About the rest of your comment, Brian, I have to say I agree with you. That’s why I added the link to the MeFi discussion to the post: it seemed more balanced than the original link at rense.com.

While I do think that there are strong fascist tendencies manifesting themselves in the USA at the moment, I agree with you and Umberto Eco that these are a problem humans in general share, and not something limited to the USA or the current administration there. I decided to post the link, though, because I feel too many Americans think they are somehow immune to fascism because they “defeated” it in World War II, and therefore somehow have a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card that makes it unnecessary for them to think about it.

Where I live, in Austria, people are obviously a lot more conscious and aware of anything that reeks of fascism, although that too is declining over time.

No one is immune, is all I’m saying.

http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html

I read the Eco piece about a year ago and found it saddening because it seems so true. Truer, perhaps, than this latest link, and thus so hard to ignore.