Monday, May 30, 2016

Donald, the Bully!


 
There is something about Donald Trump that deeply frightens me! Of course! That is how bullies manage to thrive. They use fear tactics – much in the manner of terrorists! My even greater fear, however, is that Donald Trump is insane in addition to being a bully!
by Charlie Leck

Donald Trump is being defined these days, by a number of national columnists, as a fascist! It’s a term that has always baffled me and I went looking for answers. In an essay about defining Fascism, George Orwell concluded in this manner…
“…even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.
“But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one — not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.”
In a 1944 speech by then Vice President Henry Wallace, he defined the American fascists this way…
“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity… They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”
That (the above) is something all reasonable voters should think about when November comes around.
And, the thoroughly liberal columnist Robert Reich, has said the following…
“As did the early 20th-century fascists, Trump is focusing his campaign on the angers of white working people who have been losing economic ground for years, and who are easy prey for demagogues seeking to build their own power by scapegoating others.
Democracy Now carried the following headline on March 15th of this year: “Father of Fascism Studies [Robert Paxton*]: Donald Trump Shows Alarming Willingness to Use Fascist Terms and Styles!”
*Paxton is the professor emeritus of social science at Columbia University. He is the author of the book: The Anatomy of Fascisim.
Dana Milbank, in the Washington Post, says this about Donald Trump…
“I wish I could enjoy Trump, who at last week’s debate defended the size of his penis. But this isn’t a conventional debate between Democrats and Republicans or insiders and outsiders. Trump is on the wrong side of a struggle between decency and bigotry, between democracy and something else.
Glenn Beck, the enormously conservative talk-show host, is quoted in the article referred to above…
“We should look at Adolf Hitler in 1929. Donald Trump is a dangerous man with the things he has been saying.” [on ABC’s This Week show]
And, in an opinion column nearly a year ago in Newsweek, Dominick Reuter wrote:
“This is how strongmen take over countries. They say some true things, boldly, and conjure up visions of national greatness under their leadership. They’ve got the flags, the music, the hype, the hysteria, the resources, and they work to extract that thing in many people that seeks heroes and momentous struggles in which they can prove their greatness.
Is Donald Trump a fascist? I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s bright enough to understand what the term means and what it would be as a political or social system. BUT, he is, nevertheless, a very, very dangerous man!

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