Fascism Prevention Starts With You

[babsbunny]

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12257

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 01/24/2011 - 1:49pm

A lot of us fear that the big changes happening in America are for the worst. Many of us on the Left are convinced soft-core fascism has crept into our institutions and been smuggled into our laws, and we fear the possibility that conditions will deteriorate.

There's plenty of evidence that democracy has been weakened since the 1980s, including the growing role of corporate money in politics, the rightward shift of the Democratic and Republican parties, the collapse of union power, the ascendency of the military-security state, the suppression of human rights under the Patriot Act, the high rate of prisoner incarceration, the relentless pursuit of empire, and the rise of the Tea Party.

A tyrannical leadership could indeed seize power in America. But it's self-defeating for us to live in fear of that possibility. If we spend time in fear, we're in danger of facilitating that vile prospect. Fear arises, whether on the Left or the Right, largely out of a sense of powerlessness, passivity, and an expectation that the worst is going to happen.

[girl gone mad]

1. k & r

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