http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35035190

The Huffington Post has changed their coverage of Trump. They had him in their Entertainment section. Now he’s going into their Politics section.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-h ... 44476.html

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Daily News has run this cover:
Click for large view - Uploaded with Skitch

People seem to have woken up today saying that he’s turned a corner, crossed a line. He’s been quietly dangerous for a while now, but to some, this is sliding the USA into Fascism. I thought there were doing that anyway, without Trump’s help.

Considering they currently can't seem to work out how to get drunk in a brewery, that could take a while...


Remember the USA was also very xenophobic back in the late 30s and early 40s.

Although he does seem to be a few picnics short of a sandwich.

some parts of the EU have voiced the same other parts have enacted it with illegal refugees. it would seem to be a growing consensus ...

Yes - Muslims are the new "Commies"

Yes, nasty little nazis everywhere agree with each other, and they have your endorsement too it seems.

i believe the only fascists of any real concern are not SS but called IS ...

Look at the magazine cover again.

Looks awfully like a salute to me...

i believe that if another serious attack or attacks happen in the US in the run up to the election he may stand a very good chance of winning ...

Rhetoric in front of a carefully selected audience is all very well, but the number of even republicans for whom his 'policies' (using the 'whatever verbal idiocy spews from his brain at that moment' definition of 'policy') seem utterly batstuff and they wouldn't touch him with a bargepole. Lots of people go to the circus to see the clowns but they wouldn't put them in charge of the tigers. We can talk about whether he stands any chance of winning the Presidency if he gets the Republican nomination, he's not even there yet.

There's an interesting photo floating around of him posing with Miss USA 2010, who happens to be a muslim. He didn't seem at all repulsed by them then.

funny that i believe the same was stated about President Obama or worse in the run up to his nomination and then election
but the difference here is he is stating what the Americans are thinking
as of posing with Miss USA shrug. muslim or otherwise ...

just as a side note
China has major internal problems from a certain religion
Russia is already engaged against a certain religion
France has seen two attacks and are now engaged against a certain religion
we have engaged and aiming it at a certain religion
others worldwide are stopping a certain religion from entering their countries
most of the problems start and finish with a certain religion worldwide

i may be a little slow here but do you see a pattern which i believe can only expand and will not stop anytime in the near future ...

Donald Trump’s real threat is making extreme bigots seem moderate | Owen Jones | Comment is free | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... acism-isis

He's not wrong.

Hmm - it seems that the word “fascist” may supplant the word “socialist” in the minds of many. I remember seeing a number of Americans (at a Republican event) using the word, and clearly having no ideas what it means other than it’s what’s done in Europe and it’s bad. Stuff they had been told by those higher up the information food chain and are repeating not because they understand it, but because it’s what they’ve been spoon fed by someone in a better suit.

So it’s worth looking at a definition of the word and seeing what the criteria are, and whether ISIS, IS, Diasch (or whatever we”re calling it this week) fits the bill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

Note - it’s a highly contentious issue what constitutes a fascist state, and our images of fascists basically revolved around various European nations, rather smart military uniforms, goose stepping, and an unseemly end on a lamp post or round the back of a bunker.

There’s a number of definitions of Fascism on that Wikipedia page, so I’ll pick on one (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitio ... mberto_Eco) and comment on it as best I can:



A rock concert was a target in Paris, and I expect that the wholwe music thing was a mch a reson to target it as was the idea of having a few hundred people in a confined space as easy targets. We’ve certainly seen IS destroy a lot of historically valuable sites, and the Taliban was known for blowing up statues of Buddha as well.

We have to pause for a moment and remember that the Islamic world was once upon a time a very rich culture both in the areas of art and science. They were streets ahead of the Christian world in terms of mathematics and astronomy.

Not sure that IS is engaging in syncretism. I think you have to be of the Islamic faith to join. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that it’s a definite must.


Well, we get that here too. We’ve seen our Prime Minister try to polarise opinion very much in an “us or them” way recently when he branded those who did not agree with him as “terrorist sympathisers”. A nice, polarising “with or against” statement. If you don’t want bombing to go on in Syria, then you’re flirting with the enemy.



Ohh, this rings a bell/strike a chord. We’ve got Farage here making very obviously loud noises in this area (threats of millions of Bulgarians coming here, for example), and good old Trump in the USofA similarly engaged in simialr thought processes.


TBH, I don’t know much of the social makeup of IS (we’ve not seen much of their utopia to judge, really), so it’s hard to determine if they have a middle class that’s this upset. This seems to be more of a Western concern.


Well, likely that IS does just this. But I also see that this definition fits in very much closer to home. 45 minutes.


Again, I expect we have much in common with IS with this point. We are certainly able to find the funding for the machinery of war, and it’s obvious that if you are a bit of a pacifist, that there may be something wrong with you. See a few points up.


I guess the belief of Martyrdom is the IS equivalent of being a hero, though you won’t enjoy the accolades post mission if you join in that particular kind of caper. You’ll get your virgins in paradise, I expect, but no one has reported back on the quality of the virgins, of if they even exist (yes, I’ve seen the Family Guy thing).



I wonder if IS fits with that. Surely people would be leaving in greater numbers if they felt than those who appear to be joining. They can stop people leaving, sure, but you’d expect the stream of recruits to dry up after a while.



We don’t really know what quality of language is used within IS, and how impoverished it really is. Question is, do our leaders employ these tactics? Is our government using “dumbed down” language to suppress too much critical reasoning?


Well, all governments do this - wether they are toting a dispatch box or an AK-47.

So it’s a bit of a slippery slope in my opinion. We’re sliding slowly into fascism, so I’m not so sure we can really justify laying that term at the doors of others until we’ve reversed some of the trends here.

Thinking 'because thing B happened, and thing A is similar to thing B, so by definition thing A will happen as well' is... well I don't think it fits under 'advanced critical thinking'


And referring to 'The Americans' as if they're all of one mind is also the a bit silly. America is no more homogeneous a culture than anywhere else. I can't see many Americans of hispanic voting for Trump, can you?


ISIS != All muslims. That's exactly the thing that Trump does. Well done for reaching his intellectual level.


Care to name them?


yeah, because the banks crashed because Islam.

Jon

thank you all for your thoughts but the war has already started and its going to get much worse and the one thing that stands out most is that all countries involved are not of a certain religion are engaging that certain religion and that engagement will only grow not just externally but also internally ...

Politics in most countries is nothing but us and them.
When you do the common people versus the Tories trick, or the 99% v the one, you are playing it from one angle. The abolition of slavery and the votes for women were issue approached from another angle (incorporating the 'them' who get less rights into the 'us' who get more). There is no point singling out a specific politician for a universal crime, you might as well accuse Cameron of possessing two nostrils but only one bum hole.

Fascists and ISIS (and Marx) share a different attitude towards those of us from a more liberal perspective. They view individuals who deviate from the collective needs of your Race, Religion or Class as a betrayal of an inescapable identity.

I think we should invite vastly more Syrian refugees into our country than we are. Rogers appears to think we shouldn't because there is an inherent moral defect within those who belong to the faith of Islam. He did, after all, advocate sinking their boats in the Mediterranean in order to drown them for our own safety. That's not something you would naturally advocate if you thought the ISIS guys were a few bad apples but the rest are good people.