This is why it doesn't matter that there is no actual "Attack on America," and that the Russians didn't "hack," "subvert," "meddle in," or otherwise significantly "influence" the 2016 presidential election or otherwise put Donald Trump in office. John Brennan and the CIA say they did, and the corporate media say they did, so all Good Americans have to pretend to believe it. Likewise, it also doesn't matter if an organization like the OPCW collaborated with the empire's regime-change specialists who staged a "chemical weapons attack" on helpless women and children in Douma (because, no matter what the empire did or didn't do, Assad is a Russian-backed, baby-gassing devil!), or if The Guardianjust makes up stuff about Julian Assange out of whole cloth and prints it as news.
This is also why, when The Guardian runs an enormous color propaganda photo of a beneficent-looking Hillary Clinton and her soon-to-be-Democratic senator daughter posing as our last line of defense against the Invasion of the Putin-Nazis, and as the future of Western democracy, and whatever, on the cover of its cultural Review, this isn't perceived as propaganda. Never mind that this woman (i.e., Hillary) is directly responsible for the deaths and misery of God knows how many innocent people in the course of her lucrative service to the empire. Never mind that this is the same exact person that sadistically cackled on national television when the empire's associates anally knife-raped and murdered Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and then transformed a developed African country into a hellish human-slavery market.
For fascists (and authoritarian personalities generally), facts are completely beside the point. The point is to robotically conform to the ideology (or hysterical ravings) of whatever leader or system of power happens to be in charge of things.
Authoritarian personality types are skilled at determining exactly who that is (i.e, who is really in charge of things) and obsequiously currying favor with them. For some, this is an innate talent; others have this talent conditioned into them (or beaten into them) over the course of years. Either way, the result is the same.
Put a bunch of random people together in a group and give them a problem to solve, or a complex project or objective to accomplish. Don't give them any organizational guidance, just put them in a room and watch what happens.
The first thing that happens is " a "leader" emerges. Someone (or a few people) decides that someone needs to be in charge of this project, and they feel pretty strongly that it should be them. If more than one such "leader" emerges, or if the need for a leader itself is challenged, a struggle for power will immediately ensue. The aspiring "leaders" will compete for the support of the "followers" in the group. Sides will be taken. Eventually, a "leader" will be chosen. Occasionally, this will happen openly, but, more often than not, it will happen unconsciously. Someone in the group will want to dominate " and the rest of the group will want them to dominate. They will experience discomfort until a "leader" is established, and they will feel an enormous sense of relief once one is, and they can surrender their autonomy.
I assume you're familiar with the Milgram experiment, but, if not, you should probably read up on that, and maybe read Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality. It's a bit outdated, and over-focused on the Nazis (it was originally published in 1950), but I think you'll get the general idea. Once you've done that, turn on your television, or your radio, or scan the news on the Internet, or walk down any big city street and compare the content on the digital billboards, movie posters, and advertisements to historical fascist propaganda " that is, if your boss will let you leave the workplace long enough to do that, which he probably will if you ask him in that special way you have learned over time that he likes and generally tends to respond to.
Sorry, I didn't mean to get inside your mind. That's kind of a fascistic thing to do.
Look, the point is, we all have an "Inner Fascist," with whom we are either acquainted or not. I'm a playwright and a novelist, which means I've got a big, fat, Sieg-heiling Inner Fascist goose-stepping around inside my head. I invent whole worlds, which I dictatorially control. I put people in them and make them say things. It doesn't get much more fascistic than that. The way I see it, my art is how I sublimate my Inner Fascist, so that he doesn't run around invading Poland, exterminating the Jews, or "regime-changing" Bolivia.
I'm not a psychiatrist, or a fascism expert, but I figure this is probably the most we can do " recognize, acknowledge, and find some way to sublimate our Inner Fascists, because, I guarantee you, they're not going away. (If you don't believe me, go watch that Planet Earth episode featuring the fascist chimpanzees.) Seriously, I recommend you do this. Get acquainted with your Inner Fascist, in an appropriate set and setting, of course. Give him something safe to dominate and then let him go totally totalitarian. You'll be doing yourself and the rest of us a favor.
Ironically, it is those who are not acquainted with their Inner Fascists (or who deny they have one) who are usually the first to make a big public show of loudly denouncing "fascism," brandishing their "anti-fascist" bona fides, accusing other people of being "fascists," and otherwise desperately projecting their Inner Fascists onto those they hate, and want to silence, if not exterminate. This is one of the hallmarks of repressed Inner Fascism " this compulsion to control what other people think, this desire for complete ideological conformity, this tendency, not to argue with, but rather, to attempt to destroy anyone who disagrees with or questions one's beliefs.
We all know people who behave this way. If you don't, odds are, one of them is you.
So, please, if you haven't done so already, get acquainted with your "Inner Fascist," and find him something harmless to do, before he " well, you know, starts singing hymns to former FBI directors, or worshipping the CIA, or Obama, or Trump, or Hillary Clinton, or supports the empire's next invasion, or coup, or just makes a desperate, sanctimonious ass of you both on the Internet.
I'm not kidding. Reclaim your "Inner Fascist." It might sound crazy, but you will thank me someday.
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