“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty.” Adolf Hitler

We are living in a playbook that was written years ago, probably going all the way back to a time when there weren’t even copious  records, just cave drawings. The exercise of power over others is nothing new. There is a kind of flaw in our species that makes some of us, who have no other way to compensate for our own deep seated inadequacies, punish others to elevate ourselves above the puke we see in the mirror of our truth.

There is nothing pretty about fascism and there is nothing subtle about it either. Unfortunately, there is no need for a historical text book about this ugly, behavioral aberration. We are getting to witness it as it happens to all of us. What got me going this time around is foolishly responding to someone, who blamed Biden for where we are now. Everyone is trashing this old guy and as incompetent as he was, he was at least trying to do the right thing for so many. It allows this newborn lunacy to claim it is undoing the mistakes of the prior regime, as opposed to the truth of destroying our institutions that stand in the way of this schizoid juggernaut.  

The most important thing in a fledgling fascist state is to have someone to blame, because it deflects from the shit you are all about. For Hitler, it was the Jews and the Roma and anyone deemed to be less than perfect, in comparison to the perfect Aryan race of supreme beings. Today, it is the white, male Christian, our very own superior race. Adolf just signed an executive order, Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.

When I think about the worst in us, fear and anger are the conjoined twin emotions, each inseparable from the other. We are all a tinder box of feelings and they are easily ignited, especially the negative ones. Time for my favorite one, denying our mortality and the painful illusion of constancy in our lives. I believe that is where the negativity is birthed, forcing its opposite, equanimity, to be still born.

Imagine if each of us was born with a clear understanding of the uncertainty of our time here? It is what we all have in common, regardless of country, color or religion. It would make all of us brothers and sisters in the same family. When you victimize one, you victimize all. I love the idea and I also know it is a pipe dream that will never come to pass. It is our spiritual scar and it has been ripped open throughout the millennia.

Time to get back down to earth. I can’t help myself. I love visiting the clouds, imagining the land of What If? In a way, these festering fascists do the same thing when they espouse the rhetoric of making our lives better, while creating an enemy to our happiness and holding them responsible for victimizing us. Thinking you are the victim of another allows you to strike back as a righteous endeavor. 

Creating the Big Lie is half the equation,  controlling the dissemination of the message is the other. It’s the match to ignite the base. At the same time, you discredit all opposition. The Right has been brilliant about creating their facts, while demeaning and devaluing any criticism. The naive Left has always been more concerned about being smart, while rarely being effective. Morality and ethics are irrelevant when they get in the way of winning in politics.

Not being a historian or wanting to be one, I don’t know when the owners began to take precedence over the workers. I think the Industrial Revolution in our country, just like in other countries, created a master class with an insatiable appetite for power and control. The whole idea of capitalism is based on growth, consequences be damned. The trajectory of this one-sided greed has to inevitably end up with a government that does its bidding. The whispers of the rich inexorably find their voice, drowning out the cries of the workers. These motherfuckers have been in their boardrooms for well over a hundred years, honing a game plan that would put their money on the throne, displacing the beautiful ideal of liberty for all.

Eisenhower was totally on THE money when he warned about “the military industrial complex”. However, it was already too late. At the end of WWII, when we parted company with our ally of convenience, the Soviet Union, the die was cast and the enemies exposed to each other. It was the fear of communism that catapulted political paranoia to the fore. Liberalism was turned into the enemy and the Marlboro Man became the hero. Whether it was the Army-McCarthy Hearings or the John Birch Society, it was the grand idea of America, perpetrated by these fear mongers. The powerful Right, birthed in the boardrooms, began stuffing the ballot boxes of our country.

The government began to be viewed as the enemy, intent on taking away our rights and not to be trusted. Meanwhile, every year, Finland scores as the happiest country in the world, followed by the rest of their Scandinavian neighbors. Their governments are best described as social democratic, taking care of their people, minus the authoritarian depravity of communism. Here, the Marlboro Man rules. Then, he dies of lung cancer, only to be replaced by the next MAGA Man and so it goes.

I can’t resist sharing the first amendment with you. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

It is no accident that the first amendment guarantees the freedom to speak our mind, the right to peaceful assembly and         a free press. Criticism of any kind is not tolerated in a fascist state. Check the news to see how that’s going. Speaking of news, if you disagree with the government, you will be punished. If you are a student, exercising your right to free speech and legally here from another country, you will be deported and thrown into an El Salvadoran prison. We now have our very own Gestapo called ICE, disappearing people without cause.

You know, I was born in NYC and spent over forty years of my life there. Trump was a contemporary of mine, a clown, who loved celebrity and would do and say anything to keep the spotlight on him. Back then, a nightmare scenario would have been this buffoon becoming president, but no one would ever have believed it possible.

I gotta be honest, which even feels seriously stupid for me to say, because I always try so hard to be truthful with you. Fascism is a soul disease, perpetrated by people absent even a gram of compassion for the suffering they are causing others. Our government is in shambles. It reminds me of a landscape devastated by a tornado, not looking at all like it did before disaster struck. 

What I see now is a country totally unfamiliar to me. I have also come to realize that this political disease is a full blown epidemic and I don’t see a civilized cure. The legislative branch of our government has rolled over on its back, while Trump castrates it into total paralysis. The judiciary is now toothless, because without a Department of Justice to enforce its decisions, it is relegated to just throwing legal tantrums. We have no opposition party any more, deaf to the voice of the people.

Unless the people, that’s us, exercise our power, we will all be sucked down the rabbit hole of fascism. The only thing that has a chance of choking this drive to totalitarianism is a NATIONAL STRIKE. Jamming a stick into the gears of this sinister plot is the only way to choke it. This monster needs to be brought to its knees, or else it will continue to devour our freedom. The ballot box is now impotent. The wallet has the power. Holding up signs or turning out to see Bernie and AOC is very nice, but harmless. The system is broken and our freedom is at stake. 

I am really sorry about all this. The curtain is tattered and the wicked witch is naked for all of us to see. I tell you what. I am still going to get up tomorrow morning and have a hot cup of coffee. I am going to watch the sun rise on yet another day. I am going to pay attention to my breath. I am going to close my eyes. I am going to feel gratitude for this privilege I have been gifted. I am going to continue sharing my stories with you. 

Amen

PS: Nobody seems to give a shit that Palestinians in Gaza are being massacred, babies slaughtered. We are witnessing a global devaluation of all life on earth and silence is the only language spoken on behalf of the martyred.  

LISTEN TO IT HERE:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/16998695-walks-like-a-duck