11 Steps to Facism

Fascism: A centralized and private control of wealth and information in order to ensure the massive investment and manufacture of arms and military equipment, the suppression of rights and labor movements, the control of public opinion through the use of news media manipulation and state sponsored propaganda. 

1. Invoke a threat

If you have yet to believe that 9/11 was an inside job then dig deeper and do your own homework; American history has several other prime examples to choose from. The gulf of Tonkin incident occurred on August 2nd, 1964 which entered U.S. naval forces full steam ahead into the Vietnam war. But let’s take a few steps back: in the 1930’s public opinion for the U.S. joining WWII was so low that the majority of Americans all but ignored the global conflict as yesterday’s news. Following the attack of Pearl Harbor public opinion for joining the war was so high that enlistment offices were swamped and overwhelmed. Still don’t believe that this could happen? Think back to the weapons of mass destruction fiasco which lead to the war in Iraq. I just want to be clear that I am in no way insinuating that the United States government orchestrated these events, but I do want to demonstrate the shift in public opinion when it comes to such events. It takes more than high gas prices to support a war, it also takes public opinion, and when swaying public opinion to something like war it helps to have an enemy.

2. Establish secret prisons

The topic of civilian internment camps in the United States has largely been dismissed as a paranoid conspiracy theory by renegade media forces, people however quickly forget what happened to American Japanese citizens at the break of our entry into WWII. Something like this couldn’t happen here, though we just don’t have enough out of control protesting, and besides prisons are packed tight like sardines. Before answering this question lets take a few steps back to hurricane Katrina; the Superdome and convention center in New Orleans was used by FEMA and locked down following the mad scramble to enact the emergency blueprints that had already been drafted for quite some time. At the Superdome and convention center martial law had been enacted and searches were conducted similar to TSA airport screenings to ensure no firearms were allowed into the football stadium or convention center. In the grand scheme of things getting searched is a public pasttime everyone has pretty much gotten used to by now. When you consider how many sport stadiums and convention centers there are in most every major metropolis, it’s easy to see why they were conscripted into these kind of blueprints. Each sport stadium holds an average of 70,000 spectators which to illustrate this example lets compare to Auschwitz which held 80,000.

3. Develop a domestic paramilitary force

Following 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security was created to ensure protection against domestic terrorism and new laws such as the Patriot Act have been enacted to better provide security against such threats, largely through increasing its power to engage in domestic surveillance of any citizen at any time for any given reason so long as its in the name of terrorism. All things set aside, it seems Apple has done a much more effective job at keeping ordinary citizens under lock and key, quite possibly better than the Department of Homeland Security could hope to have ever dreamed.

4. Survey ordinary citizens

In January of 2012 the U.S. congress passed legislation that will open public air space for the use of unmanned drones for domestic military and police operations including peaceful protest and public unrest.

5. Infiltrate citizens groups

Who needs to meet and organize to plot and plan when you have Facebook? Want to start a revolution?  Done.  Just update your status and get enough Likes to go viral, then take command on twitter.  It’s that easy, or wait… is it?

6. Arbitrarily detain citizens

In his last official act of business in 2011 president Barack Obama signed the national defense authorization act including a controversial component that would allow the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects including American citizens arrested in the United States without submitting charges.

7. Target key individuals

If Guantanomo Bay seems too far away for your next vacation lets not forget that the FBI closely monitored John Lennon from 1971 to 1977, and this guy was probably stoned during most of that time.

8. Restrict the Press

On June 18th 2012, Fox News reported that Google sees an alarming uptick in government censorship including 187 requests made by state and federal court prosecutors and other government agencies to remove content from July to December of last year, more than doubling from 92 requests which had been received from January to June. The U.S. government also filed 6,321 requests with Google for user data during the final six months of last year which was far more than any other country according to Google and a 6% increase from the previous six months. Encompassing more than 12,200 accounts, your personal porn stash probably remains safe once you factor there are about 313,818,982 citizens reported in the last census.  That request for intel on 12,200 users is marginally small in the grand scheme of things, so it would appear we’re still a good length behind China in regards to such matters. I’m just curious though, does anyone else find the irony in Fox News reporting on such a story?

9. Cast dissent as treason

Public support in America for the Gulf War was rallied at a fever pitch once all those awesome smart bomb video feeds started coming through. Americans were dazzled at seeing new fighter jets and stealth technology unveiled for the first time. In typical American fashion, however, we have a tendency to have short attention spans and the media, on the other hand, just loves playing the same damn clips over and over and over. That being said, it didn’t take long for American public support and opinion to waver.  I mean come on, its like what happens every year when your favorite TV episode ends for the season. With the pitter patter of Vietnam protests not too far behind in terms of culture, the government brainstormed an ad campaign worthy of a Mad Men episode: “Support the Troops” took the airwaves and car bumpers by storm making even the  most timid anti-war protestor come off as an unpatriotic goddamn communist piece of shit. Without a solid comeback to such a clever and catchy ad campaign anti-war protestors we’re completely rendered sterile and wimpy.

10. Subvert the rule of law

Though deemed very Orwellian (1984) by most standards, subverting the rule of law can most easily be demonstrated by playing the Parker Brothers game Monopoly; he who owns Park Avenue sets the rent, those in power make the laws, or seize them. A more subtle textbook case example would be the 2000 Presidential Election between Bush and Gore which Gore lost but Bush won or did he? Like the JFK assassination and how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop, the world may never know.

11. Disarm the citizen

Prime broadcast network TV ratings - United States June 2012 (Rank/Program/Network) 

1. NBA finals - ABC

2. NBA finals - ABC

3. America’s got talent - NBC

4. NCIS - CBS

5. 60 Minutes - CBS

6. The big bang theory - CBS

7. The bachelorette - ABC

8. NCIS: Los Angeles - CBS

9. Person of interest - CBS

10. NBA countdown - ABC

M is a covert reporter on special assignment