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Monday, October 31, 2005

Series on Fascism XII

Living under Fascism
By Davidson Loehr

You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word "fascism" in a serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies. But I am serious. I don't mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying. That's what I am about here. And even if I don't persuade you, I hope to raise the level of your thinking about who and where we are now, to add some nuance and perhaps some useful insights.

The word comes from the Latin word "Fasces," denoting a bundle of sticks tied together. The individual sticks represented citizens, and the bundle represented the state. The message of this metaphor was that it was the bundle that was significant, not the individual sticks. If it sounds un-American, it's worth knowing that the Roman Fasces appear on the wall behind the Speaker's podium in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.

Still, it's an unlikely word. When most people hear the word "fascism" they may think of the racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler. It is true that the use of force and the scapegoating of fringe groups are part of every fascism. But there was also an economic dimension of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and '30s as "corporatism," which was an essential ingredient of Mussolini's and Hitler's tyrannies. So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a model by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago (in "The Corporation Will Eat Your Soul"), Fortune magazine ran a cover story on Mussolini in 1934, praising his fascism for its ability to break worker unions, disempower workers and transfer huge sums of money to those who controlled the money rather than those who earned it.

Few Americans are aware of or can recall how so many Americans and Europeans viewed economic fascism as the wave of the future during the 1930s. Yet reviewing our past may help shed light on our present, and point the way to a better future. So I want to begin by looking back to the last time fascism posed a serious threat to America.

In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy - those concerned with individual rights and freedoms - as anti-American. That was 69 years ago.

One of the most outspoken American fascists from the 1930s was economist Lawrence Dennis. In his 1936 book, "The Coming American Fascism" - a coming which he anticipated and cheered - Dennis declared that defenders of "18th-century Americanism" were sure to become "the laughing stock of their own countrymen." The big stumbling block to the development of economic fascism, Dennis bemoaned, was "liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights."

So it is important for us to recognize that, as an economic system, fascism was widely accepted in the 1920s and '30s, and nearly worshiped by some powerful American industrialists. And fascism has always, and explicitly, been opposed to liberalism of all kinds.

Mussolini, who helped create modern fascism, viewed liberal ideas as the enemy. "The Fascist conception of life," he wrote, "stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual." (In 1932 Mussolini wrote, with the help of Giovanni Gentile, an entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism. You can read the whole entry at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html)

Mussolini thought it was unnatural for a government to protect individual rights: The essence of fascism, he believed, is that government should be the master, not the servant, of the people.

Still, fascism is a word that is completely foreign to most of us. We need to know what it is, and how we can know it when we see it.

In an essay coyly titled "Fascism Anyone?," Laurence W. Britt, a political scientist, identifies social and political agendas common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism." See how familiar they sound:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
   Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
   
   
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
   Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
   
   
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
   The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
   
   
4. Supremacy of the Military
   Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
   
   
5. Rampant Sexism
   The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
   
   
6. Controlled Mass Media
   Sometimes the media are directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
   
   
7. Obsession with National Security
   Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
   
   
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
   Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
   
   
9. Corporate Power is Protected
   The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
   
   
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
    Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
    
    
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
    Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
    
    
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
    Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
    
    
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
    Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
    
    
14. Fraudulent Elections
    Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
    

This list will be familiar to students of political science. But it should be familiar to students of religion as well, for much of it mirrors the social and political agenda of religious fundamentalisms worldwide. It is both accurate and helpful for us to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. They both come from very primitive parts of us that have always been the default setting of our species: amity toward our in-group, enmity toward out-groups, hierarchical deference to alpha male figures, a powerful identification with our territory, and so forth. It is that brutal default setting that all civilizations have tried to raise us above, but it is always a fragile thing, civilization, and has to be achieved over and over and over again.

But, again, this is not America's first encounter with fascism.

In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, "write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?"

Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. See how much you think his statements apply to our society today.

"The really dangerous American fascist," Wallace wrote, "… is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism he saw rising in America, Wallace added, "They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection." By these standards, a few of today's weapons for keeping the common people in eternal subjection include NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, union-busting, cutting worker benefits while increasing CEO pay, elimination of worker benefits, security and pensions, rapacious credit card interest, and outsourcing of jobs - not to mention the largest prison system in the world.

The Perfect Storm

Our current descent into fascism came about through a kind of "Perfect Storm," a confluence of three unrelated but mutually supportive schools of thought:

1. The first stream of thought was the imperialistic dream of the Project for the New American Century. I don't believe anyone can understand the past four years without reading the Project for the New American Century, published in September 2000 and authored by many who have been prominent players in the Bush administrations, including Cheney, Rumsfleid, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Kagan to name only a few. This report saw the fall of Communism as a call for America to become the military rulers of the world, to establish a new worldwide empire. They spelled out the military enhancements we would need, then noted, sadly, that these wonderful plans would take a long time, unless there could be a catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor that would let the leaders turn America into a military and militarist country. There was no clear interest in religion in this report, and no clear concern with local economic policies.
   
   
2. A second powerful stream must be credited to Pat Robertson and his Christian Reconstructionists, or Dominionists. Long dismissed by most of us as a screwball, the Dominionist style of Christianity which he has been preaching since the early 1980s is now the most powerful religious voice in the Bush administration.
   
   Katherine Yurica, who transcribed over 1300 pages of interviews from Pat Robertson's "700 Club" shows in the 1980s, has shown how Robertson and his chosen guests consistently, openly and passionately argued that America must become a theocracy under the control of Christian Dominionists. Robertson is on record saying democracy is a terrible form of government unless it is run by his kind of Christians. He also rails constantly against taxing the rich, against public education, social programs and welfare - and prefers Deuteronomy 28 over the teachings of Jesus. He is clear that women must remain homebound as obedient servants of men, and that abortions, like homosexuals, should not be allowed. Robertson has also been clear that other kinds of Christians, including Episcopalians and Presbyterians, are enemies of Christ. (The Yurica Report. Search under this name, or for "Despoiling America" by Katherine Yurica on the internet.)
   
   
3. The third major component of this Perfect Storm has been the desire of very wealthy Americans and corporate CEOs for a plutocracy that will favor profits by the very rich and disempowerment of the vast majority of American workers, the destruction of workers' unions, and the alliance of government to help achieve these greedy goals. It is a condition some have called socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor, and which others recognize as a reincarnation of Social Darwinism. This strain of thought has been present throughout American history. Seventy years ago, they tried to finance a military coup to replace Franlkin Delano Roosevelt and establish General Smedley Butler as a fascist dictator in 1934. Fortunately, the picked a general who really was a patriot; he refused, reported the scheme, and spoke and wrote about it. As Canadian law professor Joel Bakan wrote in the book and movie "The Corporation," they have now achieved their coup without firing a shot.
   

Our plutocrats have had no particular interest in religion. Their global interests are with an imperialist empire, and their domestic goals are in undoing all the New Deal reforms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that enabled the rise of America's middle class after WWII.

Another ill wind in this Perfect Storm is more important than its crudity might suggest: it was President Clinton's sleazy sex with a young but eager intern in the White House. This incident, and Clinton's equally sleazy lying about it, focused the certainties of conservatives on the fact that "liberals" had neither moral compass nor moral concern, and therefore represented a dangerous threat to the moral fiber of America. While the effects of this may be hard to quantify, I think they were profound.

These "storm" components have no necessary connection, and come from different groups of thinkers, many of whom wouldn't even like one another. But together, they form a nearly complete web of command and control, which has finally gained control of America and, they hope, of the world.

What's Coming

When all fascisms exhibit the same social and political agendas (the 14 points listed by Britt), then it is not hard to predict where a new fascist uprising will lead. And it is not hard. The actions of fascists and the social and political effects of fascism and fundamentalism are clear and sobering. Here is some of what's coming, what will be happening in our country in the next few years:

• The theft of all social security funds, to be transferred to those who control money, and the increasing destitution of all those dependent on social security and social welfare programs.
  
  
• Rising numbers of uninsured people in this country that already has the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance in the developed world.
  
  
• Increased loss of funding for public education combined with increased support for vouchers, urging Americans to entrust their children's education to Christian schools.
  
  
• More restrictions on civil liberties as America is turned into the police state necessary for fascism to work.
  
  
• Withdrawal of virtually all funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System. At their best, these media sometimes encourage critical questioning, so they are correctly seen as enemies of the state's official stories.
  
  
• The reinstatement of a draft, from which the children of privileged parents will again be mostly exempt, leaving our poorest children to fight and die in wars of imperialism and greed that could never benefit them anyway.
  
  
• More imperialistic invasions: of Iran and others, and the construction of a huge permanent embassy in Iraq.
  
  
• More restrictions on speech, under the flag of national security.
  
  
• Control of the internet to remove or cripple it as an instrument of free communication that is exempt from government control. This will be presented as a necessary anti-terrorist measure.
  
  
• Efforts to remove the tax-exempt status of certain "liberal" churches, and to characterize them as anti-American.
  
  
• Tighter control of the editorial bias of almost all media, and demonization of the few media they are unable to control - the New York Times, for instance.
  
  
• Continued outsourcing of jobs, including more white-collar jobs, to produce greater profits for those who control the money and direct the society, while simultaneously reducing America's workers to a more desperate and powerless status.
  
  
• Moves in the banking industry to make it impossible for an increasing number of Americans to own their homes. As they did in the 1930s, those who control the money know that it is to their advantage and profit to keep others renting rather than owning.
  
  
• Criminalization of those who protest, as un-American, with arrests, detentions and harassment increasing. We already have a higher percentage of our citizens in prison than any other country in the world. That percentage will increase.
  
  
• In the near future, it will be illegal or at least dangerous to say the things I have said in this article. In the fascist story, these things are un-American. In the real history of a democratic America, they were seen as profoundly patriotic, as the kind of critical questions that kept the American spirit alive - the kind of questions, incidentally, that our media were supposed to be pressing.
  

Can these schemes work? I don't think so. I think they are murderous, rapacious and insane. But I don't know. Maybe they can. Similar schemes have worked in countries like Chile, where a democracy in which over 90% voted has been reduced to one in which only about 20% vote because they say, as Americans are learning to say, that it no longer matters who you vote for.

Hope

In the meantime, is there any hope, or do we just band together like lemmings and dive off a cliff? Yes, there is always hope, though at times it is more hidden, as it is now.

As some critics are now saying, and as I have been saying and writing for almost twenty years, America's liberals need to grow beyond political liberalism, with its often self-absorbed focus on individual rights to the exclusion of individual responsibilities to the larger society. Liberals will have to construct a more complete vision with moral and religious grounding. That does not mean confessional Christianity. It means the legitimate heir to Christianity. Such a legitimate heir need not be a religion, though it must have clear moral power, and be able to attract the minds and hearts of a voting majority of Americans.

And the new liberal vision must be larger than that of the conservative religious vision that will be appointing judges, writing laws and bending the cultural norms toward hatred and exclusion for the foreseeable future. The conservatives deserve a lot of admiration. They have spent the last thirty years studying American politics, forming their vision and learning how to gain control in the political system. And it worked; they have won. Even if liberals can develop a bigger vision, they still have all that time-consuming work to do. It won't be fast. It isn't even clear that liberals will be willing to do it; they may instead prefer to go down with the ship they're used to.

One man who has been tireless in his investigations and critiques of America's slide into fascism is Michael C. Ruppert, whose postings usually read as though he is wound way too tight. But he offers four pieces of advice about what we can do now, and they seem reality-based enough to pass on to you. This is America; they're all about money:

• First, he says you should get out of debt.
  
  
• Second is to spend your money and time on things that give you energy and provide you with useful information.
  
  
• Third is to stop spending a penny with major banks, news media and corporations that feed you lies and leave you angry and exhausted.
  
  
• And fourth is to learn how money works and use it like a (political) weapon - as he predicts the rest of the world will be doing against us. (from http://www.
  fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110504_snap_out.shtml)
  

That's advice written this week. Another bit of advice comes from sixty years ago, from Roosevelt's Vice President, Henry Wallace. Wallace said, "Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels."

Still another way to understand fascism is as a kind of colonization. A simple definition of "colonization" is that it takes people's stories away, and assigns them supportive roles in stories that empower others at their expense. When you are taxed to support a government that uses you as a means to serve the ends of others, you are - ironically - in a state of taxation without representation. That's where this country started, and it's where we are now.

I don't know the next step. I'm not a political activist; I'm only a preacher. But whatever you do, whatever we do, I hope that we can remember some very basic things that I think of as eternally true. One is that the vast majority of people are good decent people who mean and do as well as they know how. Very few people are evil, though some are. But we all live in families where some of our blood relatives support things we hate. I believe they mean well, and the way to rebuild broken bridges is through greater understanding, compassion, and a reality-based story that is more inclusive and empowering for the vast majority of us.

Those who want to live in a reality-based story rather than as serfs in an ideology designed to transfer power, possibility and hope to a small ruling elite have much long and hard work to do, individually and collectively. It will not be either easy or quick.

But we will do it. We will go forward in hope and in courage. Let us seek that better path, and find the courage to take it - step, by step, by step.

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Posted by fm on October 31, 2005 at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Series on Fascism XI

Is America Becoming Fascist?
By Anis Shivani

Since mainstream left-liberal media do not seriously ask this question, the analysis of what has gone wrong and where we are heading has been mostly off-base. Investigation of the kinds of under-handed, criminal tactics fascist regimes undertake to legitimize their agenda and accelerate the rate of change in their favor is dismissed as indulging in "conspiracy theory." Liberals insist that this regime must be treated under the rules of "politics as usual." Liberals are quick to note certain obvious dissimilarities with previous variants of fascism and say that what is happening in America is not fascist. It took German justice minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin to make the comparison explicit (under present American rules of political discourse, she has been duly sacked from her cabinet post); but at the liberal New York Times or The Nation, American writers dare not speak the truth.

The blinkered assertion that we are immune to the virus ignores degrees of convergence and distinction based on the individual patient's history. The Times and other liberal voices have been obsessed over the last year with the rise of minority fascist parties in the Netherlands, France, and other European countries. They have questioned the tastefulness of new books and movies about Hitler, and again demonized such icons of Nazism as Leni Riefenstahl. Is this perhaps a displacement of American anxiety onto the safer European scene, liberal intellectuals here not wanting to confront the troubling truth? The pace of events in the last year has been almost as blindingly fast as it was after Hitler's Machtergreifung and the consolidation of fascist power in 1933. Speed stuns and silences.

Max Frankel, former editor of The New York Times, quotes from biographer Joachim Fest in his review of Speer: The Final Verdict: " . . .how easily, given appropriate conditions, people will allow themselves to be mobilized into violence, abandoning the humanitarian traditions they have built up over centuries to protect themselves from each other," and that a "primal being" such as Hitler "will always crop up again." Is Frankel really redirecting his anxiety about the primal being that has arisen in America? When Frankel says that "Speer far more than Hitler [because the former came from a culturally refined background] makes us realize how fragile these precautions are, and how the ground on which we all stand is always threatened," is this an oblique reference to the ground shifting from under us?

The Iraqi adventure, which is only the first step in a more ambitious militarist agenda, has been opposed by the most conservative warmongers of past administrations. If the test of any theory is its predictive capacity, Bush's extreme risk-taking is better explained by the fascist model. Purely economic motives are a large part of the story, but there is a deeper derivation that exceeds such mundane rationales. Several of the apparent contradictions in Bush's governance make perfect sense if the fascist prism is applied, but not with the normal perspective.

