They will never call it fascism

A world at war, forever.

The Western propaganda apparatus still spews forth phrases around freedom, democracy, peace, diversity, etc. At the very same time, our governments do everything in their powers to limit freedom, establish surveillance states, undermine democracy, wage never-ending wars, and turn the West into an impenetrable fortress. Everything and all that diverges from liberal-capitalist ideology is marked hostile, belonging to the axis of evil. The only correct culture is ours, and the others will be converted, by any means necessary.

‘The other side,’ of course, is doing the exact same thing. There are no good actors in this disgusting game of thrones. We all are the peasants who suffer and die while our kings and queens amuse themselves.

And people seem to be loving this shit.

All over social and traditional media, right-wingers, but also supposedly progressive liberals on all sides, are openly calling for genocide, extermination of entire peoples, murder, blockades, military interventions, and worse. Misinformation is spread eagerly (such as President Biden lying about beheaded Israeli babies without any evidence whatsoever) and used as justification. Truth is constructed and deconstructed at will.

Where will this lead us? Another Nazi-Germany? This time, perhaps, in the form of a united European fasco-state, allied to the American empire? A BRICS+ alliance of oppression? Authoritarian regimes fighting other authoritarian regimes, forever? Did George Orwell, for all his many faults, have the right idea, after all?

We are closer to this reality than one might think.

Misery and consternation breed hate

The brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine was a turning point of sorts, a wake-up call. Instead of analyzing the conflict, discussing options, pointing out mistakes, finding material reasons for it, striving for immediate peace, and so on, the West jumped onto a war-supporting train that tolerated no diverging voices. Russia is an ultra-capitalist, authoritarian oligarchy that should be dismantled by force, yes, but how are we, who are waging war at every opportunity, much different, exactly? Together with the escalation between Israel and Palestine, the Western handling of the invasion of Ukraine serves as a reminder that we live and breathe the concept of a boring, predictable dystopia.

The black-and-white washing of geopolitical conflicts, however, is not a recent phenomenon. It has been practiced throughout all of history. Even relatively recent wars, such as the brutal, unjustified American invasion of Iraq have — at the time — been entirely propped up by lies.

So, why is this recent reductionist dualism so alarming?

First, people are more propagandized than ever before in history. Caitlin Johnstone, among many others, correctly argues that Americans are likely the most brainwashed nation that has ever existed. Neoliberalism and decades of gaslighting have left an indestructible mark on the people. Many are aware of how bad things are domestically (rising rates of depression and suicides, unaffordable housing, a worsening drug pandemic, lack of social security and community, unprecedented inequality, unlivable cities, etc.), but nothing is and will be done to improve things. Instead, the typical, “At least we have it better than XYZ,” and some nonsense about freedom or such is shouted.

(A common joke in the Balkans goes something like this: “In the West, politicians are lying on TV and people are eating it up. Here in the Balkans, politicians are lying on TV but we know that they are lying, accept it, and turn off the TV.”)

In Western Europe, thanks to social-democratic concessions, hard-won over many decades, things are somewhat better than in the US. Still, they aren’t good. We must, at one point or the other, acknowledge that material comforts and never-ending capitalist growth cannot be equated to happiness. We have not evolved to work useless 9-to-5s, stare at Excel sheets, and spend more time in cars than with our families and friends. How else to explain the dramatic surge in mental health problems such as depression, crippling apathy, and a retreat into mindless hedonism?

One sees it all over. People are giving up. More and more of us are just existing instead of living. We have traded freedom and agency for comfort and now we are lost.

What does this have to do with wars and rising hate and fascism?

Well, everything.

Tribalism as the lowest common denominator

Wars have always been an outlet, particularly for young, disillusioned men who struggle to find any other purpose in life.

The military complex targets advertisements toward exactly this sort of male. They pick them up from the internet forums of this world, give them a gun, a clear enemy, and provide them with a justification for existing. They make them useful. And those of us who cannot be turned into real soldiers, for one reason or another, are still turned into soldiers — ideological ones.

The media of this world has turned into a single-minded monstrosity. This is no conspiracy. There is no panel of secret puppet masters who oversee it all. It is all rather logical. In order to rise and keep one’s job, one must conform to the established local narrative. The rest, those who reject the narrative, struggle for scraps and recognition on relatively open platforms such as Substack. They are regularly discredited and censored, of course; not a real threat yet.

The propagation of a single, internally inconsistent narrative, paired with a general disillusionment with modern life, provides the foundation for the most recent surge in hateful tribalism. The focus of patriotism is turning from single nations to an ideological, globalized conflict between two sides — the West, based on supposed freedom and democracy, and the rest of the world, perceived as authoritarian and destructive.

Because we cannot find purpose in community, because we have no overarching vision or goal of what we want to be, because families have become a luxury afforded to few (see plummeting birth rates), and because the future cannot be seen as anything but dystopian, a world ravaged by climate change and eternal war, we revert to the lowest common denominator: hate toward all that is foreign. Us against them.

Boring dystopia and fascist future — A prediction

We all know, if we are honest with ourselves, what the future looks like. It’s not inevitable, but chances are high, barring any sort of radical revolution which, right now, I just cannot envision.

All over the world, far-right parties are surging in popularity. In the US and Western Europe as well as in Russia or India. They are promising a return to a kind of conservative utopia — usually based around a subjugation of women and minorities — that has never existed in the first place. Religion has a hand in this, of course, and it’s not difficult to foresee a rise of religious extremism even in secular nations. It’s already happening in the US, where abortions are increasingly outlawed and queer or transgender people prosecuted. Everyone who is in any sense different, really.

Diverting opinions are being increasingly subjugated, even in so-called liberal nations. Here in Austria, for example, pro-Palestine demonstrations have been outlawed (same as in Britain and several other countries). Organizations who save drowning refugees in the Mediterranean are being prosecuted and ‘brought to justice.’ Communist symbolism is straight-up illegal in many Eastern European nations, and the FBI has recently declared that anti-authoritarian anarchists are now domestic terrorists.

This sort of erosion of freedom and the increase in surveillance capitalism, enabled by modern technology, will, over time, undo most of the hard-earned social-democratic and civic concessions the West’s wealth has made possible. In nations that have been plundered over centuries — thereby to a large degree hindered in making any sort of social progress (with exceptions such as Cuba) — they will never be achieved in the first place. Instead, groups like the Taliban, Hamas, or various drug cartels and modern slavery organizations will rise to prominent, leading roles. The West will, after some adjustment and discussion, work with such groups to defeat other such groups, whatever current geopolitical, capital interests demand. Climate change and an utterly unsustainable financial system, based on endless growth on finite resources, will dramatically accelerate and aggravate this development.

They will never call it fascism, of course.

They will still call it democracy and freedom or whatever else meaningless term. But, one day, we will wake up and realize that we live in a homogenous, tyrannical fortress that cannot be penetrated and from which there is no escape. If you want a realistic vision of the future, Octavia E. Butler and Margaret Atwood have already provided it. Everything else is just wishful thinking.

So there is no hope? We should just lie down and accept this?

No. Let this radicalize you. The future, albeit probable, is not determined. I mentioned earlier a large-scale revolution that could change it all. Well, there you go. Organize, build alternative structures, refuse to be complicit, write about it. Perhaps it will help. At least you will be able to look in a mirror.

Antonio Melonio

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