Fascism: 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.
Before the Warren court, the fascists were largely in control of this country. Although American fascism was not and never has been defined in our country’s guiding documents, it was practiced and institutionalized in Jim Crow policies and laws like poll taxes. All designed to keep the ruling elite in power and to suppress, through oppression, the lesser masses. Every time the idea that freedom, fairness, and the rule of law applied equally to all was brought to bear, those in power were able to dismissed it.
But for most of the last 50 years, we have been embarked on a movement away from fascism; a great correction to better align the practice of our society to the ideals of the guiding documents. The fascists have never gone away, they have just been on the losing side for most of the last 50 years. Quite frankly, they are tired of it and think they have gathered enough power to move the country back their way. They are not about ‘running the country’ they are about ‘making a point’.
They have partially succeeded.
1. We have a sitting president who has openly endorsed amending the constitution, not to expand or guarantee rights, but to specifically deny rights to an entire class of Americans.
2. We have no shortage of elected officials thinking the same way.
3. There is a bill in the house and senate that would make it a crime to feed the hungry if they happened to be undocumented (It will never pass, because then the companies that employ these people will have to pay them enough for them to buy their own food, instead of getting it for free from soup kitchens).
4. The 1st, 4th, 5th & 9th amendments are under full assault, while the 2nd is sacrosanct.
5. No matter what the ideology, a government’s prime purpose is to protect citizens, property and infrastructure. All of that is now secondary to making ideological points.
6. Our President has the power to wiretap dangerous terrorists within the laws meant to provide checks and balances to protect our civil liberties. He has chosen quite deliberately to do so outside the law. Not because he could not accomplish his goals within the law, but to make a point and change the rules giving him more power.
7. The fascist base is not composed of great thinkers. They have been bought off with pandering rhetoric on God, Guns & Gays and bellicose nationalism. Meanwhile the power-fascists have been raping the base (and everyone else not in their club) with irresponsible fiscal policy.
8. Many business people do not like the idea of legal mandates covering responsibility to workers, the environment, fair competition, and corporate citizenship, They like the idea of corporate welfare. They are only too happy to see the power-fascists (who will give them what they want) running the show. What the power-fascists do on the social/civil liberties front is of no concern to the business people who help put and keep them in office.
How serious must the damage get before this new American Fascism runs its course? Soldiers will die, Miners will die, the glaciers will melt, the oceans will warm and produce more frequent and powerful hurricanes, the hungry will get hungrier, the humanitarians that fed them will be in jail, we will be isolated, the world will hate us, our economy will collapse under the weight of national and personal debt. We will all be very depressed about it all but won’t be able to get or afford the health care to get better.
The 50 years from 1950 to 2000 were incredible. We improved education, we improved access to health care, we lifted millions out of poverty, we made the environment cleaner, we made industry safer, we made transportation safer, we made products safer, we improved housing standards at every socio-economic level, we expanded rights to millions, we won the cold war without firing a nuke, we went to the moon, we lowered crime, we improved life expectancy, we addressed past injustices, we embraced fairness, we raised awareness of and fostered tolerance of those not like ourselves. We invested in our children, in science, in the arts. We set out to do the world some good – The Marshall Plan, the Peace Corp. We did all of this accumulating a debt of just under $6 trillion. That’s a high price to be sure, but it is nothing compared to the $3 trillion added to the debt in the last 5 years while attempting to undo the accomplishments of the last 50.
The fascists will tell you that our government’s forays into the problems of society and the world at large was wrong-headed, costly and that we are far worse off for having done it. But we did it even as we advanced the world’s most envied economy and freedoms in ways that could not even be contemplated in the first half of the 20th century. We did none of it by being conservative. I don’t see anyone pining for the good old days of Jim Crow, robber barons, world wars, depressions, air unfit to breathe, and cars unsafe at any speed. Leave the new American Fascists in power, and that is where we are headed.
