by Joseph O’Shaughnessy
If you’re going to be a good Fascist, here’s what you do.
Divide and Conquer. Find a scapegoat, preferably one with some disadvantage, someone who can’t strike back. Find rich, evil, greedy uncaring, perhaps bigoted, financiers and financial supporters…banks, giant global corporations and large numbers of those with inherited wealth. Align yourself with the military…never miss a parade or a chance to salute the flag, shake hands with common soldiers, get the support of those Generals whom you know believe themselves to be part of the establishment, specifically those who do feel this includes the common man. And whatever you do, do not let the people know that you never served in the military and did all you could to avoid it.
Complain about taxes and about how more and more people are becoming dependent on the government, while you cut taxes on people so rich that they don’t even know how much they pay in taxes or how much they have left. Never stop hiring lackeys who will work for good pay, many very educated but with no ethics or morals. Repeat to them what you want them to say–over and over again. You know. That government doesn’t work. Things should always be “spiraling down” or heading for “chaos” or some point of no return…always keep the people in fear of something.
And when the time comes, and all your propaganda should be delivered at millionaire wages by slovenly, fat, rich, radio hosts, or tough-talking but weak, puny-little weasels, who will hide out in remote studios, or skeletal, hollow-eyed, ranting women commentators, so horrific in aspect that people actually look away when they are talking. Now the experience of our over 1000 Right Wing radio commentators of this kind, traitors to the people, to whom they tell lies for the oligarchs, tells us that this works. It has its effect upon the ignorant, the stupid, the uncaring, the intellectually lazy, the just plain damned fools and bigots. When this propaganda has had the effect that it has had for the Neo-Fascist Republicans, who are about the business of ruining health care for the next 10 years at least, then, Mr. Fascist leader–you’re ready.
What you need to do is rig elections, starting with the states. Republican state legislators are prime prospects for Neo-Fascist followers. They can be bought off. We know that because 31 state legislatures are totally Republican. They can be bought off by simply having the Fascists pay for their elections whenever necessary and gerrymander the districts where that is possible.
That has been possible in virtually all of the old traitor states, the Confederate states who seceded from the union because they wanted to keep slaves. Now they apparently want to have two-tier societies, but the fact is that in those old Confederate states, incomes are lower, education, heath care, safety and job security are worse and rankings in all the important standards of living fall below other states, including life expectancy. People in these states have still not figured out that their legislators are not that much different from Donald Trump and, in fact, they still haven’t figured out that he lies to them about everything.
Now the Republicans in Congress, many of them in line with the worst elements of the billionaire class, have finally showed their real character, their real politics, their real constituency. It isn’t the people of Kentucky or Kansas or Wisconsin or any other state. It is the Koch Brothers. It is other rich families who help the Kochs support Senators and Congressmen who vote the way they want them to vote.
The Republican health care bill is a joke. Only it is not a joke that the American people can laugh about. It is a practical joke at best on the sick, the suddenly unemployed, the elderly, meaning those over 50 but not yet eligible for Medicare, and even those on Medicare, whose services will soon be cut and the payments for whose tests and hospital visits and medications are all going up because the Republican Budget for 2018 reduces the funding by hundreds of billions! Facists tell you that this is the Democrats’ fault. They tell you that Obamacare was a “disaster” “spiraling down” creating places in the country where there are no insurers. Well, that is true, but it is only true because Senator Marco Rubio changed Obamacare by inserting an amendment to a 2104 appropriations bill that cut funding for Obamacare, causing higher premiums or causing some companies to simply drop out.
Do you think the health insurance companies are losing money, or even coming close to breaking even? While United Healthcare is riding the wave of this public, ignorant, feeling that Obamacare is failing, it has decided to get out of the individual market altogether. And why not? Why take a chance on reducing your profits….especially when you are a CEO making $100 million dollars a year while people are literally dying for lack of access to health care!
A man like that who tells you that the system is bad and his firm (which actually provides nothing but a billing and administration system…that could be done cheaper and better by Medicare) does good things and he is trying his best…is a liar. And he is, because he lies to you about things that affect your daily life, your children’s health and yours and other aspects of life…life in the city…the polis…for the people…then those lies are the kinds told by Fascists. When they tell you that all is well, that it is only a shower….not a gas chamber.
The Republicans, the ones that the billionaire oligarchs have bought and paid for, have already done their job once. The House Republicans already voted for the so called American Health Care Act, which kicked 22 million people straight off the rolls and gave $600 billion in tax breaks to the richest Americans. No health care at all for these citizens. They cut hundreds of billions from health care for the poor.
They say that they want to get or “wean” the poor from health care. That too many people are dependent on Medicaid. But they know that this is a silly concept that contradicts the facts that American incomes are going down, thanks to jobs being sent overseas and money being invested in financial assets rather than manufacturing. More and more people, in fact, over the years, will rely on government health care. So why say that these poor will not need Medicaid. Why lie? The reason they lie is because, while you are trying to hang on to health care by your fingernails, the Republicans using the excuse of “getting people off” Medicaid what they are actually doing is cutting taxes for the rich by hundreds of billions of dollars. And why? Because they are being paid off with huge contributions to their political campaigns. How do you think they pay for all those television commercials they run to lie to you about how your Senator really cares for you but he won’t come home to speak before his own constituents at a Town Hall. He’s terrified you’ll ask him about the fact that you are going to lose Medicaid or suffer big cost increases in Medicare.
The Republicans actually do want the poor off Medicaid. But, as you can see from the Republican Senate, they were all, all but 3 ready to repeal Obamacare without anything new. In other words, you could be and probably would have been tossed off your health care plan if you had a pre-existing condition. Or you would have seen your health insurance premiums suddenly skyrocket–all Obamacare protections gone–and no new ones.
The Republicans have no plans and no intention of doing good things to get people off Medicaid–like retraining or new job opportunities or a “clean coal” industry revival. Their goal, it is now clear for everyone to see. Their intention is no more than to throw the poor into the pit while cutting taxes for those people who can afford to pay for their political campaigns and keep anyone out who would do anything to raise taxes on the wealthy. And why do the wealthy pay more taxes? For the same reason that Willie Sutton said he robbed banks. Because that’s where the money is.
The goal of the Republicans is to keep themselves in office. To do that they have made a pact with the devil. And that devils is a group of people who are quietly ruling a political system that scapegoats the poor, blames Blacks and Hispanics for all the wrongs in society, glorifies war and American Exceptionalism, panders to fanatical religions and spends 90% of its political energy looking for ways to help their leaders….Wall Street, Global Industry headquartered in the U.S., the health care industry, Big Oil, Big Pharmaceuticals and military contractors. One Party. One Loyalty…not to the country, not to the People…but to the Neo-Fascist Oligarchs who pay their salaries and keep them in power.
What is a government that lies to the people and then pursues its own ends? Fascist. What is a government that has used powerful forces to propagandize issues to make the people vote against their own best interests? Fascist. What is a government controlled by one political party beholden to secretive and powerful forces with goals that have no support from the people but the people cannot stop? Fascist.
The fact is that this Republican government, in fact the majority of voters in this country, whether they know it or not, by voting Republican, are themselves Fascists. The Republicans are Fascist. They have their own agenda. And even if you are someone who has voted Republican, it does not mean you are safe from Fascism. No one is safe from Fascism.
Remember what pastor Martin Niemoeller once said:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
