A Book Report, and why Thinking Matters.

I just finished a remarkable book, written in 1995:

http://en.wordpress.com/tag/the-15-solution

It’s written as a “Future History” of the US, from the perspective of 2050, or so…and it’s narrative entails the descent into Fascism of the United States, from ’95-2020, using then current statements and ideological trends(current in ’95)…and sort of running them out, like a computer model.
It ain’t Lord of the Rings…but I think it’s worth the read, and then consideration.
The events described in this book hit very close to home, if one has been paying attention.

In my long Research Frenzy into the Mind of Right Wing America, I read Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here.”
This is similar, but updated.
The Ingredients for the Recipe for American Fascism are to be found all around us, and while this is unpleasant to think about, I believe that Jefferson’s Eternal Vigilance applies.
During the Bush Darkness, some of us, hiding in out caves, were aware of certain similarities, between the policies and pronouncements , official and not, of Lil’ George, and his Enablers, and certain other, historical Fascist and Totalitarian Regimes. The use of the word “Fascism” was shouted down, even by the Opposition. Towards the end of Lil George’s Romp, an Apologist, one Jonah Goldberg, wrote  an astonishing revision to history,”Liberal Fascism”…this effectively ended the use of that word, for a time…it had become meaningless.
Robert Paxton has the best definition, in my opinion…

“A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”

Flesh that out with Umberto Eco:
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html

Then further, with Lawrence Britt:

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm

The Raw Materials, and certainly the rhetoric, are there.
Dave Neiwert has a rather comprehensive blog, regarding the application of the term to the American Right, with Footnotes!

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/            

Point is, the Threat has not gone away, with the election and first term of  President Obama…if anything, the Threat is even greater, today.
In fact, the only thing really holding back the Tea and Neocons and  the Religious Right, is the enforced sense of Public Decency that remains.
If they, and their ilk, felt empowered to actually say what they mean, without backpedaling or euphemism, we are not far, at all, from Disaster. Heaven Forbid that they should retake all three branches of the federal Government.
I am Not Optimistic.
However, since I have not the wherewithal, nor the means, to Flee, to Expatriate…at least to California, or somewhere….since I cannot Leave,  Reason compels me to , instead, Speak Up.
It is, after all, My Country, too…and I am Angry at what has been done to it…as well as by it, in My Name.

Au Deamus.

Amfortas