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A Better Question Might Be, 'How Is It NOT Fascism?'
Have you ever spoken to someone who lived through a fascist regime? If and when you do, you might be surprised at what you hear. When they get talking, most people who lived through Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal. Videla’s Argentina, Vargas’s Brazil or Bordaberry’s Uruguay paint surprisingly benign pictures of daily life in those places.
Benito Mussolini (center), addresses the Council of the Fascists at the Adrian Theatre in Rome in 1941. (File Photo)
Most Americans who’ve lived abroad have, at one time or another, had the experience of talking with a foreign friend who, though never having lived in the US, is pretty well convinced that they understand the cardinal elements of our culture. Why?
Because for years, that person has consumed a non-stop diet of Hollywood movies and TV programs.
When, after fully acknowledging cinema’s great value as a tool of cultural knowledge, you try and let them know there are many important social realities this medium cannot convey, they often become annoyed or indifferent.
They have their story and they are going to stick with it.
It seems to me that our culture’s relationship to fascism is not all that different than this.
Over the last sixty or so years, Hollywood has given us constant stream of images about life under authoritarian regimes. As a result, most Americans are generally pretty confident of their ability to not only recognize its basic contours, but also that they would “do the right thing” should the authorities begin pursuing their neighbors for no good reason.
Of course, this presumes that fascism almost always looks the way Hollywood, with its intense Germanic fixations and penchant for clean morally unambiguous story lines, tells us it does, you know, with armed checkpoints, draconian curfews, dimly-lit streets, grey skies and a complete absence of joy.
But of course, fascism has never consistently or even predominantly manifested itself in daily life the way Hollywood has told us it does, even in the occupied territories of the Third Reich.
If you have any doubts about this, read the account of life in Nazi-occupied Paris written by Carles Fontseré. In it, we see an exiled Catalan Republican Anarchist (could there be any human profile any more apt for harassment and extermination by convinced Nazis?) earning a living in the French magazine and publishing industry, regularly interacting—often quite cordially--with German officers while partying and having regular sexual trysts in his off-hours.
Am I saying occupied Paris (or any other fascist space) was a carnival or that the Nazi regime was not brutal or violent? Absolutely not.
Rather, I am suggesting that contrary to what Hollywood has taught us, those who run authoritarian regimes often go to great lengths to preserve most elements of complexly embroidered fabric of “dailyness” in the societies they control. The reason is obvious: to do otherwise is run the risk of provoking overt anger and rebellion from those being manipulated and oppressed.
Do you think most people were reduced to constantly skulking from back street to back alley or that they stopped going on summer vacation, drinking wine and making love during the Argentine Dirty War?
On the contrary, at the very time its agents were pulling out fingernails and waterboarding people at the ESMA detention center in Buenos Aires and chucking cement-weighted bodies into the Atlantic from helicopters, the Argentine regime hosted the World Cup of Soccer, one of the world’s great tourist celebrations!
“A good time was had by all!” That is, all except the tortured and the disappeared.
Well, if Fascism seldom announces itself the way Hollywood taught us it would, if the dimension of its terror and destruction is, almost by design, beyond the ken of the vast majority of the population caught up in their daily concerns, what can we do to combat it?
Most of all we must shift our thinking from the realm of the anecdote and the visually powerful vignette to that of analytical rigor.
Human beings possess an incredibly strong tendency to deny malfeasance among what they consider to be their “own” social group, be it familial or communal or national. And in their drive to deny the sins of their clan, they will avail themselves of whatever materials they can to preserve their sense of moral intactness and/or superiority.
Well, if Fascism seldom announces itself the way Hollywood taught us it would, if the dimension of its terror and destruction is, almost by design, beyond the ken of the vast majority of the population caught up in their daily concerns, what can we do to combat it?
In this context, having an institutionalized vision of authoritarian evil that located far away from one’s own place—both geographically and temporally—is extremely “useful” in psychological terms.
The existence of this widely internalized “distant” vision of evil, which is seen—quite incorrectly—as representing fascism in more or less comprehensive terms, has the effect of placing an absurdly heavy burden of proof upon those wishing to open a discussion about the existence of this social tendency here and now.
