BuzzFlash
presents Southern Style
by Rebecca Knight
Fearing Fascism
by Rebecca Knight
June
20, 2002
"…the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.
- George Orwell, in his novel 1984
How many Americans actually understand the meaning of fascism? More importantly, how many Americans have ever given fascism any thought? How many Americans spend any of their time contemplating the well being of our society and our civil liberties?
Based on current conditions the answer to those questions would surely be a very small percentage, and that is a sad commentary. It is the responsibility of every American citizen to inform himself or herself and to fight against encroachment of our constitutional liberties. There is no excuse for passivity. Just because the network news or the local newspaper does not report the story does not mean that it is not happening. Daily there is unmistakable evidence of lost civil liberties. It is time for all Americans to open their eyes and their minds to the realities of life in America, what it has been, what it is today, and what it could be in the future.
The word "fascism" causes confusion and heated debate in politics. There is much misunderstanding of the word. Fascism is defined as a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader. It also includes severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
Fascism is also characterized by blind obedience to authority, militarism, expanding jails and prisons, a subdued media, government propaganda, suppression of effective criticism, and privileged groups and classes. Fascism frequently is employed as a strategic base for war. Fascist shifts in government and official ideology grow with war preparations.
Fascism includes the following concepts: extreme nationalism, top down revolution or movement, destructive divisionism such as class warfare, extreme anti-communism, anti-socialism, anti-liberalism, extreme exploitation, opportunistic ideology lacking in consistency as a means to grab power, unbridled corporatism, reactionaries, the use of violence and terror to attain and maintain power, a cult-like figurehead, and the expounding of mysticism or religious beliefs.
The real danger of fascism is that it can creep into daily life unnoticed. Creeping fascism is the gradual loss of freedoms of the masses to the power elite. No one is going to make a grand announcement on national television that the leaders of our government adhere to the principles of fascism. No, it will be brought upon us by incremental policy changes in bits and pieces and the evidence that this is what is currently happening is overwhelming.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, this nation has been caught up in patriotic fervor and the zealous pursuit of the perpetrators of the heinous terrorist acts. Americans have accepted whatever the Bush administration has proposed as the right thing to do. Those who suggest that perhaps a little more explanation or evidence, of the necessity of changes that appear individually as harmless, but can cumulatively result in long term problems, are challenged as anti-American or unpatriotic.
Let's review the fundamental changes that have occurred in the past two years.
The American people lost the right to elect their president when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore on the basis of Equal Protection. Legal scholars have denounced the decision as politically motivated due to close connections of several justices to the Republican Party and the Bush campaign.
The Bush tax plan enacted in the spring of 2001 benefited the wealthiest Americans and corporations, an element of class warfare and top down revolution.
Immediately after Sept. 11, over one thousand non-citizens were detained on immigration charges in a dragnet of people who might have some connection to that carnage. Have any of those original one thousand persons been charged with involvement in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? Who knows? That no one knows where they are being held, or who they are, has led civil libertarians to liken them to the "disappeared" of Latin American dictatorships.
Bush signed a document declaring a state of emergency on Sept. 14, 2001, entitled "Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attack." This document was the first step towards the use of fourteen executive orders already in place giving FEMA and other governmental organizations the power to enforce a police state without congressional review.
On Sept. 15, 2001, in an incredibly broad mandate of military power to the president Congress enacted a Joint Resolution including the following statement:
That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committee, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations, or individuals.
Note the statement gives authority to the president based upon what he determines. This mandate went beyond the Tonkin Bay Resolution giving President Johnson authority to start the war on Vietnam, which lasted for twelve years. That mistake resulted in the 1973 War Powers Act to restrict the power of the president to start wars on his own and it requires the president to report back to congress within sixty days of troops entering armed conflict for congressional approval to continue. That resolution does not apply to the "war on terror" because congress gave Bush the authorization to continue in advance. Amazing! Bush gets to decide who he thinks was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, when to strike, and how long to continue. What was congress thinking? They were certainly irresponsible in giving Bush unlimited authority to continue military action as long as he deems appropriate.
Another distinguishing factor in this Joint Resolution is that no distinction is made between foreign and domestic, thus allowing the president to deploy the military against organizations and individuals domestically. The administration promptly called up thousands of National Guard troops and began deploying them around airports and other installations, ostensibly for protection against further acts of terrorism. However, it also makes the point that Americans should get used to seeing armed soldiers involved domestically. Welcome to Bush's New America.
On October 26, 2001, the Patriot Act was signed into law giving vast and unchecked powers to the Executive Branch. The bill was hurried through Congress while in the midst of anthrax attacks and warnings of more terrorist attacks to come. It was passed with almost no public hearing or debate and there was no conference or committee report. (1)
The Patriot Act includes the so-called "sunset provision" that results in its expiration in four years unless renewed by congress. However, the likelihood of the Patriot Act going away is realistically reflected by Cheney's statement, "Many of the steps we have now been forced to take will become permanent in American life. I think of it as the new normalcy."
On October 31, 2001, the Justice Department announced that any federal prisoner suspected of terrorism would no longer be allowed to have private meetings with their lawyers. All conversations between lawyers and these prisoners will be monitored.
