Is the US technically fascist?

[Sibotic]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I wasn't aware that degenerate art was a concept central to fascism rather than something particular to Nazi Germany.

To be fair, the concept as generally brought up is associated in some ways with the Nazi German crackdown on degenerate art, and the Soviet Union did have similar criticisms of such art without necessarily being associated with fascism in itself, although it obviously did sustain relations with the Germans and etc. when available. These art-forms weren't generally particularly participated in by socialists anyway, especially when they moved towards 'modernism' in art, which may now be consigned to the past along with 'post-modernism' which was only an academic fad, so in that sense such things weren't necessarily an issue as it happens in any case.

[Troika]

Ahh ok.

I don't know if I'd call post modernism an academic fad. It's still hanging around. Nothing really encapsulates the aesthetic of late capitalism better.

[ACME_MAN]

In true fascism, the corporations are there to serve the state. In the US, the bulk of the corporations are there to serve themselves and have in essence, co-opted the government. A true fascist state is ultra-nationalistic and although there is clearly a nationalistic streak that runs through elements of American society, it is not totally pervasive. There is a clear split in the military in terms of loyalties at present as well as within the intelligence agencies. A FACTION of our government may be fascist, but on the whole, no, I don't believe this government is fascist.

The US is an extremely authoritarian militaristic culture that uses ethnic and religious hatred to divide and control the people. The welfare of the nation is placed above the welfare of anyone or anything else. Extreme nationalism is used to galvanize and control people. The US is rabid in its expansion (often through war, though usually through economic skullduggery) into other nation-states.

Economically we are very similar to the old fascist regimes in that corporate representatives control a majority of the government. The police state executes people on the street regularly (my city just had one--ofc the news didn't report it). We even have a bit of an apartheid state going where people of color and surplus labor are funneled into slave camps dressed up as the largest prison complex in the world.

How are we not fascist? Am I missing something? Has US neoliberalism just gone so far beyond fascism already that it's now something completely different and somehow worse? Isn't the end result of capitalism fascism anyway?

[ACME_MAN]

With a black President I think it would be very hard to characterize the US as racist on the whole.

In the US, nationalism takes the form of racism. American chauvinism, jingoism etc. Is not nationalist. There will never be a "US nationalist party" like in Europe.

[Sobornost]

With a black President I think it would be very hard to characterize the US as racist on the whole.

I have a theory on that regarding racism, but this 'Black President' is the lackey of Wall Street, as much as were the others.