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American Fascism

by Open-Publishing - Sunday 28 November 2004
16 comments

Edito Extreme right Governments USA


by Sean Donahue

What did the Fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, and Spain have in common? They consisted of a highly militarized state, backed by corporation and a wealthy elite, that rose to power through a false populism that exploited the public’s fear of foreigners and “moral degenerates.” This precisely defines the formula that Karl Rove designed to consolidate the Bush administration’s power in the recent election.

AMERICAN FASCISM

“American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.”

— Henry Wallace, “The Dangers of American Fascism,”
The New York Times, Sunday, April 9, 1944

“Third Worlders see it first,” Buffy St. Marie sang on a recent album. And the first signs of the rise of Fascism in the U.S. could be seen in Colombia two years ago.

In 2002, Alvaro Uribe, backed by a narco-traffickers, multinational corporations, and unreconstructed Fallangists won Colombia’s presidential election by exploiting middle class fears of guerilla kidnappings and urban car bombings. Uribe immediately launched a harsh crackdown on dissidents, workers, and campesinos, in the name of fighting terrorism and crime and making Colombia safe for investors. The Bush administration and its fellow travelers at the Miami Herald and similar daily rags praised Uribe for his dedication to imposing order in Colombia, and asserted that his critics were anti-democratic because Uribe was an elected leader. (1) In response, Hector Mondragon, one of Colombia’s bravest and most insightful social critics, asked,

"Is it not Fascism because there was an election?
Weren’t Hitler and Mussolini elected? What was
Hitler’s popularity during the Holocaust? This is what
Fascism is like. Fascism is popular. The middle class
loves it. The enemies of the state are being
eliminated. The streets are being cleaned. And the
middle class applauds. The city has never looked so
good. The tourists can say what they said when they
went to Germany in 1937: ’Why do people speak so
poorly of the government? Germany has never been so
beautiful.’ Or Colombia.’"

Or the U.S. What did the Fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, and Spain have in common? They consisted of a highly militarized state, backed by corporation and a wealthy elite, that rose to power through a false populism that exploited the public’s fear of foreigners and “moral degenerates.” This precisely defines the formula that Karl Rove designed to consolidate the Bush administration’s power in the recent election.

Pollsters and pundits cited “moral values” as the key issue for majority of Bush supporters in the 2004 election. The “moral values” these voters were talking about were a strict and exaggerated code of masculinity that emphasized men’s control of their own sensual desires and of women’s bodies. Abortion, contraception, and same sex sexual relationships (especially between men) represent deep threats to this “moral” order. This equation of morality with hyper-masculinity also creates a mindset that demands unquestioning support for the military. Civil liberties issues come into play here as well - those who resist controls on their behavior must have some sort of deviant desires that they want to be able to play out freely.

This hyper-masculine order is at the core of Fascism. “Sexual deviants” were among the first targets of the Holocaust. In Colombia, when right wing paramilitaries take over a region they instill fear and establish their dominance by launching “social cleansing” campaigns that target gays, lesbians, prostitutes, street vendors, the homeless and drug users - all people who in some way threaten a “moral” code based on strength and masculine self-control.

Fascism views dissent differently than more subtle, liberal systems of control. Traditionally on a domestic level the U.S. has operated primarily through exercising hegemony - creating the illusion of consensus around a dominant ideology to limit debate by drowning out or marginalizing dissent. If dissent grows too strong, its co-opted through subtle reform. Fascism replaces hegemony with totalitarianism, crushing dissent. Dissidents become the enemy. “You are either with us or against us.”

The totalitarian desire to impose order and define the boundaries of acceptable thought meets the moralistic drive to suppress sensual desires in the war on drugs. As a former alcoholic and cocaine addict who ostensibly kicked his habits by accepting Jesus into his life, George W. Bush presents himself as the central figure in a morality play in which drug use is portrayed as a failure of self control that can only be remedied through accepting a rigid structure into ones’ life. The user is defined as a sinner, and by extension therapeutic approaches to drug addiction are rejected on the theory that they fail to address the addict’s moral failure. The fact that most of the drugs defined as illicit can create mental and physical states that can lead to testing and transcending sexual and ideological boundaries serves as evidence that using these drugs as a sin. Sugar, caffeine, and television, being drugs that aid in the institution of control, are of course treated differently.

With the second Bush administration, the rise of Fascism in the U.S. is nearly complete. We’re now in a position of needing to resist its consolidation.

