In the current Seattle Weekly, editor Knute Berger ponders whether the GOP zeitgeist really is heading in the direction of classic fascism.
He starts by noting the terms “fascist” and “Nazi” have become overused in recent decades to the point of near-meaninglessness. I can agree, having personally listened to a guy describing marijuana laws as a worse abuse of authority than the Holocaust. And, as I’ve already mentioned, the most predictable cliche in online discussion boards is for a “thread” to collapse into mutual Nazi-name calling.
So now we have a national government that achieved power by insider dealmaking, unabashed demagoguery, and outright theft; out to systematically dismantle representative democracy, civil liberties, and most of the Constitution; placing its perceived political opponents on lists of “terror suspects” to be denied freedom to travel; desirious to replace the whole civil-service system with a “privatization” scheme based on big-money cronyism; preaching “Christian morality” but behaving in an extremely un-Christlike manner; adamant about busting the treasury for billionaires’ tax breaks; eager to force its will upon any and every other nation; justifying all its crimes under the telltale slogan “homeland security.”
And the terms that might best describe this particular form of despotism have devolved, among some swaths of the populace, into almost meaningless all-purpose epithets, commonly used to denounce anything from the movie-ratings system to no-parking zones.
The new age people say we become whatever we’re obsessed with, whether that obsession is based in love or hatred. At least since the Reagan era and probably earlier, the post-hippie left has been obsessed with finding fascism everywhere outside its own subculture, so as to smugly claim to be the one and only defenders of freedom. It’s difficult to work for economic justice, to run election campaigns, or to fight class-action lawsuits. It’s far, far easier to simply draw Hitler moustaches onto the faces of every politician, to sneer at “new world orders,” and to dismiss every U.S. citizen outside of your own little clique as a quasi-goosestepper.
I’m not saying the left, mystically yet inadvertantly, willed the current politick into being. But it didn’t help to just assume all these years that it was already here, just so you could feel good about yourself. It didn’t help to vilify the regular citizens you should be defending. It didn’t help to reject actual political participation.
If, as Berger asks, the Republicans really are morphing into fascists, it’s a different kind than the old Italian, German, Japanese, Greek, Chilean, or Spanish versions. For one thing, it’ll claim to not be racist, at least on the higher official levels (welcoming the participation of anti-Castro Cubans and Condoleeza Rice, making convoluted distinctions between “good Arabs” and “bad Arabs”). It might not demand disciplinarian lifestyles, at least not among the affluent. It’ll proclaim freedom of religion (except for Muslims).
But in the aspects that count, the trends are ominous. Militaristic huzzas-huzzas everywhere you look. A fast-narrowing range of acceptable-in-public opinions (that gets even narrower in the big national media). A regime steadily disrobing any claims to be operating on behalf of anyone but big moneybags. Federal spies and goons running about unrestrained.
Working to turn back these trends is the single most important thing any of us can do now. It transcends all single-issue causes, which would be rendered moot if the power-grabbers continue. And it’s a helluva lot more important than individual or collective ego trips.
IN SOMEWHAT HAPPIER NEWS, The Seattle monorail referendum survived the late-absentee count to pass by 868 votes. Yet its opponents, ever-virulant about the people meddling in decisions deemed the exclusive domain of “experts,” will still try to kill it through backdoor state legislation and other tactics. What part of YES don’t you understand?
