| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fredric L. Rice" |
| Date: |
08 Feb 2005 10:34:15 PM |
| Object: |
Fascism now has a constituency in America. |
February 14, 2005 Issue
Copyright © 2005 The American Conservative
http://amconmag.com/2005_02_14/print/articleprint.html
Hunger for Dictatorship
War to export democracy may wreck our own. For the first time, fascism now
has a constituency in America.
by Scott McConnell
Students of history inevitably think in terms of periods: the New Deal,
McCarthyism, "the Sixties" (1964-1973), the NEP, the purge trials-all have
their dates. Weimar, whose cultural excesses made effective propaganda for
the Nazis, now seems like the antechamber to Nazism, though surely no
Weimar figures perceived their time that way as they were living it. We may
pretend to know what lies ahead, feigning certainty to score polemical
points, but we never do.
Nonetheless, there are foreshadowings well worth noting. The last weeks of
2004 saw several explicit warnings from the antiwar Right about the coming
of an American fascism. Paul Craig Roberts in these pages wrote of the
"brownshirting" of American conservatism-a word that might not have
surprised had it come from Michael Moore or Michael Lerner. But from a
Hoover Institution senior fellow, former assistant secretary of the
Treasury in the Reagan administration, and one-time Wall Street Journal
editor, it was striking.
Several weeks later, Justin Raimondo, editor of the popular Antiwar.com
website, wrote a column headlined, "Today's Conservatives are Fascists."
Pointing to the justification of torture by conservative legal theorists,
widespread support for a militaristic foreign policy, and a retrospective
backing of Japanese internment during World War II, Raimondo raised the
prospect of "fascism with a democratic face." His fellow libertarian, Mises
Institute president Lew Rockwell, wrote a year-end piece called "The
Reality of Red State Fascism," which claimed that "the most significant
socio-political shift in our time has gone almost completely unremarked,
and even unnoticed. It is the dramatic shift of the red-state bourgeoisie
from leave-us-alone libertarianism, manifested in the Congressional
elections of 1994, to almost totalitarian statist nationalism. Whereas the
conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal
government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state,
particularly its military wing."
I would argue that Rockwell-who makes the most systematic argument of the
three-overstates the libertarian component of the 1994 Republican victory,
which could just as readily be credited to heartland rejection of the '60s
cultural liberalism that came into office with the Clintons. And it is
difficult to imagine any scenario, after 9/11, that would not lead to some
expansion of federal power. The United States was suddenly at war,
mobilizing to strike at a Taliban government on the other side of the
world.
The emergence of terrorism as the central security issue had to lead, at
the very least, to increased domestic surveillance-of Muslim immigrants
especially. War is the health of the state, as the libertarians helpfully
remind us, but it doesn't mean that war leads to fascism.
But Rockwell (and Roberts and Raimondo) is correct in drawing attention to
a mood among some conservatives that is at least latently fascist. Rockwell
describes a populist Right website that originally rallied for the
impeachment of Bill Clinton as "hate-filled ... advocating nuclear
holocaust and mass bloodshed for more than a year now." One of the biggest
right-wing talk-radio hosts regularly calls for the mass destruction of
Arab cities.
Letters that come to this magazine from the pro-war Right leave no doubt
that their writers would welcome the jailing of dissidents. And of course
it 's not just us. When USA Today founder Al Neuharth wrote a column
suggesting that American troops be brought home sooner rather than later,
he was blown away by letters comparing him to Tokyo Rose and demanding that
he be tried as a traitor. That mood, Rockwell notes, dwarfs anything that
existed during the Cold War. "It celebrates the shedding of blood, and
exhibits a maniacal love of the state. The new ideology of the red-state
bourgeoisie seems to actually believe that the US is God marching on
earth-not just godlike, but really serving as a proxy for God himself."
The warnings from these three writers would have been significant even if
they had not been complemented by what for me was the most striking straw
in the wind. Earlier this month the New York Times published a profile of
Fritz Stern, the now retired but still very active professor of history at
Columbia University and one of my first and most significant mentors. I met
Stern as an undergraduate in the spring of 1974. His lecture course on
20th-century Europe combined intellectual lucidity and passion in a way I
had never imagined possible. It led me to graduate school, and if I later
became diverted from academia into journalism, it was no fault of his. In
grad school, I took his seminars and he sat on my orals and dissertation
committee. As was likely the case for many of Stern's students, I read
sections of his books The Politics of Cultural Despair and The Failure of
Illiberalism again and again in my early twenties, their phraseology
becoming imbedded in my own consciousness.