When critics allege or even suggest the existence of a type of fascism in today’s America their interlocutors often “refute” the charge by insisting that the accuser demonstrate the existence here and now of ALL known tropes of the “distant” version of the social plague.
When he cannot, they summarily declare our society free of the disease and go back to whatever it was they were doing.
“Yes, I know that habeas corpus is gone, that the officer class in the military is more loyal to the own caste and the Republican party than the Constitution, that there is an incestuous alliance between big business and government, that systemic critiques of the nation’s core foreign policy goals are not tolerated within mainstream political discourse, that spying and informing on innocent citizens is rampant, that there is a small army of intelligence operatives carrying out “patriotic” missions that will never be subject to any public scrutiny never mind public sanction, that clearly illegal acts or torture and domestic espionage have been retroactively immunized by congress with the full complicity of both parties, that the president is now openly murdering US citizens, but there are still no jackboots in the streets!
Imagine if your physician worked this way? “Yes, though you have 8 of the 10 attributes associated with this dangerous disease, we’re only going to concentrate on the 2 symptoms you don’t have and give you full medical clearance!"
For those truly interested in pursuing an analytical approach to the question, there are tools available. The historian Robert Paxton has given us a splendid start with his Anatomy of Fascism. In it, he describes fascism as “A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.'' Lawrence Britt has also provided a useful framing device with his succinct “Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism”.
So the next time you want to bring up the subject of fascism, cut to the quick. Instead of letting your friend lead you on an intellectual scavenger hunt whose only real purpose is to rule out the possibility that the disease might be present among us, put the onus him or her.
Ask instead how, in the light of Paxton’s and Britt’s definitions, the US isn’t a fascist society? If nothing else, the results of the conversation are likely to be far more instructive than the usual self-congratulatory avoidance we usually get on the question in these latitudes.
38 Comments so far
Show AllKeen argument, Mr. Harrington. For some time on C.D. I've raised a similar analogy in suggesting that the missing identifiable feature of today's fascism is found in the fact that the costumes have changed... certainly Hollywood's visuals (or conditioning) factor into this net lapse of recognition. A lot, too, comes down to naked propaganda. Amerikans constantly hear that they are the freest nation on earth, and the Land of the Free, and so forth. Thus the brand name occludes the truth. Just add a dose of American Exceptionalism to the mix, and the falsely comforting illusion becomes, "This can't be happening here," as Dave Lindorff frames it.
Revisionist US history plays an equally huge role in deflecting Amurkins' attention from the advance of US fascism.
How many history books mention that FDR was able to get Congress to support the New Deal (that created the US middle class) only because nearly 10% of US voters suppported socialist or communist candidates ? Congress was willing to toss a few crumbs to the workers as long as the workers expressed a real interest in socialism. As soon as the "commie threat" subsided during the 1970s , the corporations and the politicians they own started dismantling the New Deal, with the long term goal of cutting off the entire crumb supply from the workers.
How many history books mention Prescott Bush (Dubya's grandpa), Henry Ford, and other 1930s corporatists' attempts to advance fascism in the US ? Most Americans have never heard of Smedley Butler, let alone knowing that he thwarted Bush and Ford's attempt to assassinate FDR as a means to advance fascism.
Until a significant number of Amurkins start supporting leftist candidates US fascism will continue to advance ever faster.
Great post, Ray! It is good to remind people of the important things that are usually left out of American history.
So sez "Siouxrose" the sole decider of who is a TRUE contributor here on CommonDreams, and who is a "Fake" reposting under a new name.
Henry Wallace and why we push and occupy! I love it. Fascism is a terminal disease. It was great one of my uncles had an opportunity to fight against it.
Siouxrose has been here longer than I have (3 1/2 yrs), and I find your remark snippy and stupid. If you are incapable of discussing the matter of this article or close to it to be intelligible, then maybe you need to play somewhere that your attitude fits, and you don't feel offended.
