-->Published on Monday, July 19, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
The Ghost of Vice President Wallace Warns:"It Can Happen Here"
by Thom Hartmann

The Republican National Committee has recently removed from their website an advertisement interspersing Hitler's face with those of John Kerry and other prominent Democrats. This little-heralded step has freed former Enron lobbyist and current RNC chairman Ed Gillespie to resume his attacks on Americans who believe some provisions of Bush's PATRIOT Act, his detention of American citizens without charges, his willingness to let corporations write legislation, and the so-called"Free Speech Zones" around his public appearances are all steps on the road to American fascism.
The RNC's feeble attempt to equate Hitler and Democrats was short-lived, but it brings to mind the first American Vice President to point out the"American fascists" among us.
Although most Americans remember that Harry Truman was Franklin D. Roosevelt's Vice President when Roosevelt died in 1945 (making Truman President), Roosevelt had two previous Vice Presidents - John N. Garner (1933-1941) and Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945). In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted,"write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?"
Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.
"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote,"are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. 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."
In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word"fascist" - the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said:"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)
As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is:"A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled"The Doctrine of Fascism" he wrote,"If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.
In 1938, Mussolini brought his vision of fascism into full reality when he dissolved Parliament and replaced it with the"Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni" - the Chamber of the Fascist Corporations. Corporations were still privately owned, but now instead of having to sneak their money to folks like Tom DeLay and covertly write legislation, they were openly in charge of the government.
Vice President Wallace bluntly laid out in his 1944 Times article his concern about the same happening here in America:
" If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful.... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."
Nonetheless, at that time there were few corporate heads who had run for political office, and, in Wallace's view, most politicians still felt it was their obligation to represent We The People instead of corporate cartels."American fascism will not be really dangerous," he added in the next paragraph,"until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information..."
Noting that,"Fascism is a worldwide disease," Wallace further suggest that fascism's"greatest threat to the United States will come after the war" and will manifest"within the United States itself."
In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel"It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy as anti-American. When Windrip becomes President, he opens a Guantanamo-style detention center, and the viewpoint character of the book, Vermont newspaper editor Doremus Jessup, flees to Canada to avoid prosecution under new"patriotic" laws that make it illegal to criticize the President.
As Lewis noted in his novel,"the President, with something of his former good-humor [said]: 'There are two [political] parties, the Corporate and those who don't belong to any party at all, and so, to use a common phrase, are just out of luck!' The idea of the Corporate or Corporative State, Secretary [of State] Sarason had more or less taken from Italy." And, President"Windrip's partisans called themselves the Corporatists, or, familiarly, the 'Corpos,' which nickname was generally used."
Lewis, the first American writer to win a Nobel Prize, was world famous by 1944, as was his book"It Can't Happen Here." And several well-known and powerful Americans, including Prescott Bush, had lost businesses in the early 1940s because of charges by Roosevelt that they were doing business with Hitler. These events all, no doubt, colored Vice President Wallace's thinking when he wrote:
" Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after 'the present unpleasantness' ceases."
Fascists have an agenda that is primarily economic. As the Free Dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com) notes, fascism/corporatism is"an attempt to create a 'modern' version of feudalism by merging the 'corporate' interests with those of the state."
Feudalism, of course, is one of the most stable of the three historic tyrannies (kingdoms, theocracies, feudalism) that ruled nations prior to the rise of American republican democracy, and can be roughly defined as"rule by the rich."
Thus, the neo-feudal/fascistic rich get richer (and more powerful) on the backs of the poor and the middle class, an irony not lost on author Thomas Frank, who notes in his new book"What's The Matter With Kansas" that,"You can see the paradox first-hand on nearly any Main Street in middle America - 'going out of business' signs side by side with placards supporting George W. Bush."
The businesses"going out of business" are, in fascist administrations, usually those of locally owned small and medium-sized companies. As Wallace wrote, some in big business"are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage." He added,"Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise [companies]. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself."
But American fascists who would want former CEOs as President, Vice President, House Majority Whip, and Senate Majority Leader, and write legislation with corporate interests in mind, don't generally talk to We The People about their real agenda, or the harm it does to small businesses and working people. Instead, as Hitler did with the trade union leaders and the Jews, they point to a"them" to pin with blame and distract people from the harms of their economic policies.
In a comment prescient of George W. Bush's recent suggestion that civilization itself is at risk because of gays, Wallace continued:
" 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. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination..."
But even at this, Wallace noted, American fascists would have to lie to the people in order to gain power. And, because they were in bed with the nation's largest corporations - who could gain control of newspapers and broadcast media - they could promote their lies with ease.
"The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact," Wallace wrote."Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy."
In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism the Vice President of the United States saw rising in America, he added,"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."
Finally, Wallace said,"The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people.... Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It 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."
This liberal vision of an egalitarian America in which very large businesses and media monopolies are broken up under the 1881 Sherman Anti-Trust Act (which Reagan stopped enforcing, leading to the mergers & acquisitions frenzy that continues to this day) was the driving vision of the New Deal (and of"Trust Buster" Teddy Roosevelt a generation earlier).
As Wallace's President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said when he accepted his party's renomination in 1936 in Philadelphia,"...out of this modern civilization, economic royalists [have] carved new dynasties.... It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction.... And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man...."
Speaking indirectly of the fascists that Wallace would directly name almost a decade later, Roosevelt brought the issue to its core:"These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power."
But, he thundered in that speech,"Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power!"
In 2004, we again stand at the same crossroad Roosevelt and Wallace confronted during the Great Depression and World War II. Fascism is again rising in America, this time calling itself"compassionate conservatism." The RNC's behavior today eerily parallels the day in 1936 when Roosevelt said,"In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for."
It's particularly ironic that the CEOs and lobbyists who run the Republican National Committee would have chosen to put Hitler's fascist face into one of their campaign commercials, just before they launched a national campaign against gays and while they continue to arrest people who wear anti-Bush T-shirts in public places.
President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace's warnings have come full circle. Which is why it's so critical that this November we join together at the ballot box to stop this most recent incarnation of feudal fascism from seizing complete control of our nation.
Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk radio show. www.thomhartmann.com. His most recent books are"The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight,""Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," and"We The People: A Call To Take Back America." His new book,"What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To Democracy," based on four years of research in Jefferson's personal letters, begins shipping this week from Random House/Harmony.

