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EVIDENCE O F THINGS UNSEEN:
RISE OF A NEW MOVEMENT
But globalization was emerging long before the 1990s,
before NAFTA and the WTO, the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund. The settling of America itself was an act of
colonization and “development.” Then came Manifest Destiny,
the defeat of the Indian tribes, the annexation of the western
lands, the war with Mexico and Spain, the seizure of Hawaii
And the Philippines.
For indigenous people the Conquest is not over. Most
of our foreign aid programs and social policies are only efforts
to reform the Conquest, not end its invisible structure of power
relations.
For Muslims, the Crusades are not over. We should
ask if the Crusades are over for President Bush. There was
the alleged slip of the tongue when he described the war on
terrorism as a crusade. There was his Inaugural, blessed by
Rev. Franklin Graham who denounced Muslims and proudly
presided over the quadrupling of missionaries in Iraq since the
first Gulf War; and there is another Christian crusader at the
pinnacle of the Pentagon, General William Boykin.
To globalize and militarize are the two strategies of the
U.S. will to empire, driving our movements toward a unified
opposition.
The National Security Strategy of September 2002,
which announced the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, also
included the free market, free trade and the FTAA as principles
the Pentagon is bound to advance and protect. So our official
national security policy is about more than terrorism, nuclear
proliferation or legitimate security threats; it is about defending
what the document proclaims is a “single sustainable model for
national success.”
STEVE JONIK
BY TOM HAYDEN
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard
Myers, has said that “Intelligence doesn't necessarily mean
something is true. That's not what intelligence is." Keep that in
mind as I discuss what James Baldwin called the “evidence of
things unseen.”
A few weeks ago in Cancún I watched at the barricades
as a South Korean farmer appeared to shake his fist in militant
anger at the dispossession of his people. I did not know that
he was committing ritual suicide with a knife. As far as I know,
neither did anyone else.Hours later, the World Trade Associa
tion issued a press release stating its “regret" at what it called
the “self-inflicted” wound that resulted in the farm leader's’
death. I began to wonder how many other deaths we see but
do not see. Farmers in India poisoning themselves with pesti
cides. Farmers in America quietly committing suicide. A rise in
suicides among American soldiers in Iraq.
These unseen deaths should be seen as signs of the
times. They are birth pangs as well. For example, in the past
weeks some 80 Bolivians have given their lives — hardly the
first time in their 500 year-long struggle — but these cocoleros,
these sweatshop workers, these indios, have overthrown the
government over globalization issues and sent their mine own
ing, American trained president packing.
The evidence of things unseen. There is a rising move
ment in the world. It is bigger than the movement of the 1960s.
Yet it is barely seen by the experts and analysts. They look only
at the behavior of institutions and politicians, not the underlying
forces that eventually burst into visibility.
The first strand of this new movement is the global
opposition to the war in Iraq and an American empire. One
year ago, when over 100,000 demonstrators hit the streets
in Washington, D C., The New York Times reported that
surprisingly few attended the antiwar march, perhaps out of
the fear of the D C. sniper. National Public Radio repeated
the story. How could they not see the 100,000? Apparently
because such protests were not supposed to happen anymore.
Both the Times and NPR were forced to apologize a few days
later and report the huge turnout. Then, in another correction,
the Times announced in February that there was a “second
superpower” in the world in addition to the White House,
which was world public opinion. By then 10 million people
were demonstrating globally; two million in Rome, one million
in London, 200,000 in Montreal in 20-degrees-below weather
— even a brave few in McMurdo Station in Antarctica
The second strand is the global justice movement,
which began with the Zapatistas on the day the North American
Free Trade Act took effect, then surfaced in Seattle in 1999
(the WTO protests of November that year). Those were called
isolated events. Then came Genoa, Quebec City, Quito,
Cancún, the world forums in Porto Allegre. Far from isolated
events, these were the historic battle-grounds of a new history
being born.
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Together these movements mount a challenge to
an entire worldview. We are experiencing an enlargement of
dignity, an enlargement of what we consider sacred and there
fore off the table, not negotiable. The purported Masters of the
Universe are becoming as obsolete as those who once claimed
the divine right of kings. The earth and its people are not for
sale; the environment is not just a storehouse of materials for
utilitarian exploitation; and cultural identities can’t be replaced
as if they were commodities, whether the treasures of Babylon
or the rainforests of the Amazon. This movement is saying that
diversity will not be looted.
