© 2006, UrbisMedia
While Red Staters are played like fish, baited with promises that America will one day be run with a Christian sharia , and hooked on the fear that terrorists will soon be building their mosques next to every Wal Mart that sells them the crap they’re addicted to, the Bush administration slides the country further towards its goal of corporate fascism.*
All the elements, though not yet completely in place, are present, for the fascist state to come into being. The most important thing is the consolidation of power around the main centers. There is first of all the military. While in fascist state we have known the military can be used on its own citizens the capabilities for such have been exercised only rarely in America, to put down protests in Washington, and to kill students protesters at Kent State and now will be employed to protect our borders from illegal aliens bent upon committing acts of terror on our English language and our agricultural produce. But it’s fed from the federal government with huge outlays for weapons systems and all sorts of internal propaganda that retains their fealty to the “commander–in-chief” who regularly appears before them and likes to dress up in their garb. Compliant ex-politicians and generals lobby on behalf of defense contractors, or sit on their boards and, with the collusion of bribe-taking congressmen like “Duke” Cunningham, form a fortress-like defense against most any complaint against waste and excess. High-ranking officers who do not fall into line with Pentagon policy are relieved of duty, forego promotions or are nudged into retirement. Troops are routinely used as a political weapon, but are scapegoated when their are abuses such as Abu Ghraib, or when the Secretary of State chooses to portray military failures as the result of “tactical” not “strategic” errors and failings. The “military-industrial complex,” so named by a former general and Republican president, is alive, well and prospering like never before.
The corporations comprise the second leg of the chair upon which fascism sits. Their allegiance is retained through generous tax arrangements, favorable treatment in the courts and protections against grievances by consumers, and a velvet glove when they are caught cheating (as in the savings and loan scandal and the Enron debacle), and progressive de-regulation of corporate behavior in everything from product safety to pension plan security. The complicity of the courts (have a look at Alito’s rulings in disputes between workers or consumers and corporations), posing organized labor as bolshevism, and complicit legislators (e.g. Frist and Hastert engineering lawsuit protections for pharmaceutical companies). When CEO salaries and shareholder profits are the primary concern it does no matter when products are outsourced, particular when foreign markets for goods are expanding. Let the American consumer amass debt to acquire goods that they used to be paid for making themselves. But, of course, fascism requires that some of these profits be returned to the politicians that helped make them possible. Very much part of the corporate influence upon government has been the almost exponential growth of lobbies in number and penetration. The most egregious example of their mounting power has been the likes of super lobbyist Jack Abramoff. There has been surprisingly little outrage over the fact that the Vice President met secretly with the heads of energy corporations to fashion the administration’s ludicrous energy policy, or the flagrant allowance of the pharmaceutical corporations to fashion a prescription drug policy that is clearly in their favor and is “enforced” by the inclusion of monetary penalties.
The control of information comprises a third leg of the seat of fascism. The agents of American fascism have made considerable inroads into the control of what the public knows and is allowed to know during the years of the Bush administration. Intimidation of the press as the establishment of the political left by continual reference to “media bias” has not been without result, virtually useless press conferences at the White House, the seeding of paid political “news” announcements that masquerade as journalistic reports. More recently, as the press has found some courage to begin questioning Republican policies and politicians the canard of “national security” concerns has been floated once more for the purposes of intimidation. Attorney General Gonzales recent reference to the use of the Patriot Act to perhaps prosecute reporters who “leak” classified information (this does not apply to the un prosecuted Robert Novak, who committed treason by outing CIA agent Valerie Plame), and the intimidation of three ABC reporters who have had their phone records acquired by the NSA. Of course without such “leaks” the American public would never have known of abuses such as Abu Ghraib, or lies such as about the death of soldier Pat Tillman.
The fourth leg of the chair of American fascism takes its cue from many South American authoritarian regimes, especially of the past—the complicity of putative “moral authority” of the people. This addition, primarily in the form of fundamentalist Christian churches and their “universities,” evangelistic organizations, and vast media system, has functioned as a ready voting bloc of “useful idiots,” as well as moral shock troops over issues such as abortion and gay marriage that serve to demonize and intimidate politicians. Evangelical fundamentalists also provide a ratification cohort for policies such as in Palestine, or, more broadly, military adventures against foes that have been characterized in such terms as “evil” and “godless.” There is, at the most general level, a kinship between religious authority and fascism in that they both rely heavily upon secrecy and, most especially, the use of fear.
Is this the textbook fascism as we have seen it in other countries, like Italy and Germany in the 30s and 40s? No, it need not be, and Americans would probably never suffer such political domination. But it is a creeping form of persistent semi-martial law, with all the threats, secrecy, suspension of civil rights. It is increasing control or intimidation of social institutions, the domination of the executive over other branches of government, and the threat that opposition to it will be called treason, aiding the enemy, and anti-American. Then there is increasing control over the “electoral process”. And, like classical fascistic systems it employs fear, fear to divide, fear intimidate, and fear of the “enemy” as the rationale for its arrogation of authority. The trump is that there is apparently no end point, offered by the administration, as to when the so-called “war on terror” will end; ergo the Patriot Act needs to never end, the NSA’s powers to spy upon American citizens need never to be rescinded.
Ironically, it serves the purposes of Al Qaeda and the enemies of America to keep an increasingly fascistic administration in office. The Bush administration can, and has, dome more damage to America than dozens of airplanes flown into buildings. AQ has planted the fear, the Administration has seen the political advantage of using it to consolidate its power by dividing the nation, of spending itself into fiscal penury, and of paradoxically rescinding some of the very democratic freedoms it allegedly wishes to export to the rest of the world. It is the characteristic of fascistic systems that they are one-dimensional; they must increase their authoritarianism to retain their power and control. They must burn the village to save it. Unless the people decide not to be afraid.
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©2006, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 5.24.2006)
See also Archives No, 17.6: Slouching Towards Fascism