The most recent example of the advance of US fascism was Obama's response to OWS:
1) Enact three more NAFTAs to a) assure that the unemployed OWS participants never get a piece of the economic pie, and b) further empower the corporations that own the US Government, and
2) Enact the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to a) deny due process for OWS participants and b) enable the government to ship them to contract gulags.
When Fascism came, it was not brought by uniformed troops.
It was not imposed at the point of a gun.
Fascism came because citizens were too distracted to pay attention.
Voters were too misinformed to cast intelligent ballots.
And the mass of people failed to recognize the inherent danger in the censoring of speech and the banning of books.
It is here... We are too late.
" When fascism comes to amerika, it will wrapped in a flag, and carrying a cross. " Sinclair Lewis
Lewis did not write "amerika". If you are going to use quotations to wrap what he wrote, get the spelling correct and don't use what you would like it to be.
Point well made, and well taken, gracias.
Sinclair Lewis also wrote a story about a presidential candidate who adopted a populist platform and told bare-faced lies about positive change that might, in today's terminology, be phrased as "the audacity of hope." However, once elected, this character gave himself the power to willfully arrest and jail American citizens though he could not, unlike the present era, snuff out their lives at a stroke of his pen. The story goes on about his ouster in a power struggle, and how a subsequent dictator strove to divert the attention on the country's problems by conducting disinformation campaigns against a foreign nation (Mexico), with a plan for future invasion.
Echoing Harrington's theme on the psychological aspect, Lewis' book was aptly entitled "It Can't Happen Here."
Two points to make:
1) Nazi Germany and it's allies lost the war. The true Fascists, the Elite industrialists and their Corporations who backed BOTH sides won.
2) The Nazis were too blatant in their brutality and corruption once they assumed power. The True Fascists learned from this failed experiment. Now they wear business suits and stay out of the news.
Memo from Bush to Obama; "Remember no jackboots. Never, ever jackboots!"
NC Tom: Your sense of humor is growing on me. I needed the laugh.
Incidentally, this thread has lots of keen comments.
Final solutions and the like can only happen when a society is at total war and its own survival is on the line. Otherwise, the veneer of normality usually disguises the system's true nature. Also, in the past, mass media was not as sophisticated as it is now, thus the reliance on brutal force. Now, the people pacify themselves.
Yeah, we're in Amerikkka (to be distinguished from America).
Amerikkka is the Evil Empire plus the contemporary political domestic landscape, namely, the Patriot Act, abolition of Habeas Corpus, NDAA, use of torture and indefinite detention at the concentration camp of Guantanamo Bay and other sites, assassination of US citizens and other people by remotely controlled means or special forces, extraordinary rendition, spying on the citizenry and other residents by all manner of means, a lawless and corrupt Congress and president, two equally corrupt political parties serving the interests of corporations, corporate controlled media, and, above all, an all around, all pervasive militarism and glorification of things military, along with misinformed and indoctrinated millions, and so on and so forth.
Many people benefited from fascism in WWII and many benefit from it today. Sure Amerika oppresses billions of people around the world, but it provides tremendous riches to those who go along with the program, or at least for those who can clamber on board the train. Amerika does pollute, start wars, destroy lives and livelihoods, etc., but for the little Eichmanns among us, it works fine. Look at all the people driving BMWs and Audis and Mercedes, while millions live on the streets.
While millions suffered and died in concentration camps, the select few did very well, on both sides of the Atlantic. After WWII, the Americans did nothing for the people in the concentration camps for a year because they were too busy making deals with the Germans they defeated. Today, we slaughter brown people by the millions and the Amerikan public stands mute. Nothing has changed.
George Orwell's "Animal Farm" comes to my mind after reading this article. Thanks.
I like the imagery associated with the first part of this piece, except, when I was young in the 1960's I was indoctrinated into thinking that all places "communist" rather than fascist - Moscow, Warsaw, Leipzig, the east half of Berlin (only!) Prague, Budapest, Belgrade - even tropical Havana - as places of endless gray skies and cold rain, dead trees and nary a chirping bird, people huddled in bread lines wearing rags in physically poor health, people regularly being yanked out of these lines by "secret police" for merely griping about the bread lines. Also, Desperate poeple getting gunned down by the thousands trying to sneak cross the "iron curtain", etc. etc - regularly recounted in "Readers Digest". But one odd thing; life expectancy and general measures of health and living standard in Russia were a good bit higher in those evil "communist" days than today.
