The Homefront I: Is America Going Fascist?

Among some groupings of the oppositional left there have been recurring discussions and warnings that the Bush regime is moving the USA towards a fascist dictatorship. The model, and the fear, are based upon Nazi Germany, our most recent and horrendous example of a democratic and capitalist nation that transformed to imperialistic war abroad and severe repression at home. There are many similarities. During Hitler's consolidation of power the Reichstag became irrelevant and the government came to be run by decree. The Gestapo and Propaganda Ministry were formed to dominate the culture and populace both in the large and in minute detail. Patriotism and racial purity became guides, seemingly different from the "aiding and abetting terrorism" crackdowns of contemporary America, at least at first glance. The law became whatever Hitler or the Nazi Party or the Ministries claimed law to be. One difference is the perspicacity of our new totalitarians who pass laws - with a still extant though seemingly extraneous legislature - and issue decrees that exempt themselves from legal sanction. On the other hand, Hitler's extreme chauvinism and extermination campaign (5.1 out of an estimated 11 million European Jews, 2.5 out of an estimated 4 million Roma (Gypsies), and his hatred of subhuman Slavs, over 20 million Soviet citizens killed) seems unique. Depending upon one's standards or perspective, the USA has not yet begun wholesale slaughter of brown-skinned Muslims.

The United States does have a history, however, of chauvinistic suppression, murder and rule: Indians and slaves. It took until the 20th century for the voting franchise to be extended to all adults 18 and over. And the US's treatment of other countries, their sovereignty, has usually been in name only, as on Indian reservations or that newest big one: the Iraqi reservation. The imperialistic chauvinism of the USA is so deep and wide that it becomes unquestioned; witness Congressional calls for replacement of Iraq's Prime Minister, or Obama's and Edwards' commitment to bombing Pakistan. Bombing another country is an act of war, yet for all the carping about Bush, the Democratic candidates only want to do the warmaking themselves. And the neo-cons are quick to push the "Islamofascist" threat bucked up by polemics such as The Clash of Civilizations and the idea of generational warfare: the latest 1000 year Reich. Of course fascism is merely a variant of capitalist rule and historically grew out of liberal democracy and economic crisis, not religious fundamentalism. But that is a different essay.

What distinguishes fascist rule from its more liberal counterpart is its overt brutality and its disdaining the "cover" of the legitimacy of law. And there have been many fascist dictatorships in the past 60 years. Greece post-WW II with the Colonels. Most of Central America: this is what the Somoza (and then the Contras) vs. the Sandanistas was about. Battista in Cuba. Pinochet in Chile. The Shah in Iran; even Saddam when he was "our" boy in the Iraq-Iran war. Even today US pundits talk of the "Salvador option" for Iraq: kill all the agitators and community leaders and terrorize the population into submission. Fascism really has been the norm in US client states, particularly in the Americas. But it takes a deep crisis for the rulers to turn to fascist brutality in the homeland. And such a crisis seems to be looming. When circumstances and historical trends heighten the conflicts, the contradictions within a capitalist country, rulers seek out other means of fortifying and extending their domination. Repression of the populace and destruction of the productive forces, i.e., war, are the norm.

Hitler didn't begin his rule in 1933 with war or extermination or even separating and expropriating the Jews. The rhetoric was there but it took some years before going to war or even the widespread use of concentration camps. Given the state of the state in the USA, with its draconian laws and decrees, a legislature which is either as warmongering as the current junta or totally bankrupt both morally and politically, a citizenry propagandized into total confusion and feeding off chauvinism against Arabs and Muslims and even Mexicans, it would seem that the USA is already fascist. What awaits us are the complete collapse of electoral democracy, perhaps through a coup, severe repression at home and the extension of the wars abroad. If a further crisis occurs or the worst elements simply get their way, the fangs and claws will be exposed and the fascist question will be moot. None of us can foresee the future; otherwise, man-made disasters would never happen. And just as the Germans didn't have it together to stop Hitler it is unlikely that people in the USA will get it together to stop fascism here.

The point being that totalitarian rule has begun in the USA; it has been immanent in our political culture since McKinley's seizure of the Philippines during the Spanish-American war and then the growth of Presidential power under Roosevelt and his largely command economy during the depression and the build-up to WW II. Having produced an economy that now looks to make money from money and where money has become debt and that debt spirals ever higher awaiting major collapse and economic dislocation affecting the lives and livelihoods of many millions of Americans, the financiers and their henchmen, the elected officials, need to grab for global domination of resources through destruction and mayhem. Just think of all the money to be made rebuilding a destroyed world.

The Unraveling?

Our masters are having problems these days, particularly in the United States. Engaged in disastrous, unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with an economy that verges on collapse, a leadership with no legitimacy and an opposition that won't oppose, the country just sinks deeper into the muck. The US model of political economy has outlived its usefulness. Caught in the dilemma of a paradigm that is moribund but unwilling to change to a sustainable model they, our Dear Leaders, are following Dylan Thomas' advice to "not go gentle into that good night." Change will never come from the top; they will fight to the last drops of our blood to maintain their power. History shows that our masters care not much for us. Consider the following statistics.

