[Paleopsych] Justin Raimondo: A Fascist America: How Close Are We?
Premise Checker
checker at panix.com
Sat Apr 9 17:54:15 UTC 2005
Justin Raimondo: A Fascist America: How Close Are We?
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5070
5.3.5
[The problem with this article is that it could have been written any time
since FDR was elected.]
Quotable
Total war is no longer war waged by all members of one national
community against all those of another. It is total...because it may
well involve the whole world.
- Jean-Paul Sartre
The idea that America is turning [23]fascist has been [24]popular on
[25]the Left for as long as I can remember: in [26]the 1960s, when
antiwar radicals [27]raged against the Machine, this kind of hyperbole
dominated [28]campus political discourse and even made its way into
[29]the mainstream. When the radical [30]Symbionese Liberation Army
went into ultra-Left meltdown and began issuing incoherent
"[31]communiqués" to an indifferent American public, they invariably
signed off [32]by declaring: "Death to the fascist insect pig that
preys on the life of the people!"
Such rhetoric, too overheated for American tastes, was quite obviously
an exaggeration: America in the 1960s was no more "fascistic" than
[33]miniskirts, [34]Hula Hoops, and the rhyming [35]demagoguery of
Spiro T. Agnew. Furthermore, we weren't even close to fascism, as the
downfall of Richard M. Nixon made all too clear to whatever
[36]incipient authoritarians were nurtured at the breast of the GOP.
Back in those halcyon days, America was, in effect, practically immune
from the fascist virus that had wreaked such havoc in Europe and Asia
in previous decades: there was a kind of innocence, back then, that
acted as a vaccine against this dreaded affliction. Fascism [37]the
demonic offspring of war was practically a stranger to American soil.
After all, it had been a century since America had been a
battleground, and the sense of invulnerability that is the hallmark of
youth permeated our politics and culture. Nothing could hurt us: we
were forever young. But as we moved into the new millennium, Americans
[38]acquired a sense of their own mortality: an acute awareness that
we could be hurt, and badly. That is the legacy of 9/11.
Blessed with a [39]double bulwark against foreign invasion the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans America hasn't experienced the atomizing
effects of large-scale military conflict on its soil since [40]the
Civil War. On that occasion, you'll remember, Lincoln, the "Great
Emancipator," nearly emancipated the U.S. government from [41]the
chains of the Constitution by [42]shutting down newspapers,
[43]jailing his political opponents, and cutting a [44]swathe of
destruction through the South, which was occupied and treated like a
conquered province [45]years after Lee surrendered. He was the
[46]closest to a dictator that any American president has come but
George W. Bush may well surpass him, given [47]the possibilities that
now present themselves.
From the moment the twin towers were hit, the fascist seed began to
germinate, to [48]take root and [49]grow. As the first shots of what
the neocons call "[50]World War IV" rang out, piercing the post-Cold
War calm like a [51]shriek straight out of Hell, the political and
cultural climate underwent a huge shift: the country became, for the
first time in the modern era, a hothouse conducive to the growth of a
genuinely [52]totalitarian tendency in American politics.
The events of 9/11 were an enormous defeat for the U.S., and it is
precisely in these circumstances the traumatic humbling of a power
once considered mighty that the [53]fascist impulse begins to find its
first expression. That, at any rate, is the historical experience of
Germany, for example, where a defeated military machine regenerated
itself on the strength of German resentment and [54]lashed out at
Europe once again. The terrible defeat of World War I, and the
injustice of the peace, created in Weimar Germany the cradle of
[55]National Socialism: but in our own age, where everything is
speeded up by the Internet and the sheer momentum of the knowledge
explosion a single battle, and a single defeat, can have the same
Weimarizing effect.
The Republican Party's response to 9/11 was to push through the most
repressive series of laws since the [56]Alien and Sedition Acts,
starting with the "[57]PATRIOT Act" and [58]its successors [59]making
it possible for American citizens to be held without charges, without
public evidence, without trial, and giving the federal government
unprecedented powers to conduct surveillance of its own citizens.