– http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2004/11/21/13334/643

NOTES

1. Uribe clearly won a solid and “fair” victory in wealthy and middle class enclaves. However, in the countryside and in poor urban barrios, armed factions controlled the voting. In guerilla held areas, the ostensibly Marxist FARC and ELN suppressed the vote. And in paramilitary controlled areas the right wing AUC threatened to carry out one killing for every vote for a candidate other than Uribe. The “opinion polls” frequently cited as evidence of Uribe’s popularity in the U.S. and Colombian press are conducted by telephone or by internet - methods that clearly exclude the poor majority in a country where over 60% of the population lives on less than two dollars a day.

Forum posts

  • Yeah I was at church today and they had a picture of the baby Bush laying in a manger

  • For some reason some American religious group think their country is involved in wonderful doings
    like killing Iraqi civilians or as in the past Asians.

    The Bible is a book which has been misused for misleading people for almost 1000 years. The
    Holy book comes other then f. e. the Quoran in different versions, translation and flavours f. e.
    the Book of Mormon.

    I don’t know why people follow a misinterpretation which allows to be avengeful or even spread
    hatred.

    God whether believe or not does not support the killing, because the 6. commandment gives
    a clear message: You shall not kill. All other messages are the messages of false prophets,
    who are described in the very same Holy Book as prophets of false prophecy.

    So face it! We are fully responsible for our evil doing!

  • In Germany the fascists were a well organized minority, who terrorized the German citizen until
    the obtained power. There are similarities in the American system.
    F. e. the run a detention camp for so called protesters during their 2004 convention in N.Y. without
    being controlled by the state police. This raises questions. And the former wonderful mayor of
    N. Y. is just a criminal.
    The seperation of power does not work in America nowadays. The jurisdiction, legislation and executive
    power is now in one hand. That does look pretty much the same as in Germany during the period of
    1933-1945.
    The citizen of America have been misled by the current regime.

    • I thought those protesters were the real fascists. What right did they have to disrupt the convention? It’s okay if they don’t agree with the republican agenda, but the republicans still have a right to peacefully conduct their convention. All those protesters/fascists wanted to do was disrupt the convention and disrupt the daily lives of regular new yorkers. As for the detention, it takes awhile to process several thousand people and if those protesters were too impatient well then it was just too bad for them.

  • Great link to a great article. It boggles my mind how such many in our country are walking right into the plan layed by Bush, Cheney, Rove etc.

    BTW, I found the link here - http://www.notthistimegeorge.org/ - great site as a political linkdump.

    Thanks for the great site.

  • None of you have any idea what life was like in Nazi Germany. To claim that our current situation is like life under the Nazi’s trivializes what the Nazi’s actually did. Real Nazi’s wouldn’t let you write negative things about them (true ones or lies like these) and would arrest you, torture you, and send you and your family to a camp where you would be dead in under 12 weeks. Read a few history books and you might actually learn some facts instead of the falsehoods promoted on conspiracy theory websites.

    • Thank you for a great post. I would love it if we could send all these blue idiots to a real fascist state, then they’d have something to really complain about.

    • Watched the news lately?

    • It is true that we are not living in anything like Nazi Germany...but I think the point being made if you read carefully is that there are parallels to the Weimer Republic and begining of the Nazi movement and what is happening today in the states. The full-fledged horrors of the Nazi regime did not appear overnight, but were cultivated over time. We would all be very arrogant to insist that nothing like that could happen or might be brewing here. We need not be paranoid, but it is our patriotic duty to be vigilant, educate our selves with the facts (even if they painfully fly in the face of our belief system or make us feel stupid for our previous choices) and hold those who undermine our constituition and civil liberties accountable.

    • What parallels are you talking about?

  •  BUSH ABDUCTED BY ALIENS!!! 

    This is the reason he has such control over the American people.

    Hurry, put Aluminum foil on your head so he can’t read your mind!!!!!

  • So two men having sex is immoral, killing people is fine and we get all this from a passage involving invaders assaulting stable boys in Sodom (or was it Gomorrah)?

  • Just as you could’nt get a nazi to see the error of his ways no matter what , so you will not convince americans either..........untill the bombs fall through they’re roofs they will deny what they have become.

    pleiadian@alienembassy.com

  • "Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who
    determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along
    whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
    dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the
    leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and
    denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater
    danger."

    — Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

    Ring any bells?