The other "f" word rings out

With so much going on in the world to comment on, its a struggle for me to remain “on holiday” for another week. Falling off the wagon here briefly…

With Iraq in a civil war whose very fuse was lit by an illegal invasion and occupation by the U.S., Bush and his domestic and international pals (including our very own Steve) know they are faced with an untenable status quo.

Sane folks would look for a way to defuse and disentangle, but sane folks wouldn’t have invaded Iraq in the first place, nor encouraged Israel to blow Lebanon to smithereens. ‘Steve’ Harper was a big fan of both.

Clearly the sane folks are not running the world these days, and instead the insane crowd will escalate. In order to sell that to the folks back home, the merchants of death will have to peddle fear, big time. Bush can’t back out, even if he wanted to, without condemning his party to massive electoral defeat. So he’ll ratchet things up several notches and add more fuel to the conflagration. And there’s not a moment to lose:

Bad war outcomes and looming elections are what is really driving the current political rhetoric in the U.S., and lately to some degree in our country. The old standards just don’t sing like they used to. Evildoers isn’t cutting the mustard any more, and insurgents, a term once so refined and la ti da – but never accurate – doesn’t play like it used to. Radical Islamists was popular for a while, but lacks punch.

It seems that pundits and politicians are falling all over themselves to use the new (?) “buzzword”, fascist, in description of various foes of the so-called war on terror.

The Christian Science Monitor presented a fair overview of fascist word play in print and video. Personally, I’m scratching my head a little as to why all of a sudden this terminology has been picked up by the media as “new”. The loaded and inaccurate term “islamo-fascist” has been used for ages by certain TV journalists (and I use the latter term very lightly indeed). Lou Dobbs of CNN has sprinkled his rants for months, with “islamo-fascist this and that”. Right-wing (and often wrong) economist Larry Kudlow (CNBC) is also fond of the term.

Indeed, Bush has also used the term in the past (CNN, Nov 15 2005), but this latest rush to invoke the spectre of Hitler and Mussolini (Rumsfeld, earlier this week; Conservative MP Jason Kenney – a Harper confidant) seems well-orchestrated. Let the fear campaign begin! Just keep the following in mind, every time you hear or read about comparisons between Hitler, fascism, and today’s war on terror:

A post–World War II interview between Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was allowed by the Allies to speak with Nazi POWs, and Hermann Goering, the Nazi Reichsmarshall. Their conversation took place on April 18, 1946, during a break in the Nuremberg trials, and was recounted in Gilbert’s book, Nuremberg Diary:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

“Why, of course, the ‘people’ don’t want war,” Goering shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”

“There is one difference,” I pointed out. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.”

“Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.” (Harpers)

Goering ought to know what he was talking about. Thus the latest drive to invoke the memories of Hitler and Mussolini is part of an orchestrated campaign to scare the soccer moms of North America, and enrage the dads.

Propaganda—its nothing new. Drive across the U.S. and listen to talk radio and you’ll hear nothing but, much of it driven from large corporate offices and simulcast across the country to hundreds of millions of waiting, scared, ears. Except they aren’t as scared as they used to be, rendering propaganda less effective, which means we can expect that politicians will find a way to inject more fear into the populace, soon. Propaganda, in the guise of a free press, is alive in well in Canada too.

Propaganda—history says it’ll probably work, too. At least until Bush (and Harper?) invoke the draft (conscription).