First Blood

Three weeks ago the public got what could be a preview of the violence that may break out in the Congressional election season of 2010. On September 12 the body of fifty-one year-old Bill Sparkman was discovered hanging in a Kentucky cemetery. Jerry Weaver, who found Sparkman's body while visiting some family graves, recounted that "The only thing he had on was a pair of socks. And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something." There was also something written across his chest. Weaver didn't take time to read it, but it was later revealed that what had been written was the word "FED". It has also been revealed that Sparkman was a part-time federal employee supplementing his income by working for the Census Bureau.

Although it is tempting to jump to conclusions about Sparkman's death and say that he was clearly killed by anti-government right wingers (many of whom attach bizarre conspiracies to the census), it should be noted that the investigation is ongoing. Just as men who murder their wives often try to make the death look like it happened during a burglary or home intrusion, Sparkman may have had personal enemies who killed him for their own reasons, but felt that they could deflect suspicion by making his death appear to be the result of anti-government nuts. But if the investigation concludes that Sparkman's killers were motivated by his employment in the Census Bureau then we are all in very deep trouble.

Since the beginning of the town hall controversies in August pundits have been trying to explain the rage against the Democrat's healthcare reform proposals. Particularly strange is the fact that so many of the people who were rallying against reform and disrupting the meetings were lower middle class citizens, many of whom lacked insurance coverage. The ruckus has mystified liberals both here and in Europe, where universal healthcare systems much more radical than anything being considered in America are the norm.

What is happening in the United States now is no more or less than fascism. And what we're seeing is the endgame, not the beginning. The beginning was when two disparate movements - the big business corporate elite and elements of the white lower middle class with radical views on religion and race - converged with each other in the Republican Party and entered the political mainstream in 1994. As the game has entered each new phase the tactics of the right wing movement have changed in ever more extreme directions. The mid-term elections of 1994 that brought sizable GOP majorities to both houses of Congress were legitimate political victories. The Republicans may have been running a campaign that appealed to less noble instincts of the electorate, but there were no major allegations of vote fraud during them and whatever else one may say, the victories they won were clearly legal. For six years the GOP then clung to power, periodically losing seats to the Democrats but never suffering the kind of electoral thrashing that they had so successfully masterminded. But the machine wasn't yet ready for the more complicated task of swinging a presidential race in its favor, and in 1996 it just could not overcome the improving economy and the incompetence of Bob Dole as a candidate, which gave the hated Bill Clinton another four years in office.

The 2000 elections saw the right wing resort to extralegal means on a scale not seen in American politics in decades. By now the conservative media had built itself into a force truly to be reckoned with. Taking advantage of increasing voter apathy (that election season it was in vogue for Generation Xers sitting on their laptops in Starbucks to pontificate about how there was really no difference left between the political parties and candidates any longer) and Al Gore's poorly managed campaign, the 2000 election saw the disenfranchisement of legitimate black voters, strange electoral shenanigans in Florida and a Supreme Court decision that left Gore with little choice but to concede defeat. In 2002 the Republicans hit the Democrats so hard on national security issues that for many years it seemed to have left deep psychological scars on the party's leadership, and in 2004 they played the national security card again. It is a testament to the strength and discipline of the right wing movement and its media machine that it somehow found a way to paint John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, as a coward who had failed in combat and betrayed his own men, while at the same time brushing aside the fact that George W. Bush was a draft dodger who was incapable of even finishing the requirements of his National Guard service. Again in the 2004 election vote fraud and voter disenfranchisement helped bring him to victory.

Unfortunately for the GOP, the 2006 midterm elections and the 2008 presidential election gave their electoral machine a set of challenges it was not up to. By 2006 the public was fed up with the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress, along with the wars, corruption and incompetence that had become their hallmark. And as much as they tried in 2008, the political fortunes had turned too badly in favor of the Democrats and John McCain was too incompetent a candidate to inspire much confidence. But do not be fooled by Obama's seemingly effortless victory. All of the tools arrayed against Al Gore and John Kerry like disenfranchisement, vote fraud and other manipulation - not to mention racism - were used against Obama. The difference was that the political/media machine just wasn't strong enough to pull these things off on the scale necessary to swing the election to McCain.

This has been the evolution of the right wing movement's toolkit for capturing and maintaining power. From deceptive but legal tactics they switched to fraudulent means when those proved no longer effective. And now that fraud isn't enough they are resorting to intimidation, with the threat of violence hanging over the heads of those they target. They have effectively used this tool to hamper the movement towards healthcare reform. It seems increasingly likely that even if a "reform" bill is passed through Congress, it will not include a public option, and whatever cosmetic improvements it may make towards regulating the insurance companies, it will be offset by giveaways to the industry. The right wingers will have learned that intimidation works. And if Bill Sparkman really was killed by conservative fanatics, his death will only mark the beginning of America’s descent into war and ruin.