Orcinus

If those of us on the left read nothing else, we need to read this series from David Neiwert, called Rush, Newspeak and Fascism.

He is writing about something that we really don’t want to hear about. Marshalled with data and first hand experience in the field, he is laying out the scenario — step by step — for how the United States of America can slowly but inexorably move into fascism.

This is not hysterical nonsense nor is it tin-foil hat conspiracy mongering. Those of us who like to think of ourselves as fairly earthbound (polemic blogging notwithstanding) and who have grown up in a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity where nothing really politically catastrophic has happened to us, are hard pressed to believe that something truly bad can happen here.

I have friends who have maintained until just recently that we would not go to war because well.. it didn’t make sense and the wise men who “really run things” wouldn’t let it happen. I know other who have faith that our electoral system could never be compromised in any serious way because well…it’s America. We don’t do that.

And, indeed, we have had an incredible run. We always existed within the context of the time, and as such we perpetrated genocide, institutionalized slavery, pandered to every bigoted and racist proclivity known to man. As a culture we have been no better (and probably no worse) than any other collection of flawed human beings. Rather, it has been the government, while certainly corrupt at times and thoroughly tainted by the necessity for the human species to run it, that has been the fundamental basis of the bold American experiment. A certain committment to that ideal has formed the core of what it means to be an American.

But, there is no guarantee that it remain so. Under stress, whether real or manufactured, the institutions we take for granted are subject to change. We are not immune from the dark side of human ambition or the folly of small men with grand ideas and little know how. It’s impossible to know if we are marching toward fascism but there is no law of nature that says it is impossible.