Is the US really seeing the rise of a strong fascist movment?
Image by leoncillo sabino via Flickr
While living in Moscow in 1989, I was mistaken for a fascist. The Soviet Union was in its death throes, the current Putin oligarchy was not yet in place, and both democracy and fascism were fighting it out on the ground. I had gone to an art museum to see one of my favorite painters, a painter who happened to be not just Russian, but also a Jew. The rising fascist group, Pamyat, led by Dmitrii Vasiliev, was busy reviving the tsarist ideology of the Black Hundreds- loyalty to the Church, nationalism, xenophobia, and most importantly, anti- Semitism. Pamyat followers did not like a Jew being shown at a museum of Russian art.
Somehow I was blissfully unaware of all this as I got dressed that morning. As was my habit, I put on a black shirt and black pants that I tucked into some old military knee high black leather boots that I had bought at an open-air market. I was young and punk and shaved my head, so I was aware that I could be mistaken for a young man, but a fascist? Me? A Jew and an American? Never. So it was with great surprise that when I sat down with my friend to have a cup of tea in the cafe, an older woman angrily stood. Then she spit on me and called me a fascist.
Funny, to say the least, until a few minutes later when the real fascists stormed into the cafe, shouting anti-Semitic slogans, pushing people around, and generally behaving like thugs. The black-shirted, black-booted Pamyat boys immediately treated me like one of them. Someone shouted at me to join in. I was, to say the least, just a wee bit afraid for both the people there and my own stupid black-clothes wearing androgynous self.
A few years later, I was living near a Moscow park where another fascist movement, this one led by Vladimir Zhironovsky, was gathering steam. Every weekend hundreds, maybe thousands, of young men would gather to listen to more anti-Semitism, nationalism, xenophobia, and calls to “take back Russia.” I had stopped dressing like a Black Shirt by then, but I was still a Jew and a foreigner. I was becoming seriously concerned that some sort of fascist regime was right around the corner in my beloved Moscow. I eventually moved back to the US in large part because of that fear.
As it turns out, fascism never exactly took hold in Russia. Neither did democracy or anything like it. Instead, there was a consolidation of state and financial elite interests willing to rouse the masses into fascist movements if necessary, but far more likely to intimidate through harassment of journalists, and perhaps even a killing or two. Better? Not necessarily in the effect of who gets what, but giving power to an angry mob of Russian men has not yet happened and therefore the dangers are at least predictable. The Pogroms that my grandparents fled are not right around the corner.
But now the question is seriously being asked: is America a fascist country? And the answer seems to be yes.
According to Sara Robinson, of the Campaign for America’s Future, there are certain stages to fascism. The first stage is the birth of a rural movement that is motivated primarily by feelings of loss. You know: loss of traditional male privilege, white privilege, heterosexual privilege, class privilege, even rural privilege. Check. The second stage is that the movement takes root and develops into an actual political force. Check. The third stage is when the movement starts to be manipulated by political and financial interests to do their dirty work for them. The Teabaggers, the Birthers, now the anti-healthcare reform Sickos all seem to be a highly orchestrated bunch of activists. In other words, not just populist anger, but highly-manipulated populist anger. As Robinson points out:
Now, the guessing game is over. We know beyond doubt that the Teabag movement was created out of whole cloth by astroturf groups like Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks and Tim Phillips’ Americans for Prosperity, with massive media help from FOX News. We see the Birther fracas… being openly ratified by Congressional Republicans. We’ve seen Armey’s own professionally-produced field manual that carefully instructs conservative goon squads in the fine art of disrupting the democratic governing process…
This is the sign we were waiting for… America’s conservative elites have openly thrown in with the country’s legions of discontented far right thugs…
This is the catalyzing moment at which honest-to-Hitler fascism begins. It’s also our very last chance to stop it.
Is the U.S. on the Brink of Fascism? | Politics | AlterNet.
Okay, that’s scary. And not that different from Russia in 1994. The thing is, elites are scared of the fascism they create. It can turn on them in an instant. It is, after all, a group of really angry people pissed off about what they see as their loss of what is rightfully theirs. The question is: Are America’s politicians that rely on a movement of loss to be in power- as well as the big money of the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, the military industrial complex, and Wall St.- willing to risk it all on a populist movement that will use Brown Shirt tactics to get its way? If the health care meetings are any indication, the answer is yes.
Perhaps it’s time to move back to Moscow. At least there the political and financial elites are keeping a firm grip on the angry mob that is so easily mobilized around feelings of loss and nostalgia. Or perhaps it’s time for American media elites here to recognize what’s going on and start really reporting who is behind it. Oh, but wait, during the set up to the current and possibly fascist system, news reporters were first de-fanged by the corporations who own them and then downsized. There is no money or time to really investigate what’s going on and even if there were, many Americans have stopped trusting the news as a source of information. So the only really power left is with those of us who know a fascist when we see one. Maybe we can take a lesson from that woman, many years ago in a Moscow museum, and stand in collective indignation and spit the word out. Fascists. Only the righteous scorn of those who refuse to be intimidated by the likes of Birthers and Pamyat can save us now.
