Look at What Happens to Peaceful Protesters in the States

I've paired down the definitions above to show what I think you were looking at. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

When you say that they are exact opposites, presumably what you have in mind is that utopian anarchism has complete freedom whereas fascism has complete control, but you are comparing ideal anarchism to real-life fascism, which is not a reasonable comparison.

Sure, in the ideal of utopian anarchy, everyone is free to do what they want because none of them ever have wants that come into conflict. But in the ideal of fascism, everyone is free to do what they want because all of them want nothing more than to follow the orders of the leader who rules for their benefit. The only difference between ideal anarchism and ideal fascism is that in one system, the big decisions are made by one person while in another the big decisions are made by some sort of consensus. In both systems, the economy is tightly controlled for the common good. In particular, individuals do not run companies for their own profit but for the common good. So the ideals of anarchism and fascism are actually quite similar, not opposite at all. The only difference is that one system believes that this magical and inhuman level of cooperation arises spontaneously while the other system believes that the magical cooperation is directed by a perfectly benign central authority.

What about in real life? In real life, both anarchists and fascists believe in using violence and brainwashing to enforce their preferred utopias. In real life, no utopian anarchy can exist, any more than a utopian fascist state where everyone happily follows the leader, so in real life, both systems have to rely on a brutal totalitarian government to enforce the system. We saw plenty of this in the twentieth century where the anarchists were called communists. Again, anarchism and fascism are not opposites, but actually quite similar.

A fascist state could be organized as a dictatorship, monarchy, or theocracy as well. Neither a fascist nor a socialist state could be a democratic republic because that government type has to provide too much freedom to individuals and free individuals create free enterprise which breaks the system. Socialism, fascism, and communism all require a totalitarian government to maintain the system. If you give people freedom to do what they want, then free enterprise will spontaneously arise because that's what free people do: free enterprise.

 

Hey, CatBuilder, have you seen the latest from Egypt where the government is so much better than America's? 33 died and 1750 injured in protests. More importantly, there was pepper spray, which shows that the Egyptian government can be just as evil as the mayor of Berkeley.

So now we have the police being disciplined for what they did in Berkeley and we have the Egyptians who you held up as our example to follow doing a lot worse than pepper spray.

This would be a good opportunity to apologize for the slanderous and false things you said about America.

 

Actually, I have read some of Mussolini's thoughts on democracy and fascism, and they are INCREDIBLY close and pertinent to the current state of things in many countries which we call democratic. Few examples:

"The term "people" was never properly defined. It is an abstract entity, in a political sense. We don't know where it exactly starts, nor where it ends. The adjective "soverein", when applied to the people, is a tragical joke. The people can, at most, appoint or delegate, but for sure it cannot excert any sovereignty. The representative systems belong more to the mechanics than to the morality."
(Note: the last phrase is something I don't entirely comprehend).

"The people is left only with a monosyllable to affirm and obey. The sovereignty is granted to the people only when it is non-harmful or considered as such, which means in the moments of ordinary administration. Can you immagine a war proclaimed through a referendum? A referendum is a perfectly suitable tool when it's about choosing the best place to build a fountain for the town, but when supreme national interests are at stake, even the ultra-democratic governments are not willing to let the people judge and decide."

"Exclusively consensual regimes have never existed, do not exist, will never exist."

"Should there not be a consensus, there will still be a force. For each measure, even a toughest one, that the Government will decide, we will put the citizens in front of this dilemma: accept it for the spirit of patriotism, or suffer it."

"We cannot give liberty to those who would use it to assasinate us."

"But what is the freedom? Does it exist? At the end, it is a phylosophical and moral category. There are freedoms - THE freedom has never existed."

"A freedom without order and discipline means dissolution and catastrophe."

"If freedom is to be an attribute of a real man, and not of that abstract puppy described by the individualistic liberalism, the fascism is for the freedom. It is for the only freedom which can be considered a credible one, a freedom of the State and of the individual inside the rules of the State."​

I think this is something to meditate about...

 

Your comparison is insightful...Egypt is a police state ruled by wealthy families and the military...if you're not careful America will morph into a police state ruled by big business.

You already have outrageous events happening in America such as the German Mercedes Benz executive arrested and jailed for not carrying his identification documents. This is the definition of a police state.

Pepper spraying students ??? What next..........

 

A completely unrelated post: I once ate at a restaurant that was owned by a direct descendant of Musollini located somewhere outside of Milano, I think, by lago di cuomo. Any idea what restaurant that is, Daiquiri? I recall other diners arriving by helicopter, but the evening was a blur thanks to the grappa my host ordered for all of us!

 

Sorry, cannot help you. There are too many good restaurants around Lago di Como, and quite a few persons here claim some genealogical relationship with Mussolini.

There are a lots of grey and obscure zones concerning Mussolini's life and death. He was a very controversial person, and even at this time distance you will find many people here who will credit him (and fascism) for some good things he did for Italy in the pre-war period - mainly the infrastructural, industrial, medical and scientific growth of a previously poor, fragmented agricultural country. The schooling system was improved and extended too during fascist regime, leading to a dramatic reduction of illiteracy. Fascism as a political and economical regime was corporative by statute and dictatorial by means, but it is too often wrongly assimilated to German Nazism and to the criminal and mephistophelic figure of Hitler, who is another type of animal. There's an interesting summary of various aspects of fascist regime in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Italy_(1861–1946)#Fascism_.281922.E2.80.931943.29

Now, I don't want to be misunderstood here - this is not an apology of fascism, in no way. There's not much to be praised. I am just pointing out some similarities between Mussolini's ideas of a State and what we have today in many countries around the globe, under the name "democracy".

