Democracy, The Most Dangerous Religion
民主，最危险的宗教
13. Chapter 13 – Democracy to Fascism
第13章-从民主到法西斯
翻译： 珍珠
Fascism is a political ideology fundamentally authoritarian in character, with a strong nationalism and an essentially belligerent militaristic outlook. Fascism carries primarily a corporate perspective as opposed to a socialist view, directed to satisfying the needs, values and objectives of finance and corporations, organising both the economy and the political system according to this agenda. A fascist government actively suppresses any objection to its ideology and will crush any movement which opposes it. In keeping with their belligerent nature, fascist governments generally view violence and war as stimulants to national spirit and vitality. Being politically Right-Wing, they maintain their position through firm control or compliance of the media, and most often engage in a vast array of lies and deception. These governments tend to be bigoted, if not racist, invariably require “enemies” to achieve public solidarity, and are often supremacist or at least ‘exceptional’ in their self-assessment. They either believe, or pretend to believe, that they have a license on truth. Large military budgets, the creation and demonisation of fictitious enemies to propagate fear and maintain population control, are all typical characteristics of a fascist regime, as is massive public surveillance.
法西斯主义是一种本质上是专制的政治意识形态，具有强烈的民族主义和本质上好战的好战军事观。法西斯主义主要是一种与社会主义观点相对的企业观点，旨在满足金融和企业的需求、价值观和目标，并根据这一议程组织经济和政治体系。法西斯政府积极压制对其意识形态的任何反对，并将镇压任何反对它的运动。为了保持其好战的本性，法西斯政府通常将暴力和战争视为民族精神和活力的刺激因素。作为政治上的右翼，他们通过牢牢控制或遵守媒体来维持自己的地位，并且最常使用大量谎言和欺骗。这些政府即使不是种族主义者，也往往是顽固的，总是要求“敌人”实现公众团结，并且经常是至上主义者或至少在自我评估中是“例外”的。他们要么相信，要么假装相信他们拥有真理的许可证。庞大的军事预算、虚构敌人的创造和妖魔化以传播恐惧和维持人口控制，这些都是法西斯政权的典型特征，大规模的公共监视也是如此。
In 1995 the Italian Scholar Umberto Eco produced a paper titled ‘Eternal Fascism’ in which he examined the characteristics of fascist regimes. In 2003, Laurence W. Britt did an excellent and scholarly work in dissecting and categorising past fascist regimes, in which he revealed common threads that linked all of them in “patterns of national behavior and abuse of power“. He wrote that “Even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi, (which is) not a revelation … but useful … to shed needed light on current circumstances.” I am including here a composite of edited extracts from these two papers with additional commentary of my own. Significant statements by these two authors are in quotation marks. This is a list of the characteristics of fascist states, taken from Britt’s original article:
1995年，意大利学者翁贝托·埃科发表了一篇题为《永恒的法西斯主义》的论文，他在文中考察了法西斯政权的特征。2003年，劳伦斯·布里特在剖析和分类过去的法西斯政权方面做了出色的学术工作，他在“国家行为和权力滥用模式”中揭示了将所有这些政权联系起来的共同线索。他写道：“即使对这些法西斯主义和原始法西斯主义政权的粗略研究也揭示了他们作案手法绝对惊人的相似性，（这）不是一种启示……但有用……以揭示当前情况的需要。”我在这里编辑了这两篇论文的摘要，并附上了我自己的评论。这两位作者的重要声明均用引号标出。这是法西斯国家特征的列表，摘自布里特的原文章：
13.1. Early Warning Signs of Fascism
13.1. 法西斯主义的早期预警信号
- Powerful and continuing nationalism
- 强大的持续民族主义
- Supremacy of the military
- 军队的至高无上
- Obsession with national security
- 对国家安全的痴迷
- Obsession with crime and punishment
- 对犯罪和惩罚的痴迷
- Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
- 识别敌人/替罪羊，作为统一的原因
- Disdain for human rights
- 蔑视人权
- Corporate power is protected while labor power is suppressed
- 公司权力受到保护，而劳动力受到压制
- Controlled mass media
- 受控大众传媒
- Rampant cronyism and corruption
- 猖獗的任人唯亲和腐败
- Intertwined religion and government
- 宗教与政府交织在一起
- Fraudulent elections
- 欺诈选举
- Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
- 鄙视知识分子和艺术
- Rampant Sexism
- 猖獗的性别歧视
If we examine the US on these categories, we find an almost perfect match. Certainly, the US has the most strident nationalism of all nations today, with the hysteria of patriotism and flag-worship unabated and even increasing, with the delusional theory of American Exceptionalism as virulent as ever. There is no question about military supremacy, with the US spending almost twice as much on its military as the rest of the world combined and being by an order of magnitude the world’s largest arms manufacturer and dealer. President Obama stated flatly that for the US to remain ‘peaceful and prosperous‘ it needed the world’s largest and most powerful military to maintain an overwhelming military supremacy. Obsession with issues of national security is so common in the US today it has become an object of ridicule. Every manner of information is withheld, every manner of lie is told, every manner of crime is committed, all with the excuse of ‘national security’. Britt noted that a national security apparatus was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints, with its actions always justified under the rubric of protecting “national security”, and that questioning these oppressive activities is now often portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.