To pose the question doesn't mean that this is a completed project; at any point, anything can happen to shift the course of history in a different direction. Yet after repeated and open corruption of the normal electoral process, several declarations of world war (including in three major addresses, and now the National Security Strategy document), adventurous and unprecedented military doctrines, suspension of much of the Bill of Rights, and clear signals that a declaration of emergency to crush remaining dissent is on the way, surely it is time to analyze the situation differently.

Absent that perspicacity, false diagnoses and prescriptions will continue. It is fine to be concerned about tyrannous Muslim regimes, and surely they need to set their own house in order, but not now, not in this context, and not under the auspices of the American fascist regime. Liberals don't yet realize, or fail to admit, that they may have been condemned to irrelevance for quite some time; the death blow against even mild welfare statism might already have been struck.

The similarities between American fascism and particularly the National Socialist precedent, both historical and theoretical, are remarkable. Fascism is home, it is here to stay, and it better be countered with all the intellectual resources at our disposal.

American fascism is tapping into the perennial complaint against liberalism: that it doesn't provide an authentic sense of belonging to the majority of people. And that is a criticism difficult to dismiss out of hand. As the language of liberalism has become flat and predictable, some Americans have become more ready to accept an alternative, no matter how ridiculous, as long as it sounds vigorous and muscular.

America today is seeking a return to some form of vitalism, some organic, volkisch order that will "unite" the blue and red states in an eternal Volkgemeinschaft; is in a state of perpetual war and militaristic aggression targeting all potential counters to hegemony; has been coercing and blackmailing its own victims and oppressed (justified by anti-political correctness rhetoric) to return to a mythical national consensus; has introduced surveillance technology to demolish the private sphere to an extent unimaginable in the recent past; and fetishizes technology as the futuristic solution to age-old ills of alienation and mistrust.

And we are right in the mainstream of the Western philosophical and political tradition in this subtle (overnight?) transformation. Liberal democracy was replaced by Mussolini by these two Holy Trinities: Believe, Obey, Fight, and Order, Authority, Justice. These slogans seem to replace every liberal system sooner or later. Italian propagandistic slogans included: War is to man as childbirth is to woman, and Better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep. Sooner or later, the mob is persuaded that fascism best addresses its unfulfilled spiritual and psychological needs. Sooner or later there is a Hitler, and even if there isn't a leader as charismatic as him, there is an anti-modernity counter-revolution.

The enlightenment everywhere has contained the seeds of its own destruction. Fascism merely borrows from the enlightenment's credo that violence may sometimes be necessary to achieve valid political ends, and that human reason alone can lead humanity to utopia. Is Nazism an absolute aberration? Is America totally immune to fascism? Then we might as well discredit Rousseau's "general will," Hegel's historical spirit, Goethe and Schelling's romanticization of nature and genius, Darwin's natural selection, and Nietzsche's superman. When all is said and done, a Kant or Mill is never a match for a Nietzsche or Sorel. Industrial malaise (now post-industrial disorder), evaded by the dead-ends and delusions of liberalism, leads only to a romantic revolution, which is fine as long as it is in the hands of Byron, Keats, Carlyle, Ruskin and Arnold, but becomes eventually converted to a propaganda-saturated Third Way. Since liberalism doesn't take up the challenge, fascism steps in to say that it offers an answer to centrifugal difference and lack of common purpose, and that it will dare to link industrial prosperity with communal goals.

How great a deviation from the roots of the enlightenment, the foundations of its self-justification, is the Manichean demonization of enemies, aliens, impure races, and barbaric others? America today wants to be communal and virile; it seeks to overcome what is presented by propagandists as the unreasonable demands for affirmative action and reparations by minorities and women; it wants to revalorize nation and region and race to take control of the future; it seeks to remold the nation through propaganda and charismatic leadership, into overcoming the social divisiveness of capitalism and democracy.

We have our own nationalist myths that our brand of fascism taps right into. In that sense, America is not exceptional. In the near future, America can be expected to embark on a more radical search to define who is not part of the natural order: exclusion, deportation, and eventually extermination, might again become the order of things. Of course, we can notice obvious differences from the German nationalist tradition: but that is precisely the task of scholars to delineate, rather than pretend that fascism occurred only in Italy and Germany and satellite states in the first half of the century, and occurs today only in Europe in minor movements that have no chance of gaining political supremacy.

It is wrong to pretend that fascism takes hold only in the midst of extreme economic depression or political chaos. (A perception of crisis or instability is indispensable to realizing fascism, however.) Fascism can emerge when things are not all that bad economically, politically, and culturally. The surprise about Weimar Germany is how well the political system was at times working, with proportional representation (almost an ideal of strong democracy theorists) providing political expression for a full range of ideologies. Germany was economically strong, an industrial powerhouse, despite having had to overcome massive disabilities imposed by the Versailles Treaty. In the early thirties, Hitler's rise was facilitated by massive unemployment (perhaps forty percent of Germans were unemployed), but this was a phenomenon throughout the Western world.

The key point to note is that at many junctures along the way, it was possible that Hitler's rise might never have happened. And that the elites accepted Hitler as the best possible option. All this makes Hitler and Nazism unexceptional. The basic paradigm remains more or less intact: we only have to account for variations in the American model. Capitalism today is different, so are the postmodern means of propaganda, and so are the technological tools of suppression. Besides, American foundational myths vary from European ones, and the romanticism propounded by Goethe, Schelling, Wagner and Nietzsche contrasts with a different kind of holistic urge in America. But that is only a matter of variation, not direct opposition. Liberals who say that demographics work against a Republican majority in the early twenty-first century do have a point; but fascism can occur precisely at that moment of truth, when the course of political history can definitely tend to one direction or another. A mere push can set things on a whole different course, regardless of underlying cultural or demographic trends. Nazism never had the support of the majority of Germans; at best about a third fully supported it. About a third of Americans today are certifiably fascist; another twenty percent or so can be swayed around with smart propaganda to particular causes. So the existence of liberal institutions is not necessarily inconsistent with fascism's political dominance.

With all of Germany's cultural strength, brutality won out; the same analysis can apply to America. Hitler never won clear majorities; yet once he was in power, he crushed all dissent. Consider the parallels to the fateful election of 2000. Hitler's ascent to power was facilitated by the political elites; again, note the similarities to the last two years. Hitler took advantage of the Reichstag fire to totally change the shape of German institutions and culture; think of 9/11 as a close parallel. Hitler was careful to give the impression of always operating under legal cover, even for the most massive offenses against humanity; note again the similarity of a pseudo-legal shield for the actions of the American fascists. One can go on and on in this vein.

If we look at Stanley Payne's classical general theory of fascism, we are struck by the increasing similarities with the American model:

A. The Fascist Negations

• Antiliberalism
  
  
• Anticommunism
  
  
• Anticonservatism (though with the understanding that fascist groups were willing to undertake temporary alliances with groups from any other sector, most commonly with the right).
  

B. Ideology and Goals

• Creation of a new nationalist authoritarian state based not merely on traditional principles or models.
  
  
• Organization of some new kind of regulated, multiclass, integrated national economic structure, whether called national corporatist, national socialist, or national syndicalist.
  
  
• The goal of empire or a radical change in the nation’s relationship with other powers.
  
  
• Specific espousal of an idealist, voluntarist creed, normally involving the attempt to realize a new form of modern, self-determined, secular culture.
  

C. Style and Organization

• Emphasis on esthetic structure of meetings, symbols, and political choreography, stressing romantic and mystical aspects.
  
  
• Attempted mass mobilization with militarization of political relationships and style and with the goal of a mass party militia.
  
  
• Positive evaluation and use of, or willingness to use, violence.
  
  
• Extreme stress on the masculine principle and male dominance, while espousing the organic view of society.
  
  
• Exaltation of youth above other phases of life, emphasizing the conflict of generations, at least in effecting the initial political transformation.
  
  
• Specific tendency toward an authoritarian, charismatic, personal style of command, whether or not the command is to some degree initially elective.
  

American fascism denies affiliation with liberalism, communism, and conservatism. The first two denials are obvious; the third requires a little analysis, but fascism is not conservatism and it takes issue with conservatism's anti-revolutionary stance. Conservatism's libertarian strand, an American staple (think of the recent protestations of Dick Armey, the departing Bob Barr, and the Cato Institute against some of the grossest violations of civil liberties), would not agree with fascism's "nationalist authoritarian state." Reaganite anti-government rhetoric might well have been a precursor to fascism, but Hayekian free market and deregulationist ideology cannot be labeled fascism.

Continuing to look at Payne's list, we note that the goal of "empire," that much proscribed word in official American vocabulary, has found open acceptance over the last year among the fascist vanguard. Voluntarism has been elevated to iconic status in the current American manifestation of fascism. It takes a bit more effort to notice American fascism's "emphasis on aesthetic structure. . .stressing romantic and mystical aspects," but reflection suggests many innovative stylistic emphases. The mass party militia, especially large bands of organized, militarized youth, seems to be missing ­ for now. Violence is glorified for its own sake. The masculine principle has been elevated as the basis of policy-making. Command is authoritarian, charismatic, and personal. It is true that a charismatic leader like Hitler is missing from the scene; but one would have to ask if this is not a redundancy in the American historical context. Perhaps we are a society mobilized by very small degrees of charisma, unlike more informed, impassioned, ideologically committed electorates.

Roger Griffin holds that fascism consists of a series of myths: fascism is anti-liberal, anti-conservative, anti-rational, charismatic, socialist, totalitarian, racist and eclectic. If one wishes to argue that American fascism is by no means socialist, one ought to take a deeper look at National Socialism's conception of socialism. In a sense, America is a socialist society, to the extent that the government is the main driving force behind technology, innovation, and science: the military-industrial-academic complex. National Socialism was comforting to the right-wing capitalists because they believed that socialism was a convenient fiction for the ideology. Nevertheless, fascism's vitalism and holism militate against any facile interpretations of what socialism means. Fascism is eclectic and ready to abandon economic principle for what it perceives as the greater good of the nation. As Sternhell has described it for Germany, fascism in the American synthesis is a cultural rebellion, a revolutionary ideology; totalitarianism is of its very essence. There are more similarities than immediately apparent between Marxism as it was put into practice by the twentieth century communist states, and "socialist" ideology put into practice by the various fascist states.

Ian Kershaw has evaluated the similarities between Italian and German fascism:

• Extreme chauvinistic nationalism with pronounced imperialistic expansionist tendencies;
  
  
• an anti-socialist, anti-Marxist thrust aimed at the destruction of working class organizations and their Marxist political philosophy;
  
  
• the basis in a mass party drawing from all sectors of society, though with pronounced support in the middle class and proving attractive to the peasantry and to various uprooted or highly unstable sectors of the population;
  
  
• fixation on a charismatic, plebiscitary, legitimized leader;
  
  
• extreme intolerance towards all oppositional and presumed oppositional groups, expressed through vicious terror, open violence and ruthless repression;
  
  
• glorification of militarism and war, heightened by the backlash to the comprehensive socio-political crisis in Europe arising from the First World War;
  
  
• dependence upon an "alliance" with existing elites, industrial, agrarian, military and bureaucratic, for their political breakthrough;
  
  
• and, at least an initial function, despite a populist-revolutionary anti-establishment rhetoric, in the stabilization or restoration of social order and capitalist structures.
  

Viewed in this perspective, in only the last few months America has advanced tremendously from emerging to realized fascism. Its imperialist and expansionist tendencies need to be couched less and less in Wilsonian idealist terms for mass acceptance. Unions can still be considered an oppositional, populist force, but working class cohesion has nearly been destroyed. Still, it needs to be said that instead of fascism appealing across class and geographical lines, the country remains divided between the liberal (urban, coastal) and proto-fascist (rural, Southern) factions. Also, the plebiscitary leader has not yet fully emerged. Oppositional groups are often self-silencing, but the most of the ruling establishment continues to practice a mild form of liberalism, and hopes that if things get too out of hand it can mobilize public opinion against brutal suppression. Although not all elites have yet been co-opted, think of Dershowitz's advocacy of torture and Larry Summers's patriotic swing. There is general agreement on militaristic aims. The attempted stabilization of the social order in the form of the culture wars fought in the previous decade is one of the less appreciated manifestations of emerging fascism.

George Mosse describes fascism as viewing itself in a permanent state of war, to mobilize masculine virile energy, enlisting the masses as "foot soldiers of a civic religion." As Mosse points out, fascism seeks a higher form of democracy even as it rejects the customary forms of representative government. Propaganda is pervasive in America; we only need to delineate its descent from the Nazi form. Mosse rejects the notion that fascism ruled through terror; "it was built upon a popular consensus." Fascism is a higher consensus seeking to bring about the "new man" rooted in Christian doctrine. Can there be a better description of the nineties American culture wars instigated by the proto-fascists than the following?

When fascists spoke of culture, they meant a proper attitude toward life: encompassing the ability to accept a faith, the work ethic, and discipline, but also receptivity to art and the appreciation of the native landscape. The true community was symbolized by factors opposed to materialism, by art and literature, the symbols of the past and the stereotypes of the present. The National Socialist emphasis upon myth, symbol, literature and art is indeed common to all fascism.

Most of this is obvious, except the reference to literature and art; but think of the fetishization of the Great Books and the mythical classical curriculum by Bennett and his like. In thus viewing fascism above all as a cultural movement, the objection might be raised that American fascism lacks a distinctive stylistic expression that iconizes youth and war. Instead, it might be argued that it suffers from callow endorsement by dour old white males, whose cultural appeal is limited in the discredited stylistic forms they employ. To some extent this is true, but one must never underestimate the fertile ground American anti-intellectualism provides for more banal forms of propaganda and cultural terrorism than needed to be deployed by Nazism. (Eminem does electrocute Cheney in his video, but in real life Cheney rules.) American communication technology, as was true of Nazi Germany, has pioneered whole new methods of trivialization of "mass death" and elevation of brutality as a "great experience."

War is both necessary and great, and that is America's continuation of the fascist fascination with revitalization of "basic moral values." Furthermore, the puritanism of American fascism does not necessarily conflict with the Nazi emphasis on style and beauty: Nazism annexed "the pillars of respectability: hard work, self-discipline, and good manners," which explains "the puritanism of National Socialism, its emphasis upon chastity, the family, good manners, and the banishment of women from public life." The analogs to Karl May's widely circulated novels in Weimar and Nazi Germany can probably be found here, as can America's answer to Max Nordau, rebelling against decadence in art and literature, and maintaining that "lack of clarity, inability to uphold moral standards, and absence of self-discipline all sprang from the degeneration of their [artists'] physical organism." Think only of the demonization of Mapplethorpe and others, the emasculation of the NEA, and the continued attack on alleged artistic degeneracy. We must be willing to consider expanded definitions of how romanticism has been incorporated by American fascism.

Liberals might complain that in America there hasn't been a declared revolution, a transformation that asserts itself as such. But as noted above fascism simply takes over the liberals' language of "clarity, decency, and natural laws," as well as its ideals of "tolerance and freedom." That sounds like the sleight-of-hand performed by the fascists here. As Mosse says:

Tolerance. . .was claimed by fascists in antithesis to their supposedly intolerant enemies, while freedom was placed within the community. To be tolerant meant not tolerating those who opposed fascism: individual liberty was possible only within the collectivity. Here once more, concepts that had become part and parcel of established patterns of thought were not rejected (as so many historians have claimed) but instead co-opted - fascism would bring about ideals with which people were comfortable, but only on its own terms.

