Thanks for the serious response. Some comments.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Jannuzi" <jannuzi at edu00.f-edu.fukui-u.ac.jp> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>; <lbo-talk-digest at lists.panix.com> Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 1:25 AM Subject: Re: Sociology and Explanations
<<SNIP>>
> I was thinking of the Hitchens piece, since my impression of it was:
> this use of force, if directed by OBL with links to the Taliban, equals
> fascism with an Islamic face, or something like that. That was, to quite an
> extent, the backdrop for the discussion as I read it. In fact, the whole
> Hitchens vs. Chomsky thing mesmerized the list for a day.
Hitchens may have just stumbled onto the right phrase, but while I disagree with much of what he said, the phrase clerical fascism is starting to catch on to describe the Taliban and ObL.
See the end of Doug Kellner's article: http://www.publiceye.org/frontpage/911/d-kellner-911.htm
>
> Of course you can reject my 'non-fascist' analysis of OBL and his
> organization(s). However, til he takes over a state and rules as a fascist
> or runs on a fascist platform (in what democracy could he get started?) or
> something, I do not need to attribute fascism to him. I don't see how it
> will help me to understand him.
>
Because it turns out that in the last twenty years there have been a significant
number of books looking at how right-wing social movement function, and there is
an emerging consensus that with right-wing populist groups there is a difference
between those that are rooted in fascist ideology and those that are not. Much
of Pat Buchanan's platform was rooted in fascist ideology, and he ran for office
in a "democracy" here in the US, and when the economy was worse he did well in
the primaries. Fascist movements can casue acts of violence--McVeigh and the OKC
bombing--but they can also create demonization in a society that leads to acts
of violence against the scapegoated targets they create.
> For one thing, his transnational, transethnic aspirations go counter to your
> definition. One of his appeals seems to be he is looking for a few good men
> of ANY background.
Studies of post WWII fascist movement would argue that this is exactly the
trend, toward an internationalized form of fascism that is rooted in
trans-national ideas of race or religion or both combined. The ultimate goal is
creating multiple Aryan racial homeland nations or multiple religious homeland
nations. The Third Position groups are an example.
>
> I'm not sure what to think of the Taliban. I will say that they seemed to
> have gunned and whipped their way to the top of a failed nation state that
> is set to give new meaning to the term 'failed nation state'.
How does this change or challenge an analysis that they are fascistic?
>
> Check out Camus, The Rebel, 'State Terrorism and Irrational Terror'. Camus
> is dead and does not maintain a homepage the last time I looked, but I'm
> sure some of his texts are out there.
Thanks for slipping in a snidly remark implying I don't read books. Jeez. The fact is that most of the recent scholarship on fascism and right-wing populism disputes your position. Hey, I not only read books, I write them, and in co-writing "Right-Wing Populism in America" I read over the course of eight years about forty books on fascism and populism. There is some terrrific new scholarship in this area. Nothing I am saying would be considered that controversial among sociologists who study right-wing movements. Even those who disagree with me would admit that I am not taking an idiosyncratic position.
>
> "But the difference between [Hitler and Mussolini] and the classic
> revolutionary movement is that, of the nihilist inheritance, they chose to
> deify the irrational, and the irrational alone, instead of deifying reason.
> In this way they renounced their claim to universality. And yet Mussolini
> makes use of Hegel, and Hitler of Nietzsche; and both illustrate,
> historically, some of the prophecies of German ideology. In this respect
> they belong to the history of rebellion and of nihilism. They were the first
> to construct a State on the the concept that everything is meaningless and
> that history is only written in terms of the hazards of force. The
> consequences were not long in appearing.
And you conveniently leave out the fact of the smaller clerical fascists movement during WWII. Especially the Arrow Cross which the German Nazis installed in Hungary so that Eichmann could round up and kill more Jews. Or the Iron Guard, or the Grey Wolves, or the Ustashi.
>
> "Men of action, when they are without faith, have never believed in anything
> but action. Hitler's untenable paradox lay precisely in wanting to found a
> stable order on perpertual change and no negation. Rauschning, in his
> 'Revolution of Nihilism', was right in saying that the Hitlerian revolution
> represented unadulterated dynamism...."
>
But with the clerical fascist movement the nihilism was replaced with a form of religious totalitarianism. That's why in the US we have two clerical neofascist movement, Christian Identity and Christian Reconstructionism. Both envision totalitarian theocracies. With Christian Identity, there have been adherents who have set off bombs and killed people. McVeigh was a more "traditional" neonazi, basing his views on the National Alliance. We also have a pagan neofascist movement called Church of the Creator.
-Chip Berlet