I think John Dean's comment about the Bush administration fits this situation: ((perhaps mis-)quaoted from memory)

"They're not on the road to fascism, but they're not very far from that road."

Don't be shy - call it what it is - genocide.

People did not catch that joke. I think the issue was that you didn't go far enough. The internet has people who would say something like that and mean it. It wasn't absurd enough to be dismissed.

Actually we did, it wasn't that clever or funny.

Thank you :)

I really don't know anything beyond genocide I could muster (we don't have a word for holocaust of entire humanity, do we?)

The closest I can think of:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Xenocide

Capitalism :p

faschism = An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.

Which fits the situation.

Your genocide reference, an attempt to trivialize the above statement, doesn't even make sense.

He was being sarcastic. This has nothing to do with the principles of fascism. It may be tyrannical, but tyranny != fascism

You have to accept that not everything happening in the world you dislike qualifies for fascism, genocide or equivalence to Hitler.

Overusing these labels dilutes their 'brand', and then you don't have appropriate adjectives for real cases of fascism or genocide.

Over-application of "Godwin's Law" removes our ability to learn lessons from history.

(Not to mention those sort of comments are nothing but unproductive comment sniping. They do absolutely nothing to further the conversation.)

Rather than fascism per-se, actions like holding people without charge, perusing their personal belongings and papers without due process, and threatening families or associates, are the marks of totalitarianism. It exists on both the right and left ends of the political spectrum.

> It exists on both the right and left ends of the political spectrum.

Even though those are relatively exotic forms, compared to the one that exists in the middle of the political spectrum.

This is Poe's law in action.