|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
|| [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Nathan Newman
|| ----- Original Message -----
|| From: "Hakki Alacakaptan" <nucleus at superonline.com>
|| >As I said at the outset, what I say about race in the US may
|| very well be
|| >heavily infected with foot-in-mouth. I'm no expert. But the depth and
|| >duration of blacks' grievances - an of course I mean "bad"
|| blacks, those
|| who
|| >didn't "be all that they could be" (intended) - surely puts
|| them apart as
|| a
|| >radical force.
|| >I just wanted to express my puzzlement that this whole
|| question is never
|| >mentioned like it's a shameful family secret or something.
||
|| What secret? Issues of race and racism are discussed endlessly in the
|| United States, not always in healthy terms or useful ways,
That's more or less what I meant. Like gender discussions, all thinking about race seems to be directed towards linguistic hygiene. It's getting to the point where it'll soon be impossible to refer to a black person or a woman for lack of PC vocabulary. The most vital issues are being nit-picked out of existence.
|| What makes any group
|| a radical
|| force is endlessly debated-- blacks vote overwhelmingly and almost
|| homogenously for Democrats which, unlike Doug, I think is a
|| good reformist
|| move but, like Doug, would not take as any sign of incipient revolution.
||
Certainly, but if they identify with those that this war is waged against, they could be a major opposing force. Is there any sign of this?
Or am I barking up entirely the wrong tree? Is the racial divide like an ethnic divide after ethnic cleansing (with which I'm familiar) when there is no possibility whatsoever of establishing trust between the two parties?
|| The very idea of groups being some "force" implies some inert
|| group laying
|| at the side of the road, waiting for the proper revolutionary
|| leadership to
|| wield it like a sword against monopoly capitalism/fascism. It
|| ignores the
|| complexities and self-organization that already exists and the need for
|| organizing based on what exists in actually existing communities of
|| individuals.
||
Naturally. I never meant to sound like a damn leninist.
|| >I know what I'm talking about there, Nathan. We can discuss definitions
|| till
|| >hell freezes over but as a working concept, fascism fits the current
|| social
|| >syndrome.
||
|| In what way? I feel perfectly free to call up the police and
|| tell them I
|| think Bush is a fraudulent leader and the war is a bad idea. We had a
|| very nice march of thousands of people through the streets of New York
|| where the police, under the law, were forced to direct traffic away from
|| our march. It's silly to call it fascism. The anti-war left
|| is just in an
|| impressively small minority on this issue at the moment. Large
|| democratic
|| majorities doing bad things is not fascism by any reasonable definition.
It may be just my impression but it looks like civil liberties are being rolled back across the board. But that's not really the point, fascism and a police state are not the same thing. Facism is not a form of government, it is a complex and enduring socio-historical dynamic. Its core is the rejection of a society based on rationalism, a reactionary belief in social and international Darwinism, the violent exclusion of individuals or groups seen as "weak" or "defective", and a militarized corporatism that negates individual liberty. All of this finds expression in the form of military-style organizations directed against one or more "enemies". Fascist organizations always involve mobilization against an enemy, even if they are only corporatist trades union or sports clubs. Their ideology and program is irrational, ad hoc, and permeated with mysticism and idealism, their actions violent and destructive.
This enemy is often racial or ethnic. In US and European culture, racial supremacism is a dominant factor unknown in , e.g., Islamic culture. It has its roots in the colonial appropriation of wealth from "inferior" races, and/or their subjection into slavery. The American right has also been historically anti-rational, violently opposing all attempts at social and economic planning and social legislation, professing a belief in the Darwinist virtues of "the market" while simultaneously demonstrating its disdain for all socio-political theories including its own by transferring vast public funds to private corporations. In the '50's anti-rationalism in the form of a rejection of Roosevelt's "communist" New Deal and an anticommunist witch-hunt gave us a first glimpse of the fascist potential of the US. Committees were formed, oaths were taken, and society mobilized against the imaginary "enemy". The violence and irrationalism of latent American fascism was apparent throughout the Cold War with numerous assaults on imaginary Soviet incursions in Cuba, VietNam, Chile, etc.
In the '90's, the anti-rationalism of the US right was exacerbated by the the rise of evangelism. Mass media bombardment at home and unforgiving discipline at the workplace forced a further regression into obedience, irrationalism, and a penchant for violence.
The readiness of American democracy to surrender so much of its liberties to an administration whose legitimacy was in doubt from day 1, in the name of fighting an invisible, largely symbolic domestic enemy is indicative of American society's propensity for fascism. This has been in evidence through the successive encroachments of the national security state since WWII. The patriot act reminds me of the Sponti's little social experiment in Germany when they put official-looking notices into peoples' mailboxes ordering them to present their books to the local police, and most complied. The diffuse racism, irrationalism, anti-intellectualism, love of violence, and respect for authority in America has finally found its focus in Enduring Freedom. Society is mobilized, responding to its leader's every command, willing to make any sacrifice, and not caring to verify the truth. It had already tacitly surrendered to the NSA state's gradual usurpation of its democratic rights by not participating in the democratic process, and now it found a new form of government that no longer spoke of rights, but of war, hardship, and sacrifice. America liked it.
And now, fire at will :)