I live in a fascist state for 50 years. I am 70 years old now. I have watched thousands of hours of Hollywood films and TV's. I and a few of my close friends, condemned and treated as enemies of the state by my government, have tried to get green cards to settled in the great United States of America. But failed. There are different kinds of fascist states and America is one of the best and most humane. I would give anything to become a citizen of America. If anyone among you is from the CIA, please kindly contact me. My desperate friends and I will be eternally grateful.
On April 9,1944, Vice President Henry A. Wallace wrote an article for the NEW YORK TIMES titled "The Danger of American Fascism".
You can read it here:
http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw23.htm
President Eisenhower's 1961 SOTU warned the world of the dangers of the military industrial complex (MIC).
If the MIC isn't a clear manifestation of fascism, what is ?
nakli, Jan 25 2012 - 6:57pm, writes:
"I have watched thousands of hours of Hollywood films and TV's."
There's your problem! You've been indoctrinated to death.
The United States may be one of the most difficult countries to know for an outsider (even insiders get fooled!), for its government is one of the most duplicitous and its propaganda machine (movies, television, magazines, and all manner of junk writing, etc.) is one of the most effective ones in the world.
I think one can truly say that it is very difficult to know the U.S. unless one spends quite some time here. Another requisite: you gotta know the language very well (English seems very easy, and that is very deceptive).
The other possibility is that you're just joking around. Naturally, I hope it's the latter.
The 14 defining characteristics of a fascist state in America are mostly complete, with the sole item on the list most in contention being which version of Protestantism will rule supreme.
Galenwainwright wrote in another spot:
"Corrupt Governments controlled by shadowy Corporations? Check.
Corporate mercenary armies? Check.
Social control masquerading as mindless entertainment? Check.
Rampant narcissism and cosmetic body modification? Check.
Computer addiction? Check.
The establishment of an obscenely wealthy Elite overclass? Check.
The unrest and protest of the disenfranchised underclass? Check.
Corrupt, violent and Militarized Police? Ummm, lemme chat to OWS. They say 'CHECK!'
Unchecked environmental destruction and degradation for profit? Check.
Rampant computer espionage, sabotage and cyber-crime? Oh, Hell yes. Check"
I'm adding 'Destruction of freedom of the press. Check.'
And rosemarie penned the part that makes this all so sad. We are too late for it NOT to be a violent battle to fight fascism. In a true democracy all the voices would be heard, all the people would feel safe, instead, some of us are incapable of getting on a plane or going to Canada, we expect the thought police to show up because we scream like hell on the web. My only happy thought is knowing that the Light will prevail and those ugly bastards will be go down down down.
Just an aside on that note. The ugly bastards going to hell...they get it in their last years. I've seen some people in my life who were just bad, really bad, but not going to jail for their crimes. They suffered terrible their last decade of life. Really suffered. It's odd how when a person fails to do the right things in their life that in their old age they are required to suffer. Some may deny that their parent or friend deserved what they got but I can assure you, no crime goes unpunished, and no hell is as bad as a living one.
Don't bother with Canada, it is going fascist faster than the US already is.
One other book that is an absolute must read in connection with this article is Wilhelm Reich's 1933 classic, "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" (available in an online pdf version at: http://www.whale.to/b/reich.pdf
Although it is almost 80 years old it is still as relevant as if it was written yesterday. Forget the TV and internet pundits, if your really want to understand the psychological underpinnings of American electoral politics READ THIS BOOK.
P.S. His other book "The Sexual Revolution" is also an excellent way to understand the patriarchal right wing's war on women.
What is Fascism, really?
The word Fascism is thrown around very freely these days. We’ve had “Red Fascists,” “Islamofascists,” and Lord knows how many other “fascists.” The word is equated with evil, dictatorships, or just plain different.
