The first day of June in 2020 a satirical piece was published in which Trump had former Attorney General William Barr announce at a press conference that the FBI confiscated Woody Guthrie’s famous anti-fascist guitar as part of the Trump Administration’s effort to search out and apprehend ANTIFA leaders across the country. Barr announces, “It’s obvious this instrument is an integral part of the anti-fascist movement. “This Machine Kills Fascists” is spelled out in big letters right on its face. We are certain this guitar has played a critical role in fomenting disorder in the last week.”
Barr would have been referring to the George Floyd protests which were fueled by Trump tweets, well over 700 of them, threatening military action on protestors targeting Antifa and the Radical Left for violence. Following these unforgettable protests, 34 states introduced over 80 anti-protest bills. It is a great GOP backed effort to obliviate our First Amendment and criminalize dissent.
Speaking of our First Amendment, as Americans, isn’t that what we are
supposed to do? Fight Fascism? Protect democracy?
After all, who could have imagined this ridiculous action was not just
Donny boy’s retaliation for the song Guthrie wrote of his landlord and
Donny’s father, Fred Trump, in 1954. It would have been one of the many Tea Party Movements’, resurrected into MAGA stepping stones on the path leading
to modern-day American fascism that landed on the front steps of our
Capital, January 6th. The whole world watched in disbelief of what has
become of our country-Land of the Free-Land of Law.
While we wait in a state of trauma for accountability of this historical insurrection compounded by stolen nuclear documents and so many more attacks on our Constitution since the rise of the Tea Party Movement in 2009, the fascist movement continues to methodically strengthen.
But just as Woody Guthrie rose from the Great Depression during the
Dust Bowl, protesting fascism, calling it a form of economic exploitation similar to slavery and stating fascist leaders were nothing more than a group of gangsters who are out to “rob the world,” we too are rising. We know we must keep organizing as Woody did, calling out the rest of the Fascists and stop the “massacre” of our Constitution before we find ourselves living under tyranny.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll found 67 percent of all who were
surveyed agreed democracy is in danger, up 9 points from January. The
poll is not just a Dem poll; 72% of registered Democrats, 70% of
Republicans, and 69% of Independents believe we are in imminent danger
of our democracy collapsing.
We are seeing women registering to vote in unprecedented numbers. We are joining organizations, hitting the streets to register voters, canvassing for progressive candidates, phone banking, texting, sharing petitions, holding town halls and meetings at libraries. We are doing carpools to the polls. We are educating ourselves by researching money trails and demanding transparency, calling for bans on Dark Money. We are networking on issues like Medicare for All, Reproductive Rights, Public Education, Worker’s Rights, and unbelievably, the Right to Vote. We are running for office. We are hitting the streets and protesting. We are not sitting this one out. We know history. We know the cost. From Covid, global warming, and economic collapse, we know the cost.
We have witnessed these creatures of habitual greed revolving in history, playing parts from Mussolini’s and Hitler’s playbook. Benito Mussolini coined the term ‘fascism’ for his political party in 1915. He believed in merging state and corporate power. “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power,” Mussolini said.
Corporatism today has a whole new meaning than it did in Mussolini’s time or in Hitler’s. We have the corporate machine behind Citizens United using the tools of Fascism that are not much different than the ones these past failed fascist leaders used.
Polarization and political party identity language have been pounding our
eardrums and effecting our way of life since the rise of the Koch
Cartel and the Tea Party working toward a constitutional convention.
This conscious division has pit our two mega U.S. political parties
who have now splintered themselves, against each other leaving us in a
social, economic, and moral crises.
In President Biden’s infamous address of warning America of the term he used, “semi-fascism,” he stated, “MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards, backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love. They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”
The question is, “Will Democrats act on the imminent danger?”
Biden’s address wasn’t a surprise to many of us. We know and have been hitting the streets crying “Democracy is falling” for years now. We have watched one constitutional law after another challenged by the oligarchs who are responsible for plotting and rotting our judicial system with help from the Federalist Society and corrupt corporate-allied politicians of both parties.
We know our rights are endangered when we see governors like Abbott and DeSantis using planes like Hitler used trains to whitewash their states. We know our rights are endangered when gerrymandering is overlooked and populations of citizens who are not of white ethnicity are being eliminated from practicing their constitutional right to vote. We know that without the right to vote, all other rights will be difficult to maintain and expand. We know our rights are endangered when the GOP takes our reproductive freedoms for votes and our right to healthcare is privatized leaving millions of citizens without hope of living healthy, productive lives. We know our rights are endangered when we watch as books are banned from state to state and public education is being privatized and turned into militant schools. We know our rights are endangered when they overturn laws for same-sex marriage and vigilantly strip away the freedoms of the LGBQT communities, as of lately attacking Trans Gender rights. We know our rights are endangered when our elders have been polarized by taking their housing and healthcare, moving them into corporate living. We know our rights are endangered as we witness the exponential growth of homelessness from corporate hoarding of homes. We know our rights are endangered when we watch and listen to ‘newspeak’ from the irresponsible media of propaganda. We know our rights are endangered as we watch our stacked SCOTUS and other Federalist Society judges vote MAGA. We know our rights are endangered when we see laws being passed not allowing us our basic right to organize, gather, or protest. We know our rights are endangered when political violence like that of the failed coup of Jan 6th is unpunished. And as we have been fighting to protect the right to vote for decades now, we know our freedoms are endangered when they harshly polarize us by class, gender, and race fueling these divisions with fear-their favorite tool of Fascism. We also know by organizing and demanding justice, we are witnessing the Fred Trump family finally having to answer for the millions and millions of dollars they stole from us and the horrible suffering they have caused from their insatiable greed for wealth and power.
As Woody Guthrie organized against Fascism and the corporate elite all those years ago don’t you think he would appreciate “The Machine”, as he lovingly called his guitar, being used as a symbol, this time fighting good ole American Fascism—wherever it rears its head?
