Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

Rediscovering American Fascism

In 1944, the New York Times published an article by US Vice President Henry Wallace that is clearly prescient, and vitally relevant 60 years later:

"The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power... The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice"

His perception of the need and the means to overcome such tendencies is equally accurate:

"Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must... put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels".

Comparing the astute perceptions of political leaders like Wallace with today's corporate cut-outs leaves the clear impression that men like Bush, Blair, and Howard are the very people identified as predjudiced, disinformational poisoners. It is extremely important to remember the original definition of "fascism" [by one Giovanni Gentile in the 1930's "Encyclopedia Italiana"] is analogous to "corporatism" because it represents the merging of state and corporate power. This is precisely the situation currently faced by our societies - we have arrived at the merging of corporate interests with those of the state. The US-Australian Free Trade Agreement is clear and present evidence of state corporatism, though is only a starting point. For instance:

"The Agreement is a balanced set of undertakings between two of the most sophisticated and open economies. Reaching agreement meant that the Australian government was not able to advance some of our industry interests to the extent we hoped..."

"Balanced" but still unable to "advance industry interests". And as for human impact, we are told "Policies giving preferences to indigenous persons or organisations are carved-out from the obligations of the chapters on Cross-Border Trade in Services and Investment" - "carved out" by a corporatised blade, a surgical definition of potentially profound significance. As Wallace observes:

"They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

These "spokesmen for monopoly" are keenly aided by the corporate news-media, which ensures that only short-term attention is given to any issue with the potential to complete an historical perspective on current events.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 11:48 am ::