We are now ruled by the velvet-gloved, technologically savvy, militarized iron fist of what Gross termed "friendly fascism." As I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the parallels to modern America are impossible to ignore.
Under fascism, the government:
- is managed by a powerful leader (even if he or she assumes office by way of the electoral process)
- assumes it is not restrained in its power (this is authoritarianism, which eventually evolves into totalitarianism)
- ostensibly operates under a capitalist system while being undergirded by an immense bureaucracy
- emits powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism through its politicians
- has an obsession with national security while constantly invoking terrifying internal and external enemies
- establishes a domestic and invasive surveillance system and develops a paramilitary force that is not answerable to the citizenry
- and its various agencies (federal, state, and local) develop an obsession with crime and punishment (this is overcriminalization)
- becomes increasingly centralized while aligning closely with corporate powers to control all aspects of the country's social, economic, military, and governmental structures
- uses militarism as a center point of its economic and taxing structure
- and is increasingly imperialistic in order to maintain the military-industrial corporate forces.
Fascism thrives by hiding behind the entertainment spectacle that is partisan politics.
American-style fascism is deceptively appealing.
It appears friendly. The news media covers the entertainment and political trivia. The basic forms of government remain intact. The legislators remain in session. There are elections.
Consent of the governed, however, no longer applies. Actual control has finally passed to the oligarchic elite controlling the government behind the scenes.
Yet the most crucial ingredient for fascism to succeed in America is that the majority of the people would have to agree that it's not only expedient but necessary for the government to assume greater powers in order to keep them safe and secure, whether it's by militarizing the police, stripping them of basic constitutional rights, criminalizing virtually every form of behavior, or spying on their communications, movements and transactions.
Sound familiar?
When you really drill down to what the various presidential candidates believe about the issues that will impact the future of our freedoms long-term--war, surveillance, civil liberties--you'll find that most of them support the government's position, which conveniently enough, profits the corporate sector.
This is not freedom.
It is despotism, what Gross refers to as Big Business and Big Government, which "have been learning how to live in bed together and despite arguments between them, enjoy the cohabitation Who may be on top at any particular moment is a minor matter-and in any case can be determined only by those with privileged access to a well-positioned keyhole."
When the votes have all been counted, "we the people" will be the losers.
The joke will be on us. Whether we ever realize it not, the enemy is not across party lines, as they would have us believe. It has us surrounded on all sides.
Even so, we're not yet defeated.
We could still overcome our oppressors if we cared enough to join forces and launch a militant nonviolent revolution--a people's revolution that starts locally and trickles upwards--but that will take some doing.
It will mean turning our backs on the political jousting contests taking place on the national stage and rejecting their appointed jesters as false prophets. It will mean not allowing ourselves to be corralled like cattle and branded with political labels that have no meaning anymore. It will mean recognizing that all the evils that surround us today--endless wars, drone strikes, invasive surveillance, militarized police, poverty, asset forfeiture schemes, overcriminalization, etc.--were not of our making but came about as a way to control and profit from us.
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