This is the kind of talk that will get some people to dismiss you as crazy. It’s worth it, because it’s something that needs to be brought out into the open to discuss honestly and fully.
When Bush was President, I was worried that our democracy was on its death bed. The Bush Administration had claimed unconstitutional powers, was jerking people off the streets in war zones and locking them up indefinately, subjecting them to torture that was, in no uncertain terms, evil and un-American. They tapped our phones, went through our library books, and sold us lies about war. That doesn’t happen in America-it happens in third world nations ruled by despots. With Obama’s election, I thought things would get better-that we could turn the corner travel down a less dangerous road. Now I’m not so sure.
Apparently, I’m not alone in that thinking.
Think about it-these mobs showing up at healthcare forums and disrupting them with violence, the nuts that think Obama is going to kill grandma and Sarah Palin’s baby because he’s really a Muslim from Kenya or whatever other nonsense, these “Teabaggers” that rant and rave about taxes while holding up racist signs, they’re not all appearing now in some bizarre coincidence. These are a single reaction, the reaction of an older, whiter, racist slice of America reacting to the election of our first black President. Obama’s election inspired many, but it also tore open some very old sores.
But could we really be moving toward fascism or dictatorship of any sort?
Well, let’s think it out for a second. First, what is fascism?
“Fascism is a system of political authority and social order intended to
reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in which liberal
democracy stands accused of producing division and decline.”
“a form of
political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline,
humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity,
in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in
uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic
liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal
restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
Ok, and how do countries become fascist?
According to Paxton, fascism unfolds in five stages.
And they are???
In the first stage, a rural movement emerges to effect some kind of nationalist
renewal (what Roger Griffin calls “palingenesis” — a phoenix-like rebirth from
the ashes). They come together to restore a broken social order, always drawing
on themes of unity, order, and purity. Reason is rejected in favor of passionate
emotion. The way the organizing story is told varies from country to country;
but it’s always rooted in the promise of restoring lost national pride by
resurrecting the culture’s traditional myths and values, and purging society of
the toxic influence of the outsiders and intellectuals who are blamed for their
current misery.
Hmm…the Religious Right, the conservative movement out to reclaim America, the anti-immigrant movement, these nuts screaming “I want my country back!”…First stage, check.
In the second stage, fascist movements take root, turn into real political
parties, and seize their seat at the table of power. Interestingly, in every
case Paxton cites, the political base came from the rural, less-educated parts
of the country; and almost all of them came to power very specifically by
offering themselves as informal goon squads organized to intimidate farmworkers
on behalf of the large landowners. The KKK disenfranchised black sharecroppers
and set itself up as the enforcement wing of Jim Crow. The Italian Squadristi
and the German Brownshirts made their bones breaking up farmers’ strikes. And
these days, GOP-sanctioned anti-immigrant groups make life hell for Hispanic
agricultural workers in the US. As violence against random Hispanics (citizens
and otherwise) increases, the right-wing goon squads are getting basic training
that, if the pattern holds, they may eventually use to intimidate the rest of
us.
So yeah, in some quarters, we can check that box. The GOP though hasn’t integrated violence into their political machinery as of yet though, so let’s not get too carried away. But…
“The most important variables…are the conservative elites’ willingness to work
with the fascists (along with a reciprocal flexibility on the part of the
fascist leaders) and the depth of the crisis that induces them to cooperate.”
The Republicans are definately happy to bow to these loons. We’ve seen that in the legislative battles as of late. The question is, how far will they bend?
If you want to learn the other steps, click the link. The whole article is worth a read. It’s thought provoking and, I think, largely accurrate. I don’t think we’ll lose our democracy though-these clowns are too isolated from the mainstream of American thought and sentiment, too cartoonish to be taken too seriously for long. More likely, one of these goons is going to do something stupid and heinous. We’ve already seen right wing terrorists shoot up the Holocaust Museum and kill cops in Pittsburg, it’s only a matter of time before some nut with a gun does something so terrible that it shocks people to their senses. I hope I’m wrong. I hope this whole awful, racist, crazy movement burns itself out by virtue of its own insanity. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen. You can almost taste it in the air.