What exactly is fascism?
In recent weeks, the Bush administration has found a new word to characterize Islamic fundamentalists: fascists. The “War on Terror” has quietly become the “war against Islamic fascism,” and the term “Islamo-fascism” has its own entry in Wikipedia. Then again, so does “Christian fascism.” The word “fascism” is thrown around these days with abandon, often used to describe seemingly opposing philosophies. So what exactly is it? The word “fascists” (or fascisti ) as used in the 1930s by Benito Mussolini, the leader of the first Fascist movement and the Fascist dictator of Italy before and during World War II, most likely comes from the Italian word fascis and the Latin word fasces . Fascis means something along the lines of “bundle” or “unit.” Fasces was a symbol of authority in ancient Rome, an axe surrounded by rods. These two roots offer a good glimpse into the basic tenets of fascism: unity and power. Part of the reason why fascism seems to apply to so many different social and politi
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