Americans did not vote for fascism - but fascists now control all three branches of our government: the Presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court.
In 1935, Sinclair Lewis warned against the rise of an American fascism in It Can't Happen Here. Well, it can - and it will, unless we stop it now.
In 2000, the fascist-controlled media ordered us to "get over it" - the theft of the Presidency, that is. In 2004, the same media is ordering us to bow down before Bush's "mandate."
Like hell we will. Here at Democrats.com, we recognize that America in 2004 is like Germany in 1933, and Fascism is on the rise. In public, Bush lied once again, telling Democrats "I will need your support, and I will work to earn it." But in private, he revealed the truth as soon as woke up, long before John Kerry conceded:
Mr. Bush started calling winning Republican Senate candidates, telling Senator-elect Jim DeMint of South Carolina that he would strike quickly to move his agenda ahead. "Now is the time to get it done," he told Mr. DeMint, according to an account by Scott McClellan.
Confronted by the march of Fascism, We can't wait until the 2008 election, or even 2006. We must develop a plan to stop Fascism in America.
What exactly do Bush and the Fascists want? You won't read about Bush's true agenda in the newspapers, because the Fascists won't declare their goals openly; they know that if they did, the nation would rise up to stop them. But behind closed doors, here is Karl Rove's "architectural plan" for America and the world:
1. Global war for oil. The evidence is now clear: Bush's conquest of Iraq was planned long before September 11. Its origin was the PNAC plan to control the world's oil by using America's military power to seize control of the world's oil-producing regions.
2. Unlimited corporate power. Bush wants to eliminate every tax on corporations, and every regulation limiting their actions. He wants to make the people of America (and the world) little more than feudal serfs, with (perhaps) the illusion of freedom - but no power to challenge their corporate lords.
3. Christian theocracy. Bush wants to appoint justices at every level who believe a fundamentalist reading of the Bible trumps the Constitution. That means no more separation of church and state; instead, rightwing evangelicals will use the power of the state to outlaw abortion and indoctrinate schoolchildren. Even pro-choice Republican Arlen Specter, who will chair the Judiciary Committee, is worried; he held a press conference urging Bush to nominate judges who will preserve Roe v. Wade. This will make Specter a target of the religious right - a battle he could well lose.
4. A police state. In case the American people decide to resist #1 and #2, the "Patriot" Act was designed to give the Federal government absolute and unchecked power to watch us at every moment of the day. And if John Ashcroft simply says we have ties to "terrorism" (whatever he wants that to mean), he can send us to a "legal" CIA torture facility in an undisclosed spot on the planet where lawyers - and the Supreme Court - can't find us.
5. Elimination of all forms of government help. Bush wants the rich to pay no taxes, period. He wants working people to pay for items 1-4. That will soon leave no money for programs that help people: Social Security, education, health care, environmental protection, etc. When that happens, Bush will cite financial necessity as the reason to eliminate the government programs Americans take for granted.
So how do we fight this Fascism?
Let's start with an inventory of our strengths.
1. We are not alone. 55 million Americans voted against Bush, despite a massive propaganda campaign. We have enormous support from friends of freedom around the world.
2. We can communicate. We have the Internet (including outstanding blogs and enormous e-mail lists), some excellent publications and broadcast alternatives, a handful of friends in the mainstream media, and fast-growing Air America Radio.
3. We have money. Apart from George Soros - whom we hope will support the fight against Fascism, which he understands viscerally and has warned about - very few of us are rich. But nearly all of us have a few dollars we can spend every month to protect freedom. In 2004 alone, we collectively raised hundreds of millions.
With all of these assets, what can we do?
1. Protest Bush everywhere he goes. John Kerry had to concede under tremendous pressure from the media and the financial markets. But we - the 55 million Americans who voted for Kerry - do not have consider Bush a legitimate President until every vote be counted, every election crime is investigated, and every black box voting machine is audited. Until that work is complete, we truly will not know if George W. Bush won the 2004 election. In 2000, we protested the Inauguration and every Presidential visit until 9-11 because we believed Bush was not truly elected, and the facts ultimately proved we were right. We can - and should - resume our protests and continue our in-depth investigation of the 2004 election.
2. Investigate Republican crimes. Since 2000, Republicans have committed dozens (hundreds?) of crimes in politics and government. They have been caught at a few, notably the outing of Valerie Plame. One of the most powerful aspects of the Internet is how it facilitates in-depth investigations by loosely organized networks of dedicated researchers. The Stolen Election of 2004 is a complicated mystery, but I am certain that Internet researchers will eventually expose it - and hopefully send the perpetrators to jail. With free blogging sites (including Democrats.com), it is remarkable easy for a committed individual to launch a focused investigation and attract experts to help find the truth. Ultimately, we should aim to turn such investigations into hard, indisputable facts that a prosecutor can use in court.
3. Boycott fascist promoters and funders. In October, when Sinclair Broadcasting announced its plan to broadcast the lie-filled film "Stolen Honor," progressive activists responded immediately with a spontaneous boycott against Sinclair Broadcasting and its advertisers. After two weeks of lost advertisers and falling stock prices, Sinclair buckled. This was a huge success, and we should now broaden this boycott to all right-wing media networks, especially FOX, ABC talk radio, Clearchannel, and NBC. We should also broaden it to the corporations whose owners contributed hundreds of millions to the Bush campaign and its 527 allies. Let's get started: who wants to create BoycottFOX.com?
4. Adopt (and promote) a Progressive Democratic Agenda. On the bread-and-butter domestic issues, many (or most) of Bush supporters actually preferred Kerry's plans to Bush's. For example, at the same time as Floridians allegedly gave Bush a 52% of their votes, they passed a minimum wage increase with 72%. Let's take the best (and most popular) of Kerry's proposals and package them together as the Progressive Democratic Agenda and start signing up Bush voters to help us push them through Congress. When the Republican Congress blocks us, we can appeal to these same voters to elect a Democratic Congress in 2006.
