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American Fascists: Language… and Reality

American Fascists: Language… and Reality

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What a beautiful present on a Saturday morning! It is rare to see someone write on this set of issues with such precision and clarity. Gigantic kudos to Jeff Fecke, and a huge thank you to Mark Crispin Miller for sharing this with me!

The F Word
By Jeff Fecke | October 27, 2010
Please go comment on the original post!

There are epithets that decent people shy away from using. One obvious example is the use of racist, ethnic, or gender-based slurs. If you’re a decent human being, you don’t use them, because one uses them to hurt, to malign, to defame.

But it is not just slurs on one’s person that we avoid. We also avoid slurs on one’s political philosophy. Describing someone as a Nazi, for example, is rightly seen as beyond the pale. It says a person is a believer in an ideology that led to the slaughter of six million innocent people, and ignited a global war that killed millions more. Unless a person actually is a follower of Hitler’s philosophy, describing them as a Nazi is not only inaccurate, it’s pejorative. And the same is true of other discredited, vile, or simply discarded epithets, like communist1, or Maoist, or totalitarian; unless a person actually is a communist, Maoist, or totalitarian, describing them as such is simply rude, and is designed to create far more heat than light.

But sometimes, the shoe fits. There are still Nazis, after all. There are still segregationists. Still anti-Semites. Still communists. Some of these people wear their positions proudly, like the perky neo-Nazi with the swastika tattoo on her head who frequents my local convenience store.2 Most, however, hold their positions without admitting to the label that defines them — as the label itself describes a belief system that has been rejected by everyone.

This is why people who proudly use racial epithets will refuse the epithet “racist.” They are racists, of course, but they will not wear the mantle, because racism is bad, and everyone agrees on that. Of course, they may believe that people of different races shouldn’t mix, and that people of a given race are inferior to people of another race, and that people of a different race moving into a country will destroy it. But don’t call them racist — they’ll pitch a fit.

And this is, of course, the other reason decent people shy away from applying the most loaded political labels to their opponents — because they don’t want to have to have the fight. Because no matter how much your opponent says Stalin had some good ideas, calling her a Stalinist will only lead to a fight about how she isn’t one.

And yet — sometimes you simply have to call a racist a racist. If a person is advancing all the tenets of racism, then that person is in fact a racist. And standing by and pretending that person isn’t racist is playing into their hands, by allowing them the fiction that their racism is not racism, but something benign.
And that lets radicalism in through the back door, and lets decent people advance radical views without admitting to being radicals. And slowly, that makes radical views acceptable.

There is a political philosophy that you are probably familiar with. Among its core tenets are:

  • Nationalism – The people of its country are special, and the founders of the nation as uniquely wise — and people of all other nations are inherently dangerous. People who do not fully assimilate are viewed as threats to be dealt with.
  • Social Darwinism – Those who are poor are poor because of their own flaws and failings, and if they can’t work, they don’t deserve to eat.
  • Propaganda – It uses its own media outlets (when out of power) or state-controlled media (when in power) to support its own viewpoint while ridiculing others.
  • Anti-Intellectualism –It ridicules the pointy-headed intellectuals with their large words and their big plans, in favor of the simple, salt-of-the-earth man on the street, and the wisdom of the Average Joe.
  • Heroism – National heroes are not just heroes, but uniquely heroic, uniquely wise. No other country’s heroes were as brilliant and crafty, and no other nation’s enemies more deserving of punishment.
  • Social Authoritarianism – When people fall away from morality, the power of the state can and should be used to push them back in line.
  • Militarism – The military is the best and most respectable part of the nation, and war should be supported unblinkingly whenever an enemy threatens.
  • Corporatism – The power of the government can be used to intervene economically, but almost always on the side of corporations — as it believes that companies create wealth
  • Anti-Communism – Communism — usually defined as “other political philosophies” — represents an existential threat to our way of life, and must be defeated at any and all costs.

The adherents of this philosophy believe that they are saving their nation from the weak, the Communists, the intellectuals. They see their country as at a crossroads, and believe that if the wrong turn is taken, it will cease to be a great nation, and will become like all the rest of those lousy states. Because they believe that they are the saviors of their nation, they are willing to do almost anything to gain power — lie, pull dirty tricks, and resort to violence against political opponents. Indeed, in every country where this philosophy has taken hold, it has used extrajudicial action by its members to intimidate its opponents.

