Throughout history there has been corruption here and there within government and other types of hierarchical forms of leadership. Believe it or not even the gold children of the American government have been known to be corrupt once in a while. There have been drastic changes to our laws which have led to limitations of our rights and liberties given to us by our constitution. But with the recent occurrences at the White House, Congress, and over seas, we are faced with either conforming to fascism or making a change, with force if necessary.
The first reason that we are faced with the choice of fascism or revolution is the exuberant nationalism our country has been partaking in recently. This idea that our territorial aggressiveness is mere destiny and was not obtained but thrust upon us by history is utter lunacy. Even Americas president can be quoted saying at a meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, “God told me to strike at Al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them”1. To think and believe that any mission given to us is by way of divine intervention and that a deity would make it our fate and our duty to wipe out a group of people is absurd and pretty disturbing.
The second warning sign is the rallying unification of violence and hatred towards an already chosen enemy. Just like the Nazi’s already had an enemy picked out to destroy, anyone not of “pure Aryan descent” but mainly the Jewish people, American’s have chosen those who are opposed to the “pure democratic way of life”. Such acts have been flawed and misguided, and this blind hatred has led to many false arrests and unnecessary deaths. On act caused 500 men in the Los Angeles area to be detained after complying with a section of the PATRIOT act.2 The PATRIOT act was put into place by Congress shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Another arrest that was later withdrawn regarding the new “enemies” the USA has created happened in Florida in 2002. After three men were detained for 17 hours, the authorities said they messed up and finally released them. The cause of the arrest was that the men were overheard talking in a diner then later were seen speeding through toll booths without paying. Later on when the men were released the police stated that after some investigation the conversation in the diner was not about terrorism, and after watching CCTV footage they did in fact stop and pay the toll at the booths.3 If the police are so concerned with people talking about terrorist acts in public places and planning the destruction of the world, then they should sit in one of those five star restaurants and listen to some Exxon Mobil CEO’s or Weyerhaeuser big shots. Maybe catch some real terrorists in action.
After September 11th 2001, President George W. Bush sent a bill into congress named the “PATRIOT Act”. This act was supposed to create a stronger security force regarding homeland security, but only created the third and fourth reason for this rising fascism in America. It has created a quickening disappearance of our rights, and an obvious obsession with secrecy and national security. According to many descriptions of the PATRIOT act it is provided to created only modest, incremental changes in the law. The recent attacks on the USA and the “busy schedules” of congress sent the bill flying through with stamps of approval. It wasn’t until 2003, two years after the passing of the bill, was something dubbed unconstitutional within the new act. “In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban on providing “expert advice or assistance” is impermissibly vague, and in violation of the first and fifth amendments.”4 The ban was ruled unconstitutional and was changed. David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who argued the case on behalf of the Humanitarian Law Project, called this “a victory for everyone who believes the war on terrorism ought to be fought with consistent and constitutional principles.” Only a year after the first court appearance of the PATRIOT act, it was brought back to discuss what has now become the most controversial section of the whole document. The infamous numbers 215 were first brought up in court regarding an anonymous company who the government was trying to silence for one reason or another.5
Section 215 of the PATRIOT act, like the other sections, was created in order to tighten security concerning terrorism on the home front and to make it easier to crack down on terrorist activities. The specific section has become the target of a lot of scrutiny because of its vague descriptions of the power given to the FBI. Normally the government isn’t allowed to gain information or perform a search without probably cause and a warrant, but this isn’t true under section 215. This section can be used to violate more then one of our rights given to us by the Constitution. The fourth amendment can be violated because the FBI does not need a warrant to conduct searches. The first amendment is violated because the searches can be conducted regarding what a person has said or written. All of this does not need to be shared with anyone, meaning the FBI can search anyone they want, at anytime, for any reason they desire.6
The American government has always been a “Military First” government and has, for the most part, put much of its funds into the growth and expected progress of the military. But until you compare our spending with the spending of other nations or of other things our funds are spent on, you don’t think it is a problem. In a comparison of the top 15 countries in the world ranked by military spending in 1999, America stands on top with 281 billion dollars. Second place china is 192 billion dollars behind, and potential targets Iran and Syria are 274 billion dollars behind. Our extreme glorification of military is scary and is a trend that always burns a country to the ground.
The “War on Terror” is said to keep our homeland safe from future terrorist attacks, and has been said to be successful. But other reasons can obviously be traced to the abundance of oil in the Middle-East. A strong driving force of the continuation of this war and this targeted hatred of the Middle-East and Muslims are the corporations looking to make a quick buck from the oil found in the area. These corporations are corrupt and do not follow any law put before them, yet are shielded by our government.
The mass media is also controlled by our government. You can turn on a television and flip through the channels and are able to stop on something that will be glorifying the government's decisions of physical and mental warfare. But is you try to search for something that is challenging the government's views and your choices are much more limited. These shows are either ignored because they do not seem like a threat, or are dealt with if they are getting any sort of response out of the people.
The last characteristic shown by this country that can lead to a fascist ending is the suspicious elections. After the most recent Senatorial election, it has become a little more then suspicious. “We see evidence of pervasive fraud, but apparently calibrated to political conditions existing before recent developments shifted the political landscape,” said Attorney Jonathon Simon, co-founder of the Election Defense Alliance, “so 'the fix' turned out not to b sufficient for the actual circumstances. When you set out to rig an election, you want to do just enough to win. The greater the shift from expectations, (from exit polling, pre-election polling, demographics) the greater risk of exposure – provoking investigation. What was plenty to win on October 1st fell short on November 7th.” (Kall) The reason the election is thought to be “hacked” is because of the major under count of Democratic votes and major exaggeration of Republican votes. The idea of rigging an election, especially one done on electronic devices, had to be long planned out before hand, most likely weeks before the election. “The numbers tell us there absolutely was hacking going on, just not enough to overcome the size of the actual turnout. The tide turned so much in the last few weeks before the election. It looks for all the world that they'd already figured out the percentage they needed to rig, when the programming of the vote rigging software was distributed weeks before the election, it wasn't enough,” Castleman commented, also a member of the EDA (Kall).
The obvious growing trends of a facist government need to be exposed to the public and fought against before we are totally sheathed within their control. We need to stand up against the government and say something before we are chained to the floor and silenced for good. It is not only us, citizens of this country, that are in danger of this government but also other citizens of the worl. If we believe we should trade our liberties for the security of our government, then we have traded in and do not deserve any of the rights we as humans were born with.
Citations
ACLU. 24 Oct. 2002. American Civil Liberties Union. 25 Nov. 2006 <http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/15423res20021024.html>
BBC News. “Mass LA Muslim arrests condemned” BBC News World Edition 20 Dec. 2002. 25 Nov. 2006 <Http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/americas/2595391.stm>
“Florida Muslim arrests were mistake” BBC News World Edition 21 Sept. 2002 Nov. 2006 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2272248.stm>
Eggen, Dan. “Key Part of Patriot Act Ruled Unconstitutional” Washington Post.com 30 Sept. 2004. 24 Nov. 2006 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59626-2004Sep29.html>
Fromm, Stephen. “US Military Spending” Truth and Politics 5 Nov. 2004. 25 Nov. 2006 <http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-US-world.php>
Kall, Rob. “Clear Evidence 2006 Congressional Elections Hacked” OpEd News 17 Nov. 2006. 25 Nov. 2006 <http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_rob_kall_061117_clear_evidence_2006_.htm>
Regular, Arnold. “'Road map is a life saver for us.' PM Abbas tells Hamas.” Haaretz.com 20 Oct. 2005. 25 Nov. 2006
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