In my experience in Cambridge, MA in the 1970s and 1980s, the Trotskyites were the really active leftists. I see Obama as a follower of Trotsky and of Mao. I do think his implemention is basically fascist, but -- as you say -- he is not really a nationalist at all.
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Two years or so ago, people were calling him "progressive", most commonly. I disagreed, and wrote the following over two years ago, and it is very important today to realize what Obama (AKA "Dear Leader") and the rest of these Democrat leaders are, and that is much more akin to fascism than anything else.
People are now realizing just what the word "Progressive" means. The leftists needed a new name in America when the voters permanently soured on the direction "liberals" were pulling the country.
These super-liberals who call themselves "PROGRESSIVE" espouse a new form of government that is actually a synthesis of two previously existing government forms: Communism and Fascism.
When many use the word “fascist” they are simply using it as a pejorative. When people were calling Bush “fascist”, that was simply a smear. When I challenged them to define fascist, and they were unable to respond, I educated them. That reduced them to calling him monkey instead. Dear Leader has been RULING as a fascist (most recently demonstrated by this very article) as I will demonstrate.
However, when using "Fascist" here, I am NOT using it as a pejorative. It is attempting to describe as accurately as possible the system of government they espouse and are trying to bring about. I ran into a problem, though, when researching the question.
I excerpt part of http://open-encyclopedia.com/Fascism as a base for the analysis.
The word fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that
- exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual,
- uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition,
- engages in severe economic and social regimentation, and
- espouses nationalism and sometimes racism or ethnic nationalism. ,
... The purpose of the government under fascism proper was to value itself as the highest priority to its culture in just being the state in itself, the larger scope of which, the better...
... The Nazi movement spoke of class-based society as the enemy, and wanted to unify the racial element above established classes. The Fascist movement, on the other hand, sought to preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of established and desirable culture...
...Fascism rejects the central tenets of Marxism, which are class struggle, and the need to replace capitalism with a society run by the working class in which the workers own the means of production. ...
[Fascism includes] capitalism ... This was a new capitalist system, however, one in which the state seized control of the organization of vital industries.
Look at the agenda the Progressives have undertaken since gaining control of Congress in 2006, and indeed before that time. Control of business, reduction of personal liberty, using propaganda and censorship to suppress opposition, social regimentation, higher taxes which clearly reduces personal liberty, expanding national government everywhere, even severe regimentation passing laws about light bulbs and on and on. Much of their agenda and methodology is VERY fascist.
However, bullet points 1 & 4 give us a problem whether we use nationalism or racism. Progressives certainly never goad people into a frenzy by extolling the virtues of the United States so are not nationalists in the typical sense of the word. They don’t use racism that way, either- they merely use it as a pejorative. Thus, we are not quite accurate in equating Progressivism with Fascism.
A digression concerning Nazi (National Socialist) vs. Fascist: Nazi is a subset of Fascist, but that subset does not include any more Progressive traits than Fascist.
What actually is needed to describe Progressives is Fascism that is NOT nationalist, at least nationalism in the sense of promotion of their own nation as superior.
They are not Socialist (Marxist), either. When have you EVER heard a Progressive politician or any of the Democrats extol the virtues of having a classless society? Certainly they don't desire that for themselves or their rich donors! They give lip service to "tax the rich" but never offer to divest themselves of the perks of their own office or wealth. They are most definitely in favor of a classes, with themselves in the highest class.
This brings up the following, from the same main source: http://open-encyclopedia.com/Communism
In terms of socio-economic systems, communism and socialism are two different things. For example, socialism involves the existence of a state, while communism does not...[and] abolishes private ownership altogether.
I’ve heard it argued that Communism has never been implemented, as a result. Apologies to Marx and Engels, but it is the supporters of communism who make that argument. Communism as it is now defined requires that there be NO “state”. Just as clearly, the "progressives" are not socialist as they aren't pushing for government ownership of industry.
This helps us gain some ground, though. Communism shares this major feature of "no state" with Progressivism! So, where are we now?
These super-liberals, including Dear Leader and those who are currently running congress, have been pushing CapNTax, ObamaCare, apologies for the US, making nice with sworn enemies, international law, eliminating military superiority, eliminating US economic superiority, etc.. In nearly EVERY area of our culture or economy that they have been pushing most fervently, they push for a leveling of the US with other nations, and attempt to remove national differences and boundaries. These fit with Communism, except that they have NO DESIRE to eliminate "classes" of people, or that the state OWN business- they only wish to CONTROL business as in Fascism (they have stated that they don't want to run the banks or auto companies) and they don't mind that their favored elites are billionaires and super-millionaires, just as in fascism. Like fascism, they desire to control individual thought and behavior and forcibly suppress dissent. (Witness the Dept.Justice dropping the charges of voter intimidation against the Black Panthers.)
Either we stipulate that the “whole world” is the “nation” for Dear Leader et al, to accurately describe their government philosophy, and state they are "ONE-WORLD FASCISTS", or we need a new word to describe their desired governmental system.
A word that would accurately synthesize their thinking is:
CommuFascist
The important point, though, is that whether this philosophy is labeled CommuFascist, or “Progressive” or One-World Fascists, analysis reveals that Dear Leader, Pelosi, and these super-liberals are espousing a MORE EXTREME FORM of Fascism and VERY extreme form of liberalism. Dear Leader is a “one-world” Mussolini.
Far from being pejorative, analysis reveals it is being generous when one describes as Fascist, not pejorative. We might be calling them something more extreme instead, “Progressive” or equivalently, CommuFascist.