Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps
April 27th, 2007I hate it when an otherwise good article contains rat poison, but that’s just the nature of the beast nowadays. Wolf writes, “Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree…as many other nations,” and, “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.”
WTF!?
These are shocking clangers from someone who purports to be writing about American fascism.
No living American has been born in anything like freedom, and try telling a Native American person that the United States is not vulnerable to the types of hideous violence that occurred in Germany and Italy. With regard to our resilient democratic habits, excluding the uncomfortable bits about genocide (at home and abroad), slavery and the camps… Well, you could try to have that conversation with victims of current American “extraordinary rendition” programs, if they were still alive, and if you knew where they were, which you wouldn’t.
On the one hand, I feel like we should all to tell Wolf to wake the F up, but on the other hand, her list is good. An even more important lesson than the points below would be to consider what it means when the people sounding the emergency klaxons have amnesia about their country’s own history.
As usual, it’s not that bad, it’s worse.
Via: Global Research:
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
Research Credit: Life After the Oil Crash
well, we have 9 of 10. I wonder when Bushie will declare martial law.
Of course you could argue that this whole subpeona thing is pretty much the start of that. congress subpeona’s bush’s apparatichiks, who then flip congress the bird, and AG Gonzalez sits idly, pretending he’s working and can’t recall why he’s even there.
I think Wolf just put in the weasel words to get published, she probably knows how bad it is.
“3. Develop a thug class”: Mission Accomplished!
I had to fly three times in the month after 9/11. Security was tight, but courteous and efficient. By the time I left the US in 2005, DHS/TSA had become surly and slow, the queques at airports longer than ever. Last month, I had to make a trip to the US on a family emergency. Things were much worse. The TSA thug in Orlando was behaving in a manner that formerly would have not been considered acceptable in a prison guard. He was slapping a wand in his hand and verbally abusing the air travelers trudging through the checkpoint. His favorite line, “If you don’t like it, drive next time!”
This experience made the real purpose of TSA crystal clear. These knuckle dragging doofuses have been rescued from their former lowly McJobs and given power over their “betters”. Over the years, they have become intoxicated with the joys of thuggery. They will gladly do whatever nastiness they are called upon to carry out.
Shocking clangers indeed.
Born into freedom?
Satan, I do renounce thee, we twerped as 5 year olds during our first holy communion exercises. Born into freedom? NOT ME! I was reciting propaganda by rote even before I knew what the hell it meant.
Everything else in this article sounds true except for that opening salvo.
Oh yes, by the way, on this day in history the English Colonists landed in Virginia. And we know in retrospect how well the invasion of North America worked out for those damn savages.
Shed a tear. History repeats itself over and over. As I said when I was 5 – Satan I DO RENOUNCE THEE.
sometimes, to get published, writers like Wolf need to book-end their discussion with boiler-plate propaganda. I’m curious what parts she actually believes, and what parts were just expedient.
Once again, I feel compelled to play the Devil’s advocate. Freedom, unfortunately, is entirely relative in that it means radically different things to different people. To scientists, it CAN mean freedom to develop flesh-eating bacteria, nuclear weapons, and grey-goo type technologies. To industrialists, it CAN mean destroying the environment just to get even richer making deck chairs. To politicians it CAN mean using whichever tools to satisfy various constituencies and dominant interests, no matter the moral consequences. To religious leaders, it CAN mean using questionable fear-based tactics to shepherd the sheep to salvation. To military leaders, it CAN mean engaging in anti-democratic measures to make the country safe from an enemy, real or imagined. To average joes, it CAN mean ignoring the complicated, frightening, thankless work that comes with engaging in the political process, and focusing merely on work, the family, and of course, mindless entertainment and creature comforts. After all, doesn’t a long hard day at the office, where one acts like a zombie, entitle one to come home and “veg out?”
Our culture constantly tempts and pressures people to take the path of least resistance. So everybody takes it. And this exacerbates tendencies within the system that were already morally questionable.
