Dear Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld;

I know you're both really busy guys and don't have lots of spare time to do extensive research before testing out your new scary terminologies to use on the American public at large. I know it's really important to you guys to impress upon us citizens how we are under a constant and severe threat from the "enemy" and in your struggles to define "the enemy" for us - you are continually in need of new tools, verbiage and brushes to paint them with. So I can appreciate how we slipped back and forth from "Terra" to "extreme hatred" to "violent extremism" and then back to "global terra" a few times before comfortably settling into the 'GWOT' again, like an old pair of bedroom slippers you just can't abandon.

And I can likewise understand now how we need to make the enemy more menacing now, since all the time that has passed since September 11th has resulted in many a short-attention-span American mind to become soft, muddled and less terrorized than previously... face it- we have lost the fear that an afternoon visit to the mall might end up with an explosion or our heads being chopped off. Many of us. That must change.

So this new Islamo-Fascist thing seems to be a potent development that just might help out. Nobody much reads anymore anyways, so I doubt they will ask any key questions about the origins; Mussolini, corporatism, or how any of that resembles those Al Qaeda guys we are so familiar with by now on the dilapidated monkey bars in the remote stretches of the desert. (That image seems to have lost some of its punch over the years too btw. It's really hard to be terrified of a bunch of guys hanging from some playground monkey bars.)

So I just thought, in light of your busy schedules -- I'd supply you with a little more information that I found on fascism so you're absolutely sure it's the route you want to take on this one. Might get sticky down the road if some of those wacko moonbat rabid sheep extremist fringe leftist blogger types start talking amongst themselves... and telling others -- You know how they are.

No need to thank me. It's the least I could do for my country.

PS Oh, and you know what's really funny about this stuff? As I was reading along... it kept sounding so familiar... then I realized-- Hey! That sounds a lot like the George W. Bush governance style!! : )

Here is my research. Enjoy!

Citizen Taxpayer Patriot

ms in la
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FASCISM:

* a political system in which all power of government is vested in a person or group with no other power to balance and limit the activities of the government. Fascist governments are often closely associated with large corporations and sometimes with extreme nationalism and racist activities.

Modern fascism is often called "CORPORATISM".

www.naiadonline.ca/book/01Glossary.htm

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It's the Corporate State, Stupid

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.

11/10/04 -- The early twentieth century Italians, who invented the word fascism, also had a more descriptive term for the concept -- estato corporativo: the corporatist state. Unfortunately for Americans, we have come to equate fascism with its symptoms, not with its structure. The structure of fascism is corporatism, or the corporate state. The structure of fascism is the union, marriage, merger or fusion of corporate economic power with governmental power. Failing to understand fascism, as the consolidation of corporate economic and governmental power in the hands of a few, is to completely misunderstand what fascism is. It is the consolidation of this power that produces the demagogues and regimes we understand as fascist ones.

While we Americans have been trained to keenly identify the opposite of fascism, i.e., government intrusion into and usurpation of private enterprise, we have not been trained to identify the usurpation of government by private enterprise. Our European cousins, on the other hand, having lived with Fascism in several European countries during the last century, know it when they see it, and looking over here, they are ringing the alarm bells.

We need to learn how to recognize Fascism now.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7260.htm

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Noam Chomsky, MIT linguist and activist, describes the corporate structure:

A corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level — there's a little bargaining, a little give and take, but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward.... I'd love to see centralized power eliminated, whether it's the state or the economy, and have it diffused and ultimately under direct control of the participants.

Corporations, which previously had been considered artificial entities with no rights, were accorded all the rights of persons, and far more, since they are "immortal persons," and "persons" of extraordinary wealth and power. Furthermore, they were no longer bound to the specific purposes designated by State charter, but could act as they chose, with few constraints.

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From "Fascist Italy"

http://www.thecorner.org/hist/total/f-italy.htm

What A Fascist Looks Like ^

LEARN FROM IL DUCE-- THE GODFATHER OF Fascism

Politically, to the Fascists, parliamentary democracy could only lead to inefficiency and corrupt government; and so the whole parliamentary system must be discarded. In the words of Mussolini, national strength was conceived qualitatively and not quantitatively. For the strength of the nation, it should be ruled by a well-disciplined party elite, which, under the guidance of an inspired and unquestioned leader, would restore order and stability for the nation and lead it forward to greatness.

Mussolini demanded that the people should subject themselves to the absolute authority of the state. People could find their own worth only when they were serving the state. As a result, freedom of assembly and thinking were wiped out in Italy.

In foreign policy, since Fascism promised national glory, it was natural for Mussolini to adopt an expansionist foreign policy from the beginning of his rule. Mussolini's ultimate goal was to revive the glories of the old Roman Empire.

In short, a Fascist state was a totalitarian state, controlling all the political, economic and social activities of its people. Mussolini always proclaimed, "Everything within the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state." The masses should only "believe, obey and fight."

Mussolini was not satisfied with a coalition government. He aimed to be the ruler of one-party totalitarian state. From 1922 to 1929, slowly but gradually, he destroyed all effective opposition at home.

From, 1922 to 1923, Mussolini steadily built up his own power in the government. He placed loyal Fascists in key government positions, created the Voluntary Fascist Militia for National Security, and promoted the Grand Council of Fascism (the highest authority of the Fascist Party) into an organ of state.

In July 1923, Mussolini was able to secure a new electoral law from the parliament. The new law provided that any party, having 25% of the votes in a general election, should receive two-thirds of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies

In 1926, a law on association outlawed all political opposition, and a secret police force was established to arrest political opponents. In 1925-26, more than ten thousand anti-fascists were arrested, sentenced to death and exiled. To strengthen his control of the country, the workers' unions were dissolved and opposition newspapers were closed. In 1928, a new law abolished universal suffrage and restricted parliamentary elections to candidates officially nominated by the Fascist Grand Council

The most important economic reform was, however, the formation of the Corporate State.

First of all, the corporations benefited only the employers. Workers' interests were sacrificed in the name of national good. To the workers, no strikes were permitted. If they had a wage dispute, they could only appeal to the Labour Courts of the Corporations. But these Labour Courts were dominated by the employers and the state officials who always sided with the employers

SOCIAL POLICY

The population as a whole was subject to control by the government through various channels: (i) The secret police was given wide powers. Even the bandits which had been rife in the south for decades were suppressed. (ii) Through education, school children were indoctrinated with Fascist ideas. They were told that "Mussolini is always right. Millions of them were recruited into the youth organizations of the party. In 1931, university professors were forced to swear an oath of loyalty to fascism and to teach according to its principles. (iii) The mass media. — the cinema, the radio, the press, the books and the magazines—were all strictly censored by the government.

( Inserted note: **This is just not sounding to me like those guys on the rusty monkey bars?? )

FOREIGN POLICY

During his rule Mussolini pursued a vigorous foreign policy. The army nearly doubled in size—from 175,000 men to 275,00 men.

There were several reasons for this vigorous foreign policy:

(1) Mussolini wanted to establish in the Mediterranean a modern Roman Empire, rivalling that of the ancient Caesars.

(2) A successful foreign policy might distract the Italians from their miserable conditions at home.

THE GOOD NEWS

In 1943, Mussolini was forced to resign by a coup led by King Victor Emmanuel