, or be artificially induced by chemical, surgical or other means. Commonly, “abortion” refers to an induced procedure at any point during pregnancy; medically, it is defined as miscarriage or induced termination before twenty weeks’ gestation, which is considered nonviable.

‘Resulting in or caused by its death.’ Riiiiiiiiiight.

I don’t claim to be an expert or even highly knowledgeable, but I thought communism was still concerned with growth and prosperity–our children should live better than us and we should be striving to do things better than we are now. It’s primary disagreement with capitalism is that, rather than have a handful of capitalists at the top reap the rewards of an investment, everyone should be rewarded equally.

I suppose what pretty much encapsulates what I’m trying to say is here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041211030312/www.bopnews.com/archives/002308.html#2308

Sorry it’s webarchive, but the main site (bopnews.com) no longer exists. The most relevant excerpt (though please read the whole thing)!:

Where does capitalism come in?

Capitalism came in at the very beginning but I delayed discussing it until now because I didn’t want the references sprinkled throughout. Essentially the two major concepts of capitalism are entry costs and economies of scale.

For instance the original two man pair we had envisioned, the net maker and the fisherman, could pull in even more fish if they had a small boat to work out of to go to the fish instead of just fishing by the shore. But building a boat takes time to collect the materials, produce it, test it, and learn how to use it. How are these two guys going to eat in the meantime? Well if they had stockpiled their surplus fish away in a storable form, if that stockpile was large enough they could eat that while they finished the boat. The amount of time and resources needed to be set aside for the construction of the boat is called the entry cost.

The additional production from having made the investment of labor and resource is called the economy of scale. The surplus needed to meet the entry cost is called the capital. That’s what capital is: the amount of surplus you need in order to pay the entry cost to break into a new economy of scale.

This form of capitalism is called communism. Surprised right? Isn’t communism opposed to capitalism? No. Communism is simply a primitive form of capitalism. Communism is commonly practiced in small villages where everyone gets together and combines their surplus labor and resources in order to better production and then splits the increased returns.

It is still practiced by the Amish. That’s what an Amish barn-raising is. It’s a bunch of people getting together and using up surpluses of labor and resources to create an economy of scale. Because they are small interknit communities it makes rational economic sense. If you help raise your neighbor’s barn then he can produce more. As he produces more he will come out and help you more if you need help. Therefore it’s a form of community capitalization of social insurance.

However communism depends upon the commoditization of labor. Either one person’s labor is equivalent to another person’s labor, or at least their total production value is. However when we introduce the concept of the economy of scale it turns out that not all labor is equal, because while we all have about the same amount of time, it turns out that some person’s labor increases the economy of scale more than others.

What we conceive of as capitalism – the inequality of income – arises directly from the unequal contribution of labor toward economies of scale.

I don’t claim to be an expert or even highly knowledgeable, but I thought communism was still concerned with growth and prosperity–our children should live better than us and we should be striving to do things better than we are now. It’s primary disagreement with capitalism is that, rather than have a handful of capitalists at the top reap the rewards of an investment, everyone should be rewarded equally.

I suppose what pretty much encapsulates what I’m trying to say is here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041211030312/www.bopnews.com/archives/002308.html#2308

Sorry it’s webarchive, but the main site (bopnews.com) no longer exists. The most relevant excerpt (though please read the whole thing)!:

Where does capitalism come in?

Capitalism came in at the very beginning but I delayed discussing it until now because I didn’t want the references sprinkled throughout. Essentially the two major concepts of capitalism are entry costs and economies of scale.

For instance the original two man pair we had envisioned, the net maker and the fisherman, could pull in even more fish if they had a small boat to work out of to go to the fish instead of just fishing by the shore. But building a boat takes time to collect the materials, produce it, test it, and learn how to use it. How are these two guys going to eat in the meantime? Well if they had stockpiled their surplus fish away in a storable form, if that stockpile was large enough they could eat that while they finished the boat. The amount of time and resources needed to be set aside for the construction of the boat is called the entry cost.

The additional production from having made the investment of labor and resource is called the economy of scale. The surplus needed to meet the entry cost is called the capital. That’s what capital is: the amount of surplus you need in order to pay the entry cost to break into a new economy of scale.

This form of capitalism is called communism. Surprised right? Isn’t communism opposed to capitalism? No. Communism is simply a primitive form of capitalism. Communism is commonly practiced in small villages where everyone gets together and combines their surplus labor and resources in order to better production and then splits the increased returns.

It is still practiced by the Amish. That’s what an Amish barn-raising is. It’s a bunch of people getting together and using up surpluses of labor and resources to create an economy of scale. Because they are small interknit communities it makes rational economic sense. If you help raise your neighbor’s barn then he can produce more. As he produces more he will come out and help you more if you need help. Therefore it’s a form of community capitalization of social insurance.

However communism depends upon the commoditization of labor. Either one person’s labor is equivalent to another person’s labor, or at least their total production value is. However when we introduce the concept of the economy of scale it turns out that not all labor is equal, because while we all have about the same amount of time, it turns out that some person’s labor increases the economy of scale more than others.

What we conceive of as capitalism – the inequality of income – arises directly from the unequal contribution of labor toward economies of scale.