5,000+ Grassroot Organizations Fighting American Fascism

The other day I posted a discussion centering on article by Anis Shivani, This Is a Fight Against Fascism—Our Resistance Tactics Have to Change*, in which he advocated “disengagement” as a solution to protesting the full-blown American Fascist Movement currently fronted by the Trump/Republican Party. Citing the Italian and German Fascist parties (1920-1945), the author argued that if protesters do not confront the Trump American Fascists they deny them a continuous array of boogeyman-enemies to trot out in order to distract and enrage their naïve supporters, so that they can continue to institute their fascist regime and maintain control.

Today, I offer for your consideration a glimpse of what is actually happening throughout the United States in opposition to the Trump/Republican Party and elements of the Democratic Party, which together comprise the modern American Fascists Movement.

Shivani believes that our plunge into fascism began with House Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich’s shutdown of the federal government in 1995** during the Clinton presidency, and in earnest, under Bush II, following 9/11^*** (and continued under Obama). While I agree, I see that era as a continuation of our Fascist past. The American Fascist Movement can be traced to the Robber Barons era (late 1800s – early 1900s), followed by the industrialists and banker elite attempted c coup d'état of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933^#) and later the brothers, Allen and John Foster Dulles, domination of the OSS, the U.S. State Department and CIA pre and post WWII as the founders of American Fascism (1930s-1960s^##).

With this background in mind it’s worth considering that (thanks to Pres. Trump and the current R-people controlled federal government) millions of Americans are now realizing that something bad has happened to our “representative / constitutional democracy”. It is just not working as one might hope, i.e. our federal government is not representing the will of the majority of voters. It is instead at the beck and call of the moneyed elite, no matter the political persuasion.

People are finally allowing themselves to see that it simply does not matter who is setting in the White House or the halls of Congress. The results are the same: loss of our cherished, constitutionally guaranteed rights.

As a result of this mass awakening thousands of grassroots organizations are spring up across the nation. According to a recent article in The Nation, there are more than 5,000 to date. Please go here for an accounting, story and interview:

This Is the Resistance: More Than 5,000 Grassroots Groups Have Sprung Up Since Trump Was Elected, Start Making Sense and Jon Wiener, The Nation, 9 Mar 2017.

My guess is that Americans are not disengaging. Rather, we are just starting to engage. We are finally saying to the R and D politicians: Stop Messin' with My Lifestyle!!

Thinking about starting your own group or joining one? Please consider one I helped start: The Movement, Legacy Grandkids. www.legacygrandkids.info

Here is the link to Indivisible’s Guide (PDF)

If for some reason you can’t retrieve it, try this link backup.

“We live at a time in which totalitarian forms are with us again. Hopefully, rage and anger will move beyond condemnation and demonstrations and develop into a movement whose power will be on the side of justice not injustice, bridges not walls, dignity not disrespect and compassion not hate. Let’s hope it develops into a worldwide movement capable of dispelling Orwell’s nightmarish vision of the future in our own time. The dark shadow of authoritarianism may be spreading, but it can be stopped. And that prospect raises serious questions about what educators, artists, youth, intellectuals and others are going to do today to make sure that they do not succumb to the authoritarian forces circling American society and other parts of the globe, waiting for the resistance to stop and for the lights to go out. My friend, the late Howard Zinn rightly insisted that hope is the willingness “to hold out, even in times of pessimism, the possibility of surprise.” To add to this eloquent plea, I would say, collective opposition is no longer an option, it is a necessity.” - Dr. Henry Giroux, PhD, Professor of English and Cultural Studies and Global TV Network Chair in Communications, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Quote discovered here: Trump’s Authoritarianism: Rethinking Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Strategizing the Resistance, Henry Giroux, retrieved 8 Mar 2017, Bill Moyers & Co.

* This Is a Fight Against Fascism—Our Resistance Tactics Have to Change, Anis Shivani, AlterNet, 5 Mar 2017.

** The United States federal government shutdowns of 1995 and 1995–96 were the result of conflicts between Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress over funding for Medicare, education, the environment, and public health in the 1996 federal budget. The government shut down after Clinton vetoed the spending bill the Republican Party-controlled Congress sent him. The federal government of the United States put government workers on furlough and suspended non-essential services from November 14 through November 19, 1995, and from December 16, 1995, to January 6, 1996, for a total of 27 days. The major players were President Clinton and Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich.”

United States federal government shutdowns of 1995–1996, retrieved from Wikipedia, 9 Mar 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_shutdowns_of_1995%E2%80%931996

^***.Citizen's United vs. Federal Election Commission.

The USA PATRIOT Act

Military Commission Act

Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012

^# Business Plot (Attempted coup d'état of FDR) retrieved from Wikipedia, 9 Mar 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

^## Please see, DownriverUSA.com:

Part 1. Lies Too Big to Fail, How We Lost Our Naïveté

Part 2.Lies Too Big to Fail, A Doppelganger USA is Running Amok Throughout Our World

Part 3. Lies Too Big to Fail, The Time of The Great Awakening: How We Can Resurrect Our Democracy

The Movement

An Antidote for Our Corporate Controlled World

How we meet the challenge of the new corporate-controlled world or surrender to it will define the very nature of the world for our children and grandchildren. It is a war in which we may chose to participate or ignore.

The world in which we live is not the same one in which our parents and grandparents enjoyed. It’s not even close. 

