Here's another letter to someone who responded to an article I posted on
fascism.
-rkm
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Dear Matthew,
Thanks for your response re/modern fascism. Please note my new address
above. Can you tell me where you read my article? Things get passed all
over the net.
I have taken some heat on that particular piece, as you can guess. People
like Reagan & Gingrich look so clean, seem to talk reasonably, and don't
seem to advocate violence -- how could they have anything in common with
what we think of as fascism or nazism?
What fascism means, as I understand it, is a society where instead of
having democracy, you have policy decisions made by powerful corporations.
This is what Mussolini brought about in Italy. And this is precisely the
agenda of the modern rightists in America. When they talk about less
government, they are lying to you. They don't mean more freedom for you,
they mean less accountability of corporations. More pollution, increased
exploitation of workers, dangerous working conditions, destruction of
natural resources, lower wages, higher profits, and low coporate taxes --
with your taxes increased to make up their deficit.
In order to turn power over to corporations, you first need to be convinced
that democratic government is a bad thing. Unfortunately, the propaganda
seems to have succeeded all too well -- everyone on all sides of the
spectrum seems to be stumbling over each other to see who can dismantle
democracy quickest. Reagan's primary agenda was to reduce corporate taxes
to an obscenely low level, therefore bankrupting government. Bascially
what's going on is that corporations are looting the country, and
government is sitting back and letting them do it.
As this process has proceeded, the result has been increased crime,
poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and despair. These don't come about
because of any decline of values -- that's blaming the victim -- they come
about because of corporations sucking the wealth out of the country.
Government is our representative to stand up to these greedy monopolies,
and it isn't doing its job.
Nazism was a particular kind of fascism, one which emphasized racism,
eugenics, anti-liberalism, and a distorted version of "traditional values".
I've been surprised recently by how these very same themes are becoming
more and more common in right-wing rhetoric.
I think the parallels between Nazism and modern American trends are very
deep indeed. But you're right, the folks who preside over the destruction
of our democracy don't have personalities like Hitler. He was what the
German people wanted at the time (they've changed a lot since!) and so he
was brought in for the job by Krupp and other industrialists. America has
different tastes in leaders, and so different personalities are
hired/backed by our modern industrialists.
But the dismantling of democracy, and the destruction of our social fabric,
is just as real now as it was in Germany in the 30s, and for the same
reasons.
Yours,
Richard
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Posted by Richard K. Moore (•••@••.•••) Wexford, Ireland (USA citizen)
cyber-rights co-leader
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