Note: Looking back from July of 2021 at this little essay -written by yours truly four and a half years ago, I find myself thinking to my younger self, "Oh brother, you didn't know the half of it!" -My nervous missive below was written before ANTIFA and BLM started burning down Main Streets throughout the United States, looting businesses, beating and killing people in the street, before elections were brazenly stolen, before the vaccine police began going door to door...
And all of this madness can be laid at the feet of those who allowed themselves to fall for the bait and switch! -Those who thought they were the good guys, with the good politics, suddenly finding themselves on Team Evil. -And many not even realizing or admitting it yet to themselves...
The upside of it all, however, is that the World is One Big School and all of these experiences are grand lessons, teaching millions of souls the difference between right and wrong, between wise and foolish. -And boy oh boy, are we ever diving into our studies! We are enthusiastic students, the sort which teachers hope to have in their class rooms. In this way, I'd say God would be proud.
-Mark Oakley, Greenwich, Nova Scotia, July 14, 2021
The New Fascism
Sunday
January 1st, 2017
I have a sneaking suspicion that the New Fascism will be coming from the Left this time around.
Nobody seems to see it coming and who can blame them? It's unexpected. It's in a brand new form.
Well.., I see it coming, but who am I? Just a guy who may look forward to being hauled in front of some star chamber for not going along with the popular chorus.
Don't laugh. It happened to thousands of nobodies during the McCarthy reign. People don't seem to realize how close we all are again.
If you don't happen to believe the hysterical claims about Russian interference in the U.S. election. (I sure don't. Still no evidence is forthcoming. If there was something to it, you *know* I'd be all over it; I don't have any loyalties other than to the Human Race. But I looked, without my bias glasses, and there ain't nothin' there, folks. Just a bunch of hearsay and self-important people agreeing with themselves, but providing no actual evidence of any kind. -At least Colin Powell had a little vial of white powder to shake in front of the UN when he was peddling the pretend Iraqi WMD threat. I tell ya, standards have slipped at the Ministry of Make-Believe!)
I'm currently reading a biographical work by Carl Bernstein. -You may remember the name; he was one of the two reporters who broke the Watergate story. Dustin Hoffman played him in "All the President's Men". He's a top notch writer and very smart man with all his morals tightly in place. Very pro-human.
Anyway, he grew up during the communist witch hunt period. His father was deeply involved in the union movement in the 30's and 40's, and when the anti-communism thing got rolling, his life, along with thousands of others, was put under enormous pressure. Years of surveillance and hounding by the FBI, questioning in front of courts where he was not allowed a defense lawyer.
The amazing part is that, according to Carl's interviews long after the fact, the political establishment knew, they knew there was no real communist threat to the American government.
That needs to sink in.
Even during the cold war, the idea that there was a plague of Russian spies infiltrating the U.S. government was considered nonsense by the actual powers. It was a useful fiction, one that the public could grasp and be inflamed by so that insane laws could be passed.
See.., at the time, unions were becoming strong. Civil rights were a problem. Blacks allowed to sit in restaurants? Equal pay for equal work? That shit had to be put down!
The way it was done was under the guise of catching communists.
Anybody involved in union activity was painted with the commie brush and their lives destroyed, regardless of any affiliation or not with the communist party. (Usually not.)
It was a coup. What a great way for industry to win! And win they did.
And guess what?
We're seeing the same thing happening again today.
Back during Truman's presidency, public sentiment was easily whipped up using simple, but emotionally direct stories about the communist threat. -And it got to be so that in order to maintain his presidency, Truman had to capitulate to the public demand that "Something Be Done!"
Executive Order #9835, the so-called "Loyalty Order" was passed. -A piece of law designed to purge the government of supposed communists. It allowed any of the million+ employees of the government to be accused, -anonymously- of being Un-American. You couldn't face your accuser. You didn't even get a lawyer.
This was dark, dark stuff. It was indeed, fascist.
Even if not convicted, the accusation alone destroyed lives. Thousands of them. This was followed closely by the McCarthy trials which went after not just government employees, but anybody. (Go watch "Trumbo" to get some idea of what it was like in Hollywood).
And guess what?
It's happening again. The same ingredients (and similar) are being pulled off the shelves. It's really creepy to see my liberal friends, -who are for the most part genuinely smart and caring people, posting such dangerous anti-human stuff like it's some sort of game.
Reading through Bernstein's book provides more than enough grist to see the parallels between then and now. The atmosphere is smelling the same.
Item:
"Fake News" has led to the passing, like days ago, of a law with eerily vague definitions designed to "Fight Propaganda".
Shoot, guys! This is happening under our noses. It is conceivable that *this* very post could cross some make-believe line and get me in trouble.
Here's the quick of it:
Hillary lost and Trump won and he is scary.
That's reality.
But clinging to fairy tales about the Russian boogeyman dispensing fake news, (most of which comes from garden variety trolls, click-harvesters as well as actual news agencies with political biases. A recent example here).
-Well, clinging to such fairy tales because they support the claims Hillary was making, isn't the smart or right way to go about dealing with reality.
If fascism comes to the West again in such an overt manner as we have seen, if thousands of people are accused and investigated, their lives destroyed, (think "punitive tax audit" but where you could wind up tried for treason), it will be thanks to those who allowed themselves to be duped. Again.
Some of you are people I've known for a long time. People I care about, who in an effort to help are being re-routed into the exact thing they want to defend against. Why? Because the CIA (and similar groups) are smarter and better trained than they are. Because my friends have real lives and actual things to do with their time; they haven't devoted all of their energies and resources to learning how to Mess With People's Heads. They are sitting ducks.
And the irony will be that when the darkness comes, it will be courtesy not of Trump or his minions, but the people frightened of the very beast they most want to avoid.
Don't be a part of the problem.
(BTW, "Shaming" people into obeying a set of dictates or beliefs, is fundamentally a fascist act. Food for thought.)
-Mark Oakley
Wolfville, Nova Scotia,
Jan 1st, 2017