Secondly, Republicans began to typify all opposition to their
warmaking and anti-civil liberties agenda as practically
[60]tantamount to treason. Congress, thoroughly intimidated, was
silent: they supinely voted to give the president [61]a blank check,
and he is [62]still filling in the amount
The intellectual voices of American fascism began to be heard in the
land before the first smoke had cleared from the stricken isle of
Manhattan, as even some alleged "libertarians" began to advocate
giving up traditional civil liberties all Americans once took for
granted. "It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes,"
[63]wrote "libertarian" columnist and Reason magazine contributing
editor Cathy Young, "perhaps there are no true libertarians in times
of terrorist attacks," she noted, as she defended government spying on
Americans and denounced computer encryption technology as "scary." As
much as Young's self-conception as a libertarian is the result of a
misunderstanding, that infamous "anti-government" sentiment that used
to permeate the GOP evaporated overnight. [64]Lew Rockwell trenchantly
labeled this phenomenon "red-state fascism," writing:
"The most significant socio-political shift in our time has gone
almost completely unremarked, and even unnoticed. It is the dramatic
shift of the red-state bourgeoisie from leave-us-alone libertarianism,
manifested in the Congressional elections of 1994, to almost
totalitarian statist nationalism. Whereas the conservative middle
class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it
now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its
military wing."
This worrisome shift in the ideology and tone of the conservative
movement has also been noted by the economist and writer [65]Paul
Craig Roberts, a former assistant secretary of the Treasury, who
points to the "brownshirting" of the American Right as a harbinger of
the fascist mentality. I raised the same point in [66]a column, and
the discussion was [67]taken up by Scott McConnell, editor of The
American Conservative, in a thoughtful essay that appeared in the Feb.
14 issue of that magazine. My good friend Scott sounds a skeptical
note:
"It is difficult to imagine any scenario, after 9/11, that would not
lead to some expansion of federal power. The United States was
suddenly at war, mobilizing to strike at a Taliban government on the
other side of the world. The emergence of terrorism as the central
security issue had to lead, at the very least, to increased domestic
surveillance of Muslim immigrants especially. War is the health of the
state, as the libertarians helpfully remind us, but it doesn't mean
that war leads to fascism."
All this is certainly true, as far as it goes: but what if the war
takes place, not in distant Afghanistan, but on American soil? That, I
contend, is the crucial circumstance that makes the present situation
unique. [68]Yes, war is the health of the State but a war fought down
the block, instead of on the other side of the world, means the total
victory of State power over individual liberty as an imminent
possibility. To paraphrase McConnell, it is difficult to imagine any
scenario, after another 9/11, that would not lead to what we might
call fascism.
[69]William Lind, director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at
the Free Congress Foundation and a prominent writer on military
strategy, argues that what he calls "cultural Marxism" is a much
greater and more immediate danger than militaristic fascism, and that,
in any case, the real problem is "abstract nationalism," the concept
of "the state as an ideal." This ideal, however, died amid the
destruction wrought by World War I, and is not about to be
resurrected. And yet
Lind raises the possibility, at the end of his piece, that his
argument is highly conditional:
"There is one not unlikely event that could bring, if not fascism,
then a nationalist statism that would destroy American liberty: a
terrorist event that caused mass casualties, not the 3,000 dead of
9/11, but 30,000 dead or 300,000 dead. We will devote some thought to
that possibility in a future column."
I was going to wait for Mr. Lind to come up with that promised column,
but felt that the matter might be pressing enough to broach the
subject anyway. Especially in view of [70]this, not to mention
[71]this.
If "everything changed" on the foreign policy front in the wake of
9/11, then the domestic consequences of 9/11 II are bound to have a
similarly transformative effect. If our response to the attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon was to launch a [72]decades-long
war to [73]implant democracy throughout the Middle East and the rest
of the world, [74]what will we do when the battlefield shifts back to
the continental U.S.? I shudder to think about it.