So to be liberal means to be intolerant, out of sync with the American democratic spirit. That suggestion has taken hold among large numbers of people.

The current American aesthetic appreciation of technology ("smart" bombs) is also of a piece with Hitler's passion. Fascism is not a deviance from popular cultural trends, but only the taming of activism within revived nationalist myths. Mosse holds that fascism didn't diverge from mainstream European culture; it absorbed most of what held great mass appeal. It never decried workers' tastelessness; it accepted these realities. The same principles apply to American fascism.

Umberto Eco, in his essay "Ur-Fascism," identifies fourteen characteristics of "eternal fascism": not all of them have to be present at the same time for a system to be considered fascist, and some of them may even be contradictory: "There was only one Nazism, and we cannot describe the ultra-Catholic Falangism of Franco as Nazism, given that Nazism is fundamentally pagan, polytheistic, and anti-Christian, otherwise it is not Nazism." Eco is intelligent enough to suggest a family of resemblance, overlap, and kinship, and the analyst's task is to note which particular characteristics apply to a system, and understand the reasons for the absence of others, rather than dismiss the fascist categorization if a single feature from a previous fascist variant doesn't apply: "Remove the imperialist dimension from Fascism, and you get Franco or Salazar; remove the colonialist dimension, and you get Balkan Fascism. Add to Italian Fascism a dash of radical anti-Capitalism (which never appealed to Mussolini), and you get Ezra Pound. Add the cult of Celtic mythology and the mysticism of the Grail (completely extraneous to official Fascism), and you get one of the most respected gurus of Fascism, Julius Evola."

It is noteworthy about Eco's matrix that all fourteen of his characteristics of ur-fascism apply to America to some degree: 1. "the cult of tradition" (which may be "syncretic" and able to "tolerate contradictions"); 2. "the rejection of modernism" and "irrationalism"; 3. "the cult of action for action's sake"; 4. "dissent is betrayal"; 5. "fear of difference," or racism; 6. "the appeal to the frustrated middle classes" [this seems to cause the most trouble to American liberals; Eco clarifies, "In our day, in which the old 'proletarians' are becoming petits bourgeois (and the lumpen proletariat has excluded itself from the political arena), Fascism will find its audience in this new majority.]; 7. "obsession with conspiracies," along with xenophobia and nationalism; 8. "the enemy is at once too strong and too weak" [note the simultaneous characterization of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and no doubt future Islamic "terrorists" as capable of irrevocably harming us and being impotent to really do so]; 9. "Pacifism is. . .collusion with the enemy," "life is a permanent war," and only a "final solution" can herald an age of peace; 10. "scorn for the weak" imposed by a mass elite; 11. "the cult of death" [American fascists ascribe this characteristic to terrorists, when in fact it is one of their own supreme defining characteristics]; 12. transferring of the "will to power onto sexual questions," or "machismo"; 13. "individuals have no rights," and fascism "has to oppose 'rotten' parliamentary governments"; and 14. "Ur-Fascism uses newspeak."

No doubt, fascism is a descriptor too carelessly thrown around; but Nixon and Reagan, no matter how reprehensible their politics, were not quite fascist. Bush is the most dangerous man in contemporary history: Hitler didn't have access to weapons that could blow up the world, and no American or other leader since World War II with access to such weapons has been as out of control. Perhaps a non-controversial statement may be that the fascist tendency always exists, at the very least latent and dormant. But when more and more of the latency becomes actualized, there comes a point when the nature of the problem has to be redefined. We may already have crossed that point. As Eco notes, "Ur-Fascism can still return in the most innocent of guises. Our duty is to unmask it and to point the finger at each of its new forms ­ every day, in every part of the world." And as Eco reminds us, Roosevelt issued a similar warning.

Since liberals don't understand the magnitude of the crisis global capitalism faces, they don't understand the extent of the desperate, last-ditch effort to find an ideological glue ("terror") to hold together the centrifugal forces in the American population. Part of the confusion is that this is fascism but not really fascism; it is only its simulation, although no less horrifying for that reason because all the twentieth-century ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, and socialism) are rapidly dissolving.

Anis Shivani studied economics at Harvard, and is the author of two novels, "The Age of Critics" and "Memoirs of a Terrorist." He can be contacted at anis_shivani_ab92@post.harvard.edu.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 30, 2005 at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Sudoku Puzzle 005

_______________________
|       |       |       |
| 6 4   |   1 3 | 9     |
|       |       |       |
| 1     |   2 6 | 4     |
|       |       |       |
|   2 9 |   4 5 | 7     |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
|     2 |       | 8 3   |
|       |       |       |
| 8 6   |   3 7 |   1 9 |
|       |       |       |
| 7     | 2   9 |       |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
|     1 | 3     | 6 9   |
|       |       |       |
| 9 3 6 | 4   8 |   2   |
|       |       |       |
|     5 |       |       |
|_______|_______|_______|

end us the correct solution. Winners will be published.

Posted by fm on October 29, 2005 at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, October 28, 2005

News Bulletin 2005-10-28

White House official I. Lewis Libby indicted on obstruction of justice, false statement and perjury charges relating to leak of classified information revealing CIA officer's identity

Posted by fm on October 28, 2005 at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Series on Fascism X

Project for the New American Century
By William Rivers Pitt

The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington-based think tank created in 1997. Above all else, PNAC desires and demands one thing: The establishment of a global American empire to bend the will of all nations. They chafe at the idea that the United States, the last remaining superpower, does not do more by way of economic and military force to bring the rest of the world under the umbrella of a new socio-economic Pax Americana.

The fundamental essence of PNAC's ideology can be found in a White Paper produced in September of 2000 entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century." In it, PNAC outlines what is required of America to create the global empire they envision. According to PNAC, America must

• reposition permanently based forces to Southern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East,
  
  
• modernize U.S. forces, including enhancing our fighter aircraft, submarine and surface fleet capabilities,
  
  
• develop and deploy a global missile defense system, and develop a strategic dominance of space,
  
  
• control the "International Commons" of cyberspace, and
  
  
• increase defense spending to a minimum of 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, up from the 3 percent currently spent.
  

Most ominously, this PNAC document described four "Core Missions" for the American military. The two central requirements are for American forces to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars," and to "perform the 'constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions." Note well that PNAC does not want America to be prepared to fight simultaneous major wars. That is old school. In order to bring this plan to fruition, the military must fight these wars one way or the other to establish American dominance for all to see.

Why is this important? After all, wacky think tanks are a cottage industry in Washington, D.C. They are a dime a dozen. In what way does PNAC stand above the other groups that would set American foreign policy if they could? Two events brought PNAC into the mainstream of American government: the disputed election of George W. Bush, and the attacks of September 11th. When Bush assumed the Presidency, the men who created and nurtured the imperial dreams of PNAC became the men who run the Pentagon, the Defense Department and the White House. When the Towers came down, these men saw, at long last, their chance to turn their White Papers into substantive policy.

Vice President Dick Cheney is a founding member of PNAC, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is the ideological father of the group. Bruce Jackson, a PNAC director, served as a Pentagon official for Ronald Reagan before leaving government service to take a leading position with the weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

PNAC is staffed by men who previously served with groups like Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America, which supported America's bloody gamesmanship in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and with groups like The Committee for the Present Danger, which spent years advocating that a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was "winnable."

PNAC has recently given birth to a new group, The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which met with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in order to formulate a plan to "educate" the American populace about the need for war in Iraq. CLI has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to support the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi heir presumptive, Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court in 1992 to 22 years in prison for bank fraud after the collapse of Petra Bank, which he founded in 1977. Chalabi has not set foot in Iraq since 1956, but his Enron-like business credentials apparently make him a good match for the Bush administration's plans.

PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report is the institutionalization of plans and ideologies that have been formulated for decades by the men currently running American government. The PNAC Statement of Principles is signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, as well as by Eliot Abrams, Jeb Bush, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and many others. William Kristol, famed conservative writer for the Weekly Standard, is also a co-founder of the group. The Weekly Standard is owned by Ruppert Murdoch, who also owns international media giant Fox News.

The desire for these freshly empowered PNAC men to extend American hegemony by force of arms across the globe has been there since day one of the Bush administration, and is in no small part a central reason for the Florida electoral battle in 2000. Note that while many have said that Gore and Bush are ideologically identical, Mr. Gore had no ties whatsoever to the fellows at PNAC. George W. Bush had to win that election by any means necessary, and PNAC signatory Jeb Bush was in the perfect position to ensure the rise to prominence of his fellow imperialists. Desire for such action, however, is by no means translatable into workable policy. Americans enjoy their comforts, but don't cotton to the idea of being some sort of Neo-Rome.

On September 11th, the fellows from PNAC saw a door of opportunity open wide before them, and stormed right through it.

Bush released on September 20th 2001 the "National Security Strategy of the United States of America." It is an ideological match to PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report issued a year earlier. In many places, it uses exactly the same language to describe America's new place in the world.

Recall that PNAC demanded an increase in defense spending to at least 3.8% of GDP. Bush's proposed budget for next year asks for $379 billion in defense spending, almost exactly 3.8% of GDP.

In August of 2002, Defense Policy Board chairman and PNAC member Richard Perle heard a policy briefing from a think tank associated with the Rand Corporation. According to the Washington Post and The Nation, the final slide of this presentation described "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot, and Egypt as the prize" in a war that would purportedly be about ridding the world of Saddam Hussein's weapons. Bush has deployed massive forces into the Mideast region, while simultaneously engaging American forces in the Philippines and playing nuclear chicken with North Korea. Somewhere in all this lurks at least one of the "major theater wars" desired by the September 2000 PNAC report. Iraq is but the beginning, a pretense for a wider conflict. Donald Kagan, a central member of PNAC, sees America establishing permanent military bases in Iraq after the war. This is purportedly a measure to defend the peace in the Middle East, and to make sure the oil flows. The nations in that region, however, will see this for what it is: a jump-off point for American forces to invade any nation in that region they choose to. The American people, anxiously awaiting some sort of exit plan after America defeats Iraq, will see too late that no exit is planned.

All of the horses are traveling together at speed here. The defense contractors who sup on American tax revenue will be handsomely paid for arming this new American empire. The corporations that own the news media will sell this eternal war at a profit, as viewership goes through the stratosphere when there is combat to be shown. Those within the administration who believe that the defense of Israel is contingent upon laying waste to every possible aggressor in the region will have their dreams fulfilled. The PNAC men who wish for a global Pax Americana at gunpoint will see their plans unfold. Through it all, the bankrollers from the WTO and the IMF will be able to dictate financial terms to the entire planet. This last aspect of the plan is pivotal, and is best described in the newly revised version of Greg Palast's masterpiece, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."

There will be adverse side effects. The siege mentality average Americans are suffering as they smother behind yards of plastic sheeting and duct tape will increase by orders of magnitude as our aggressions bring forth new terrorist attacks against the homeland. These attacks will require the implementation of the newly drafted Patriot Act II, an augmentation of the previous Act that has profoundly sharper teeth. The sun will set on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The American economy will be ravaged by the need for increased defense spending, and by the aforementioned "constabulary" duties in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Former allies will turn on us. Germany, France and the other nations resisting this Iraq war are fully aware of this game plan. They are not acting out of cowardice or because they love Saddam Hussein, but because they mean to resist this rising American empire, lest they face economic and military serfdom at the hands of George W. Bush. Richard Perle has already stated that France is no longer an American ally.

As the eagle spreads its wings, our rhetoric and their resistance will become more agitated and dangerous.

Many people, of course, will die. They will die from war and from want, from famine and disease. At home, the social fabric will be torn in ways that make the Reagan nightmares of crack addiction, homelessness and AIDS seem tame by comparison.

This is the price to be paid for empire, and the men of PNAC who now control the fate and future of America are more than willing to pay it. For them, the benefits far outweigh the liabilities.

The plan was running smoothly until those two icebergs collided. Millions and millions of ordinary people are making it very difficult for Bush's international allies to keep to the script. PNAC may have designs for the control of the "International Commons" of the Internet, but for now it is the staging ground for a movement that would see empire take a back seat to a wise peace, human rights, equal protection under the law, and the preponderance of a justice that will, if properly applied, do away forever with the anger and hatred that gives birth to terrorism in the first place. Tommaso Palladini of Milan perhaps said it best as he marched with his countrymen in Rome. "You fight terrorism," he said, "by creating more justice in the world."

The People versus the Powerful is the oldest story in human history. At no point in history have the Powerful wielded so much control. At no point in history has the active and informed involvement of the People, all of them, been more absolutely required. The tide can be stopped, and the men who desire empire by the sword can be thwarted. It has already begun, but it must not cease. These are men of will, and they do not intend to fail.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times bestselling author of two books - "War on Iraq" and "The Greatest Sedition is Silence." He teaches high school in Boston, MA.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 28, 2005 at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Series on Fascism IX

The President's Real Goal in Iraq
By Jay Bookman

The official story on Iraq has never made sense. The connection that the Bush administration has tried to draw between Iraq and al-Qaida has always seemed contrived and artificial. In fact, it was hard to believe that smart people in the Bush administration would start a major war based on such flimsy evidence.

The pieces just didn't fit. Something else had to be going on; something was missing. In recent days, those missing pieces have finally begun to fall into place. As it turns out, this is not really about Iraq. It is not about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N. resolutions.

This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the "American imperialists" that our enemies always claimed we were.

Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example, why does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy from Iraq once Saddam is toppled?

Because we won't be leaving. Having conquered Iraq, the United States will create permanent military bases in that country from which to dominate the Middle East, including neighboring Iran.

In an interview Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld brushed aside that suggestion, noting that the United States does not covet other nations' territory. That may be true, but 57 years after World War II ended, we still have major bases in Germany and Japan. We will do the same in Iraq.

And why has the administration dismissed the option of containing and deterring Iraq, as we had the Soviet Union for 45 years? Because even if it worked, containment and deterrence would not allow the expansion of American power. Besides, they are beneath us as an empire. Rome did not stoop to containment; it conquered. And so should we.

Among the architects of this would-be American Empire are a group of brilliant and powerful people who now hold key positions in the Bush administration: They envision the creation and enforcement of what they call a worldwide "Pax Americana," or American peace. But so far, the American people have not appreciated the true extent of that ambition.

Part of it is laid out in the "National Security Strategy of the United States of America," a document in which each administration outlines its approach to defending the country. The Bush administration plan, released Sept. 20, 2002, marks a significant departure from previous approaches, a change that it attributes largely to the attacks of Sept. 11.

To address the terrorism threat, the president's report lays out a newly aggressive military and foreign policy, embracing pre-emptive attack against perceived enemies. It speaks in blunt terms of what it calls "American internationalism," of ignoring international opinion if that suits U.S. interests. "The best defense is a good offense," the document asserts.

It dismisses deterrence as a Cold War relic and instead talks of "convincing or compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities."

In essence, it lays out a plan for permanent U.S. military and economic domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or concern. And to make that plan a reality, it envisions a stark expansion of our global military presence.

"The United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia," the document warns, "as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of U.S. troops."

The report's repeated references to terrorism are misleading, however, because the approach of the new National Security Strategy was clearly not inspired by the events of Sept. 11. They can be found in much the same language in the "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report issued in September 2000 by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a group of conservative interventionists outraged by the thought that the United States might be forfeiting its chance at a global empire.

