Here are some sample Fasc-O-Meter readings:
* George W. Bush pretending to fly a jet fighter to an
aircraft carrier, and addressing the troops while wearing a
flight suit with a packed crotch -- 65
* Air Force One -- 35
* The Nike "Just Do It" ads from the '80s -- 38
* Swearing in elite troops by torchlight on Masada -- 67
* The Giuliani mayoral administration in New York -- 45
* The Bloomberg mayoral administration in New York -- 45*
* The US Air Force -- 50
* The US Army -- 25**
* The Whitney Museum building -- 37
* Searchlights shining straight up, as decorative or
architectural elements -- 80
* The slogan "New Frontier" -- 55
* Racial or ethnic privilege embodied explicitly in law -- 85
* The movie "Top Gun" -- no reading available; the instrument
unfortunately blew a fuse while the measurement was being taken.
The underlying theoretical insight embodied in the Fasc-O-Meter® is that Fascism is a continuum, not an either/or. To put it a different way: for the past eighty years or so, Fascism has been floating around in the global environment, like DDT or plutonium. The question to ask in any particular case is not whether Fascism is present or not, but what is the concentration? Think of the Fasc-O-Meter® as a political-cultural Geiger counter, warning you just how Fascioactive a particular politician, or cultural trend, or foreign policy is. (It's a logarithmic scale, of course, like the decibel scale, and for similar reasons.)
Now of course I anticipate your next question. "Smith," you're going to say, "we all know that Fascism has many dimensions. Fascism has an aesthetic, an ideology, a praxis, a social basis. Fascism is often (but not always) associated with racial theories of history, with eugenics (or sociobiology, as it is now known), even with individual characterology and its sources -- for example, an obsession with cleanliness and dirtiness. How can your instrument possibly merge all these various elements into a single metric?"
Dear interlocutor, that is a very good question, and I am glad you asked it. You are quite right that Fascism is a multidimensional entity. There is, in fact, a professional version of the Fasc-O-Meter®, the Fasc-O-Meter Pro®***, which displays a vector of values, representing the exact position of the measured entity in N-dimensional Fascospace. The consumer version of the Fasc-O-Meter® internally derives a similar vector (though with a smaller set of metrics) but then, for ease of use, reduces these to a scalar value; you can think of this value as the length of the vector, measured from the origin. Details of the implementation are, of course, proprietary.
JSP and I have continued over the years to refine and improve the instrument, and are now looking for investors to help make this laboratory breakthrough a commercial success. We believe that the sky's the limit on this one. Consider only the benefit to Left discourse: those endless debates about whether Israel is more or less Fascist than Serbia will be a thing of the past. Just point the Fasc-O-Meter®, press the big brown button, and lo! There's your answer, as objective and authoritative as a fever thermometer or an IQ test.
Individuals interested in a ground-floor opportunity to back a sure winner should contact the author privately. Serious inquiries only, please.
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* Illustrates the value-add of the Fasc-O-Meter Pro® (see below). The Giuliani administration scores higher on aesthetic Fascism, Bloomberg on the drab practicalities.
** The Army's score would be 3, if it weren't for those ridiculous berets.
*** Available to the trade only.
-- --Michael J. Smith --mjs at smithbowen.net
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org