Living Under Fascism

Living Under Fascism
Davidson Loehr
7 November 2004
First UU Church of Austin

(Excerpt)

In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, “write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?”

Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. See how much you think his statements apply to our society today.

“The really dangerous American fascist,” Wallace wrote, “… is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. 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 deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”

In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism he saw rising in America, Wallace added, “They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. 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 power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.” By these standards, a few of today’s weapons for keeping the common people in eternal subjection include NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, union-busting, cutting worker benefits while increasing CEO pay, elimination of worker benefits, security and pensions, rapacious credit card interest, and outsourcing of jobs — not to mention the largest prison system in the world.

http://www.uua.org/news/2004/voting/sermon_loehr.html

George Bush and The Rise of Christian Fascism

CONCLUSION:
The point I’m trying to make is that we are not dealing simply with politics
when it comes to the Bush administration. The progressive left, which often
pays little attention to Christianity, and the moderate middle, which thinks
“these things will balance out”; will be making a huge mistake if they
overlook the religious ideology at the core of Mr. Bush personally and the
movement he represents. And we are talking about a “movement” (a
movement of ‘the people’ not just the elites). We are seeing today the
emergence of a “fascist movement”. It is bankrolled and organized by
Corporations, and articulated through the ideology of neo-conservatism. But
the troops come out of the right wing church. And that church, drawing
upon the Holiness/Holy War Biblical narratives of Apocalyptic-
Dominionism theology, is growing in this country. This is not a battle
between intellectual and institutional elites. It is far more intimate than that.
It’s a battle in our homes, our families, friendships, neighborhoods and
within our faith communities. Let me make a rather audacious prophecy:
WHOEVER CONTROLS THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE
WILL CONTROL THE FUTURE OF THIS NATION. In other words it’s
the vision of Pat Robertson or Martin Luther King.

When Dave Korten (author of When Corporations Rule the World) says that
we need a “new story”; he is talking about needing a transcendent authority
in which we root our political culture. Human beings cannot live in societal
form without a sacred narrative. Neither anarchy nor atheism can construct
a house that will hold our future. The Republicans know this well but the
Democrats seem clueless.

What we need is a movement of spiritual justice. We need the language of
those who can wed America’s civil religion with the language and stories
that are emerging from the antiwar, fair trade and human rights movements.
We need a renewed boldness to once again lift up the vision of checks and
balances, limits to power and the need for COMMONWEALTH as
foundational to national health. This language, wedded to a global vision of
America as “lifter of the poor” and “partner in the care of the earth”, can
form a unique new narrative that has the power to inspire imagination and
courage. It is a language that can call forth a new coalition powerful enough
to envision a new and better world. It will be a language that articulates
“we are the ones we are looking for”. It is a language that proclaims “God
is with us in our diversity” not God above us threatening wrath and ruin.


The full essay is available @ http://216.197.101.64/trinity/pictures/GB%20andtheriseofchristianfascismrejune04.pdf

AWAKEN FROM THE NIGHTMARE (Peace Rally 3-19-05)

An excerpt...

This war was from the beginning conceived in deception and birthed through
lies. Its whole purpose is to enrich the pockets of Pharaoh and his friends.
It doesn’t matter that over 1500 of our troops have died for these lies. It
doesn’t matter that another 1500 will die in the future. The callousness of
this administration can be seen in their treatment of the vets: serve and die
over there with inadequate equipment or come home to struggle in a
bankrupt economy that serves Corporate Medicine but not national health
care, that serves Corporate Wealth but not social security, that serves
Privatized Interests but not the interests of commonwealth. This
administration has unleashed class warfare targeting the poor, the working
class, the middle class and any one who dares raise a voice of dissent.

To the military let the Church say with a clear voice: REFUSE TO SERVE
THIS ADMINISTRATION THAT IS TRASHING OUR CONSTITUTION
AND SENDING YOU INTO HARM’S WAY FOR IMMORAL AND
ILLEGAL PURPOSES. To the police let the Church say with a clear voice:
You are called to serve and protect not dominate, violate and intimidate.
We are not your enemy … we live with you, work with you, our children go
to the same schools, when this administration tears down your union we will
stand with you for your benefits and civil rights SO YOU STAND WITH
US in our cause of calling this nation back to peace, justice and the rule of
law. REFUSE TO MILITARIZE YOUR NOBLE CALLING … become
again Peace Officers of the community not warlords of Pharaoh.

And to those of us gathered here today. DISCERN THE SIGNS OF THE
TIMES. This administration of blood with its culture of death wants us in
debt, in jail, silenced, disappeared, intimidated, cowed, scared, frightened
…they want to own our livestock, land and bodies. But let us not submit to
the seduction of Pharaoh. STAND DOWN his orders and RISE UP for a
new future. RISE UP for an America that shares its wealth, that believes
again the ancient creed GIVE ME YOUR POOR, YOUR TIRED, YOUR
HUDDLIED MASSES … an America that believes again that we are a
CITY ON A HILL lighting the way towards justice … an America that
believes again in a vision of peace rooted in the right of the people to rule
themselves.

And so I say to you RESIST THIS WAR … RESIST THIS EMPIRE OF
BLOOD … RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO FEAR. RISE UP,
STRAIGHTEN AND STRENGTHEN YOUR BACKBONE, MAKE
YOUR LEGS AND ARMS STRONG AGAIN, UNLEASH YOUR
IMAGINATION AND CREATIVITY AGAIN, OPEN YOUR MOUTHS
WIDE AGAIN AND SING THE NEW SONG OF HOPE AGAIN. For we
will overcome this culture of blood, we will endure this administration of
death and we will triumph over their Christian fascism with the truth of our
convictions and the power of our commitment. We will live to see the day
of vindication. We will live to see the day of judgment on this
administration’s acts of treason.

Full text of the speech is available @ http://216.197.101.64/trinity/pictures/AWAKEN.pdf

Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress

excerpted from a

People's History of the United States

by Howard Zinn

(an excerpt)


*****

When the Pilgrims came to New England they too were coming not to vacant land but to territory inhabited by tribes of Indians. The governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, created the excuse to take Indian land by declaring the area legally a "vacuum." The Indians, he said, had not "subdued" the land, and therefore had only a "natural" right to it, but not a "civil right." A "natural right" did not have legal standing.

The Puritans also appealed to the Bible, Psalms 2:8: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." And to justify their use of force to take the land, they cited Romans 13:2: "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."

*****

The Indian population of 10 million that lived north of Mexico when Columbus came would ultimately be reduced to less than a million. Huge numbers of Indians would die from diseases introduced by the whites. A Dutch traveler in New Netherland wrote in 1656 that "the Indians . . . affirm, that before the arrival of the Christians, and before the smallpox broke out amongst them, they were ten times as numerous as they now are, and that their population had been melted down by this disease, whereof nine-tenths of them have died." When the English first settled Martha's Vineyard in 1642, the Wampanoags there numbered perhaps three thousand. There were no wars on that island, but by 1764, only 313 Indians were left there. Similarly, Block Island Indians numbered perhaps 1,200 to 1,500 in 1662, and by 1774 were reduced to fifty-one.

Behind the English invasion of North America, behind their massacre of Indians, their deception, their brutality, was that special powerful drive born in civilizations based on private property. It was a morally ambiguous drive; the need for space, for land, was a real human need. But in conditions of scarcity, in a barbarous epoch of history ruled by competition, this human need was transformed into the murder of whole peoples.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Columbus_PeoplesHx.html