Neo-Fascism and Paleo-Tyranny

Neo-fascist regimes, defined as corporate-statist regimes with pseudo-democratic faces, face the difficult task of building their vast (so called "totalitarian" in popular usage) Party powers in secret in their early years in power. This was true even in Italy and Germany where civil liberties and democracy had only weak roots when the fascist regimes took power. It is far more true in the democratic nations, especially in the U.S., the cradle of modern democracy among major nations (following in part in Swiss footsteps). The Italian and German fascists created non-state armies, the black and brown shirts, and moved quietly below the public radar to get control of the media and courts and police by purchase, infiltration, and intimidation. The American Neo-Fascist Party, the Republicrats with their two factions, have done the same things, but have relied far more on corporate, legal purchases of the media and on infiltration than on direct intimidation, which always involves the danger of exposure which could be fatal as long as the people still oppose Party control of their lives. (The U.S. factions of the Party have at times used vast character assassination attacks by telephone, etc., and have used all kinds of less "formal" intimidation and "tricks" that cannot be traced back to a Party source.)

The crucial task of the Party in its early years is to build legitimacy by deceiving the people. They do this mostly by using three devices. First, they frighten the people, or make use of real sources of fright, by creating foreign and domestic threats – the capitalist dogs, the Jews, the Versailles Slave Treaty, the commies are everywhere, The Terrorists want to destroy America, etc. Two, they use attacks on weak foreign "enemies" and weak domestic enemies to "prove" the Party can SAVE the people from the foreign and domestic threats. This leads to an explosion not only of relief for salvation, but also soaring nationalistic pride associated with the Party, which is crucial in building legitimacy for the Party. Three, the Party uses its growing control of the Media, both direct and indirect, and its control of growing secret police armies (Gestapo, SS, FBI, CIA, IRS, etc.) to deceive the people about what is happening – to transform foreign allies like Iraq into "ENEMIES that threaten our very existence!," to cover-up the growth of the secret tyrannical armies of police, to cover-up vast Party blunders and corruptions of all forms, etc.

By these means the Party secretly builds the legitimacy of the secret tyrannies it has been building. Once it has widespread support among the less informed (more misinformed by the Party Media), less intelligent, and more paid-off (by Party contracts, etc.), the Party tries to carefully choose a TURNING POINT, a point at which it can bring its vast, secret tyrannical powers into the open and have them accepted and legitimized by the people. For the Nazis this turning point came after the dramatic burning of the Reichstag (the erstwhile parliament building). It was probably set by the Nazis, though we can only guesstimate this from how they operated in general, since they covered their tracks well and blamed it on their domestic enemies. The public sense of threat and outrage led to a great surge in Party support, as any politician knows will happen in such circumstances, and this led after months of build up and maneuvering politically to the Enabling Act which gave Hitler and the Nazis legitimacy for the secret tyrannical powers they had been building.

The U.S. has followed this same basic scenario almost step by step. The attacks on the U.S. of 9/11 led to the vast expansion of secret police powers both by public legislation and by vast secret usurpations. The Party has moved in every way possible to get more control over the Media to silence opposition, to hide its secret activities, to cover its tracks, and so on. They have manufactured "ENEMIES WHO THREATEN OUR VERY EXISTENCE" (Muslims, not Jews, Iraq, not Poland) who can be easily defeated to build a sense of nationalistic pride, and on and on.

The U.S. Party made a fatal mistake in forgetting a crucial lesson of modern warfare – guerilla warfare is very effective even against Superpowers. If Bush et al. had won their war against the "ENEMIES" of Iraq, they would have been seen as heroes by most ignorant Americans and would by now be passing legislation to legitimize all of their vast expansions of the tyrannical powers of their secret police. As it is, they have been losing legitimacy and some of the Media are no longer as intimidated as they were. The Media have begun to slowly reveal the perfectly obvious fact of their vast expansion of secret police tyrannies – spying massively on Americans, torture chambers, kidnappings, murders, and vast war crimes of all kinds.

This has apparently forced the Bush Junta to "put up or shut up." They feel that they must "go for broke." If they back down now, the Media will reveal more and more of the awful truths about what they have been doing, their immense corruptions of every form will be exposed, their stupid mistakes will be exposed, and they will be in danger of facing war crimes tribunals or simple court actions for their vast kidnappings and torturing of people around the world.

They feel they must play out their hand however weak it is. So they are forcing the issue: they are admitting their secret tyrannies and showing nationalistic pride in them and insisting that they are necessary for the Party to SAVE us from THE EVIL ONES.

This is a very dangerous period, a turning point one way or the other. Bush et al. may now try to use far more secret police powers to intimidate people or to openly seize far more power, presumably under the pretense that it is necessary and legitimized by the state of national emergency that never ends. My guess is that most of the American people will not wake up to the obvious threat. They will see this as just "politics" and think Cassandras like me are RANTING as usual. But the military and secret police are split. Many secretly vehemently oppose the Party seizures of power that have been going on. (This is almost an exact parallel to the split in Germany where the military General Staff remained generally opposed to Hitler and almost killed him and the head of the Abwehr, comparable to the FBI, was stridently anti-Hitler.) In such a situation the emerging events will have great effects on the outcomes. And, of course, looming over it all is the vast financial BUBBLE the Party has built globally to advance their powers, a BUBBLE that can crash at any time. At this point, we cannot say for sure which way the U.S. will go. But my guesstimate is that the vastly powerful Neo-Fascist Party state will continue to grow, with fits and starts, retreats and advances, ups and downs, as it has done for a century, regardless of the fate of Gush et al. And whenever the Party BUBBLE finally implodes, as I strongly expect it will at some point, the resulting mass dread, suffering and chaos will be an ideal situation for the Party to seize vast new powers and have them legitimized by a people really facing mass starvation.

I am, however, optimistic about the very long run. Having tried in some form almost every one of the totally bizarre, absurd and disastrous programs of modern totalitarianism, Americans will eventually realize that "FREEDOM WORKS" and retreat to some form of vastly reduced government power. The Nightmare Years of total corruption of everything by the Party will end and Americans will fall back on the simple and decent foundations of human nature to put their lives back together. The Utopian Plans of the Party will leave only a ghastly hangover


Jack D. Douglas [ jddougla@ucsd.edu ] is a retired professor of sociology from the University of California at San Diego. He has published widely on all major aspects of human beings, most notably The Myth of the Welfare State.