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GOD HELP AMERICA
Nov 5 2004
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN..


THEY say that in life you get what you deserve. Well, today America has
deservedly got a lawless cowboy to lead them further into carnage and
isolation
and the unreserved contempt of most of the rest of the world.

This once-great country has pulled up its drawbridge for another four years
and stuck a finger up to the billions of us forced to share the same air.
And
in doing so, it has shown itself to be a fearful, backward-looking and very
small nation.

This should have been the day when Americans finally answered their critics
by raising their eyes from their own sidewalks and looking outward towards
the rest of humanity.

And for a few hours early yesterday, when the exit polls predicted a John
Kerry victory, it seemed they had.

But then the horrible, inevitable truth hit home. They had somehow managed
to re-elect the most devious, blinkered and reckless leader ever put before
them. The Yellow Rogue of Texas.

A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little rich boy, whose
idea of courage is to yell:"I feel good," as he unleashes an awesome fury
which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no other reason than greed and
vanity.
A dangerous chameleon, his charming exterior provides cover for a
power-crazed clique of Doctor Strangeloves whose goal is to increase
America's
grip on the world's economies and natural resources.

And in foolishly backing him, Americans have given the go-ahead for more
unilateral pre-emptive strikes, more world instability and most probably
another 9/11.

Why else do you think bin Laden was so happy to scare them to the polls,
then made no attempt to scupper the outcome?

There's only one headline in town today, folks:"It Was Osama Wot Won It."
And soon he'll expect pay-back. Well, he can't allow Bush to have his folks
whoopin' and a-hollerin' without his own getting a share of the fun, can
he?
Heck, guys, I hope you're feeling proud today.

To the tens of millions who voted for John Kerry, my commiserations.
To the overwhelming majority of you who didn't, I simply ask: Have you
learnt nothing? Do you despise your own image that much?

Do you care so little about the world beyond your shores? How could you do
this to yourselves?

How appalling must one man's record at home and abroad be for you to reject
him?

