This isn’t fascism. These people will get a slap on the wrist and be sent home in a day or two. Under fascism these people would never be heard from again.
Most other prisoners of the early camps were soon set free again—not because of outside intervention, but because the authorities felt that a brief period of shock and awe was normally enough to force opponents into compliance. As a result, there was a rapid turnover in 1933, with the places of released prisoners quickly filled with new ones.
The duration of detention was unpredictable. Prisoners who expected to regain their freedom after a few days were mostly disappointed, but it was rare for them to remain inside for a year or more. Longer spells were served in the bigger, more permanent camps, but even in a large camp like Oranienburg, around two‐thirds of all prisoners stayed for less than three months.244
The result was a constant stream of former prisoners back into German society, and it was these men and women who would become the most important sources of private knowledge about the early camps.
I’m certainly not defending the silencing of protest. It’s just that all fascism is authoritarian, but not all authoritarianism is fascist. Fascism has a specific definition and it’s a whole other degree of bad.
Fair enough. It is being used more colloquially in this case, you’re right. I retract the accusation of fascism and substitute “an unjust authoritarian crackdown on the right to freedom of speech and expression, undermining the very tenets of democratic society. A national embarrassment.”
This isn’t fascism. These people will get a slap on the wrist and be sent home in a day or two. Under fascism these people would never be heard from again.
So punishing free speech and protest is not fascist provided that they are “only” in jail for a couple of days? Seriously?
Obviously cracking down on protests doesn’t mean it’s 1930s Germany but it’s part of the same playbook, surely?
(Emphasis added. Source.)
I’m certainly not defending the silencing of protest. It’s just that all fascism is authoritarian, but not all authoritarianism is fascist. Fascism has a specific definition and it’s a whole other degree of bad.
Fair enough. It is being used more colloquially in this case, you’re right. I retract the accusation of fascism and substitute “an unjust authoritarian crackdown on the right to freedom of speech and expression, undermining the very tenets of democratic society. A national embarrassment.”
100% agree with you then.