The [75]legal, [76]ideological, and [77]political elements that go
into the making of a genuinely fascist regime in America are already
in place: all that is required is [78]some catalytic event, one that
needn't even be on the scale of 9/11, but still dramatic enough to
give real impetus to the creation of a police state in this country.
The legal foundation is already to be found in the arguments made by
the president's lawyers in asserting their "right" to [79]commit
torture and other war crimes, under the "constitutional" aegis of the
chief executive's [80]wartime powers. In time of war, [81]the
president's lawyers argue, our commander-in-chief has the power to
immunize himself and his underlings against legal prosecution: they
transcend the law, and are put beyond the judgement of the people's
representatives by presidential edict. Theoretically, according to the
militarist interpretation of [82]the Constitution, there is no power
the president may not assume in wartime, because his decisions are
"[83]unreviewable." On account of military necessity, according to
this doctrine, we have to admit the possibility that the Constitution
[84]might itself be suspended and [85]martial law declared the minute
war touches American soil.
It wouldn't take much. There already exists, in the [86]neoconized
Republican Party, a mass-based movement that [87]fervently believes in
a [88]strong central State and a [89]foreign policy of [90]perpetual
war. The brownshirting of the American conservative movement, as Paul
Craig Roberts [91]stingingly characterized the ugly transformation of
the American Right, is so far along that the president can propose the
[92]biggest expansion of federal power and spending since the
[93]Great Society with nary a peep from the [94]former enthusiasts of
"smaller government."
While the Newt Gingrich Republicans of the early 1990s were never
really libertarians in any but a rhetorical sense [95]Newt himself has
always been a hopelessly statist neocon the great difference today is
that the neocons are coming out with an openly authoritarian program.
David Frum and Richard Perle, in their book [96]An End to Evil,
advocate establishing an [97]Orwellian government database and
comprehensive electronic surveillance system that not only keeps
constant track of the whereabouts of everyone in the country, but also
stores a dossier, complete with their religious and political
affiliations. If anyone had brought such a proposal to the table in
the pre-9/11 era, they would have been laughed out of town and
mercilessly ridiculed for the rest of their lives. But today, the
neocon tag-team of Frum and Perle not only gets away with it, but
these strutting martinets are lauded by [98]the same "conservatives"
who used to rail against "Big Government."
The label "[99]neoconservative" has always been unsatisfactory, in
part because the neocon ideology of rampant militarism,
super-centralism, and unrestrained statism is necessarily at war with
the libertarian aspects of authentic conservatism (the sort of
conservatism that, say, [100]Frank S. Meyer or [101]Russell Kirk would
find recognizable). Let's start calling things by their right names:
these aren't neoconservatives. What we are witnessing is the rebirth
of fascism in 21st century America, a movement motivated by the three
principles of classical fascist ideology:
1) The idealization of the State as the embodiment of an all-powerful
national will or spirit;
2) The leader principle, which personifies the national will in the
holder of a political office (whether democratically elected or
otherwise is largely a matter of style), and
3) The doctrine of [102]militarism, which bases an entire legal and
economic system on war and preparations for war.
Of these three, militarism really is the fountainhead, the first
principle and necessary precondition that gives rise to the others.
The militarist [103]openly declares that life is conflict, and that
the doctrine of [104]economic and political liberalism which holds
that there is no necessary conflict of interests among men is wrong.
Peace is cowardice, and the values of prosperity, pleasure, and living
life for its own sake are evidence of mindless hedonism and even
decadence. Life is not to be lived for its own sake: it must be risked
to have meaning, and, if necessary, [105]sacrificed in the name of a
"higher" (i.e., abstract) value. That "higher" value is not only
defined by the State, it is the State: in war, the [106]soldier's life
is risked on behalf of government interests, by government personnel,
on behalf of expanding government power.
