American Fascists

I managed to catch the last few minutes of an interview on CBC yesterday with war correspondent/author Chris Hedges. He was flogging his latest book, American Fascists.

The gist of this book, as I understand it, is that fascism has become a powerful force in today's America. At its core Hedges sees the Christian right, the fundamentalists.

He argues that the Christian fundamentalists have preyed on America's dispossessed in areas hardest hit by globalization, people who once had well-paid manufacturing jobs and now can't find work, people living in the "have not" regions that have spread throughout the United States. Hedges mentioned that there are areas of his country that now resemble the Third World more than the vision of America. It is these people, he claims, who are most vulnerable to the Christian fundamentalist message. They embrace the Christian right's message of intolerance and resentment (a polite word for "hatred") toward specified groups such as gays, the pro-choice movement, Muslims and liberals.

Hedges is clearly concerned at the very real, very powerful political influence gained this way by the Christian right. He fears it continues to expand its power base and it seems he's right.

If you need proof of this just take a look at John McCain's transformation, his embrace of the Christian fundamentalists. In 2000 he called them "evil" and "intolerant" but now he appears as keynote speaker at Jerry Falwell's school and he mouths all the right words, the message the converted expect to hear. McCain realizes that no Republican can win the party's nomination without the support of the Christian right. It's obvious that he's holding his nose but he is definitely talking the talk.

Harper and a lot of the Reform conservatives cleave to this same movement. Canada is not the US and the fundamentalists are less powerful, less influential here so, while our democracy isn't as vulnerable, we do have to realize that the movement here is just as voracious as its big brother in America.

Here are a couple of passages from "War is a force that gives us meaning." I heartily recommend it:

We were humbled in Vietnam, purged, for a while, of a dangerous hubris, offered in our understanding and reflection about the war, a moment of grace. We became a better country.

We often become as deaf and dumb as those we condemn. We too have our terrorists. The Contras in Nicaragua carried out, with funding from Washington, some of the most egregious human rights violations in Central America, yet were hailed as "freedom fighters." Jonas Savimbi, the rebel leader the United States back in Angola's civil war, murdered and tortured with a barbarity that outstripped the Taliban. ...President Ronald Reagan called Savimbi the Abraham Lincoln of Angola although he littered the country with land mines, once bombed a Red Cross-run factory making artificial limbs for the victims of those mines, and pummeled a rival's wife and children to death.

The moral certitude of the state in wartime is a kind of fundamentalism. And this dangerous messianic brand of religion, one where self-doubt is minimal, has come increasingly to color the modern world of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, used to tell us that we would end our careers fighting an ascendant fundamentalist movement, or, as he liked to say, "the Christian fascists."

If you haven't read Hedge's "War" and if the fundamentalist threat interests you or if you're just interested in how war engages modern society, see if you can get your hands on a copy. Once I've digested "American Fascists" I'll do another post.