如果我们从这些方面来审视美国，我们发现它几乎完美地符合这些标准。当然，美国是当今所有国家中最强烈的民族主义者，其爱国主义和国旗崇拜的歇斯底里有增无减，甚至有增无减，其妄想性的美国例外论理论一如既往地恶毒。毫无疑问，美国拥有军事霸权，其军费开支几乎是世界其他国家军费开支总和的两倍，并且是美国是世界上最大的武器制造商和经销商。奥巴马总统直截了当地表示，美国要保持“和平与繁荣”，就需要世界上最大、最强大的军队来维持压倒性的军事霸权。对国家安全问题的痴迷在美国今天非常普遍，它已经成为一种嘲笑的对象。各种信息被隐瞒，各种谎言被说，各种犯罪被实施，所有这些都是以“国家安全”为借口。布里特指出，国家安全机构通常是压迫的工具，秘密运作，不受任何约束，其行动总是以保护“国家安全”为借口而正当化，质疑这些压迫活动现在往往被视为不爱国甚至叛国。
Britt noted that all the fascist regimes had an obsession with crime and punishment, stating that most “maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations” – a perfect description of America today, including the ‘unchecked power and rampant abuse‘ by the police. He also noted that in all these fascist states, ‘normal‘ crime and political crime were almost interchangeable, “often merged into trumped-up criminal charges … used against political opponents of the regime“. These characteristics of crime, punishment and incarceration are all fields in which America leads the world by a wide margin today as we have already seen.
布里特指出，所有法西斯政权都痴迷于犯罪和惩罚，并指出大多数“维持着严酷的刑事司法制度，监狱人口众多” – 这是对当今美国的完美描述，包括警察的“不受控制的权力和猖獗的滥用”。他还指出，在所有这些法西斯国家中，“正常”犯罪和政治犯罪几乎可以互换，“经常被合并到捏造的刑事指控中……用于对付政权的政治对手”。正如我们已经看到的那样，犯罪、惩罚和监禁的这些特征都是美国今天在世界上遥遥领先的领域。
In terms of enemies being needed for solidarity and to maintain “a unifying cause”, the US is also the outstanding world leader, creating real and fictitious enemies not only for itself, but doing a rather good job in creating animosities throughout the world. In fact, a signature feature of the US is its worldwide propagation of the game called “Let’s you and him fight.”, as we see in Asia today, and with interference in the Ukraine, Russia, China, and dozens of other countries. Creating political chaos and large military risks is a common fascist trait, which is partly why military supremacy is necessary, black and white America attempting to partition the world into ideological factions, often in preparation for war. For some decades, the US milked the Cold War for all it was worth, casting the Soviet Union as a bitter enemy and creating animosity where none would have existed. With the fall of the USSR, the US turned immediately to other nations, never really forgetting Russia, and then created its 9-11 ‘Pearl Harbor Moment’ that would permit it to have a permanent enemy in the person of ‘terrorism‘, a war that will never be won since the US creates all the terrorist events to prolong it. It has the added advantage of demonising all the world’s Muslims while equating all Arabs with terrorists. Enough enemies here for a lifetime of fascism.