These beliefs are at the core of the fascist mentality, but there are
other aspects of this question too many to go into here. Since fascism
is a form of extreme nationalism, every country has its own unique
variety, with idiosyncrasies that could only have arisen in a
particular locality. In one country, [107]religion will play a
prominent role, in others a more secular strategy is pursued: but the
question of imminent danger, and the seizure of power as an
"[108]emergency" measure to prevent some larger catastrophe, is a
common theme of fascist coups everywhere, and in America it is playing
out no differently.
While [109]Pinochet pointed to the imminent danger of a Communist
revolution as did Hitler the neo-fascists of our time and place cite
the [110]omnipresent threat of a terrorist attack in the U.S. This is
a permanent rationale for an ever escalating series of draconian
measures fated to go far beyond the "PATRIOT Act" or anything yet
imagined.
Already the intellectual and political ground [111]is being prepared
for censorship. The conservative campaign to discredit the
"mainstream" media, and challenge its status as a watchdog over
government actions, could easily go in an unfortunate direction if Bin
Laden succeeds in his vow to take the fight to American shores. Well,
since they're lying, anyway, why not shut them down? After all, this
is a "national emergency," and "[112]they're not antiwar, they're on
the other side."
The neoconservative movement represents the quintessence of fascism,
as expressed by some of its intellectual spokesmen, such as
[113]Christopher Hitchens, who infamously hailed the Afghan war as
having succeeded in "bombing a country back out of the Stone Age."
This belief in [114]the purifying power of violence its magical,
transformative quality is the real emotional axis of evil that
motivates the War Party. This is especially true when it comes to
those thuggish ex-leftists of [115]Hitchens' ilk who found shelter in
the neoconservatives' many mansions when the roof fell in on their old
Marxist digs. Neocon ideologue [116]Stephen Schwartz defends a regime
notorious for torturing dissidents, shutting out all political
opposition, and arresting thousands on account of their political and
religious convictions [117]in Uzbekistan. How far are such people from
rationalizing the same sort of regime in the U.S.?
At least one prominent neocon has made [118]the case for censorship,
in the name of maintaining "morality" but now, it seems to me, the
"national security" rationalization will do just as well, if not
better.
McConnell is right that we are not yet in the grip of a fully
developed fascist system, and the conservative movement is far from
thoroughly neoconized. But we are a single terrorist incident away
from all that: a bomb placed in a mall or on the Golden Gate Bridge,
or a biological attack of some kind, could sweep away the
Constitution, [119]the Bill of Rights, and two centuries of legal,
political, and cultural traditions all of it wiped out in a single
instant, by means of a single act that would tip the balance and push
us into the abyss of post-Constitutional history.
The trap is readied, baited, and waiting to be sprung. Whether the
American people will fall into it when the time comes: that is the
nightmare that haunts the dreams of patriots.
Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the
author of [192]An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard
(Prometheus Books, 2000). He is also the author of [193]Reclaiming the
American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (with an
Introduction by Patrick J. Buchanan), (Center for Libertarian Studies,
1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S.
Intervention in the Balkans (1996).
