Is It Fascism Yet?

Many Americans appear to believe that if they personally are not in a concentration camp, then we don't live in a fascist society. But, of course,very few Germans ended up in concentration camps. Most of them were fine with fascism as long as they personally were OK. I read a book called They Thought They Were Free, where an American went to Germany after WW2 and interviewed Germans who had joined the Nazi Party. The title says it all. Not really. there was much more. But, basically, the only problem they had with Hitler is that he started the war- which got them bombed. Only one person that he interviewed opposed Hitler at the beginning. But this person had no backup, so he went along with it also.

We have the benefit of learning from the past. Unfortunately, we have been taught that if there is no Hitler, there is no fascism. So the lesson we have learned from the past is worthless. Especially when our ruling class uses Hitler as the handy dandy shortcut to demonization of any fallen-out-of-favor dictator they wish to depose.

Of course, the word fascist has been used loosely in the past. But if you take Mussolini's definition, (and why shouldn't you, since he helped popularize it), fascism is the state merged with the corporations. And other people have further refined the definition.

I heard Ralph Nader call Washington "corporate occupied territory". Clever. And accurate. So our government has merged with the corporations to the extent that we now think it's normal to have our politicians bought and paid for (and if they're not, they're "non-viable"), to have our laws written by lobbyists, our public servants coming from corporations and returning there when their terms are up, the giving of corporate welfare rampant from the federal to the local governments, and the health of the corporations used as a barometer of the health of the US economy. Our civil liberties and right of privacy are almost gone. The government openly imprisons people without charges, or trials, and it is accepted. The appointed president brags about torture, and it is accepted.

But I'm not in a concentration camp, so it's OK. We must be free.