There are other means of racism being played out in America. The talk of illegal immigrants is an issue that has gotten a great deal of media attention and played a major role in the recent election. I will choose to use the term, undocumented workers, instead of illegal immigrants. The call to remove undocumented workers needs to be addressed for the racism that it is.
The hiring of undocumented workers is one that needs to be discussed as a form of racism. It also needs to be discussed in the context of broken government and the government/corporate partnership. People come to America to find work. The reason they do so, is because there is work available for them there. There are many jobs that are hard work and people from other countries are quite happy to have these jobs.
Many people are understandably upset that people from other countries will come in, work for less than the living wage and send money back their countries of origin. Many people get upset that when they go to a fast food eatery, that many of the people speak broken English and blame them for taking American jobs. Even though almost none of these people complaining have ever attempted to learn another language and have had theirs hopes pinned on the idea of working in fast food. This is nothing short of racist thinking.
More troubling, however, is the ease at which people will blame undocumented workers for stealing American jobs. It as though the people who employ them bear no responsibility in this. Why aren’t they hiring Americans first? Why are the people who have the best connections to government not being held accountable? Why are they allowed to continue to hire undocumented workers and play their part in making their communities better places for the people who have lived there for decades?
Undocumented workers come with many benefits to employers. First and foremost is that they are less expensive to employ. They are willing to be exploited by these employers because they are afraid of being deported. They are afraid to report their employer if they are being denied overtime, holiday pay, or medical attention. They are extremely unwilling to report health and safety issues, all for the fear of being deported. Thus, the employers end up paying much less in taxes, updating facilities for safety, or for benefits that documented workers would need to be paid.
Examples of this abound in the meat packing industry. Once people from other countries find that they can work in one of these facilities, they tend to move in in large numbers. The people of the local community find themselves out of work. The newcomers work hard, don’t complain when they are asked to do things that are illegal or dangerous, or even excessive. When they get injured, they get dismissed with no recourse and no consequence to the employer. There are many undocumented workers who are no longer able to work because receptive stress syndrome and no way of having it taken care of properly.
Periodically, the immigration service will come through and fine the employers for hiring undocumented workers. This usually an amount that isn’t overly excessive and can be paid easily. A number of undocumented workers are rounded up and sent away. In many cases, the undocumented workers who are sent away are those who have been injured on the job and can no longer work.
The government appears to be working in conjunction with these employers to make them more profitable. If they stay in business, it is believed that they will pay more in taxes, which is good for the economy. The government also looks like they are doing something about the ongoing concern of undocumented workers, which helps appease public opinion. So they can look like they are being impartial, they will deport someone who is in good standing in the community, like a pastor who has been there for a good number of years. This is a practice that is not exclusive to any particular administration in the last 30 years.
But, the undocumented workers remain a scapegoat and many politicians and business leaders will proclaim it loud and clear. My speculation as to why this is, is that it gets people to look in a different direction, so they aren’t watching what is being done in the various state houses and congress. As the government and corporations work to dismantle labour rights and employees recourse to working conditions, those things that make business “too costly”, they are getting people worked up about undocumented workers that are committing crimes. Once they have dismantled these laws, they will be happy to employ whoever lives closest, as long as they are cheap labour who can dismissed easily and with little recourse.
I would suggest that the nationalism that is so rampant in America and throughout the West is a “white nationalism”. It is interesting to see that those people who support nationalism in their own countries quite readily respect and appreciate those same things happening in other countries. Trump’s rise came decisively from a platform of racism with less than subtle overtures of white supremacy. HIs most ardent supporters and most energetic are from the White Supremacist community. This did not put off many other white voters who would not be classified as racist.
While European leaders with similar ideologies may not display the same forms of white supremacy they were quick to support Trump. Le Pen in France, Wilders in the Netherlands, Orban in Hungary, Farage in the U.K. all work from a policy position of making their respective countries secure from immigrants, terrorists and those who would dilute the culture. All of these are leaders of nationalist groups and all of them are very opposed to immigration, legal or otherwise, and quite readily proclaim the evils of Islam. They all are quick to scapegoat minorities, especially Muslims as the reason that their country is not the best it can be. People will say that these political parties are not “white nationalist” parties because they have members who are not white. The reason they are, is because the political card they play and the base they appeal to is overwhelmingly white. They skirt the issue by saying what they are doing is for economic benefit or control of their borders and security.
I believe that it was Foucault that had pointed to nationalism as being the most acceptable form of racism. The ability to make a distinction is done quite easily by language, customs and man made boundaries. Within in those boundaries, certain groups of people will decide what is considered to be the representations of that country. It will be written in the history books and be prominent in their other representations, like television, film, art and music. More importantly, it will come in how they describe what a “true” person of their nation looks like, talks like, does at religious holidays or during their celebrations of the nation. It becomes very easy to to say that someone who doesn’t speak the right way or celebrate the right holidays or say the right things is not American enough, French enough, English enough, and so on.
