Friendly Fascism

OK.  It’s Friday, so I must think of something original to write about.  Having a major case of writer’s block is no laughing matter.  But there is so much going on in today’s political environment that it is virtually impossible on our first really warm day of Spring to concentrate.

Perhaps I can just light on some definitions.  In order to focus my mind on this I went to a book, “Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America”, Bertram Gross, 1982, which I had read years ago, and was still on my shelf.  In seeing if it was still in print, I did find where, unfortunately, Mr. Gross had died, so there was not a further update.  The following paragraphs are from the preface to the 1982 paperback edition.

“Friendly Fascism portrays two conflicting trends in the United States and other countries of the so-called ‘free world’.

The first is a slow and powerful drift toward greater concentration of power and wealth in a repressive Big Business-Big Government partnership.  This drift leads down the road toward a new and subtly manipulative form of corporatist serfdom.  The phrase ‘friendly fascism’ helps distinguish this possible future from the patently vicious corporatism of classic fascism in the past of Germany, Italy and Japan.  It also contrasts with the unfriendly present of the dependent fascisms propped up by the U.S. government in El Salvador, Haiti, Argentina, Chile, South Korea, the Philippines and elsewhere.  (Remember this was written in 1982.)

The other is a slower and less powerful tendency for individuals and groups to seek greater participation in decisions affecting themselves and others.  This trend goes beyond mere reaction to authoritarianism.  It transcends the activities of progressive groups or movements and their use of formal democratic machinery.  It is nourished by establishment promises—too often rendered false—of more human rights, civil rights and civil liberties.  It is embodied in larger values of community, sharing, cooperation, service to others and basic morality as contrasted with crass materialism and dog-eat-dog competition.  It affects power relations in the household, workplace, community, school, church, synagogue, and even the labyrinths of private and public bureaucracies.  It could lead toward a truer democracy—and for this reason is bitterly fought…”

These two definitions are very important in this election season as we listen to the candidates for the Presidency.  We need to ask ourselves, which America are they talking about?  If we can keep this question always in the front of our minds, it will be a lot easier to make a decision.

When Mitt Romney talks about “American values”, which of these Americas is he talking about?  Is he talking about the no longer slow “…but very powerful drift toward a greater concentration of power and wealth in a repressive Big Business-Big Government partnership.”  Where in his speeches is he talking about human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties?  He talks about economic freedom, but whose economic freedom is he talking about?  And when it comes to civil rights, does he support civil rights for women?  Has he come out against the refusal of the Legislature to renew the Violence Against Women Act?  Has he slapped down Scott Walker for repealing Wisconsin’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act that insures that women get paid the same amount as men doing the same work?  If he has, I haven’t noticed.

I know that is isn’t politically correct to talk about candidates being fascists.  But if Allen West can call 80 members of Congress communists, why can’t we progressives discuss this move toward friendly fascism?  It is time we call this new Republican Party exactly what it is.  Not so friendly fascists.

For all of you progressives I recommend you read Bertram Gross’s book, Friendly Fascism.  You will never think the same way again!

And now to enjoy this lovely day.

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