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Echoes of Fascism: Rhetoric We've Heard Before
"My administration has focused
the nation's resources on our highest priority - protecting our
citizens and our homeland," Bush said in his budget message.
"Working with Congress, we have given our men and women on the
front lines in the war on terror the funding they need to defeat
the enemy and detect, disrupt and dismantle terrorist plots and
operations."
"An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of
this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic
security and protect our homeland." -Adolph Hitler
By Katherine Brengle
02/06/06 "ICH"
-- -- According to Dr. Lawrence Britt’s “14 Defining Characteristics
of Fascism,” we are in big trouble here in the Disunited States of
America. While the American right continues to laugh at our
comparisons of Bush’s ongoing rhetoric and the rhetoric of fascist
dictator Adolf Hitler, it is no laughing matter.
We do not make these comparisons lightly, nor do they give us joy.
Dr. Britt named these as the fourteen defining characteristics of
fascism:
- Powerful and continuing nationalism
- Disdain for the recognition of human rights
- Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
- Supremacy of the military
- Rampant sexism
- Controlled mass media
- Obsession with national security
- Religion and government intertwined
- Corporate power protected
- Labor power suppressed
- Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
- Obsession with crime and punishment
- Rampant cronyism and corruption
- Fraudulent elections
The talking heads of the radical right like to point out that Hitler
belonged to his country’s socialist party, but I ask them to
consider this: If you run far enough to the left, you will
eventually cross over into the right. The political spectrum is
really more of a circle, not a straight line. In addition, using a
socialist platform to win the hearts and minds of the people does
not make one a socialist. Kind of like how using a platform of
“compassionate conservatism” doesn’t automatically make one
compassionate or conservative.
Our current government promotes unquestioning patriotism, policies
of torture and indefinite detainment without access to counsel,
identification of Islamic terrorists as something all US citizens
must live in fear of every day, the importance of strengthening our
military while cutting funding for other government programs, the
abolition of the legal right for a woman to make her own health
decisions, and discrimination against homosexuals. Our mainstream
mass media is controlled by the right. Our President is obsessed
with national security, maintaining the power of corporations to
drive policy, pollute the environment, and ship American jobs
overseas and south of the border. The American right shows a clear
disdain for labor unions and their objectives. Intellectuals are not
respected for their knowledge, but mocked. The very word
“intellectual” is used as an insult by the right. The
conservative-heavy US government is constantly touting its “tough on
crime” image while simultaneously languishing in more corruption
than the majority of Americans are even aware of. And our elections
have become a worldwide joke.
It’s more than a little bit scary.
And what is scarier is the fanaticism with which right-wing
commentators support our descent into fascism. In her August 17,
2005 column, conservative radical Ann Coulter (best known of late
for her suggestion that someone assassinate Supreme Court Justice
John Paul Stevens) had this to say, “America has been under
relentless attack from Islamic terrorists for 20 years, culminating
in a devastating attack on U.S. soil on 9/11 . It's not going to
stop unless we fight back, annihilate Muslim fanatics, destroy their
bases, eliminate their sponsors and end all their hope.” She is also
well-known for saying, a few years ago, that we should invade Muslim
countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.
Coulter, of course, is widely considered a hack and a radical, so
let’s not stop there.
The American right shudders in disgust when a liberal accuses the
government or the right-wing media of propagating fascist policies.
However, they aren’t so disgusted that they can’t use the same words
to describe us:
"In Newton County, Georgia, the ACLU threatened a school board
with litigation if it didn't remove the words 'Christmas
holiday' from the school calendar. The county caved and removed
the words because it couldn't afford to defend the lawsuit.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is fascism, that is, using the
threat of terror, which a lawsuit is, to promote policy" (Bill
O’Reilly, The O'Reilly Factor, 1/2/03).
Of course, it is more than appropriate for the President of the
United States to use the constant threat of terrorism to justify the
illegal torture of detainees, the illegal denial of counsel to
detainees, the illegal wiretapping of American citizens, the
illegal… No, forget it, I don’t have enough time to write this list.
The truth is, the right wing has taken over all branches of the
United States government consistently using the threat of terrorism
and the memory of September 11th. This wreaks of fascism.
And our government will continue to travel toward becoming a fascist
regime if we do not fight for change.
Katherine Brengle is a freelance writer and activist. She is also
a member of Military Families Speak Out, and her husband currently
serves with the United States Marine Corps in Iraq
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