Why is this happening? No one really knows. Move
ments arise in mystery at the margins, eventually change
the mainstream, are repressed or co-opted, and return to the
oblivion we call official history.
One explanation is that globalization of U S. military
and economic power is globalizing the opposition. It is a
dialectic and, as it swirls and intensifies it can even bring
down George Bush.
This new globalization arises, some say, in response
to a power vacuum after the Cold War which the U.S. filled.
But contrary to the end-of-history theorists, the failure and fall
of communism did not mean the dialectic was dead and that
the wretched of the earth would quietly go away.
Or as Thomas Friedman, globalization’s leading
defender, puts it: “The hidden hand of the market will never
work with a hidden fist. McDonalds cannot flourish without
McDonnell-Douglas."
Take the example of Iraq today, the complete stripping
and privatization of the public sector (with only oil exempted
so far). L. Paul Bremer, the man who dresses in pinstripe suits
and combat boots and represents Henry Kissinger’s invisible
corporate clients, is very clear that his mission is to replace
sovereign Iraqi control of its economy with a free-market model
controlled by absentee foreign owners primarily from the U.S.
Helping ourselves to the spoils of war is part of our national
security strategy.
While there is growing opposition in this country to the
American death toll and budgetary costs of the Iraqi quagmire, *
there is virtually no debate about our assault on the Iraqi public
sector by the writ of Bremer. Only a deeper joining of the global
justice movement with the peace movement can begin to
expose and protest these policies.
Of course these are not new developments. Halliburton
is connected to Kellogg, Brown & Root, the Texas corporation
that funded Lyndon Johnson’s rise to power.lt also built airstrips
in Vietnam, which became the corrugated metal fences at the
U.S.-Mexico border, and is today reincarnated as a virtual Dick
Cheney subsidiary on the battlefields of Iraq.
Similarily, the author of the so-called “clash of civiliza
tions” thesis, Samuel Huntington, is the same policy advisor
who invented the doctrine of “forced urbanization" for South
Vietnam, deliberately turning a 90% peasant culture into an
urban “Honda culture” in a decade.
What is new is the audacity of the drive for an Ameri-
THE CHARACTER OF FASCISM
BY DR. LAWRENCE BRITT
In studying the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany),
Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and
Pinochet (Chile), the regimes are found to share 14 identifying
characteristics of fascism.
1 Powerful and continuing nationalism: Fascist regimes
tend to make constant use of patriotic symbols, mottos, slogans,
symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen every
where, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2 Disdain for the recognition of human rights: Because
of the fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in
fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored
in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the
other way or even approve of torture, summary executions,
assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying
cause: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over
the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial,
ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists;
terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the military: Even when there are wide
spread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportion
ate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is
neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant sexism: The governments of fascist nations
tend to be almost exclusively male dominated Under fascist
regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid.Opposition
to abortion is high; homophobia and anti-gay legislation are
enacted as national policy.
6. Controlled mass media: Sometimes the media is
directly controlled by the government But in other cases the
media is indirectly controlled by government regulation or by
sympathetic media spokespeople and executives Censorship,
especially in wartime, is very common.
7. Obsession with national security: Fear is used as
a motivational tool by the government National security is
invoked for purposes of censorship, secrecy and curtailing
civil rights and liberties
8 Religion and government are intertwined: Govern
ments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion
in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious
rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders,
even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically
opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
9. Corporate power is protected: The industrial and
business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who
put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually
beneficial business-government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor power is suppressed: Because the organizing
power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government,
labor unions are either eliminated entirely or are severely
suppressed.
11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts: Fascist nations
tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education
and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other
academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression
in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to
fund the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment: Under fascist
regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce
laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuse, and
even to forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is
often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in
fascist nations.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption: Fascist regimes
almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates
who appoint each other to government positions and exercise
governmental power and authority to protect their friends from
accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national
resources and treasures to be appropriated or stolen by govern
ment leaders.
14. Fraudulent elections: Sometimes elections in fascist
nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipu
lated by smear campaigns against, or even assassination of
opposition candidates, by use of legislation to control voting
numbers or political district boundaries, and by manipulation of
the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to
manipulate or control elections.
This article is reprinted from the Spring 2003 issue of
Free Inquiry