The 'F'-word On developing the requisite paranoia to be a true patriot BY PAM STEAGER

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection

— Sigmund Freud

I don’t want our hands tied so we cannot do the number one job you expect from us, which is to protect the homeland.

— George W. Bush

The "F" word has been mentioned in low tones for a few months now, but during a recent workshop on "Creativity, Spirituality and Social Justice," I heard it out loud and saw it on a handout passed around by the workshop leader. Matthew Fox can afford to be bold, I suppose. Ordained as a Dominican priest in 1967, the recipient of a doctorate in spirituality, he’s the author of 23 books and founder and president of the University of Creation Spirituality. Fox may be best known, however, for having been excommunicated from the Catholic Church, on the grounds of being a feminist and refusing to condemn homosexuality. Having survived that ordeal, it’s easier for him than most to say forbidden words.

So there he was, sharing an article he recently received online from Free Inquiry magazine, by political scientist Laurence Britt, titled "Fascism, anyone?" In it, Britt claims to have considered the regimes of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. While finding "a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history," Britt also identifies "fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power." He goes on to name them:

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. You know, like lots of flag-waving and calls for unity and catchy slogans. Did you know that the House of Representatives has once again passed Orrin Hatch’s proposal for a constitutional amendment to bar desecration of the American flag? It previously died four times in the Senate, where it was seen as a potential infringement of the First Amendment, but proponents think the proposal might pass this time. I can’t imagine why. If it does, I hope it applies to the people who allow the flags they’ve put on their cars or on highway overpasses to be ripped to shreds by the wind. Don’t they know that the respectful way to dispose of an American flag in disrepair is to burn it?

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. This includes the use of marginalization and demonization.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The use of relentless propaganda and disinformation was big in this category, with some perennial favorites, like communists and terrorists, hauled out to fan the flames of fear and solidify the "us vs. them" mentality. Rhode Island resident Nancy Hood, a "red diaper baby" during the height of the McCarthy era in the United States will describe her very interesting story on Saturday, June 14 at 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Bristol. A discussion of current civil liberties issues will follow. Check it out.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Britt writes that he found a "disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute." Is 51 percent disproportionate? I guess not if you believe Freud. I’m more of a Maslow fan myself. I liked it better in the old days, when basic physiological needs for air, food, water, and sex weren’t combined with those for safety and security — due to real or perceived threats from without or within. And when getting up into the social and ego rungs on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs meant more than watching reality TV shows in the relative safety of our living rooms.

5. Rampant sexism. Beyond just relegating women to second-class citizenry, fascist regimes were found to be adamantly anti-abortion and homophobic. Here in the land of the brave and the home of the free, where women, and gays and lesbians, have made some political and economic gains in the past few decades, it may be more difficult to turn back the clock. Although the 2002 Status of Women in Rhode Island report (available at www.iwpr.org) shows that we gals still have a way to go to achieve equality, the women who I know won’t be pushed back without fomenting a rebellion.

6. A controlled mass media. The media in the regimes studied by Britt were often sympathetic or friendly with the regimes themselves, and regimes’ excesses went unreported as a result. Luckily for us, we have a free press as our fourth estate, a liberal media (I’m assuming that the classic definition — favorable to progress and reform — applies here) and a Federal Communications Commission designed to keep them this way. Maybe just to be safe, though, we should keep calling, e-mailing, and writing our legislators to remind them about the whole separation and balance of powers thing.

7. Obsession with national security. What color is our national terror alert status today? I always forget to check. I blame my father. I rarely felt insecure, because he made sure I always had my basic needs met, made me feel loved, and treated me and others with respect. Apparently, I just don’t have the requisite paranoia to be a true patriot these days. Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

I seem to be running out of space, so here are the rest of Britt’s common threads of fascist regimes:

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.

9. Power of corporations protected.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.

14. Fraudulent elections.

You can certainly see the overall theme — out-of-control power at the national level. As a society, we’ve gotten better at recognizing abuse in the home, and we need to be just as aware of what it might look like in the homeland. We’d all like to believe that father knows best, but international history and abuses of power in religious and corporate hierarchies show that it ain’t necessarily so.

The first Father’s Day celebration was proposed by Sonora Smart Dodd, to honor her father, whose birthday was in June. William Smart was a Civil War veteran and farmer who was widowed when his wife died during the birth of their sixth child. He went on to raise his children by himself, and Sonora remembered him as a courageous, selfless, loving man. It’s a nice description of the kind of fatherly protection we all yearn for, if not the kind that most of us get. This Father’s Day may be a good opportunity for us to meditate on true power and true security in our homes and in our homeland.

Pam Steager can be reached at pjsteager@earthlink.net