Is A Fascist Future Inevitable?

Many of us have been losing hope for years that the slouch toward a Fascist future can be reversed or delayed. The West, as it were, has Fascism baked in in one form or another, and no amount of rebellion or resistance is enough to overcome it. We are on the path of descent and there's no way back.

And it may be true.

With the advent of Trump in the White House -- an existential mistake in my view -- we got a taste of what our Fascist future might look and feel like. Many of his defenders were ostensibly "progressive," but we found that their "progressivism" was limited to opposition to various individuals, personalities, and policies that were advocated, featured or implemented by The Government. There was and is no coherent ideology among these "progressives" except opposition a thing, person, or policy largely for the sake of opposition.

Trump upset a few apple carts, broke a few rice bowls, and introduced constant chaos into The System, and as such he was worthy of support and defense by people who should have known better -- and I believe did. But more important to them was shaking up The System, disrupting routines, and skewering ("pwning") institutional complacency.

Trump's behavior was one thing, but his intent was clearly to rule as an authoritarian, indeed Fascist, dictator, no less so than Nixon, and Bush I & II. They set the standard. Trump was too mentally deficient and chaotic to follow through very well, but he sure tried. And a good deal of what he set out to do is still in place, as are many of the people he put in office.

Our problem -- if we oppose Fascism -- is not so much Trump or his chaos as it is the sponsors who see their advantage in fostering this sort of thing. Their primary advantage is in keeping the masses (to the extent they are acknowledged at all) diverted and entertained. 

In other words, making it all but impossible for there to be an uprising against the corporate-fascist ruling clique, a ruling clique that intends to endure no matter which political party is ostensibly in power. Trump was great at keeping the hoi polloi outraged and entertained. So long as they were, they didn't have time or energy to do anything about their lot in life, and as it happened, in death as the COVID pandemic easily managed to eliminate something over a million "useless eaters" in the United States and God knows how many globally. That pandemic is ongoing, though the death rates have (temporarily?) declined. Other illnesses and wide-spread poverty exacerbate the problems of the masses.

Until recently, I was almost always optimistic about the future and about building a better future mostly via community. The individualism that was so heavily promoted by the libertarian right was in my view a passing phase not likely to outlast the numerous crises that seemed to be accumulating. It was only through community, I believed, that we as a society would be able to get through what was coming.

Well, I was wrong. 

The breaking point was the lawless interference of the Supreme Court in the presidential election of 2000. While I saw it then as a deeply erroneous ruling, almost worse was the acceptance of this monumental error by the Democratic Party and the electeds, including Al Gore who presided in the Senate over his own loss of the presidency. The only ones who objected were the Congressional Black Caucus. And they were promptly silenced -- by Al Gore. 

Something was very wrong at the very top of the governmental structure. It would lead -- inevitably? -- to the catastrophes of September 11, 2001, and the perpetual wars in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. All of a piece.

Yet I thought and believed that the American People, indeed the people of good will throughout the world, would be able to overcome the worst aspects of the ruling clique that included both political parties and seemed to be spreading internationally. 

The War Party seemed to be universal.

After a certain point there was no more Peace party. Code Pink seemed to be the only outspoken party for Peace in the United States and often it seemed its voice was faltering.

The horrors perpetrated by our rulers were atrocious and obvious, yet nothing was done. Obama was seen as the redemptive counterpoint to all that had been going wrong, particularly the economic meltdown of 2008, and yet he turned out to be part of the problem rather than the solution.

The fundamental problem was our reliance on a singular figure -- the President in the case of the United States -- to solve the problems that just kept building up. The President can't do it, and not only that, it's not appropriate to expect him (or her) to.

It takes a community, a community of communities, the society as a whole, to do it, and the society of 2000 and later was not capable. All the energy was going into fragmentation of society rather than cohesion. And it seemed to me that the internet and later social media was part of the problem.

We are now so far down that path, the only way back toward community is the fascist path.

 Yes, fascism is a rightist "community" strengthening ideology. There is nothing equivalent on the left any more. Socialism and communism once played that role, but no longer. 

There are a few leftish religious outfits that could-- maybe-- be the kind of counters to the slouch toward fascism that could slow or halt the current trends, but I don't see any of them becoming strong enough.

My former optimism for the future is pretty much gone.

The Trump experiment was bad, but it wasn't definitive or final. We'll face the elements of fascism again. 

And again and again until it becomes the default social organization for much of the West.

We've been on that path -- whether we want to be or not -- for a long time, and there may be no way back,

Is it inevitable? What is the upshot? I don't have an answer. 

We'll just have to see, won't we?

 

Be Careful What You Wish For-- the After Labor Day Dread

The media trope that nobody pays attention to much of anything till after Labor Day may be true, I can't say. Summer has never been that much of an "I don't care" season to me, never that much of a vacation, either.

