Reddit reviews June, 2004

This has been long debunked.

Lawrence Britt wrote this in 2003 to promote a book called "June, 2004" which was supposed to be a dystopian future of a fascistic United states.

Its supposed to describe the Republican Party to the T, but doesn't really describe fascism. For example "disdain for intellectuals and the arts" is not really indicative of any fascist governments that I know of, many were non-religious etc.

He is not a doctor, his name is Laurence W. Britt, and the list is taken from a fictional book titled June, 2004.

Source (See number 26 for the statement from Laurence aka "Larry" himself)

First of all, consider the source of the list

I won't even deign to call the guy who made that list an academic - he only has one published work that I can find and it is fiction (http://www.amazon.com/June-2004-Laurence-W-Britt/dp/1884962203/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426277319&sr=1-1) and I don't see anything else to support his "political science" credentials.

I also have no evidence to suggest that the guy is actually a doctor. But hey, feel free to direct me to his academic institution.

Now, let me indulge you and actually engage with the list as though it is something serious (a ridiculous premise, but what the hell).

The list itself is nothing more than astrology and fortune-telling - you could take those "factors" and apply them to any country on earth, including countries that I doubt you would regard as fascist.

Nationalism? Where are you not going to find that?

Corruption? Name one country on earth without it.

Controlled mass media? That one is just flat out wrong - access to free and unrestricted forms of media is probably at an all time high.

Fraudulent elections? The evidence of that is absurdly thin.

Disdain for intellectuals? Absolutely ridiculous... our percentage of college graduates and post graduate degrees is also at an all time high.

Rampant sexism? That is absolutely absurd - again, women's equality in the US is stronger than at any time in history. How on earth can you claim "rampant sexism" with a straight face? Women have complete equality in legal rights, full access to education (in fact, they dominate our universities and institutes of higher education) and full access to the job market as well. And yet... the sexism is SO rampant to your eyes that you would characterize it as FASCIST.

You would compare any of these factors in the US to the prototypical examples of fascist countries (WWII era Japan, Germany, and Korea)? Seriously? Do you know how paranoid that makes you sound?

But guess it doesn't take much to convince a bunch of conspiratards that the sky is falling.

I'm curious who this Lawrence Britt guy is. I could not find any of his fantastic research on fascism. All I could find was that he wrote a fiction novel in 1998. I don't even know if he is a doctor.

I mean shit, I could read through the Wikipedia link you just dropped on me and make a list of 14 characteristics! I have no training in political science, but I do have training in regression modeling. In fact, I could probably develop a model that fits Obama even closer than it fits Trump! If I post that list on BuzzFeed, will you cite it, too? What if I call myself a doctor?

Some of these points could be argued, but some others are pretty flimsy. For example, "rampant sexism" would likely be found in any form of government sampled in the 1940s. It's gonna take more than just an author of some pulp novel to convince me that these are signifiers of fascism. Relatedly, nice backtrack on just calling these descriptors, not predictors.

So I reiterate. Who is this guy and why do I care about his 14 Characteristics of Fascism?

Fourteen points of fascism. Okay. Let's talk.

Before we start, I want to say I do not intend to be snarky. I am being real and up front and will gladly entertain reasonable discussion after. But please read this with an open mind, and in the end, my only goal is to get you to understand that everyone is susceptible to this if they don't spend the time trying to research themselves.

Finally: I'm not a Trump supporter, but I fucking hate propaganda, no matter who spews it.

Okay, are you ready? Deep breath.

-------

You believed propaganda. And you're repeating it now.

Let me back that statement up.

You're referring to "Dr." Lawrence Britt's "Fourteen Warning Signs". Elaborated here, and brought up by countless people in online forums.

That link refers to him as a political scientist, and "Dr". As do a lot of people... online. You think the "fourteen points" are some sort of agreed upon rule. They're not. They're not anything sort of close to accepted by the actual political science community.

Here's the thing: Lawrence Britt is neither a political scientist nor doctor of any sort. In the context of what he wrote, he's a propagandist.

Start here: Wikipedia's definitions of fascism. You will not find Lawrence Britt there at all, nor will you find the "fourteen points". Again: No actual political scientist accepts that definition.

He is not a political scientist, respected or otherwise. He is a businessman, a former executive at Allied Chemical, Mobil and Xerox Corp. He retired. As a novelist.

