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A Voice From The Past
Vice-President Henry Wallace's NY Times article assessing the state of American Fascism in 1944 finds great relevance in today's world--G8 and Bush.
On 9 April 1944, Vice-President Henry Wallace had an article published in the NY Times wherein he responded to their request for a piece
responding to \"the following questions:
\'1. What is a fascist?
\'2. How many fascists have we?
\'3. How dangerous are they\'\"
His reply was cleared by President Roosevelt, and I quote from a reproduction of the article as it appears in \"Democracy Reborn,\" edited
by Russell Lord, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc. (1944), 259-263.
\"A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an
intensity for intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his
use of deceit to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be race or a class;
may be a military clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion or political party....The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to decieve the public
into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million
fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful.... American
fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public
information, and those who stand for the KKK type of demagoguery.... Still another danger is represented by those who, by paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money
and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surrepititously to evade the laws designed to safegaurd the public from monopolistic
extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off ... The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate
circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and
vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against
other religious, racial or economic groups.... The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact ... They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is
directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the market imultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.... Until democracy in effective enthustiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war in both the United States and in the world. Fascism in the postwar inevitably will
push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes ... It is an
infectious disease, and we must all be on our gaurd against intolerance, bigotry and the pretension of invidious distinction.\"
Perhaps it is now clearer to you all why Truman got the VP nomination in 1944 and not Wallace, and the historical roots of our current dilemma
should be more apparent as well. Of course there are \"good\" fascists and
\"bad\" fascists, Mussolini and Hitler, respectively, just as there are \"good\" neoliberals and \"bad\" neoliberals, Democrats and Republicans,
respectively; or, given the above definition, are they \"good\" fascists
and \"bad\" fascists? Does this sound like the current state of affairs regarding the G8 and Bush?
responding to \"the following questions:
\'1. What is a fascist?
\'2. How many fascists have we?
\'3. How dangerous are they\'\"
His reply was cleared by President Roosevelt, and I quote from a reproduction of the article as it appears in \"Democracy Reborn,\" edited
by Russell Lord, New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc. (1944), 259-263.
\"A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an
intensity for intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his
use of deceit to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be race or a class;
may be a military clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion or political party....The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to decieve the public
into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million
fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful.... American
fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public
information, and those who stand for the KKK type of demagoguery.... Still another danger is represented by those who, by paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money
and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surrepititously to evade the laws designed to safegaurd the public from monopolistic
extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off ... The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate
circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and
vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against
other religious, racial or economic groups.... The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact ... They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is
directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the market imultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.... Until democracy in effective enthustiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war in both the United States and in the world. Fascism in the postwar inevitably will
push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes ... It is an
infectious disease, and we must all be on our gaurd against intolerance, bigotry and the pretension of invidious distinction.\"
Perhaps it is now clearer to you all why Truman got the VP nomination in 1944 and not Wallace, and the historical roots of our current dilemma
should be more apparent as well. Of course there are \"good\" fascists and
\"bad\" fascists, Mussolini and Hitler, respectively, just as there are \"good\" neoliberals and \"bad\" neoliberals, Democrats and Republicans,
respectively; or, given the above definition, are they \"good\" fascists
and \"bad\" fascists? Does this sound like the current state of affairs regarding the G8 and Bush?
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If you want to be part of a workingclass party, please join California's Peace & Freedom Party now so we that we can have a workingclass candidate for governor and the other constitutional officers in this important 2002 governor's race, where public power will be at the top of the agenda. Peace & Freedom Party was on the ballot from 1968 to 1998, coming from the peace and civil rights movements of the 1960s, and has been an integral part of workingclass struggles for the past 30 years. We need a few more registrations to be on the ballot for the important 2002 election in this labor era. We are always for labor, peace, the environment, gay rights, women's rights and all other civil rights and we never compromise our principles. Just check "Other" on your voter registration form and write in Peace & Freedom Party. For more information, see http://www.peaceandfreedom.org
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