"At no time in history has the international security order been as conducive to American interests and ideals," the report stated two years ago. "The challenge of this coming century is to preserve and enhance this 'American peace.' "

Familiar Themes

Overall, that 2000 report reads like a blueprint for current Bush defense policy. Most of what it advocates, the Bush administration has tried to accomplish. For example, the project report urged the repudiation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty and a commitment to a global missile defense system. The administration has taken that course.

It recommended that to project sufficient power worldwide to enforce Pax Americana, the United States would have to increase defense spending from 3 percent of gross domestic product to as much as 3.8 percent. For next year, the Bush administration has requested a defense budget of $379 billion, almost exactly 3.8 percent of GDP.

It advocates the "transformation" of the U.S. military to meet its expanded obligations, including the cancellation of such outmoded defense programs as the Crusader artillery system. That's exactly the message being preached by Rumsfeld and others.

It urges the development of small nuclear warheads "required in targeting the very deep, underground hardened bunkers that are being built by many of our potential adversaries." This year the GOP-led U.S. House gave the Pentagon the green light to develop such a weapon, called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, while the Senate has so far balked.

That close tracking of recommendation with current policy is hardly surprising, given the current positions of the people who contributed to the 2000 report.

Paul Wolfowitz is now deputy defense secretary. John Bolton is undersecretary of state. Stephen Cambone is head of the Pentagon's Office of Program, Analysis and Evaluation. Eliot Cohen and Devon Cross are members of the Defense Policy Board, which advises Rumsfeld. I. Lewis Libby is chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Dov Zakheim is comptroller for the Defense Department.

'Constabulary Duties'

Because they were still just private citizens in 2000, the authors of the "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report could be more frank and less diplomatic than they were in drafting the National Security Strategy. Back in 2000, they clearly identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as primary short-term targets, well before President Bush tagged them as the Axis of Evil. In their report, they criticize the fact that in war planning against North Korea and Iraq, "past Pentagon wargames have given little or no consideration to the force requirements necessary not only to defeat an attack but to remove these regimes from power."

To preserve the Pax Americana, the report says U.S. forces will be required to perform "constabulary duties" - the United States acting as policeman of the world - and says that such actions "demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations."

To meet those responsibilities, and to ensure that no country dares to challenge the United States, the report advocates a much larger military presence spread over more of the globe, in addition to the roughly 130 nations in which U.S. troops are already deployed.

More specifically, they argue that we need permanent military bases in the Middle East, in Southeast Europe, in Latin America and in Southeast Asia, where no such bases now exist. That helps to explain another of the mysteries of our post-Sept. 11 reaction, in which the Bush administration rushed to install U.S. troops in Georgia and the Philippines, as well as our eagerness to send military advisers to assist in the civil war in Colombia.

The 2000 "Rebuilding America's Defenses" report directly acknowledges its debt to a still earlier document, drafted in 1992 by the Defense Department. That document had also envisioned the United States as a colossus astride the world, imposing its will and keeping world peace through military and economic power. When leaked in final draft form, however, the proposal drew so much criticism that it was hastily withdrawn and repudiated by the first President Bush.

The defense secretary in 1992 was Richard Cheney; the document was drafted by Wolfowitz, who at the time was defense undersecretary for policy.

Effect on Allies

The potential implications of a Pax Americana are immense. One is the effect on our allies. Once we assert the unilateral right to act as the world's policeman, our allies will quickly recede into the background. Eventually, we will be forced to spend American wealth and American blood protecting the peace while other nations redirect their wealth to such things as health care for their citizenry.

Donald Kagan, a professor of classical Greek history at Yale and an influential advocate of a more aggressive foreign policy - he served as co-chairman of the 2000 New Century project - acknowledges that likelihood.

"If [our allies] want a free ride, and they probably will, we can't stop that," he says. But he also argues that the United States, given its unique position, has no choice but to act anyway. "You saw the movie 'High Noon'? he asks. "We're Gary Cooper."

Accepting the Cooper role would be an historic change in who we are as a nation, and in how we operate in the international arena. Candidate Bush certainly did not campaign on such a change. It is not something that he or others have dared to discuss honestly with the American people. To the contrary, in his foreign policy debate with Al Gore, Bush pointedly advocated a more humble foreign policy, a position calculated to appeal to voters leery of military intervention.

For the same reason, Kagan and others shy away from terms such as empire, understanding its connotations. But they also argue that it would be naive and dangerous to reject the role that history has thrust upon us. Kagan, for example, willingly embraces the idea that the United States would establish permanent military bases in a post-war Iraq.

"I think that's highly possible," he says. "We will probably need a major concentration of forces in the Middle East over a long period of time. That will come at a price, but think of the price of not having it. When we have economic problems, it's been caused by disruptions in our oil supply. If we have a force in Iraq, there will be no disruption in oil supplies."

Costly Global Commitment

Rumsfeld and Kagan believe that a successful war against Iraq will produce other benefits, such as serving an object lesson for nations such as Iran and Syria. Rumsfeld, as befits his sensitive position, puts it rather gently. If a regime change were to take place in Iraq, other nations pursuing weapons of mass destruction "would get the message that having them . . . is attracting attention that is not favorable and is not helpful," he says.

Kagan is more blunt. "People worry a lot about how the Arab street is going to react," he notes. "Well, I see that the Arab street has gotten very, very quiet since we started blowing things up."

The cost of such a global commitment would be enormous. In 2000, we spent $281 billion on our military, which was more than the next 11 nations combined. By 2003, our expenditures will have risen to $378 billion. In other words, the increase in our defense budget from 1999-2003 will be more than the total amount spent annually by China, our next largest competitor.

The lure of empire is ancient and powerful, and over the millennia it has driven men to commit terrible crimes on its behalf. But with the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, a global empire was essentially laid at the feet of the United States. To the chagrin of some, we did not seize it at the time, in large part because the American people have never been comfortable with themselves as a New Rome.

Now, more than a decade later, the events of Sept. 11 have given those advocates of empire a new opportunity to press their case with a new president. So in debating whether to invade Iraq, we are really debating the role that the United States will play in the years and decades to come.

Are peace and security best achieved by seeking strong alliances and international consensus, led by the United States? Or is it necessary to take a more unilateral approach, accepting and enhancing the global dominance that, according to some, history has thrust upon us?

If we do decide to seize empire, we should make that decision knowingly, as a democracy. The price of maintaining an empire is always high. Kagan and others argue that the price of rejecting it would be higher still.

That's what this is about.

"Rebuilding America's Defenses," a 2000 report by the Project for the New American Century, listed 27 people as having attended meetings or contributed papers in preparation of the report. Among them are six who have since assumed key defense and foreign policy positions in the Bush administration. And the report seems to have become a blueprint for Bush's foreign and defense policy:

• Paul Wolfowitz
  Political science doctorate from University of Chicago and dean of the international relations program at Johns Hopkins University during the 1990s. Served in the Reagan State Department, moved to the Pentagon during the first Bush administration as undersecretary of defense for policy. Sworn in as deputy defense secretary in March 2001.
  
  
• John Bolton
  Yale Law grad who worked in the Reagan administration as an assistant attorney general. Switched to the State Department in the first Bush administration as assistant secretary for international organization affairs. Sworn in as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, May 2001.
  
  
• Eliot Cohen
  Harvard doctorate in government who taught at Harvard and at the Naval War College. Now directs strategic studies at Johns Hopkins and is the author of several books on military strategy. Was on the Defense Department's policy planning staff in the first Bush administration and is now on Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board.
  
  
• I. Lewis Libby
  Law degree from Columbia (Yale undergrad). Held advisory positions in the Reagan State Department. Was a partner in a Washington law firm in the late '80s before becoming deputy undersecretary of defense for policy in the first Bush administration (under Dick Cheney). Now is the vice president's chief of staff.
  
  
• Dov Zakheim
  Doctorate in economics and politics from Oxford University. Worked on policy issues in the Reagan Defense Department and went into private defense consulting during the 1990s. Was foreign policy adviser to the 2000 Bush campaign. Sworn in as undersecretary of defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Pentagon, May 2001.
  
  
• Stephen Cambone
  Political science doctorate from Claremont Graduate School. Was in charge of strategic defense policy at the Defense Department in the first Bush administration. Now heads the Office of Program, Analysis and Evaluation at the Defense Department.

To read the full text of the above-mentioned original documents, visit the following links:
1. Rebuilding America's Defenses
2. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 27, 2005 at 12:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Series on Fascism VIII

The Power behind the Bush Throne
Source: www.commonsentience.com

William Kristol, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, et.al., letter to the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, May 29, 1998:

"U.S. policy should have as its explicit goal removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power and establishing a peaceful and democratic Iraq in its place. We recognize that this goal will not be achieved easily. But the alternative is to leave the initiative to Saddam, who will continue to strengthen his position at home and in the region. Only the U.S. can lead the way in demonstrating that his rule is not legitimate and that time is not on the side of his regime.... We should establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf - and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power."

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (in Bush v. Gore): "the individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States," it was merely confirming the fact that the policy of the U.S. government policy is not set by its citizens. Even if Bush had won the the 2000 election, the true policymakers are not elected, and in many cases not even appointed by elected officials. One of the major groups setting foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, is the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Founded by William Kristol, editor of the News Corporation's Weekly Standard, PNAC has become a major influence on the military policy of the U.S. government through two of its leading members, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle.

In 1941 Henry Luce, the founding editor of Time Magazine, anticipated that the United States would emerge from World War 2 as the world's greatest superpower, launching what he termed the "American Century. He believed it was time "to accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation of the world and in consequence to assert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such means as we see fit."

In 1972 Paul Wolfowitz received his doctorate from University of Chicago, under the guidance of Albert Wohlstetter, a military strategist who put forward the idea of "graduated deterrence" - limited, small-scale wars fought with "smart" precision-guided bombs. Wohlstetter, a protégé of Leo Strauss, was also a major influence on Richard Perle.

In 1992 a draft policy statement called "Defense Planning Guidance" was prepared for the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz. The draft outlined several scenarios in which U.S. interests could be threatened by regional conflict: "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism or regional or local conflict, and threats to U.S. society from narcotics trafficking."

In 1995 Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation launched the Weekly Standard. Editor William Kristol previously served as chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle.

On June 3, 1997, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) issued its founding Statement of Principles, declaring: "We need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles." Signatories include:

• Jeb Bush, governor of Florida, key to handing the presidency to his brother George W. Bush
  
  
• Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States, former Secretary of Defense, former Halliburton CEO
  
  
• Dan Quayle, former Vice President of the United States
  
  
• Donald Rumsfeld, current and past Secretary of Defense
  
  
• Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
  

On May 29, 1998, PNAC sent a letter to the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives advocating regime change in Iraq. As a result, Congress, with bipartisan support, passed the Iraq Liberation Act. Section 3 of the Act reads: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." Signatories of the PNAC letter include Kristol, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, along with:

• Richard Perle, member and former chairman of Defense Policy Board; managing partner in Trireme Partners, a venture-capital company heavily invested in manufacturers of technology for the military and homeland security
  
  
• James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence
  

Under Michael Joyce, the Bradley Foundation made 15 grants during the years 1986-2001 totaling nearly $1.9 million to the New Citizenship Project Inc., the parent group of PNAC. (William Kristol serves as chairman of both organizations.) The foundation also is a significant funding source for the American Enterprise Institute, another neoconservative think tank.

On October 15, 2001, a month after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Weekly Standard published an article titled "The Case for the American Empire". The article stated:

"Once Afghanistan has been dealt with, America should turn its attention to Iraq. It will probably not be possible to remove Saddam quickly without a U.S. invasion and occupation--though it will hardly require half a million men, since Saddam's army is much diminished since the Gulf War, and we will probably have plenty of help from Iraqis, once they trust that we intend to finish the job this time. Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul. With American seriousness and credibility thus restored, we will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the region's many opportunists, who will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of rolling up the international terror network that threatens us."

On Jan. 14, 2003, as U.S. troops prepared to invade Iraq, William Kristol reviewed the influence of Wolfowitz's 1992 Defense Planning document in a PBS interview:

"I think Wolfowitz is now vindicated by history, but it took a long time to get vindicated. And, obviously, the Bush realists, what might be called the minimalist realism of the first Bush administration, was followed by a kind of wishful liberalism of the Clinton administration. And it really wasn't until 9/11 that Wolfowitz's paper, which by that time was nine years old, I think, came to be seen as perhaps prophetic."

In a May 10, 2003, interview with a Vanity Fair reporter, Wolfowitz outlined the strategic reasons for invading Iraq. Though he denied authorship of the 1992 Defense Planning draft, he admitted that the war had little to do with any Iraqi program to develop weapons of mass destruction. "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on ... weapons of mass destruction as the core reason," Wolfowitz said.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 26, 2005 at 12:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Series on Fascism: Part VII

The Rise of Pseudo Fascism
By David Neiwert

This essay started out as a kind of extended review of Robert O. Paxton's 2004 book, "The Anatomy of Fascism." At least, that was what I had in mind when I sat down to go through Paxton's text carefully. But it pretty quickly grew into something else.

I had heavily referenced one of Paxton's preceding essays, "The Five Stages of Fascism," in my extended blog essay "Rush, Newspeak, and Fascism." In many ways, Anatomy was an extended version of Paxton's earlier essay, with essentially a great deal more substantiation and historical evidence. And in reviewing it, I hoped to update readers on the trends I discussed in that earlier piece.

Paxton also explores in more detail both the history of fascism in America as well as its potential for emerging as a potent political force sometime in its future. Interestingly, he identifies both the United States and Israel as being among the few nations remaining capable of being host to real fascism.

But Paxton concludes – as did I in the "Rush" essay – that we are not there, at least not yet, saying the nation would "have to suffer catastrophic setbacks and polarization" for such a transformation to occur. Nonetheless, he sees real danger in what he calls "movements that employ authentically American themes in ways that resemble fascism functionally."

It was this latter stipulation that sparked my examination of the changing nature of the American political landscape that I describe in this essay. Because it became clear that forces on the ground, particularly the pressure cooker of a national presidential election, were moving much more rapidly in driving mainstream conservatism farther to the right and closer, perhaps inexorably, to fascism.

The key was in comparing Paxton's list of "mobilizing passions" that form the essence of fascism with current events, and realizing that conditions had changed noticeably if not dramatically in the period of just a little over a year. It became clear that, at the point at which Paxton was composing his text, the underlying conditions were changing in a way that made American "conservative movement" politics take on the striking resemblance of fascism. The ground was shifting on us, rapidly.
....

Click here for the full text of "The Rise of Pseudo Fascism" by David Neiwert.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 25, 2005 at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, October 24, 2005

Series on Fascism: Part VI

Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An Exegesis
By David Neiwert

Is fascism an obsolete term? Even if it resurrects itself as a significant political threat, can we use the term with any effectiveness?

My friend John McKay, discussing the matter at his weblog archy, wonders if the degraded state of the term has rendered it useless. After all, it has in many respects become a catchall for any kind of totalitarianism, rather than the special and certainly cause-specific phenomenon it was. Anyone using the word nowadays is most often merely participating in this degradation.

Nonetheless, I think Robert O. Paxton has it right in his essay The Five Stages of Fascism:

We cannot give up in the face of these difficulties. A real phenomenon exists. Indeed, fascism is the most original political novelty of the twentieth century, no less. … If we cannot examine fascism synthetically, we risk being unable to understand this century, or the next. We must have a word, and for lack of a better one, we must employ the word that Mussolini borrowed from the vocabulary of the Italian Left in 1919, before his movement had assumed its mature form. Obliged to use the term fascism, we ought to use it well.