He is a contributing editor for [194]The American Conservativ[195]e, a
Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, and an Adjunct Scholar
with the [196]Ludwig von Mises Institute, and writes frequently for
[197]Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
References
23. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Definition
24. http://www.alternativeradio.org/programs/CHON076.shtml
25. http://www.marxist.com/Asia/vietnam1945.html
26. http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/Vietnam/riseandfall.html
27. http://www.isreview.org/issues/31/sds.shtml
28. http://www.harvardmagazine.com/issues/so99/conserv.html
29. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/6938076.htm
30. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army
31. http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/12259/
32. http://www.answers.com/topic/symbionese-liberation-army
33. http://www.geocities.com/FashionAvenue/Catwalk/1038/miniskirt.html
34. http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/hulahoop.html
35. http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/spiro-t-agnew/
36. http://www.liddyshow.us/
37. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-18,GGLD:en&q=versailles+treaty+rise+fascism
38. http://www.indystar.com/library/factfiles/crime/national/2001/sept11/
39. http://www.vpa.org.vn/picture/map_North-America.jpg
40. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0847697223/antiwarbookstore
41. http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:o5z7xnDj9xEJ:www.mises.org/freemarket_detail.asp%3Fcontrol%3D233%26sortorder%3Darticledate+the+chains+of+the+Constitution&hl=en
42. http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman16.html
43. http://www.fff.org/freedom/1100e.asp
44. http://sciway3.net/clark/civilwar/march.html
45. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h396.html
46. http://www.lneilsmith.com/abelenin.html
47. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?schema=&vnu_content_id=1000819252
48. http://www.nationalreview.com/coulter/coulter091301.shtml
49. http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/007364.html
50. http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts8.html
51. http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2004-01-27-911-hearings_x.htm
52. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D88IEJSO2.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down
53. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-18,GGLD:en&q=hitler+avenge
54. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/1/newsid_3506000/3506335.stm
55. http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/history/A0834972.html
56. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/alsedact.htm
57. http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12126&c=207%20
58. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/11/20021125-6.html
59. http://www.bobbarr.org/default.asp?pt=newsdescr&RI=554
60. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/4/1/24950.shtml
61. http://www.yourcongress.com/ViewArticle.asp?article_id=2686
62. http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-iraq15.html
63. http://reason.com/cy/cy092401.shtml
64. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/red-state-fascism.html
65. http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=3798
66. http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4245
67. http://www.amconmag.com/2005_02_14/article.html
68. http://struggle.ws/hist_texts/warhealthstate1918.html
69. http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=4677
70. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7799331
71. http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/28/threat.info/
72. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/10/25/national1257EDT0540.DTL&type=printable
73. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2003/11/mil-031107-rferl-162305.htm
74. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/20/185048.shtml
75. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/11/ar911.government.continuity/
76. http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=1736
77. http://lieberman.senate.gov/
78. http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:kbNj1094RHIJ:www.antiwar.com/orig/stockbauer1.html+rebuilding+america%27s+defenses+pearl+harbor&hl=en
79. http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4286
80. http://www.lewrockwell.com/stromberg/stromberg58.html
81. http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=nd04paine
82. http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html
83. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6732484/site/newsweek/
84. http://www.purewatergazette.net/policestate.htm
85. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/27/1027497418339.html?oneclick=true
86. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312341156/antiwarbookstore
87. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040224-2.html
88. http://maroon.uchicago.edu/viewpoints/articles/2003/12/02/patriot_act_a_necess.php
89. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0920-05.htm
90. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0837121442/antiwarbookstore
91. http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10152004.html
92. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/23/politics/main579645.shtml
93. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society
94. http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html
95. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch66.html
96. http://www.amconmag.com/3_1_04/cover.html
97. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.418:
98. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/today.guest.html
99. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040223&c=1&s=lind
100. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard48.html
101. http://www.townhall.com/hall_of_fame/kirk/kirk425.html
102. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militarism
103. http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/hege.htm
104. http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtreat.htm
105. http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/11/bush.veterans.day.ap/
106. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7043921/
107. http://www.bushislord.com/index.php
108. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
109. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet
110. http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=29
111. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-01-30-students-press_x.htm
112. http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:uY-JJSJEHywJ:www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4585579/++%22on+the+other+side%22+glenn+reynolds+&hl=en
113. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011217&s=hitchens
114. http://www.nationalreview.com/contributors/ledeen092001.shtml
115. http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j082602.html
116. http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3134
117. http://justinlogan.typepad.com/justinlogancom/2004/12/our_man_in_uzbe.html
118. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wbutler/kristol.html
119. http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html
192. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1573928097/antiwarbookstore/
193. http://antiwar.com/raimondo/book1.html
194. http://www.amconmag.com/
195. http://www.amconmag.com/
196. http://www.mises.org/
197. http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/
More information about the paleopsych
mailing list