I’m furious, I’m seething, I’m enraged with what’s happening in North America right now. So I hope that if anyone’s reading this, you’ll stick with me through something that you’ll probably find uncomfortable.
The 10 steps in Naomi Wolf’s “Fascist America, in 10 easy steps” are:
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens’ groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law
She makes a pretty good case that America has met each of those, that *some* comparisons can be made between Nazi Germany and current-day USA, and that America is undergoing a “fascist shift” that endangers democracy. I have to quote a longer bit than I’d like,
Of course, the United States is not vulnerable to the violent, total closing-down of the system that followed Mussolini’s march on Rome or Hitler’s roundup of political prisoners. Our democratic habits are too resilient, and our military and judiciary too independent, for any kind of scenario like that.
Rather, as other critics are noting, our experiment in democracy could be closed down by a process of erosion.
It is a mistake to think that early in a fascist shift you see the profile of barbed wire against the sky. In the early days, things look normal on the surface; peasants were celebrating harvest festivals in Calabria in 1922; people were shopping and going to the movies in Berlin in 1931. Early on, as WH Auden put it, the horror is always elsewhere – while someone is being tortured, children are skating, ships are sailing: “dogs go on with their doggy life … How everything turns away/ Quite leisurely from the disaster.”
As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are “at war” in a “long war” – a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president – without US citizens realising it yet – the power over US citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone.
Or “George W Bush and the 14 points of fascism”,
1.) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3.) Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4.) Supremacy of the Military
5.) Rampant Sexism
6.) Controlled Mass Media
7.) Obsession with National Security
8.) Religion and Government are Intertwined
9.) Corporate Power is Protected
10.) Labor Power is Suppressed
11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12.) Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13.) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14.) Fraudulent Elections
If you think some of these things aren’t happening, to some degree, in America right now, you are seriously delusional. Google “fascist america” yourself to see other stories. I think many “liberals” in both countries will immediately recognize the truth in this.
I imagine the mood in Germany after World War I was surprisingly similar to post-9/11 America. Hitler seized on the hatred, ignorance and intolerance to murder 6 million Jews and cause World War II. As I understand it, Germans during the 1930s were bombarded with so many messages of anti-semitism that it ended up making reasonable people do completely unreasonable things.
In 2008, the perceived enemy is Islam, and to a slightly lesser degree, homosexuality or anyone who doesn’t meet your idea of “Christian” and “patriotic”.
Recently, after the right-wing Clarion Fund distributed a hate DVD entitled “Obsession”, somebody gassed a mosque in Dayton, Ohio, sending innocent people to hospital. This was intended to do one thing: terrify innocent people, i.e. “terrorism”, but I’ll bet you the whack-job that did it thought he was striking a blow for his country (just like Al Qaeda does). You’ve got plenty more agents of hate: the entire “religious right”, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, I could go on and on…
Now, in Toronto, we’re feeling the effects of a coordinated anti-liberal campaign. We have Michael Coren on CFRB spewing a message of hatred and intolerance of homosexuals, blacks, liberals and non-catholics. He literally (and frequently) uses the word “liberal” as an insult. And we have a terror campaign all our own – people with Liberal election signs are having the brake lines cut on their cars, some are families with car seats. I don’t know whether I call this a “hate crime”, “political terrorism” or just attempted murder, but THIS IS NOT THE CANADA I BELIEVE IN!!!!
In America, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute and a multitude of other conservative think tanks have done such a good job of lying about global warming that many reasonable North Americans doubt whether it’s real or whether we’re causing it. They use the same strategy as big tobacco used – confuse the people about the consensus to delay any meaningful action. Their ultimate goal – avoiding regulation.
In Canada, we have Lawrence Solomon at the National Post. Together, Canada and the US were among the biggest obstacles to any deal happening at the recent global warming talks in Bali.
In the US, you have an increasingly desperate McCain/Palin team that are perfectly willing to let the implication circulate that Barrack Obama is a muslim, a terrorist or even the dreaded “unpatriotic”. Apparently, only the Republican party can keep America safe. It seems to me they barely even bother trying to tell the truth at all anymore, they just keep ratcheting up the lies.
Meanwhile, we have Bush’s lap-dog, Stephen Harper, treating all the other parties in our current election as if they’re actively trying to destroy the country, that he and only he is capable of leading Canada. He seems to have taken lessons from Karl Rove.
You have a war in Iraq that we all know should never have been started.
We have a Prime Minister who was ashamed of his country because it didn’t want to join in.
More than us, you have media that don’t do enough to hold politicians truly accountable. You allow John McCain to run a campaign based mostly on fabrications, distortions and outright lies, while media “pundits” debate whether Joe Biden or Sarah Palin won the debate. Seriously!
Also more than us, you have the enemies of rational thought, the creationists. But don’t think the problem doesn’t exist in Canada – the last Ontario provincial election was lost almost exclusively over John Tory’s stand on faith-based schools, thank god (I use that only as the best expression I can find).
Ok, enough anger for now…
I’ve always used relatively simple criteria for deciding who to vote for:
1. Is the candidate qualified?
2. Can I trust him/her (as much as you can trust any politician)?
3. Is this someone that I would respect as a leader and that I think would represent me well?
4. Do I generally agree with their message and issues? This one’s always the hardest, because there are so many issues.
Here’s my take on the current bunch of politicians, using these criteria:
Barrack Obama: I know many Americans are too racist to vote for a black man, even if they camouflage it under more PC terms, and I fear for his life if he’s elected. I don’t condone what his pastor said, but I understand the anger that black Americans feel. I also know how much that offends many white people because it challenges their perception of their country as the greatest in the world. I don’t like any association with Weather Underground, but it sounds pretty slim, the guy seems to have mellowed and anyway I see no hint of that in Obama, so it’s a non-issue. I think he has enough experience, after all, it’s not like he has to run the entire country himself. But I think he wants the job out of a commitment to service to his country, that he’s a leader who can unite the country and represent it well on the world stage.
Joe Biden: Qualified, trustworthy, respectable, fine on the issues. He’d probably be able to take over as President if Obama does get shot.
John McCain: Qualified, but I can’t believe a word he says anymore. I think he’s misogynistic (sp?), has a volcanic temper, is not a “maverick” and is not at all the person I would want representing me. On the issues, he has been dead wrong about de-regulation, dead wrong about Iraq, he’s not “change” at all.
Sarah Palin: Qualified to be a hockey mom or a beauty queen, would be ashamed to have her as VP, can’t even imagine her as PUSA. I believe the history of firing people, trying to ban books, using private email for government business, husband involved in government business, etc. I’m against almost everything she stands for.
