Is America Headed for Fascism?

Newsweek magazine had a cover headline, when Obama got elected, "Now we are all socialists." I think that, quite the opposite, America may be headed toward Fascism.

I was recently watching a TV interview (I think it was Bill Moyers on PBS) with a historian named Howard Zinn. This guy Zinn is the author of A People's History of the United States and A People's History of American Empire. He was talking about populist movements, and made the point that populist movements on the right lead to Fascism. This happens whenever people feel they have no control over the situation they find themselves in. This of course reminds one of the circumstances of Hitler's rise to power. It is very scary to think that this might be what lies around the corner for America.

Remember what I wrote about the "teabaggers." (Okay, they don't like that label because the word has a slang sexual meaning. So what do they want to be called, Tea Partiers?) There is a lot of opposition to Obama, some maybe originating in people's own, genuinely home-grown ideas (such as racism) and some, as I believe, stirred up, manipulated, and exploited by power interests (political, corporate, etc.) for their own ends.

Also, here is a quote from a news item.

Militia groups have seen a resurgence in popularity since Barack Obama was elected president, says Heidi Beirich, director of research for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "It's like they came out of nowhere with the election of Obama." she says.

Her group has found 50 new militias in 18 months. "We added a group yesterday with 60 new chapters."

This is scary, too; very, very scary.

It suggests that the election of Obama has energized these groups. At a minimum, I think that the next presidential election is going to move the country to the Right—way Right. But maybe worse, consider that these militias stockpile weapons and train in military tactics. (Some of their members have had the benefit of training by the US military services.) They want to get enough power to control the US and impose their ideas on the rest of us. Of course that is the opposite of democracy. If these groups—many of which are neo-Nazi and thus racist, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and God knows what all else—ever gain enough power, they are simply going to shoot any and all of those whom they don't like.

As I said, scary. Very, very scary.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein