"For Whom The Bell Tolls", a novel by Ernest Hemingway, tells the story of an American professor of Spanish who joins the International Brigades as an explosives specialist against the forces of fascism. I have no intention of turning this into a term paper on Hemingway's work, but rather to draw a parallel between 1937 Spain and what's happening here in our own country in 2007; that we are living in dangerous times and that a wave of fascism is bearing down on us, if it has not already crashed ashore.
What troubles me more about the political climate is not that fascism is now alive in the U.S., but that the response from those we elected to defend us against this tide has been both ineffectual and tepid. While David Horowitz proclaims this week Islamofascist Awareness Week from his far-right pulpit of duplicitous hypocrisy, from press releases fresh off the Hillary and Obama spin machines, we learn how much they have in their campaign war chest. Like the insurgents in Hemingway's book, the fascists are fighting an organized well-funded war, while the rebels are arguing the intellectual merits of communism. Like those rebels, we have divided ourselves into our own petty issues. All that's left is the conquer, and it's happening as we speak.
Evidence? There's plenty for you to consider. I would start with the murder of Chauncey Bailey, which I wrote briefly about in a previous post here, who was killed by a Muslim thug for writing about Your Black Muslim Bakery -- a now-defunct organization based in Oakland, CA. that was once hailed as a model of black empowerment. Tell me. What kind of thuggery is this?
The evidence continues to mount, and grows closer to home. Witness the increasingly brazen thuggery that sprouted in my neck of the woods. In the last month alone here in the New York area, there have been several well-known noose placings. You may already know about the ones that made national headlines -- the one left on the office door of the Columbia University professor and the other on the locker of the Village of Hempstead (NY) police chief's locker. There have been several more noose droppings in my area since those incidents, the latest being yesterday when the Principal of Canarsie High School in Brooklyn received a two page hate letter in which a noose made of string was enclosed. You can read about it here. Copycats of the Jena, La. stupidity? I don't think so.
And, what do we get in response? We get podium outrage from high-profile individuals who trot themselves out before the camera to speak for a community, calling for more ineffectual laws and leading prayer circles to a non-existent God in the hopes things will get better. I can only imagine the laughter of the neo-con pundits who encourage this behavior from their less learned brethren because they know that all the laws and praying in the world won't do any fucking good if the net effect is to create more division and distrust between liberal blacks and whites. Like I said, all that's left is the conquer.
It gets much closer to home than this though. Recently, the author of Politits relayed in a recent post an ugly incident that happened to her on a business trip to San Antonio. DCup has many friends in the blogsphere and I am proud to consider myself one of them. So, when I learned of this news through her site I was too pissed for words. I applaud DCup for her decorum and good sense in the way she handled this ever-evolving situation. But there are several women in my life, including my dear sister and mother, who would have used some form of the incredulous expression "Oh no you di'int" and beaten this woman to a bloody pulp. Where I come from, there are just some lines you do not cross, without asking for a fight.
The final straw for me was this e-mail that I got the other day from someone, who I am ashamed to say, with whom I share the Village of Lindenhurst. I came through the Village softball league's e-mail address, the text of which I tried to preserve below. This is exactly the misguided and uninformed sentiment that feeds this monster called fascism.
Let's spread this one around the United States two or three times!!!!!!
AMEN TO THIS ONE!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm proud to send this one
I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD , INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!
I was asked to send this on if I agree or delete if I don't. It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a problem in having "In God! We Trust" on our money and having "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the 14% to Shut Up and BE QUIET!!!
If you agree, pass this on, if not delete.... I AGREE !!!!
Now tell me, do you really want your lives and livelihoods to be controlled and coerced by the goons and morons who claim to be 86% of the populace? I know that some may need invoke an all-powerful god to make sense of their lives but I don't. And while I have serious doubts and offer no respect for their delusional faith in such a being, nonetheless, I do recognize their "right" to worship and not have my lack of faith imposed on them. This is a constitutionally protected freedom. Don't believe me? See for yourself.
U.S. Constitution
This document is loaded with many more self-governing rights and freedoms, which for some not-so-mystifying reason, we are now choosing to NOT defend. Instead, we are being mired with issues like racism and abortion, and the ethics of stem cell research, which while they may be important in their own right, are being used to divide us and prevent us from defending the current "fascist" assault on what should be our most sacred, secular text.
Robert G. Ingersoll once said:
They knew that to put God in the Constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Diety would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone. They wished to preserve the individuality of all; to prevent the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.
I can only imagine what the Great Agnostic would say now...
What kind of thuggery is this?
