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7-1-10


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CHOMSKY IS MISTAKEN ABOUT FASCISM!

I've been thinking about an article concerning Noam Chomsky that I read a month or two ago in one of the few magazines to which I subscribe. Sadly, it astounded me when I read it and it still irks me today. So even though I sent a letter to the editors of the magazine stating my objections to the article, I'm going to get it off my chest again by publishing it as my blog

I've always admired Mr. Chomsky. He's long been a hero of mine. I'm a little surprised, however, of his belief that fascism in the U.S. is only a possibility, for the records show that Americans have endured fascism in the U.S. republic, at least, since the early 1930s. I'm equally astounded that so many educated "specialists" hold the identical belief that fascism in the U.S. is a long shot.

My first exposure to fascism claimed (but not in these exact words) that any form of government that supported the needs of business before the needs of the people is a fascist government—and so, for years I have believed that fascism was the marriage of business and government.

And why shouldn't I believe this? Benito Mussolini, the Italian ally of Adolph Hitler, is the one who defined the concept and gave "fascism" its name. But in his later years, just before his death, he claimed to have made a mistake and should have named the concept "corporatism" as it was a more accurate description of the concept. So fascism could correctly be described as a marriage between the corporate world and a government.

And who can deny the U.S. government has always had funds to support the needs of profit while, for more than 200 years, the needs of people have gone begging.

In 1933, American elites were fearful that Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies threatened their interests and would transform the republic into a socialist or communist country. They believed a strong fascist takeover of government would help them to retain the status quo. In 1935, a House investigative committee accidentally uncovered a fascist plot to take over the U.S. government.

The plot involved American industrialists and bankers who controlled some of the largest, most well-known U.S. corporations, backed by some members of Congress. Presumably, 500,000 unemployed, frustrated veterans were to follow General Smedley Butler, a popular decorated war hero in the takeover. The plotters seriously misjudged Butler for it was the general who blew the whistle on the scheme. The House committee, however, suppressed information about the plot, the American public remained unaware of its danger, and no one was ever brought to trial or accused of subversion or treason.

Throughout World War II, these men and their corporations supported the Nazis not only financially, but their German factories built war vehicles and their oil companies supplied German submarines with fuel. After the war, they were responsible for helping Nazi war criminals to escape to Argentina and to the U.S., where they were given jobs in American corporations, some eventually becoming U.S. citizens.

I'm an American citizen concerned with what has been happening to this republic since the end of WWII. I'm not a writer, but I have written and published a book called The Democracy That Never Was. Chapter XII offers a theory of subversion based upon post war patterns. In it I claim that these men could not change who they were, or their philosophies of superiority, or their contempt for the masses any more than a leopard can change its spots.

When Hitler lost his military attempt to conquer Earth's populations, these American elites, who had expected to be the overseers of the American part of the Nazi empire, changed direction and made plans to conquer the world by economic means. Today, few can deny the corporate world is trying very hard to replace the political governments of Earth with its economic policies and its "free trade" philosophy.

Frighteningly, also, there are patterns today in the republic that resemble patterns in the 1930s.

In 1930, it was not a Tea Party, but the German-American Bund that threatened the stability of the American republic. German-Americans formed the Bund to influence American politics by promoting the values of Nazism. It was a racist, anti-semitic organization that ejected all German-American Jews from its membership, promoting an all white, Christian country with white Christians filling all political offices. The organization was comprised of people calling themselves “Germans in America,” who lived for the time when Nazism would govern the United States. Bund rallies often had thousands of young American boys in Nazi uniforms marching the streets of American cities. I often wonder which side these German-Americans would have taken, if the Nazis had been successful in invading the U.S?

The philosophies of the Bund were transmitted by radio to millions of Americans by Father Charles Edward Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest. Coughlin used his weekly radio program to promote the Nazi policies of Adolf Hitler, criticize Franklin D. Roosevelt, and issue anti-semitic commentary.

Today we have the Tea Party. I agree with the article that most members of the Tea Party are honest, sincere Americans frustrated by the lack of positive action from their state and federal governments. But the undeniable truth is that for many reasons—some valid and some influenced by fascist propaganda—the Tea Partiers are determined to dismantle the U.S. government.

Add to this the many subtle media articles concerning the desirability and possibility of state secessions, the actual proposals made in some states to secede from the Union, and the direct and indirect prompting of Glen Beck and his ilk to remake the Union as a white, Christian republic and you have a significant active force designed to destroy the United States as a democracy—although it has only been a pseudo-democracy for the more than 200 years of its existence.

What's missing in the American dialogue is a counterforce to this fascist onslaught. What's missing is a realistic plan that working Americans can believe in; a plan with the potential to better their lives, and one that offers a realistic opportunity to eliminate poverty and war.

Chapter I of The Democracy That Never Was describes such a plan. It describes a fictional true democracy called "America" that tempers majority rule, offers working families benefits that the current U.S. pseudo-democracy can never offer and shows how a mature, educated citizenry would set up their government.

Hopefully, the American people will be offered such a plan as an alternative to the highly destructive directions American fascists now prompt them to take.

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