In my opinion, what really is abominable about the “thing that ate the Republic” is that it coerces you into acts of moral abdication that you aren’t even aware you are making, or which you are only dimly aware.
I purchased a banana at a Starbucks, wishing to eat healthy. Unfortunately, Starbucks, which charges an arm and a leg for coffee in part so it can give employees who work a minimum of 20 hrs a week, health coverage, only sells Chiquita bananas, a brand owned by United Fruit Company, which has a long venerable history of pressing indigenous peoples in other countries onto its plantations, where presumably, it pays them a pittance, if at all, which of course is immediately channeled back into a company store; and this is probably being optimistic. However, it also supports terrorists groups. We know this now for sure, because the Justice Department indicted it with the charge that it paid $1.5 million to fund some right-wing militia. United Fruit admitted the charges and agreed to pay a paltry $25 million in fines. So much for the War on Terror.
But back to what you said about the judiciary and military. The most outspoken critics and opponents of what is going in America, come from those quarters. And I’m not just talking about all of the Johnny-come-latelys trying to cash in on Bush’s apparent downfall, I’m talking about people within the Judge Advocate General Corps, law professors, and other prominent jurist who were screaming bloody murder from the get-go. Of course, the media barely reported their criticisms, but my point is this: the so-called monolithic fascist culture in this country, may, in fact, be mostly a psy-op designed to discourage and alienate critics and dissenters, many of whom, still haven’t weaned themselves off the corporate-colonized media streams.
As far as I am concerned, about freedom, it’s all in the mind. A truly free person is free of all illusions and fears. A truly free person recognizes that prison is all around us. Our bodies can be prisons, our relationships can be prisons, even ones we believe our based on love. Our work, our vocations, our responsibilities, our duties, our goals; all have the capacity to imprison. In fact, the irony of this country, and other modern technocratic societies is how previous attempts to liberate resulted in further enslavement. But I do not believe that all is lost, I just believe that things will not as easy as we were led to believe. I mean, I really believed that we were making progress, comparatively speaking. The Soviet Union had collapsed, we weren’t immediately warring with China, the Europeans were putting aside some of their traditional hostilities, we were developing all kinds of potential-filled technologies. Of course, I believed this because almost everything fed to me was propaganda leading to the formation of that attitude. I tried to balance my optimism by ferreting out criticisms to chew over, but having studied history and known how brutal and oppressive it was, our era seemed to hold promise.
This made me lazy and complacent. I planned to just get a job and make a living. 9/11 and Bush bitch-slapped me out of this false optimism. Instantly. In fact, without Bush et al’s. cartoonish villainy, a pose of evil so obvious that even the dullest of us can’t help but catch on to, I would probably still place all my faith in big institutions, rather than in my own actions where it belongs. I find that a lot of people think similarly. I know because I actually talk to them face to face and correspond with them. They are from all walks of life. And that’s why I stay and try to fight for what I believe in. Because if I don’t, then it will fall to someone less qualified. I think a lot of people stay for that reason. I think THEY want us run and hide. That way it will be easier for THEM. But THEY will lose in the end, because THEIR own foolishness will defeat them as it always does. I mean, can you imagine if the Nazis had really conquered the planet? Who would they kill? They would have to cannibalize themselves to feed their insatiable bloodlust.
Enough for now.
Good bye USA!
Well said, Ozzy, well said.
If ‘our’ Saudi oil gets blown up, it will make the twin towers look like a picnic. Oil to $200 will have people begging for fascism.
But there are so many possible layers to this story, I honestly have no idea what it truly ‘means’.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/latestnews/2007428/45795.htm
Saudi Arabia said on Friday it foiled an al-Qaida-linked plot to attack oil facilities and military bases, arresting more than 170 suspects, including some trainee pilots preparing for suicide operations.
Finally, an antidote to Hillary Obama and Barrack Clinton.
http://www.gravel2008.us/?q=node/683