If someone calls you a duck and you know you’re not a duck, you can ignore them. If a second person calls you a duck, you can probably ignore them, too. About the third time someone calls you a duck, you might want to start checking for feathers.

When the best friends the United States has in the entire world start saying that they’re tired of our cruel, vulgar ways and two-thirds of them say we’re “essentially an imperial power seeking world domination” and untrustworthy, we might want to stop for a bit and think about what’s happening.

It might be time to consider a change.

Steve Malm posted it as a follow-up comment to my article and one of my former philosophy professors, Terry Winant, also sent it, saying, “Here is a succinct statement.”

The part of the article that immediately struck me was not just that there was plenty of reason for the government to have known about this in advance, but also this part:

Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out without help – and help wasn’t provided. Many have yet to receive any help at all. — Paul Krugman, “A Can’t Do Government” (September 2, 2005) The New York Times.

This is symptomatic of what’s been happening with our nation. We’ve not only transformed from “can do” to “can’t do,” but we’ve transformed from a nation that cared about every individual to a nation where it’s every individual for him- or herself.

And if you’re part of the minority — if you’re too weak to make it as the herd stampedes this way and that without a care for anyone else running alongside them — you’re going to be crushed.

That’s not the version of America that created great things — now nearly forgotten — like the Constitution of the United States of America.

True unity comes not from ignoring our differences, including our differences of opinion. True unity comes from the recognition that each and every one of us is important — important enough to live for, to fight for and important enough to die for. This understanding of unity is what makes us stand together. It is what has made our nation great.

The United States of America that I used to know would be appalled at any nation that allowed thousands of its own citizens — especially its poorest and those most in need — to die shamefully and unaided in the streets of one of its once-great cities. The United States of America I know would never countenance a government that left its citizens — whether living or dead — to rot in the sun.

The United States of America that I know would never allow a party — which perhaps not coincidentally makes a big show of its adamant adherence to Christianity — to run our great nation into the ground.

It’s time to do something about New Orleans. It’s time to do something about people starving to death. It’s time to bury the dead. It’s time to stop with the Christian pretensions of a vocal minority and draw upon some real spiritual strength as a nation.

It’s time for all of us to get some backbone.

It’s time to hold our government accountable.

Because in the United States of America that I used to know, we, the People own that government.

And right now, those in control of our government not only seem to have that backwards, but they think the rest of us are disposable. And they’re proving it every day another citizen of New Orleans — a citizen of the United States — is left to die a slow and painful death from starvation, lack of water, lack of care. They’re proving it with every day another citizen of New Orleans — a citizen of the United States — is left to rot in the sun.

When will we, the American people, stand together and say to the Bush Administration with its pseudo-christian posturing,

On the other hand, maybe the ho-hum reaction explains a number of things. The feelings that the rest of the world have for America stand out in stark relief when we understand that the Iraqi quagmire and the stirred up hornet’s nests (not one, but several) we’ve created around the world are the result of the moral, intellectual and political quagmire in which we’re mired at home.

Because the bottom line here isn’t just that hard-core conservative Republican Fresno doesn’t give a shit about the United States flag; it’s evidence that we can’t get motivated about any morally problematic behavior, however simple it would be to resolve the situation.

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As anyone reading Unspun™ for the last few days knows, there are tattered rags that are somewhat recognizable as United States flags, as well as other pieces of cloth that appear to have once been flags, vainly flapping above the Club One Casino downtown like so many politicians’ lips.

This disgrace would take probably less than fifteen minutes to resolve, if anyone were of a mind to resolve it. Club One claims to be unable to get access to the flags. They say they have nice new flags “ready and waiting once they get access.” Yet standing approximately 20 yards away from the snot-rags that represent out increasingly snotty-nosed nation are two flags in decent condition that have at least once disappeared and then reappeared on their poles — someone must be taking those down and putting them back up. And that means someone has access.

The indolence demonstrated by Club One, as I intimated above, isn’t limited to Club One. After I contacted the Mayor’s office, I received a lovely email from Alan Autry:

As an attorney-friend said when I showed it to him, “I would be very offended if I received that note.” I agreed with his sentiment that it would be better not to send a note at all than to send something like this.

In addition to the Mayor, Bob Marcotte contacted Councilwoman Sterling, in whose district Club One sits. And I’ve contacted not one, not two, but three Fresno Bee reporters. The results? Francis Scott Key would be proud: The rags still wave and, so far, my friends, it appears that I’m the only one writing about this symbolic humiliation of America.