If you have been paying attention, you know that there is a political movement in this country that mirrors these views. Its members claim that America is a unique country, a shining city on a hill. That the Founding Fathers were wise beyond any reckoning, and that any deviation from the course they set us on is tantamount to blasphemy. That immigration (and, sotto voce, racial and gender equality) is destroying the uniqueness of the American experiment, and that we keep moving away from the good ol’ days of the 1950s to a place that would make the founders blanch in horror.

These people have their own news network that tells them what they want to hear, that lies to them brazenly, that calls their opponents socialists and secret Muslims. They mistrust intellectuals, rage against the well-educated, claim that deep thinking is un-American. They believe that the government should use its power to keep people from getting abortions, and to discourage homosexuality. They believe that the unemployed are lazy, and that they should either work, or starve.

They are worshipful of the idea of the military and of citizen militias. They do speak out against corporate greed, half-heartedly, but oppose any action that might impose limitations of corporations — and are indeed happy to support corporate welfare whenever they get the opportunity, so long as they can call it something else.

They say they are doing all of this because of the threat from socialism, which is a word that in America has become conflated with communism.
And they are most definitely using extrajudicial violence and intimidation to get their way.

In America, in 2010, these people call themselves the Tea Party. They say they are trying to get our nation back to its founding principles, deliberately using iconography from the American Revolution to stake a claim that they represent the last, best hope of Real America.

They may see themselves that way, but that is not the right way to describe them. The philosophy they endorse is a well-known one, one described by one word.
Fascism.

You may object to my calling the Tea Party a fascist movement. I understand. I don’t like doing so myself. But they are far closer to fascism than the modern Democratic Party is to socialism. And Democrats being socialist is an article of faith among the far right of the Republican Party.

I don’t like calling my opponents fascist. But the shoe fits — at least among the farthest of the far right, the group that has taken over the modern Republican Party. The path that the Palins and Angles and Millers and their ilk would have us take is the same that Mussolini charted for Italy. They’ve prettied it up, of course. They’ve sanded off the edges. And they’ve added the extra dimension of religion to it — the idea that we are fighting a war against Islam, which is in league with socialism, and that Christianity must be bolstered.

But that was predicted. Sinclair Lewis once wrote, “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” Well, my friends, fascism has come to America, flag and cross and all. And if we do not say so — if we dare not name it, for fear of riling our opponents — we let them mainstream their views. And that inaction would be far worse than any word can be.

–
1Note: communist, not socialist. Communism, specifically the brand that was attempted in the Soviet Union and its client states, has been tried, and it failed spectacularly; it rivals Naziism for the most evil political philosophy of the 20th century. A version of socialism, contrawise, has been made to work rather well in places like Sweden and Denmark, without the terror wrought by Stalin and his ilk. One can argue whether socialism is a good or bad political system, but it is not an inherently evil one.
2Do you think I could possibly be making that up?

DeLay Listening to Someone?

DeLay Listening to Someone?

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Which is the more absurd claim, that God speaks to Tom DeLay, or that Tom DeLay listens?

“God has spoken to me. I listen to God, and what I’ve heard is that I’m supposed to devote myself to rebuilding the conservative base of the Republican Party, and I think we shouldn’t be underestimated.” – Tom Delay (Jeffrey Goldberg, “Party Unfaithful: The Republican implosion,” The New Yorker, May 4

Preemptive Karma doesn’t think it’s God that Tom is hearing, but her reading is more benevolent than mine.

It is much more likely that he’s hearing the whispers of that old un-converted power-hungry conniving Hot Tub Tom – the one he thought was safely squished down into a dark corner by the shiny new peaceful born-again Tom DeLay. That bad boy wants to be important again, but knows he’s got to make the new Tom and all his loyal sheep feel morally good about it first.

There are other possibilities for that voice in Tom’s head than his own decadent former self.

Hammer Pagentry

Hammers – Originally uploaded by suffolkriddell.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65AM9Q-riGs[/youtube]

floyd_the_wall_hammer_2 – Originally uploaded by mattrycroft.