就团结和维持“统一事业”所需的敌人而言，美国也是杰出的世界领袖，不仅为自己创造了真实和虚构的敌人，而且在全世界制造了敌意。事实上，美国的一个标志性特征是它在世界范围内传播所谓的“你和他打架”的游戏，正如我们今天在亚洲看到的那样，以及对乌克兰、俄罗斯、中国和其他几十个国家的干涉。制造政治混乱和巨大的军事风险是法西斯主义的共同特征，这也是为什么军事霸权是必要的部分原因，黑白分明的美国试图将世界划分为意识形态派别，通常是为战争做准备。几十年来，美国充分利用冷战，将苏联视为死敌，并在原本不存在敌意的地方制造敌意。随着苏联的解体，美国立即转向其他国家，从未真正忘记过俄罗斯，然后创造了9·11“珍珠港时刻”，使其成为“恐怖主义”的永久敌人，这是一场永远不会赢的战争，因为美国制造了所有恐怖事件来延长战争。它还有另一个优势，就是将世界上所有的穆斯林妖魔化，同时将所有阿拉伯人与恐怖分子等同起来。这里有足够的敌人来维持法西斯主义的一生。
A fundamental practice of a fascist or pre-fascist government is demonisation of ‘the others’, outsiders who are the enemy. For the people, these (usually imaginary) enemies provide not only an essential cornerstone of the fascist state but an essential adhesive for their fabricated national identity. Being thus united against a common other, fascism becomes deeply racist by definition and in practice. This demonisation of selected enemies is so intense that pacifism or a lack of belligerence equate to treason, to sympathising with the enemy. Or, in today’s US lexicon, “giving aid and comfort to the enemy“. In the world of fascism, disagreement is treason. George Bush and Dick Cheney: “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us“. US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: “There are only two kinds of people in the world: Christians who believe in capitalism, and the other kind.” In his study of these regimes, Britt wrote that “the most significant common thread” among them was this demonisation of other peoples as enemies of the state, “to divert attention, to shift blame, and to channel frustration into controlled directions“. He claimed that their methods of choice – propaganda and misinformation – were usually effective. Britt noted that “Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly“, which is precisely what happens today in the US, where increasingly it occurs that challengers of the system are labelled as terrorists, even to the extent of the ‘food terrorists‘.
法西斯主义或前法西斯主义政府的一个基本做法是将“其他人”妖魔化，将他们视为敌人。对于人民来说，这些（通常是虚构的）敌人不仅为法西斯国家提供了重要的基石，而且为他们捏造的国家身份提供了重要的粘合剂。因此，团结起来反对共同的敌人，法西斯主义在定义和实践上都是种族主义的。这种对特定敌人的妖魔化是如此强烈，以至于和平主义或缺乏好战性等同于叛国，等同于同情敌人。或者，在今天的美国词典中，“为敌人提供援助和安慰”。在法西斯主义的世界里，分歧就是背叛。乔治·布什和迪克·切尼：“如果你不支持我们，你就是反对我们”。美国国务卿约翰·福斯特·杜勒斯：“世界上只有两种人：相信资本主义的基督徒和其他人。”在研究这些政权时，布里特写道，“其中最重要的共同点”是将其他民族妖魔化为国家的敌人，“转移注意力，转移责任，并将挫折感引导到可控的方向”。他声称他们选择的方法——宣传和错误信息——通常是有效的。布里特指出，“这些政权的积极反对者不可避免地被贴上恐怖分子的标签并受到相应的处理”，这正是今天美国发生的情况，越来越多的制度挑战者被贴上恐怖分子的标签，甚至被贴上“食品恐怖分子”的标签。
No reasonable person can claim today that the US has any concern for human rights, certainly not any outside the continental US, and increasingly less within its borders. Except for Israel, the US has by far the worst record of human rights violations during the past several hundred years, far outstripping anything attributed to people like Stalin, Hitler or the Japanese. It is, after all, the US that built and still maintains the largest network of torture prisons and ships in the history of the world, even though the US media have removed this topic from the publishing list.