After declaring an "extraordinary emergency," President Bush announced he had issued a directive claiming the power to order military trials for suspected international terrorists and their collaborators. That directive, which applies to non-U.S. citizens arrested here or abroad, allows him to take the highly unusual step of bypassing the nation's criminal justice system with its rules of evidence and constitutional guarantees.
On November 8, 2001, Attorney General Ashcroft announced "a wartime reorganization and mobilization of the nation's justice and law enforcement resources to meet the mission of the Department of Justice."
On November 14, 2001 an announcement was made that any person designated as a terrorist by the President is to be placed under the control of the Secretary of Defense and not allowed the aid of U.S. or foreign courts.
Ashcroft moved to inhibit press freedom, a First Amendment right, by encouraging federal agencies to use the pretense of national security to hide public records that the press is ordinarily entitled to receive under the Freedom of Information Act. The law was passed during the Cold War to encourage an open government. Ashcroft issued a memo to federal agencies telling officials that if they decide to deny requests for information filed under the FOIA, they "can rest assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions ...."
When the U.S. began Stealth-bombing Afghanistan, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency of the Defense Department purchased all rights to pictures of Afghanistan taken by the world's best commercial imaging satellite, allowing the Defense Department to keep the images secret forever. Adam Clayton Powell III, vice president of the Freedom Forum, stated: "This sets a precedent for the government to buy up all of the capability of a technology that can be used for independent verification and basic reporting."
Next the government asked all major television networks to not broadcast videotaped statements of Osama bin Laden. They agreed and for the first time in memory, the networks jointly limited prospective news coverage. The government feared that bin Laden might be sending secret messages, but the Arab television network, Al Jazeera, was continuing to broadcast the statements all over the world via satellite.
Clear Channel Communications, a major radio chain, produced a list of songs that were considered unpatriotic and suggested they should not be played on the air.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, there has been an unprecedented campaign stressing patriotism making the point that "we are all in this together and you're either with us or you're against us." While initially understandable as patriotic support for the victims and rescue workers of the Sept. 11 attacks, this soon transferred into support for the "war." Dissent was discouraged and journalists and college professors were threatened.
"There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do….
- Ari Fleischer, White House Spokesperson
This compulsory patriotism campaign escalated when the Secretary of Education called for all of the nation's fifty-two million school children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance simultaneously. Then the president asked children to each donate a dollar for aid to Afghan children who were being bombed. And while bombs were falling, relief packets with food were also being dropped.
Bush announced the creation of the Office of Homeland Security and appointed Tom Ridge to be the director. Ridge is a scary choice as he is an ardent supporter of the death penalty. While governor of Pennsylvania, he signed 220 death warrants.
On May 31, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft freed the FBI to visit Internet sites, libraries, churches and political organizations to give them new tools to preempt terrorist strikes. Critics said the new guidelines were just another erosion by the Bush administration of Americans' constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism. "The administration's constant defiance of constitutional safeguards seems to have no end in sight," complained Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. The new guidelines represent a loosening of restrictions laid out in the 1970's.
This long list of actions taken by the Bush administration represents most, if not all, the elements of fascism. We are in the throes of nationalism and super-patriotism with a sense of historic mission that is accepting of the silencing of dissent, authoritarian reliance on a leader who congress has given unprecedented power, the dehumanization of the enemy, the self-image of superiority, burgeoning corporatism, abandonment of long held civil liberties, and aggressive militarism glorifying war as good for the national spirit.
Daily, there is evidence of unmistakable brutality, economic oppression, and fear-ridden conformity. Are we so deadened by our own comfortable life styles that we lack the intellectual competence to understand our current situation? We must be able to make the distinction between incremental changes due to current circumstances and creeping fascism before it is too late. The enemy we seek abroad may be less dangerous than our own conditioned lack of enlightened thinking. Everything is not okay America!
We cannot afford to wait thinking things will get better. We cannot wait for that one shocking event to awaken American citizens, for that may never occur. In fact, that is not the traditional path of fascism. It happens in small, almost imperceptible, increments and before we know it, a nation is totally transformed into a totalitarian state.
The evidence demonstrates that these are times of great danger. Historically, times of great danger are also times when Americans begin to question what they are told and begin to awaken politically. Vocal and written opposition to fascist ideas does cause a reevaluation by thinking individuals. This is what must happen now. We must awaken and fight to have our dissenting voices heard. We fail to do this at our own peril.
"Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad."
- James Madison
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(1)
The USA PATRIOT Act: What's So Patriotic About Trampling on the Bill of
Rights?
http://www.ccr-ny.org/whatsnew/usa_patriot_act.asp
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Rebecca Knight is a native Tennessean, who grew up in Nashville. She currently resides in a small town about sixty miles outside of Nashville. Ms. Knight observed the political struggles of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam era, the Watergate era, and the cold war. Her political awareness evolved throughout those years. The debacle of the 2000 election intensified her interest in political activism. She may be contacted via e-mail at tennessee_gal655@yahoo.com.
© 2002 by Rebecca Knight