The following essay is devoted to that idea. Its purpose is, if nothing else, to give the reader a clear understanding of fascism not merely as an historical force but a living one.
....

Click here for the full text of "Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An Exegesis" by David Neiwert.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 24, 2005 at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Series on Fascism: Part V

Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
By Umberto Eco

In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.

Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but is was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.

This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice;" such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.

As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.

If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.

Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism.

In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.

Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.

That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority.

7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.

This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.

8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.

When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.

Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such "final solutions" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak.

Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people in the world, the members or the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler.

11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.

In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.

This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.

13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.

In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, as the official language of what he called Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show.

Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt's words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 23, 2005 at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Sudoku Puzzle 004

_______________________
|       |       |       |
| 2     | 9     |     5 |
|       |       |       |
| 4 8   |   1   |       |
|       |       |       |
| 9     |   2   | 7     |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
|     2 |   3 9 | 8     |
|       |       |       |
|       |   7 4 |   9 2 |
|       |       |       |
| 7 9 1 | 6 8 2 | 3 5   |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
| 8 6   | 4     |     1 |
|       |       |       |
| 3 5   |       |   7 8 |
|       |       |       |
| 1   4 |     7 | 9 6   |
|_______|_______|_______|

end us the correct solution. Winners will be published.

Posted by fm on October 22, 2005 at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, October 21, 2005

Series on Fascism: Part IV

Fascism in America? - A Local Writer Sounds a Warning
By Ron Netsky
Source: City Newspaper

The last place you might expect to find a progressive would be the executive offices at Allied Chemical, Mobil, or Xerox Corp. But, throughout a business career that spanned four decades, Laurence W. Britt never stopped challenging the status quo. And at the age of 64, he has become a leading voice on the left.

Britt, who held positions at all of the above companies, traces his interest in history back to his boyhood in suburban Philadelphia. His politics were clarified during his years studying business at Northwestern University in the early 1960s.

"I had a course in Situational Analysis," says Britt. "You would analyze facts and come to a solution for businesses. I applied the same methodology to determine what political philosophy was most appropriate. After a lot of reading and research, I came down on the progressive side."

Since retiring, Britt has written three novels. But it's one short article that has gained him high visibility on the left. "Fascism Anyone?" outlines 14 common threads linking Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Papadopoulos's Greece, Pinochet's Chile, and Suharto's Indonesia.

Britt sees no conflict between his capitalist career and his left-wing politics; he believes the companies he worked for were ethical. "Capitalism works well in creating prosperity for the most people and providing them the most freedom," he says, "but it needs a lot of regulation."

At Xerox, Britt rose to divisional vice president of finance and, later, business manager of an out-of-the-box activity. Titled "Intrapreneurship," the division used small-company techniques to find new ways of doing things.Among his group's achievements was the Xerox 2510, a copy machine that has basically replaced the blueprint process. "It was one of the lowest-cost product-development activities for one of the highest profits we ever had in the company," he says.

But he never left politics behind. In the late 1980s he answered an ad from Johns Hopkins University Press seeking contributions to a book of new ideas to engage the Soviet Union. He wrote an essay on business and trade that was published and presented to government officials in Washington, D.C.

A few months later he got a call from the FBI, asking him to report to the Federal Building.

"They asked lots of questions: 'Why did you in November have a phone call to the Soviet Embassy?' 'Why did you visit the Soviet Embassy?!' This was after the book came out, after the paper was presented to an audience with people from the CIA and defense intelligence agencies. But the FBI hadn't been clued in. They said I could go, but 'don't say anything about this and most of all don't tell the press.' That gave me an idea of the mindset in these agencies."

In 1990, Britt started a consulting firm to help link American and Soviet companies for trade. It was fairly successful for six years, despite interference from the United States government when it came to exporting goods. But toward the end, in 1994, Britt says, "We ran into the over-arching and growing power of the Russian Mafia. Every time we visited companies, security became more and more obvious. Extortion was the big thing. 'You want to do business? Give us a cut or something bad will happen to you.' Eventually some of the people we were working with got knocked off."

It was on one of his 18 trips to Russia that Britt began writing novels, all of which had prescient elements. June, 2004, which deals with America slipping into fascism, was published by BookWorld Press. In Terror (published on the web), the Russian mafia smuggles a nuclear bomb into the US and uses it for extortion. The book also explores bungling in US intelligence services. Paying the Price (unpublished), which tells the story of a young idealist drawn into corruption, was a precursor to the corporate scandals.

At the end of Fascism Anyone?, after outlining his 14 points, Britt writes: "Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not."

In a recent discussion, we asked Britt to elaborate on the 14 points, with an emphasis on his phrase, "Maybe, maybe not." An edited version of that conversation follows:

City: In your first characteristic of fascism, "Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism," you mention displaying the flag. I was surprised to see a large one on your porch.

Britt: I put a flag up on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Flag Day, and Veterans Day. I don't have it up all the time. There's nothing wrong with pride, it's when pride moves into hubris.

City: Many people who might agree with you about hubris put up flags after 9/11 as a way of saying we're not going to take this country for granted.

Britt: Certainly we need to come together, but we need to come together intelligently. We need to understand why 9/11 happened. I don't think too many people asked why. It was just: We're good; they're evil.

City: Why do you think it happened?

Britt: I don't think it happened because we're the beacon of freedom and opportunity, which is what we heard from the president. It happened because America has been extremely aggressive in the last 50 or 60 years on the world stage and has caused a lot of suffering that most Americans have absolutely no clue about.

We've interfered in the internal affairs of 51 countries - Lebanon, Syria, Cuba, El Salvador, Columbia, Bolivia, Angola, and many more - since the end of World War II, putting agents on the ground, interfering with elections, things that, if done to us, would be absolutely outrageous.

Twenty-six countries we've attacked, bombed, invaded, without being asked in. Seventeen we've overthrown governments and in just about every case the result was very bad for the people involved. In virtually every case, the government installed was autocratic. We say we're trying to promote democracy, but that isn't happening. Of the seven fascist countries in the article, we set up three of them: Greece, Chile, and Indonesia.

City: Why, specifically, did bin Laden attack us?

Britt: The upshot of that is we've made a lot of enemies. Bin Laden - like a lot of other people who turned out to be our enemy - we were one of his early supporters. The CIA trained and armed him because we believed he would be using the weapons against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. So this is an example of blow-back.

He clearly said that the reason he was opposing the Soviets was because of religion; they were the infidels. Nobody thought that through, that some day we might be the infidels. Then the Gulf War came along. By the way, bin Ladenwas particularly incensed with Saddam Hussein because his behavior got the US into the Middle East. There we were with a huge army within miles of Mecca. To his Islamic Fundamentalist mindset, we become an object of hatred. So we fight the Gulf War and stay there, establishing large bases in Saudi Arabia. We become his sworn enemy.

City: Would you have gone after him in Afghanistan after 9/11?

Britt: Obviously he was responsible for what happened in Somalia and for the USS Cole, so obviously we should go after him... or modify our behavior, perhaps.

City: Well, which would you do? Would you go after someone who killed 3,000 Americans?

Britt: Once that happened you have to go after him strongly, which is not what the Bush administration did. But to learn from the event you have to understand what led up to it, and I think we're going to continue to be the enemy of a lot of people as long as our foreign policy continues to be this aggressive and laced with hubris. Plus, we have no allies now.

City: Your second characteristic is "Disdain for the importance of human rights. "What are some cases you're thinking of?

Britt: Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the Patriot Act.

City: The argument is: it's a different world today with chemical weapons, where one person can cause much more harm than during, say, World War II. Do you think it's different in terms of dealing with prisoners of war or suspected terrorists?

Britt: Just one point: All of these are descriptions of characteristics of fascism in the seven regimes that I talk about. I didn't say, per-se, this is what's happening in the U.S.

City: But you wink at the end and question whether it's going on here. That is your implication, isn't it?

Britt: Of course. But I'm not saying all 14 are happening in America.

City: But I want to see which you think are. The argument is we're seeing new forms of killing that weren't there before.

Britt: Bush's nominee for Attorney General [Alberto Gonzalez], in a memo, talked about how certain aspects of the Geneva Convention might not apply to the prisoners at Guantanamo. I'm kind of astounded that that would be true today, but in World War II when we were facing world-historical enemies, Nazi Germany, we never said anything like that. Look at the threat of World War II compared to these terrorists; it's like nothing.

City: I think the Bush position would be that if an enemy is not following the conventions of war, they're the ones who have changed the rules, hitting soft targets, etc.

Britt: And they did it in one day and they haven't done it since. They never did before and the reason they were able to succeed that day was because of incredible lapses in security. I don't think it will ever happen again, at least not that way.

World War II went on for six years. On an average day in World War II, 35,000 people died. To equate the War on Terror with the magnitude of that kind of conflict and the amount of hysteria that's generated for political purposes is incredible. Yes, it was a spectacular event. Part of the reason was it was covered by cameras and repeated over and over. No other event in history has ever been covered like that. But just think of how many people this year will die from the flu because we don't have flu shots. You can't take a picture of that. So, yes, 3,000 people were killed, but do you turn your democracy on its head?

City: That leads to your next point: "Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause." Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was recently murdered by Islamic extremists in the Netherlands for making a film they found offensive. Islamic schools and mosques there have been attacked. After 9/11, there were hardly any attacks against people in the U.S.

Britt: That's done by the crowds; if you look at government actions it's a lot less sanguine. People have been arrested all over the place, held for months with no charges. People were deported for no reason. The people in Lackawanna, when you get right down to it, there was nothing there.

City: They had been to bin Laden's training camps.

Britt: But nobody had done anything. There was no plotting, no weapons or explosives. The government made them admit something and put them away.

City: Wasn't that caused by the idea of sleeper cells? The people who did 9/11 had been in the country and had used the freedom of the country to do it. Richard Reid was on the plane trying to set off his shoe bomb. And another man was ready to attack LAX. These men had been to al Qaeda training camps; what do you do?

Britt: You need good law enforcement and good intelligence. And act appropriately. What you don't need is hysteria and complete overreaction. We went from being asleep at the switch to being ridiculously over the top so as to give the impression of really doing something even though it might be ineffectual.

The word "terrorist" has become like "communist." John Walker Lindh is turned into a monster and thrown into prison for the rest of his life. It's ludicrous. He was over there at the time of the attack; he certainly had nothing to do with it. He was converted to Islam and became kind of a fanatic. He's fighting with the Taliban, he gets caught, and he's down in the basement of this place strapped to a stretcher. A CIA guy a couple hundred yards away gets killed and we want to prosecute him for the murder. He was a deluded teenager. They should have just let him go. He had parents back in California. People get misguided every day.

City: He had weapons. He was fighting against U.S. troops.

Britt: He was fighting against the Northern Alliance; he was there before we got into the war. For all we know he didn't even know the U.S. was involved before it was too late. It's the kind of hysteria that gets stirred up. I remember the cover of the NY Post: "The Face of a Traitor!"

City: We've touched on point four, "The supremacy of the military/avid militarism," but in these times don't we need a strong military?

Britt: Of course we do. We're a great power with a lot of interests to protect. It's a question of how we're going to use this power. For the most part the American military has a good history compared to most of the militaries of the world.

City: Your next characteristic, "Rampant sexism," deals with issues like abortion and homosexuality. Do you believe, now that Republicans dominate, the clock will be turned back on gay rights and abortion rights? Could it be that these issues are used as political footballs - very effectively - but that not even Bush will try to outlaw abortion? And Cheney's own daughter is gay.

Britt: I've heard a lot of people comment since the election that the evangelicals came out in strength to re-elect him and now they want to be paid back. I think Supreme Court appointments could have the effect of overturning Roe v. Wade. Do I think it will pass? Probably not.

City: Number six is "a controlled mass media." I liked the description in your novel, "June, 2004," of a talk show where one liberal is shouted down by two conservatives.

Britt: That's what goes on now. You put the most outrageous person on with someone who's telling the truth. The perception is that the truth is somewhere between this outrageous lie and the truth. And it isn't; the lie is a lie and the truth is the truth. They present it so people will shrug and say, "Who knows?" The accusations of the swift boat guys is one point of view and the denial is another, so it's somewhere in between there, folks.

Almost every pundit show that you see has right-wingers and moderates, that's your choice. There's nobody from the left - no Noam Chomskys to balance that point of view so you get some sort of middle ground. What you get is the middle and the right and the middle of that is to the right.

City: Is that the media's fault, or do the American people largely range from the middle to the right and Chomsky, for most, is off the scale?

Britt: No. I believe the American people think that way because that's the only thing they ever hear. If you look at who owns the media and their political orientations, how can it be otherwise? Every time I hear this stuff about the liberal media, it's such nonsense. Who owns the media?

There's Murdoch; we know where he is. Sumner Redstone at Viacom is a right-winger. General Electric owns NBC; [former GE CEO] Jack Welsh was a right-winger and [new GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt's] politics are well-known. ABC is owned by Disney, which is owned by Capital Cities, and that's also run by a right winger. How can any journalist who works within that environment ever stray too far to the left?

City: In "June, 2004," the New York Times is the only media vehicle that has a straight point of view. Do you feel that's true today?

Britt: No, I don't. Look at what they did with Clinton. Even the controversy when Clinton left office - all those pardons - it seemed like the New York Times was leading the pack in saying how terrible it was. Where is the liberal press?

City: "Obsession with national security" is next. We have the Patriot Act, but even conservatives like William Safire protest its scope. In a time of chemical warfare and suicide bombings, how would you suggest handling security?

Britt: Effectively. The borders are terrible. In one of my books, "Terror," written in 2000, shipping containers were part of the plot. All the things exposed in the 9/11 report, the uncoordinated intelligence, the warning on August 6, that should have been all you needed to say step up security at the airports. Flying airplanes into buildings? Well, maybe we should check who's training because I doubt if a pilot is going to become a suicide bomber. It was all so obvious.

City: I guess we don't have to look beyond the election to see your next point: "Religion and ruling elite tied together."

Britt: It's clear that all the ministers out there in the Red states passed out the voting guides and said you'd better elect Bush. If you look at those seven fascist states I based my article on, they all used religion to bring people in line with the government. Of course, going back to monarchies in Europe, they used the church as a way to cow the population. I guess you could say that monarchies were the older form of fascism.

City: In your recent essay, "Resolved: George W. Bush Is the Worst President in American History" (in "Toward a New Political Humanism," Prometheus Books) you make a strong case and yet, he was re-elected. How do explain that? Are you out of touch with the American mainstream?

Britt: Sure! [He laughs.]

City: Let me try it another way. Even conservatives will admit that Bush is not the brightest bulb, but many view the presidency as the team he's got around him. Somehow they averted a follow-up to 9/11, which everybody thought there would be. Deep-down, could that be the reason he won?

Britt: I think there are a lot of reasons that he won. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting did a study of the 2000 election. They found that the number of negative stories on Gore vs. the number on Bush was like 10 to one. Look at the Democrat & Chronicle. Every day it's full of photo-ops that make Bush look good. I'm sure that's repeated in papers across the country.

Plus the drum beat of right-wing talk radio just saturates, especially in the red states, with no answer. They fight dirty, the Democrats don't. Clinton was accused of being a drug dealer, a murderer. They turned it on McCain four years ago in South Carolina: it's a black baby. They're ruthless and they get away with it.