And yesterday, right across the street from those very flags, I talked to a reporter. Right across the street! Was she interested? “It might be a nice set piece for the weekend, but don’t talk to any other reporters, okay?” I didn’t bother pointing out that they were also too busy to turn and look across the street because, you see, they’ve been sitting on the lawn of the courthouse day and night waiting for a verdict in the Wesson trial.

When, I ask, was the last time a jury came back with a verdict at 3 a.m.? But I’ve sat at my window in the Rowell Building, across the street from both those disgustingly poor excuses for flags and those disgustingly poor excuses for reporters who don’t have time to notice the disgustingly poor excuses for flags, at 3 a.m. and seen the vans and their occupants just sitting there. You’d think that at least night-time might be a good time to walk across the street and get a look at those flags.

On the other hand, they are some 100 feet away….

Meanwhile, I’m not supposed to try to stir up interest in anyone else there because it might make a nice set piece for the weekend.

And so it goes. But, as I said at the start of this article, this is clearly just demonstrative of America’s attitude about nearly everything these days. Gasoline hit record highs this year while we sat duking it out with dug-in insurgents in a war our failed oil-executive, now President, started over the second-largest oil reserve in the entire world. So far, no one has benefited from that war except terrorists…and the President’s friends. Numerous families — who can’t get off their asses to call the Mayor at (559) 621-8000 to complain about flags — have seen their sons turned into maggot food. America’s reputation, which might have once been something (like our flag) to be proud of, is trashed around the world.

And our President?

• Only 39 percent approve of his handling of the economy.
• Only 39 percent approve of his handling of foreign policy.
• Only 37 percent approve of his handling of the war in Iraq.
• Only 25 percent approve of his handling of Social Security.

— “The President’s Problems” (June 16, 2005) CBS News.

But guess what? Other than to express disapproval — if someone calls them! — no one cares about what he’s doing.

One irony:

Only the campaign against terrorism gets the approval of more than half those questioned. — “The President’s Problems” (June 16, 2005) CBS News.

And the President? In spite of this low approval rating for what he’s been doing, it’s “deja vu all over again, his new PR campaign on Iraq seems remarkably similar to one he embarked on almost two years ago.” (“The President’s Problems” (June 16, 2005) CBS News.)

Who can blame him? President Bush knows what I’ve only seriously understood this week: No one gives a shit.

And the apparently star-spangled banner in tatters doth wave
O’er the land of the gamblers and the home of the slave.

— Variation on words from the Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key.

I thought it might be a good idea to update you all on the “progress” that’s been made towards convincing Club One to stop making a mockery of our nation’s symbol.

If you read my last post, you know that the flag pictured here is flying not-so-high above Club One, a gambling casino in downtown Fresno, right across the street from another symbol of what makes America great: our Court House. The one symbol reminds us of the glory of our nation; the other reminds us that that glory is founded upon the rule of law.

Club One’s presentation of the American flag, however, reminds us of something else: corporations too busy to do anything that doesn’t contribute to their bottom line, even if all it would take is a man on a step-ladder to resolve the problem.

The other day, Bob Marcotte and I both contacted City Hall. I wrote to Mayor Autry; Bob contacted Councilwoman Sterling, in whose district Club One is located.

The Mayor essentially told me how glad he was that I wrote to him and would I now please go away. Well, okay, his exact words were:

Thanks for taking the time to write to me on issues of importance to you. Your comments are appreciated and help me better understand your needs and
concerns.

Sincerely,

Mayor Alan Autry

Whoa! Don’t I feel like he actually read my email…not. Hard to believe I actually used to have friendly conversations with him!

Bob’s luck was actually not much better than mine…

As Bob noted in a comment posted to Really Old Glory,

Councilwoman Sterling’s office called back. Here’s the issue as they described it to me.

1 – Club One occupies the first floor of an otherwise vacant hotel.

2 – Club One admits to owning the flags but cannot get access to change them (via the vacant hotel).

3 – Sterling’s assistant is trying to determine the owner of the hotel and will request that they allow access for Club One to change the flag. BTW, Club One (via Sterling’s assistant) claims to have new flags ready and waiting once they get access.