Media's attention, however, is dulled, even absent during the summer. News organizations tend to take weekends off, too, which is why the Friday Night News Dump is so popular among political operatives. Release news on Friday night and no one will see it goes the rationale, and it used to be pretty much true. Something that would be news on any other day of the week isn't all that important news on Friday, Saturday or Sunday because news rooms are shuttered and only a skeleton staff is on duty.

The Russia! Russia! Russia!! Thing has mostly faded away this summer in part, I think, because it hasn't polled well. It's become something of a running joke. I don't doubt there's a there there, and we've already seen a boatload of smoking guns, but they haven't caught on as something to care that much about because ... well, why? Are we just so used to corruption in high places that the in-your-face old-line gangster corruption of the Trump Organization and its collusion with a foreign power for political (and financial) gain in simply taken for granted? Or is it something else.
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I've long been of the opinion that Trump and the Trump Organization are not anomalies. They represent a class of people and enterprise that is common among the High and Mighty. This is who they are, this is what they do, and Trump is not categorically better or worse than any of them. They are gangsters, thieves, mountebanks and con artists.

Our political class has always intersected with them, and sometimes -- like now -- has largely been them. There is little or no moral separation between them.

This is true of our political/ruling class in general. It's no better on one side of the aisle than the other.

We, the Rabble, have little choice in the matter. Voting doesn't really change things, though it can accelerate or retard the rate of looting, pillage, and destruction by the Powers That Be, and it can change the personality of the looters ruling over us.

We're in a situation now where the Looting/Ruling Class sees the looming catastrophe from climate and other environmental changes before them and they... worry.

The Rabble may be pretty well contained by their squabbling among themselves over this and that, everything really, that doesn't really matter (eg: the Nazi/Antifa street theater among so many other Things) but the forces of Nature marshal themselves time and again, and they can't be escaped even by the Highest of the Mighty.

The South Texas Disaster is yet another object lesson among so many this season. The floods there are mild compared to elsewhere. And yet it's a disaster nonetheless with long term consequences as well as short term misery.

What will be done about it? Largely nothing. Not for the Rabble, at any rate. But there will be a sorting and selection process among the People Who Matter, many of whom -- if they haven't already - will abandon the region for somewhere higher and drier, where they can put their bunkers and Be Safe.

I expect to see more of them moving to my area of Central and Northern New Mexico. We already have plenty of The Type. I expect we'll get more.

There are plenty of other nicer -- and safer -- places they can go, and I expect they will, but we won't know about it because it won't be reported by our intrepid media. It's not a Thing like Russia! Russia! Russia!! (Sharks and Missing White Women! Nazis and Antifa!! Oh my!) and media moguls and personalities are making their own survivalist preps anyway.

They'd rather not be caught in either fire or flood, yanno?

People who continue to claim that "nothing has been done" about climate change or population control or whatever are silly. Of course "something has been done," it's just not (quite) enough to make that much of a difference. It never is. In some ways, it can't be "enough" no matter what is done.

The thing is, humans aren't totally in control of the situations they (we) face.

Desire for that control is part of the problem.

There is a greater power than we ourselves.

Oh.

When "we" wish to have power over climate change or population control (of "them" of course, not "us") we're asking for something we can't -- and shouldn't -- have. At least for their part, Our Betters seem to subliminally understand that. However much they see themselves as Masters of the Universe, they self-limit their mastery to money and governing, and they seem to be losing the thread of government.

They don't know what to do. They're too self-obsessed. Ignorant. Uncaring. Mad.

We have to be careful what we wish for. I don't want these monsters ruling us, but at the same time, I haven't seen a better alternative. There are no good monsters, they're all bad each in their own way, and there is no one in the ruling clique that gives a shit about the rest of us. On the other hand, I haven't seen anyone emerge from Below who is capable and brilliant enough to overthrow the ruling clique and do any better.

It's classic rock-hard place dilemma.

Because no one has found a Better Way yet, I'm facing After Labor Day when things get Real again, with an uncommon dread. Our rulers -- especially Himself in the White House -- are itching to prove their bravery -- much as Bush/Cheney back in the day --- and that could only mean war. We're involved in so many of them as it is, and so many die every day under our Imperial Benevolence that adding more death and destruction would seem to be a waste of resources and energy, but it's a target rich environment out there, so Pyongyang or Tehran or wherever better watch out. The itchy trigger finger is on the button, you know?

The street brawls might intensify, though it seems that for the moment, the Nazis are in retreat. We'll see. Meanwhile the mess in Texas gets worse and worse, as flood waters retreat for the moment, and the gawd-awfulness of it all becomes clear. The pollution alone will take generations to clean up -- if it ever is.

And much much more is in store.

If I sometimes go off on seemingly tangential issues, particularly comforting domestic ones, there's a reason. Given everything else that's going on and likely to come, we take comfort where we can.

Be safe, y'all.