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Junkie
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Is america becoming fascist?
Scary article, especially this part:
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Hitler never won clear majorities (his ascent to power was facilitated by the political elites), and yet once he was in power, he crushed all dissent; consider the parallels to the fateful, hair-splitting election of 2000 and its aftermath. Hitler took advantage of the Reichstag fire – the burning of the German parliament, which was blamed on communist arson – to totally reshape German institutions and culture; think of 9/11 as a close parallel.
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http://adbusters.org/magazine/49/art...ng_fascis.html
Quote:
Is America Becoming Fascist?
Is America becoming fascist? Since mainstream media refuse to seriously ask this question, the analysis of where we are heading and what has gone wrong has been mostly off-base. Investigation of the kinds of underhanded, criminal tactics fascist regimes undertake to legitimize their agenda and accelerate the rate of change in their favor is dismissed as indulging in “conspiracy theory.” If the f-word is uttered, observers are quick to note the obvious dissimilarities with previous variants of fascism. American writers dare not speak the truth.
The blinkered assertion that we are immune to the fascist virus ignores degrees of convergence and distinction based on the individual patient’s history. The New York Times and other liberal voices have been obsessed in recent years with the rise of minority fascist parties in the Netherlands, France and other European countries. They have questioned the tastefulness of new books and films about Hitler, and again demonized the icons of Nazism. Max Frankel, former editor of the Times, quotes from biographer Joachim Fest in his review of Speer:
The Final Verdict: “how easily, given appropriate conditions, people will allow themselves to be mobilized into violence, abandoning the humanitarian traditions they have built up over centuries to protect themselves from each other.” Is Frankel hinting at his anxiety about the primal being that has arisen in America? The pace of events in the last two years has been almost as blindingly fast as it was after Hitler’s consolidation of fascist power in 1933. Speed stuns and silences.
To pose the question doesn’t mean that American fascism is a completed project; at any point, anything can happen to shift the course of history in a different direction. Yet after repeated and open corruption of the normal electoral process, several declarations of global war, adventurous and unprecedented military doctrines, selective suspension of the Bill of Rights and clear signals that a declaration of emergency is on the horizon, surely it is time to analyze the situation differently. Several of the apparent contradictions in the Bush administration’s governance make perfect sense if the fascist prism is applied, but not with the usual perspective. Fascism is home, it is here to stay, and it better be countered with all the resources at our disposal.
American fascism taps into the perennial complaint against liberalism: that it fails to provide an authentic sense of belonging to the majority of people. America today wants to be communal and virile; it seeks to overcome what many have been convinced are the unreasonable demands of minorities and women; it wants to reinvigorate ideals of nation, region and race in order to take control of the future; it seeks to overcome the social divisiveness of capitalism and democracy, remolding the nation through propaganda and leadership.
We can notice obvious differences from the German or Italian nationalist traditions, of course – we have our own nationalist myths. In the near future, America can be expected to embark on a more radical search to define who is and who is not a part of the natural order: exclusion, deportation and eventually extermination might again become the order of things. Fascism can occur precisely at that moment of truth when the course of political history can tend to one direction or another. Nazism never had the support of the majority of Germans; at best about a third fully supported it. About a third of Americans today are certifiably fascist; another 20 percent or so can be swayed around to particular causes with smart propaganda. The basic paradigm remains more or less intact.
Capitalism today is different, so are the means of propaganda, and so are the technological tools of suppression. But that is only a matter of variation, not opposition. With all of Germany’s cultural strength, brutality won out; the same analysis can apply to America. Hitler never won clear majorities (his ascent to power was facilitated by the political elites), and yet once he was in power, he crushed all dissent; consider the parallels to the fateful, hair-splitting election of 2000 and its aftermath. Hitler took advantage of the Reichstag fire – the burning of the German parliament, which was blamed on communist arson – to totally reshape German institutions and culture; think of 9/11 as a close parallel. Hitler was careful to give the impression of always operating under legal cover; note again the similarity of a pseudo-legal shield for the actions of the American fascists, who stretch the Geneva Conventions by redefining prisoners of war as “unlawful.” One can go on and on in this vein.
If we look at historian Stanley Payne’s classical general theory of fascism, we are struck by the increasing similarities with the American model:
A. The Fascist Negations
Anti-liberalism.
Anti-communism.
Anti-conservatism.
B. Ideology and Goals
Creation of a new nationalist authoritarian state.
Organization of a new kind of regulated, multi-class, integrated national economic structure.
The goal of empire.
Specific espousal of an idealist, voluntarist creed.
C. Style and Organization
Emphasis on aesthetic structure, stressing romantic and mystical aspects.
Attempted mass mobilization with militarization of political relationships and style, and the goal of a mass party militia.
Positive evaluation and use of violence.
Extreme stress on the masculine principle.
Exaltation of youth.
Specific tendency toward an authoritarian, charismatic, personal style of command.
With American fascism, the first two negations are obvious; the third may seem unlikely. But fascism is not conservatism, and it takes issue with conservatism’s anti-revolutionary stance. Conservatism’s libertarian strand – an American staple – would not agree with fascism’s “nationalist authoritarian state.” Reaganite anti-government rhetoric might have been a precursor to fascism, but free market and deregulationist ideology cannot be labeled fascist.
Continuing to look at Payne’s list, we note that the goal of empire has found open acceptance over the last couple of years.
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