Don't believe me? Try harder: You cannot find one institution that attributes a doctorate to Lawrence Britt. Because he doesn't hold one. What he did was back in 1998, in an effort to campaign against George W. Bush's incoming campaign, he set out to create a propaganda piece against him. That's where the fourteen points originate.

In 1998 - pre Bush II - he published a fictional work about how Bush's America would lead us straight away to fascism. It was called "June 2004: A Political Novel". Sound familiar? "Incoming republican after two terms of democrat?!? Fascist Alert!!". Sounds very familiar.

Wanna guess what that novel contained? The fourteen points.


His exact words:

> “For your information I never made a claim that I was a “Dr.” Someone on the internet made that ASSUMPTION when they passed on the article. I am a retired businessman with a life long interest in history and current events. I have a personal book collection on these subjects of over 3000 volumes. I’ve contributed chapters to three books, written another and am working on a second. I’ve written approximately 25 magazine and newspaper articles on political and economic affairs. I spent about 200 hours researching the fascism article building on a lifetime interest in the subject. My novel, “June, 2004″ was written in 1997 and published in 1998. It was a fictional treatment of a future of fascism in America, which has turned out quite predictive of actual events since it was published.”

The fact is that his opinion is based on less time than I've spent on reddit talking about fascism. His "expertise" is 200 hours of biased cherry picking to discredit a republican. Shit, T_D fanbois dedicate more time than that.

Oddly enough, the same anti-republican propaganda also applies largely to Trump.

You were bamboozled, and I'll be honest, I was too: back during the Bush years. I used the exact same argument. I felt very stupid when someone finally set me straight on that.

Again, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, and I am not here to try to belittle or insult you. But I'm telling you the actual truth.

Edit: Before you try to say "but but he's still a fascist", understand that you yourself likely hardly understand what that even means, being that your excuse for calling him such was a propaganda piece backed up by nothing. So pretty much anything from now on you say about alleging anyone is a fascist is gonna be highly suspect. Again, I get the embarrassment, I've been there, but don't dig the hole.

Edit: he kept digging anyway.

The author's name is Laurence Britt. Note that some refer to him as a political scientist (sometimes also citing him as "Dr. Laurence Britt"), however this isn't the case. He is the author of "June, 2004." The book fictionalizes a current day America as it steps from democracy into proto-fascism. Either shortly after (or shortly before) the book's release, he was invited to produce the "Fascism Anyone?" article for Free Inquiry Magazine.

It should be remarked that he did not title himself, at ANY TIME, as a doctor or scientist. Others did, probably as the article was being passed around. A few web sites, obviously right wing, point to these "Dr. Britt" references to accuse him of being a fraud, along the way of attacking both the article and his book. Regardless, several references are included with the original to back up its contents and points made within should come under scrutiny, not so much the author because he is or is not a political scientist.

The poster is something that comes from a Laurence Britt. While he is sometimes paraded around as a PhD, and/or expert on Fascism neither of these claims are backed up. He wrote "June" and does not himself claim to be either of those. So claims to his own authority are lacking merit. Snopes Goes into a bit more detail on his own arguments. However while he is not an expert we can still look at his definitions, and compare than to Umberto Eco's which to see perhaps some of the differences. I think at this point though it is important to note that the author also seems to have devised his criteria to attempt to appeal to modern day sensibilities rather than reflect on specific Fascist states, which themselves had a decent amount of variation in their ideologies.

Further defining any ideology/system is often extremely difficult. Political Science isn't really able to define 'Democracy' because there are many, many definitions and people make entire careers on writing about it. So there can easily be critiques of any definition of Fascism, and Eco looks far more at Italian Fascism than Franco or Hitler, which can make him overly specific. Britt on the other hand goes overly broad. So with that said lets begin comparing the two.

The first point I'm going to look at it is Britt's 'Rampant Sexism' claim. This contrasts nicely with Eco's description of Ur-Fascism containing an element of Machismo.

>'This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality)'

While at first those two main seem quite similar, certainly having a disdain for women is sexist, the difference is in how one would apply this. Promotion of machismo has a broader point in Fascism, which is to allow the average man to experience their own heroism and obtain their self-worth this way. Britt's definition would apply to many cultures that are not Fascist themselves. Being overly broad, while helping with parsimony, in this case becomes mostly meaningless. Looking at the era in which Fascism arose, women barely had the right to vote, so claiming that Sexism was an indication of rising Fascism is not all that useful. When everyone is sexist, that some become Fascist needs a better explanation of why.