And the campaign was so lame. Kerry went all through the month of August and he didn't attack. He never answered the swift boat guys. He allowed Bush to be perceived as effective in the fight against terror, which has been an abysmal failure, starting with the fact that it happened in the first place. I've read the 9/11 Report ["The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States"] carefully. There's any number of things you could have used for a campaign attack. The August 6 memo is so obvious. Look at the lies [the Republicans] use. And [the memo] isn't even a lie; that's honest.

City: I want to combine the next two: "Power of corporations protected;" "Power of labor suppressed or eliminated."

Britt: It's the union of the government and the corporation. At the FCC, the regulators are in cahoots with the regulated.

City: And we have tax breaks for the rich and a freeze on the minimum wage.

Britt: The power of labor, in history, was seen as the opposition to all the things you were trying to do. You want to make sure their power was limited, so you appoint conservatives to the National Labor Relations Board who will favor management. Overtime rules get screwed up. Everything labor wants they don't get.

City: In terms of number 11, "Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts," I know of one professor kicked out of a Florida University on the grounds that he supported terrorism. But I don't see academics being suppressed. Isn't the wide dissemination of your article proof that free speech is flourishing?

Britt: It isn't blatant yet, but that doesn't mean that in the next few years it won't be. Lynne Cheney led a group, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Its objective was to identify faculty who weren't toeing the line and do something about it.

City: Next is "Obsession with crime and punishment." You're talking about our overcrowded prisons?

Britt: It's the emphasis on incarceration. We have the largest prison population in the world. That's not something to be proud of. Politicians compete for who can be toughest on crime. It's throwing raw meat at the electorate and trying to make them hysterical and therefore we'll accept a Draconian criminal justice system.

City: So non-violent criminals shouldn't be in prison?

Britt: Right.

City: Going back to business, you have "Rampant cronyism and corruption."

Britt: You don't have to look any farther than Bush's career; it was cronyism personified. He was set up in businesses to do whatever he wanted. He sold his stock in Harken Energy Corp. before it went under. Who investigates this? The attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission was a personal friend of his and was the attorney for his family. He was assigned to find out if Bush violated insider trading laws. "No" was his conclusion. It's not investigated because the head of the SEC was appointed by Bush's father. Once he's in office, he and Cheney, all his friends, Bechtel and Halliburton, get all the deals. It's blatant cronyism.

City: Your final characteristic is "Fraudulent elections." There were many reports of possible corruption last month, but even people like David Corn of The Nation concluded that there did not seem to be a strong case.

Britt: Fraudulent elections were used by the seven fascist regimes to maintain power. They just made sure they were going to get the votes and they were ruthless enough to do whatever was necessary. I see certain tendencies of that here. You certainly saw that in Florida in 2000.

There were deep suspicions about many things that happened last month. Maybe it's not enough to turn the election, but it could have been. When they were perpetrated no one knew what the outcome would be, and I'm sure there are a lot of irregularities. Certainly it's in the minds of voters now that you can't trust the results. A democracy, more than anything else, counts on honesty and the integrity of the vote.

City: Looking at the world right now, do you consider the U.S. a fascist state?

Britt: No. By definition it's a democracy. My article is a cautionary tale. This is what I've researched; this is what I've seen; this is what's happened in the past. You can draw your own conclusions: No, this has nothing to do with the United States; or, there are some disquieting trends here that we certainly have to be aware of, and the powers that be exhibit many of these characteristics, and we'd better damn well be careful.

Fascism should rather be called corporatism, as it is the merging of government and corporate power.
~ Benito Mussolini

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Posted by fm on October 21, 2005 at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Series on Fascism: Part III

Fascism Anyone?
By Laurence W. Britt
Source: Free Inquiry Magazine

Free Inquiry readers may pause to read the "Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles" on the inside cover of the magazine. To a secular humanist, these principles seem so logical, so right, so crucial. Yet, there is one archetypal political philosophy that is anathema to almost all of these principles. It is fascism. And fascism's principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for. The cliché that people and nations learn from history is not only overused, but also overestimated; often we fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm.

We are two-and-a-half generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany, although constant reminders jog the consciousness. German and Italian fascism form the historical models that define this twisted political worldview. Although they no longer exist, this worldview and the characteristics of these models have been imitated by protofascist [see Notes (1) below] regimes at various times in the twentieth century. Both the original German and Italian models and the later protofascist regimes show remarkably similar characteristics. Although many scholars question any direct connection among these regimes, few can dispute their visual similarities.

Beyond the visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi. This, of course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

For the purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Papadopoulos's Greece, Pinochet's Chile, and Suharto's Indonesia. To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

Analysis of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity.

1. Powerful and Continuing Expressions of Nationalism
From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.

2. Disdain for the Importance of Human Rights
The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people's attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite "spontaneous" acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and "terrorists." Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

4. The Supremacy of the Military/Avid Militarism
Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.

5. Rampant Sexism
Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

6. Controlled Mass Media
Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes' excesses.

7. Obsession with National Security
Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting "national security," and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.

8. Religion and Ruling Elite Tied Together
Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite's behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the "godless." A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.

9. Power of Corporations Protected
Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of "have-not" citizens.

10. Power of Labor Suppressed or Eliminated
Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

11. Disdain and Suppression of Intellectuals and the Arts
Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. "Normal" and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or "traitors" was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.

14. Fraudulent Elections
Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.

Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not.

When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.
~ Huey Long

Notes
(1) Defined as a "political movement or regime tending toward or imitating Fascism" ~Webster's Unabridged Dictionary

For further critical analysis of the topic, study and compare the contents of these two Web sites:

1. Project For The OLD American Century:

• POAC - Wake up and Smell the Fascism
• POAC - Statement of Principles
• About POAC
• POAC Home Page

2. Project For The NEW American Century:

• PNAC - Statement of Principles
• About PNAC
• PNAC Home Page

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Posted by fm on October 20, 2005 at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Thoughtful Commenter

Is America Becoming a Fascist Nation?
Source: Anonymous e-mail comment (received in response to Free Musings' current series on fascism)

While I know what fascism is by example, I don't really have a good grasp on exactly what is meant by a fascist government, so I decided to look it up.

Here is how the Wikipedia entry defines fascism:

The term fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that in various combinations

• exalts the nation and party above the individual, with the state apparatus being supreme,
  
  
• stresses loyalty to a single leader, and submission to a single nationalistic culture, and
  
  
• engages in economic totalitarianism through the creation of a Corporatist State, where the divergent economic and social interests of different races and classes are combined with the interests of the State.
  

I also clicked on corporatism to find out exactly what that means:

Historically, corporatism or corporativism (Italian: corporativismo) is a political system in which legislative power is given to corporations that represent economic, industrial and professional groups. Unlike pluralism, in which many groups must compete for control of the state, in corporatism, certain unelected bodies take a critical role in the decision-making process.

Let me take each of these points separately:

Exalts the nation and party above the individual, with the state apparatus being supreme.

America has always been the nation of rugged individualism, but that seems to be changing lately. Individual rights are being eroded for "the good of the nation." For instance, anti-flag desecration amendments have been defeated only narrowly and continue to be reintroduced. The root of the word "desecrate" is the same as the word "sacred." So apparently there are a large number of people in America who feel that a national emblem is sacred, but personal freedom of expression isn't (between 40-80% of Americans, depending upon whom you ask).

The PATRIOT Act and proposed PATRIOT Act II are probably the most egregious examples of individual freedoms being sacrificed for the supposed good of the nation. Each legalizes a litany of civil rights violations in order to save us all from those freedom hating terrorists. And strip club owners, and internet service providers, and the homeless.

Stresses loyalty to a single leader, and submission to a single nationalistic culture.

Again, America was certainly not founded on this principle, but it seems to be sliding towards it. I believe that the whole idea of setting up America as a Democratic Republic was to avoid exactly the situation we are currently finding ourselves in. Effective government should be a system of compromises and support for various points of view. When you have a monarch or dictator, there is only one unquestionable viewpoint. We now have a large group of people in America who believe they are unassailably right because their viewpoint matches that of our Glorious Leader.

I also think this ties into the fact that such a large percentage of Americans are Christians. While I realize that there are freethinking Christians out there, the whole idea behind Christianity itself is that there is a three thousand year old book that tells you what to think about various issues. With Christianity (as with most other religions) there is no need to form your own opinions, because God has told you what you should believe.

Engages in economic totalitarianism through the creation of a Corporatist State, where the divergent economic and social interests of different races and classes are combined with the interests of the State.

America is definitely showing signs of becoming a Corporatist state. Can you think of any reason why there should be a law that says you have to wear a seatbelt? Sure, people get killed in car wrecks, but people also get killed in the bathtub. Why are there no bathtub safety laws? Because there is no powerful bathtub lobby. There are many examples of insurance companies and other big business lobbies having a direct hand in enacting laws that restrict individual rights. Certain corporations are even being allowed to police and incarcerate American citizens.

Unlike some, I don't believe that America has yet become a fascist nation, but I am genuinely concerned that a large percentage of Americans are starting to embrace ideals that could lead us in that direction.

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This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 19, 2005 at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Series on Fascism: Part II

Fascism: Comparison and Definition
By Stanley Payne

A. The Fascist Negations

• Antiliberalism
  
  
• Anticommunism
  
  
• Anticonservatism (though with the understanding that fascist groups were willing to undertake temporary alliances with groups from any other sector, most commonly with the right).
  

B. Ideology and Goals

• Creation of a new nationalist authoritarian state based not merely on traditional principles or models.
  
  
• Organization of some new kind of regulated, multiclass, integrated national economic structure, whether called national corporatist, national socialist, or national syndicalist.
  
  
• The goal of empire or a radical change in the nation’s relationship with other powers.
  
  
• Specific espousal of an idealist, voluntarist creed, normally involving the attempt to realize a new form of modern, self-determined, secular culture.
  

C. Style and Organization

• Emphasis on esthetic structure of meetings, symbols, and political choreography, stressing romantic and mystical aspects.
  
  
• Attempted mass mobilization with militarization of political relationships and style and with the goal of a mass party militia.
  
  
• Positive evaluation and use of, or willingness to use, violence.
  
  
• Extreme stress on the masculine principle and male dominance, while espousing the organic view of society.
  
  
• Exaltation of youth above other phases of life, emphasizing the conflict of generations, at least in effecting the initial political transformation.
  
  
• Specific tendency toward an authoritarian, charismatic, personal style of command, whether or not the command is to some degree initially elective.
  

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This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 19, 2005 at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Series on Fascism: Part I

Definition of Fascism
By Roger Griffin - author of "The Nature of Fascism"

Fascism: modern political ideology that seeks to regenerate the social, economic, and cultural life of a country by basing it on a heightened sense of national belonging or ethnic identity. Fascism rejects liberal ideas such as freedom and individual rights, and often presses for the destruction of elections, legislatures, and other elements of democracy. Despite the idealistic goals of fascism, attempts to build fascist societies have led to wars and persecutions that caused millions of deaths. As a result, fascism is strongly associated with right-wing fanaticism, racism, totalitarianism, and violence.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 18, 2005 at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, October 17, 2005

Ill-Conceived Emergency Plan

he Bush administration seems intent on perfecting its bungling. Stockpiling Tamiflu, the only drug that has any effect on the avian flu, for "distribution" is a prescription for disaster. To be effective, the drug must be taken within 36 hours of contracting the flu. Getting to a doctor, being diagnosed, having the drug prescribed, then actually getting the drug would stretch way beyond that timeframe for almost everyone.

he money would be better spent on developing a fast and accurate test and making the drug available over the counter. The test could be available at public heath agencies and neighborhood pharmacies for free. Spit on a paper, see a positive reaction and be handed the drug by the pharmacist.

illions of lives would be saved and the spread of the disease lessened. As the Bush administration seems to be handling it, should the avian flu mutate to human-to-human transmission, it will be New Orleans, only without the music and food, just a lot of dead people and a fractured worldwide economy.

Posted by fm on October 17, 2005 at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday, October 16, 2005

'The Authoritarian Personality'

'The Authoritarian Personality' Revisited
By Alan Wolfe
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

When it first appeared in 1950, The Authoritarian Personality was primed for classic status. It ran to just under 1,000 pages. Its publisher, Harper & Brothers, had brought out Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma six years earlier and drew explicit parallels between the one book and the other. Its authors were, or would soon become, famous. Theodor Adorno, the senior author, was a member of the influential Frankfurt school of "critical theory," a Marxist-inspired effort to diagnose the cultural deformities of late capitalism. R. Nevitt Sanford was a distinguished psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley who, in the year the book was published, would be dismissed from his professorship for refusing to sign a loyalty oath. Else Frenkel-Brunswick had been trained at Freud's University of Vienna and was a practicing lay analyst in Northern California. Twenty-three years old at the time the study began, Daniel J. Levinson would become famous for his 1978 The Seasons of a Man's Life (Knopf), which popularized the notion of a "midlife crisis."

Then there was the subject matter. The Authoritarian Personality addressed itself to the question of whether the United States might harbor significant numbers of people with a "potentially fascistic" disposition. It did so with methods that claimed to represent the cutting edge in social science -- and that's where the book got in trouble with scholars of its day. But in today's political climate, it might be time to revisit its thesis.

Before anyone was talking about the radical right in America -- the John Birch Society, the most notorious of the new conservative groups to develop in the postwar period, wasn't founded until 1958 -- The Authoritarian Personality seemed to anticipate the fervent crusades against communism and the attacks on Chief Justice Earl Warren, the United Nations, and even fluoridation that would characterize postwar politics in the United States. The fact that the radical right has transformed itself from a marginal movement to an influential sector of the contemporary Republican Party makes the book's choice of subject matter all the more prescient.

Finally, the book was filled with data, including its famous "F scale." Based on how respondents answered a series of questions, the F scale identified nine key dimensions of a protofascist personality: conventionality, submissiveness, aggression, subjectivity, superstitiousness, toughness, cynicism, the tendency to project unconscious emotional responses onto the world, and heightened concerns about sex.

For example, subjects were asked how much they disagreed or agreed with such statements as:

"Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn." (Submissiveness.)

"Homosexuality is a particularly rotten form of delinquency and ought to be severely punished." (Aggression and sex.)

"No insult to our honor should ever go unpunished." (Toughness and aggression.)

"No matter how they act on the surface, men are interested in women for only one reason." (Sex and cynicism.)

The F scale was only one of the research methods featured in The Authoritarian Personality. The authors also measured ethnocentrism; administered Thematic Appreciation Tests, presenting subjects with pictures and asking them to tell a story about them; and relied upon clinical interviews resembling psychoanalytic sessions. Rarely, if ever, have social scientists probed ordinary human beings in as much detail as did the book's authors.

Indeed, participating in this study was so demanding for subjects that the authors made no effort to engage in random sampling. They first tried their methods out on college students, the usual captive audience, before getting the cooperation of the leaders of various organizations to survey their groups -- unions, the merchant marine, employment-service veterans, prison inmates, psychology-clinic patients, and PTA's.

Unlike much postwar social science, The Authoritarian Personality did not present data showing the correlations between authoritarianism and a variety of variables such as social class, religion, or political affiliation. Instead the authors tried to draw a composite picture of people with authoritarian leanings: Perhaps their most interesting finding was that such people identify with the strong and are contemptuous of the weak. Extensive case studies of particular individuals were meant to convey the message that people who seemed exceptionally conventional on the outside could be harboring radically intolerant thoughts on the inside.