What is fascism? Where does it come from? Are there real fascists today? Let’s take a look.
Fascism comes from the Fasces, a bundle of rods around an axe, carried by Roman Lictors and symbolic of power. You have probably heard the old story about the old man who gave his sons each a stick, then told them to break them. They did. Then he gave each of them another stick and told them to tie them all together in a bundle, then directed them to break it. None could, the bundle was too strong. Then the father told his sons that if they would stick together, they would be strong and unbeatable.
In Italy, during the 20's, 30's and early 40's, Mussolini’s supporters were the Fascist party. Their symbol was the tightly bound bundle of rods with an axe inside. Mussolini himself stated that his government would be better described as a “corporate state.” Let’s look at a corporate state from the point of view of that symbol.
If corporations compete with one another, they can be broken, by unions, by alliances of several corporations against them. However, suppose the corporations formed their own group, their own bundle of rods. They would be mutually strengthened. Now, let’s put the axe of government in the bundle and see what we get. The ideal corporate state! That was approached in Italy, but Mussolini was not as well organized in those days as corporations are today.
The ideal corporate state is one in which all major corporations band together for mutual profit and power (the bundle of rods) wrapped around the axe of government, which exists to protect the corporate profits from attack. The corporations then support (or buy) the government and all backs are scratched.
Fascism was supposed to have died, along with National Socialism (Nazis) at the end of WW-II. Like the legendary Hydra, however, when you cut off a head, it grows two more.
When you look at fascism using this definition, there are only a few of them, and it is not Islam, it is no longer "red," it rests much closer to home. It is more powerful than anyone guesses and, it is preparing for a Nazi style of oppression if its aims are in any way thwarted.
Does this sound familiar?
Beware the Corporate State, wherever it raises its ugly head.
Mussolini is commonly, although incorrectly, to have said that "fascism is the merger of state and corporate power." Although that is probably the most succinct definition, John Holloway in "Change the World Without Taking Power" makes the point that the "state" is far more than just an "instrument" of corporate (capitalist) domination of society and is an integral part of how the hierarchical structure creates and wields power "over"
.'' Lawrence Britt has also provided a useful framing device with his succinct “Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism”.
Though I've seen the "Fourteen Characteristics" list cited many times by numerous different people, I can't find any other trace of a "Dr. Lawrence Britt" on the internet.
Does anyone know anything about the origin of this list or its author?
Fascism in whatever guise is essentially a contemporary form of feudalism.
Not really. The main thing fascism and feudalism have in common is that they are both based on a hierarchical organization of society with 1% of the men at the top. Maybe we should just turn to Huey Long who said "When fascism comes to America it will be waving a flag and carrying a cross"
Sinclair Lewis
elytwak,
I have looked at Thom Hartmann's book, We the People. He seems to do an excellent and careful job of showing the relationship between historic feudalism and modern fascism. Although he focuses on what is happening - already at a very scary pace - in America, I believe his argument has general merit just in illustrating (literally) some of the wider implications of what already has occurred.
Very serious stuff.
Much still hidden.
No exaggeration: my sense is that unless we act quickly to take responsibility for our fate, we may well be - like the ‘good Germans’ of the 1930’s and 40’s, permitting the final holocaust to be committed in our names.
(posted 1/27) ----- ?? -
(Added 1/28) Note: My comments to tuttifrutti were in response to this person's 1/27 postings, which I found somewhat bizarre and difficult to understand..
Superb job, tuttifrutti.
Question self much?
By the way, tuttifrutti - if you are referring to the vicious Holocaust - executed by the European empires against the indigenous people of the New World (western hemisphere), I'm with you all the way.
The entire paradigm that has dominated the last 500 years is now visibly bankrupt, and more pernicious than ever. This time the "dominator" worldview will either transform into one manifesting "partnership" (or 'joining,' rather than 'ranking' values) - or we will likely perish.
The need for each of us to develop our humanity in the form of wisdom, compassion, and love has never been greater.