"Fascism (play ˈfæʃɪzəm) is a radical, authoritarian nationalist political ideology.[1][2][3][4] Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy." (source: first sentence in fascism article on English version Wikipedia)
PC remains one of David Letterman’s top ten out dated Right Wing catch phrases and like many things it merits a revisit from time to time to examine it’s validity.
Before reading this the author suggests you put yourself in a certain frame of mind firstly by slowing down the pace within you. Place yourself as it were in a dream within a dream in order that you might use your imagination to reach greater insights than you would otherwise be capable of. Imagine a world in the palm of your hand in which anything and everything is possible.
The fact is the right has it’s own voices in the media these days and if anything they are more intolerant than the left ever was which leads this author to suppose that there is a right wing corollary to the left wing version of PC. What it really amounts to is that on any given major issue in America today there is typically two main points of view being expressed each of which thinks that it is correct. That would be fine if there was a method by which compromise were to be reached.
The thing that at present makes the right wing PC movement the more dangerous is that even in mainstream right wing press they have crowded so far to the right now that it poses a direct threat to representative government and democracy itself.
Rumblings of radical rightwing dogma really started to raise it’s ugly head above the surface of the political conscience with the rise of new media and the emergence of a convenient right wing propaganda organization in the form of Rupert Murdoch moving into American television.
Now the argument is often made that conservatives don’t get a fair shake in the quote unquote mainstream media but let us take a look at possible causes behind this perceived phenomena. Firstly the talking heads on either side of the right/left chasm in America are educated and generally highly so. This author would make the argument that the prevalence of so called left oriented thought in the media is really more populism than it is ideology as it is with the right. Simply put given equal amounts of education where you come down on issues like welfare, taxes, war, and other things likely tends to correlate pretty closely to your income levels.
There are far more middle class income earners in news media than they are those who are very wealthy and choose to participate in journalism rather than having to earn a living. That’s not to say that there are not enlightened folks who happen to be rich (one can not choose ones parents) but by and large the power behind the think tanks, the right wing media, and the right wing ideologue as candidate comes from the wealth of those who oppose sharing it. The prevalence of criticism of what is essentially free market trickle down political philosophy is a simple matter of numbers there being far more have nots than haves just as in the general population at large.
It is in all likelihood true that the reason the right wing does not fare well with the vast majority of media professionals is that due to greed not being a popular selling point they are forced to “spin” virtually every topic into something else other than naked capitalistic craving and preservation. Persons educated who essentially care more about facts than ideology will inevitably give such revisionism short shrift. In other words it’s not that they are treated unfairly as they claim it is more that they all too often are misrepresenting their positions and not being fully forthcoming about their intent. Theirs is the minority position and if the majority simply does not by their spin jobs they find it convenient to cry wolf in the form of PC.
This is no argument that supposes this sort of thing does not go on with both sides in the political discussion that is by no means the position spelled out here. To further fill out the view that the right have historically been unpopular and have to think of creative means to get what they want let us take a further detailed look at the vast bulk of media today.
What is mainstream media? Whether you think immediately of current time or whether you think historically you can generally draw up some notion of the majors like The New York Times. Where the criticism of bias by the right falls flattest on it’s face is on the local levels. They will take issue with something in the Times and use it to smear every small town media organization in the country with it (they are not apt to make any distinctions). What is the end result of this? It’s generally a popular notion these days that media consolidation proceeds largely on the basis of market forces that drive it but take a closer look at that and consider the source? That’s a view that dates back to the days of Standard Oil and at best a rationalization in many other industries so what might be driving it here? One might argue that a part of the reason readership of the dailies has fallen off is not due solely to the rise of new media and the Internet to some degree but the distrust sown by the right. The two forces have after all risen together and one hand does wash the other as in the case of organizations such as News Corp that benefits from the industry centralizing.
