YOUR ENEMY IS YOUR GOVERNMENT-- AND YOUR NEIGHBORS

I recently read an interesting article, by Sheldon S. Wolin, entitled, "A New Kind of Fascism is Replacing our Democracy". It was written in 2003, but its message is ever more relevant today. It points out the contradiction in the terms such as "superpower democracy" and "imperial democracy", saying that one can no more assume that a superpower welcomes legal limits than believe that an empire finds democratic participation congenial." It acknowledges the obviously unconstitutional and illegal actions of the Bush Administration, and says that it is one step toward what it calls "inverted totalitarianism". Wolin calls it that because, as he says, whereas the Nazis "focused upon mobilizing and unifying the society, maintaining a continuous state of war preparations and demanding enthusiastic participation from the populace," "inverted totalitarianism" "exploits apathy and divisiveness." Like James Burnham, whose book inspired Orwell's 1984 (see my May blog, "The Bell Telephone Hour"), Wolin notes that the evolving totalitarianism "merges governmental and corporte power and exploits the scientific advances of technological innovation." His essay concludes logically, as just about every concerned citizen must today, that it is no longer possible to reform this government through the channels available in a democracy, and that "Perhaps the just-passed anniversary of the Declaration of Independence might remind us that 'whenever any form of government becomes destructive...' it must be challenged." Having faced the same dilemma myself, I can glimpse the inner conflict which Wolin must have experienced when he used that tame and ambiguous word "challenged". Because of course what Jefferson was invoking in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Indepedence was the people's right to revolt.

I believe that Wolin is partially correct. There can be no doubt that our government is moving toward totalitarianism. But I prefer to call the new type of government which is coming into being simply "American Totalitarianism" or "Americanism" because it actually has more in common with other forms of totalitarianism than he realizes. Where it differs is in its prospects of for success and the complicity of its citizenry. To illustate its characteristics, let us look at the other forms of totalitarianism. First totalitarianism of the left, which aims to conquer not through direct military action but through subversion, exploiting the grievances of oppressed peoples and inspiring them to revolt. Communism failed because it ignored basic human instincts like tribalism and acquisitiveness, attempting to set up a utopian society which would be free of greed and prejudice between different peoples. European and Asian Fascism, by contrast, acknowledged and indeed played upon human tribalistic instincts, appealing to nationalism and ethnic hatreds, and permitting some measure of private enterprise, even if subordinated to government control (fascist governments differed in the emphasis they placed upon "race"-- for instance both the Italians and Japanese fascists rejected anti-Semitism-- but they all preached an extreme form of nationalism). These types of totalitarian governments had advantages over left-wing totalitarianism, but they had the disadvantage of alienating people of other nationalities (or those who, in the case of Nazism, did not live up to the "Aryan ideal") and involving the citizen population in direct military action, which, if the war is not going well, can lead to war-weariness and hence revolt.

American totalitarianism is clearly a form of fascism-- that is to say, totalitarianism which spreads its power by means of direct military conquest. But it has many advantages over both Communism and the other forms of fascism. First of all, it does not dispense with the human tribalistic instinct. Wolin is dead wrong when he says that the totalitarianism of today "exploits political apathy and encourages divisiveness." When I was growing up in the nineteen-sixties, there was far more divisiveness and, perhaps not coincidentally, far more freedom. America is on a "permanent war footing", in essence a prolonged "ten-minute hate"-- and has been since the National Security State came into being in 1947. But never has it been so united and so fearful of "thought crime" as it has in the wake of 9/11. Those of us who oppose its policies are indeed faced with the possibility that they may be-- as I have been-- the target of vandalism and other forms of public abuse if they voice their opposition openly. Chris Dodd, the only candidate for president who ran on a platform of restoring the Constitution, did miserably and quickly withdrew from the race, throwing his support to Obama, who has downplayed the horrendous transformation now taking place in our structure of government. Having united the public in hatred of a deliberately-created "terrorist threat", our government has been engaged in endless warfare. But having learned from the debacle of Vietnam, it no longer employs draftees, but rather reservists and, increasingly, mercenaries, hence reducing the danger to itself from public war-weariness. And unlike Nazism, Americanism does not discriminate against people on the basis of race or even religion-- quite obviously the Islamophobia indulged in by some extremists in our society does not apply to, say, the Saudi Royal family. It is remarkable how many women and people of ethnic groups which were previously discriminated against-- Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell, Alberto Gonzalez, and John Yoo-- have contributed to American fascism. Anybody of any background can be an American-- or an imitation American if he is the citizen of an American client state-- so long as he supports the goals of American imperialism.

