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A fascist state exists where a nation begins to allow the control of its government by corporatism, single party political interests, and law enforcement that reaches beyond the normal necessity of such. There are many other defining characteristics of a fascist condition, but in the United States of America these basic ingredients have come to define a developing system that is leading the American people into a cage of control.
Most recently in this country, fascism has taken the form of overzealous faux-patriotism, and its accompanying legislation, in order to garner control of our nationalistic interests, domestic and abroad. It has condemned the speakers, the activists, the natural food producers, the non-Christians, immigrants and the poor. In fact, it has attacked everything that is America. 9/11 started the landslide toward our national village. Like an echo in the mountains unleashing an otherwise peaceful pack, this shot heard round the world shook the very base of our "Democracy" to the point where people without even the slightest idea of what Al-Qaeda was, started toting signs and waving flags when called upon by the Bush Regime to denounce and condemn the alleged actions of a terrorist organization from the remote country of Iraq.
It didn't matter that the attack was a direct result of this Nation's previous actions in a land we had no right to be in or that the attack had not been proved to be carried out by these profiled "terrorists." All that mattered was the American Government needed justification to invade and control an oil rich land. When the towers fell, the race was on for total governmental control over "We The People" and, by extension, the Middle East.
In reaction to this "attack" by those in charge, came the enacting of one of the most destructive pieces of Executive and Legislative acts in the history of this Country: The Patriot Act. This Wag the Dog "patriotism" initiative set into play a series of national protectionist acts the like of which hadn't been seen since the McCarthy Era. Not only did this legislation throw up a cloak of denial to the reasons behind 9/11 and use it as a reason to propel us into an immoral war, it enabled the government to intrude into our lives and deny the Constitutional Rights of We, the American people.
The gathering secrecy and purposeful placement of representatives of the fascist interests into the political arena is eerily consistent with the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. Milton Mayer wrote about this in his book, They Thought They Were Free :
What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
The Historical Parallels are frightening if one looks at it in context with the present initiatives of our American Paranoia in the wake of 9/11:
1. Hitler, or rather the Third Reich, propagated that economic conditions of Germany in 1932 were the fault of the Jewish population. They introduced anti-Jewish decrees, which gradually eliminated the rights of Jewish citizens. People listened attentively, believing every word.
- In 2007, Oklahoma State Representative, Randy Terrill, a Republican, pushed through a series of measures to try to drive out illegal immigrants, whom he blamed for economic hardship and lawlessness in his state. Many followed the call for reform of our immigration laws across the nation based upon this same belief.
2. In 1933, the Reich initiated internment camps for Habitual and Dangerous Criminals, which included beggars, the homeless, alcoholics, and the unemployed.
- The current push by the Right to cease current unemployment compensation payments, tougher sentencing for "habitual" criminals, which directly affected immigrants and the attempt by Marge Baker, a candidate for the Florida House of Representatives, told The Associated Press in 2010, that we needed to have camps because there are a lot of these people (illegal immigrants) roaming among us.
- The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.
3. In 1937, Jews were banned from many professional occupations including teaching Germans, and from being accountants or dentists. They are also denied tax reductions and child allowances.
- In 2010, the Arizona Department of Education has told schools that teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents are no longer allowed to teach English classes.
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