Now, one thing I neglected to mention the other day is this: Approximately 40 to 50 feet away from those flags hanging above Club One’s door, on the balcony area, are two large flagpoles. A couple of days ago, they contained one flag of the United States and one flag of California in pretty good condition. From the base of the flagpoles on which those flags hung, I imagine it takes less than 5 seconds to walk to the flags that hang over Club One’s door. And guess what?

Today, those two flags are gone.

I suppose it’s possible that they were so ashamed to be in such proximity to the tattered rags that they just got down off the poles and walked off by themselves.

But I doubt it.

It looks like someone was able to get up there and take down the two good flags. So why couldn’t they at least take down the ragged shreds of what used to be flags from above Club One’s door?

Or is it the case that these rags really do signify how Club One — and all the silent Fresnans who aren’t concerned enough to try to do anything about it — thinks the flag of the United States of America should be treated?

Maybe Fresno’s Mayor really is so powerless that he is limited to performing mock marriages on the steps of City Hall and praying that someone else will take care of things. But I’ll bet if enough of you called (559) 621-8000 and told his office how you felt about this, he’d make a try at asking the owners of Club One to do something about those flags. The Mayor’s email is mayor@fresno.gov. You could also make a try at contacting Club One directly at (559) 497-3000. Councilwoman Sterling’s phone number is also (559) 621-8000 and her email is District3@fresno.gov.

Here’s hoping that enough people actually still care about and respect the United States flag enough to make those phone calls, send those emails and do something about this disgrace!

Here in the Fresno-Clovis area of the Central San Joaquin Valley, people are more than a little proud of the fact that we’re a Red city in the midst of a Blue state. And we’re saddened that those wussy, liberal, unpatriotic, American-hating, stupid Democrats occupy enough of the rest of our state to make everyone think we’re Blue.

After all, there’s no one more patriotic than us. We’re lining our kids up to send them off to defend everything America stands for.

Well, unless you count the American flags hanging from buildings in our downtown area. The City of Fresno has been working hard (hehe) at rejuvenating the downtown area. But either the money is running out, or Mayor Autry and his crew just don’t have time — what with all the religious ceremonies they’re holding at City Hall and around the Court House — to make sure that the flag of the United States is…oh, let’s say “recognizable” as the proud symbol of our great nation.

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As you can see from the first photograph above, the flags above Club One — right across from the front of the Court House — should have been retired long ago. I can’t say for sure, but it appeared to me that their copy of Old Glory is so old that it only had 48 stars. Or maybe that’s just because two of them fell off.

I suppose people going into the club aren’t actually all that concerned. On their way in, all they can see is money, money, money. (Club One is Fresno’s hottest gambling spot.) On their way out, most Club One visitors probably don’t feel much like lifting their heads high anyway.

I tried, months ago, to tell a couple of people at Club One that the appearance of these flags is a disgrace, but they were uninterested. I even told them that I was going to come back and take pictures and then post them up on the Internet. In response, one guard standing inside the doors said to me, “It’s not our responsibility.” Ahhh…to be a proud and patriotic American!

If I could figure out a way to get to those flags, I’d take them down myself. Even the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key probably looked better than the sad rags flapping above Club One Casino.

On Tuesday…he visited the office of the federal Bureau of Public Debt in Parkersburg, W.Va. He posed next to a file cabinet that holds the $1.7 trillion in Treasury securities that make up the Social Security trust fund. He tossed off a comment to the effect that the bonds were not “real assets.” Later, in a speech at a nearby university, he said: “There is no trust fund. Just i.o.u.’s that I saw firsthand.” — “Shameless Photo-Op” (April 7, 2005) New York Times.

Just IOUs. From the government of the United States of America.

Bush is taking great pains to convince Americans that Social Security is in deep trouble. He knows — polls has repeatedly shown — that Americans aren’t buying his plan to turn Social Security over to the same Corporate Interests that gave us Enron, Worldcom and Halliburton.

Enron, of course, was the company owned by Bush’s friend (and one of his most effective fundraisers), which went belly up, then sank out of the public consciousness, taking hundreds of millions of dollars in employee 401(k) retirement accounts with it. Worldcom — similarly “off the radar” for most Americans — lost misappropriated stole billions of dollars of investors’ money before the Bush Administration awarded them a $45 million no-bid contract for providing cell phones to Iraq. (That’s just a fraction of the $772 million WorldCom was given as “the prime contractor to federal agencies.”) And Halliburton…uh, Dick Cheney…oil executives…10-year no-bid contract…gasoline expected to hit $3 per gallon this summer in the United States — need I say more?

