What Is Fascism?

By Laura Dawn Lewis 

This may surprise most educated people. One of the more common government strategies today, especially in developing regions is fascism. Fascism is commonly confused with Nazism.  Nazism is a political party platform that embraces a combination of a military dictatorship, socialism and fascism.  It is not a government structure. Fascism is a government structure. The most notable characteristic of a fascist country is the separation and persecution or denial of equality to a specific segment of the population based upon superficial qualities or belief systems. 

Simply stated, a fascist government always has one class of citizens that is considered superior (good) to another (bad) based upon race, creed or origin.  It is possible to be both a republic and a fascist state. The preferred class lives in a republic while the oppressed class lives in a fascist state. 

Until the Civil Rights act of 1964, many parts of the US were Republic for whites and could be considered fascist for non-Caucasian residents. Fascism promotes legal segregation in housing, national resource allocation and employment. It provides legal justification for persecuting a specific segment of the population and operates behind a two tiered legal system.  These two tiers can be overt as it was within Nazi Germany where Jews, Homosexuals, Catholics, Communists, Clergy and the handicap were held to one set of rules and courts, while the rest of Germany enjoyed different laws.

Or it can be implied and held up by consensual conspiracy, (people know it is wrong but do nothing to stop it or change it.  Through lack of action, they give consent), as it was in the deep South for African Americans and others of color. In Fascism, one segment of society is always considered less desirable, sub-human or second class.

(Note: no single government is pure anything.  Most have elements of several structures with one dominant structure).  Below is the political definition and general characteristics of a fascist country.

General characteristics of a fascist country:

1. Fascism is commonly defined as an open terror-based dictatorship which is:

• Reactionary: makes policy based upon current circumstances rather than creating policies to prevent problems; piles lies and misnomers on top of more lies until the truth becomes indistinguishable, revised or forgotten.
• Chauvinistic: Two or more tiered legal systems, varying rights based upon superficial characteristics such as race, creed and origin.
• Imperialist elements of finance capital: Extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political domination of one state over its allies.

Though a dictatorship is the most common association with fascism, a democracy or republic can also be fascist when it strays away from its Tenets of sovereignty.  In the 20th Century, many Fascist countries started out as republics.  Through the use of fear, societies gave up their rights under the guise of security.  Ultimately these republics morphed into Fascist states.

2. Fascism is an extreme measure taken by the middle classes to forestall lower-working class revolution; it thrives on the weakness of the middle classes. It accomplishes this by embracing the middle-class' love of the status-quo, its complacency and its fears of:

1. Generating a united struggle within the working class
2. Revolution
3. Losing its own power and position within society

In a more simplistic term the people currently in control fear that if they allow equal rights and equal consideration to those being oppressed, they will become  oppressed and lose everything.

Generally those in power are of a smaller fascism;  for justification they dehumanize, demonize, strip them of rights, add new laws, restrict movement and attempt to control them by whatever means possible to prevent an uprising.

It is very common in a fascist system to have the oppressed referred to as sub-human, animals, terrorists, savages, barbarians, vermin or any other term designed to create justification for the acts of terror and fascism perpetrated on the oppressed. Via dehumanization society can then accept that the oppressed are incapable of thinking or acting in a peaceful manner or taking care of themselves, and thus society is exonerated from culpability in their own minds.

Propaganda, not persuasion, logic or law, is the tool of fascism, though at times very difficult to spot.  It specifically rides the fact that negative behavior is innate, (born with) rather than a logical behavior in response to oppression. Propaganda also empowers the oppressors with elitism racially, socially, intellectually and/or spiritually.

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The 7 conditions (Warning signs)
that foster & fuel fascism are:

1. Instability of capitalist relationships or markets
2. The existence of considerable declassed social elements
3. The stripping of rights and wealth focused upon a specific segment of the population, specifically the middle class and intellectuals within urban areas as this the group with the means, intelligence and ability to stop fascism if given the opportunity.
4. Discontent among the rural lower middle class (clerks, secretaries, white collar labor). Consistent discontent among the general middle and lower middle classes against the oppressing upper-classes (haves vs have-nots).
5. Hate: Pronounced, perpetuated and accepted public disdain of a specific group defined by race, origin, theology or association.
6. Greed: The motivator of fascism, which is generally associated with land, space or scarce resources in the possession of those being oppressed.
    
7. Organized Propaganda:

a) The creation of social mythology that venerates (creates saints of) one element of society while concurrently vilifying (dehumanizing) another element of the population through misinformation, misdirection and the obscuring of factual matter through removal, destruction or social humiliation, (name-calling, false accusations, belittling and threats).

b) The squelching of public debate not agreeing with the popular agenda via slander, libel, threats, theft, destruction, historical revisionism and social humiliation.  Journalists in particular are terrorized if they attempt to publish stories contrary to the agenda.

3. Fascism dovetails business & government sectors into a single economic unit, while concurrently increasing in-fighting and distrust between the units fostering advancement towards war.

4. a) Fascism promotes chauvinist demagogy, (appealing to the prejudices and emotions of the populace) by fostering selective persecution and accepted public vilification of the target group. It then promotes this a "patriotic", "supportive" or "the party line" and disagreement with such as "anti-government", "anti-faith" or "anti-nation".

b) Fascism creates confusion through "facts". It relies on junk science, revisionism, the elimination of cultural records/treasures and obfuscations to create its case and gain acceptance. Fascism can also combine Marxist critiques of capitalism or faith based critics of the same to re-define middle class perceptions of democracy and  to force its issues, confuse logic and create majority consensus between targeted groups.  This is also referred to as creating a state of Cognitive Dissonance, the mental state human beings are most easily manipulated.

5. Both middle and upper-middle-class dictated democracy and fascism are class dictatorships that use organized violence (verbal or physical) to maintain the class rule of the oppressors over the oppressed.

The difference between the two is demonstrated by the policies towards non-lower-working class classes.  Fascism attains power through the substitution of one state's form of class domination with another form, generally a middle class based  republic segues into an open terrorist dictatorship, run by a few elite.