{"id":4975,"date":"2017-05-19T09:06:04","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T16:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=4975"},"modified":"2017-05-19T09:06:45","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T16:06:45","slug":"american-fascism-1944-today-henry-scott-wallace-occupy-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2017\/05\/19\/american-fascism-1944-today-henry-scott-wallace-occupy-com\/","title":{"rendered":"“American Fascism, in 1944 and Today” by Henry Scott Wallace (occupy.com)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

May 17, 2017<\/p>\n

Seventy-three years ago, The New York Times asked the sitting vice president to write an article about whether there are fascists in America, and what they\u2019re up to.<\/p>\n

It was an alarming question. And the vice president took it quite seriously. His article,\u00a0\u201cThe Danger of American Fascism,\u201d<\/a>described a breed of super-nationalist who pursues political power by deceiving Americans and playing to their fears, but is really interested only in protecting his own wealth and privilege.<\/p>\n

That vice president was my grandfather, Henry A. Wallace. And in my view, he predicted President Trump.<\/p>\n

To be clear, I don\u2019t think the precise term \u201cfascism\u201d \u2014 as in Mussolini and Hitler \u2014 is fairly applied to Mr. Trump. Mussolini was a proponent of \u201ccorporatism,\u201d defined by some as \u201ca merger of state and corporate power.\u201d And through that lens, using that term, my grandfather\u2019s warning looks prescient.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Henry<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

My grandfather warned about hucksters spouting populist themes but manipulating people and institutions to achieve the opposite. They pretend to be on the side of ordinary working people \u2014 \u201cpaying lip service to democracy and the common welfare,\u201d he wrote. But at the same time, they \u201cdistrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

They invariably put \u201cmoney and power ahead of human beings,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest.\u201d They also \u201cclaim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

They bloviate about putting America first, but it\u2019s just a cover. \u201cThey use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism.\u201d<\/p>\n

They need scapegoats and harbor \u201can intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 19th century saw the political rise of wealthy Prussian nobility, called Junkers, who were driven by \u201chatred for other races\u201d and \u201callegiance to a military clique,\u201d with a goal to place their \u201cculture and race astride the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

My grandfather acknowledged the great difference between American fascists and other countries\u2019 murderous authoritarians. The American breed doesn\u2019t need violence. Lying to the people is so much easier.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Henry<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

They \u201cpoison the channels of public information,\u201d he wrote. Their \u201cproblem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public\u201d into giving them more money or power.<\/p>\n

In fact, they use lies strategically, to promote civic division, which then justifies authoritarian crackdowns. Through \u201cdeliberate perversion of truth and fact,\u201d he said, \u201ctheir newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus might lying about unprecedented high crime rates legitimize a police state. Lying about immigrants being rapists and terrorists might justify a huge border wall, mass expulsions and religion-based immigration bans. Lying about millions of illegal votes might excuse suppression of voting by disfavored groups.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one of my favorites: Autocrats \u201cgive currency to snide suspicions without foundation in fact.\u201d That sounds like birtherism. There are other examples. \u201cLargest\u201d inaugural crowd ever. \u201cI won the popular vote\u201d and \u201cObama had my \u2018wires tapped.\u2019 \u201d Climate change is \u201cnonexistent\u201d and \u201cmythical.<\/a>\u201d \u201cThe Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax\u201d and the F.B.I.\u2019s investigation into it \u2014 now jeopardized by the firing of the F.B.I. director, James Comey, last week \u2014 was a \u201ctaxpayer funded charade<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what is the ultimate goal? \u201cTheir final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sounds like Mussolini and his embrace of \u201ccorporatism\u201d \u2014 the marriage of government and corporate power. And it also sounds like President Trump.<\/p>\n

The antidote? For my grandfather, it lay in that phrase the \u201ccommon man.\u201d In 1942, he\u00a0famously rebutted<\/a>\u00a0conservatives calling for an \u201cAmerican Century\u201d after the war \u2014 America, the greatest country on earth, dominating the world.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Henry<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Nonsense, my grandfather said in that speech: We Americans \u201care no more a master race than the Nazis.\u201d He called for a \u201ccentury of the common man\u201d \u2014 ordinary people, standing up and fighting for their rights, with decent jobs, organized (into unions), demanding accountable government committed to the \u201cgeneral welfare\u201d rather than the privilege of the few, and decent schools for their kids (teaching \u201ctruths of the real world\u201d). Democracy, he said in his 1944 essay, must \u201cput human beings first and dollars second.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s any comfort in his essay 73 years ago, it is that this struggle is not new. It wasn\u2019t even new then. The main question today is how our democracy and our brash new generation of citizen activists deals with it.<\/p>\n

Originally published by The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Henry<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 17, 2017 Seventy-three years ago, The New York Times asked the sitting vice president to write an article about whether there are fascists in America, and what they\u2019re up to. It was an alarming question. And the vice president took it quite seriously. His article,\u00a0\u201cThe Danger of American Fascism,\u201ddescribed… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4976,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975\/revisions\/4976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}