The last time corporations had this much power in America was right before — and directly caused — the Great Depression. That Great Depression at one point resulted in twenty-five percent of Americans being unemployed. One official U.S. Navey website puts the number of unemployed as high as thirty-three percent and notes that people who were lucky enough to have jobs worked 12 to 16 hours a day, up to seven days a week. People lost not just their jobs, but their homes, savings, sometimes they died and many of those who didn’t depended on charity to stay alive. (Meanwhile, the lives of the rich improved even while the middle-class was practically destroyed.)

And even after the stock market collapse, the United States government continued to assure people that the economy was improving.

It’s ironic, then, that one of the programs established to ensure the ravages seen in the Great Depression would never starve retirees to death again is currently under attack — by the same kind of corporations that caused the Great Depression in the first place.

And the President of the United States.

But Bush knows that the only way this is ever going to happen is if he can convince Americans that the United States is really a Third-World Country.

Social Security takes in more money than it needs to pay current beneficiaries, and the excess is invested in the Treasury securities that Mr. Bush was discussing. They carry the same legal and political obligations as all other forms of Treasury debt, every penny of which has always been paid in full and on time. — “Shameless Photo-Op” (April 7, 2005) New York Times.

“The same legal and political obligations as all other forms of Treasury debt.” And Bush says they’re “not real assets.” They’re “just i.o.u.’s.” Back when the United States was part of the First World — in fact, the leader of the First World — the United States government always paid its debts. An IOU from the United States — well, the only thing better than that was gold.

But the United States is, apparently, according to President George W. Bush, no longer that First World country. Like other Third World countries, an IOU from the United States is worthless. IOUs from the United States are “just i.o.u.’s.”

Well some entrepreneur has figured what’s good for the goosed is good for a gander. There’s a website up that sells variations on that and will even allow you to create your own customized ribbon.

My favorite at the moment is “One Nation Under Ribbons.”

Since sloganeering is the game of the day — according to a story I heard on CNN radio the other day, even the SAT has been revised to remove sections that test logical skills — Unspun™ has designed it’s own set of slogan stuff.

The RealPatriots™ design is currently available as a bumpersticker and as a mousepad. I just created them recently. My own copies should be arriving this week. Hopefully, they look as good on the bumperstickers and mousepad as they do on my screen. If so, I’ll be expanding them to create coffee mugs and shirts. You can find yours in our store.

Still, I have some mixed feelings on this one.

John Mahlmann, executive director for the National Association for Music Education says,

We want to remind all Americans to cherish our national treasures and to celebrate our unity and our values in song. — Cowardly Unattributed Story, “‘Oh say can you,’ la la la” (March 11, 2005) CNN.

On the one hand, I have no serious qualms about this. Really. I mean, I’m one of those bizarre Americans who actually knows the song. When it plays, I sing along with it. And I don’t have to resort to “la la la.”

On the other hand, I can’t help but notice that the focus is on a song meant to inspire national fervor instead of a program to help Americans understand the foundational documents of our democratic republic that make justify national pride.

One of the first signs of fascism is “exuberant nationalism.” In fascist regimes, flags are seen everywhere; the use of “patriotic” symbols and slogans is omnipresent. Anyone critical of the State — even those who love the State and criticize because they want to improve it — is a traitor. We’ve seen that here where anyone criticizing Bush, the Republican Party and the way either of them handles civil liberties, national security and other issues of constitutional implication is “anti-American.”

In fact, I submit that nothing could be further from the truth. Those of us pressing for adherence to the Constitution are the real Americans; those pushing programs contrary to the Constitution are anti-American.

The problem for those of us who side with the Constitution, though, is that there are “all these ways” in which the anti-Americans are proving that we’re wrong. They’re teaching people to sing the national anthem. They’re “standing up for America.” They’re telling people to be proud to be Americans! The defending our way of life.

But wouldn’t it be something if, instead of focusing on getting America to sing the national anthem, there was a group out there pushing Americans to read the Constitution? Wouldn’t it be something if we taught little Americans in our schools about what “our way of life” was meant to be, when our country was founded? Wouldn’t it be something if we gave people the reasons to have national pride — and those reasons weren’t circularly based on nationalistic jingoism?

