The NYPD’s Mini-Rebellion, and the True Face of American Fascism

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/nypds-mini-rebellion-and-true-face-american-fascism

In 1935, with Hitler and Mussolini forging a historic alliance in Europe and the world sliding toward war, Sinclair Lewis published the satirical novel “It Can’t Happen Here,”which depicted the rise of an indigenous American fascist movement. Lewis is a fine prose stylist, but this particular book has an overly melodramatic plot, and is highly specific to its era. It has not aged nearly as well as “Brave New World” or “1984,” and not many people read it today. (At the time, it was understood as an attack on Sen. Huey Longof Louisiana, the populist firebrand who was planning to run against Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, but was assassinated before he could do so.) But certain aspects of Lewis’ fascist America still resonate strongly. His clearest insight came in seeing that the authoritarian impulse runs strong and deep in American society, but that because of our unique political history and our confused national mythology, it must always be called by other names and discussed in other terms.

Oh, yeah — Happy New Year, everybody! Now let’s get back to fascism. When the “Corpo” regime installed by tyrannical President Buzz Windrip in “It Can’t Happen Here” strips Congress of its powers, tries dissidents in secret military courts and arms a repressive paramilitary force called the Minute Men, most citizens go along with it. (Yeah, some of that sounds familiar — we’ll get to that.) These draconian measures are understood as necessary to Windrip’s platform of restoring American greatness and prosperity, and even those who feel uncomfortable with Corpo policies reassure themselves that America is a special place with a special destiny, and that the terrible things that have happened in Germany and Italy and Spain are not possible here. No doubt the irony of Lewis’ title seems embarrassingly obvious now, but it was not meant to be subtle in 1935 either. His point stands: We still comfort ourselves with mystical nostrums about American specialness, even in an age when the secret powers of the United States government, and its insulation from democratic oversight, go far beyond anything Lewis ever imagined.

I’m not the first person to observe that the New York police unions’ current mini-rebellion against Mayor Bill de Blasio carries anti-democratic undertones, and even a faint odor of right-wing coup. Indeed, it feels like an early chapter in a contemporary rewrite of “It Can’t Happen Here”: Police in the nation’s largest city openly disrespect and defy an elected reformist mayor, inspiring a nationwide wave of support from “true patriots” eager to take their country back from the dubious alien forces who have degraded and desecrated it. However you read the proximate issues between the cops and de Blasio (some of which are New York-specific), the police protest rests on the same philosophical foundation as the fascist movement in Lewis’ novel. Indeed, it’s a constant undercurrent in American political life, one that surfaced most recently in the Tea Party rebellion of 2010, and is closely related to the disorder famously anatomized by Richard Hofstadter in his 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”

[marble falls]

1. I don't know how you find all your posts, but I am glad you do!

[blackspade]

2. Very interesting discussion.

Thanks for posting.

[Enthusiast]

3. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

[marmar]

4. K/R

[malaise]

5. Great post

Rec

[The Wizard]

6. Too late

It already happened here, and it's called The Patriot Act.

[gregcrawford]

7. SPOT ON!

Corporatism is what Mussolini preferred to call his form of government. Now, American corporatists dress in Armani instead of strutting around in military costumes like puffed-up bantam roosters. They have refined their message and their mass brainwashing techniques, but they are every bit as malevolent as their 20th century counterparts. During WW II, America was infested with Nazi sympathizers in high places. It still is, but now they refer to themselves by different names, like "Tea Partiers," or "Libertarians."

These leaders of such movements are irredeemably evil down to their DNA. Their followers are usually just too dirt stupid to realize that they are being used in the most cynical way. You cannot reason with such people; they are sociopaths. They have every intention of trampling true democracy into a puddle of blood and bone, and they've got a big head start.

Are we going to wring our collective hands and dither until it's too late, or are we going to do something about it?

We can start by killing Fast-Track authorization for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, then killing the TPP itself. If they pass it anyway, make your senators and congressmen regret that they ever heard its name.

[phantom power]

8. recommend

[mountain grammy]

9. Good article. I read Lewis's book in high school. Chilling.

[Calista241]

10. I don't see it that way on a macro level

I think the cops just aren't happy with deBlasio, and they're making that fact known. Nothing more and nothing less.

They want to resist any reforms, and they'll probably succeed. They have done this to virtually all recent mayors, and there is a reason police unions are considered the most powerful unions in the country.

[Euphoria]

11. k&r. We've been wandering down this

path for too long.
May something(s) rise and help us redirect
to a more compassionate, reasonable and aware nation.

[niyad]

12. k and r

[grahamhgreen]

13. Did he include torture?