POTUS's 14 points of light: Fascism on the Potomac

I never really understood what fascism was all about, except maybe for a sense that it entails secret police, ubiquitous use of party symbolism, intolerance of difference to the extent of institutionalized murder, and imperialist agression. Most of these are visible in any totalitarian system. So what makes fascism Fascism, I wondered? Laurence Britt has as good an explanation as any I've seen. When you ignore the qualities I've mentioned above, along with a few others, because they are shared with other kinds of socioeconomic systems, two characteristics remain. First, corporate power is protected to the advantage of the politicians and the business aristocracy. Second, but equally important, I think, is that religion and government are inextricably related. The government uses religion as a weapon against dissent, to marginalize free thinkers. And government has no compunction about acting in a distinctly un-religious manner when it suits them. If any of this sounds familiar, it should. We are witnessing a political transformation in this country. Not, as the Republicans and the religious right maintain, a union of traditional Christian values and moral imperatives with government, but rather the infliction of de facto fascism on the people of the United States, right under their noses. Welcome to fascist America, everyone. Make yourselves comfortable. But as the shrunken head in the Prisoner of Azkhaban so prophetically announced: "Clench your buttocks. It looks like we're in for a bumpy ride."