|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
|| [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Greg Schofield
Greg, I'm afraid this discussion will turn into a tiresome rerun of ancient debates unless you can present some evidence. We can talk about fascism being the final stage of whatever till we're 80 while the fascists walk all over us yet again. I sense a definite party line in your discourse - stuff like "social fascism" and "historical necessity" that gives me the creeps - and a denial of the objective situation, viz the hands-down success of US imperialism for 2 Clinton terms (being at the receiving end, I may of course have a different view from yours) and its doomed disarray under the present proto-fascist administration. The only example I can think of in US history that measures up to Clinton's deal-making imperialism is Tricky Dick's China card. The standard by which all imperialism is measured is of course the British one, achieved with an inept and weak army but endless cunning and manipulation. You cannot run an empire by command and coercion. Like the economy, it must be capable of a high degree of self-regulation, the fruits of empire being delivered automatically to your doorstep.
There is absolutely no evidence that Fascism is in any way a product or result of imperialism, as you contend. You have fascists crawling all over the former Warsaw Pact countries, in Turkey, and in India - all countries which until recently had command economies with a weak bourgeosie. The causes of Fascism, like cancer, are numerous. In many cases, you will find social trauma at the root of Fascism, analogous to Hitler's childhood trauma. The trauma of national unification in Germany and Italy, the trauma of struggle between bourgeosie and land-owning gentry/clergy, the trauma of WW I for the whole of Europe. You will also frequently come accross an inherited genocidal guilt. In the Americas, this usualy involves indigenous populations and slavery, and finds expression in various death squads, militias, and vigilantes from the KKK to the White Hand. In Europe, the victims of dispossession and genocide were the Jews, and this culminated in e.g. the Dreyfus affair that split France, the Horty dictatorship, and, of course the NSPD.
There's more, much more, because Fascism is a complex social dynamic with deep historical roots and a tendency to become endemic. You may have the socialists in power, but Le Pen will always be there.
BTW I wonder if Chip and Carrol are satisfied with what I've said about fascism? Or are you still certain that "it can never happen here"?
Hakki