The traditions of nations, the culture and national identity have been predominantly established by those who have been the most numerous or those in charge. These are the people who have established which holidays everyone will have time off of work. They establish the traditions, like turkey at Thanksgiving. They put these things into the stories and legends of the country. These are the kinds of things that make new comers stand out as being different when they don’t recognise them. According to the nationalists, they must either fully participate in these, or get out.
In America, when they cheer Trump’s call to make America great again, they are looking for all the people in America to be like them, to look like them, to celebrate the same religious holidays, namely Christian, to hold the same values that they saw their parents and grandparents held. When Trump’s base is predominantly white and “Christian” then making America great is about making it like they believe that past was, when white people were in charge of most everything, including what was acceptable in culture.
But, it isn’t just Trump’s supporters who have helped to make this possible. There has been a history of segregation that is quite obvious in American culture. There has been a history of racial stereotyping that runs deep. The idea that the majority of welfare recipients are minorities, undocumented workers are drug carriers and rapists, Muslims want to destroy American freedoms are not new ideas and go back for decades. The idea of white nationalist culture can even be heard from people who would classify themselves as liberals, like Bill Maher or others favoured by liberals, but not so easily defined politically, like Sam Harris, especially with their calls of the dangers of Islamism, or veiled references to genocide of Muslims.
Dr. Lawrence Britt, who studied fascism has pointed out 14 characteristics that are common to all fascist regimes. I have already started to look at the government/corporate connection. There will more of this pointed out in other areas, as there has gotten to be so much mutual relationship between corporations and other aspects of life. In the next posts, I will be looking at the other aspects the he has stated. Dr. Britt’s list is a little longer than one will find in other writers, such as Robert Paxton. But, there is plenty of common ground between Britt, Paxton, Arendt and others.
It may seem that nationalism does not need to have much discussion. It is overwhelmingly obvious that nationalism is exceptionally popular in America. Many visitors from other countries are quite surprised at the level at which it exists. In America, if you don’t have a flag in front of your house, or a flag decal on you car/truck/motorcycle or numerous pieces of clothing with flags or representations of flags, you just aren’t American enough.
Nationalism in America is on steroids and it has been for many decades. From the House un-American Activities committee, which functioned from 1938-1975 to the proliferation of American flags in the front of churches is disturbing. Every aspect of American life is propagated with some form of nationalism. There are churches that celebrate the 4th of July in greater fashion than they do Easter or Christmas is a sign of how far this nationalism has gone. Hymnals with patriotic songs and a special Sunday, each year to proclaim their love for the nation and their national party are beyond the pale. In many places, if a church does not put on some kind of display for the national holidays, it can count on losing members.
Popular culture takes nationalism even further. The number of popular musicians that sing of how great America is, is beyond comprehension in any time in history and is not new to the 21st century. I grew up hearing the songs of the patriots and their story telling of how exceptional America is. What has become more prominent is the fear mongering of nationalism that has become present in the television dramas. In many of these, some government agency needs to make sure that Americans are secure from terrorists from outside of the country. (They always succeed, by the way.) Even the ever popular super hero movies have a rather obvious element of American nationalism in them. Some of them even have a less than subtle neofascism present in their themes. I am not sure that it is intended, but films often relay wha they see in the culture they are created.
This is only the beginning of what can be seen in the nationalism in America. I haven’t looked at the slogans that Trump and others have been making popular, again. His slogan “America First” has its roots in the white nationalism of the early 20th century and is a call of nationalism at the expense of others. The slogan from the campaign trail to “Make America Great Again” is so full of nationalism that it is easy to rally around without requiring any kind of definition of what it means or any kind of plan to make it happen. It is, of itself, nothing more than a rallying cry to become more American, whatever that can mean.
One of the more insidious statements of nationalism is also the most totalitarian in nature. It comes in a few different forms, but it comes down to the accusation that someone who disagrees with you is somehow, either not America enough, or at all. It is the labelling of someone as a “liberal”, “communist”, “socialist”, and so on. All of these statements are made in the context that you are undermining the national interest and making America less than great. These have been around in America for many, many years and are more acceptable today than they ever have been.
This idea of running government like a business has become exceptionally common in American culture, so much so, that much of the function of government is seen with contempt. Government’s role as a body that functions on behalf of all of the people in America, to help educate, provide services that make life better, and protect people from those who would take advantage of, or harm them are now seen as creeping communism. There is nothing that fascists hate more than communism. The government’s way of generating revenue to fund the infrastructure and other services, taxation, is not seen as a part of its function, but is seen by many as an act of theft.
As the political/corporate alliance grew, especially in the 1980’s, the idea that government was too big became popular. The counter to this question never seems to be asked, though: how small is too small. This, I suggest, is an early step in the move toward authoritarianism. Government needed to be efficient, like a business. It needed to cut out those things that were not cost effective and limited profitability. Since government isn’t in the business to make it profit, the profitability that needed to be maintained was that of corporations and businesses. The government’s role steadily became one of making corporations profitable.
