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The Left Vs. Fascism: Why We Gave Up

Good Morning!

During the last century, the battle against fascism, whether it's perpetrators were Franco's National Front, Mussolini's "New Roman Empire", Hitler's National Socialists or Tojo's Militarists, was led by liberals and leftists. It was fought primarily with the weapons of war and the consequence, besides ultimate victory, was bloodletting and death. It was marshaled by the leadership of Roosevelt and the propaganda of Hollywood. It was a battle from which no one on the left turned away. It was a fight against Super Power Fascism inhabiting major states on both sides of the globe, a fascism that was homophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-woman, anti-trade union and anti-democratic.

Today the heir to the murder machinery of 20Th century fascism is the Fundamentalist Islamic Theocratic movement which is no less homophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-woman, anti-trade union and anti-democratic. It seeks to force regional, if not, global hegemony. And making its lineage to the fascists of 20Th century Europe and Asia indelible, it's weapon is terror. Terror is a part of its charter. It is rationalized by the idea of a religious mission that would drive non-believers from designated "holy lands" and re-establishing Caliphate rule, an era of Islamic ascendancy, through force. This mission is, of course, no more religious than Hitler's "sacred vow" to wipe from the earth Bolshevism or Japan's "divine" drive to establish a "Prosperity Sphere" in Asia.

Today's leftist and liberal does not wish to fight this new fascism because its matrix is the Third World. The Third World is a sacred place to my leftist and liberal friends because beneath its sands and jungles and bazaars is buried, in their minds, any right America thought it had to self-defense, whether economic, political or religious.

The reason given for this, by my friends on the left, is that the United States created the The Third World as it exists today by way of slavery, military and political coercion, espionage and economic exploitation. Did I mention the CIA? It's impossible, they argue, for the U.S. to make any rightful claim against any agency or entity originating there, however morally degenerate, since the United States, through its actions, made this evil "necessary." They will tell you that American interest in any part of the world stems from American corporate interest. What they forget is that American corporate interest is the interest of corporations employing people and serving stockholders. Leftists and liberals work for corporations the same as everybody else. It's like the infant-minded, quasi-liberal suburban housewife gassing up her Ford Explorer to head down to the "No War For Oil" rally. Then they hit bottom. Their logic has led them to conclude that national suicide, or in the very least some form of acceptable casualty rate among our people, from terrorist attack is probably preferable to any further intercession in the time-line of life in The Third World. Hypocrites.

We liberals from time to time say we would endorse, without a tremor, the military option if convinced that the individual agency being targeted was "GUILTY." Hence the hand-wringing over "proof" of WMDs. This is like asking a cop to make sure the perpetrator he arrests is "GUILTY" before taking him into custody. What constrains a cop in his investigation of a crime should no less constrain a democracy similarly charged to protect its people. In short and in police parlance, following the mass murder of 9/11, the United States had "reasonable suspicion" to target not only Afghanistan but Iraq as well. Some of that "reasonable suspicion" with regard to Iraq may be found in the Clinton Administrations murder indictment of Osama Bin Laden where numerous links to Saddam Hussein are cited. It is uncomfortable terrain to traverse for some because it is resistant to factional rhetoric

In the end, however, I'm afraid I can't attribute to my friends on the left simply a lack of honest historical scrutiny any more than I can say that a stomach ache is caused by a stomach ache. The post-Vietnam war leftist and liberal is bourgeois. His battleground has been the living rooms of friends. He also makes the occasional field trip to WTO meetings where he hopes his demonstration of solidarity with the oppressed will shield him from the casually tossed backpack-full-of-nails-and-dynamite on a train. In his nostalgia for the halcyon days of anti-war action that was the Vietnam era, he is ignorant of the much larger historical picture that shows us why we are where we are. And he's a coward. The future is violent. The war is on. Everyday brings him closer to the edge he's been walking backwards toward since 9/11 but he just can't man up.

While the factionalism of conservatives and liberals continues to waste our precious time as a country, at least conservatives seem to have not only direction but, for the moment, a correct heading. The liberal movement in America, of which I have been a part since campaigning for Eugene McCarthy during my high school years, drifts further and further away from us. It is utterly deluded by the moneyed company it keeps. It's reduced to a reactionary rabble. It's cranky and noisy and complains about the draft from an open window like an old woman. It is the beginning of a new conservative movement. And we don't need one more of those.

Phil