Despite its bulk, prestigious authors, and seeming relevance, however, The Authoritarian Personality never did achieve its status as a classic. Four years after its publication, it was subject to strong criticism in Studies in the Scope and Method of "The Authoritarian Personality" (Free Press, 1954), edited by the psychologists Richard Christie and Marie Jahoda. Two criticisms were especially devastating, one political, the other methodological.

How, the University of Chicago sociologist Edward A. Shils wanted to know, could one write about authoritarianism by focusing only on the political right? In line with other works of the 1950s, such as Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt, Brace, 1951), Shils pointed out that "Fascism and Bolshevism, only a few decades ago thought of as worlds apart, have now been recognized increasingly as sharing many very important features." The United States had its fair share of fellow travelers and Stalinists, Shils argued, and they too worshiped power and denigrated weakness. Any analysis that did not recognize that the extremes of left and right were similar in their authoritarianism was inherently flawed.

Herbert H. Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley, survey-research specialists, scrutinized every aspect of The Authoritarian Personality's methodology and found each wanting. Sampling was all but nonexistent. The wording of the questionnaire was flawed. The long, open-ended interviews were coded too subjectively. No method existed for determining what caused what. Whatever the subjects said about themselves could not be verified. The F scale lacked coherence.

It is true that, social science being what it is, fault can be found with any methodology. But the critique by Hyman and Sheatsley in some ways became more famous than the study it analyzed; when I attended graduate school in the 1960s, The Authoritarian Personality was treated as a social-science version of the Edsel, a case study of how to do everything wrong.

Perhaps Adorno had all that coming. Along with Max Horkheimer, who played an instrumental role in the research that went into the book, Adorno had published Dialektik der Aufklärung (Dialectic of Enlightenment) in Amsterdam in 1947. Among its other attacks on the technical rationality of advanced capitalism, that book dismissed "positivism," the effort to model the social sciences on the natural ones. The significant flaws of The Authoritarian Personality allowed quantitative social scientists to return the favor and dismiss critical theory.

Yet despite its flaws, The Authoritarian Personality deserves a re-evaluation. In many ways, it is more relevant now than it was in 1950.

Certainly the criticisms of Edward Shils seem misplaced 50 years on. Communism really did have some of the authoritarian characteristics of fascism, yet Communism is gone from the Soviet Union and without any influence in the United States. Many writers inspired by Shils, like Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, who would become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, held that totalitarian regimes, unlike authoritarian ones, were not reformable from within. Yet the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of domestic upheaval. Totalitarianism still exists in a country like North Korea, but in the U.S.S.R. it never was quite as "total" in its control over most of its populations as many postwar scholars maintained. When it collapsed, so did many of the theories that once sought to explain it.

Even more significant than the collapse of left-wing authoritarianism has been the success of right-wing authoritarianism. Perhaps the authors of The Authoritarian Personality were on to something when they made questions about sexuality in general, and homosexuality in particular, so central to diagnosing authoritarianism.

In the June 19, 2005, issue of The New York Times Magazine, the journalist Russell Shorto interviewed activists against gay marriage and concluded that they were motivated not by a defense of traditional marriage, but by hatred of homosexuality itself. "Their passion," Shorto wrote, "comes from their conviction that homosexuality is a sin, is immoral, harms children and spreads disease. Not only that, but they see homosexuality itself as a kind of disease, one that afflicts not only individuals but also society at large and that shares one of the prominent features of a disease: It seeks to spread itself." It is not difficult to conclude where those people would have stood on the F scale.

Not all opponents of gay marriage, of course, are incipient fascists; the left, to its discredit, frequently dismisses the views of conservative opponents on, for example, abortion, church-state separation, or feminism as irrational bigotry, when the conclusions of most people who hold such views stem from deeply held, and morally reasoned, religious convictions. At the same time, many of the prominent politicians successful in today's conservative political environment adhere to a distinct style of politics that the authors of The Authoritarian Personality anticipated. Public figures, in fact, make good subjects for the kinds of analysis upon which the book relied; visible, talkative, passionate, they reveal their personalities to us, allowing us to evaluate them.

Consider the case of John R. Bolton, now our ambassador to the United Nations. While testifying about Bolton's often contentious personality, Carl Ford Jr., a former head of intelligence within the U.S. State Department, called him a "a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy." Surely, in one pithy sentence, that perfectly summarizes the characteristics of those who identify with strength and disparage weakness. Everything Americans have learned about Bolton -- his temper tantrums, intolerance of dissent, and black-and-white view of the world -- step right out of the clinical material assembled by the authors of The Authoritarian Personality.

And Bolton is by no means alone. Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, last spring said that violent attacks on judges, who cannot be held accountable, were understandable. He might well have scored highly on his response to this item from the F scale: "There are some activities so flagrantly un-American that, when responsible officials won't take the proper steps, the wide-awake citizen should take the law into his own hands." House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is in difficulty for his close ties to lobbyists like Jack Abramoff. Would those men agree with the statement, "When you come right down to it, it's human nature never to do anything without an eye to one's own profit"?

One item on the F scale, in particular, seems to capture in just a few words the way that many Christian-right politicians view the world in an age of terror: "Too many people today are living in an unnatural, soft way; we should return to the fundamentals, to a more red-blooded, active way of life."

If one could find contemporary "authoritarians of the left" to match those on the right, the authors of The Authoritarian Personality could rightly be criticized for their exclusive focus on fascism. Yet there are few, if any, such examples; while Republicans have been moving toward the right, Democrats are shifting to the center. No liberal close to the leaders of the Democratic Party has called for the assassination of a foreign head of state; only a true authoritarian like Pat Robertson, who has helped the Republicans achieve power, has done that.

The authors of The Authoritarian Personality hoped that a clinical account of the tendency would enable democracy to protect itself better against political extremism. That could not be done, they concluded, by changing the personality structure of incipient authoritarians, since their beliefs were too ingrained to be altered and the techniques of psychology, in any case, were too weak to alter them. Authoritarian tendencies, they concluded, "are products of the total organization of society and are to be changed only as that society is changed."

The United States did change in the years after their book was published, but those changes revealed what might have been the biggest mistake the authors made: They looked for subjects among students and union members when they should have been looking in the corridors of power.

Alan Wolfe is director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life and professor of political science at Boston College. He is writing a book on whether democracy in America still works. Alan Wolfe can be contacted at wolfe@bc.edu.

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This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 16, 2005 at 12:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Sudoku Puzzle 003

_______________________
|       |       |       |
|   5 1 |       |     2 |
|       |       |       |
| 7 2   |       |       |
|       |       |       |
| 6 3 9 | 4     |       |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
| 2 9   | 1   6 | 8   4 |
|       |       |       |
| 8     |   5   | 1   6 |
|       |       |       |
| 1 6 4 |   2 7 |   3   |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
| 5   7 | 3     | 2     |
|       |       |       |
|     6 |     1 | 7 5 9 |
|       |       |       |
| 9   2 |   7   |     8 |
|_______|_______|_______|

end us the correct solution. Winners will be published.

Posted by fm on October 15, 2005 at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, October 14, 2005

Skewed Priorities

he last time I checked, the war in Iraq is costing around $7 billion per month, or nearly $10 million per hour. In the wake of the earthquake in Pakistan, George W. Bush has pledged $50 million in aid, or the cost of just five hours of waging the war.

ow much more could be achieved in the world if the vast resources being squandered in Iraq were available for other causes?

Posted by fm on October 14, 2005 at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Insufficient Vaccine Production

ast week President Bush tried to reassure us by saying he will use the military to enforce a quarantine to prevent the spread of an avian influenza pandemic. I would much rather hear from our president that the federal government will give all the necessary economic support to produce as rapidly as possible a vaccine for the H5N1 (avian) influenza virus. This is the only effective way to prevent a pandemic: a mass vaccination as was done against polio.

Centers for Disease Control director recently said that a vaccine against the avian influenza virus is going to be available but there are not sufficient funds to mass-produce it soon enough. A sad commentary on the waste of money on an ill-conceived war in Iraq. In 1918, an estimated 25-50 million people died from an influenza pandemic. A military enforcement of a quarantine will not really be effective control.

Posted by fm on October 13, 2005 at 12:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Autumn Days

n large portions of the U.S. October is one of the kinder months. The sultry heat of summer is gone and winter has not yet sent its blast. The splendor of colored leaves by day and the harvest moon by night add to the magic.

e go to the woods to gather walnuts to make black walnut fudge fit for the gods. We pick the winter apples and store them for the winter, their distinct aroma permeating the house. The plump pumpkins are ready and pies abound. We are blessed with nature's bounty.

all is the season of reconciliation. It passes too quickly, but is so special. Each mellow day is a bonus.

Posted by fm on October 12, 2005 at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Nominee Harriet E. Miers

eorge W. Bush has done it again. From Hurricane Katrina, Americans learned the hard way that Bush had picked his old crony, Mike Brown, to head up FEMA, the national emergency organization. Brown had absolutely no experience, credentials or abilities for the job. So when the national emergency of Katrina occurred, his performance and results were disastrous and he subsequently resigned. I still have not heard an explanation or apology for Bush selecting his crony to head up this vital organization.

ith total arrogance and no humility, Bush is now nominating Harriet E. Miers to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. I concede Miers may be light-years ahead of Brown in the brains department, but again it appears her main qualification is that she is an old crony of Bush.

can't help but wonder whether the president has really picked the most qualified person to represent his purported philosophy of the law and what kinds of people should interpret it. Frankly, it makes little difference to me what jurists' personal views are, so long as they can exclude them from the deliberation process as they weigh the merits of the cases before them.

iers has knowledge and experience as a litigator but is lacking in knowledge of the Constitution and state laws. Her experience and knowledge as a litigation attorney is worlds apart from the experience and knowledge of a Supreme Court justice.

he has no experience as a judge in any court. She has no experience in interpretation of the federal laws and the Constitution and in making assertions and decrees. Minimum qualifications for this position should include proven success as a judge at the appellate or appeals court level, which would include experience in interpretation of state or federal laws with subsequent pronouncements and decrees.

iers lacks this minimal mandatory experience and knowledge and therefore is frankly just not qualified. Even if she had the qualifications to be considered for this position, we could never allow it because of the obvious conflict of interest of her having been George Bush's personal lawyer.

arriet E. Miers' review by Congress is a critical test to determine if the balance of powers in our government actually works or if loyalty to one's political party is so strong that it ignores integrity and honor. This is an issue that is at the very core of our Constitution.

Posted by fm on October 11, 2005 at 12:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, October 10, 2005

Far-Reaching Ramifications

A Little GPS could Ease Parental Stress
By Randy Gollay
Source: The Chicago Sun-Times

My wife and I recently experienced a scenario where we were literally scared out of our wits. Our second-grade daughter was 20 minutes overdue returning from school. She normally arrives home like clockwork. My wife phoned me at work miles away, frantic. She is wheelchair-bound from multiple sclerosis and helpless to search, even though the school is less than four blocks from us.

Immediately, my mind raced with discouraging thoughts and a flurry of questions. Should I call the police? What about an Amber Alert? Should I leave work right now? I had my wife call the school.

Who knows where a sexual predator lurks? It could be the new neighbor down the street, the substitute bus driver or the person lingering by the park. It got me to thinking about today's modern technological breakthroughs.

With movies having ratings and computers and cable having filters and blocks, and what with cameras mounted at intersections and able to detect and activate if gunfire is present, there has to be a solution to preventing endangerment. There's been talk of injecting soldiers, diplomats and CEOs with tracking device capsules similar to your car's "Lojack" system; maybe it's time to take it to the next level.

What better way to use technology than to guard the safety of your children or grandchildren? Maybe an item of jewelry or a belt buckle or shoelace can be equipped with a global tracking device - something capable of possibly saving a life, or at least reducing physical anxiety from taking a toll on one's mental and physical health.

An enterprising corporation could really capitalize on a vital need to protect a loved one, by making it more readily available to the public. This is not government dictating and imposing on society. This is duly independent and optional. There is a need. If it were available at a reasonable cost, would you invest in this security? Our family would!

By the way, our daughter was delayed because the former neighbor who drives her home needed to stay and speak to her child's teacher. Unfortunately, everyone neglected to inform us.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 10, 2005 at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Not Guilty of Conspiracy

s a precursor to this article, see Free Musings' August 19, 2005, entry "Anti-War Protesters' Trial" or visit the Web site of the Saint Patrick's Four.

It's Time to Fight the Real Enemy
By John W. Whitehead

Hurricanes are battering our Southern coasts. Thousands of families have been uprooted and remain homeless, with little relief in sight. Investigations are under way to determine why our government was not prepared for such disasters. Across the sea, the number of American soldiers who have been killed in the line of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan is approaching the 2,000 mark. At home, terrorists may be moving over our porous borders. Yet with the country in peril and turmoil, our government has been focusing its efforts on severely prosecuting four peaceful American anti-war protesters who engaged in a minor act of vandalism.

On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2003, the four protesters, all parents of young children, gathered at a military recruiting center near Ithaca, N.Y. In an effort to "symbolize the violence of war and the sanctity of life," the protesters, dubbed the St. Patrick's Four, poured small amounts of their own blood on the walls and the American flag. They then prayed together and waited for arrest. It was not long in coming.

Upon arrest, the St. Patrick's Four, who stated that they were alone in the build-ing and did not prevent anyone from entering or leaving the center, were charged with misdemeanors for criminal mischief. The ensuing local trial at Tompkins County Courthouse resulted in a hung jury when nine jurors voted for acquittal. Understandably, the prosecuting attorney opted not to retry the case.

The U.S. Department of Justice, in a break with its own policy of discouraging federal prosecution if a state court decides the case, ruled that there was "substantial federal interest" to pursue a federal prosecution of the Four. And to the astonishment of many, the Justice Department upped the misdemeanor charges to felony criminal charges involving a conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States.

Daniel Burns, age 45, Clare Grady, 46, Teresa Grady, 40, and Peter DeMott, 58, were made to stand trial in federal court on charges of federal conspiracy. They faced up to eight years in prison and $360,000 in fines if convicted for engaging in nonviolent protests over the war in Iraq. However, after deliberating for eight hours, a U.S. District Court jury acquitted the four protesters of the conspiracy charge, which was the more serious charge against them, and convicted them of damaging governmental property and entering a military recruiting station for unlawful purposes.

Clearly, the St. Patrick's Four were being made examples of, and the message is coming across loud and clear: This is what happens to people who dare to voice their disapproval of the Bush administration's war in Iraq. By its actions, our government is attempting to criminalize dissent and establish a judicial precedent for intimidating and prosecuting anti-war dissidents. As law professor Bill Quigley, who defended the Four, stated, "This is the first federal felony criminal conspiracy trial that has been brought against nonviolent, anti-war protesters as far as we can tell. It may go back to the Vietnam War era."

Likening themselves to a historic line of protesters that includes such figures as suffragette Susan B. Anthony, civil rights activists Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the American revolutionaries who took part in the Boston Tea Party, the four Catholic protesters consider themselves morally bound to protest what they describe as the needless deaths of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. As Daniel Burns remarked, "I think about my 3-year-old daughter and know that she's got a counterpart in Iraq who is dead."

Attempting to explain their actions, they quote Martin Luther King: "We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation, for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make [them] any less our brothers."

These are not violent criminals. They are simply people with a conscience who feel morally obligated to speak out against the loss of human life in Iraq. And they have shown themselves to be willing to pay the price, even if that meant being separated from their families. As one of the protesters commented, "Even if they take away my house, they can't take away my belief that we've done what is right, which is to resist what is evil."