Stern had emigrated from Germany as a child in 1938 and spent a career
exploring how what may have been Europe's most civilized country could have
turned to barbarism. Central to his work was the notion that the readiness
to abandon democracy has deep cultural roots in German soil and that many
Europeans, not only Germans, yearned for the safeties and certainties of
something like fascism well before the emergence of fascist parties. One
could not come away from his classes without a sense of the fragility of
democratic systems, a deep gratitude for their success in the
Anglo-American world, and a wary belief that even here human nature and
political circumstance could bring something else to the fore.
He is not a man of the Left. He would have been on the Right side of the
spectrum of the Ivy League professoriat-seriously anticommunist, and an
open and courageous opponent of university concessions to the
"revolutionary students" of 1968. He might have described himself as a
conservative social democrat, of the sort that might plausibly gravitate
toward neoconservatism.
An essay of his in Commentary in the mid-1970s drew my attention to the
magazine for the first time.
But he did not go further in that direction, perhaps understanding
something about the neocons that I missed at the time. One afternoon in the
early 1980s, during a period when I was reading Commentary regularly and
was beginning to write for it, he told me, clearly enjoying the pun, that
my views had apparently "Kristolized."
It is impossible to overstate my pleasure at being on the same side of the
barricades with him today. That side is, of course, that of the antiwar
movement; the side of a conservatism (or liberalism) that finds Bush's
policies reckless and absurd and the neoconservatives who inspire and
implement them deluded and dangerous. In the past year, I had seen Stern's
letters to the editor in the Times ("Now the word 'freedom' has become a
newly invoked justification for the occupation of a country that did not
attack us, whose people have not greeted our soldiers as liberators. . The
world knows that all manner of traditional rights associated with freedom
are threatened in our own country. ... The essential element of a
democratic society-trust-has been weakened, as secrecy, mendacity and
intimidation have become the hallmarks of this administration. ... Now
'freedom' is being emptied of meaning and reduced to a slogan. But one
doesn't demean the concept without injuring the substance.") In the profile
of him in the Times, he sounds an alarm of the very phenomenon Roberts,
Raimondo, and Rockwell are speaking about openly.
To an audience at the Leo Baeck Institute, on the occasion of receiving a
prize from Germany's foreign minister, Stern noted that Hitler had seen
himself as "the instrument of providence" and fused his "racial dogma with
Germanic Christianity." This "pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics
largely ensured his success." The Times' Chris Hedges asked Stern about the
parallels between Germany then and America now. He spoke of national
mood-drawing on a lifetime of scholarship that saw fascism coming from
below as much as imposed by elites above. "There was a longing in Europe
for fascism before the name was ever invented... for a new authoritarianism
with some kind of religious orientation and above all a greater communal
belongingness. There are some similarities in the mood then and the mood
now, although significant differences."
This is characteristic Stern-measured and precise-but signals to me that
the warning from the libertarians ought not be simply dismissed as
rhetorical excess. I don't think there are yet real fascists in the
administration, but there is certainly now a constituency for them -hungry
to bomb foreigners and smash those Americans who might object. And when
there are constituencies, leaders may not be far behind. They could be
propelled into power by a populace ever more frustrated that the
imperialist war it has supported-generally for the most banal of patriotic
reasons-cannot possibly end in victory. And so scapegoats are sought, and
if we can't bomb Arabs into submission, or the French, domestic critics of
Bush will serve.
Stern points to the religious (and more explicitly Protestant) component in
the rise of Nazism-but I don't think the proto-fascist mood is strongest
among the so-called Christian Right. The critical letters this magazine
receives from self-identified evangelical Christians are almost always
civil in tone; those from Christian Zionists may quote Scripture about the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute in ways that are maddeningly nonrational and
indisputably pre-Enlightenment-but these are not the letters foaming with a
hatred for those with the presumption to oppose George W. Bush's wars for
freedom and democracy. The genuinely devout are perhaps less inclined to
see the United States as "God marching on earth."
