During July 2023, millions celebrate Independence Day, honoring the American Revolution that broke this country out of the British Empire. Openly social fascist forces across the nation will manipulate its symbolism to dig deeper into sections of the population which are dissatisfied with the growing problems surrounding their lives and communities, yet which lack a vision of the path toward solutions. The national flag, the so-called Founding Fathers and the American Revolution itself will be used by social fascists to promote their ideas and build forces for the dangerous conflicts they can be relied on to promote.
Today’s fascists operate on two fronts. One of them involves violent and illegal actions promoting white supremacy, or hetero-patriarchy, while supporting police and military forces. This can be summed up as social fascism. The other front involves using legal means to promote privatization of public services and resources and budget cuts that push federal and local governments to become indebted to the biggest banks and financial corporations. This agenda can be summed up as economic fascism.
The social fascists have not won over everyone, nor will they. Millions of people in 2020 were part of the George Floyd Rebellion to stop police killings, especially of African Americans. Some also helped resist attacks on the rights of LGBTQ+ folks, women, immigrants and other targeted sections of society. Others stood up in defiance out of awareness of the suffering that resulted when fascists took power in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.
However, unlike the forces leading the social fascist agenda, the economic fascist ranks include forces within both major parties, of all colors and ethnicities. They don’t all openly espouse social fascism’s hatreds, so most Americans don’t see them as fascists at all. Nor do many people see that the term “fascists” describes the military leaders who send Americans to die in wars fought in defense of the oil companies and the openly fascist dictators who serve them. That term usually only refers to the type of social fascism that grew during the Depression, led by today’s Nazis, Proud Boys and Ku Klux Klan.
So, the commonly held vision of fascist cops is that of white racist killers with a badge, more than of Black killers such as those members of the Memphis police department’s SCORPION Unit who murdered Tyre Nichols. Few people use “fascist” to describe politicians of all colors who hand public monies to corporations for surveillance technology and weapons deployed against the populace. Nor do some see lurking fascism when a public forest in Atlanta is turned into an urban warfare training facility now known as Cop City.
In fact, the Atlanta Police Foundation helps fund Cop City through a board that includes executives from giant corporations like The Home Depot, Delta Air Lines, Georgia-Pacific, Equifax®, Wells Fargo & Company and UPS®. It is just one example of the growing menace of economic fascism and it also reveals how social fascists serve the economic fascist agenda when they unleash illegal violence against activists protesting killer cops, or toxic oil pipelines.
How can both fronts of social and economic fascism be defeated? The answer is already before us in the streets. Thousands upon thousands have fought in battles like those that forced the prosecution of killer cops, won the freedom of caged undocumented children and forced local governments to provide services to the homeless. The core of each of these struggles is the sector of Americans which is losing any stable connection to the capitalist economy and which composes a new social class of the dispossessed. Expanding their unity, while developing their consciousness of themselves as a class, will produce the potential for revolutionary social change.
Published on July 6, 2023
This article originated in Rally!
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