Which in fact brings us around full circle to the new style of PC namely the current prevalence of the right and hesitance of the left to challenge its hegemony in some areas. The idea that media consolidation is some sort of ordained natural process is itself just another spin on the old justifications by which forests where cut down and whole peoples enslaved. It is philosophically in keeping with Western Liberalism true but it also should not go unchallenged because it is also “trickle down”. To suggest that markets be left to their own unregulated devices and that they will make rational decisions flies in the face of history, common sense, and reality. What is often so glibly referred to as “market force” is really more akin to a storm like a hurricane which seen dispassionately does have a certain logic, form, and power to it but when examined more closely is composed of around 6 billion people operating in a vortex of order verging on chaos. Market forces indeed. At any given moment they may run asunder of land and bring the whole farce to a riotous and calamitous end as they did in 1929. History repeats and there was a reason the right was disgraced and it was not all due to our fight against Hitler and fascism.
It was because they were wrong then and they are wrong again but they have learned some things from history and are arguably far more dangerous now.
There is danger in any political fringe that gains too much power and the right is fond of pointing out the radicals of the 1960s in rationalizing their own excesses such as the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and the bombing in Oklahoma City. It remains a fact nevertheless that those leftist groups while dangerous were never a serious threat to take over or overthrow anything whereas the same cannot be said of the right wing fringe. That’s because one of the major political parties in American history, namely the Republicans, have abandoned what they once stood for and moved so far to the right that the fringe is no longer fringe as it pertains to the national media. We are forced to reckon with a set of ideas and philosophies that very nearly burned the world during the Great Depression and in World War Two as a serious set ideas for consideration. It is merely a new spin on the same ideology which sets it as distinct from traditional conservatism. Ask yourself this question if you have not already in the coming weeks and months: why is it that a distinction is made between traditional conservatives and Neocons? There is an argument to be made that in hindsight much was lost and a turning point missed when they came into existence in the 1970s. With the birth of the Neocons it can be argued that a part of the old order in this country essentially died and that something worse replaced it. For a great many people now living they have never known a time in which there were no Neocon influences and it is arguable that their assent correlates with the gradual generational shifts in the body poltic.
That’s a big question with many facets but it boils down to one big question we will have to deal with and while it might seem harsh on the face of it take the time and have the courage to think it through. Are they really just a nascent Americanized version of fascism one with the needed veneer of nationalism, but which is really intent on one thing and one thing only? The destruction of America as we know it, using the ballot box, just as Hitler used it to destroy Weimar? It is after all what they have been saying since the 1990s so welcome to the revolution (anti).
Do not sit idly by when the charge of PC is leveled by some right wing ideologue they are the new political correctness and theirs is a 2nd Amendment version of it at that.
Recognize that it is not a case of the left taking the center and becoming like the GOP that kind of thought is out of date. The Democratic Party for all it’s faults is not moving to the center in order to compete for corporate dollars as some suggest it is becoming the party of the mainstream because something much more dangerous is going on with the other side. This country has shed blood over ideology before and it did not happen over night but over decades and there is no reason to assume it is impossible that another Civil War is impossible. The right wing in this country has gone that extreme and you are to put it in a contemporary media context like Neo being given the choice of pill.
What will you do when the bullets once again begin to fly? Will all these talking head ideologues seem to be just distant infuriating voices then or will you awake to find as they did in Arizona that this new pole in the PC consciousness demands political correctness and obedience at the barrel of a gun?
Some may say this is just an imaginary scenario but to them one might say that great turning points in history do not always announce themselves. If you find it easier to swallow then perhaps you will allow that it is possible indeed even likely that some element of fascist thought might find it’s way into the ideological beliefs of the American Right. Once having entered their thoughts these inherited beliefs become to them their very own ideas and they believe in their originality because they have not been tried here before (and perhaps this is so). What was once just a smattering of fringe ideas over decades can evolve from the John Birch Society and the KKK into something else entirely. Like something a bit more mainstream, namely The Tea Party whose objective would seem to be electing people to overthrow the American Revolution whether they care to admit it or not.
Are you sure that this is a daydream or is it you who have been lulled to sleep and who are dreaming? Just remember sometimes it sucks to wake up.