Secondly, it is necessary to distinguish between a sudden proliferation of
fascist tendencies and an imminent danger. There may be, among some neocons
and some more populist right-wingers, unmistakable antidemocratic
tendencies. But America hasn't yet experienced organized street violence
against dissenters or a state that is willing-in an unambiguous fashion-to
jail its critics. The administration certainly has its far Right
ideologues-the Washington Post's recent profile of Alberto Gonzales, whose
memos are literally written for him by Cheney aide David Addington,
provides striking evidence. But the Bush administration still seems more
embarrassed than proud of its most authoritarian aspects. Gonzales takes
some pains to present himself as an opponent of torture; hypocrisy in this
realm is perhaps preferable to open contempt for international law and the
Bill of Rights.
And yet the very fact that the f-word can be seriously raised in an
American context is evidence enough that we have moved into a new period.
The invasion of Iraq has put the possibility of the end to American
democracy on the table and has empowered groups on the Right that would
acquiesce to and in some cases welcome the suppression of core American
freedoms. That would be the titanic irony of course, the mother of them
all-that a war initiated under the pretense of spreading democracy would
lead to its destruction in one of its very birthplaces. But as historians
know, history is full of ironies.
---
Stop Elmer Fudd web site: http://www.ElmerFudd.US/
Covert text file server: http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
FRice Antiwar: http://www.skeptictank.org/antiwar.htm
Another Scientology murder: http://PerkinsTragedy.org
.
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Fascism now has a constituency in America. |
09 Feb 2005 01:19:39 AM |
|
|
Fredric L. Rice wrote:
February 14, 2005 Issue
Copyright =A9 2005 The American Conservative
http://amconmag.com/2005_02_14/print/articleprint.html
Hunger for Dictatorship
War to export democracy may wreck our own. For the first time,
fascism now
has a constituency in America.
by Scott McConnell
Very interesting reading, especially coming from a conservative
voice. Here's an old favorite from 1944, and every words rings
true.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/082103F.shtml
The most telling segments:
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.
[...]
Still another danger is represented by those who, paying
lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their
insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives,
do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed
to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion.
American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned
with their German counterparts before the war, and are even
now preparing to resume where they left off, after "the
present unpleasantness" ceases[.]
Switch "German" for "islamic" and it hits home even harder.
Bob Dog
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Danger of American Fascism
By Henry A. Wallace
The New York Times
From Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn (New York, 1944), edited
by Russell Lord, p. 259.
Sunday 09 April 1944
On returning from my trip to the West in February, I received a
request from The New York Times to write a piece answering the
following questions:
What is a fascist?
How many fascists have we?
How dangerous are they?
A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with
such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races,
parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to
make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his
ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are
directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may
be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture,
religion, or a political party.
The perfect type of fascist throughout recent centuries has been
the Prussian Junker, who developed such hatred for other races
and such allegiance to a military clique as to make him willing
at all times to engage in any degree of deceit and violence
necessary to place his culture and race astride the world. In
every big nation of the world are at least a few people who have
the fascist temperament. Every Jew-baiter, every Catholic hater,
is a fascist at heart. The hoodlums who have been desecrating
churches, cathedrals and synagogues in some of our larger cities
are ripe material for fascist leadership.
The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air
and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for
others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so
significant as thousands of other people who have never been
mentioned. The really dangerous American fascists are not those
who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI
has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the
man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what
Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist
would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the
channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is
never how best to present the truth to the public but how best
to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist
and his group more money or more power.
If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict
puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are
undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There
are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition
to include only those who in their search for money and power are
ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are
enthusiastically supporting the war effort. They are doing this
even in those cases where they hope to have profitable
connections with German chemical firms after the war ends. They
are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to
be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar
wherever they may lead.
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=2EK.K. type of demagoguery.