Nor does Americanism ignore the profit motive. Being American means being prosperous. After all, the business of America has always been business. American fascism permits totalitarianism and the profit motive to co-exist in the following way: if people do not challenge the government, they can go about their business and make money. If they question the government, then they are in trouble economically, politically and personally. Finally, Americanism does indeed encourage the use of high technology, not only to make people more comfortable, but also to kill and torture those who challenge it, and to destroy the environment. This makes Americanism potentially the most successful form of totalitarianism which has ever existed. It is so successful that I suspect that many Americans, reading the revelations of torture, genocide and environmental destruction which constantly confront us on the net and elsewhere, are saying, "Why not? What's wrong with a government which permits us to be comfortable both physically and in our self-delusion? And if some people oppose this form of government why should they not be tortured and killed? Who cares about the environment anyway?" At the outset of World War II, James Burnham wrote, "Everyone has such powerful feelings...against totalitarianism that scientific understanding is gravely hindered. It is legitimate to believe that there is often an element of hypocrisy or delusion in these feelings. Frequently, in the United States, it is not totalitarianism, but Russian or German, in general 'foreign totalitarianism' that is being objected to; a 100% American totalitarianism would not be objectionable. And it is not at all clear, from historical exprience, how much the masses are devoted to democracy as compared with other values such as jobs or food or reasonable security." (The Managerial Revolution, p. 153). He was all too prescient.

But of course, this specifically American form of totalitarianism is completely opposed to the form of government the Founding Fathers had in mind, which rests upon "Republican virtue"-- that is to say, a fierce love of liberty. Contrary to what Darius Rejali thinks, it is not democracy, if by that term we mean a government of law which preserves individual liberty, including the liberty of minorities and dissidents. What is happening now is exactly what Alexis de Tocqueville feared when he wrote Democracy in America: as the American people lose their love of liberty, the rule of the masses has become quite compatible with despotism. That is to say, the majority of the American people have willingly accepted a form of government which not only inflicts slavery and horrendous suffering upon foriegners, but which has the potential to destroy, and indeed is now in the process of destoying, freedom right here in America. For the fact is, every abuse against which I have spoken out in these pages is known, or can be knowable, by every American. Any American who cares can know that our government is routinely torturing people who may well be innocent even when they have no 'actionable intelligence' to offer, holding 'kangaroo courts' to try the terrorists it has itself created to take the rap for its own crime of 9/11; that it is planning a permanent occupation of Iraq as viscious as the Nazi occupation of Russia and a genocidal war against Iran; that it is targeting American Muslims in the same way the Nazis targeted the Jews, and that it is destroying the environment. I used to say that the one major flaw of our Constitution is that it does not permit people the right to revolt which Jefferson invoked in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, but there is no indication that the majority of Americans would revolt against this unconstitutional government if it did. The German people have often been criticized for their "willful ignorance" in the face of the Holocaust. But Germany does not have a long traditon of freedom, and as soon as the Nazis gained power, they cut off all access to truth. By contrast, American fascism has come into being in a country with a long tradition of liberty, where a good measure of freedom of the press is still in existence. And yet the American people as a whole are passive in the face of this, the most terrifying threat Mankind has ever faced.

That places Americans in a position that is unique in world history. I have often argued against blaming ordinary civilians for the crimes of their government. Why kill German, Japanese or Russian civilians because their governments are aggressive? I have even, in contrast to most of my left/liberal colleagues, supported a policy of assassination of dangerous foriegn leaders as a way of avoiding a war which would take the lives not only of thousands of soldiers on both sides but tens of thousands of civilians as well. But Americans are different. Having grown up in a free society, they have had the opportunity to say "no" to their government's abuses and have turned it down. Having had the opportunity to know the truth, they have chosen to believe the government's lies, simply because it makes their lives more comfortable. Americans are therefore the only people in the history of Mankind who can be said to be accomplices in the crimes of their government, because they have traditionally been the most free. With regard to slavery, a conscience-stricken Thomas Jefferson said, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever, that considering nature, numbers, and natural means alone, an exchange of circumstances [between blacks and whites] is possible, that indeed, it may become probable through Divine intervention! God hath no attribute which can take side with us in this contest." The treatment of so-called "detainees" in the so-called "war on terror" is the moral equivalent of slavery, and our government's endless warfare is the equivalent of the Nazi Holocaust. Jefferson's condemnation of his fellow slaveholders applies with a hundred times greater force to the majority of Americans today.

For now the trappings of democracy remain-- if they did not, I would not be writing this. But when they are gone-- when I and thousands of other conscientious Americans are dead or in concentration camps-- then any catastrophe, natural or man-made, which takes the lives of those who remain will be an expression of God's judgement. For by then there will be no 'innocent civilians' left in America--there will only be a criminal government and millions of accomplices.