The slow creep of Fascism in America

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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.

It isn't even the fact that the destruction of the Twin Towers has not been proven to have been linked to these terrorists, or that Iraq didn't actually have Weapons of Mass Destruction as vehemently insisted upon by Bush and his minions; it is that they used the occasion to call upon those with heads deeply planted in the sand to begin waving flags in support of government-driven xenophobic initiatives.  It all served to introduce the next phase of Fascist Evolution.

Fascism is not new to this country, nor is it a conspiracy theory by half-baked paranoids.  It is alive and growing in this, our Republic, and has been for quite a long time.  Any developed country has, as part of its governing system, a certain level of fascism.  There needs to be a police element, otherwise there is anarchy.  A certain level of governmental control of information is necessary to secure military counter actions in national defense interests.  Prisons are established to correct criminal behavior. These defining principles of fascism are present intrinsically in any government.  The issue that needs to be watched and contained by the people, is to what level of existence the fascist element is present within said government.

America was supposed to be the land of the free.  The Statue of Liberty was meant as a beacon; calling to those across the globe to come to our door for refuge.  It is a place where religion was to be practiced freely, speech guaranteed, and a citizen had a right to vote for real representation.  Why then, are so many of our politicians uniting to close our borders, religion closed to anyone not Christian, and our electoral college a scene out of Himmler's own daydream?

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.

 

One can easily see other founding principles of Fascism in our system:

• Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
• Supremacy of the Military 
• Controlled Mass Media 
• Obsession with National Security
• Religion and Government are Intertwined 
• Corporate Power is Protected 
• Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts 
• Obsession with Crime and Punishment 
• Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
• Fraudulent Elections

 

These are just a few of the similarities between the rise of the Third Reich's call to Patriots to protect the German Nation, and the current call for blind Patriotic support of our Government today.  Yes, they are more subtle, more disguised, more executive, but to those who are aware they are signs of things to come.  All one has to do to see the future is to compare the Reich timeline with our own emerging one.

These sentiments are not just isolated in the words of these few people, they are the same beliefs that have been emerging in the Republican Party, the Freedom Party and the Tea Party Patriots.  These words may have been meant as protectionist statements, but so were the words of Hitler as felt by the Party and swallowed by a desperate people as a reaction to desperate times.

When a government set up as a beacon to those who have been downtrodden begins to extinguish not only the flame of Liberty but the very freedoms that this country was founded upon, it is time for a second look at reforming the very structure of that government.  The people that back these initiatives speak of Patriotism, but they act with very different character of a real Patriot. 

Milton Mayer finishes his book with the poignant words of his colleague:

Once the war began, the government could do anything 'necessary' to win it; so it was with the 'final solution' of the Jewish problem, which the "Reich" always talked about but never dared undertake, not even the "Reich", until war and its 'necessities' gave them the knowledge that they could get away with it.  The people abroad who thought that war against Hitler would help the Jews were wrong.  And the people in Germany who, once the war had begun, still thought of complaining, protesting, resisting, were betting on Germany's losing the war. It was a long bet. Not many made it.

As Erich Pratt stated so well: "If our government chooses to violate our unalienable rights; if our government chooses to pass unjust laws, contrary to the consent of the governed; if our government chooses to take despotic actions that reduce us to servitude of the government, or some political agenda --" then we have a right and a duty according to the Declaration of Independence to throw off such Government."

What will you do to avoid history's repetition and the continuation of the American Dream?  For those of you who have been sleeping for the past several years, I can only say this: Welcome to the slow creep of American Fascism.

Authors Website: http://www.spaulforrest.com

Authors Bio:
Steven Forrest is a Project Architect living in St. Petersburg, Florida. Currently, he is working to implement Green Building initiatives in several communities across Florida. Given the current situation in America and the continued stratification of society, he has taken to writing and blogging in an effort to contribute a bit of reason in a unreasoned news environment. You can read more of his articles at AmericaRevealed.org or listen weekly to Breaking Taboo - Mondays, 7:00 pm EST - at Newdissidentradio.com to his radio activism.