This blog kills Fascists

Woodie Guthrie was a Red - he lived in the "Red Hill" district of Los Angeles in the 1930s (a neighborhood notorious for the concentration of radicals), and wrote a column for the Communist Party's Daily Worker newspaper.  He was a reliable Red, willing to be an apologist for the U.S.S.R.'s non-aggression pact with Hitler.

All that changed on June 1, 1941, as Operation Barbarossa saw the Nazi supermen storming across the border into Guthrie's Mother Russia.  He took some paint and wrote on his guitar: This machine kills fascists.

It's probably unfair to blame him for not recognizing that fascists fought on both sides of the Eastern Front.  Stalin paid lip service to the Socialist Dialectic, and the West's Useful Idiots (like Guthrie) let him get away with it, but the U.S.S.R. was fascist in all but name.  Non-Russians were second class citizens (as the population on Ukraine found out to their sorrow), the State controlled everything, and above all was the all-seeing, all-powerful fuhrer (well, General Secretary).

But Woodie knew how to get an idea popularized, and did.

We live today in a political world that people from Woodie's time simply wouldn't recognize.  The growth in the Leviathan State is steam rolling all before it - the War on (some) Drugs is crushing the Fourth Amendment, Kelo v. New London crushed the Fifth Amendment, Medicare is killing the Tenth Amendment.  Obamacare is killing the First Amendment.  The Second Amendment has - for now - fought off a series of restrictions from 1968 through 1994 that sought to kill it.  That battle is still raging.

On one side of those battles stand the People, trying to protect their rights as recognized in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  On the other side are the fascists*, seeking to establish the Leviathan State above all.  Everything within the State; nothing outside it.  Thankfully without all the boxcar and Concentration Camp drama, but fascists nonetheless.

Both Dinosaur political parties are allied in the fascist struggle.  With the exception of the lack of furherprinzip (the embodiment of the People's Will in the person of a strong leader) and the lack of nationalism as an organizing principle (the two parties are somewhat divergent here, but only somewhat), all the fascist principles are prominent:

• Subordination of industry to political direction (Sarbanes-Oxley, Military Industrial Complex, Solyndra)
• Subordination of the People to political direction (public education, TSA, NDAA, No Child Left Behind)
• Subordination of independent organizations to political direction (McCain-Feingold, Obamacare)

The system is not Socialist - the Government does not own the means of production, nor does it want to.  What it wants is for industry to fall into line, doing what it's told in return for favors and avoidance of punishment.  What the Government wants is for us to fall into line, doing what we're told in return for favors and avoidance of punishment.  What the Government wants is for independent organizations to fall into line, doing what they're told in return for favors and avoidance of punishment.

That system is fascist.

I'm afraid that I'm not big on the "compliance" part of this, and so must respectfully** decline our Governmental Overlord's offer.  And so, I'm going Woodie Guthrie.  I'd like to invite all y'all to join me.

This blog kills fascists, by pointing out who they are, what they do, and who it hurts.  This Land is your land and my land - not their land.  We are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights, despite the best efforts of the fascists to take them away.  And so, here are the fascists:

(via Wikipedia)

Fascist.  Obamacare, gun running to Mexican Drug Lords (to blame American Gun Stores), nationalizing the auto industry, targeting Americans for execution without trial.  In 2008 he was looking like he had that furherprinzip swagger down pat; fortunately, that looks like it's a bit stale.

(via Wikipedia)

Fascist.  Romneycare, politics of personal destruction (negative campaigning), "saved" the Olympics by getting a huge Government bailout.  Buddies with Ted Kennedy.  Also more gay than Twilight, and so might be our first gay fascist President.

(Via Wikipedia)

Fascist.  Couch potato with Nancy Pelosi to get Cap 'n' Tax passed.  Talks a Freedom Agenda but is happy to "go along to get along".  Balanced the budget by cleverly causing the Internet bubble and convincing 50 year old Boomers not to retire.  Kind of too bad, because many of his ideas are strongly compelling from a personal libery perspective.  But actions speak louder than Youtube clips.

(Via Wikipedia)

Fascist.  What, you need it spelled out?  Seriously?  OK, big Government, big spender, wants to meddle in your personal business.  No friend of Fourth or Tenth Amendments, at the very least.

(Via Wikipedia)

Not a fascist.  He may be a Wookie, but he's the only non-fascist on offer here.  Of course that means that he doesn't have a chance as both political parties will unite to crush him.  He doesn't stand much chance, but is doing his part like Woodie Guthrie did, getting the message out.

The Tea Party?  Might be fascist, might not be.  Might get coopted by the fascists in the future.  There's a lot of money in fascist government, if you're the government.  Time will tell.

So what does all this mean?  It means that we need to get the message out, to sing the message from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream Water.  The chains may sit lightly upon you (for now), but chains they are.  It was Woodrow Wilson (perhaps the first fascist President) who laid it out, starkly:

Conformity will be the only virtue and any man who refuses to conform will have to pay the penalty.

Sorry, no thanks.  Keep your nose out of my business.  I'll keep singing the anti-fascist song, thank you very much.  I'll call them for what they are, as we all need to: Fascists.  Nice fascists (maybe), but fascists nonetheless.  Both  parties.

Feel free to use the image, and sing the song.  This land was made for you and me.

* Before anyone freaks out, I guess I need to point out (again) that you can be a fascist without gassing Jews and that sort of thing. Mussolini (the Father of Fascism) didn't.  Franco didn't.  Peron didn't.  Oh, yeah - FDR didn't, although he did put Japanese-Americans in Concentration Camps.  But they were nice Concentration Camps, and FDR was a God Among Men.  A fuhrer, you might say.  That's what they teach in school. 

** OK, that was sarcasm.  Nothing respectful at all there, actually.