Kerry wasn't the best presidential candidate the Democrats have ever
fielded
(and he did deserve a kicking for that"reporting for doo-dee" moment), but
at least he understood the complexity of the world outside America, and
domestic disgraces like the 45 million of his fellow citizens without
health
cover.

He would have done something to make that country fairer and re-connected
it
with the wider world.

Instead America chose a man without morals or vision. An economic
incompetent who inherited a $2billion surplus from Clinton, gave it in tax
cuts to the
rich and turned the US into the world's largest debtor nation.

A man who sneers at the rights of other nations. Who has withdrawn from
international treaties on the environment and chemical weapons.

A man who flattens sovereign states then hands the rebuilding contracts to
his own billionaire party backers.

A man who promotes trade protectionism and backs an Israeli government
which
continually flouts UN resolutions.

America has chosen a menacingly immature buffoon who likened the pursuit of
the 9/11 terrorists to a Wild West, Wanted Dead or Alive man-hunt and,
during
the Afghanistan war, kept a baseball scorecard in his drawer, notching up
hits when news came through of enemy deaths.

A RADICAL Christian fanatic who decided the world was made up of the forces
of good and evil, who invented a war on terror, and thus as author of it,
believed he had the right to set the rules of engagement.

Which translates to telling his troops to do what the hell they want to the
bad guys. As he has at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and countless towns across
Iraq.

You have to feel sorry for the millions of Yanks in the big cities like New
York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco who voted
to
kick him out.

These are the sophisticated side of the electorate who recognise a gibbon
when they see one.

As for the ones who put him in, across the Bible Belt and the South, us
outsiders can only feel pity.

Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not only at them
returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all
into the
same category of moronic muppets.

The self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister marryin',
abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin'
red-necks, who
believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate
on
the rest of us and make their land"free and strong".

You probably won't be surprised to learn of would-be Oklahoma Republican
Senator Tom Coburn who, on Tuesday, promised to ban abortion and execute
any
doctors who carried them out.

He also told voters that lesbianism is so rampant in the state's schools
that girls were being sent to toilets on their own. Not that any principal
could
be found to back him up.

These are the people who hijack the word patriot and liken compassion to
child-molesting. And they are unknowingly bin Laden's chief recruiting
officers.
Al-Qaeda's existence is fuelled by the outpourings of America's Christian
right. Bush is its commander-in-chief. And he and bin Laden need each other
to
survive.

Both need to play Lex Luther to each others' Superman with their own
fanatical people. Maybe that's why the mightiest military machine ever
assembled has
failed to catch the world's most wanted man.

Or is the reason simply that America is incompetent? That behind the bluff
they are frightened and clueless, which is why they've stayed with the
devil
they know.

VISITORS from another planet watching this election would surely not credit
the amateurism.

The queues for hours to register a tick; the 17,000 lawyers needed to
ensure
there was no cheating; the $1.2bn wasted by parties trying to discredit the
enemy; the allegations of fraud, intimidation and dirty tricks; the exit
polls which were so wildly inaccurate; an Electoral College voting system
that
makes the Eurovision Song Contest look like a beacon of democracy and
efficiency; and the delays and the legal wrangles in announcing the victor.

Yet America would have us believe theirs is the finest democracy in the
world. Well, that fine democracy has got the man it deserved. George W
Bush.

But is America safer today without Kerry in charge? A man who overnight
would have given back to the UN some credibility and authority. Who would
have
worked out the best way to undo the Iraq mess without fear of losing face.
Instead, the questions facing America today are - how many more thousands
of
their sons will die as Iraq descends into a new Vietnam? And how many more
Vietnams are on the horizon now they have given Bush the mandate to go
after
Iran, Syria, North Korea or Cuba...?

Today is a sad day for the world, but it's even sadder for the millions of
intelligent Americans embarrassed by a gung-ho leader and backed by a banal
electorate, half of whom still believe Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.
Yanks had the chance to show the world a better way this week, instead they
made a thuggish cowboy ride off into the sunset bathed in glory.

And in doing so it brought Armageddon that little bit closer and
re-christened their beloved nation The Home Of The Knave and the Land Of
The Freak. God Help America.