A Pandemic of Fascism

In a recent post, I called those using the pandemic to increase wealth and power fascists.  Fascism is a charged word, but I used it deliberately.  Simply stated, fascism is the alliance between business and government to give wealth to the former and power to the latter.  The cost of fascism is borne by common citizens who pay with their money and freedom.

The word “fascism” has become a pejorative used to shut down debate by conjuring images of swastikas, concentration camps, and sieg-heil salutes.  True, a notorious example of fascism was its use by National Socialists in Germany to consolidate power and wealth around a monolithic cultural and racial ideal.  Nazism’s twisted utopian goals have been used by American leftists to brand their opposition as fascists, destroying the true meaning of the word.

Fascism is not a defining characteristic of the political right or the political left.  It is not even a tendency of one political party more than another.  It is a tendency of any politician who becomes intoxicated by power.  Realizing that a position in government can be stealthily misused for selfish ends, corrupt individuals entrusted to safeguard our interests easily find accomplices ready to deal for sure profits.  It is an unforgivable, treasonous violation of sacred honor and duty.

Fascists use a crisis to create panic, then demonize a segment of the population for causing the crisis.  By doing so, they trick many into mindless submission.  Today’s fascists have perpetuated the pandemic and castigated the unvaccinated, using fear to cover their true agenda.  Because they cannot prevail using honest, intellectual arguments, they resort to coercion, bullying, oppression, suppression, and ad hominem attacks.  Even violence is permitted if it furthers their cause.  There is an inevitable trail of pain and death in the fascists’ wake.

Think that is harsh?  First consider that those assuring the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines are also those with most to gain by vaccine sales.  Then look at the 40% increase in death among working aged adults during 2021.  Look at the higher all-cause mortality among the vaccinated within Pfizer’s own clinical trial dataset.  Look at the thousands of suspicious deaths reported to VEARS.  Look at the attempt by FDA to hide Pfizer data from the public.  Look at the 13 times higher rate of myocarditis in young men aged 16 to 19 who have taken mRNA vaccine.  How do we account for these failures?

Perhaps COVID-19 is so new that the medical-industrial-regulatory complex could not have possibly anticipated these outcomes.  Perhaps in haste to bring a savior vaccine to market, they neglected to perform a thorough analysis of the data.  But is ignorance or willful neglect among those who claim the ability to interpret science—who claim to be science—acceptable?

Instead, perhaps they were fully aware of all the data and decided that the risks were worth the potential benefit anyway.  Decided for you.  Decided for you and as many other individuals as there are Americans.  This is what fascists do.  They decide for you, or rather they decide what is best for themselves and coerce you to comply.  Coercion like vaccine mandates, for example.

But weren’t vaccine mandates overturned by the Supreme Court?  Not quite.  The CMS mandate is still force.  Think about how it works.  

CMS refuses to pay for healthcare services rendered to Medicare subscribers unless most members of the provider organization are vaccinated.  Sure, some members of the organization can opt out of vaccination, so long as there are not too many of them, and so long as it is for a medical condition or religious objection.  “I don’t want the increased risk of myocarditis and death” is not an acceptable reason to decline the vaccine, the very vaccine which says in its factsheet, “The recipient or their caregiver has the option to accept or refuse Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.”  Some option, if you have spent the last 30 years of your life in education and training to be a neurosurgeon, and the alternative is unemployment.  That cognitive dissonance does not bother fascists.  What bothers them is precise use of language.

Nazis were masters of language distortion.  Sonderbehandlung (“special treatment”) meant execution, and die Endlösung (“final solution”) meant extermination of all Untermench (“sub-humans”). These terms facilitated polite conversation about horrific crimes at genteel dinner parties, while veiling a threatening sub-text—any individual who stands against fascist institutions can become an Untermench subject to Sonderbehandlung.

Today’s fascists use a similar technique. The label “science” is applied to any flimsy hypothesis that supports their agenda, while opposing yet equally plausible ideas are discarded for lack of “clinical evidence.” They continue to insist, for example, on the zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2, dismissing as conspiracy the lab-leak theory or any possible connection to bioweapons research. They change the meaning of words like “vaccine” to suit their ends. “Safe and effective” really means “the issue is settled; stop analyzing the data.” The list is endless. Even the word “fascism” has been distorted, leaving us without language to describe what is happening. Once fascism takes hold, it goes viral, spiraling exponentially in a positive feedback loop. It is insidious. It is infectious.

Although the COVID pandemic has subsided, a Pandemic of Fascism remains.  It is a virus, and it is raging across the globe.  We need inoculations.

Fascism is a tool to consolidate power, transfer wealth, and reduce liberty.  Like SARS-CoV-2, it will never be totally eradicated.  It has lingered in our culture for eons.  But it must be minimized.  Like SARS-CoV-2, fascism must be beaten back to smoldering endemic levels.

Since fascism abhors individual liberty, fairness, honesty, clarity, and diversity, these must be our highest values.  They cannot be compromised, not even a little.  To recover from this instance of fascism, we cannot let our language be corrupted by Newspeak.  

Challenge all assumptions.  Take nothing for granted.