I protest.

Fascism, Bush and the Republican Party.

Welcome to the new age of fascism. It has become crystal clear to me lately that Bush and the Republican Party have become the latest set of fascists. I don't think that they necessarily set out deliberately upon that path, but they have certainly adopted the tactics, as well as much of the rhetoric, of the fascists of history.

Three incidents in two days. It started with Rayne's encounter with a Bush rally in Saginaw on Friday and has continued today with an incident that Billmon relates in The Face of American Fascism. These incidents are just moments away from outright violence. I don't believe that the Bush machine actually intends that there be violence, they are just using whatever tactic, whatever emotional appeal they think will work to move their followers. That expressions of hatred just short of violence results is, to them, just coincidence. As is now well established, they have no consideration for the consequences of their actions, and there quite certainly will eventually be violence.

That's not the worst of it, though. The worst, the most incredibly blatant fascist tactic so far, is that which Steve Gilliard describes in Heil Bush. Steve quotes from a Slate article, One Nation Under Bush:

"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."

"Arms aloft." This brings to mind another loyalty oath, used in another place at another time but for much the same purpose:

Your oath is not a mere formality; you do not swear this oath to someone unknown to you. You do not swear in hope, but with certainty. Fate has made it easy for you to take this oath without condition or reservation. Never in history has a people taken an oath to a leader with such absolute confidence as the        people have in              You have the enormous joy of taking an oath to a man who is the embodiment of a leader. You take an oath to the fighter who demonstrated his leadership over a decade, who always acts correctly and who always chose the right way, even when at times the larger part of his movement failed to understand why,

You take an oath to a man whom you know follows the laws of providence, which he obeys independently of the influence of earthly powers, who leads the        people rightly, and who will guide        's fate. Through your oath you bind yourselves to a man who — that is our faith — was sent to us by higher powers.

With the names blanked out the words sound awfully familiar, don't they? They were spoken by Rudolf Hess on February 25, 1934.

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

While the rest of us are dragged along with them.