Commenting on how the German working class movement could have stopped his debased regime from gaining power, Hitler once exclaimed, “Only one thing could have stopped our movement - if our adversaries had understood its principle and from the first day smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement.” Today, as capitalism breaks apart, the working class is left with the historical task of organizing itself as a force. Not only against capitalism, but against a radical right-wing that will also attempt to constitute itself as an alternative to the current state of affairs.
We spend a lot of time talking about how the Left tries to control, manipulate, and contain working-class resistance and social struggles. While this of course is true, in the last few years the Right has been gaining power in massive numbers. Recently, the 'Tea-Party' has shown itself to be a major player in American politics, and presented itself as a 'grassroots' movement against big government. They've managed to promote an attack on social services and programs (budget cuts) as well as attacks on gays and immigrant workers. However, the Tea-Party is backed by multi-million dollar companies and controlled by major politicians and pundits. They support the same-old no-holds barred capitalism and authoritarian 'Christian' values that we've become so used to over the last decade under Bush. The following article is taken from Modesto Anarcho #16.
by CEN
Commenting on how the German working class movement could have stopped his debased regime from gaining power, Hitler once exclaimed, “Only one thing could have stopped our movement - if our adversaries had understood its principle and from the first day smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement.” Today, as capitalism breaks apart, the working class is left with the historical task of organizing itself as a force. Not only against capitalism, but against a radical right-wing that will also attempt to constitute itself as an alternative to the current state of affairs.
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| A storm is coming... |
Today a new movement in the U.S., commonly known as the “Tea Party,” is finding its place in the back rooms of community centers, in the pews during Sunday church service, and the offices of corporate elites and business owners. And, it is time for its adversaries to respond in kind. Fascist movements, however skewed and modernized, are alive and well in present times. It is foolhardy not to take note of their mobilizing, however juvenile it may look to people aware of the issues. The Tea Party Movement is a neo-fascist movement.
The Tea Party movement has metamorphosed into more than an anti-stimulus campaign; it’s more than a couple of protests demanding no taxes. It is taking over through culture and technology and it won’t be stopped until all the gains made by the working class have been beaten back into the dustbin of history.
There are several qualities which constitute a fascist movement. They include:
• Fear, a xenophobic hatred of “the other,” and/or foreigners
• Hatred of multiculturalism
• Base of support from the middle class, yet also taking from the disillusioned working class
• Adoption of populism
• Use of left-wing slogans and rhetoric for hard-right policies
• Belief that both free-market capitalism and socialism are bad
• Belief in a supreme leader whose word is truth
• Mythology of “better times,” and how the present time should emulate the righteous past
• Merging of state and corporate power
• Extreme patriotism and nationalism
Past fascist regimes, as well as current parties throughout Europe have varied traditions and histories, but for the most part, prevailed due to a certain set of persistent conditions including: industrially-advanced economies hard hit by the recession, a discredited Left alternative, dissatis13action with an inefficient or corrupt parliamentary system, an end of consensus politics, racism provoked by “job stealing” immigrants, a respectable Right, and nostalgia for a strong state. (Source: Fascism by Stuart Hood)
What has set the Tea Party apart from just your average run-of-the-mill patriarchal, right-wing, racist political party made up of mostly bourgeois exploiters, is that the Tea Party is transformable. It includes an infinite turn-style of participants, where groups are created, formed, and then disbanded within a few months, only to crop up in the next town over whenever a scratch against undocumented workers, social programs, or gay marriage needs to be itched.
However, many people involved in the Tea Party are blatant megalomaniacs, unapologetic for their extremist views. For example: Tom Tancredo, an anti-immigration former representative and speaker at the Tea Party National Convention talking about the “cult of multiculturalism,” and how Obama is a socialist. While equating the current president with socialism has become common place, Tancredo has become one of the most outspoken critics of the administration, stating Obama was elected by “people who could not even spell the word ’vote’ or say it in English” and that Obama is “...the greatest threat to the United States today, the greatest threat to our liberty, the greatest threat to the Constitution of the United States, the greatest threat to our way of life; everything we believe in. The greatest threat to the country that our founding fathers put together is the man that’s sitting in the White House today.” He has publicly called for impeachment charges against Obama in an editorial for The Washington Times. He is the honorary chairman of the Youth for Western Civilization, a nonprofit far-Right group against multiculturalism that has ties to white supremacist organizations.
