PHOTO/MOLLY ADAMS
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has correctly described migrant detention facilities as “concentration camps.” On July 1, she and 13 other Democratic members of Congress toured some detention facilities in the El Paso area. Ocasio-Cortez said the conditions in some facilities were “horrifying,” and that some Border Patrol agents at the facilities openly mocked and disrespected the visiting members of Congress. Just before their visit, it came out that some members of a secret Facebook group of some 9,500 Border Patrol officers have posted online threats of violence and rape against Ocasio-Cortez and other members of Congress. All of this speaks to the existence of a fascist culture in the Border Patrol, and we can be sure it exists in other police agencies, and elsewhere in government as well.
Journalist Fintan O’Toole, writing in the Irish Times last year, called the Trump administration’s assault on immigrant children a “trial run for fascism.” He said that part of the process of replacing democracy with fascism is undermining moral boundaries to get people to accept “acts of extreme cruelty.”
Fascism is open rule by the corporations. Trump is one architect of the turn toward a fascist dictatorship, but there are Democrats who are going along with it too. The crisis in our country is causing millions of people to question the system that is impoverishing them. Under these conditions, the billionaires and their corporations see democracy as a threat to their wealth and power.
It gives us hope to see growing numbers of Americans from all walks of life demonstrating to demand that the camps be closed and asylum seekers welcomed. It is heartening to see some members of Congress standing up for democracy, and to see some state and local officials across the country refusing to cooperate with ICE to round up immigrants. We can stop fascism, but to do so the people must close ranks to defend democracy and one another. The corporations are the enemy, not our fellow workers, and there is plenty of wealth in this country to take care of everyone’s needs.