任何理智的人今天都不能声称美国关心人权，当然也不关心美国大陆以外的人权，美国境内的人权也越来越少。除了以色列，美国在过去的几百年里在侵犯人权方面是迄今为止最糟糕的，远远超过了斯大林、希特勒或日本人。毕竟，美国建造并仍然保持着世界历史上最大的酷刑监狱和船只网络，尽管美国媒体已经将这个话题从出版名单中删除。
In terms of media control, the US government covers this not by ownership or direct censorship but by a cabal of closely-interwoven interests working on the same precise agenda, almost totally eliminating any necessity for overt acts. Corruption and cronyism are as alive and virulent in American government today as they have ever been in any society at any time in recent history. The lobbies alone, working with the secret government, are more than sufficient evidence of this, with corruption increasing noticeably each year. Americans may quarrel with the point of an integration of religion and government but, while religion is theoretically separated from the state, it is joined at the hip in practice. We have George Bush telling us God told him to invade and destroy Iraq, Obama telling us Christ’s redemption of him provides him with solace on a daily basis, and a long list of other nonsense indicating that evangelical hysteria is never far removed from the government, even if only to mislead an ignorant population. Britt noted that religion and the ruling elite were tied together in some way. “The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the ‘godless‘.“
在媒体控制方面，美国政府不是通过所有权或直接审查来控制媒体的，而是通过一个由密切交织的利益集团组成的阴谋集团来控制媒体的，这些利益集团有着相同的精确议程，几乎完全消除了任何公开行动的必要性。腐败和裙带关系在美国政府中一如既往地猖獗，在近代历史上任何时候的任何社会中都是如此。与秘密政府合作的游说团体就足以证明这一点，腐败每年都在显著增加。美国人可能会对宗教与政府的融合产生争议，但是，虽然宗教在理论上与国家分离，但在实践中却是紧密相连的。乔治·布什告诉我们上帝让他入侵和摧毁伊拉克，奥巴马告诉我们基督的救赎为他提供了日常的安慰，还有一长串其他胡说八道表明福音派歇斯底里从未远离政府，即使只是误导无知的人口。布里特指出，宗教和统治精英在某种程度上是联系在一起的。“统治精英的行为与宗教戒律不相容的事实通常被掩盖起来。宣传保持着统治精英是信仰的捍卫者和“无神论者”的反对者的错觉。“
Fraudulent elections are more overtly creeping into the American electoral system every year. We had George Bush’s brother removing more than 50,000 persons from the voter lists in Florida, all of whom were legitimate voters, and sufficient to provide an election victory. Even then, when votes were finally counted accurately, Bush was proven to have lost the election, but the consequences could not be reversed. As well, the new digital voting machines have been condemned even by those who designed them, as wide open to electoral fraud and manipulation to the extent of changing the outcome of every vote. Moreover, it is openly admitted that even without manipulation, an accurate count is not physically possible. But the government continues to roll out these systems, one would have to assume for their manipulation potential.
每年，欺诈性选举都在美国选举制度中越来越明显地蔓延。乔治·布什的兄弟从佛罗里达州的选民名单中删除了5万多人，他们都是合法选民，足以提供选举胜利。即使在那时，当最终准确计算选票时，布什被证明输掉了选举，但后果无法逆转。此外，即使是设计新数字投票机的人也谴责这些投票机，因为它们很容易受到选举欺诈和操纵，以至于改变每次投票的结果。此外，人们公开承认，即使没有操纵，准确计数在物理上也是不可能的。但是政府继续推出这些系统，人们不得不假设它们具有操纵潜力。
LOS ANGELES, CA – APRIL 17: Members of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) rally near City Hall on April 17, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. An NSM anti-illegal immigration rally in October in Riverside, California resulted in fights between the neo-Nazis and counter-protesters. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
加利福尼亚州洛杉矶 – 4月17日：2010年4月17日，国家社会主义运动（NSM）成员在加利福尼亚州洛杉矶市政厅附近集会。 10月份，NSM在加利福尼亚州里弗赛德举行的反非法移民集会导致新纳粹主义者和反示威者发生冲突。 （照片由David McNew/Getty Images提供）
It is widely recognised the US has been dumbing-down education for decades, starving the educational systems of funds, using increasingly unqualified part-time and adjunct teachers and professors, increasing tuition costs to the point where education will soon be unaffordable. We don’t need an education to see that the only possible result is an increasingly uneducated and ignorant population. In his study, Britt noted that “intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed.” This forms a perfect description of the situation today in the US, certainly on the crushing of dissent. I have no observation to make on the arts, but the US appears to qualify solidly on every point in the above list, and I see no reason for Americans or indeed anyone else to take comfort in this. Is the US a fascist state? How do we avoid answering in the affirmative?
