For those of us who until recently thought the Republican Party was dying and fascism in the U.S. a spent force, it's disconcerting to suddenly realize that not only are these people refusing to go away, but that they're now as dangerous as ever, if not more so.
As I write this and as you read it, well-organized cadres of citizen storm troopers are disrupting meetings called by Democratic officials to discuss health care reform with their constituents, bullying the speakers and shouting down any attempt to keep the public discussion of health and insurance issues on track. The tactic is a replay of the so-called Brooks Brothers Riot of late 2000, which was extremely instrumental in halting the Florida recount, and led to a handful of rogue judges at the Supreme Court installing the fascist Bush administration in the White House.
People who take comfort in the Democrats' majority status need to be reminded that neither Hitler nor Mussolini ever received majorities at the polls prior to assuming power, and that now is the perfect moment for a resurgence of fascism, as the weak, wimpy, spineless, delicate and anemic Obama administration dissolves into a sad puddle of utter irrelevance.
Where's the widely-celebrated intelligence everybody talks about whenever Obama's name comes up? This is a guy so infatuated with the nobility of his own intentions that he actually began his administration with an apparently sincere appeal for "bipartisanship," as if the fascist ideologues, seething with hatred and obsessed with a racially-tinged compulsion to destroy him, were actually capable of "putting the past behind us" and conversing in good faith. He may as well have invited hyenas to his dinner table, and scorpions to inspect his clothes closet.
America today, with its fuzzy, unfocused liberalism and ignorant good intentions is replaying the tragedy of the Weimar Republic. Meanwhile, the fascists are equipped with clear objectives, and boldly embarked on a well-defined mission. For them there is no lie so outrageous and no treachery so immoral that it can't be excused when employed in achieving the ultimate objective -- absolute fascist dictatorship and the destruction of all fascism's enemies, real and imagined.
I fully expect the fascists to triumph, maybe as soon as 2012. As the tarp comes off the Obama administration's wholesale failure in the months ahead (Jim Kunstler's characterization of it is that "'Change you can believe in' has morphed into 'a status quo you will bend heaven and earth to hold onto.'"), look for the Great Charismatic Leader to appear -- and I'm not referring the towel-mouthed flash in the pan from the Great North, Ms. Palin. HE will offer simple solutions to our most complex problems, and satisfyingly emotional cures for the self-pity afflicting our confused and disoriented citizenry. And he will lead our Great and Sovereign Nation in a Restoration of its former Dignity and a Return to its Rightful Place in the World.
And then the shit will really hit the fan, because make no mistake, these people are out of their fucking minds.
4 comments:
Fascism is the emotionally and contemplatively lazy person's false refuge.
Joe, good to see you back again.
Fascism is sad, but in some ways as much as I hate it I don't blame people for going that way. It's a response to our existential lack of security.
If I was going to say one thing about people in certain North American and European countires over the last 100 years, it's that they've been misled.
Dave, it's great to have a nice place to come to.
They are powerful forces--hate radio and other rabble-rousing media. It is pretty easy to hate something but takes greater evaluation to love.
They aren't out of their minds at all. Reading just a few of your posts here, you seem to have a handle on the phenomenon, or maybe you haven't put it all together?
They, like you and me and "the other side", see all of their values and even the sense of their own intrinsic value being worn down and feel the helplessness of the situation. They have anger which needs an outlet. They are rightly directing this anger at the government, but they are basically directionless and thus easily herded toward whatever course gets drummed into them. They are just people, basically, and any of us could have become this somewhere along the way. Too much tv, too much propaganda... wherever it may come from.
The left could just as easily harness this as the right. It's only a matter of appealing to anger and disappointment. Call it disingenuous or even evil, but the winner is going to be the one that uses the baser instincts of the people to his advantage.
Of course, it could be too late now, as most of these people will once again equate the democratic party with the left and all of the failures of the last 20 years that are coming home to roost now. But then, that is all a part of the plan, isnt it?
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