The Internet vs. Fascist America

One kind of story that arrives at the Digg.com frontpage over and over again is the “America is going fascist”-story, either in form of an article or a video of police abusing their powers. We all remember the dont-taze-me-bro-video, and Naomi Wolfs article on making USA fascist in ten easy steps is widely read.

It’s hard to say that USA today is fascist, but it’s not hard for anyone to see that the country is going in the wrong direction when it comes to the rights of its citizens.

Of course, the Internet isn’t too happy about fascism, and it is putting up a fight. Raising public awareness about the subject seems kind of hard, because the people warning about fascism are looked upon as total nutcases. And to be honest, that’s not something anyone should find surprising seeing that they claim the government of USA is corrupt enough to have orchestrated 911, but there really is no excuse for not being pro civil rights.

And while raising quite a controverse, the movies Zeitgeist, America:From Freedom to Fascism and Loose Change all have valid points.

Now the latest incident is the get-arrested-for-dancing-at-Thomas-Jefferson’s-memorial-incident, where a woman were arrested simply because she celebrated Jefferson’s birthday at his memorial. Arrested. For dancing. At the memorial of Thomas Jefferson. The irony is just overwhelming.

But this is just the latest event, and I’m glad the Internet and the blogosphere is taking action. This incident wouldn’t get the attention it deserves if it wasn’t for the Internet.

But how valuable is this attention really? No one seems to be doing anything about this, even though everyone is agreeing that it’s wrong. Personally, I’m from Europe, and sometimes I wonder if it’s just Anti-American Europeans who care about the situation in USA.

Will the attention from the Internet be enough by itself to stop the development?