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The enemy of my enemy is not
my friend. |
But beyond keeping ill company, Tea Partiers are some of the biggest liars and corporate whores around. While claiming to be grassroots, in fact the movement is heavily funded by Koch Industries, one of the world’s biggest energy corporations. This multi-billion dollar company has been working with Republican politicians and far-right activists for the last half century. It is a never-ending supply of corporate-money to throw into the machine of democratic government. Once candidates backed by Koch are in power there will be military, weapons, technology, and manufacturing contracts for the corporation’s loyalty. Its credentials and those of its founders and many of its well-known followers are widely documented by the AFL-CIO in the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, and other publications.
Yet most of its “regular folk” followers turn a blind eye to the fuel that created the fire, because acknowledging Koch Industries and other corporations’ cooperation would discredit its stance as being born out of a grassroots anger for the current state of American politics. No one wants to side with corporations, and most Tea Party followers like any wily bitch, will bite the hand that feeds them.
The Tea Party also twists its own projected image of the working class to bolster its stance as an “everyman’s party.” It places “the worker” as an idealized, independent, courageous individual with an explorer’s mentality and family values at its core. It makes the lowly, God-fearing farmer, circa 1785 with his shotgun, wife and seven children its hero. The Tea Party movement encourages stratification between the “hard working, countryside” population, and the “decadent, urban” population, believing the latter will eventually kill itself through its deviant lifestyle.
The Tea Party gathers most of its support from middle America and rural areas, where supporters see the movement as representing “real America,” and those who do not believe are not patriotic or in line with the causes of “freedom,” and “justice.” The movement reaches out to a specific group of people, mostly lower-middle-class working folks who feel disenfranchised, but excludes workers such as undocumented laborers, intellectuals, and anyone who belongs to a minority category not in line with Tea Party values.
The Tea Party is a collection of groups whose membership is made up of anywhere from a few people to a thousand. What keeps these groups weak is that the connections that exist between them are often vague and disorganized. The biggest of these remain at the top, out of focus, funneling money no doubt, but without a direct battle plan.
Extremists such as Tea Partier Rand Paul (R-Ky.) oppose abortion even in cases of incest and rape. It’s going to be an uphill battle to include birth control as preventive care that should be covered under the new health-care bill. And it doesn’t end within the government’s arbitrary borders. According to Jodi Jacobsen, Editor-in-Chief of the Reproductive Health Reality Check website, “We will see almost immediately a range of efforts to focus on restricting reproductive and sexual health and rights. They will try to pass a law codifying a global gag rule, try to reinforce and strengthen abstinence-only until marriage funding in U.S. global AIDS funding.”
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| Destroy the Right. |
A cornerstone of a fascist regime is herding women into traditional roles, as wife and mother, rearing large families and being homemakers, with no voice for family planning and no chance for sexual freedom. After the election The Tea Party movement has been put on the back burner in most traditional media outlets, but it’s still there, slowly simmering, much like its European counterparts, gathering its base of supporters, fine-tuning its dogma, and waiting.
In April of last year, Noam Chomsky was giving a speech on both major U.S. political parties kneeling to the demands of corporations, but digressed to make a fearful prediction about the Tea Party movement. He stated, “’I’m just old enough to have heard a number of Hitler’s speeches on the radio, and I have a memory of the texture and the tone of the cheering mobs, and I have the dread sense of the dark clouds of fascism gathering.”
What to do about Tea baggers in your community:
Tea baggers love to set up shop at community and traditionally “patriotic” events such as regional and county fairs, parades, and local farmers markets. Shut them down, counter-demonstrate, and do not allow them to operate in public.
Many tea baggers make a point of writing daily to their local newspaper just to spew their misguided views on society, many of which get published in the opinion pages; most go unanswered. But go one step further: Create your own media to combat what the tea baggers are saying in your community. Put posters, stickers, and signage in high traffic areas.
Act in solidarity when tea baggers attack the homeless, undocumented workers, or women’s services and abortion clinics. Cross the barriers placed upon the various sections of the exploited by capitalism and build counter-power.
Fight The Tea Party!
