A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Michigan’s Republicans are creating a legal model for American fascism for the benefit of Wall Street. The state’s new emergency financial management legislation “is the prototype for a host of laws designed to make government – the state – a compliant tool for a dictatorship of the most predatory sections of the ruling class.” Naturally – this being the United States – the first localities targeted for de-democratization are Black.
Michigan’s “Emergency” Financial Regime: What Fascism Looks Like
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“There is nothing to stop the state from abolishing democratic governance in any of Michigan’s cities, if an emergency can be declared or created.”
Fascism is not all about jack-boots and guys with mustaches. It is a system of economic and social control. The particularities of fascism in any given nation grow out of the special dynamics of that country. Fascism in the United States will be blow-dried. And its legal and bureaucratic form will take shape in places like Michigan, where an innocuous sounding piece of legislation called the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act is the prototype for a host of laws designed to make government – the state – a compliant tool for the dictatorial rule of the most predatory sections of the ruling class. In 2011 America, that’s Wall Street, finance capital.
Michigan’s law allows the state to appoint emergency managers to nullify contracts, including labor agreements – which is what has unions upset. But the scope and intention of the law is much deeper and wider than simply anti-union. The legislation allows emergency managers to nullify the powers and authority of local governments of all kinds. One of its supporters gave the game away when he spoke of the need to impose a kind of “financial martial law public schools Benton Harbor
“Wall Street imposes instant emergencies on the larger society by starving cities and schools and the public sector in general, in order to strip down, privatize and commodify every asset in sight.”
Fascism always requires an “emergency,” a “crisis,” to justify the surrender of whatever citizen liberties previously existed. Its mass organizing principle revolves the “Other” – the scapegoating of a hated group that can be blamed for the emergency. Historically, in the United States, that “Other” has been Black people – although other “Others” have been added to the list. The U.S. has always been fertile ground for fascist politicking – in fact, I have long maintained that White Terror under southern Jim Crow was a peculiar form of American fascism.
Fascism is also associated with militarism and the national security state, which are certainly famiiar aspects of modern Americana. More importantly, the militarization of the inner cities has been an established fact since the mid-1960s. The proof is in the one million African Americans behind bars.
The “crisis” that justifies the outright abolition of democracy – beginning, of course, in Black America – is the crisis afflicting finance capitalism. Wall Street then imposes instant emergencies on the larger society by starving cities and schools and the public sector in general, in order to strip down, privatize and commodify every asset in sight. Michigan's fascist model will doubtless be duplicated across the nation, as Wall Street moves to rule directly, through its emergency managers, by one name or another. The permanent emergency has begun.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
Norfolk Southern and other railroads have increased profits while cutting their workforce and lobbying against safety regulations.
The Ukraine project is an obsession of the "collective west" but global south nations are resisting intimidation and making their own decisions in regard to the conflict.
This week we learn about an effort in Mississippi to undo Black political power, and we’ll hear some of my commentary on the U.S. role in the Ukraine conflict, and support for Mumia Abu Jamal among…
Maurice Carney is Executive Director of Friends of the Congo. He joins us to discuss cobalt, one of Congo’s mineral resources and one that plays a large role in green energy projects. But Congo’s…
Nsombi Lambright is Executive Director of One Voice, a statewide non-profit located in Jackson, Mississippi. She joins us to discuss a legislative proposal to create a new court system within the…