• First, the United States has devolved into an oligarchy (1.) more similar to a Fascist empire than a representative democracy.
• Today we are living in a world in which the ruling elite, that is less than one percent of the world population, holds more wealth than the entire remaining seven billion people who inhabit it. (2.)
• Worse, worldwide, our government representatives have sold us out by agreeing to give the global banks and corporations power to overrule federal, state and local laws via the pending, secret, trade treaties, such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). (3.) 

Contrary to the ruling majority Supreme Court justices, most humans intuitively know that corporations are not human beings. In fact, corporations have no soul. Surprised? I didn’t think so. Interestingly, it’s only been since the rise of the Robber Barons following the American Civil War that corporations became the chosen means for pillaging public assets and Robber Barons' immunity shields.

Today, driven by their insatiable desire for profit and control, the great grandchildren of the Robber Barons' corporations, the global corporations / banks of today, will be empowered to dissolve our natural rights - the birthright of every person on this planet: the right to life, liberty and happiness via the TPP agreement and others like it.

Explains Sen. Bernie Sanders, “Let’s be clear: the TPP is much more than a “free trade” agreement. It is part of a global race to the bottom to boost the profits of large corporations and Wall Street by outsourcing jobs; undercutting worker rights; dismantling labor, environmental, health, food safety and financial laws; and allowing corporations to challenge our laws in international tribunals rather than our own court system. If TPP was such a good deal for America, the administration should have the courage to show the American people exactly what is in this deal, instead of keeping the content of the TPP a secret.” 

The Movement

What can we do to stop the dismemberment of our natural rights?

We can not expect support from our government representatives because they only respond to the desires of the oligarchy, as the Gilens/Fulcher study underscores. (Please see Resource 1 below.). And, even if they did, we still face the enormous Oz-like omnipotent global corporations / banks.

That said, ultimately, with the intrinsic power of seven billion human beings alone, we have the inherent, herculean strength to transform our world economic system from predatory capitalism into a new, humane one. 

How would a new economic system look?

Pope Francis recently described the new economic system as a system which does not "sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit”, but ensures the poor the "sacred rights of labor, lodging and land”. (4.)

Dr. Benjamin R. Barber: “The revolution has started. In 1776, the American colonists protested that the English monarch no longer exercised sovereignty on behalf of their lives, liberties and estates, that in effect English sovereignty was in default. Today, the cities of the world, where more than half the world's population lives, and where 80 percent of its wealth is generated, are protesting that the nations to which they are subsidiary no longer are able to guarantee their long-term sustainability in the face of climate change, nuclear proliferation, global disease and unjust global markets, that in the face of dysfunctional national governments and a new default of sovereignty, it is their inherent right to assume the responsibilities of common governance necessary to sustaining their citizens. To do this, they must avail themselves of the legion of urban networks from the UCLG and the C40 to Metropolis, CityNet and the World Cities Summit already in play. But they must also forge new institutions to assure their common and global interests.” (5.)

Here are 12 steps you can take in your hometown

1. Make your community part of The Movement

Work to make your city / metro region united and strong by making the wheels of government turn for US, the 99.9%, then work with other regions globally to resolve common challenges. Explains Dr. Benjamin Barber, the “Devolution to cities is both policy and fact. It is happening and is increasingly being embraced by governments desperate to see action in a world paralyzed by ideology and cant.” 

2. Work locally to reverse Citizen's United vs. Federal Election Commission

3. Work locally to repeal three, Bill of Rights busting laws: 

(a) the USA PATRIOT Act

(Yes, Congress repealed the Patriot Act. But it was in name only. Now we must work to revise the Freedom Act.) 

(b) the Military Commission Act

(c) Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012

4. Establish a Constitution Protection Zone in your city or town.

5. Work locally to re-establish the Glass-Steagall Act

6. Work locally to abolish the CIA

7. Work locally to establish a national public works program to maintain our infrastructure.

8. Work locally to adopt a Robin Hood tax.

9. Create a local, sustainable, distributed energy system in you hometown.

10. Work locally to retrieve the trillions of dollars now being expended through the "Deep Black Ops Budget" and put it to use serving the needs of the people by creating decent paying employment and returning the billions of dollars stolen from the 99.9% during Depression.2.

11. Create a state bank in your state, e.g. North Dakota State Bank and use “crowdfunding” resources rather than international banks to help fund your new businesses.

12. Establish a monthly forum to discuss The Movement and reach out to your neighbors and friends.

The Movement
Philosophers

Gene Sharp

Howard Zinn

Henry A. Giroux

Daniel Sheehan

Chris Hedges 

Ellen Brown

Economists

Paul Krugman

Joseph Stiglitz

Thomas Piketty
Paul Craig Roberts

Futurists

Michel Bauwens

Jeremy Rifkin

Benjamin Barber

Resources

1. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”, Dr. Martin Gilens, Professor of Politics at Princeton University, and Dr. Benjamin I. Page, Gordon S. Fulcher Professor of Decision Making at Northwestern University, American Political Science Association, Sept 2014.

2. “Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More,” Deborah Hardoon, Senior Researcher, Oxfam GB; 19 Jan 2015. Go here for a summary statement or here for a PDF of the Oxfam Issue Briefing.

3. “Sen. Bernie Sanders: The Trans Pacific Trade (TPP) Agreement must be Defeated”, 29 Dec 2014, PDF.

4. “Pope Francis Condemns Corruption And 'Unbridled Capitalism' In South America”, Reuters, 12 July 2015

5. "The Devolution Revolution", Dr. Benjamin R. Barber, 9 June 2015, The Huffington Post.