American Fascist, stay away from me

From Random Hipatia

When introducing the term fascism while listening to Jimi Hendrix, I am sure many today think of goose-stepping storm troopers and the other trappings and effects of fascism, rather than it’s definition and root causes. Consider, then, behind every would be fascist leader in the last century, whether in Europe, Asia, or South America, stood private corporations and industrialists who already had perverted public institutions and national governments to serve their private interests first. We can go to the less evocative definition of fascism, as distinguishing itself by a very tight link between corporate leadership and government. The definition says nothing about how such linkage may occur, and clearly there can be more than one path to this result. Given in part this simple definition to start from, let us consider for a moment what I would define as the two most fascist nations in the world today, China and the United States.

I am sure some may be confused by the inclusion of China. However, Chinese fascism is in one key respect the mirror image of American fascism. Where the American government has been subverted by private commercial interests from without, the Chinese government itself owns many key industries and now often operates in many ways as if it is itself a private commercial entity. Hence, Chinese fascism is a fascism from within, and in this respect may actually be more similar to early 20th century European fascism which achieved this same kind of linkage through nationalization and state co-option, but I believe the consequences are much the same, where private commercial interests overrule the publics interests and needs.

Of course the two other hallmarks of true fascism are militarism and conformity. The latter is a consequence of private interests and I believe easiest to explain. After all, what corporation would not desire a standardized work force, or standardized market of standardized consumers, who think alike, believe the same things, and hence could be socialized better into consistent labor units and defined clearer as markets? Having state institutions available to promote these needs and promote a conforming society then seems a very logical extension of this need.

Of course, given this definition, not all potentially fascist nations need to be militaristic. Post-war Japan perhaps may in a broad sense meet definition for the emergence fascism, but is hardly a dangerous military power willing to subjugate others or kill it’s own people today. Perhaps Japan could at worst be considered an example for a potentially more “benign” form of fascism. Some may even argue the more overt and clearer Chinese fascism may prove similarly benign, or lacking as overt an expansionist militarism (although there is definitely Chinese militarism, and state driven conformity therefore completing the definition of fascism), that it may represent a corrupt, but otherwise more harmless arrangements that fully meets the definition for, but perhaps not the true spirit of fascism, with storm troopers bent on world conquest, and all that good stuff. If so, then what then turns a simply harmlessly corrupt or semi-militarized institutional arrangement into a true militarized fascist world danger, like happened in the last century?

The most common element I find in all these cases has been fear. That is, something that the sponsors of fascism fear directly, rather than a threat to the nation and it’s people as a whole. Often this fear is that of the very people themselves. Examples of this include fear of communists that drive 1930’s fascism in Europe, for after all, they wished to change and redistribute ownership. Or similarly, fear of the landless peasant seeking social justice, as we find so often the target of Latin American fascism. Of course, the role control of mass media plays in this is by enabling the distressed ruling class to transfer their fear to fear that can be successfully marketed to the general population, often through the tools of nationalism and national myth.

However, not all fascism need be driven principally by fear from the people within. Japanese fascism of the pre-war years uneasily co-existed with at least some facade of constitutional government in the 1930’s. Similarly, today, the American voter can generally be safely “trusted” to vote for the “right” choice, in our system of 1 and 1/2 parties. Should the American voter ever truly choose a more diverse or more interesting range of political expression beyond Conservative Republicans and “Republican Lites” that call themselves Democrats, I would not be surprised to see an arranged “burning of the Riechstag” being re-enacted in D.C. as a pretext to martial law.

Militarism need not be fed from fear from within, or even from fear of those people without. For corporate interests that are able to secure the public functions of government, militarism may also be a tool to express their own commercial needs, including support of commercial exploitation of foreign lands and to secure vital and necessary resources. Sacrificing lives, on the corporate balance sheet, is often far cheaper than reaching fair and lasting agreements with others. I believe unrestrained corporatism creates an environment for such sociopathic behavior in emphasizing the need for profit while eliminating individual responsibility for the consequences of those pursuing it by any means possible, and corporate control of the public institutions of government and through it the military, provide a new and broader means for expressing this sociopathic behavior that, when combined with media consolidation and the use of national myths, readily becomes fascist militarism.

It is tempting to draw parallels between American fascism and pre-war Japan, where in both cases, a national government desperate to secure vital resources finds such resources in the hands of other nations they consider to be “lessors”. While Japanese constitutional government was subverted and contained through coup attempts and assassination against it’s “agents”, the architects of American fascism choose instead to assassinate the constitution, through things like the “patriot act”.

Another and even more striking parallel to pre-war Japan can be found in Anatol Lieven’s article on the “American Creed” and and the nature of American nationalism. Much like how he describes American nationalism, pre-war Japanese saw their place in the world as “liberators” on a special or messianic mission. For the Japanese public, then, wars of expansion were sold as the “liberation” of other Asians from the evils of westernization, much like Iraq is being sold as a war of liberation and democratization in the middle east. Also, at the same time, in both striking contrast, and in striking remarkable similarity to Lieven’s article on American Nationalism, the Japanese held those other Asians they were “liberating” in the lowest regard, as barbarians and otherwise subhuman. For the Japanese campaigns of “liberation” in Asia, they had their own vocabulary and terms of contempt for other Asians, much like “sand-niger” and “towel-head” that we use for those we are supposedly “liberating” today.

Indeed the point here is really not to harp on the sins of some Japanese past, but much rather to point out that we learned nothing from the past or from their national experience which is in some important ways so very similar to our own. I know a few look at Bush and actually do believe they see another Adolf, though I think that is a very far stretch indeed. He is to me far more like the ridiculous tin horn dictator the CIA used to foist upon other nations, or at most, a Pinochet wannabe. But I will submit the idea of Bush as perhaps another Tojo, backed by “American Industrialists” represented through corporations, and perverting American nationalist impulses to serve their own ends. And I do fear most that, like last centuries fascism, American fascism will also lead us to a new and very terrible global war.