Dedicated follower of fascism

Alan Ramsey wondered aloud (or aprint) if the following story brought anyone to mind in his opinion piece this weekend:

"Which brings us, in this week of political anniversaries, night-time police raids, ramped up fearmongering, and lousy opinion polls, to an extraordinary speech exactly a year ago. The man who made the speech was a minister of religion, Dr Davidson Loehr , an American pastor with the First Unitarian Church in Austin, Texas, wee George's home state. It created a huge stir on the internet but never, it seems, was taken up by the mainstream US media. Nor here, of course.

Know two things. One, Loehr, a combat photographer during the Vietnam War, gave the speech as his weekly sermon on the Sunday (November 7) immediately after Bush's re-election last year. And two, Loehr's local newspaper, The Austin Chronicle, last month named him the city's "best minister/spiritual leader" in its yearly round-up of the "best of Austin" and now refers to him as "the Austin faith community's best-kept secret" .

Loehr titled his sermon "Living Under Fascism". It said, in part: "You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word 'fascism' in a serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to old war movies. But I am serious. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying …

"When most people hear the word fascism, they may think of the racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler. Force and scapegoating fringe groups are part of every fascism. There was also an economic dimension of fascism known in Europe as corporatism, an essential ingredient of Mussolini's and Hitler's tyrannies during the 1930s [and] held up as a model by intellectuals and policymakers in the US and Europe. Fortune magazine ran a cover story on Mussolini in 1934, praising his fascism for its ability to break worker unions, disempower workers and transfer huge sums of money to those who controlled the money rather than those who earned it …

"I want to look back to the last time fascism posed a serious threat to America. In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here , a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. The politician, Buzz Windrip, runs his campaign on family values, the flag and patriotism. Windrip and his talk-show host portray advocates of individual rights and freedoms as anti-American. That was 69 years ago …

"In a [January, 2004] essay - coyly titled 'Fascism Anyone?' - Dr Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, identifies social and political agendas common to the facist regimes [of] Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Soeharto and Pinochet. His comparisons yielded 14 'identifying characteristics'.

"[These included] constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs. Flags are seen everywhere. Disdain for human rights: because of fear of enemies and the need for national security, people are persuaded human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of 'need'. People tend to look the other way or even approve. Identification of enemies and scapegoats: 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 and terrorists.

"Supremacy of the military [which receives] a disproportionate amount of government funding. Obsession with national security: Fear is used as a motivational tool. Corporate power is protected, labour power is suppressed. Unions are either eliminated or severely suppressed, the industrial and business aristocracy are often the ones who put the government leaders into power. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts … "

In John Howard's Australia, who does this list remind you of?"