budge wrote:
>
> On Tue, 12 Feb 2002 at 11:44pm Chip Berlet wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
>
> Hi,
>
> > This subject heading is just ridiculous.
> >
> > To recite the Pledge of Allegiance is fascism???
> >
> > It's jingoistic and nationalist and all that, but fascism?
>
> Not to *recite*, to be *required* to recite.
>
> I'm a pretty small 'l' libertarian sort -- I think anybody
> should be able to parrot whatever prayers or other
> confusions they wish to, whether to the State or to God(s).
>
> Nobody should be required to do so.
>
What does this have to do with fascism. What is happening in the United States today (and worse is yet to come) can only be called capitalism by those who are utterly naive about the repressive powers of ordinary capitalist democracy. The first modern genocides (slavery and the Indians) were carried out by a democracy, not a fascist or even a bonapartist state.
This throwing around of the word fascism is more than ridiculous -- it is pure unadorned apologetics for capitalist democracy.
Carrol