It's time for our government to get its priorities straight. Unfortunately, this is yet another example of the war being waged against the American people, rather than the perpetrators of terrorism. The Bush administration is fighting too many battles on too many fronts, and it's the American people who are the losers. It's time for our government to fight the real enemy. And if public opinion is anything to go by, the St. Patrick's Four just don't make the list. Indeed, with the president's disapproval rate rising above 57 percent, it's time for the government to assume its original purpose: to serve the best interests of the people.

John W. Whitehead is a constitutional attorney, author of the award-winning "Grasping for the Wind," and founder and president of The Rutherford Institute, an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 09, 2005 at 12:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Sudoku Puzzle 002

_______________________
|       |       |       |
| 1     |   4   | 9 8   |
|       |       |       |
|   5 7 |   2   | 3     |
|       |       |       |
| 2 8   |   1 3 | 5 7 4 |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
|     5 |       |   9 3 |
|       |       |       |
| 6     |   3   |     1 |
|       |       |       |
|   9   |   8 1 | 6   7 |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
|   2   | 1     |   4   |
|       |       |       |
|   4 1 |   7 8 |   6 9 |
|       |       |       |
|       |   9 2 | 1 3   |
|_______|_______|_______|

end us the correct solution. Winners will be published.

Posted by fm on October 08, 2005 at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, October 07, 2005

Rumi and Shams

A History of Spiritual Love
By Osman Mir

This is the story about a chance encounter that took place in November 1244 in the city of Konya in present-day Turkey.

Face to face stood two strangers, Maulana Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi also known as Rumi (1207-1273 CE) and Shams al-Din of Tabriz; Rumi, a then 37-year old, demure scholar; and Shams, a spiritual wayfarer with a penchant for the uncertain. The repercussions of each word spoken at this encounter would reverberate through the fabric of spiritual and lyrical history forever. They met when both were ready - Shams to share; Rumi to seek; and both, to develop into a spiritual oneness. By the young age of forty, Rumi was a brilliant scholar. Shams, at sixty, was a free-spirited wanderer. The transformation was instant. The sheer opposition of their innate temperament may have been the flicker that caught the coal. The encounter, subsequent relationship and resulting consequences demonstrate the absolute unimaginability of fate in mythic proportions. Where does a chance encounter, a whispered conversation, a bold question to a stranger take someone on their quest of personal discovery? By some unverifiable accounts, Shams had initially noticed Rumi in Syria when the latter was 21 years old but had deemed the scholar not yet disposed for their partnership and that he chose to wait for 16 years before approaching him again.

On the streets of Konya that night, Rumi was on his way home when he came across the strange and hypnotic Shams. The latter, without any introduction, asked him pointed philosophical questions intended to fluster Rumi's concepts of enlightenment. While Rumi responded, mustering the collective strength and wit of his years of devotion to religion and jurisprudence; the flicker in Shams' words, his speech, mannerism and conduct compelled Rumi to explore further by inviting the wanderer along and into his home. The drifter's words had heated dormant embers that Rumi may or may not have been aware of, and which certainly dictated his actions for time to come. From that day forward, Shams possessed him. Shams grasped Rumi's understanding of religion and infused it with a love and devotion that elevated him from scholar to philosopher. He went into seclusion with the stranger, leaving aside all that composed his life - family, students, and disciples. This detachment lasted for three months and inspired him for a lifetime. His heart engulfed his systematic, controlled mind with the message of humanity and oneness with God, a result of his pointed discourses. Rumi's professorial sermons were replaced with ecstatic soliloquies of God, love and humanity. Furthermore, the indelible mark of this change began filtering through; first in Rumi's actions, evidenced in his seclusion and fanatic devotion, and secondly in his poetry which continues to enchant readers across a palette of backgrounds, cultures, and religions today.

Rumi was a force in jurisprudence and religious interpretation at the time of this encounter, with a coterie of disciples that respected and digested his views. By 1244, he had spent a decade exploring his knowledge with the thirst of a student - under esteemed tutelage, traveling to Aleppo and Damascus, meeting with Sufi mystics, and generally following in his father's respected footsteps as a teacher, preacher and center of learning. His exposure had enlightened him to mystical connections across cultures and religions, including an understanding of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. However, in this pursuit his mind was still void of nourishment for the love of humanity, while overflowing with the jurisprudence gleaned from books and scholars; something that left him in the infancy of his awakening. The elderly Shams, on the other hand, existed in a state that was the polar opposite of the respected, societal and worldly Rumi. Antisocial, volatile and spiritually adrift, he was seeking a student that could master what he could impart. The quest was complementary for he represented to Rumi, the divine essence that Rumi sought unknowingly and could not locate in the texts and lectures of his time.

Following their seclusion and Rumi's unequivocal devotion to his "master," the jealousy of Rumi's disciples intervened. Sufis had a tradition of intimate platonic relationships based on intertwined spiritual pursuits and Rumi and Shams were truly inseparable in their joint contemplation of humanity and God. For Rumi, particularly, Shams became the embodiment of God's beauty and humanity. This canvas of purity was soon doused with the jealousy of Rumi's disciples who repeatedly threatened Shams' life. Rumi's singular devotion led him to deeply neglect his disciples and students. Following pressure in the form of violence and death threats by Rumi's jealous disciples, Shams left Rumi and Konya behind him in February of 1246.

His departure prompted many rumors and conspiracy theories and Rumi traveled several times in search of his departed mentor while falling into a state of unfathomable grief. A few months later Shams returned to Konya, for a brief respite driven by the desired well-being of his student and companion. However, the return brought with it again, the magical allure of secluded mystic deliberation and this sowed the seeds of Shams' final departure from Rumi's life. In December 1248, Shams walked out the door to answer a voice as Rumi and he spoke. He was never seen again and the calm oneness of their relationship was terminated amidst rumors of assassination and jealousy. Rumi felt this departure like the pain of flesh extracted from a single being. The result was an agony that engulfed Rumi's soul and the only refuge was poetry that celebrated the fleeting moments when Rumi and Shams had been spiritually united.

Following Shams' departure from his life, and concomitant with his mourning, Rumi developed expressiveness for his ecstatic love of humanity and God. In Shams, Rumi had finally understood God (the Beloved). "Shams" became Rumi's poetic signature, his pseudonym, his path to a world he sought but could not attain without him. Devoid of this relationship, Rumi would have continued in his scholarly pursuits. Perhaps he would have developed a mystical understanding approaching other masters of his day. But the world would never have known the poet that penned the "Lyrics of Shams of Tabriz." It was a symbiotic relationship; Rumi found in Shams a spiritual master that elevated him to the next plain of thinking, while Shams found in Rumi, the master student through which could channel his understanding. Rumi would not have been a poet without his relationship with Shams and it is quite appropriate, in this recognition, that he named his collection after him and signed them with this name. Perhaps this is moot as, in Rumi's view, they became one and the same. Perhaps it didn't matter, as long as God's humanity was captured and expressed. The "Lyrics of Shams of Tabriz" were Rumi's odes to humanity and embodied the message of Shams, and Rumi's quest for answers. The volume approached 30,000 verses and led the ever-searching Rumi to his consciousness:

Why should I seek? I am the same as he.
His essence speaks through me.
I have been searching for myself!

Their relationship was also symbiotic on another level. Rumi was overflowing with knowledge, brimming at the rim with wisdom and yet thirsty for more; while Shams had a simple all-encompassing message for humanity that could satisfy his thirst. Rumi became the artisan and Shams the elixir. It was only the explosive balance of their relationship that could have ever erupted into the poetry we read today.

Furthermore, it was Shams' departure that combusted Rumi into flames of verse and left the world with the poet that immortalized his love. Rumi states, "Shams Tabriz was it, who led me to the path of reality, for the earth I have is simply his bounty." In fact, there was no distinction for Rumi, between himself and Shams or, for that matter any forces that were united; platonic, divine or otherwise:

A lover asked his beloved,
Do you love yourself more than you love me?
Beloved replied, I have died to myself and I live for you.
I've disappeared from myself and my attributes,
I am present only for you.
I've forgotten all my learnings,
but from knowing you I've become a scholar.
I've lost all my strength, but from your power I am able.
I love myself ... I love you.
I love you ... I love myself.

Another aspect of this relationship is the humility that it imparted to Rumi. Having exhausted traditional paradigms of learning, Rumi could intellectually surrender himself in Shams, and emerge with the prospect of being dazzled with what he discovered. Yet this was not a case of intellectual superiority or inferiority but of simple spiritual elevation and understanding his Beloved (God), as captured in an essence that Shams exuded and Rumi savored. The impact of this relationship on Rumi was completely transforming. The scholar was a spiritual adolescent consumed by Shams:

I am amazed by meeting you
I am an idea, like many that you have
My image and my ideas are by your existence
It seems, that I am your words and the meanings (as well)…
A pleasant moment makes me like a flower garden,
A moment makes me like withered winter,
By one breath he makes me scholar and instructor
In another, he makes me a school child.

Yet this state of emotional convulsion was a long way from the Rumi that encountered Shams on that November evening. Rumi's pure, cold logic had been replaced by pursuit of his heart and of spontaneous lyrics celebrating life. This was the legacy of Rumi and Shams and the generations of humanity that have benefited from its poetic and timeless themes.

FAIR USE NOTICE
This article is copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: US Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Free Musings has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Free Musings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.

Posted by fm on October 07, 2005 at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Disaster in the Making

s America is transfixed by Katrina's and Rita's horrible devastation, avian influenza is growing into a global epidemic deadlier than the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed some 25 million to 50 million people worldwide.

he deadly virus originated in Asia's poultry farms and has already spread to Russia and Europe. Millions of Americans will succumb, once the virus mutates to allow transmission among humans.

Posted by fm on October 06, 2005 at 12:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

We Are All Immigrants

rovided we agree that the cradle of humankind was in Africa and nomadic members of the early humans made their way from the Great Rift Valley throughout the rest of the globe, then in the ultimate sense the entire world is composed of immigrants.

ver the millennia, invasions of peoples into others' lands was the way life was led. That includes Native Americans who periodically moved into lands held by other tribes. It also includes various African tribes who did the exact same thing on the Mother continent.

e would do well to bear in mind that, unless the inherited trait of hypomania has some limited lifespan, and then disappears, each and everyone of us is in fact the product of some sort of human migratory movement.

Posted by fm on October 05, 2005 at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Cronyism and Scandals

f one looks at the history of American political scandals of the last hundred years, one has to conclude that nobody does corruption like the Republicans when they gain power. The Democrats do their best to keep up, but they never really come close to being as sleazy, especially when the GOP has got good and complacent after holding power for a while - people forget how awful the scandals of both Reagan's and Nixon's second terms were.

or some reason, sooner or later, the GOP raincoat always pops open and we get flashed. The scandals we are seeing now are only the ones a friendly Justice Department and friendly Congress could not bury, and in all likelihood there are plenty more scandals where those came from.

Posted by fm on October 04, 2005 at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, October 03, 2005

Making Ends Meet

study released last week ("How Much Does It Cost to Raise a Family in California?"; September 2005) by the California Budget Project put into hard numbers what working middle-class families already know - it's getting tougher each year to make ends meet in California.

n many parts of the country, an annual salary of $71,000 would be more than enough to afford the needs of a family and provide a cushion for tough times. According to calculations of the California Budget Project, however, a family in California with two working parents needs an income of $71,377 - equivalent to both parents working full-time for an hourly wage of $17.16 - just to scrape by, never mind the extras of college for the kids or family vacations.

nd it's not going to get easier anytime soon. Not with the rising cost of gasoline putting an extra strain on a family's monthly budget. Not with housing prices hitting record highs so that only 14 percent of families in Los Angeles County can afford to buy a home. Not when health insurance premiums continue to rise, cutting more and more people off. And especially not when the state and local politicians are more interested in catering to the organized lobbies instead of the people.

o place in the state seems more intent on squeezing out the middle class than Los Angeles, where elected officials continue to heap financial burdens upon the middle class while dreaming up sweet, moneymaking deals for billionaire developers even as they rob the neighborhoods of basic services.

hile the city's liberal elite decry how the rich keep getting richer and the poor poorer, their policies actually do just that while driving the middle out of town. There's no one simple solution, but rather many smaller ones.

t starts with creating a climate that encourages, rather than repels, business growth by lifting onerous and unfair city business taxes and policies.

t requires ending the extravagant spending by city officials who imperil the health of the city's infrastructure with foolish, short-sighted spending.

nd it includes the spreading of the city's resources to every corner of the city, so all the neighborhoods have the money and leadership they need to regain their health.

he California Budget Project study can be a blueprint of doom for Los Angeles, or it can be a wake-up call. What it ultimately becomes depends on the leadership.

or more information go to "How Much Does It Cost to Raise a Family in California?" or visit the Web site of the California Budget Project.

Posted by fm on October 03, 2005 at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Consciousness vs Intelligence

sychologists have been debating the definition of intelligence for 100 years. There are many variants in college textbooks, but the one that I have been inclined to use in conversations and discussions over the years is "the ability to learn from and adapt to the environment."

hat is exactly what evolution does. So if it seems that an intelligent hand has been at work in designing modern life, it has. It has been called natural selection. It is anything but a random process. Rather, it is a decision system that constantly is challenged by the environment and tends toward adaptiveness.

think the intelligent-design people must be confusing intelligence with consciousness. Evolution is not conscious. It has no plans.

Posted by fm on October 02, 2005 at 12:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Sudoku Puzzle 001

_______________________
|       |       |       |
| 3   1 |   7 9 |   2 5 |
|       |       |       |
|       | 6     | 4 1 7 |
|       |       |       |
|       |   1 5 | 3     |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
|   9   |   4 7 |     2 |
|       |       |       |
|     4 | 3   8 |   7   |
|       |       |       |
|   8   | 9 6   | 5 3   |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
| 7   5 |   9 6 |   4 8 |
|       |       |       |
| 2 1   | 5     | 7   6 |
|       |       |       |
|   4   | 7   1 | 2 5   |
|_______|_______|_______|

sudoku puzzle consists of a 9 x 9-square grid subdivided into nine 3 x 3 boxes. Some of the squares contain numbers.

he object is to fill in the remaining squares so that every row, every column, and every 3 x 3 box contains each of the numbers from 1 to 9 exactly once.

olving a sudoku puzzle involves pure logic. No guesswork is needed - or even desirable. Following logic you can work your way around the grid, filling in the missing numbers. Send us the correct solution. Winners will be published.

elow an example of a sudoku with all the boxes, rows, and columns completely filled in:

_______________________
|       |       |       |
| 5 8 6 | 3 7 4 | 9 1 2 |
|       |       |       |
| 1 3 7 | 9 5 2 | 8 6 4 |
|       |       |       |
| 2 4 9 | 8 1 6 | 5 7 3 |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
| 8 7 2 | 5 4 3 | 1 9 6 |
|       |       |       |
| 6 9 3 | 7 8 1 | 2 4 5 |
|       |       |       |
| 4 1 5 | 6 2 9 | 7 3 8 |
|_______|_______|_______|
|       |       |       |
| 9 5 4 | 2 3 7 | 6 8 1 |
|       |       |       |
| 7 2 1 | 4 6 8 | 3 5 9 |
|       |       |       |
| 3 6 8 | 1 9 5 | 4 2 7 |
|_______|_______|_______|

Posted by fm on October 01, 2005 at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)