Opinion Editorials, November 2010

Fascism American-Style:

How to Hold Them Accountable

By Robert Bows

Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, November 29, 2010

“Of course we will have fascism in America but we will call it democracy!”--Huey Long

 “Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.” --Jean-Paul Sartre

“Fascism ought to more properly be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” -- Benito Mussolini

The masters of the electronic voting machines have spoken

Preliminary analysis of exit polls (for senatorial and gubernatorial races) reported immediately after voting ended compared with the announced vote results show a statistically significant shift in favor of Republican candidates, the odds of which are about a million to one.[1]

This electronic theft is nothing new, but in the aftermath of this year’s Supreme Court (5 to 4) decision giving the green light to unlimited campaign contributions, the blatancy is impressive. The strategy is simple: leverage the bottomless slush fund of corporate dollars and flood the nation’s airwaves and mailboxes to twist enough minds to tighten the electoral races, so that those who control the software to the electronic voting machines can create the illusion of right-wing electoral success.

It’s time to consider what can be done to drop the curtain on this charade and the policies that result from this illegitimate elevation of corporate shills to executive, legislative, and judicial office.

The American brand of fascism

There are as many varieties of fascism as there are examples, beginning with Germany (Hitler) and Italy (Mussolini) during the period leading up to and including WWII, followed by Cuba (Batista), Spain (Franco), Paraguay (Stroessner), Nicaragua (Somoza), and Chile (Pinochet), et al.

The brand of fascism currently practiced in the United States by European and North American financiers and bankers—who control a major portion of the world’s money supply, as well as the dominant military and intelligence apparatuses—has commonalities with many of its predecessors as well as a few important differences.

Commonalities include: control over the state by unelected persons (“the hidden government,” as Teddy Roosevelt called them) or persons whose election is predetermined (through control of the currency, media, and voting process); use of intelligence and security forces to suppress opposition; abrogation of constitutional guarantees and international legal conventions; the justification of torture; and false flag events used to justify imperialism, to name a few.

As so eloquently expressed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials following World War II, we must hold such behavior accountable:

If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.

We are now prepared to invoke these rules of criminal conduct and align the crimes of U.S. fascism with the indictments at Nuremberg:

Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace (9-11, WMDs, etc.) Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) War crimes (Abu Ghraib, recent WikiLeaks, and attacks on civilians) Crimes against humanity (massive Iraqi and Afghani civilian deaths and torture, plus ongoing state-sanctioned terrorism: 9-11, Gulf, 2008 economic contraction and refusal to replenish the money supply; sabotage of property and contract law [mortgage crisis]) 

But it is the differences between the American brand of fascism and previous iterations—particularly the illusion of choice and dissent (what social theorist Herbert Marcuse called “repressive desublimation”)—that confuse many people into believing that the U.S. is simply a republic with democratic processes gone awry. This has led a range of critics to describe the situation as “inverted totalitarianism,” “participatory fascism,” “corporatism,” or just “monopoly capitalism.”

While each of these descriptions applies to a degree, the partial truths to which they call attention unnecessarily obscure the simple nature of the beast. Perhaps it is the erroneous notion that fascism equals Nazism (actually, the term originally referred to Mussolini’s regime) that compels otherwise analytical people to deny what is going on here (“good Germans,” all). But lack of intellectual rigor is no excuse to mislabel the ruthless abuses to which the world is being subjected. As Orwell so eloquently taught us, the price of removing, destroying, or distorting words and their meanings is that we lose our ability to know what freedom is.

Consider how one of our own presidents defined fascism:

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. ” — Franklin D. Roosevelt [2]

Gone are the abstract notions of the state as an embodiment of some ethnic or racial or historical ideal (our rulers are multicultural, at least at the level of government employees and the executive, legislative, and judicial branches; the upper echelons of our intelligence services are another story); instead, the state is simply a catalyst for corporate policy. Today’s corporate state  makes no attempt to legitimize itself even theoretically, as the Italian syndicalists did, by pretending that collective bargaining takes place between management and labor. Premeditated expansion and contraction of the currency is used to steal assets (the fruits of our labor) at fire sale prices. In the U.S., earnings per share for the stockholders and the maintenance of power by the financial elites are the main objectives implemented by illegal means through the so-called “legal” state.

Everything, including the ecology and sustainability of the planet and its inhabitants, is sacrificed to the Almighty Dollar and for profit therein. Oddly, those aligned in this lockstep greedy march often see themselves as religious, or even spiritual! Perhaps they do not understand that Judeo-Christian tradition does not support the idolatry of money (currency) or commodities, such as gold or silver.