人们普遍认为，几十年来，美国一直在降低教育水平，使教育系统资金匮乏，使用越来越多的不合格的兼职和兼职教师和教授，使学费成本增加到教育即将无法负担的程度。我们不需要教育就能看到，唯一可能的结果是越来越无知和无知的人口。在他的研究中，布里特指出，“智力和学术自由被视为对国家安全和爱国理想的颠覆。大学受到严格控制；政治上不可靠的教职员工受到骚扰或被淘汰。非正统思想或异议表达受到强烈攻击、沉默或压制。”这完美地描述了当今美国的情况，当然也包括对异议的压制。我对艺术没有观察，但美国似乎在上述清单中的每一点上都符合资格，我认为美国人或任何其他人都没有理由为此感到安慰。美国是一个法西斯国家吗？我们如何避免肯定地回答？
To people of a country like the US, who are deprived of a clear national identity, fascism creates one by stoking the fires of a false nationalism though propagandising the pathologically false conviction that “the world’s greatest privilege is to be born or to live in this country“, that every citizen “belongs to the best people in the world”, all of whom are, by definition, “good”. US President Calvin Coolidge: “To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race“. Michael Hirsh used the same jingoistic nonsense to justify American cannibalisation of the world by stating that American global domination was “the greatest gift the world has received in … possibly all of recorded history.” Britt noted the powerful propagation and displays of nationalistic expression, “From the prominent displays of flags and ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism.”
对于像美国这样的国家的人来说，他们被剥夺了明确的民族认同感，法西斯主义通过宣传病态的错误信念来煽动虚假的民族主义之火，即“世界上最伟大的特权就是出生或生活在这个国家”，每个公民“都属于世界上最好的人”，所有这些人都是“好人”。美国总统卡尔文·柯立芝：“生活在美国宪法之下是人类有史以来赋予的最大政治特权”。迈克尔·赫什用同样的沙文主义胡说八道来为美国蚕食世界辩护，他说美国的全球统治是“世界在……可能是有史以来收到的最伟大的礼物”。布里特指出，民族主义表达的强大传播和展示，“从突出的国旗展示和无处不在的徽章来看，无论是政权本身还是陷入狂热的公民，表现爱国民族主义的热情总是显而易见的。朗朗上口的口号、对军队的自豪感和团结的要求是表达这种民族主义的共同主题。”
To underscore the above, Global Research published an article in March of 2015 titled “The End of Canada in Ten Steps: A Conversation with Naomi Wolf”, in which it was noted that she studied “the way open societies were crushed from within by authoritarian elements“, such as those existing in all Right-Wing countries today, and claimed there was “a ‘blueprint’ followed by all dictatorial rulers composed of ten steps” as follows:
为了强调上述观点，全球研究在2015年3月发表了一篇题为《加拿大十步之遥：与娜奥米·沃尔夫的对话》的文章，其中指出，她研究了“开放社会被威权主义分子从内部摧毁的方式”，如当今所有右翼国家存在的威权主义分子，并声称“所有独裁统治者都遵循由十个步骤组成的‘蓝图’，如下：
- Invoke an external and internal threat
- 引发外部和内部威胁
- Establish secret prisons
- 建立秘密监狱
- Develop a paramilitary force
- 发展准军事力量
- Surveil ordinary citizens
- 监视普通公民
- Infiltrate citizen groups
- 渗透公民团体
- Arbitrarily detain and release citizens
- 任意拘留和释放公民
- Target key individuals
- 锁定关键人物
- Restrict the press
- 限制媒体报道
- Cast criticism as “espionage” and dissent as “treason”
- 将批评视为“间谍”，将异议视为“叛国”
- Subvert the rule of law
- 颠覆法治
Global Research finally noted that “In her 2007 book The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Naomi Wolf not only described this formula for fascism, she outlined how these repressive measures are in evidence in modern day America.”
全球研究最后指出，“在2007年的《美国的终结：给一位年轻爱国者的警告信》一书中，娜奥米·沃尔夫不仅描述了法西斯主义的这一公式，她还概述了这些压迫措施如何在现代美国得到体现。”
There is one other item pertaining to fascism in America that contains elements of all characteristics we’ve discussed, one which Hollywood and the media have taken great pains to develop though the ground was already very fertile indeed, and this category is heroes and super-heroes. The US has always glorified war and war heroes, describing American cannon-fodder as “sons of freedom giving their lives for democracy“, when they were simply massacring impoverished civilians to enrich the bankers. Eco noted that “In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Fascist ideology heroism is the norm”, with the fascist hero impatient to die, but who, in his impatience, “more frequently sends other people to death“. This black and white religious proto-fascism which has perhaps always existed in America was the seedbed for the worship of heroes and winners. Americans, in their desperate jingoistic desire to be “good” and to “win“, and in a bid to prove their overwhelming moral superiority, turned from reality to fiction and gave us Superman, Batman, Spiderman and Captain America. All are Christian proto-fascists engaged in fictional battles of good against evil, with the Americans living vicariously through these imaginary beings, sharing in their awesome power and moral righteousness, and whose costumes inevitably bear labels saying “Made in America”. And indeed, we cannot watch an American movie without encountering this irritating white supremacist ideology. Think of movies like Avatar or Independence Day; their entire purpose is to fuel this ideological jingoism and make all viewers “proud to be American“. But it’s all a fiction. The real American heroes are not Superman or Spiderman but Curtis LeMay, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan and Madeline Albright, all criminally-insane psychopathic killers.