Armchair activism for today

Armchair activism for today

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Stop New Pollution and Global Security Threats from Nuclear Waste

The US has a serious nuclear waste problem, and like the rest of the world, we have found no solution. Nonetheless, the White House is proposing a giant program to import and reprocess foreign spent fuel. In his current budget, the Bush Administration proposed the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) which would make major changes to U.S. policies regarding the global management of spent nuclear fuel. Under GNEP, “supplier” countries would reprocess other countries’ commercial irradiated fuel and provide fresh fuel for “user” countries that agree not to enrich uranium or reprocess fuel domestically. Reprocessing other countries’ spent fuel would increase the amount of highly radioactive waste that the U.S. would have to permanently store. What this will do is cause more pollution, create an enormous security threat, and be dangerous to communities and neighborhoods.
Demand that your Senators vote no on Bush budget’s initiative on nuclear reprocessing.
(Public Citizen/The Petition Site/Care2)

The America I Believe In

The America I Believe In doesn’t torture people or use cruel, inhumane treatment. . . doesn’t hold people without charge, without fair trials, without hope, and without end. . .doesn’t kidnap people off the street and ship them to nations known for their brutality. . .doesn’t condone prisoner abuse and excuse high-ranking government officials from responsibility for that abuse. . .doesn’t justify the use of secret prisons. . .and does not rob people of their basic dignity.

Amnesty International has launched a new campaign that will fight to restore our traditional American values of justice, rule of law, and human dignity. In the coming weeks and months, we will as a nation either end some of the worst human rights abuses of the Bush administration or continue down this destructive path. Amnesty is fighting for the America we believe in, the America that leads the world on human rights. Be part of this campaign. Shape the outcome. Join with Amnesty International to restore “The America I Believe In.” This campaign is mobilizing people of conscience all across America to speak out. Please join us. We won’t stop until we turn America around on human rights.

Sign The America I Believe In Pledge
(Amnesty International)

CARE 60th Anniversary action

The United Nations member states have made a promise to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. On their 60th Anniversary, CARE is urging world leaders to follow through on this commitment by investing substantial resources in women and girls in the developing world.

Add your voice to CARE’s 60th anniversary Women CARE declaration
(CARE, thanks to Elainna)

LCV’s Environmental Scorecard

Since 1970, the League of Conservation Voters’ Scorecard has tracked your Congress members’ voting records. LCV’s Scorecard is based on crucial environmental votes, including energy and oil drilling, environmental health standards, and protecting wild places. Nothing more starkly illustrates how your representatives in Congress have helped or harmed the environment. How did your elected officials score?

The good news is that the next Congress can do a whole lot better. They will have new opportunities to debate and vote on legislation to tackle global warming and promote a cleaner, safer, and cheaper energy future.

Sign the New Energy Now! Petition to help push America’s next Congress to improve its National Environmental Scorecard score by promoting clean energy, protecting the environment, and reinvigorating the economy.
(League of Conservation Voters)

Send a Message of Support to Heroes of Justice and Freedom

Standing up for something you believe in takes great personal courage. That is especially true for the brave individuals who have stood up to government abuses carried out in the name of the ‘war on terror.’ Every time you hear about a lawsuit challenging government spying, protecting someone’s right to criticize the government or suing over mistreatment and abuse, behind the headlines there is a brave individual or group taking a stand for all of our rights.

That is why the ACLU is asking liberty-loving people across America to join them in thanking a remarkable group of clients who joined them in challenging government abuses since September 11, 2001. These amazing people come from diverse backgrounds and from a range of occupations. They are librarians, religious leaders, business people, students, pacifists. They represent many faiths, communities, cultures and political viewpoints. But they share one thing in common. Each has had the courage to stand up and fight for the core American values of freedom and fairness. It only takes a minute to let these courageous people know that they are not alone and that there are many Americans who appreciate and support what they are doing.

Send a message of support to this extraordinary group of ACLU clients.
(ACLU)

Demand Emergency Paper Ballots

Urge your political representatives and election officals to provide Emergency Paper Ballots at every polling place, along with a well-publicized plan for action so that every election official, poll worker, and voter will be absolutely clear on the procedures for utilizing them. No legally registered voter should ever be told to “come back later,” or be forced to use a provisional ballot simply because a voting system is unavailable to them at the time they are able to vote.
Demand that an ample supply of Emergency Paper Ballots be made available at elections.
(Progressive Democrats of America)

Homework:

American Fascism Is on the Rise, Stan Goff

The precursors of fascism — militarization of culture, vigilantism, masculine fear of female power, xenophobia and economic destabilization — are ascendant in America today.

A splendid achievement, Terry Jones
(yes, that Terry Jones)

Wherein the World League of Despots recognizes President Bush’s accomplishments and formally invites him to join their membership.

Kudos to Keith Olbermann

Kudos to Keith Olbermann

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Keith Olbermann’s answer to Rumsfeld – a much more eloquent argument than my own. Nicely done, and thank you!

