Some tough questions here.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2001 7:05 PM Subject: Re: Defining Fascism
>
>
> Chip Berlet wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > So you are arguing that contemporary groups such as the
British National
> > Front or the US National Alliance are not fascist??? How
about calling
> > them neofascist?
> >
>
> (I know that in 1922 no one thought Hitler a menace
either.)
>
> I'll take your word for it that they fit a reasonable
definition of
> fascism, but I'd still like to quibble some. There are
also in France, I
> believe, Bourbonist, Orleanist, & Bonapartist groups, but
no one really
> worries about classifying them. It is rather doubtful that
at this time
> the Bourbons are going to reseize the throne of France. So
by analogy
> (and I'm querying whether not asserting that the analogy
holds) one
> might dismiss current "fascist" or "neo-fascist" groups as
irrelevant,
> mere distractions from a focus on serious threats to
bourgeois
> democracy.
LePen in France and Haider in Austria certainly play with fascist themes, and could accurately be called quasi-fascist (quasi-neafascist for the purist). One dynamic to watch is the push-pull between the German Republikaner party, the street neonazis. This is similar to the relationship between Pat Buchanan, the Republican Party, the militias, and the US neonazis. So even when neofascists are not about to seize state power they can help pull scapegoating to center stage. These dynamics can flash fire during an economic or social crisis, so they need to be watched. Are there other threats to bourgeois democracy? Sure. But without the fascistic race-baiting rhetoric of David Duke and Pat Buchanan there would not have been such a bipartisan consensus on "welfare reform" which seemed more reasonable by comparison. Actually, Dan Quayle said something similar, mentioning that Duke peddled some of the same message of the Republicans, but that he had too much Klan baggage and thus a bad image. Leave it to Danny Boy to say something so startlingly accurate though impolitic.
>
> Some elements of the U.S. ruling class did, if I recall
correctly, play
> around with the idea of a military coup in the '30s, but
made the
> mistake of thinking Smedley Butler might be their man. It
seems to me
> that in thinking of serious right-wing authoritarian
threats in the
> United States that probably a military coup, under
conditions really
> threatening to capitalist rule, would be more likely than
a mass
> movement grown from such (play yard?) "fascist groups."
See my argument above on how small fascist groups can pull public policy to the right. And the coup attempt was not going to use play yard fascists in the 1930's, but well-organized veterans groups, as the mass movement.
>The core here is
> in the phrase, "really threatening to capitalist rule."
Under ordinary
> conditions (and even quite extraordinary ones) the
commonplace methods
> of repression available to a bourgeois democratic state
seem to do the
> trick in England and the U.S. Death squads (dressed in
blue) operate
> fairly freely even now in the black neighborhoods, and the
prisons are
> brimming over. Who needs fascism when we've got Clinton,
Bush, etc.
Good point. There is plenty of non-fascist repression to spare. I suspect that conspiracy indictments (or even RICO) against anti-globalization protestors are being considered seriously by the Justice Dept.
What makes a real fascist mass movment dangerous (as opposed to a handful of self-dramatizing stormtroopers in Idaho) is that it can bloom into a toxic tide rather quickly. This is why defining fascism has strategic and tactical importance for progressives and leftists. Crying wolf all the time is as bad as not sounding the alarm when the wolf has a mouth full of meat in your front yard.
Showing the dynamic between mainstream politicians, right-wing populist movements, and fascist ideologues is one main theme of the book Matt Lyons and I wrote. Several reviewers have mentioned our clever chart:
http://www.publiceye.org/graphics/Populism08.gif
-Chip
