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Alexander Cockburn Warns of Creeping fascism in US

author: Victor Pickard
Dec 04, 2000 09:40

Internationally renown muckraking journalist Alexander Cockburn spoke about his new book, _Five Days That Shook the World: The Battle for Seattle and Beyond_, at Seattle's Town Hall on Thursday night.

Alexander Cockburn Warns of Creeping Fascism in the US

Internationally renown muckraking journalist Alexander Cockburn spoke about his new book, _Five Days That Shook the World: The Battle for Seattle and Beyond_, at Seattle's Town Hall on Thursday night.

Simultaneously, protesters several blocks away in Seattle’s commercial district were being handcuffed and pepper sprayed.

The irony was not lost on some who attended the talk, held on the first anniversary of the city's World Trade Organization protests.

Outlining the ways he believes Americans are being robbed of their civil liberties, Cockburn said brutalities against largely middle class demonstrators are something minorities and financially disadvantaged people suffer daily.

He gave examples of Latino drivers being harassed by police and low-income neighborhoods routinely being invaded by the FBI under the auspices of a questionable war on drugs.

For these people, Cockburn said, the receiving end of state-sanctioned violence is an everyday reality.

The author bolstered his claims of state tyranny by citing police use of chemical agents and rubber bullets at point blank range of protesters.

"Your fourth and sixth amendments are basically gone," said Cockburn. "There is no longer due process in the US."

Police search and seizure raids and summary arrests of community leaders have occurred before and during protests in Washington, D.C. in April, Philadelphia and Los Angeles last August and again this year in Seattle, Cockburn said.

"At the [International Monetary Fund]-World Bank demonstrations in D.C., police were given the orders, 'Shoot to kill,'" he said.

"By LA [at the Democratic National Convention protests] you could really taste what a fascist state is like."

Cockburn, a veteran of the May-June 1968 Paris protests and a self-proclaimed anarchist, said dissent is a legitimate form of political speech.

It is important, he said, to challenge the legitimacy and deny the pretenses of the state.

"Demonstrations are part of the political process," he said, adding that they have been particularly successful since last year's Seattle protests.

An increase of violent response to protesters is evidence that a toll has been exacted against the government and the monied interests it serves, Cockburn said.

Along with the birth of the international anti-corporate movement, Cockburn cited the rise of the Green party and Ralph Nader's run for president as part of N30’s legacy.

But Cockburn also chided the left for failing to sustain coalitions.

"If the left is interested in dialogue, then we must go out there and talk," he said. "We are, after all, in the business of persuading people."

He said that even members of the far right are concerned with issues of sovereignty that the World Trade Organization regularly supersedes.

Cockburn ended his talk on a positive note saying that optimism and "a sense of festivity" are essential components of progressive movements.

By reclaiming the streets as public space, he said, a moment of renewal is possible.

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