Feeling morally, intellectually confused?

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence — indeed, the loyalty — of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants — our employees — with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s — questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience — needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

Most relevant of all — it “knew” that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.

That critic’s name was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History — and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England — have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty — and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.

Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute — and exclusive — in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.

It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today’s Omniscient ones.

That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.

And, as such, all voices count — not just his.

Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience — about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago — we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their “omniscience” as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?

The confusion we — as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.

But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note — with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that — though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism – indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”

Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

And so good night, and good luck.

The Worst Person in the World: And 202 Strong Contenders

Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld, Ms. Rice

Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld, Ms. Rice

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Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld, Ms. Rice:

We are America’s citizens. We are not defeatists. We are not pessimists. We are not appeasers.

I don’t hear anyone arguing that the militant anti-USA movements in the middle east are not a threat.
Not “Dean democrats,” not anyone.

Many of us simply have come to believe that you back-alley players are the last people in America who should be making decisions on how to deal with that threat.

You seem to escalate the problems.

You and a few others have formed a cabal that has taken over much of our government.

If you’re going to invoke Nazis and their appeasers, you might want to be pretty careful where you draw those lines.

It’s not only Arab extremists who hate us now. They spell Bush with a swastika or a dollar sign in South America. Take a look at world polls, and ask yourself how the view of our country can have so changed over the course of just a few years.

Here at home, we don’t appreciate your dishonorable use of the discourse of freedom while you move toward an increasingly fascistic (i.e. totalitarian, corporatist) regime with our own government.

Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld – You’ve done well for yourselves since the Nixon days, that’s for sure. Ms. Rice – I had hoped for better when I first heard that a black female academic… well, never mind. None of you lack intelligence.

But your words ring hollow. There is no truth in you.

Don’t stand up and try to tell us about morality and freedom and dreams.
What you’ve actually stood for has nothing to do with anything like that.

You have pursued aggressive actions in the world at large, and done what you could to destroy the benefits of citizenship at home. You have worked quite hard – yes – but only for the interests of big business (yes, especially oil), not for the interests of the American public. You have have rammed through no-bid contracts for your friends. This administration and its rubber-stampers in Congress even allowed insurance and pharmaceutical companies to write legislation.

Hey, we know that we don’t count as human unless we make at least $200,000 a year. You’ve made that clear in so many ways. How about all those accounts in Dubai and the Caymans? Tax giveaways to the rich, and to corporations that appear to have developed a stronger bill of rights than we could ever hope for. The attempted abolition of social security. On and on, and I can’t bear to think this week about Katrina anymore. The little speeches make me physically ill. What hypocrisy.

Take odds on who’ll win after Katrina – the oil industry or the luxury real estate developers. Admit it, you love the smell of crude in the morning.

We know what you stand for.

You’ve broken our trust. You’ve done little to make us safer while you’re manipulating us with fear.

Our ports and monuments and other targets are still quite unprotected.

You’re watching us (in violation of the Constitution) more than you’re “protecting” us.

America stuck our nose into the Middle East with boots on the ground in Saudi Arabia, protecting the tyrannical “royal family” – not democracy and freedom. We’ve propped up dictators and pulled down democratically-elected leaders for years. Are democracy and freedom near the top of America’s list? The evidence suggests we have other, competing, interests. Perhaps we should have a little national pow-wow about what, exactly, those interests really are.

We didn’t stay with the peace process in Israel, although we probably gave the go-ahead for the recent attacks. (Were those our bombs?)

The face of America to the world used to be the Peace Corps. Not anymore.

What is America known for now?
The carnage of Fallujah.
The torture of POWs and “detainees,” many of whom were rounded up randomly for a fee.
Abu Graib. Guantanamo.
The theft of natural resources from other countries.
Diamond-mining pseudochristians rushing toward their apocalypic visions.
Death cults spinning off your lead of hatred, the resurgence of the KKK and others.

Oh, and we do see the camps prisons you’re building in Texas. Who are they for again?

You tried to make us believe that Iraq was an immanent threat. It was not. The “pre-emptive” war was based on lies.

You tried to make us believe that Hussein was tied to 9-11.
Untrue, but you’re still using 9-11 to try to rationalize our invasion of Iraq.

You “sold” us this illegal and unethical invasion of Iraq. Then you banned the media from Fallujah, and after Abu Graib, you banned camera phones from military bases. No more evidence. No more reporting.

