As ever, a liberal writer is so cowed by the fascisitc impulses of the modern GOP's media mavens that he feels compelled to utter the apologia that "America has never been close to being a fascist country."
Really, Timothy? Have we ever before in our history seen the complete dominance of various mass media by the propagandists of one party, coupled with a Supreme Court majority that barely engages in the pretense of argument and consideration, all the while asking, sub rosa, one jurisprudential question: will our decision advnace Republican political power?
Turn on AM radio any time of the day or night and listen to the biggest stations for a while. After about 10 minutes, tell me if you remember that radio broadcasters are licensees, not owners, of the AM bandwidth they occupy. After 15, tell me if you remember that in order to get a license, you're supposed to enter a covenant to serve the public "interest, convenience and necessity." Believe it or not, Tim, there was a time when AM radio wasn't the officially sanctioned smear/ attack/fundraising arm of the GOP.
The instances of fascism practiced by the Republicans when they controlled Congress are legion. Democrats hounded out of caucus rooms, denied the right to speak against legislation, funding for organizations viwed as unsympathetic to business slashed or cut off altogether. They didn't even try to obscure it; after all, their spiritual leader was Tom "The Hammer" DeLay. Both in his campaigns, which in 2000 featured hundreds of strategist-led shock troops literally shaking the building in Miami where recounts were taking place, and of course, in his presidency, George W. Bush's hallmark has been, and legacy will be, using government to crush dissent.
But the GOP's perfervid tango with fascism didn't start with Bush. Perhaps, Timothy, you remember Proposition 187 (1994) in California. I certainly do. The anti-immigrant rallies always lustily attended by uniformed law enforcement. The scurrilous attacks against teachers, school administrators, and civil rights lawyers that dared to challenge them in court. For doing that, and for openly attending their beer hall putsches to oppose them, I was beaten up, threatened, defamed and harassed at work by the "true patriots" that supported it. At least, unlike the federal judges that decided the legal challenges to it, I never received hand scrawled death threats at my house. Something else I remember about those days: not a single Republican -- and I mean not one -- ever asked that the stormtroopers take a step back, let alone respect the rule of law.
Maybe in the rarified world of journalism and criticism in which Jonah Goldberg has thrown some pretty good parties, none dare call it fascism. Down here, we knows it when we sees it. And feels it. And it's the GOP's stock in trade.