Having seen the failing of Britt when he's making the same point as Eco, I'd turn our attention to a point that is absent (essentially) in Eco, while present in Britt. 'Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts.

That point is not borne out by history. Or more accurately that needs a major qualification that this applies to dissenters added. Nazi Germany certainly promoted art and artists that supported the regime, they had a ministry dedicated to doing that, and focused on purging dissenters rather than eliminating art and artists. As for thinkers we can look at the career of Carl Schmitt as perhaps quite emblematic of how Fascists approach the intellectuals. He initially received promotions and appointments for writing in support of the Nazi regime, and he is a major Fascist writer. However he eventually fell out of favor as he was deemed to have been to critical of the Nazis, and lost some of those positions for insufficient loyalty. So it is incorrect to say that hate of the arts or universities is indicative of Fascism, as they will certainly embrace both as long as it supports the regime.

Unfortunately including that qualifier to Britt makes the definition overly broad again, and we can easily see that Communist regimes fulfill that quite easily, and in fact fulfill most of his points of Fascism despite being very different ideologies.

Umberto gets to a similar point, that Fascists seek to suppress art and intellectuals who dissent, in a far longer, but ultimately stronger way. He notes that Fascism has a strong appeal to tradition, and anti-modernism, while also hating difference as well as using Newspeak, and selective, elitist populism. These points all combine to far better identify how Fascists treated artists who did not support the regime during the time, as art was good as long as it supported the eternal war against the enemies of the people, emphasized traditional values (as defined by the state) and would not have promoted to much thinking against the regime.

So then how does Eco stack up against other writers defining Fascism? Well as I mentioned earlier defining ideologies is something political science tends to struggle with, and Fascism is no exception. Hayek, Gentile, Mussolini, Schmitt, all also provide definitions, or theories/justifications of fascism. Hannah Arendt as well has also done a great deal, of highly respected work on both Fascism, and Totalitarianism (an even more difficult area).

Those are good thinking/talking points - and probably all common points of fascist rule - but Laurence Britt is an "amateur historian" (his words) - not a Dr, or political scientist
He wrote the article while doing research for a novel

Relevant replies are towards the bottom of this page
https://www.ryananddebi.com/2004/10/16/laurence-britts-14-points-of-fascism/

and here's the (quite expensive - and fairly prophetic) novel
https://www.amazon.com/June-2004-Laurence-W-Britt/dp/1884962203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485861436&sr=8-1&keywords=laurence+britt

> After a bit more diggin, there is no Dr. Lawrence Britt. Dr. Lawrence Britt was fabricated by an email chain letter that was circulated widely a few years ago.

>http://civilliberty.about.com/b/2007/09/10/one-nation-underrated.htm

Is that source (civilliberty.about.com) really trustworthy?

And if you're right and he really doesn't exists, so who's written that book:

"June, 2004" by Laurence W. Britt, http://www.amazon.de/June-2004-Laurence-W-Britt/dp/1884962203

Here's the problem with Britt's 'Warning Signs of Fascism' list. His real name is Laurence W. Britt, a novelist. He's not a historian or scholar as far as I can tell. His article is peddled around the internet under the name of Dr. Lawrence Britt or just Lawrence Britt and some sites falsely claim he's a political scientist but none of that is true. The list seems to have been written to help sell his political novel June, 2004, which is about an Authoritarian United States government under a Republican administration.

The Britt list largely equates Fascism with Authoritarianism which is too broad a definition to have any meaningful purpose. Any Authoritarian government can be identified with nearly all the points on the list. So historically, yeah, these points can describe Fascism but they can also describe Lenin and Stalin's Soviet Union.

So let's look at what's wrong with the list in more detail.

>Powerful and continuing nationalism

I think everyone would agree with this but I think "nationalism" is too weak a word. The word "Chauvinism" better describes how extreme Fascist nationalism was and it was commonly used in Europe. It came from Nicholas Chauvin and was commonly used in Europe to describe excessive nationalism, loyalty, and devotion. "Nationalism" in America can apply to anyone who waves a flag or wearing a flag t-shirt. The Fascists beat people for not singing an anthem or for not saluting the flag.

