I was tuned into my local hate radio station this morning as usual, and heard the host talking about the rise of "patriotic" groups like the so-called "
Minuteman Project". Apparently, there are forty such groups organized across the US. A sleepy-sounding caller from Dormont, PA, indicated his willingness to patriotically swing a baseball bat in order to keep our country safe and pure, free from any illegals that might make their way to the Pennsylvania border.
The first thing I thought of was Mussolini's squadrismo, the nationalist thugs who helped him rise to power in Italy. The second thing that came to mind was: how did things get this bad in America?
Like the brownshirt from Dormont, I can't recall a time when I've had less faith in the government of the United States, but for different reasons of course. How did things get this bad?
It's political dynamite to compare or equate either party or its actions to Hitler's Nazis, but since I'm not running for office, nor beholden to any corporate media entity, I feel free to call it like I see it. In fact, I believe there are parallels between Hitler's rise to power, and the neocon usurpation of the Republican party. Wait, let me explain!
First, how did Hitler and the Nazis ascend to power?
It's a myth that Hitler was legally elected, by popular vote, to become the dictatorial ruler of a Germany wrestling with economic crisis. In truth, Hitler could never have gained control without a certain amount of violence and the willful complicity of the existing conservative government and the nationalist media, which consistently employed a double-standard in reporting in regard to conservative versus leftist politics. The conservatives effectively co-opted the Nazis, despite their thuggery, in order to expand their political base. They made what Wolfgang Schieder calls a Herrschaftskompromiss, a "compromise for rule". Without this, Hitler could not have attained a position of power. His Nazis were given the gift of respectability by the conservatives, in order to consolidate power over the left.
The same thing has basically happened to the Republican party today. It has not been so much infiltrated by neocons as much as it has chosen to co-opt them, and expand its own base into the hard and religious right. It's all about the power; a new Herrschaftskompromiss. And, as happened with the German government, the radical mandate of the hard right quickly took over, and supplanted the basic values of the true conservatives. The fascist idea of reality, "whatever we say it is," replaced truth.
So how will the neocons and the religious right be remembered by history? Will neo-fascist nationalist groups like the "Minuteman Project" gain respectability and power? Let's hope we still have time not to find out.
The Republicans have created their own Herrschaftskompromiss, and will have to live with the deal and the consequences, or else purge their party of extremists like the PNAC contingent, the Minuteman Project, and neo-fascist groups. If they don't, they face the prospect of alienating their true core of conservatives, and accelerating the moral bankruptcy of their party.
www.antichimp.com