Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Roger Hoffmann's avatar

Well said and considered, Bill. As with any 'ism', there are degrees of manifestation. Fascism need not look completely like Mussolini's or Hitler's State. Nor will it always be tied to a singular birth-moment. It doesn't require a Reichstag fire.

Instead, we have what appears to be a slow, steady march to fascism, in which various facets become 'normalized'. Through what is now called 'narrative control', propaganda is so ubiquitous and dominant that it is called 'the news'; censorship is manifested first in smears, then in 'cancellation'; and with the disappearing of dissenting voices via the dropping of any principled journalists from main stream outlets, deplatforming, and de-ranking in search algorithms, etc.

These are all accompanied by the rising calls for governmental 'disinformation' control. As if somehow, governments that are themselves captive to private capital and the source of most of the pro-war propaganda would be somehow fair arbiters of 'truth' .

If these, along with the militarization of public police forces, and the steady growth of the incarcerated populations are not evidence of creeping fascism, I don't know what to call it.

Expand full comment
Steve Melson's avatar

Excellent column Bill--a worthy exegesis of your months-long effort to provoke a resurgent

Anti-War/Anti-MICC/Anti-Imperial America PEACE movement. You and Tom Englehardt's

TomDispatch are hardy and persistent and nearly alone in the US media in this AWAMICCAIA.

I wish this and your previous columns were studied and taken to heart by the Biden Administration's

Budget group so they could begin a 10-year project of reducing the DoD/MICC allocation by 10%

in 2024, then 5% per year for the next 9 years, re-allocating those taxpayer dollars to desperately-

needed domestic programs, paying on the Credit-Card Wars, adequately staffing and funding the VA--Many of us have advocated for this for years of course, and at present it's an old man's dream,

but you and Tom are to be commended and keep it up ! PEACE in our time !

Expand full comment
52 more comments...

No posts