Because the government had programs in place that would protect people, but added expense to setting up and operating businesses, the idea of the government being broken became popular. The idea that it was broken had to do with the belief that if it “limited” business’ ability to make a profit, then it was broken. It’s not that it was actually broken. When they said that government was broken, what we were told is what the politicians and corporations were going to do to the government. They were going to break it.
The process of breaking government was a deliberate process, over time. There were two main methods that this happened. The first was to underfund and leave positions open in agencies like the EPA, USDA, OSHA, and other agencies that regulated business to protect the people. These agencies require businesses to be more diligent in how they do things, like dispose of waste, what they put in food and what they sell. It prevents them from doing things that do damage to people’s lives, through poisoning, or unfairly taking advantage of people for nothing other than profit.
The other method of breaking government comes from the corporations, themselves. They decided that having their own people in key roles in the government would make them much more profitable and they were right. The office of Secretary of the Treasury is often filled by people from Wall Street, namely Goldman Sachs, and have done a great deal to rewrite the laws that were put in place to prevent a recession like the one in the 1930’s. People from corporations like Monsanto and Pfizer get roles in the USDA and are able to approve chemicals, pharmaceuticals and food additives much more quickly. They can accept the testing that is presented by the company trying to get it to market without further government testing to see whether the information provided by the applicant is accurate.
As these things happen, the general population starts to feel that government is corrupt. It isn’t something that they can state clearly because it isn’t something that appears to be definitive or easily identified. What gives this sense of corruption most likely comes from the understanding that they have elected representatives to represent them in government and these people end up representing corporate interests, instead. It has been shown in a recent study by Princeton and Northwestern universities that politicians represent corporations more than they represent the people who elect them.
It is at this point, when people believe that the government is broken and corrupt, that they become very easily persuaded by a populist and authoritarian. This is someone who tells them that they will fix what is broken and make their lives better. This is someone who promises to do this quickly and decisively. An authoritarian, or dictator can make the changes to government and laws with quick action. They appear to be strong. When they reach the point of frustration with government that promises to help them and doesn’t, they will make the decisive change. And to make decisive change, they will trust someone who they believe has the power to do it, decisively. An authoritarian becomes extremely appealing.
This is a multi-part series that will look at the 14 aspects of fascism that Dr. Lawrence Britt suggest are a part of all fascist regimes.
I believe that America has almost completed its move to becoming a fully fascist nation. It has the hallmarks and ideology that are consistent with previous fascist regimes of the past. When we think of fascism, we often assume that of Nazi Germany. But this was only one form fascism and the form that America is taking is different. It shares many of the same beliefs and social structures that other fascist regimes have had such as Franco in Spain, Mussolini in Italy, Suharto in Indonesia and several Latin American regimes.
It was Mussolini who coined the term “fascism”, which he meant was a government/corporate partnership. The government’s role was to support the corporate activity. This kind of approach is not unique to fascism, however. Fascism also included an extreme opposition to Communism, which has been one of its most defining ideologies.
While the United States has held an extreme opposition to Communism through most of the 20th century (take a look at McCarthyism and the Marshal Plan), it’s corporate ties have not necessarily coincided with its almost complete removal of communists within its borders. Through a good part of the 20th century, anti-intellectualism was the tool that was used to rid the country of communists and communist ideology. Intellectuals were often labeled as commie sympathisers when people didn’t want agree with what they had to say. This has become the greatest attack on people to show they aren’t “American” enough. It is also a very totalitarian way of attacking people and seen as perfectly acceptable in American culture. The intellectual community had to go to great measures to prove that they were not communists in order to keep their positions and continue to work, even at universities.
Ronald Reagan’s call for Russia to tear down the Berlin wall was seen as a victory for freedom. It was touted as the collapse of communism that would be the beginning for the people to make their own choices on where they could live and what kind of government they could have. I suggest that this was the beginning of fascism in America. I don’t believe that Reagan really cared that the people would be free to move and select the government they wanted. After all, Reagan was perfectly willing to support totalitarian regimes, even illegally, in order to support the corporations. I think he and his Republican cohorts were more interested in making it easier for corporations to expand into new areas and expand their sales and profitability.
Even Reagan’s understanding of government/corporate collaboration can be traced back to the 1960”s. It was during the Kennedy presidency that the understanding that “government should be run like a business” became real practice. Robert McNamara was the eighth Secretary of Defence and former president of Ford Motor Co. is just one example One of his main approaches to the Viet Nam War was to work at it like it was a business, analysing and working with calculated loss. The Viet Nam war was not exactly a success. But, his legacy of running government agencies, or the government as whole like a business has lived on. This is an idea that carried on through society and was often discussed at universities, particularly while I was attending there.