(YellowTimes.org) Ð Like acrid fumes seepingfrom a chemical dump long thought dormant, attitudes of anunmistakably-fascist nature are drifting through American society.One catches whiffs of the dreadful stuff on almost every breeze fromAmerica.
Just the day before the recent Congressionalelection, the CIA laid claim to the assassination of six men inYemen. The men were, of course, described as associated with AlQaeda, and may, for all I know, have been so, but just when didbragging about the public murder of six people by a government agencybecome acceptable practice to Americans? No charges, no trial, noevidence - just murder.
That act was in keeping with the spirit ofAmerica's treatment of prisoners from its stupid, disastrous war inAfghanistan. First, many hundreds of prisoners were murdered underAmerican auspices. Second, thousands were illegally detained andabused. Many were tortured. Hundreds remain prisoners in cagesthousands of miles from their homes with no legal rights. Ascholastic nonsense about these men being held away from therights-protected soil of America appears adequate to make theirtreatment acceptable.
The murder also is in keeping with the alliancesand interests America has been forming abroad. Perhaps the mostmurderous elected leader in recent memory, Mr. Sharon, responsibleliterally for the deaths of thousands and for keeping an entirepeople hopelessly crushed into apartheid-style camps is called a "manof peace." His works of assassination and destruction are blessed andsupported more cordially than I remember support for America's oldfriend, the Shah of Iran, who smiled at dinners in the White Housewhile his secret police, Savak, pulled out the fingernails ofscreaming opponents and suspects.
Russia's Mr. Putin wages the most devastatingsmall war of recent times, a relentless, murderous effort to hold apeople who do not want to be held, reducing their towns and farms toburnt-out wasteland, and he, too, is regarded as a partner for peaceand an opponent of terror. I wonder how many Americans caught thelittle-noted fact that not one Chechen left the theater in Moscowalive, despite all having been knocked out by gas. I'm not objectingto effort to free hostages, only to the clear fact that every Chechenwas summarily murdered in scenes that must have recalled the oldNKVD's bullet to the back of the head. I wonder was the old Sovietpractice of charging relatives for a cartridge followed?
A military dictator in Pakistan is regarded as anally against terror, as are bestial warlords inAfghanistan.
The Attorney General of the United States tellsArab Americans they are fortunate not to be treated the way JapaneseAmericans during World War II were - that is, fortunate not to bethrown into concentration camps and have most of their propertyseized, never to be returned. More disgusting yet, coming as it doescarefully wrapped in robes of reasoned debate, are the words of anAmerican lawyer on the need for establishing legal proceduresgoverning the proper use of torture in the country.
It does suit the tenor of times in which U.S.border officials have been routinely photographing, fingerprinting,and grilling visitors for hours from certain countries even thoughthey may have taken up a new citizenship. Prize-winning Canadianauthor Rohinton Mistry, a man born in India and whose religiousbackground is a form of Zoroastrianism, about as far removed as youcan get from being a Muslim Arab, cut short his American reading tourafter being stopped and interrogated every time he caught aplane.
Another Canadian, unfortunate enough to have beenborn in Syria many years ago, was refused entry to the U.S. anddeported. Not serious you say? Well, yes, had he been deported to hishome in Canada. But the INS, in a frenzy to demonstrate appropriatezeal, deported the man to Syria, leaving his family in Canadadesperate for some time while trying to locate him. It's the kind ofactivity Germans in the 1930s used to call fondly" working towardsthe Fuhrer," that is, guessing what action might please theleader.
There's been a lot of "working towards the Fuhrer"lately in America. It seems to come quite naturally to a significantnumber of people. I am reminded of the farce in Florida when amindless police chase was created by the paranoid reports of anoverheard conversation. Or the universities and colleges wheredissenting views are punished. Or the lists published of dissentingvoices. Or the nonsense that pours from mainstream American medialike CNN or the New York Times, as when recently they deliberatelyunderreported the size of an anti-war rally in Washington.
Ah, the New York Times, that courageous tribune ofthe people - people, that is, who make well in excess of $100,000 ayear and think the word empire when applied to America is actually abenevolent concept. Does that motto about all the news "fit" to printnot suit well?
This government has given America corruption, poorappointments to important posts, a huge and wasteful increase inmilitary spending, not a single worthy humanitarian initiative, andit has set its jaw in grim contempt for the sensibilities ofvirtually the rest of the planet. It is determined to launch a warfor which there is not one sound reason, a war that promises to sendthe world into a downward spiral of resentments, uncertainty anddeath.
Yet Americans have given it a vote ofconfidence.
A political party that in one generation hasincluded as prominent spokesmen and leaders Jesse Helms, Tom De Lay,Phil Gramm, Dick Armey, John Ashcroft, Bob Barr, Pat Buchanan, andNewt Gingrich, that attracts vultures like Pat Robertson and JerryFalwell, and whose spokespeople include genuine hate-mongers like AnnCoulter, cannot be regarded as harmless. There is a large enoughcesspool of ignorance and arrogance here to threaten all people whoregard human decency and rationality as important.
Students of history will know that not everymember of the Nazi party in Germany at the height of its prestige andpower around 1940 shared the poison dreams of its leadership. Peoplejoined because of social pressure or the requirements of careeradvancement or agreement with limited aspects of the Nazi program.Yet we do not sort this all out when we speak of Nazis. Who on theplanet does not use the term Nazi as one of contempt andanathema?
Of course it is not just the bulk of "decent"Republicans who fail to speak against genuine evil. The Democrats aresofter spoken, more benign in their use of words, but they haveutterly failed to provide leadership here. They have not raised theirvoices against torture and abuse of prisoners, against public murder,against policies advocating unprovoked attack, against the wantondestruction of a generation's work on treaties and conventions forinternational cooperation, or against unholy alliance with thugs likeSharon, Putin, Musharraf, and General Dostum.
Mr. Clinton's eight years in the White House werenot marked by particularly enlightened measures either at home orabroad, although almost anyone would agree that his smilingintelligence was more reassuring than the numb-faced, thick-tonguedmumbling of Mr. Bush. All decent people had sympathy over thelow-life dragging of Mr. Clinton's private life into the glare ofpublicity, but that fact did not render him a particularlyenlightened leader on the world's scene.
America spends on its military as much as the nextthirty countries in the world combined spend on theirs. This giganticflow of money, like a monstrously-swollen river roaring over thelandscape, erodes every value and decent aspect of American life. Itsimply cannot be otherwise. And it erodes America's everyrelationship with the rest of the world. It has been observed bynumerous historians that the very presence of great armies helpsinduce war.
Please remember that not once did Hitler attack acountry without a plausible excuse, and the emotional tug of hisarguments resonated in many capitals outside Berlin. Moreover, he hadwhat he regarded as a visionary purpose for his belligerence. Hespoke of terror against the German people. He wanted to secureGermany's long-term future as a great and powerful nation. He wantedto end the barbarism of Bolshevism. He also pleaded eloquently forpeace at times. Yet the sum total of his work was the greatestdestruction in human history.
[John Chuckman is former chief economist for alarge Canadian oil company.
He has many interests and is a lifelong student ofhistory. He writes with a passionate desire for honesty, the rule ofreason, and concern for human decency. He is a member of no politicalparty and takes exception to what has been called America's "cultureof complaint" with its habit of reducing every important issue to anunproductive argument between two simplistically defined groups. Johnregards it as a badge of honor to have left the United States as apoor young man from the South Side of Chicago when the countryembarked on the pointless murder of something like three millionVietnamese in their own land because they happened to embrace thewrong economic loyalties. He lives in Canada, which he is fond ofcalling "the peaceable kingdom."]
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