Fighting back

Gil Smart, who fights the good fight out in Lancaster, Pa., and runs an excellent blog called Smart Remarks, writes in with his own thoughts on fascism:

The subject is one I've been thinking about and writing about lately, a subject which in fact was behind my opposition to the war in Iraq, now apparently won.

Having read extensively about Hitler's brand of fascism, in particular, I see similar sentiments at work in our country today, as do you. I make regular trips to the lion's den, places like Little Green Footballs, to argue with the ideologues there; the naked hatred often takes me aback.

I've also written on the issue for my newspaper, getting the sort of responses you might expect in small-town America, from people who say I'm lucky to live in a land where I can say such things and not get a bullet through my head. The insinuation being they wished I could get a bullet through my head, and in fact they might like to fire it.

I had hoped the war might be more difficult than it was not because I wanted more Americans or Iraqis to die, nor was I solely interested in proving the left's points. But I thought that if the war did not go off as planned, it might discredit what I can only describe as the fanatical, ideologically driven right. Instead, it was a quick and relatively bloodless victory, affirming -- at least in their own eyes -- everything they thought and believed.

So now, I fear, we will go further down this road. The attempts at intimidation will continue; may get worse. Frankly, I expect violence. I feel the country lurching in that direction, or at least being taken for the ride without too much of a protest.

And I fear, ultimately, that this road leads to certain disaster. But what to do about it?

Fight, head-on, verbal hook to verbal hook, physical blow for physical blow, if it comes to that? Sometimes I think that it all is going to come to violence, that those who oppose this sort of thing had better be ready to fight.

But what other way is there? Hoping people eventually see the light? In light of recent military triumphs and the ascendency of neoconservative ideology on the airwaves, how is that possible?

I don't know, I don't know. But I was glad to see others thinking about it; I hope you've made others consider what this movement might turn this country into: something that ultimately might make us as vicious as Hitler's Germany was. And something that I fear might lead to the destruction that ultimately befell that nation.

That's exactly correct. There has never been a fascist regime that did not meet a violent demise. Which will mean a lot of, um, "collateral damage."

Another reader recently offered similar thoughts, wondering if the antiwar crowd shouldn't take the offensive, nipping the incipient violence in the bud. As I answered then; I don't think descending to their level is anything but a recipe for escalation.

I think the answer is simply to respond firmly and, if need be, forcefully to attempts at invoking violence and disrupting the antiwar message. Most of the historic victims of fascist thuggery were unprepared for violence and incapable of meeting it effectively. Most of them failed to recognized the need to form alliances with law-enforcement and civic officials, as well as to be organized and prepared for violence. It will be vital that the antiwar movement does not make the same mistake.