Judging from recent events, routine maintenance of the pipelines isn’t a prerequisite for corporate welfare.

Still, I’m wondering why clearly-permanent bases are always built on the oil pipeline?

We are not heroes to the people of Iraq. They want us to leave.

In the name of fighting terrorism, you’ve simply created more reasons for people to become terrorists. Terrorism is a method. We can’t wipe out terrorism. But we can and should look at why and how people become terrorists. Our ethical and strategic failures to legitimately address the issues of our world have contributed to that process. There are many more terrorists now.

In Iraq, we’ve simply jump-started civil war.

You said Iraq would be able to pay for the war. Check our national debt.

Another involuntary call-up for Marines… back-door drafts…

And now you’ve started softening us up for Iran. I’m not defending Iran, but if I were in their shoes, I’d probably want to have some kind of deterrant against US aggression too. Is Syria next? Endless war is the plan, then? When does the draft start, or are we planning to use the nukes again?

How many of our own will you label terrorists? The last time I checked, the ACLU was on the list!

It has become abundantly clear from your actions (and their consequences) that you have no idea what strategic negotiation is, what collaborative work is, what diplomacy is, how to gather actionable intelligence, how to create alliances. The US has become a throwback.

I wonder if you have a sense of what democracy and freedom even mean.

You have hurt the middle class, the blue-collar workers, the poor. The schools. The environment. The economy.

The reversal of FDR’s progress has always been a stated goal. The services of a previously rich nation are already being cut – and our treasury, such as it is now, is being handed to (surprise, surprise) the rich. Should anyone mention this, you accuse us of “class warfare.”

Orwellian language aside (does anyone still believe in the truth-value of “No Child Left Behind” “Clean Air Act” “Patriot Act”?), let’s recall the rallying cry of this administration, the promise of “compassionate conservatism.” That demeanor was dropped – what – three days after the election? Where is the compassion? Where is the conservatism?

This administration is self-centered, hard-hearted, and wasteful with the resources of this land and its people. It has a fundamental disregard for the value (and values) of this country. We will be paying for the destructive policies of this administration for many, many years and in many, many ways.

Given all this, it’s not surprising to see you all default to the usual tactics. You’re backed into a corner now – tight enough to defend Joe Lieberman!

Your reaction to the people who bring some of our disagreements into the public sphere for democratic discussion is predictable:

“Swift-boating,” whisper campaigns, intimidation, blowhard radio liars, the propaganda industry that used to be our free press, and the further corruption and manipulation of our religious communities. All of it.

What’s next? Disappearings, black bags? Americans don’t like intimidation tactics. I’m not afraid of you, despite the fact that you’ve put the guy who used to be in charge of dissident roundups (and death squads!) in charge of surveillance on the American people.

The things you stand for and represent do not strike me as the best America has to offer to its own citizens or to the world.

How small and select does the crowd have to be for you not to get booed these days?

You do have to answer to your boss. I don’t think you particularly believe in God or anything like that. I’m referring to your boss in this world.

In case you’ve somehow forgotten, that’s us, the American people – not that pathetic man in the white house.

America Slouching Toward Fascism

America Slouching Toward Fascism

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Bush’s comment on Islamic “fascists” continues to tickle at my mind, and I’m not alone. Some of the characteristics of some kinds of fascism are there, but fundamental and very essential traits are also missing – the economic, the nationalistic. Our own U.S. of A. is actually closer to an outright fascistic regime. Some say it’s already here.

Classic projection onto the enemy, or at least that’s the reaction they are hoping for? Or is it just names at the playground? You Nazi! You Fascist! You Bully!

Or worse, is the vocabulary a sign of a softening up American prelude to more wars against nations (rather than abstractions like “terrorism”)? More regime changes, say in Iran and/or Syria? Nukes? Who knows – not much would surprise me from this administration. This vocabulary seems to have been tested out by none other than Rick Santorum the Insufferable. Anyone remember why Iran dislikes us?

Even worse, Santorum was patently dishonest when he failed to explain why many in Iran, in 1979, came to view America as its enemy. In fact, it was an American-backed coup in 1953, followed by twenty-five years of repression by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi that sparked the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and much of the suspicion and hostility toward the United States that remains today.

It’s called “blowback.” Moreover, Iran’s rise in the Middle East today is, in large measure, yet more “blowback” — resulting from the lies and exaggerations about Iraq (in preparation for America’s invasion) which despicable neoconservatives and conservatives, like Santorum, foisted upon an unwitting, if not witless, American public nearly four years ago.

