Harpers: We are living in a fascist state

[undergroundpanther]

Harpers isn't a paradoid kinda bunch..whatdo you all make of it?

Harper's Magazine: We Now Live in a Fascist State

Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 13:34:38 -0700

The article below appears in the current issue of Harpers and was written
by Lewis H. Lapham

www.harpers.org/LewisLapham.html

Knowing the source of this piece makes it all the more disturbing. It is not every day that the editor of a respected national magazine publishes an essay claiming that America is not on the road to becoming, but ALREADY IS, a fascist state.... or words to that affect.

To help prepare you for what follows, here are the final sentence from this piece....

On message By Lewis H. Lapham Harper's Magazine, October 2005, pps. 7-9 "But I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, then Fascism and Communism, aided, unconsciously perhaps, by old-line Tory Republicanism, will grow in strength in our land." -Franklin D. Roosevelt, November 4, 1938

http://organicconsumers.org/Politics/harpers101205.cfm

[burrowowl]

1. Well bowl me over!

Harper's and not TRUTHOUT or The Nation or, or ...

[babylonsister]

2. Dad is getting Harper's for Xmas! Already determined, but

thanks for the reinforcement!

Edit to add, RE: Fascism: Yes, we need to get rid of these PNAC people, this admin, and the current mindset!

[texpatriot2004]

3. Harper's is right, it's true. n.t

[Kenroy]

4. Lapham has always been a lefty

Personally, I find his essays unreadable. But he's known for being very liberal.

[babylonsister]

5. Why? Please explain. I have no opinion one way or the other. nt

[Kenroy]

6. Why I find him unreadable?

I just don't like his style. I'm fond of simple, declarative sentences. He writes sentences that require a road-map to navigate. It's an impressive skill, but I don't enjoy reading it.

I've read his magazine for years, and I always try to read his essay. Unfortunately, every time, I get no more than 6 paragraphs in and just give up because I'm not quite sure what he's trying to say.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

7. Try reading it aloud.

It'll help. When you get lost, refer back to the opening quote.

I used to find them impenetrable but now I love them.

[babylonsister]

10. Thanks for your explanation. nt

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

8. But remember:

It's gonna be the best goddamned fascist state ever.

[MADem]

18. Of the Corporation, By the Corporation, and FOR the Corporation

...shall not perish from this earth, unless we have something to say about it.

[ellisonz]

9. Well...

I think it's a generally good argument, but he's missed a few key points:

"He'd encountered enough opposition to both the New Deal and to his belief in such a thing as a United Nations to judge the force of America's racist passions and the ferocity of its anti-intellectual prejudice. As he may have guessed, so it happened. The American democracy won the battles for Normandy and Iwo Jima, but the victories abroad didn't stem the retreat of democracy at home, after 1968 no longer moving "forward as a living force, seeking day and night to better the lot" of its own citizens, and now that sixty years have passed since the bomb fell on Hiroshima, it doesn't take much talent for reading a cashier's scale at Wal-Mart to know that it is fascism, not democracy, that won the heart and mind of America's "Greatest Generation," added to its weight and strength on America's shining seas and fruited plains."

-The flawed assumption he makes is that the middle class or bourgeoisie have still rapidly expanded over the last 60 odd years. Suburbinazation, desegregation and an increasingly populated college system have all moved literacy and well-being forward in broad swaths of the American public. However, he is right in the sense that the people who have been left behind are becoming more left behind as time passes. This is the reason we've been having such close elections and we don't have the Hitler-esque stuff going on in the streets across America or open genocide. The bourgeoisie have grown confortable and will object to a loss in comfort which is the natural result of a culture of corruption combined with failing governance. If anything, Democrats should be optimistic that we've almost reached 2006 and the sublime leader looks bad. Germany, Italy, Spain and Soviet Russia all did not have somewhat free and open elections after the sublime fascist leader had seized power. Thank God for the US Constitution.

[GreenArrow]

11. yep

Don't look in just one direction, either; it's systemic.

[donco6]

12. The Fascist Axioms:

He attempts to describe a way of thinking and a habit of mind, and on sifting through the assortment of fantastic and often contradictory notions -- Nazi paganism, Franco's National Catholicism, Mussolini's corporatism, etc. -- he finds a set of axioms on which all the fascisms agree. Among the most notable:

The truth is revealed once and only once.

Parliamentary democracy is by definition rotten because it doesn't represent the voice of the people, which is that of the sublime leader.

My only problem with this is that, in my case, true democracy would have my shipped off to a concentration camp even faster than representative democracy. I mean, really, let's vote on whether we want gays running loose in society.

Doctrine outpoints reason, and science is always suspect.

Intelligent design anyone?

Critical thought is the province of degenerate intellectuals, who betray the culture and subvert traditional values.

This is obvious in Freeperland.

The national identity is provided by the nation's enemies.

We are against terror. But what are we for? Truth? Beauty? Love?

Argument is tantamount to treason.

This is demonstrated by Bush most blatantly. Remember the interview by the Irish press?

Perpetually at war, the state must govern with the instruments of fear. Citizens do not act; they play the supporting role of "the people" in the grand opera that is the state.

[rhett o rick]

14. So do you believe we are in or headed toward Fascism?

Our government is certainly not a true democracy and shouldn't be as you mentioned. Not a representative form either. Our so called representatives are first and foremost answerable to their corporate sponsors. We are far from a free country. Our Senators are mostly elected for life. And the HOR is starting to get the same way. Almost all of our government leaders are wealthy. Hard to see them looking out for the middle class or poor. Unions are dieing, poverty is increasing. Looks like tyranny to me. The fact that the grass roots demo's are powerless to stop the big money Hillary machine is a good example that we, the middle class, no longer control anything.

[DeepModem Mom]

13. kick

[Just Me]

15. We've been telling folks that all the warning signs are right under,...

,...their noses. But, instead of a rational observation of the facts, people are stuck on the emotional reaction to the word, "fascism".

What else can we do? :shrug: We've adopted alternative descriptors like, "rampant corporatism" and "corporatocracy",...but, those simply are not strong enough to reveal how this country is evolving to a fascist state.

It's terribly distressing and frustrating.

[SOS]

16. Lapham has been around

Most disturbing to me is that many in his generation are coming to that conclusion. I have personal acquaintances who left Germany in the 30s, lived under Franco, Pinochet, the former Soviet Union and Mussolini. They are all now in their 70s and 80s and they are the most alarmed at what is happening in this country. The red flags for a one-party state are there, yet it seems only those who have lived through it before can see them.

[tomg]

19. What struck me about Lapham's

essay was how similar in some points it seemed to many of the comments made by George Soros as to why he felt the need to oppose Bush so strongly in the 2004 election.

[Helga Scow Stern]

17. Watch the movie Downfall if you haven't.

The parallels are so striking. It explains a lot, like why normally intelligent, decent people will follow a nut job into hell.

[Pachamama]

20. Read Sinclair Lewis's book "It Can't Happen Here"....

...cause guess what....Oh, yes it can!

[al bupp]

21. IMHO, this is one Lapham's best essays

and should be read by every DUer. He hits the nail squarely on the head w/ this one.

[vince3]

22. In the penultimate paragraph...

..."two presidential elections stolen with little or no objection by a complacent populace." A terrific essay.

[GreenArrow]

23. ..."two presidential elections stolen with little or no objection . . .

by a complacent populace."

Or an "opposition" party.