Republished from The Consent Factory
OK, we need to talk about fascism. Not just any kind of fascism. A particularly insidious kind of fascism. No, not the fascism of the early 20th Century. Not Mussolini's National Fascist Party. Not Hitler's NSDAP. Not Francoist fascism or any other kind of organized fascist movement or party. Not even the dreaded Tiki-torch Nazis.
It's the other kind of fascism we need to talk about. The kind that doesn't come goose-stepping up the street waving big neo-Nazi flags. The kind we don't recognize when we're looking right at it.
It's like that joke about the fish and the water " we don't recognize it because we're swimming in it. We're surrounded by it. We are inseparable from it. From the moment we are born, we breathe it in.
We are taught it by our parents, who were taught it by their parents. We are taught it again by our teachers in school. It is reinforced on a daily basis at work, in conversations with friends, in our families and our romantic relationships. We imbibe it in books, movies, TV shows, advertisements, pop songs, the nightly news, in our cars, at the mall, the stadium, the opera " everywhere, because it is literally everywhere.
It doesn't look like fascism to us. Fascism only looks like fascism when you're standing outside of it, or looking back at it. When you are in it, fascism just looks like "normality," like "reality," like "just the way it is."
We (i.e., Americans, Brits, Europeans, and other citizens of the global capitalist empire) get up in the morning, go to work, shop, pay the interest on our debts, and otherwise obey the laws and conform to the mores of a system of power that has murdered countless millions of people in pursuit of global-hegemonic dominance. It has perpetrated numerous wars of aggression. Its military occupies most of the planet. Its Intelligence agencies (i.e., secret police) operate a worldwide surveillance apparatus that can identify, target, and eliminate anyone, anywhere, often by remote control. Its propaganda network never sleeps, nor is there any real way to escape its constant emotional and ideological conditioning.
The fact that the global capitalist empire does not call itself an empire, and instead calls itself "democracy," doesn't make it any less of an empire. The fact that it uses terms like "regime change" instead of "invasion" or "annexation" makes very little difference to its victims. Terms like "security," "stability," "intervention," "regime change," and so on are not meant for its victims. They are meant for us " to anesthetize us.
The empire is "regime-changing" Bolivia currently. It has "regime-changed" most of Latin America at one time or another since the Second World War. It "regime-changed" Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, Indonesia " the list goes on. It very much wants to "regime-change" Iran, which it "regime-changed" back in the 1950s, before the Iranians "regime-changed" it back. It would love to "regime-change" Russia and China, but their ICBMs make that somewhat impractical. Basically, the empire has been "regime-changing" everyone it can since the end of the Cold War. It has run into a little bump in Syria, and in Venezuela, but not to worry, it will get back there and finish up eventually.
Now, let's be clear about this "regime-change" business. We're talking about invading other people's countries, and orchestrating and sponsoring coups, or otherwise overthrowing their governments, and murdering, torturing, and oppressing people. Sending in terrorists, death squads, and such. We have organizations that train guys to do that, i.e., to round people up, take them out to the jungle, or the woods, or wherever, rape the women, and then summarily shoot everyone in the head. We pay for this kind of thing with our taxes, and our investments in the global corporations that our militaries and intelligence agencies serve. We know this is happening. We can google this stuff. We know "where the trains are going," as it were.
And yet, we do not see ourselves as monsters.
The Nazis didn't see themselves as monsters. They saw themselves as heroes, as saviors, or just as regular Germans leading regular lives. When they looked at the propaganda posters which surrounded them (as the Internet surrounds us today), they didn't see sadistic mass-murderers and totalitarian psychopathic freaks. They saw normal people, admirable people, who were making the world a better place.
They saw themselves. They saw "the good guys."
This is primarily how propaganda works. It isn't meant to fool anybody. It is there to represent "normality" (whatever "normality" happens to be in whatever empire one happens to inhabit). It is Power's way of letting us know what it wants us to believe, how it wants us to behave, who our official enemies are. Its purpose isn't to mislead or deceive us. It is an edict, a command, an ideological model " to which we are all expected to conform. Conform to this ideological model, and one is rewarded, or at least not punished. Deviate from it, and suffer the consequences.
It is a question of obedience, not one of truth.
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