>Disdain for the recognition of human rights

This makes no sense. Fascism came to power in an era where just about every major government had open disdain for basic human rights. Britain, France, and Germany were imperialists who enslaved entire nations. The United States was a white-supremecist nation until the 1960's when blacks were guaranteed civil rights. The Soviet Union sent millions to gulags. Violating human rights is not a unique characteristic of Fascism, but a characteristic of every nation of that era.

>Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause

Again, this isn't really unique to Fascism. The United States alone has a long history of doing this to just about every minority group that ever immigrated here. Even Stalin scapegoated Jews and Gays. Maxim Gorky believed homosexuality was a product of Fascism and Nationalism.

I think it should be re-written as "Identification of a national myth as a unifying cause or motivating force." Sorel distinguishes between myths and utopias by noting that utopias can be deconstructed based on new developments in technology or on new social techniques developed by the masses. Myths are constructed on these new realities and motivate the masses for further developments. Fascism rejected Marxist Utopias and Capitalist Utopias for the myth of national restoration. This is what motivated the masses.

>Supremacy of the military

Britt again tries to apply this to the U.S. but there needs to be a distinction here. The U.S. is a world super power and it's defense spending goes into defending Europe and Israel. Secondly, militarism was not unique to Fascism. The Fascists themselves were the product of the Democracies that dragged Europe into the Great War.

>Rampant sexism

Again, every major nation during the era were sexist and misogynistic. Divorce, abortion, and homosexuality was suppressed everywhere.

>Controlled mass media

I'm kind of mixed on this point, but it has merit. Censorship and mass control were fairly common during wartime or during national insurrections. Fascism's existence fell into both these categories. There was a socialist insurrection and later WWII. At the same time, I don't think fascism could achieve any of its objectives without it.

>Obsession with national security

I think this is true but again, it doesn't clarify how extremist national security agencies were. Fascist security agencies were largely influenced by Lenin's Cheka, but at the same time, the Cheka was influenced by Tsar Nicholas' security forces. They murdered people and monitored influential people (like the Pope).

>Religion and government are intertwined

This is a mixed bag. Mussolini had a lot of disdain for religion and surveilled/blackmailed priests. He even killed Priests in the Popular Party. Hitler had a lot of disdain for Catholicism and sent the SS to raid churches and arrest priests. At the same time, Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty that gave the Church a massive role in education (many Actualists saw this as a betrayal). Britt doesn't seem to appreciate how entwined religion was. America never really came close to what the Fascists implemented. He seems to think prayer in a public school is fascism when mass indoctrination of every child is closer to the reality of fascism.

>Corporate power is protected

Britt misuses terms here. He's referring to incorporated businesses and capitalists. Fascist corporatism placed these people in a national hierarchy where they were equal to labor, not above them.

>Labor power is suppressed

Again, Labor was placed in the hierarchy of the state, not outside of it and not above capital. Independent labor unions were smashed but workers were integrated into the State through the corporatist system. If anything, labor power was elevated.

>Disdain for intellectuals and the arts

Total nonsense. Mussolini himself was something of an intellectual and had open discussions with Gentile and Spirito. Gentile was actually head of the state reform committee at the start of the regime and he also reformed the education system and expanded college/technical education.

>Obsession with crime and punishment

This falls back into the point on national security. It wasn't unique to fascism.

>Rampant cronyism and corruption

This can apply to any system. Stalin's bureaucracy was notorious for this (like the pigs in Animal Farm). Any Vanguard Party (like Communism or Fascism) has a built in system where loyalists move to the top. Fascism also had a corporatist system where workers and capitalists elected their own representatives. The Vanguard Party appointed their own people to national committees, but Corporations elected their own.

>Fradulent elections

Not really relevant. Fascism is not a democracy, it's a corporatist system. There's really no point in a Vanguard Party occupying a seat and then peacefully leaving it when they don't get 51% of the vote. They have other goals like organizing strikes and arming militias.

Sources/Further reading:

Corporatism article from Britannica.

Corporatism article from Wikipedia.

Socialism and Homosexuality.

The Constitution of Fiume.

The Doctrine of Fascism.

The Theory of Mind as a Pure Act. About Gentile's Actualist theories.

Was that the name of the guy who wrote that list that is cited as originally having appeared on some random message board? Who is he? Is he even a real doctor?

EDIT:. I did the leg work for you.

