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I know what you mean. I was thinking of nature's most toxic bio-toxin, botulism. It's not only deadly, it makes people stupid. Stupid enough to get it injected in their faces just inches from their brains while telling people that vaccines are bad for you.

   

Making a comeback? Dude, it never left. The Soviet Union from Stalin to Brezhnev was fascist. China was and still is fascist. You don't think the Chinese are ultra-nationalist? At least to a degree? Add in the desire and work toward world domination, slave labour of certain minorities, political persecution and political prisons and laws against speaking out against the govt/country and you have a much MUCH larger similarity to a place like nazi Germany than anything your warped imagination thinks Trump is doing.

   

Communism-- as imagined by Karl Marx imagined has never existed.

   

Not sure if it's actual fascism as much as it is creeping gangsterism. The Chinese have been relatively open about what they're up to ever since Western businessmen started sending them tens of millions of jobs that used to belong to North America and Europe - China's just doing what always comes naturally to them as an entity where human life is essentially valueless except as a commodity. Russia under Putin is also relatively honest about what it is, in that Putin's schtick is just a different variation of the same thing the czars and Stalin engaged in - strongman rule for the benefit of the strongman only, and you better get with the program or there's a swamp in Siberia with enough room to accommodate you.

The only thing new under the sun is the United States embracing this kind of thinking, first in the Reagan years where the wave of outsourcing of jobs really began in earnest and thru to today under Trump, where the elite in America are genuinely puzzled as to why any of the rules that the proles and klooges have to live under should ever apply to anyone with enough skrilla in their bank account. This is a form of gangsterism because it signifies the collapse of an entire ethical and moral social code among the elite demographic, whereas before it would only be a belief shared by the likes of the Prohibition mobsters. It's dangerous because it signifies the change when a social strata of thugs morphs from being a gang into being a "do what you're told, or else" type of aristocracy. And what is any class of nobility but a gang with enough swords or guns at their disposal to become the bosses of all?

So, yes, highly dangerous and transformative times right now, with the forces of darkness clearly in the ascension everywhere. The wealthy, backed up by their servants, police forces, militaries, and bought-off politicians, simply aren't pretending anymore that the previous social arrangement suits them anymore. Or that their desires, however perverse or brutal they are, will be contained anymore behind a system of rules and laws that in their hearts they always regarded as farcical anyway. Combine this with the truly pathetic virtue-signalling weakness of places like Europe or Canada, whose self-righteous pantomime of look-at-us "goodness" has no true strength in it at all to face down the rising tide of elite lawlessness, and things going into the future aren't just appearing bad - they're becoming truly bad, and the vast majority of people everywhere are going to get really harshly hammered down.

Like someone once said, if you think any of this has a happy ending then you really haven't been paying attention.

   

I simply wish people would stop using 'fascist' and 'fascism' to describe anything they don't like as opposed to describing actual fascists and actual fascism.

   

It's probably because, as with Mussolini in Italy, the state becomes a partner and essentially the main weapon in a rule-by-thug enterprise. That's why Putin can be seen as a fascist and why the same thing is said about Trump. It's the co-opting of the state and the law that changes it from some kind of Soprano-like clowns doing their usual thing, which is really just a bunch of low-grade vice-centric nonsense that exists in every country everywhere, into an active undermining of society and institutions (from the top down) that brings out the more intense labels and epithets.

I don't agree with the wrong use of the labels but that's more of an unimportant argument over semantics, and it's really just a distraction from the larger problems. It's undeniable though that something deeply and horribly wrong is occurring pretty much everywhere now, and the odds of any of it resulting in a positive outcome are somewhere between slim and none.

   

Spoken like the true fascist you are.


/s

   

Fascism is right-wing totalitarianism. China/USSR are not right wing by any stretch they’re a different kind of totalitarianism.

   

It was Ramsay Bolton, who said that to Theon

   

It should also be in a Realist's Bible as the last thing Jesus ever says to the entire human race.

   

Alike in many ways, different in others. And both collectivist in orientation. And both provide evidence supporting Solzhenitsyn’s assertion that murderousness + ideology = super-murderousness.

   

Fascism in the traditional sense, defies the simple right/left wing classification.

   

   

I don’t really see fascism as collectivist. In any totalitarian regime dissent is not tolerated bit that doesn’t mean it’s collectivist. No Nazi ever uttered "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs“ and lived to tell the tale.

Fascists are social conservatives who celebrate traditionalism: traditional roles according to gender and according to class. In fascist countries, the privilege and excess if the wealthy elite including movie stars etc. were glamorized and publicly celebrated

   

The irony of this debate is that mixing and matching elements of capitalism and social has actually produced the greatest results overall in the modern world. Capitalism generates technological change and wealth from it, while social programs and public investments in everything from education to infrastructure offset the inequalities that can come with capitalism (and which led to Marx's criticisms in the first place) and give people more of a chance to take advantage of their talents regardless of their levels of income.

It's only when insisting on ideological purity that we see the problems that we do (stagnation and collapse with socialism, inequality and poverty with capitalism). Canada, throughout its history, has used that same judicious mix of government investment and private initiative to thrive. It's only in drifting away from that model that we've run into problems more recently. Maybe reviewing some of those older approaches might help us in the modern age, especially with the the neoliberal model being increasingly discredited?

   

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