For those who do feel the need for jingoistic national pride embodied in a slogan, I’d propose this one:

My next-to-the-last Professional Responsibility class is tonight and I’v work to do.

One of my readers pointed out to me that freelance journalist (a real journalist; not one of those FNF [faux news folk]) has written something similar to my take on fascism. Author of Strawberry Days, Death on the Fourth of July and In God’s Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest, he’s a much better writer than I am.

About 3 a.m. today, I finally got around to starting to read Neiwert’s stuff on “The Rise of Pseudo-Fascism”. It’s well worth a read and I recommend you go there post-haste. He’s clearly done more research and had more time to think about this issue than me.

There’s a “cleaned-up” PDF version here, which is about 87 pages long and includes a bibliography. Again, however, it’s well worth the read. It is slightly different from the HTML versions, because the HTML versions are blog entries, which he later edited to create the PDF version of the essay.

For another, slightly more crass, take on the subject, check out “American Hitler” by Doug Thompson over at The Rant.

Otherwise, you may not hear much from me until the weekend. Maintaining Unspun™ as I head into the last couple months as a third-year law school student is probably not going to be easy. Finals, dontchaknow. (Plus, I really want to get my legal site, RHDefense, up and running.)

As I was writing the response to one email, it occurred to me that it could be today’s blog entry.

I would agree that some people have been trying to make too much out of the examples they put forth.

That doesn’t, in my mind, translate into making it impossible to know when we’ve started down the path of fascism. Certainly the first step or two — maybe even several — will be missed. But the more astute observers will (accurately) pick out some point at which we’re clearly on the path and will (again accurately) note that the majority has failed to notice.

And I believe it’s possible that we’re on that path now. Around 1999 or 2000, I first told my wife that 2004 would be the last real election. If the stories out of Ohio (and possibly New Mexico) are true, I missed it by at least one election (two, if you believe what some say about Florida in 2000 and the involvement of the Supremes).

I won’t be terribly surprised if 2008 is more blatant. Maybe “national security” will preclude an election as it currently precludes so much else that usually accompanies democracy.

Or it’s possible that everything will work out for the Republicans. If, that is — and I personally think this is their primary goal — they succeed at bankrupting the de jure United States government and leave it incapable of responding to a de facto shadow-oligarchy of corporations. They will no longer need the Presidency; it will be an impotent office. When held by Republicans, it will continue to support the oligarchy; when held by Democrats, it will be powerless because any funds upon which it could draw power will be drained away by the budgetary damage being done even as I write this.

In either case, the corporations will be satisfied to leave it alone at that point. Having no more need of it, they’ll even benefit by allowing the average (read: “ignorant”) American to point to it as “proof” that democracy still reigns in the United States.

If, on the other hand, the Republicans have not yet inflicted enough damage, then the real fight begins. The corporations for whom the Republicans really are just stand-ins will yet need to control that office. And, hopefully, some of us will continue to oppose them.

In either case, though, some form of fascism probably wins the day.

One form — which I definitely think is already in place — is a kind of “info-fascism.” By controlling the flow of information, by dictating what does and does not become visible, the corporations will continue to control things. It’s not so obvious because, after all, the whole point is to be as Rove-like as possible: Pull the strings, or hold the microphone attached to the government’s backpack, but don’t let anyone know who’s really running the show. And we, the People, will never again have the strength to recapture the Media from the corporations.

The other form of fascism — the only form most of us recognize as fascism — is old-fashioned. That’s the goose-stepping, high-handed, Heil-Führer, less-sophisticated fascism — the only kind most people think exist. It’s also less controllable. Once that monster is out of the cage, even corporations have something to fear.

Only the New Fascism works for them; it’s the only one they will wholeheartedly support. This has been the Great Discovery of the neo-cons who currently hold virtually every significant office in the United States government. Marketing is more powerful, less damaging and preserves the consumptive constituency that enriches those wise enough to abandon the Old Fascism and embrace the New Fascism.

But, of course, I’m a fruitcake. I still believe the nation can be strong; profits can be made; corporations can thrive — all without the need for making a mockery of, or outrightly destroying, our Constitution.

It’s only unbridled greed, a return to the Dark Ages when proto-corporations held oligarchic sway over a populace deliberately kept ignorant so as to be more highly exploitable, that requires us to — in the words of Republican strategist Grover Norquist — “get [the United States government] down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.”