It’s easy to miss this point, given the disinformation spread by so-called religious leaders; regardless, you may recall that Moses had to break and restore the Israelites’ covenant with G-d because of some tribal members who, in his absence, manufactured and worshipped the Golden Calf; and Jesus reiterated this principle when he said, “You cannot worship God and mammon.” The lack of self-awareness over such misplaced obeisance (regardless of the religion to which they may or may not subscribe) renders our materialistic brethren oblivious to the immoral nature of their own behavior.

What to do?

Irrespective of the origins of their debilitation, these fascists, who place money and corporate interests above people, must be held accountable for their crimes, however daunting the task may be of facing up to a monolithic and morally blind cartel that controls most of the currency and guns on our planet. Even the most corrupt and devolved regimes come to an end. But the hour is late; so, how to hasten a new organizational paradigm?

Such was the question for Carol Brouillet, when she invited a dozen or so fellow activists to a retreat following the “Deep Politics Conference” in Santa Cruz, California, in May 2010. Brouillet explains:

"I hoped that the retreat would give us more time to think deeply about the roots of the problems that humanity faces today, and generate insights on how we could individually and collectively empower ourselves to assist in the conscious evolution necessary for us to survive, grow, mature, and thrive, in alignment with our spirits, which yearn for truth, beauty, peace, justice, health, not only for ourselves, but for all people and all life forms."

As one might expect, the debate was heated, but the group was comprised of enough veteran organizers, some going back to the Free Speech Movement and the Vietnam War in the ‘60’s, that a solution was hammered out. As it happened, they chose to model their appeal on the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government …

The Details of Accountability

Even though most of those assembled recognize that the current regime (the money cartel or so-called New World Order) has totally abrogated the Declaration of Independence (and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights) and that the social contract has been broken, the group decided – in hopes of eventual accountability-- such as took place with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa – to compile a list of grievances, as the signers of the Declaration did over 234 years ago. The group also offers solutions aimed at building alternative forms of organization that will be the framework for a sustainable and just world, to supplant the current system when it collapses from the weight of its intrinsic contradictions and lies (which, as Jefferson put it, run contrary to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God”).

The result is the Declaration of Accountability, in which the group declares, much like the document upon which it is modeled, “the causes which impel them to the separation.” In addition to the grievances listed in the Declaration, the Problems and Proposed Solution section includes “Financial Accountability,” “Electoral Accountability,” Media Accountability,” “Corporate Accountability,” “Legal Accountability and the Rule of Law,” “9-11 Accountability,” “Gulf Accountability,” etc.).  

Like those who have survived the continuing holocausts and war crimes around the globe, the group hopes to keep alive the collective memory of the ongoing crimes against humanity until such time that the perpetrators are brought to justice.  According to Brouillet:

"I believe by signing the Declaration of Accountability, we are asserting people power over the abusive tyranny of corporations, illegitimate institutions, the deceptions and lies that for too long have paralyzed and confused people, and we consciously enable and empower ourselves to challenge the Era of Impunity and launch a new era of responsibility, in which we reclaim our future and manifest our dreams and hopes for a better world."

The group formally launched its website this October, with a list of prominent individual and organizational signers. As the author of the Declaration of Independence wrote:

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” —Thomas Jefferson.

Be a witness for accountability. 

About the author:

Robert Bows is a television producer/writer/director, playwright, theatre reviewer, political economist, instructional designer, yogi, metaphysician, and pseudonymous author of www.SolomonsProof.com and Solomon’s Proof: A Psycho-Spiritual Journey to World Consciousness. He participated in the “Deep Politics Conference” referenced in the article and is one of the drafters of the Declaration of Accountability, as well as one of the editors documenting ongoing abuses.

Notes:

[1] Josh Mitteldorf, “The Scoop on Election Theft 2010,” OpEdNews.com, 11/3/10, http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Scoop-on-Election-Thef-by-Josh-Mitteldorf-101103-827.html.

[2] Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Appendix A: Message from the President of the United States Transmitting Recommendations Relative to the Strengthening and Enforcement of Anti-trust Laws,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 32, No. 2, Part 2, Supplement, Papers Relating to the Temporary National Economic Committee (Jun., 1942), pp. 119-128, and “Anti-Monopoly,” Time magazine, May 9, 1938.

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