Wasteland of the Free

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Fascism in America?     [ Plenty of people see it coming. See John Titor's Story for example ]

George Bush Junior made the greatest strides down the road to Fascism, but Obama has not altered course; plenty of media people have been hinting around about fascism rearing its ugly head, but most are cowardly shying away from actually applying the label. But the only real question is, is the label accurate in this case? Let's see:

• Definition from dictionary.com:

  fas·cism

  n.

  1. often Fascism
     1. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
     2. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
  2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.

• Definition from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary:

  Fascism [noun]
  a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control and extreme pride in country and race, and in which political opposition is not allowed

  fascist [adjective] (ALSO fascistic)
  fascist groups
  a fascist dictator/regime

  fascist [noun]
  

  1. someone who supports fascism
  2. a person of the far right in politics
  3. (DISAPPROVING) someone who does not allow any opposition: He reckons all policemen are fascists and bullies.

• Definition from Merriam-Webster Online

  Main Entry: fas·cism
  Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
  Function: noun
  Etymology: Italian fascismo,  from fascio  bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis  bundle & fasces  fasces
  Date: 1921
  1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
  2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism  and brutality -- J. W. Aldridge>

  - fas·cist /-shist also -sist/ noun or adjective, often capitalized
  - fas·cis·tic /fa-'shis-tik also -'sis-/ adjective, often capitalized
  - fas·cis·ti·cal·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb, often capitalized

Analysis

1)   Some but not all definitions of fascism use the word dictator so we must conclude that the word "dictator" may be sometimes associated with the word "fascism" but that a traditional or technical dictatorship is not a requirement for the word fascism to apply. Still we may be interested in the definition of "dictator" to see how it may be relevant to this discussion (such as the Cambridge Dictionary's mention of "not elected by the people"), especially in light of George Bush Junior's famous quote suggesting he wouldn't mind the dubious honor being bestowed upon him:

2) Centralization of authority was certainly a strong element of the Bush administration:

• The Republican-controlled Congress was almost a rubber-stamp institution for Bush's policies.
• John Ashcroft as head of the Justice Department routinely denyied Constitutionally-guaranteed civil liberties to suspected terrorists, presumably under the direction and orders of George Bush Junior, and America openly operated a concentration camp at Guantanamo. Obama promised to close it, but it remains open and signaling the decay of American values today.
• A number of Federal institutions (INS, Coast Guard, etc.) have been consolidated under the control of the new Office of Homeland Security.
• There's a giant Big Brother database able to identify and track everyone in the United States (at least that's the goal). All records pertaining to travel and accommodations, bank accounts, the Feds even wanted to have bookstore owners turn over customer records so they can see who's reading what, but they backed down under a storm of protest. Still, a great many aspects of our lives that we previously held private are now open books to police and government agencies. Even medical privacy, long valued as doctor-patient confidentiality, now takes second place to any bozo with a badge who walks into a doctor's office wanting to see your medical records. They don't even need a court order any more (the scary part is that this has all happened so far without so much as a single word of dissent from the medical establishment. When this kind of phenomenon happened in Nazi Germany, the active and tacit supporters came to be called 'good Germans').

3) Stringent socioeconomic controls would seem to fit the present situation in which our economy tanked due to Republican-backed Administration policies which greatly widen the disparity between rich and poor. Economic policies are correctly termed "stringent" if they damage the environment, create more homelessless, or balloon the national debt. Fortunately it does appear that Obama is trying to reverse our nation's economic problems and some progress has been made, but there is still a long way to go.

4) Suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship almost applies if we ignore "terror" for the moment and focus on "censorship" (although the unknown numbers of suspected terrorists being held without bail or charges or even their names being made available to their friends and family may well feel "terror" at their plight). Whether through government fiat or through the actions of a large number of (fascist?) supporters is not the issue; were not the actions of many (fascist?) radio station managers to stop playing the Dixie Chicks purest censorship of the most fascist kind? As for government-instigated terror, we seem to have been spared the worst of that, but if things continue the way they have been, we might expect to see more of it. So far government terror has been very limited however, and let's hope it stays that way. All opposition must be nonviolent if it ever hopes to win against the overwhelming force of the American military.

5) Typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism would certainly apply to George Bush Junior's denigration of the United Nations' denial of support for his preemptive war on Iraq, and while much of the racism is subsurface it was clear through the attitudes and voting patterns of such longtime but now-discredited Republicans as Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott that racism was and is alive and well-represented in the Republican Party. And don't forget all the (fascist?) editorial cartoonists and commentators who lambasted the French for being French after they wisely didn't support Bush's preemptive war on Iraq at the United Nations. There was a lot of blatant racism expressed then and it wasn't pretty.

6) A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government. Can there be any real doubt that George Bush Junior and the Republican Party turned America toward the worst and undermined the very foundations of American liberties and values as defined in the United States Constitution, as well as widening the disparity between rich and poor? The "neoconservatives" (today's Newspeak euphemism for Fascists) in our government were and are totally ideologically motivated in this regard.

7) Oppressive, dictatorial control would certainly describe how many if not most Iraqis feel about their occupiers, even if things haven't nearly that bad in this country yet. It certainly fits with the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and Bush's use of torture. But the expanding police powers which are usurping our traditional privacies and freedoms at home (i.e., medical privacy, etc.) may yet create situations that bad or almost that bad in America too. Hopefully Obama will eventually turn things around before America does fully become a police state.

Conclusion

Without going line by line through every definition (they grow redundant) it is fair to say that there are fascistic trends sprouting up in America right and left but that fascism isn't in full bloom. Not yet. It is also clear that the forces favoring and supporting fascism are on the political right, as one would expect, and just as occurred in Nazi Germany. Then fascism was supported by 'good Germans', but I don't know what we'd call them today, 'good Americans' seems oxymoronic in this context. But there is no doubt that the right wing of today desires to rearrange the political landscape even farther away from American values if they can.

Our government was initially subverted by right-wing forces under cover of diversions that didn't directly flaunt the degradation of our American tradition of freedoms and liberties we have enjoyed for so long. For example we have been led to believe that a few temporary sacrifices will gain us protection from terrorists, with the implication originally being that full freedom will return when terrorism is crushed. But almost nobody believes that will ever happen and our liberties and freedoms continue to be eroded even under the Obama administration, the latest insult being the whole-body scanners at airports and intrusive pat-downs which have yet to catch a single terrorist.

The flaw in that argument is that terrorism will never be crushed. For one reason or another, valid or not, there will always be those who hate, and who focus their hate on America. Keep in mind that homegrown terrorists have the potential to be just as destructive as foreign terrorists, although for now the focus is on foreign threats. That may change soon and bring America's fight against terrorism home. Surely the Feds will have to find something to justify their vast expenditures of money and energy on snooping on Americans. There is thus a growing momentum toward increasing government control and oppression, even if fascism hasn't fully blossomed yet. But we're clearly already partway down that slippery slope, and we ought to be having a public debate as to whether fascism is something we want more or less of in America.

Recommendation

We must learn to deal with terrorism just as many other countries have learned to deal with terrorists in their midst. To a certain extent we cannot control the problem entirely, and we will have to learn to live with terrorism just as we live with earthquakes and hurricanes and tornados and automobile accidents and drugs (especially tobacco) and alcohol and everything else that brings death and destruction upon us. But there is no reason we must give up our civil liberties and precious freedoms that have been so hard won by the blood of patriots. Plenty of other countries (France, Britain, Israel, etc.) have ongoing terrorist problems too, and they haven't felt the need to plunge into full fascism (though Israel has come pretty close to the edge). We must remember and be guided by the words of one of our wisest American statesmen:

Those who would give up liberty for the sake of security deserve neither liberty nor security.

Benjamin Franklin