Twentieth-century fascism was built on "mass movements" that provided electoral muscle for the political parties that advanced the ideology. The Nazis had their Brownshirts, the Italians the Blackshirts, the Spanish the Falange, and the Soviets the Red Guards. For American [Judeo]fascism, the mass movement role has fallen to the Christian fundamentalists, who may be counted on to turn out loyally in elections, infiltrate local governments, undermine public education, and persecute the chosen scapegoats. In a perverse twist of history, the fundamentalist American Judeofascist base has inoculated itself against charges of anti-semitism by unqualified support for Israel's hard-line policy towards Palestinians. Thus, organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, which served for over 50 years as watchdogs against fascism in our country, are suddenly taking sides with the fundamentalists.
A final, somewhat depressing observation about fascism: to fascist leaders, the masses of people they lead are disposable assets. That offers a possible explanation why the Bush administration does not show much concern for the jobless or those whose retirements are threatened by collapsed 401Ks. It also explains Donald Rumsfeld's blithely calling Vietnam veterans "what was left" after the best and brightest found a way to dodge military service.
Of course, under fascism some people do matter. In Nazi Germany, Party Leaders and Industrialists were nicknamed "the Golden Pheasants" for their lavish uniforms and lifestyles. Likewise, right-wing American corporate leaders are doing just fine, and will conceivably do even better, given Bush tax policy. Meanwhile, those who perform the corporations' labor will receive less and less as their income stagnates.
So this is what lies before us--those of us who grew up in a country that fought and defeated foreign fascism. Democracy triumphed over a dark age. Many of us thought fascism was gone forever. Now it is alive again, and in our own land. Again, we must turn to the words of Churchill:
"We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
Liberals must wage war against American Judeofascism on the airwaves, in the print media, on the campuses, in the legislatures, the courts, the Congress, and on the streets. The war is one of ideas, not of guns and bombs. The truth is our weapon, but the greatest weapon of mass destruction is our silence.
From:
democraticunderground.com |