First of all, the guy is not a doctor. Second of all, he's not a historian or scholar of any sort. Thirdly, he wrote that absurd list to promote some book he wrote in 2004 so he could accuse the Bush admin of being fascist.

So you are advancing a work of intellectual fraud.

There is no Dr Laurence Britt, that article was written by a fiction writer with an axe to grind against republicans. You'll notice the source of the article doesn't credit him as a doctor. It also isn't based on any sort of scientific study, it's just the author's opinion.

That doesn't explain who Dr. Britt is. He appears to be some figment of a crackpots imagination, yet his work is often cited by liberals to smear the right with an ideology of their own making.

Don't you find it odd that the "reality based community" is so easily duped by hate speech that merely confirms their bias? No questions asked says the critical thinking liberal when stumbling upon some outrageous piece of propaganda that affirms their preexisting hatred for The Other.

Fascism is a progressive creation , it is etymologically incorrect to ascribe it to the Right. Your source of information for it being right wing appears to be someone's fairytale with no basis in reality.

I will make a confession. I know who Lawrence Britt is. He is no PhD. He is no scholar. He is just some leftwing loon who was trying to hawk his book about some futuristic rightwing dystopia.

http://www.amazon.com/June-2004-Laurence-W-Britt/dp/1884962203

This is the problem with many of the lefts foot soldiers. You people are kept ignorant and so filled with hate that you are easily duped by obvious propaganda who's historical roots are your own party. For 15 years liberals have been citing this "scholar" as some authority on fascism when a mere glance at history points a big giant shiny mirror directly at themselves.

Edit: a word

> The phenomenon of fascism has actually been studied pretty heavily, and there are actually plenty of commonalities that can be identified way before someone actually installs an autocratic dictatorship.

Studied in-depth by whom? The person you linked is not a historian nor a scholar. He's a novelist who used the "14 points of fascism" to help sell a fictional novel.

If you want to understand fascism, and not just authoritarianism, which is what Britt was describing - and poorly - you should look at actual fascist intellectuals or people who have some credibility in the field of study.

Number 8 doesn't even make sense. Religion and state do not have to be intertwined. Evola, one of the main philosophers who influenced fascist doctrine, was not particularly fond of Christianity and instead preferred an occult spiritualism, for example. Mussolini drew from him.

Umberto Eco wrote "Eternal Fascism" in the 90s. It's one interpretation of fascism, but it's certainly more accurate than Britt's masturbatory work written as a treatise against George W. Bush.

• "The Cult of Tradition", characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by Tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.
  
  
• "The Rejection of modernism", which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.
  
  
• "The Cult of Action for Action's Sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself, and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
  
  
• "Disagreement Is Treason" – Fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
  
  
• "Fear of Difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
  
  
• "Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class", fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
  
  
• "Obsession with a Plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society (such as the German elite's 'fear' of the 1930s Jewish populace's businesses and well-doings; see also anti-Semitism). Eco also cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
  
  Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak." On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
  
  
• "Pacifism is Trafficking with the Enemy" because "Life is Permanent Warfare" – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to NOT build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.
  
  
• "Contempt for the Weak", which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate Leader who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
  
  
• "Everybody is Educated to Become a Hero", which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, "[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."
  
  
• "Machismo", which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality."
  
  
• "Selective Populism" – The People, conceived monolithically, have a Common Will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the Leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the Voice of the People."
  
  
• "Newspeak" – Fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
  
  
  Even this is very broad for "fascism" since "Machismo" is exploited by authoritarians and "Fear of the Different" is exploited by literally every ideology. And, before you say "Trump is a fascist" because he speaks like a 5th grader (Newspeak) or that he appeals to "tradition" (Make America Great Again), keep in mind that this is specifically about enforced mores and "tradition" doesn't just refer to conservatism.

Checklist for facism from the holocaust museum again?

I posted that a bunch of times, and then someone told me to look into who wrote it.

It may or may not be in the museum (I haven't been there, and didn't find any references on their site), but the guy who wrote the list (Lawrence Britt) is the author of the article "Facism Anyone?", the book "June, 2004" and the list was an article penned in the magazine "Free Inquiry" circa 2003, referring to the Bush administration.

The list is specifically made to target the Republican party.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4113.htm

I still like the list, but it's important to know what's behind it as well.

Lawrence w Britts book - June 2004

Synopsis https://www.amazon.com/June-2004-Laurence-W-Britt/dp/1884962203#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1494440948241