The European brand of fascism will probably present its most
serious postwar threat to us via Latin America. The effect of
the war has been to raise the cost of living in most Latin
American countries much faster than the wages of labor. The
fascists in most Latin American countries tell the people that
the reason their wages will not buy as much in the way of goods
is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America
learn to speak and act like natives. Our chemical and other
manufacturing concerns are all too often ready to let the
Germans have Latin American markets, provided the American
companies can work out an arrangement which will enable them to
charge high prices to the consumer inside the United States.
Following this war, technology will have reached such a point
that it will be possible for Germans, using South America as a
base, to cause us much more difficulty in World War III than
they did in World War II. The military and landowning cliques in
many South American countries will find it attractive
financially to work with German fascist concerns as well as
expedient from the standpoint of temporary power politics.
Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the
United States will come after the war, either via Latin America
or within the United States itself.
Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip
service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable
greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate
surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the
public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this
stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts
before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they
left off, after "the present unpleasantness" ceases:
The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and
adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere
they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the
desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups
in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of
modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of
prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to
realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in
common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against
other religious, racial or economic groups. Likewise, many
people whose patriotism is their proudest boast play Hitler's
game by retailing distrust of our Allies and by giving currency
to snide suspicions without foundation in fact.
The American fascists are most easily recognized by their
deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and
propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every
crack in the common front against fascism. They use every
opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a
slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate
hate and distrust of both Britain and Russia. They claim to be
super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed
by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the
spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final
objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to
capture political power so that, using the power of the state
and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the
common man in eternal subjection.
Several leaders of industry in this country who have gained a
new vision of the meaning of opportunity through co-operation
with government have warned the public openly that there are
some selfish groups in industry who are willing to jeopardize
the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary
advantage. We all know the part that the cartels played in
bringing Hitler to power, and the rule the giant German trusts
have played in Nazi conquests. Monopolists who fear competition
and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal
opportunity would like to secure their position against small
and energetic enterprise. In an effort to eliminate the
possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would
sacrifice democracy itself.
It has been claimed at times that our modern age of technology
facilitates dictatorship. What we must understand is that the
industries, processes, and inventions created by modern science
can be used either to subjugate or liberate. The choice is up to
us. The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people. It
was Mussolini's vaunted claim that he "made the trains run on
time." In the end, however, he brought to the Italian people
impoverishment and defeat. It was Hitler's claim that he
eliminated all unemployment in Germany. Neither is there
unemployment in a prison camp.
Democracy to crush fascism internally must demonstrate its
capacity to "make the trains run on time." It must develop the
ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time
balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars
second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence
and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or
industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels. As
long as scientific research and inventive ingenuity outran our
ability to devise social mechanisms to raise the living
standards of the people, we may expect the liberal potential of
the United States to increase. If this liberal potential is
properly channeled, we may expect the area of freedom of the
United States to increase. The problem is to spend up our rate
of social invention in the service of the welfare of all the
people.
The worldwide, agelong struggle between fascism and democracy
will not stop when the fighting ends in Germany and Japan.
Democracy can win the peace only if it does two things:
Speeds up the rate of political and economic inventions so that
both production and, especially, distribution can match in their
power and practical effect on the daily life of the common man
the immense and growing volume of scientific research,
mechanical invention and management technique. Vivifies with the
greatest intensity the spiritual processes which are both the
foundation and the very essence of democracy.
The moral and spiritual aspects of both personal and
international relationships have a practical bearing which so-
called practical men deny. This dullness of vision regarding the
importance of the general welfare to the individual is the
measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the
spiritual significance of genuine democracy. Until democracy in
effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the
power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to
increase in power after the war both in the United States and in
the world.
Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-
Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already
American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict
and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and
intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.
It should also be evident that exhibitions of the native brand
of fascism are not confined to any single section, class or
religion. Happily, it can be said that as yet fascism has not
captured a predominant place in the outlook of any American
section, class or religion. It may be encountered in Wall
Street, Main Street or Tobacco Road. Some even suspect that they
can detect incipient traces of it along the Potomac. It is an
infectious disease, and we must all be on our guard against
intolerance, bigotry and the pretension of invidious distinction.
But if we put our trust in the common sense of common men and
"with malice toward none and charity for all" go forward on the
great adventure of making political, economic and social
democracy a practical reality, we shall not fail.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
