Is Bush-America Fascist?

As a student of German history I’ve always been a little hesitant to make use of the lable ‘fascist.’ If you use it too soon and too often, it appears to become a version of “the boy who cried wolf.” And besides, it might do injustice to the sufferings of those who were persecuted by the various fascist regimes of 20th century Europe and Latin America.Are the US fascist? This kind of thinking, now even making its way into the more mainstream of America’s media, for instance the “Opiniator Blog” on the New York Time’s website, which actually quoted the Chicago Tribune as follows:I would say: the current state of US society and politics definitely shows traits of fascism. It is, however, still more liberal than the infamous dictatorships of Hitler, Franco, or Stalin. But then again, maybe we are waiting for the wrong thing when whe assume that fascism might return wearing the same cloths. The media have changed, the business world has changed, and maybe fascism this time can come in the form of absolute consumerism, dependency on “stuff”, and a government that disenfranchises the majority of American society.