It Takes One to Know One
I have been thinking about this a lot over the past couple of days. Bush is now talking about "Islamic fascists". Isn't that catchy?
First I should say that things have gotten to the point that I can barely look at a newspaper or listen to radio news at all and TeeVee news is out of the question. I am really angry about how bad things have gotten. I am disgusted by the bloodbaths in the Middle East and the policies of the U.S. Government that have largely caused them.
I am angry that Joe Lieberman is using the arrests in England as a weapon against the guy he lost the primary to. He alleges it is proff that we are at war and need to stay the course blah blah blah. Still almost no one in this government, and certainly no on connected to the ruling regime, can say that Iraq was an optional invasion and occupation and had nothing to do with September 11 until they concocted a connection. A poll this week reveals that half the population still believes WMDs were found in Iraq. Almost as many think Iraq helped orchestrate the 9-11 attacks. This reinforces the reality that uninformed people are the true base of the Republican party. The GOP uses disinformation and psychology to maintain power over people who respond to catch phrases and televised propaganda. Even worse, Dick Cheney has crawled out from under his rock to spin recent events to energize his base of religious nuts, bubble millionaires and assorted other radical misfits.
There is so much denial now. It is difficult for me to continue doing the day to day stuff when it seems so diconnected from the mayhem and violence and waste that have been steadily increasing every week.
I am beyond my limit, I can tell you that.
Sometimes I wonder if I am becoming unhinged by it. A significant part of the problem is that a large portion of the U.S. population, if they try to get informed at all, are relying on corporate TeVee “News” to tell them what is happening which is not a way to really learn anything meaningful unless the viewer is really good at filtering and recontextualizing the information as it is systematically distorted.
Just as no one here wants to admit that Iraq is in a full blown civil war and has been for at least a couple of months. And few in this country are able to admit that we are living in a fascist country here and now.
Joe Lieberman is an eager supporter and enabler of fascism and he got what he deserved for cuddling up to the creeps. Clearly the voting machines in Connecticut have not yet been rigged as they have been in other states such as Ohio, but I am confident that they will be by November.
Anyway, I have been thinking about the very real reality that fascism is here in our country and in our lives. Even though life here in Brattleboro may not have changed for many of us in a lot of ways we know things have shifted and we know that federal money that used to be devoted to programs that helped people are now sent overseas to kill people with instead. We see the path of destruction and we are trapped inside the speeding vehicles and the doors are locked. I can’t just write about this, I need to do more…But what is meaningful given the present state of things? Protests don’t work. It is just going through the motions. You sit on a bus for a day and then arrive in Washington to roast/freeze you ass off in on a weekend when no decision makers are around and the media either ignores you or portrays you as clueless or haters of the republic. That form of protest is a ritual and little more. We would need to shut down the city for a week or more with tens of thousands of arrests to make any significant challenge in that way. A work stoppage is good, but unlike our French friends, I don’t think people here recognize that as a possibility. People in this country will go to work even after their neighbors are being sent to internment camps or disappear entirely. Not paying taxes is also a viable protest with a long history (Thoreau) but again people fear the IRS more than almost anything else. Half of our taxpayers would still pay up if they watched the entire transaction from taxpayer to government to military contractor (Halliburton, Lockheed-Martin etc. etc.) to dropping bombs on neighborhoods or raping and murdering Iraqi civilians.
So, what’s to be done?
http://fascismsucks.tribe.net/
I want to call your attention to this article by t r u t h o u t Executive Director Marc Ash which I found today after several days- hell several years really- of thinking pretty much the same ideas.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/081106Z.shtml
From Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language:
FASCISM: A system of government characterized by rigid one party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized governmental control, belligerent nationalism, racism and militarism, etc.
That's really the heart of the matter now isn't it, Mr. Bush. One might wonder if you are troubled by by the specter of fascism in your inner thoughts when you cast the accusation wildly into the public discourse.
What would the people of Iraq say about fascism if asked? But then they haven't been asked, have they - they've been liberated, of course. What would our founding fathers say about detention without due process, without end? Electronic surveillance of all Americans, without regard for the law? What is democracy if the citizens have no confidence in the integrity of their elections? Our military hurls five-hundred pound bombs all day and all night. They land on whom they land on. It is not an isolated act of madness, it is a coordinated act of state. All the while private corporations profit wildly.
Fascism, Mr. Bush, is not your strongest card. You should change the subject again.
I also want to call attention to the book Friendly Fascism by Bertram Gross
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Friendly_Fascism_BGross.html
http://www.southendpress.org/2004/items/Friendly
http://www.musicforamerica.org/node/70273
http://www.oilempire.us/fascism.html
http://www.cafepress.com/buy/party/-/pv_design_prod/pg_1/p_storeid.14506669/pNo_14506669/id_5661386/opt_/fpt_/c_/hlv_t
http://www.cafepress.com/irregulargoods.7350811