Another kind of patriot

Over the course of the last couple of months, David Neiwert has been writing a series of articles entitled “Rush, Newspeak and facism” on the potential for fascism in the United States. He’s a journalist who has extensive experience in this field; his articles are well worth your time. I don’t really have anything to say about these, which makes me a bad blogger, but sometimes you just have to pass along the important links.

• Part 1: a discussion of the nature of fascism.
• Part 2: why the left shouldn’t abuse the term “fascist.”
• Part 3: more on what fascism really means, and the “Patriot” movement.
• Part 4: the Patriot movement as proto-fascism.
• Part 5: how the memes of the Patriot movement are transmitted to mainstream thought.
• Part 6: Bush’s relationship with the religious right.
• Part 7: more on transmitters — the people who carry ideas from the extreme right into the mainstream.
• Part 8: political and religious transmitters, from Trent Lott to James Traficant to Pat Robertson.
• Part 9: media transmitters who pick up the rhetoric of the Patriot movement and make it palatable.
• Part 10: why Limbaugh’s tactics work and how they pull the mainstream right towards the extreme.
• Part 11: the fringe doesn’t look like the fringe, and can’t be assumed to be marginal.
• Part 12: a case study in Kalispell, Montana and a call to arms.
• Postscript: the importance of understanding the word “fascism.”
• Postscript:: Robert Paxton and “mobilizing passions.”
• Postscript: fascimentalism.

3/24/2003 Addendum: I have added a link to the postscript, and will continue to update this post if the series is further updated. I very much urge anyone who finds Neiwert’s work interesting to buy his book and to buy the pamphlet he’s producing from the series in whatever form he makes it available. I feel a little guilty that people have linked to me, rather than to him — I just reformatted his links a little. Buy his stuff, and make me feel better.

7/6/2003 Addendum: He’s released a PDF version of the essays, substantially rewritten and edited. Five buck donation requested. Go, read.