Fascism and Eckman’s dirty diapers
 

By GEOFF DAVIDIAN, editor
©2004, ShorewoodVillage.com
SHOREWOOD, Wis. (Dec. 25, 2004) –
There are many characteristics of a fascist and Nazism that I have never witnessed in Trustee Ellen Eckman.

The word fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual; uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition; engages in severe economic and social regimentation, and espouses nationalism and sometimes racism or ethnic nationalism.

I do not, for example, allege that Trustee Eckman follows “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual,” although she may for all I know. On the other hand, I am less certain about whether Eckman would support a fascist “centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader,” while readily acknowledging that my sense of certainty is just how things appear to be to me.

I do not suggest that Eckman proposes fascist “severe economic and social regimentation.” On the contrary, it seems Trustee Eckman is very erratic in her economics – in some instances ineffectively and tediously arguing against strict monitoring of Village expenditures, as when the Village library is involved, while at other times opposing the use of vast budget excesses to lessen the property tax levy.

Wikipedia cites an article in the 1932 Enciclopedia Italiana, written by Giovanni Gentile and attributed to Benito Mussolini, in which fascism is described as a system in which “The State not only is authority which governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life, but it is also power which makes its will prevail abroad . . . . For the Fascist, everything is within the State and... neither individuals or groups are outside the State . . . . For Fascism, the State is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative.”

I have no reason to suggest that Eckman is a racist, and I have never said that I have witnessed Eckman glorifying the working American or valuing the contributions of the working class upon whose labor the brutal vision of the fascist is built, except perhaps so far as it pertains to the Shorewood Village Library, the schools, public employees and other government employees who carry out the Will of the Municipality.

There is some concern with the way Eckman’s tough talk and egoism make the Village look, especially with an oratory style more suited for a waterfront megaphone than a Village Board meeting.

Furthermore, according to her own admissions, the late-blooming Ph.D. does not seem adverse to the “forcible suppression of opposition” through the use of the state police apparatus, and I would like here to begin a discussion of this characteristic that appears to be “a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.”

Why all the fuss about one lowly Peon in the Pecking Order of Power (or P-POP)?

P-POPs, one might argue, have limited authority; their realm is the sewers, the stripes in the streets and the date winter parking regulations go into effect. They meet for tea at chi-chi European bakeries to discuss whether they should call each other “Trustee Eckman” or “Ellen, dear?”

Why chastise the holders of these important but relatively thankless and harmless offices for being the victims of, say, a petty megalomania, or inarticulacy or what is known in some circles as “Peon in the Pecking Order self-import dementia (also known as SID-P-POP)?

This is just human behavior, after all; a condition like incontinence, which is politely endured but not discussed publicly in society such as that Eckman and her backers would engineer for Shorewood.
Not until the diaper is suddenly thrown on your doorstep does the incontinence of the P-POP become very much Your Problem (P-POP-YP).

And a diaper full is what I found in a letter from Eckman dated Dec. 16, 2004 – 10 days after I asked for records documenting what she insists was a call to the district attorney’s office to monitor the content or manner of my criticism of her during her campaign for re-election in the spring 2004 election.

Why does a public official call the prosecutor – who deals with criminal violations – over words written in criticism of that public official? Why does a public official who calls the prosecutor over criticism of her performance also use a campaign forum to denounce true words in a critical publication, except to use the “modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition?”

I admit that I have repeatedly characterized Ellen Eckman as the single most hideous example of an officeholder I have ever witnessed in my 25 years as a reporter. This does not reflect upon her value as a teacher, a mother or wife. When I ran into her at Sendik’s on Oakland the day after her re-election victory, I greeted her with an outstretched hand and offered my congratulations – both of which she took graciously although her husband, in tow, had a quizzical look as he took it all in.

But based on her official performance – behavior I have witnessed personally and repeatedly – no one is a worse government representative. I cannot follow her jumbled syntax. She seems to talk down to residents and other trustees, while haughtily reminding all she is the doctor, the Ph.D., the educator, invoking class distinction as her argument why her position should be given primacy despite its vacuousness. She speaks like she is the principal and everyone else must listen to her and obey, which is much more like the fascists than the Nazi movement, which spoke of class-based society as the enemy and wanted to unify the racial element above established classes.

Eckman might argue in her defense that she stood for re-election and received the most votes of any candidate in April, and that she deserves some slack. And if we give her that argument we ask her necessarily to peel the Kerry-Edwards sticker from her car and not comment on President Bush, who also won re-election. The same rules apply to Ellen Eckman as to the other people in this democracy, regardless of the gender issues she dwells on and regardless of the oh-so-important Dow Gang agenda she has not noticed all others have abandoned.

In fact, as a P-POP Eckman would be harmless except that she wants to prevail regardless of whether she is right; she wants to prevail more than anything, and when a government official wants to prevail more than anything, the good of the community is no longer a consideration. It is not Eckman, but her blind service to her own need to prevail that is the biggest threat to this Village.

All of the people who contribute to her campaign, all of the people she knows, all of the government officials she chats with cannot ever do more than return her to public office where she will fail us. Popularity is not competence. Popularity is not even an indication of whether voters think the candidate is competent. It is just familiarity, or plastic strips blowing in the breeze from illegal campaign signs.

The reason it is important to dwell on this SID-P-POP condition is that unless it is confronted and contained it can spread, and as it spreads it will try to censor more and rely on propaganda more. If popularity is confused with competence and there is no criticism of performance, the sewers and streets will be under the control of socialites and airhead nitwits with connections backed by a machine funded by Foley & Lardner lawyers. Jobs will be given on the basis of connections rather than competence; boards and foundations will be stocked with P-POP Groupies (P-POP-G).

Trustee Eckman, you may not be a fascist or Nazi, but get your self-promoting diapers off my porch.

As Walter Sobchak said in The Big Lebowski, “Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.”