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Good piece Laurie, thanks. This (often dressed all in black) gay Jew is not at all surprised at what we see going in our country. What surprises me is how many people seem to be taken off guard by all of this. Did anyone really think that the election of our first black president wouldn’t bring all this ugliness percolating to the surface? And no it’s not time to move back to Russia, it’s time for all people of good will to stand up and say loudly and strongly, this is not what America is about!
During the George W years I became more and more concerned about the direction of the country’s politics. But then Obama was elected and I naively thought we could turn the corner. Not many people realized the depth of the Republicans anger at losing power and to what lengths they would go to sabotage our chances of changing this country. They are in the minority in Congress, but let’s not forget the small group Hitler started out with.
I confess I have no faith in the people of this country to understand our danger or to do something about it beyond their 7 minute attention span.
The holocaust was indeed preceded by scapegoating of immigrants, but prior to that
of gays.
That is the original inquisition.
The purpose is to demonize a class so as to associate political foes with that class (liberals as communists.) So the inquisition against gays is to make straight guys afraid of being wrongly ferreted out as gay.
On argue as to the science that this CAUSED THE PROPAGATION OF GAYS. So it is the most masculine insecure, the homicidal religious paranoids who murder gays, almost universally turn out being conflicted gays themselves, and/or, the run to where the scapegoaters congregate.
In San Diego, attacked Australian tourist John Schneider was mistaken for being gay, the attackers ran to Lou Dobbs / Sarah Palin country (only saying from whence they emanate–I do not know the nature of their psyches or their intentions) in Idaho (I don’t know if the attackers were gay / sorry Idahoans: I’m sure the overwhelming percentage of you are decent, kind, compassionate, loving people who only want happy families with well educated children.)
And those of you who understood already that attacking gays might be aimed at increasing population by making straights afraid of being wrongly ferreted out was all that was about.
It all enabled ancient despots to rumble, modern ones to corner foes within a fascist air rendering corruption an extremely simple, well veiled practice. Of course special interests and persons making big bucks in the subject industries often support that and the accompanying misinformation campaigns, the broadcasting companies airing demagoguery, cheaply conceived erroneous talking points, etc.
What a spectacle we’ve been through and is still being attempted in the holding back of health care reform, for instance. The health insurance companies are entirely dependent on insuring healthy people, excluding everyone else. That’s why Medicare is national health insurance for the 65 and over crowd.
Senator Jay Rockefeller called Wendell Potter “very courageous” for whistleblowing on the insurers.
We are not free, but I actually believe No Drama Obama will see us through it all.
http://sites.google.com/site/holychanges
Great points, Laurie and friends. But for me the real question is what can the left do to appeal to those folks that fascists like to manipulate? Bernie Sanders regularly gets votes from folks who voted for George W., and makes a huge and amazingly successful effort to appeal to those outside his Burlington base, and to do that, in his words, us intellectual lefties need to “get outside our comfort zones.” This involves actually having (reasonable) faith in the people, and not too quickly assuming they’re all idiots. Sometimes there’s nothing left to do but spit in the face of the fascists and declare our values from the rooftops, but I don’t think we’re at the point. (Inaction could get us there, though.) We need an effective left populism.
From Romulus Rusan’s “The Chronology and the Geography of the Repression in Communist Romania”:
“Thousands of Romanian, Hungarian, German, and Austrian Citizens were interned, beginning in October 1944, as part of denazification. Among them, a large part had nothing to do with facism, but as they were anti-communists they were treated as fascists, based on the false syllogism: ‘If antifascists are communists, then anti-communists are facists.’”
From Pauker to Pelosi, it seems the Left’s age-old pet tactic is to demonize all dissenters as “fascists.” It’s time for a new playbook guys…and for a new pejorative.
Richard
Louisville
Wow, what a twisted brainwashed view. I see you’re so obsessed with one view you have no clue of the opposing view.
I was reading your check list, and I started to think ACORN, SCIU, NPP, and various other unions and thugs; but then you noted “Teabaggers… anti-healthcare reform Sickos”.
Wait, I went to a tea part rally to protest the inevitable tax hikes and careless spending by my state (and federal govt). Yes, I’m “anti-government-healthcare reform” (not sure who is actually “anti-healthcare reform”, I’ve heard very little on that view).
So apparently I’m a fascist?
I may oppose these groups I noted, but I also know there are some in those groups who are doing truly good things; unfortunately, there are the bad apples in these groups that see the need to abuse power and resort to violence and some of them are in control of these groups. One only needs to see the purple shirts beating up town hall attendees to see the reality. It is these groups that also show their “take back America” signs as well.
Since “Campaign for America’s Future” is a progressive group obviously anti-every-person-you-stated-in-the-movements, I take Sara Robinson views very lightly just as I would Ann Coulter about, well, anything.
Yet, it is the progressive groups that go after the youth in schools and college to convince them of their ideology (you see very few conservatives in colleges today), and the ways you cast people that oppose your views, all of which comes directly out of the plan book of the National Socialist German Workers party. Does this make you a fascist, probably not. Fortunately we can still choose not to agree.
In case your curious what the opposing “anti-government-healthcare reform” REALLY is, take a look at John Mackey’s plan. He’s got it spot on for what I/we “fascists” or “Sickos” are looking for.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html
Oh, and if your still interested in that one way flight to Moscow, I’d be happy to contribute. Me? I’m sticking around and fighting for the constitution.