Yet, four years ago, serious people were warning that an invasion of Iraq – the illegality and immorality of it aside – might empower Iraq’s Shiites, thus benefiting Iran, might lead to an insurgency and perhaps a civil war, which, in turn, might embroil the entire Middle East.

Now, out of fear that the public might seize upon those prescient warnings and turn out of office the reckless instigators of this Middle East conflagration, obnoxious and desperate conservatives like Rick Santorum speak yet more reckless nonsense in order to save their political skins. Yes, even if it means duping Americans yet again for the sake of another regime change, pouring more fuel on the raging fire and provoking yet more blowback.

Some tidbits for you to ponder:

“fascism – A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.” – American Heritage Dictionary

Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the “right”, a Fascist century. – Benito Mussolini, Doctrine of Fascism

“There’s basically two principles that define the Bush Administration policies: stuff the pockets of your rich friends with dollars, and increase your control over the world. Almost everything follows from that. If you happen to blow up the world, well, you know, it’s somebody else’s business. Stuff happens, as Rumsfeld said.” – Noam Chomsky, Interview by Geov Parrish, December 23, 2005

Before the rise of fascism, Germany and Italy were, on paper, liberal democracies. Fascism did not swoop down on these nations as if from another planet. To the contrary, fascist dictatorship was the result of political and economic changes these nations underwent while they were still democratic. In both these countries, economic power became so utterly concentrated that the bulk of all economic activity fell under the control of a handful of men. Economic power, when sufficiently vast, becomes by its very nature political power. The political power of big business supported fascism in Italy and Germany.
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Under the sway of neo-liberalism, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney and George W. Bush have decimated labour and exalted capital. (At present, only 7.8 per cent of workers in the U.S. private sector are unionized — about the same percentage as in the early 1900s.)

Neo-liberals call relentlessly for tax cuts, which, in a previously progressive system, disproportionately favour the wealthy. Regarding the distribution of wealth, the neo-liberals have nothing to say. In the end, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. As in Weimar Germany, the function of the state is being reduced to that of a steward for the interests of the moneyed elite. All that would be required now for a more rapid descent into fascism are a few reasons for the average person to forget he is being ripped off. Hatred of Arabs, fundamentalist Christianity or an illusory sense of perpetual war may well be taking the place of Hitler’s hatred for communists and Jews.
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Ironically, Hitler pandered to the middle class, and they provided some of his most enthusiastically violent supporters. The fact that he did this while simultaneously destroying them was a terrible achievement of Nazi propaganda.
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Mussolini, the one-time socialist, went on to abolish the inheritance tax, a measure that favoured the wealthy. He decreed a series of massive subsidies to Italy’s largest industrial businesses and repeatedly ordered wage reductions. Italy’s poor were forced to subsidize the wealthy. In real terms, wages and living standards for the average Italian dropped precipitously under fascism.

Even this brief historical sketch shows how fascism did the bidding of big business. The fact that Hitler called his party the “National Socialist Party” did not change the reactionary nature of his policies. The connection between the fascist dictatorships and monopoly capital was obvious to the U.S. Department of Justice in 1939. As of 2005, however, it is all but forgotten.

It is always dangerous to forget the lessons of history. It is particularly perilous to forget about the economic origins of fascism in our modern era of deregulation. Most Western liberal democracies are currently in the thrall of what some call market fundamentalism. Few nowadays question the flawed assumption that state intervention in the marketplace is inherently bad.

As in Italy and Germany in the ’20s and ’30s, business associations clamour for more deregulation and deeper tax cuts. The gradual erosion of antitrust legislation, especially in the United States, has encouraged consolidation in many sectors of the economy by way of mergers and acquisitions. The North American economy has become more monopolistic than at any time in the post-WWII period.
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As in pre-fascist Germany and Italy, the laissez-faire businessmen call for the state to do their bidding even as they insist that the state should stay out of the marketplace. Put plainly, neo-liberals advocate the use of the state’s military force for the sake of private gain. Their view of the state’s role in society is identical to that of the businessmen and intellectuals who supported Hitler and Mussolini. There is no fear of the big state here. There is only the desire to wield its power.

— from Paul Bigioni. Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: Nov 27, 2005. pg. D.01 Online version

Some interesting articles…

Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: “If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.” Freedom and liberation are an unending task. – Umberto Eco, Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt