Certainly fascism was more virulently racist in the '20's and '30's than it would be today but that is more a reflection of the times than a necessity for fascism. The Minutemen are certainly blood and soil believers and while Bush and/or Rumsfeld may not explicitly believe in this philosophy they do exploit it to their own ends. Bush has also appointed people to positions of power who hold racist ideas. The superiority of the white US system is not questioned in Bush's mind. Large billborads with Bushs image on them and the text "Our Leader" certainly speak of a Fuhrerprinzip current in many Bush supports thinking. No mystic link? Bush thinks he was appointed by god to bring 'merican values to heathens! While the mystic link is different today than it was in the '20's and '30's that again is more a reflection of the times than something inherent to fascism. In Umberto Eco's essay on fascism he list other factors. Cult of tradition, Disagreement is treason, Newspeak (Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning) and several others. The main ingredient missing to my way of thinking is hyper-nationalism within the relationship to corporations. The Bush group are not nationalistic and not really interested in attempting to appease that faction of the right. This is a significant difference but not one that concerns me much when I hear others use the term fascism to describe the Bush policies. There are far more similarities than differences and no one said fascism today must be identical with fascism of yesterday. A close enough fit will suffice. I don't think we're there yet and I'm not certain that the hyper-nationalistic aspect will ever manifest itself but I don't rule out the possibility. Give us some serious climate change and an impression of oil shortages and you never know. More likely in my mind is something similar to fascism that probably needs a new name.
John Thornton