Year	CPI1	GDP/cap.2	Consumer Debt3	Debt/cap.
1960	88.7	13,847	60 B	330
1970	116.3	18395	131.5 B	645
1980	246.8	22716	351.9 B	1550
1990	391.4	28493	808.2 B	3249
2000	515.8	34788	1,722.4 B	5939
2004	565.7	36627	2,204.1 B	7600

1- CPI base year 1967=100 2- Per capita GDP in constant year 2000 dollars 3- Consumer debt does not include mortgages, merely cars, tv's, vacations, latte grandes etc. and are in "current, nominal" not yearly-adjusted "real" dollars.

The above figures could have been expanded through 2nd quarter of this year and recalculated for common base years but the trend is so huge that the meaning wouldn't change. From 1960 to 2000 the CPI increased by a factor of 5.8, GDP/cap. increased by a factor of 2.5, while debt increased by a factor of 28.7, and per capita debt increased by a factor of 18. Today,(non-mortgage) consumer debt is about $8000 for each and every one of us, even the tiniest newborn, and the National debt is an additional $30,000+ for each of us. So, if you are an intact family of four then:

Year	"Nominal" share GDP	Family consumer debt	Debt % of income
1970	202601	25801	12.7
2000	139152	23756	17.2
2004	146508	30400	20.7

1- These are 1970 dollars.

If we tack on the National Debt (using 2004 as a baseline) then that works out to 84.7% of "nominal" family income and added to current consumer debt that totals more than 105% of your family's share of GDP. This not only doesn't include housing costs, it also doesn't fill your gas tank in the morning or your belly at lunch. And while debt must be paid out of income not all GDP is dispersed as income and most of us (nearly all, in fact) never get "our" share of this national income. Since these days debt is commonly paid through new debt this digs our hole deeper each year. Financial counselors and book authors are famous, and rather trite, in preaching us to live within our means but living on borrowed money is the norm for all, including governments, banks and corporations. Debt's a "funny" thing. Consider this from Financial History of the United States by P. Studenski and H. Krouss ©1952:

Who owns the debt is much more important than its size, for if the debt were divided among the citizens in proportion to their tax liability, each individual would be paying to himself the interest on his bonds and the whole debt would lose all meaning and could be canceled. On the other hand, once debt is distributed in different proportions from taxes, it involves a burden on taxpayers for the benefit of bondholders.

The above quotation describes national debt but in a large sense the same people who own Treasury bonds also own corporate bonds and municipal bonds and consumer and mortgage debts as well. We are beholden to a class of rentiers and these parasites have bought the best government they can afford. Not to get too far ahead but we basically live in a deflationary era where productivity is so high that production growth outstrips market growth, commodity prices fall, and with many decades of the assault on labor, ordinary workers can't afford to buy so our masters advance us credit to keep the production line moving and sales growing and, hey!, they make money on the back end too through interest. Thus rises debt and our further impoverishment with each passing year.

The Financial Times wrote recently that corporate profits are at their highest level in more than half a century and that last year those profits totalled $1.35 trillion pre-tax and that companies retained $460 billion rather than disburse them through dividends. Some of these retained earnings have gone to buy back stock to prop up exchange prices and a lot of it has been invested in financial instruments, some being in those types currently in the news as they crash and burn around us. Back during the dot.com boom there was the book Dow at 36,000 or some such name. Most who heard of it (this writer included) were astounded and wondered if stock prices could go so high and the forecast was dismissed as unrealistic if not silly. Upon further thought, however, what would it mean if the index did balloon that high? Recently, an analyst named Henry Liu wrote in the Asia Times that at the end of 1994 the total dollar value of all US stocks was $5.3 trillion and at the end of 2006 that same value had ballooned to $35 trillion. Anyone old and literate enough to read a newspaper knows that the real economy didn't grow more than 600% over those 12 years. We don't have 6 times the wealth or jobs or cars or even computers. What happened was asset inflation; stock prices lost their tether to reality and today have little relationship to underlying real value. And just as millions are losing their homes through foreclosure so too the reckoning for the economy and the country is coming due. Not only the degenerate gambler doubling down to get back the bookie's stake has to pay the piper; at some point reality crunches us all.

The other day Fed chairman Bernanke cut the discount rate to increase liquidity to forestall the collapse of mortgage lenders and other financial companies. Ensuing days produced paeans to Bernanke's acumen as he cut his academic teeth on the Great Depression and the lack of liquidity that brought the economy to a (virtual) halt. Problem is, today's world is different. First, in the 20's money was tied to gold; thus, the dollar more or less moved in lockstep with commodities. Today we have fiat money, constantly inflated since WWII days and particularly since 1973 all through continual injections of liquidity. Think of continuous borrowing to pay off old borrowing: if your long-shot doesn't come through you're screwed. Today money is debt and that debt was created through constant injections of liquidity into the system, with worse money chasing bad money. This Fed move can only delay, not avoid, the day of judgment. Today it is almost a truism that everything is connected to everything else. So, let's unravel these threads and see if they all lead to the same source, if all roads lead to Rome.