Differentia. Between "Christians", who believe in some way in their Bible, & wish in some way to emulate Jesus; & "Bible Fascists", who fixate on the transgressions of others. As my favorite Blake quote goes: "Those who believe in a God of punishment & repression, worship the Devil in the name of God."

Whenever Republicans are in power, i start hearing from the sort of people i know or who think like me, the word "fascist". Now, i absolutely despise these guys & deplore their depredations their hijacking of public discourse their selfrighteousness & even their sense of style, but i would like to keep that word a term with definable limits if not precise denotation, & not let it carelessly melt into a general pejorative. So (i ask), how will i know that America, which has never been nearly as free a place as it likes to believe, & which always has been a bully & a hothead among nations,-- is truly "fascist"? When "Saturday Night Live" no longer is able to make fun of the current incumbent (--& don't tell me "repressive tolerance" as long as the skits are as cruelly accurate as they've been during this past year). When the ACLU is put out of business, & not just disparaged. When Counterpunch disappears. When actors are not just criticized in the tabloids but actually blacklisted, for their political stance. When mob violence & lynchings (by the state or approved by the state) become a matter of course. --You know, i don't think with our prisons already so overcrowded (many of their guests, for victimless crimes BTW), we're going to get to the point of being able to slam a large proportion of--let's see, the (215) millions who didn't vote for Dubya?-- in the clink. Nor even, a million of the most vociferous "liberals", methinks. But that doesn't make things okay right now. I should define a second class of ambiguous signs (censorship of news, radio playlists, bookstores) which are still worrisome, not least because they can be implemented without overt violence, & accepted as natural regardless of whether we are still on a wartime footing or not. And these are the things we should watch out for.

"WAR SONG

In anguish we uplight
A new unhallowed song:
The race is to the swift;
The battle to the strong.

Of old it was ordained
That we, in packs like curs,
Some thirty million trained
And licensed murderers,

In crime should live and act,
If cunning folk say sooth
Who flay the naked fact
And carve the heart of truth.

The rulers cry aloud,
'We cannot cancel war,
The end and bloody shroud
Of wrongs the worst abhor,
And order's swaddling band:
Know that relentless strife
Remains by sea and land
The holiest law of life.
From fear in every guise,
From sloth, from lust of pelf,
By war's great sacrifice
The world redeems itself.
War is the source, the theme
Of art; the goal, the bent
And brilliant academe
Of noble sentiment;
The augury, the dawn
Of golden times of grace;
The true catholicon,
And blood-bath of the race.'

We thirty million trained
And licensed murderers,
Like zanies rigged, and chained
By drill and scourge and curse
In shackles of despair
We know not how to break--
What do we victims care
For art, what interest take
In things unseen, unheard?
Some diplomat no doubt
Will launch a heedless word,
And lurking war leap out!

We spell-bound armies then,
Huge brutes in dumb distress,
Machines compact of men
Who once had consciences,
Must trample harvests down--
Vineyard, and corn and oil;
Dismantle town by town,
Hamlet and homestead spoil
Of each appointed path,
Till lust of havoc light
A blood-red blaze of wrath
In every frenzied sight.

In many a mountain-pass,
Or meadow green and fresh,
Mass shall encounter mass
Of shuddering human flesh;
Opposing ordnance roar
Across the swaths of slain,
And blood in torrents pour
In vain--always in vain,
For war breeds war again!"

--& i (m.h.) prefer it without the last stanza--

"The shameful dream is past,
The subtle maze untrod:
We recognize at last
That war is not of God.
Wherefore we now uplift
Our new unhallowed song:
The race is to the swift,
The battle to the strong."

John Davidson, The Last Ballad (1899)