在美国，还有一件与法西斯主义有关的事情包含了所有我们讨论过的特征，那就是好莱坞和媒体煞费苦心地发展起来的，尽管基础已经非常丰富，这个类别就是英雄和超级英雄。美国一直歌颂战争和战争英雄，把美国炮灰描述为“为民主献出生命的自由之子”，而他们只是为了屠杀贫困平民来养肥银行家。生态指出，“在每个神话中，英雄都是一个非凡的存在，但在法西斯主义意识形态中，英雄主义是常态”，法西斯英雄迫不及待地死去，但在他的不耐烦中，“更频繁地送别人去死”。这种黑白宗教原法西斯主义可能一直存在于美国，是崇拜英雄和胜利者的温床。美国人，在他们渴望成为“好人”和“赢家”的迫切愿望中，为了证明他们压倒性的道德优越感，从现实转向虚构，给我们带来了超人、蝙蝠侠、蜘蛛侠和美国队长。所有这些都是基督教原法西斯主义者，他们参与了虚构的善恶之战，美国人通过这些虚构的人物来替代自己，分享他们令人敬畏的力量和道德正义，他们的服装不可避免地带有“美国制造”的标签。事实上，我们看一部美国电影，都会遇到这种令人恼火的白人至上主义意识形态。想想《阿凡达》或《独立日》这样的电影；它们的全部目的就是助长这种意识形态的沙文主义，让所有观众“为成为美国人感到自豪”。但这一切都是虚构的。真正的美国英雄不是超人或蜘蛛侠，而是柯蒂斯·勒梅、亨利·基辛格、罗纳德·里根和马德琳·奥尔布赖特，他们都是犯罪精神变态的杀人狂。
It is interesting that a fascist government, with its instinctive hatred of socialism, is in reality the most socialist of all forms of government, the only qualification being that fascist socialism nurtures and feeds corporations while normal socialism nurtures the general population. What we might call “corporate socialism“, which is what exists today in the US, is a fairly precise definition of fascism. Tax benefits that favor the rich either primarily or exclusively, a high-income inequality, the dismantling of any social safety net, different laws for the rich and powerful than for the poor, corporate immunity for crimes, a lack of corporate regulation and oversight, are all typical characteristics. Britt noted that “Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless”. The US government and elites, except for one brief historical period, have always strived to destroy labor to protect the profits of big business. In Britt’s study, “the poor formed an underclass, (and) being poor was considered akin to a vice.” And in which nation today have color and poverty been criminalised? Of course. The world’s largest fascist state – America.
有趣的是，法西斯政府本能地憎恨社会主义，但实际上却是所有政府形式中最社会主义的，唯一的条件是法西斯社会主义培育和养育公司，而正常的社会主义培育普通民众。我们所谓的“公司社会主义”，即今天美国存在的法西斯主义，是一个相当精确的定义。主要或完全有利于富人的税收优惠、高收入不平等、任何社会安全网的解体、富人和权势者与穷人的不同法律、公司犯罪豁免、缺乏公司监管和监督，这些都是典型的特征。布里特指出，“由于有组织的劳工被视为可以挑战统治精英及其企业盟友的政治霸权的权力中心，它不可避免地被粉碎或变得无能为力”。美国政府和精英们，除了一个短暂的历史时期，一直努力摧毁劳工以保护大企业的利润。在布里特的研究中，“穷人形成了一个下层阶级，（而且）贫穷被认为是一种恶习。”当今哪个国家将肤色和贫穷定为犯罪？当然世界上最大的法西斯国家——美国。
He also noted rampant cronyism and corruption between the political and corporate elites and stated that “With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.” Corruption and cronyism are as alive and virulent in American government today as they have ever been in any society at any time in recent history. The lobbies alone, working with the secret government, are more than sufficient evidence of this, with corruption increasing noticeably each year. Similarly, no reasonable person can question any longer the suppression of labor and the protection and enhancement of corporate power in America. We have already covered in detail the trashing of the social contract, the destruction of labor protections and the evisceration of the middle class. No further evidence is necessary.
