Anti-Semitism and the evolution of fascism

Here, I would like to begin linking Adorno and Horkheimer's chapter "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" with the final one: "Elements of Anti-Semitism: The Limits of Enlightenment." I've been thinking over the evolution of fascism from the 30's to the present
and these are the similarities I see (as I understand them).
With regard to Adorno/Horkheimer's "Culture" essay:
Increasing and consolidating State control of the media, education and religious institutions (what Adorno/Horkheimer refer to as the "Culture industry") coupled with increasing economic (capitalist) support led to the absolute power of the Nazi party. This control of culture gave the Nazi's the illusion of power until political power had been consolidated and maintaining the illusion was no longer necessary. Today, our government maintains the illusion of democracy and "free" market capitalism when really, the corporations have replaced the fascist government as the center of power politically, culturally and economically. Corporations decide what candidates are electable, what issues are debatable, and what character flaws are worth divulging and what criticism is acceptable. They do this through the absolute power they maintain over the media and what stories get aired, how they are reported on, who can report on them and what stories are to buried in the back of the entertainment section. They also have amazing control over what is considered entertainment and even news when local news can be packaged by some p.r. company to sell products (such as grape seed extract or the extreme health benefits of encapsulated garlic) as "news you can use." Because fascism relies upon total control of the outside forces that shape social values (religious institutions, education, media) they can shape and distort in their direct influence, the inner values of individual citizens through repeated inundation with State propaganda.

Hitler's power came in his ability to convince the German people that he represented them, that he worked for their wellbeing and most importantly for him, the wellbeing of the German state. Building upon the inner fear that economic depression and WWI had left in Germans, Hitler was able to manipulate Socialist ideals into a tool to unite the people (winning hearts and minds?) under the flag of "one people." How different from this, is corporate fascism? A friend was telling me about an incident at Bronco Stadium recently where they people coming to the game were handed tiny American flags and subjected to a couple of patriotic speeches by local officials during the halftime, at which point, the public was reminded of the necessity of supporting the troops and asked to wave the flag. One of those telling the story commented on how he was half tempted to stand and give the Nazi salute but decided against it. My husband explained to me that in Nazi Germany, the idea of the collective was put higher than the importance of the individual (as in America today). But we do still have a tendancy to unite under a leader (even if we dislike that leader and feel free to ridicule him in the few outlets the corporate media allows) in times of crisis and/or war. So does this blurring of values into one nation, one people, one set of values (one religion?) and at times one leader automatically call for a need of a social/political/cultural scapegoat as found in Anti-Semitism? I think it does. Adorno/Horkheimer offer some thoughts on this that I'd like to share here and then compare to today. They write, "The fantasies of Jewish crimes, infanticide and sadistic excess, poisoning of the nation, and international conspiracy, accurately define the anti-Semitic dream, but remain far behind its actualization. Once things have reached this stage, the mere word "Jew" appears as the bloody grimace reflected in the swastika flag with its combination of death's head and shattered cross. The mere fact that a person is called a Jew is an invitation forcibly to make him over into a physical semblance of that image of death and distortion" (186).

How does American history and present compare to this projection of criminality and othering that made the Jew (to the Nazi's) the subject of national fear, scorn and hatred? Well, we have definite examples in history from the height of McCarthyism and the "red scare" where we put people to death, incarcirated and assasinated American citizens for the sake of national security. Today we have an interesting dynamic going on with the fact that the American public is kept in the dark by the mainstream media as to what our government has done, is doing and plans to do in the future for the sake of national security and global capitalism. All of the "culture industry's" efforts are directed to keep the American public myopic in their focus on "our" troops, "our" values, "our" leader and "our" way of life. What we are not left to consider is who gets to define these values and this way of life and how this way of life is contigent upon ensuring that others live in chaos, war, and poverty so that we may have this illusory peace that coincides with our illusory democracy and illusory freedom of press and separation of church and state. Therefore our "other" is this spectre of "terrorism," the perfect enemy in that it allows the perpetuation of fear and constant threat to justify the ever increasing monopoly of corporate power. I think it is interesting that the power source in this nation is also a faceless entity, deemed "soul-less" by many, but certainly faceless and its current 'enemy' is also faceless, though the primary target to date happen to have brown skin and be from certain oil rich countries and not from other countries that happen to be corporate financiers.

There's another quote from Adorno/Horkheimer I would like to share dealing with this culture of fear and blind conformity. They write, "Since the paranoiac perceives the world about him only as it corresponds to his blind purposes, he can only repeat his own self which is denatured into an abstract mania. The naked pattern of power as such, which dominates all around it as well as its own decomposing ego, seizes all that is offered to it and incorporates it, without reference to its specific nature, into its mythic fabric. ...As a philosopher he makes world history the executor of inescapable catastrophies and declines. As the perfect madman or absolutely rational individual, he destroys his opponents by individual acts of terror or by the carefully conceived strategy of extermination. In this way he succeeds. Just as women adore the unmoved paranoiac, so nations genuflect before totalitarian Fascism" (190-191).

So how does the "paranoiac" translate into a society where there is no one leader to blame? After all, Bush is a product of the power around him and you need no more proof of that than to look at which corporations have primary financial power in the current Iraq. The answer to that is (I think) offered by the example of the U.S. relationship to the rest of America. When we have a dictator in power that we like, he is never criticized by the U.S. press (although the world press sometimes wakes up and does criticize) but should this leader fall from grace and dare try to socialize of nationalize some part of his country against the wishes of corporate fascism, then is he suddenly demonized in the U.S. press and in most cases, subject to being overthrown, imprisoned and assasinated. These leaders are expendable just as worker are expendable just as freedom is expendable. How does this relate to the practice of genocide? Adorno/Horkheimer write, "Hitler demands justification for mass murder in the name of the legal principle of sovereign national rights, which tolerates any act of violence in another country" (194). The national trumphs the individual and the right of national sovereignty hinders any protection offered by international law. The Holocaust led to the establishment of international laws and importantly international tribunals to (in theory) protect against Hitler's justifications. Yet we have had several genocides since and an increasing weakening of international law to be anything other than a mouthpiece for national interests, with the greatest national power at present being the U.S. Individuals are still sacrificed to a certain power but that power is weilding more on more on the corporate level rather than by a single leader or even a single government. Adorno/Horkheimer also have thoughts on this. They write, "When the big industrial interests incessantly eliminate the econimc basis for moral decision, partly by eliminating the independent economic subject, partly by taking over the self-employed tradesmen, and partly by transforming the works into objects in trade unions, reflective thoughts must also die out. The soul, as the possibility of self-comprehending guilt, is destroyed" (198). The individual values are repackaged in a sense, replaced by what they call "stereotyped value scales" in which individual happiness becomes intigent upon complicity and complacency. Questioning, dissent and even debate become co-opted intitially until later denied outright. Do we see this now? Well not RIGHT now so much with the election. Or do we? Are people really allowed the media access to hold an open debate or even public dissent that will remain free from distortion or commentary that labels such acts ridiculous, subversive, unpatriotic, or even "treasonous"? The debates that are shown are offered to maintain the illusion of democracy in an increasingly monopolized system of corporate fascism. This is, as Adorno/Horkheimer explain, the lie that perpetuates itself or the lie that is "obvious but persists" (208).

peace!