Publisher Linda Ford introduced a new freebie paper,
THE ARTS DISTRICT CITIZEN, in Los Angeles this month, and here's a piece I'm crossposting from paper to the net remarking on the glorious dawn of American fascism. Copyright's mine.
The Gentle Step of the American Jackboot
copyright 200
1000 attendees at an Arts District opening were told to leave and the gallery was shuttered after police arrived and had a word with the owner. The result was Downtown talk about a "fascist" act of censorship.
Is that the right word, though? Fascist?
Conservatives, especially today's Dr. No-style neo-conservatives, can't stand anybody using that word. They'd rather hear that their 12-year-olds were hooking for crack on Hollywood Boulevard than permit anyone to refer to the Grand (more like a hundred grand, minimum, these days) Old Party with that unpatriotic, un-American f-word. But when the government starts telling the people how to talk, it's time to crook an eyebrow in the direction of fascism, even over their strongest objections. After all, as they say about anyone who doesn't like the new sneak-and-peek searches, 'You shouldn't mind if you haven't got anything to hide.'
By the time the vote was rigged in 2000, the ghosts of Hitler and Mussolini had new lipstick on and were marched into the White House under the red-state banner of Compassionate Conservatism. The party chiefs preferred the coolly architectural-sounding term neo-conservative and with their red, white and blue lapel pins claimed the Stars and Stripes as their own. Before long, using 9/11 as their Reichstag fire, the neo-compassionates contended that they needed to amass much, much more power. Of course it was only for the benefit of the people, and all they wanted were the amounts of power that national security and a perpetual state of emergency require.
So the questions are whether fascism can succeed in America, and, if it's on its way, when would the people realize the wells were being poisoned.
When fascists took over in Germany and Italy in the 20's and 30's, many people later said they had no idea what they were in for until it was too late. Their piecemeal surrender of personal freedoms descended into a time of kicked-in doors, concentration camps and worldwide war.
The Cheney/Bush regime is fascist in the most classical sense. Their neocon-artist ethos has been guided largely by Michael Ledeen, who spent years in Italy writing about the fascists, extolling their virtues and praising their "energy". Asked point-blank, Ledeen has with a straight face denied being a fascist; fascists expect you to take them at their word. Even if they themselves have little regard for it.
They do, however, have regard for action. Fascist writings are full of the word action.
What makes the Cheney/Bush regime fascist is simple: theirs are fascist actions. Under the acid rain of the Patriot Act personal freedoms are going down like a beautiful old mansion in a Palisades mudslide, a rubble of illegal searches, wiretaps, arrests and detentions rising in its place. Just like Mussolini said: "the [individual] is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone."
More from the lips of Il Duce to the ear of Bush Due: "Fascism believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace." This maxim ought to be needlepointed into the cushions at the White House, which has earned America the world's hatred with war, rigged elections, extra-legal detentions, profiteering, torture and a general, shameless arrogance. Add to the mix the key tenet that corporations rise above the people to the level of the State itself, and neo-conservatism and fascism come to inhabit the same undisclosed location, mingled as indistinguishably as molecules of poison gas. Perpetual peace would be of no use to Big Oil, Big Drugs or any of the Big Guns.
Economics don't trickle down, but attitudes do. If there is fascism at the top, it would start showing itself on the streets. The first wave would be fear.
It might go something like this: last April 23, 1000 people were attending an opening at Transport Gallery in Factory Place when, according to the Los Angeles Police Department, units responded to an anonymous 911 call: "Downstairs in the gallery there are [people] holding a demonstration regarding anti-American issues." The caller said that he had "heard heated arguments."
Spokeswoman Sgt. Catherine Plows says that the call came in at 10:37 pm. The police anticipated something big: in a stunning response time, 12 cops in six black-and-whites rushed over in a blitz of bubblegum lights in four minutes flat, arriving at 10:41.
Gallery owner Mike Russek says a sergeant told him, "This needs to be shut down immediately. Don't make us go in there. If you don't do it, we're going to have to come in and do it ourselves." Russek says the sergeant told him the nature of the show was, "aggressive and offensive," with something "anti-American" going on. The police deny those words were used or that they even had any idea of what was in the show.
Nonetheless, Russek felt intimidated and went inside and announced that everyone had to leave. 1000 attendees started filing out.
Sgt. Plows denies the police ordered this. "It's a bogus story," she says. The police response, "was all very benign."
There is no clear evidence that the police shuttered the show, but Russek thinks they did because of what was on the walls - Big Business logos with doctored names. Chevron's logo read ShameOn, Boeing became Bombing, Calvin Klein, Calvin Klone.
Prior to the opening, show curator Brandy Flower received an email from a neighbor of the gallery, saying those involved with the show were communists or socialists, and that the show was "Anti-America."
Could the cops have responded in such force and so rapidly because of similar language coming in on 911? The LAPD says they responded in the normal manner for a neighborhood filled with doped and drunk ravers. They say they encountered no disruptiveness at Transport, just too many people on the sidewalk.
The LAPD says there is no police report of the incident. A request for an interview with the sergeant involved remains unanswered.
The police stayed for 15 minutes. Russek says a cruiser returned half an hour later to confirm that the gallery had been closed.
Either Russek was genuinely intimidated, or he quickly figured on a First Amendment PR windfall worth closing a show he and his partners had been planning for a year. If so, it didn't work. Only a handful of web blogs covered the story.
The point of the story is in the fear: that night the police were feared. Even if the sketchy police version of events is true, Russek and Flower feared that the police were asserting censorial power and had the authority and will to enforce it. 1000 people, and not one confronted the police. That's worth thinking about.
When I was a kid my parents used to tell me that Mr. Police Officer was my friend, that I could trust him. My mother was a refugee from Hitler's Germany, and I grew up hearing how under fascism, the police were the enemies of the people, a state organ devoted to enforcing the bleak facts of totalitarian life. How it wasn't the same in America. If it gets to that stage they won't even pretend to be trusted or friends.
We're not all the way there yet in America. But as criminals ruthlessly consolidate power under Cheney/Bush and a small population of hinterland holy rollers pushes their Rapture-obsessed social agenda and enables the fascist vision of war and greed, the temperature is rising. And every day more Americans are using the word fascism.
Justly so.