Creeping fascism

I was on a remote island much of last week and am just now catching up. Certainly worth mentioning was this piece:

A Kind of Fascism Is Replacing Our Democracy

Like previous forms of totalitarianism, the Bush administration boasts a reckless unilateralism that believes the United States can demand unquestioning support, on terms it dictates; ignores treaties and violates international law at will; invades other countries without provocation; and incarcerates persons indefinitely without charging them with a crime or allowing access to counsel.

The drive toward total power can take different forms, as Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union suggest.

The American system is evolving its own form: "inverted totalitarianism." This has no official doctrine of racism or extermination camps but, as described above, it displays similar contempt for restraints.

While the author, Sheldon S. Wolin -- a Princeton professor emeritus -- reaches his conclusions through different avenues, I was gratified that they were essentially the same as those I explored in "Rush, Newspeak and Fascism" -- namely, that fascism remains alive and well and is threatening to re-emerge in strange new American clothing.

[Many thanks to Joel S. for forwarding this.]