Mussolini and his fascism certainly did some good and many more bad things for Italy in the pre-war period, or they wouldn't be so often studied and mentioned today. But fascism will be rightly reminded as a time in Italian history where those who dared to disagree with the regime were treated with a stick or even with a bullet, and he personally will be remembered as a belligerent small dictator who has chosen a dark side of the force when the time to make a choice has come. Some people argue that he couldn't do anything else but sign a treaty with Hitler, because otherwise the German army would have overrun him like a caterpillar and would have swept his regime in a blink of an eye. Still, it was an act of cowardliness which imho put a thick shadow over any good thing he might have done before the war broke out. It also shows that, all in all, he was just an intelligent and eloquent but small-hearted man who found himself stuck in a situation bigger than what he (and Italy) could handle.

It is all imho of course, and I know many people here who would strongly disagree with this opinion of mine.
All off-topic stuff, but for the sake of putting things mentioned in previous posts into a right context.

 

Big business is owned by stockholders; people like you and me. Teachers, firemen, democrat socialist politicians, blacksmiths farmers, candlestick makers, bakers, artists, doctors, lawyers(especially lawyers), bedpan handlers, plumbers, carpenters, metal workers, house painters, bricklayers,stuccoers, seamstresses, lawn care guys, mechanics, engineers, union members(especially union members) and even migrant workers own stock in big business. When big business is attacked it hurts all the people who have stock. It is already proven that socialism doesn't work so what will you replace capitalism with, more socialism, more fascism? Bah!

 

And that's where a personal convenience and interest comes into play.
If you think deeper into it, those stocks are the money which the big business (as you call it) has used to buy your freedom, your opinion and to make you part of the speculative game.

 

Yes indeed...It always amazes me that people who own stocks actually believe that they are an active participant and beneficiary of the capitalist system. The "stock ownership as a retirement fund " doctrine in the US has left millions of families terribly exposed , while simultaneously concentration great wealth in the pockets of players in the financial industry.

It also amazes me that capitalist true believers dont flinch when thier whole system crashes down requireing society..SOCIALISM..to bail it out . The US does not have a capitalistic system. It a ponzi scheme that requires the administration to borrow 4 billion dollars a day to keep upright.

This is what the young students protesting on campus understand. The ideas from this generation must be listened to.

 

Quite a circle, isn't it?

Shareholder are people.
Shareholders own corporations.
Corporations control the government.
The government controls the people.

I guess "people" is what really needs defining if anyone is to make sense of this circle.

For example, what percentage of the population actually owns stock?

Further, who is part of a group or is an individual that owns controlling interest in a company that can sway government policy?

Those are the shareholder "people." They "people" may be quite different from the "people" that are controlled by the government.

PS: Thank you for giving the restaurant memory some thought, Daiquiri. I do remember heated Mussolini discussions there, as well, since it was fresh on everyone's mind.

EDIT:

Here is a random quote I found online...

Because there are many ways to "own" stock, this question can have many answers. For example, if you own a mutual fund in your company's retirement plan, you can be said to be the "owner" of the stocks that are in the mutual fund. That's in spite of the fact that you probably don't know what they are, and you have no voting control in either the stocks themselves or the mutual fund. The most commonly offered answer to this question uses this broad, and, arguably meaningless definition.
The Mutual Fund Industry group - Investment Company Institute - has a lot of data on this subject. Its 2002 study, http://www.ici.org/pdf/rpt_02_equity_owners.pdf showed that 49.5% (or 52.7 million) of US Households owned equities in some way shape or form in 2002. However, only 21 million (less than 20%) owned individual stocks outside an employee sponsored plan.

There is an important distinction here. When politicians talk about eliminating the capital gains tax, it is only these 21 million households who will pay lower taxes, because retirement investments are tax deferred while you hold them, and then taxed at regular income tax rates when you take the money out.

 

This one amazes me, too.

I can never wrap my head around it when people say things like:

"I'm against welfare, I'm against socialism, I'm against handouts, you need to work, you lazy bum!" , then in the next breath say....

"We needed to give large financial institutions a bail out using tax payer money."

or...

"I am for small government and reduced taxes.", then in the next breath say...

"We need more police, we need to make more laws prohibiting this or that, we need to beef up Homeland Security, start more wars and be sure to extend the Patriot Act."

It boggles the mind.

 

Gosh- sweeping generalizations about the US 'problem' again.

Market participation is not a US phenomenon.

Much of the money which flowed into the secondary markets here was from Europe.
This time and during historical periods.

"The government controls the people."

I can't think of a single instance where I have every experienced this.

You guys following the numbers-
Some slowing in China:
9.1 is this really a cause for concern???

And Europe calling .5
Yikes- this IS a proplem

US falling off predictions to a solid but not impressive 2

 

It is an American phenomenon...they even proposed a reduction in Social security contributions to allow American citizens to feed the already bloated financial industry. This is special interest government gone wild.

 

Do you really have a clear ideal why there is a GLOBAL recession just now?

 

Each time you watch TV news or read newspapers, for example.

Do you really believe that you are getting a truth regarding, say, any war your country is involved in? Do you really believe that you are getting the truth regarding the current economical crisis and the actual state of your country's finances? Do you really believe that you are getting a true info regarding the level of corporate interference and influence with your government policy and decision-making process?

No you are not. The media, the politics, the finances and the military industry are so closely entangled that what you believe is a correct information is very often just a path carefully paved to pilot your opinion and vote towards a desired political goal. Democracy is a word used as a smokescreen which hides the actual grim reality, which is much closer to a State as Mussolini has envisioned it 90 years ago then to a naive imagine of democracy which has been taught to us back in the schooldays.

By the way, when I am saying "your country", it applies to my country too.