Another Baby Step Toward Fascism

I've written before about Pennsylvania police chief Mark Kessler, who has taken to threatening the lives of any politicians who oppose him, and Democrats in general.  I have noted how his showing up at local government meetings with an armed, and very hostile gang of like minded right wingers is totally reminiscent, except in scale, of the tactic for which the SA was created, and which Hitler used right up until the 1933 action that did away with all other political parties.


A couple of pictures of Kessler's armed idiots showing up
to intimidate opponents at open government meetings.  This is
the way the United States should be run, right wing style.

Well, here is another sort of behavior by Kessler and his followers that bears comparison to some historical events:

"The real story is Kessler’s call for a military coup.  Kessler has called for a massive march to be held next week in Washington, where he hopes the military will join with the people to “give the tyrannical government 48 hours to step down. 

Here is Kessler’s call to action from his Facebook event page...: 

“we need millions upon millions of American people to attend and march on Washington DC, September 9th, (peacefully,)...now the Egyptian military has sided with the people and has given the tyrannical government 48 hours to step down or the military will intervene...
...we can do the same here, but we need millions and millions to stand up go to Washington , and have our military stand with we the people & the constitution once and for all !" 

His model is the Egyptian military coup."

His model is not the Egyptian military coup.  He has two real models here: First, Mussolini's march on Rome in 1922, in which fewer than 30,000 armed participants manipulated the gutless Italian government into relinquishing power to the Fascists.  And second, Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, an attempt to seize power in Bavaria through force, in which Hitler imagined the German military would join his marchers and overthrow the state, handing power to Hitler. Despite having failed, it served as the springboard for the Nazis' rise to control Germany over the next decade.

Kessler's dream.  And don't kid yourself for a moment that it has
anything to do with Egypt.  Here is what he really believes in.

Like all hard right wingers, Kessler knows the history of Fascism in Europe all too well.  He is well aware that relatively small groups with extreme ideologies managed to capture the popular attention, and use their notoriety to eventually gain power.

Now, of course, Kessler is not Hitler or Mussolini.  He is a colossal jackass with delusions of grandeur and an apocalyptic hunger for violence. So his grand march on Washington is undoubtedly doomed to be a humiliating failure- or the failure would be humiliating if the mainstream press reported on things like this as it should- as a clear sign of the ludicrousness of the American right's claims to speak for any significant segment of the populace.  No, instead it will disappear into the empty well of history, along with the several right wing Marches on Washington designed to collapse the government, that happen every year.  The press, and its rich owners, have too much invested in the fairy tale of the mighty right in this country to let reality come between them and a good story.  But as long as this sort of thing is allowed to pass as legitimate political activity, there is always the danger that we may wake up one day to discover our country controlled by a 21st century version of Hitler or Mussolini.  At this point it should be clear that this is not a deluded fantasy, but a real possibility.

Anyway, Green Eagle will be back in the coming week to let you know if we are still being led by President Obama, or if we now must swear allegiance to Fuehrer Kessler.

Comments

Infidel753 said…
Of course the Egyptian coup isn't Kessler's model. The Egyptian coup overthrew a regime of crazed religious bigots. Kessler would bring in such a regime.
I assume they will be armed and standing at the polling places come November.

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