他还指出，政治和企业精英之间存在猖獗的裙带关系和腐败现象，并表示“在国家安全机构受到控制、媒体被封口的情况下，这种腐败在很大程度上不受约束，而且公众并不清楚。”腐败和裙带关系在今天的美国政府中依然存在，与近代历史上任何时候的任何社会一样猖獗。仅游说团体与秘密政府合作就足以证明这一点，腐败现象每年都在明显增加。同样，任何理智的人都不再质疑美国对劳工的压制以及对公司权力的保护和增强。我们已经详细介绍了社会契约的破坏、劳工保护的破坏和中产阶级的空洞化。没有必要提供进一步的证据。
There is another alarming category that evidences even more strongly the threats to civil society from the authoritarian and fascist police-state mentality that is increasingly permeating all of the US, this involving trivial civil disputes that should in no case involve the police. In July of 2014, a Minneapolis man was ejected from a Southwest Airlines flight with his two children for questioning why he was qualified for priority boarding but his two children were not. He posted a Tweet that said, “Wow, rudest agent in Denver. Kimberly S, gate C39, not happy“. Southwest Airlines’ gate attendants saw the tweet, ejected Watson and his children from the flight, informing him he now qualified as a “safety threat“, and threatened to have him arrested unless he immediately deleted his post. In an article on US Education, I wrote of kindergarten teachers calling the police to arrest children who misbehaved, and of a Chinese woman tourist in New Hampshire who was tasered and assaulted by police when a clerk at an Apple store complained she wanted to buy two phones. In another case, a father in New Hampshire attended a parent-school meeting to protest the classroom use of sexually-explicit reading material provided to his teen-age daughter. When the man exceeded the arbitrary maximum of two minutes speaking time, the principal called the police and had the man arrested. In each case, no ‘law‘ was violated so the police used generic charges of “causing a public disturbance” or some other such nuisance charge.
还有一个令人担忧的类别，它更强烈地证明了威权主义和法西斯警察国家心态对公民社会的威胁，这种心态正日益渗透到整个美国，涉及不应涉及警察的琐碎民事纠纷。 2014 年 7 月，一名明尼阿波利斯男子与他的两个孩子一起被赶下西南航空公司的一架航班，因为他们被质疑为什么他有资格优先登机，而他的两个孩子却没有。 他发了一条推特说：“哇，丹佛最粗鲁的代理人。 Kimberly S，C39 号登机口，不开心”。西南航空公司的登机口服务员看到了这条推特，将沃森和他的孩子赶下飞机，通知他他现在有资格成为“安全威胁”，并威胁要逮捕他，除非他立即删除他的帖子。 在一篇关于美国教育的文章中，我写到幼儿园老师打电话给警察逮捕行为不端的孩子，以及在新罕布什尔州的一名中国女游客在苹果商店的一名店员抱怨她想买两部手机时被警察电击和殴打。 在另一个案例中，新罕布什尔州的一名父亲参加家长会，抗议在课堂上使用提供给他十几岁女儿的色情读物。 当该男子超过任意两分钟发言时间时，校长打电话给警察并将该男子逮捕。 在每种情况下，都没有违反“法律”，所以警方使用了“造成公共骚乱”或其他类似滋扰的通用指控。
These false charges may well be dismissed by a court but still present a serious violation of civil rights and a gross exaggeration of the ability of individuals to create their own laws and of the police to enforce them. In the Southwest Airlines case above, had the man refused to delete his negative post, the agent would certainly have called the police who, cast from the same authoritarian mold, would have automatically arrested and charged him, probably with ‘Twitter Terrorism‘. The man would likely have escaped in the end, but it would have been a long and expensive climb out from the bottom of that hole. In the case of the Apple store, the female customer was physically knocked to the ground and tasered by police immediately on their arrival. In neither case did the police make even minimal attempts to ascertain the facts. In fact, the only salient “fact” was that of a civilian challenging any kind of authority, even the kind that is so weak as to be invisible. No civilian has any practical defense against an airline agent or shop clerk who testify that he “caused a public disturbance“, nor against police charges for having done so. The only immunity comes from wealth or political power.
