American Fascists, Chris Hedges on The Hour (CBC)

Chris Hedges
2007/02/06
For more info, go to: http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer prize winning writer and author of "American Fascists." In his latest release, the former New York Times correspondent compares the U.S. Christian right to 20th Century fascism.

As a son of a preacher, Hedges has a deep knowledge of the Bible which he uses to openly blast the role of Christianity in politics.

Hedges believes the far right Christian believers have been manipulated by the high power, allowing for bigotry and intolerance.
(AND HE IS RIGHT!!!!)

Unlike Chris, I grew up in a strict seperatists fundamentalist baptist household. Much of details I have read were already known to me. I like his book because it is bringing to light the Fascist nature of American Religion. It has been my struggle, unlike most Christians and Non-Chrisians, to see this Christianity as anything but fascist in nature.

I highly recomend picking up this book.

Also I recomend picking up a copy of "The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945"
by Richard Steigmann-Gall

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• American
• Fascists
• Fascism
• neocons
• USA
• religious
• right
• tyranny
• CBC
• Canada

[1tonykirk]

@sheepOG Well said. What is erased from our History Books is things like John D Rockefeller's quote that "Competition is a Sin". It was taken as joke, it wasn't.

John D bribed the Politicians in Delaware and New Jersey (And set the rest of the Country to follow) all Corporations were once required to apply for re-chartering approximately every 10 years or so.

The criteria to meet for approval to renew the Charter was to prove that they were operating in the Public's best interest. Gone!

[TheDavid2222]

I highly recommend that anyone who reads this post also read The Doctrine of Fascism. It has great philosophical depth and might change how many of you actually view Fascism. I DARE you to read that work because it blatantly counters today's conception of what fascism even is. I don't necessarily agree with fascism, but Chris doesn't even know what Fascism is. The Italian Fascists explicitly state that they want to promote art, culture AND intellectual inquiry. Mussolini wasn't racist either.

[RSFO]

@RSFO Also, I identify the scientific method within a non-dualist and evolutionary sense as Charles S. Peirce did. As quoted off from Wikipedia: "The scientific method - the method wherein inquiry regards itself as fallible and purposely tests itself and criticizes, corrects, and improves itself." I don't really care what you call it, as long as the spirit is the same. It is eternally evolutionary in any sense.

[RSFO]

@RSFO I don't agree with your analogy, btw. It was an honest blow against newspeak to restore the meaning of words. The meaning of words change, but they should only change when we find a better definition. We should be careful not to turn any ism into a scapegoat. That is why George Orwell told us that we should recognise the good in even fascism. Otherwise we might just exactly get everything which is bad in fascism one way or another.

[RSFO]

@odunne2 Not even Marx supported what Lenin did. Remember that the left Marxists like Rosa Luxemburg and Antonie Pannekoek were *very* critical of Lenin. Rosa Luxembourg even wrote an article in 1904 to emphasize the difference between Leninism and Marxism. Marx also became more anarchist after he wrote The Communist Manifesto. Truly this manifest was flawed. But in any ideology it is not a person that is the guide, but the scientific method.

[odunne2]

@RSFO yeah maybe. i think you and hinrichten are both using technical definitions. it reminds me of people who say that what we order at pizza hut is not pizza because true pizza is the first ever usage of the term, which is some weird looking thing they make in italy. but marx did originally support the soviet form of government. unlike others like bakunin, so if it's not communism, then you have to admit there was a flaw in marx's theories.

[RSFO]

@odunne2 I agree that fascism and stalinism had many similarities, and Leninism is to a various degree totalitarian, but USSR was in no way communist. It called itself socialist, but was practically strongly anti-socialist. Remember that Mussolini also said that fascism was socialism turned on its head. People also forget that socialism is really an offshoot of classical liberalism, and that you can just as well call Adam Smith a spokeperson for socialism as Karl Marx.

[Hinrichten]

@odunne2 corporatism is no where near plutocratic...

"corporatism, Italian corporativismo, also called corporativism, the theory and practice of organizing society into “corporations” subordinate to the state. According to corporatist theory, workers and employers would be organized into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and controlling to a large extent the persons and activities within their jurisdiction."

(Encyclopedia Britannica)

[odunne2]

@Hinrichten if you don't think corporatism is plutocratic, then you might as well merge your definitions of corporatism and capitalism. the difference between what happened under fascist states and what is supposed to happen under a free market is that the government took a lot of money from the people and the big corporations could bribe the government to get that money in one way or another.

[Hinrichten]

@odunne2 that wasn't a legal definition i gave you, that was almost word for word from the encyclopedia britannica. You should also know that people often misuse words, specifically corporatism (which is often confused with plutocracy).

[odunne2]

@Hinrichten hah. i am aware of the legal definition of corporation. and i don't think it's even that simple. but there's the practical definition. when people talk about corporate power, they are talking about the power of the world's most powerful companies. not the power of limited liability. it just so happens that they have limited liability. but even without it, they would still have the same power. corporate power in our world today is the power of big business. 

[Hinrichten]

@odunne2 then you must know that many different organizations can be called corporations. you must also know that a corporation is "a separate legal entity created for the sole purposes of limited liability among those who are a part of it". This includes non-profit organizations, unions, churches, etc.

Knowing that, how to do manage to misinterpret such an easy quote?