Spot the Fascist Regime...

The definition of a Fascist regime is generally a merger of State and corporate interests. The state are for corporatism and the corporations are all for the state. There is no deviation.

Now look at what's happening in the West.

Let's say an individual becomes undesirable by constantly highlighting the failings of the state. Or by producing a counter-narrative to the state that gains traction.

The state, in collusion with other supposedly independent, (but usually government funded) then starts to target that individual in stages.

Stage 1:

What currently happens is some supposedly independent body, sometimes known as an NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation), a think Tank or a Charity, generally funded through the back door by the state does a hit-piece on the individual. They may be slurred as on the right or right leaning or even directly at this stage far-right (the usual epithet to identify a target of the state). 

Hope-Not-Hate is a high-profile producer of hit-pieces of individuals it ascribes to far-right opinions, even though the opinions the individual holds is held by the majority of the population, or may even just may be a moderate viewpoint. 

Stage 2:

The report by the "independent" body then gets picked up by media. 

What was mildly right -leaning, becomes in the media far-right in an effort to sensationalise the individual and identify them as persona-non-grata.

Once the person is identified by the media and if they continue to promote their opinions, then the corporate world tends to get involved. The individual is shadow banned by online service providers, or they are completely banned from social media platforms. 

Stage 3:

If that doesn't stop them the individual then becomes a target for the Police and the judiciary. 

Then ensues "lawfare", the object of which is to tie the individual up in legal processes and to bleed them of revenue. If possible leading to their incarceration to remove them from the public sphere. 

But this lockstep of the private, Corporate, Judicial and government is what I want to focus on. 

Back in the Thirties, this close collaboration of state judicial, corporate and private was called Fascism. 

The state controls all. All works in support of the state. 

It's strange, because most people regard Hope-Not-Hate as a Communist or extreme far-left organisation. But it's ironic they are working with the government in a Fascist framework. 

I wouldn't call this a Communist framework, because private and corporate entities are working alongside. The state hasn't as subsumed them. Yet.

But the network above does look essentially Fascistic, with private and corporate bodies doing the bidding of the state, in order to curry favour or receive grants from the government. In no way is anyone in the network above independent from the government. They rely on the government for funding and are suggested to investigate individuals on behalf of the state. 

Round and round it goes. Until a perfectly ordinary, law-abiding person is eventually marginalised so much they could end up in prison. It's a nasty, evil, business.

I'm minded to remind the reader that this is not just targeted at the far-right. Left -leaning journalists have been targeted by the government, without stages 1 and 2. They have been arrested under terror legislation where you have to answer all questions and provide the PIN to your phone. A very effective tool to go fishing for contacts and their locations, if for instance you were the government and arrested a journalist that had recently been in in Gaza interviewing Hamas networks. Valuable information for the Israeli intelligence service. Especially if the subject is then constantly monitored.