这些虚假指控可能被法院驳回，但仍严重侵犯了公民权利，严重夸大了个人创造自己的法律和警察执行法律的能力。在上述西南航空公司案件中，如果该男子拒绝删除他的负面帖子，代理人肯定会报警，警方将从同一专制模式中产生，并自动逮捕和指控他，很可能是“推特恐怖主义”。该男子最终可能会逃脱，但那将是漫长而昂贵的爬出那个洞。在苹果商店的案件中，女顾客被警察撞倒在地，并立即被警察用泰瑟枪击中。在这两起案件中，警方都没有做任何最低限度的尝试来查明事实。事实上，唯一突出的“事实”是一个平民挑战任何形式的权威，即使是那种微不足道的权威。没有任何平民可以对航空公司代理人或店员作证他“引起公共骚乱”的行为进行任何实际辩护，也不能对警察的指控进行辩护。唯一的豁免来自财富或政治权力。
There are countless similar cases which all have in common an implicit assumption that anyone, even in a position of minimal authority such as a KFC clerk, has the power to dictate imaginary rules that obtain the force of law with the police and which, if challenged, will result in arrest. Individual private citizens, as least those lacking obvious wealth or power, are increasingly relegated to the social trash bin. Incidents such as these may appear individually trivial and unconnected, but they are not trivial in bulk and are indications of a frightening authoritarianism infecting all of America, part of the widespread rush to fascism occurring in all politically Right-Wing nations, especially in the US. That this should be such a common experience is a frightening and almost terrifying development, where one now fears to enter any dispute with even the most minor employee or clerk, in almost any context, and regardless of the justification.
有无数的类似案例，它们都有一个共同的假设，即任何人，即使是在像肯德基职员这样最低权力位置的人，都有权力支配虚构的规则，这些规则可以与警察一道获得法律效力，如果受到挑战，将会导致被捕。个人公民，至少是那些缺乏明显财富或权力的人，正越来越多地被归入社会垃圾箱。这类事件可能看起来单独微不足道且没有联系，但批量来看并非微不足道，而且表明了一种可怕的威权主义正在感染整个美国，这是所有政治右翼国家，特别是美国，普遍涌向法西斯主义的一部分。这种经历应该是很普遍的，这是一种可怕且几乎令人恐惧的发展，现在人们害怕在任何情况下与即使是最小的雇员或职员发生任何争执，无论是否有正当理由。
When common citizens are afraid to challenge the most trivial injustices in civil society, when the people as individuals have been moved to the bottom of the priority list, when even store clerks have effective arrest authority, this is authoritarian fascism – a classic definition of a de facto fascist police state. In my E-book on the Police State and the discussion of arbitrary and unaccountable law enforcement, we saw other similar examples where this, the most fundamental of civil rights – the right to voice complaint – has been converted to a criminal act. Those instances involved mostly the police badly exceeding their authority, but this category involves mere civilians with no actual invested civil authority of any kind, and yet in each case legal authority being presumed and exercised entirely at the whim of these same persons. While Americans please themselves by accusing China of being authoritarian, it is in fact the US that is both authoritarian and fascist. China is today a very human civil society compared to Transformed America.
当普通公民害怕挑战公民社会中最微不足道的不公正现象时，当作为个体的人被移至优先列表的底部时，当甚至店员都有有效的逮捕权时，这就是专制法西斯主义——事实上的法西斯警察国家的经典定义。在我关于警察国家的电子书和关于任意和不负责任执法的讨论中，我们看到了其他类似的例子，其中最基本的公民权利——投诉权——被转化为犯罪行为。这些例子大多涉及警察严重越权，但这一类别仅涉及没有实际投入任何形式的公民权力的平民，但在每种情况下，法律权力完全由这些人随意推定和行使。虽然美国人喜欢指责中国是专制的，但实际上美国既是专制的又是法西斯的。与转型后的美国相比，今天的中国是一个非常人性化的公民社会。
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Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).
罗曼诺夫先生的作品已被翻译成32种语言，他的文章发表在30多个国家的150多个外语新闻和政治网站以及100多个英语平台上。拉里·罗曼诺夫是一名退休的管理顾问和商人。他曾在国际咨询公司担任高级管理职位，并拥有国际进出口业务。他曾是上海复旦大学的客座教授，为高级EMBA课程提供国际事务案例研究。罗曼诺夫先生住在上海，目前正在写一系列十本书，通常与中国和西方有关。他是辛西娅·麦金尼的新文集《当中国打喷嚏》的撰稿人之一。(第2章——与恶魔打交道)。
His full archive can be seen at
他的完整文章库可以在以下看到：
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/
He can be contacted at:
他的联系方式：
2186604556@qq.com
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