What 21st century American Fascism looks like....

[Dhalgren]

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=11401


"Vice Squad
They terrorize other government officials, and they’re so secretive that their names aren’t even revealed to a harmless federal employee directory. And they’ve helped ruin the country. Meet Dick Cheney’s staff."

By Robert Dreyfuss
Issue Date: 05.04.06

"Bad heart, errant shotgun, and Halliburton stock options in tow, Dick Cheney has ruled the White House roost for the past five years, amassing enough power to give rise to the joke that George W. Bush is “a heartbeat away from the presidency.”
<snip>

Since 2001, reporters and columnists have tended to refer to Cheney’s office obliquely, if at all. Rather than explicitly discuss the neoconservative cabal that has assumed control of important parts of U.S. policy since September 11, they couple references to “the civilians at the Pentagon” with “officials in the vice president’s office” when referring to administration hard-liners. But rarely do the mainstream media provide much detail to explain who those people are, what they’ve done, and how they operate.
<snip>

At the high-water mark of neoconservative power, when coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, the vice president’s office was the command center for a web of like-minded officials in the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and other agencies, often described by former officials as “Dick Cheney’s spies.” <snip> No longer quite so commanding, the office seems more like a bunker for neoconservatives and their fellow travelers in the administration. Yet if only because of Dick Cheney’s Rasputin-like hold over the president, his office remains a formidable power indeed.
<snip>

But officials who have opposed Cheney believe that President Bush has “views” only about basic principles, and that in making dozens of complex decisions he relies on pre-determined staff papers. Says one insider deeply involved in U.S. policy toward North Korea: “The president is given only the most basic notions about the Korea issue. They tell him, ‘Above South Korea is a country called North Korea. It is an evil regime.’ … So that translates into a presidential decision: Why enter into any agreement with an evil regime?”"


Look at it this way: There are "cowboys" at work today who wear baseball caps, lace-up work-boots and ride 4-wheelers, but they are real "cowboys", nonetheless. We have to get passed the "image" we have of what fascism "looks" like and begin to deal with what fascism actually is in today's world.

If Adolph Hitler had been born in George W. Bush's place, he would be doing exactly what Bush is doing (only probably doing a little better job). The US Dictatorship is not "like" fascism, it IS fascism.

[rwenos]

1. Fascism Always Elevated Style Over Substance

In comparing them to Georgie Boy, take another look at Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." It's eerily managed, from the Elysian music over the airplane as it approaches the 1933 Munich Nazi Party Convention, to the camera's caress on Hitler's back as he drinks in the crowd's love.

Then there are the flags, the rapturous faces of women and children looking up at Hitler, the stern storm troopers in their coal-scuttle helmets, presenting their Mauser assault rifles as Hitler's Mercedes limo purrs by.

It's all a media thing. Turn on Robertson's tv network, you'll see the same conformist, bourgeois uniformity, the same emotional falsity, the same father-worship.

Same fascist bastards in both frames.

[Dhalgren]

2. Right. Fascism works on a "pop-culture" level,

with a fist hidden in the folds. If Goebbels were running Bush's show, it would be almost the same script - just with higher production values...