Out of the Woods

The Nazis are coming! The Nazis are coming!

Rush Limbaugh, the voice of the far right, likes to call his opponents Nazis. That's a bad joke because fascism is today widely infecting American politics, especially on the right. Fascism stands for racism. It stands for contempt for First Amendment rights. It stands for a politics springing from irrational prejudice. While Limbaugh and his ilk pretend to defend individual liberties, they in fact want to use the power of the government to enforce strict mind control and uniformity of political convictions.

The Tucson Arizona school district, under pressure from the Arizona state legislature, has shut down the programs for ethnic studies, including Mexican American studies. It has issued a long list of books that will be banned from schools and their libraries. The list contains mostly distinguished Chicano and native American writers. But the list also contains Shakespeare's Tempest, Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, books by Isabel Allende, Gloria Anzaldua, Paolo Freire, bell hooks, Jonathan Kozol, Ron Takaki and Howard Zinn. Children in the Tucson school district will be brainwashed by government decree to believe that there are no racial problems in Tucson, in the state of Arizona, or in the country. As the German Nazis decided that Jewish citizens were not Germans anymore and excluded them from public life (before killing many of them) so the Tucson school district is letting it be known that only white Arizonans are effectively citizens and are Americans.

On Martin Luther King Day, the South Carolina NAACP held a demonstration in front of the Statehouse to protest the legislation passed in more than 30 states that demands photo IDs for voting. It is widely believed that this requirement for identification cards puts an undue burden on the poor, the elderly, and on people of color. It is perceived by many as a repeat of literacy tests for voting or the poll tax. It is one more way to reduce the number of votes of black Americans. It is animated by racist hatred.

At the same time the state of Alabama passed a new anti-immigrant law, that tops any other similar law in its fanatic hatred for Hispanic immigrants, especially if they have no papers. The measure prohibits undocumented immigrants from entering into "business transactions" with the state. "Business transactions" are broadly defined. Some state and local agencies have barred undocumented immigrants from signing up for utilities such as water, prohibited them from living in mobile homes they own and said they cannot renew licenses for their small businesses.

The law also denies bail to any undocumented immigrant arrested for any offense; requires police to check immigration status during traffic stops; and denies court protection to immigrants who have had a contract, such as an employment contract or a lease, violated, the organization said.

In addition, the law makes it a crime for U.S. citizens or legal residents to knowingly assist undocumented immigrants. It demands of every immigrant that they always carry identity papers on their person. One of the first victims of this new law was a Mercedes-Benz executive who was arrested for not having identity papers on him and as a consequence spent a night in jail.

This tremendous outpouring of hatred for people who are different (from whites) is really frightening.

I spent my early childhood years in Nazi Germany. Finally making it to the US, I thought I was safe. But now they come again with their hate, their contempt for traditional US freedoms, their fanaticism.

Wake up America! The Nazis are already here.