[giving an different reading of the text] then saying -
>How are you defining fascism? You seem to be using a broad definition that
>would
>encompass anything you find repugnent. It seem to me that the term fascism by
>definition has many characteristics. It resembles a diagnosis in the
>psychiatric
>DSM 4 where a certain number of specified characteristics warrants a
>diagnosis of
>fascism. What is you definition? And also, what is an example of "left wing
>fascism."
>
>Brad Hatch
No I am not using a DSM4 type check list of fascism. I do not think such operational diagnostic schema get to the inner processes that shape phenomena. They are a check list of epiphenomena and deeply empricist in philosophical nature.
I regard fascism as an abuse of bourgeois democratic rights probably accompanied by populist politics.
It may sometimes suit finance capital but not always so.
Bourgeois democratic rights can undoubtedly be abused by the left. That is a particular danger in post socialist societies. I think there was social fascism in Croatia and in Serbia. Putin, in alliance with the Russian Communist Party may move in that direction too.
(I am not using the term social fascist as a form of abuse against social demoratic parties, who often need to be allies in the struggle to resist fascist tendencies, to defend and extend human rights in a socially coherent context, and not as abstract individualistic rights.)
Do you not think that there can be abuses of socialist legality and human rights violations under socialism?
Chris Burford
London