So we were sitting in the office at Political Research Associates today watching as an "anti-imperialist" post by US fascist leader David Duke was being posted and cross-posted uncritically as useful rhetoric on left list after left list. And you wonder why people like Doug Kellner, Robert Antonio, Janet Biehl, Mark Rupert, Peter Staudenmaier, Allen Hunter, and me find a need to warn people on the left that not every enemy of globalization and US bullying is a progressive or an appropriate ally? Fascists are actively trying to recruit from the left. A warning seems appropriate.
I said in my post that Kellner gave support to the idea that there was some sort of fascist politics involved in the Islamic supremacist circles from which this attack probably came. You made that a stronger statement as a straw argument and then knocked it over. You get an "F" in both logic and fairness.
It's been a long day and I am tired of saying this over and over, so please glance at the following website before dismissing my concerns so glibly.
http://www.publiceye.org/Sucker_Punch/Clueless.html
Thanks.
-Chip berlet
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tanya Ramzotti" <zotti at myrealbox.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 8:41 PM Subject: Re: Clerical Fascism
> Chip Berlet wrote:
>
> >The idea that the Taliban and Osama bin Laden
> >involve some sort of fascist politics is given
> >support in a long article by Douglas Kellner:
> >"September 11, Terrorism, and Blowback"
> >http://www.publiceye.org/frontpage/911/d-kellner-
> >911.htm
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> The Taliban, of course, were a highly theocratic and repressive fundamentalist
regime that some have described as
clerical fascism
(Chip Berlet), or
>
reactionary tribalism
(Robert Antonio).
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> This is not much of an endorsement. Moreover, it doesn't address any of the
issues raised in this discussion. All you have done is given us text wherein
someone with more stature than you uses the term you coined. Kellner doesn't
deploy it the way that you have and, indeed, he doesn't even say they *are*
fascists, but that they *may* be: "The supposed perpetrators of the September 11
events were
> allegedly both terrorists and fascistic Islamic fundamentalists who support a
theocratic state that would abrogate human rights and employ torture and murder
in the name of supposedly higher theological values. In the contemporary world,
such fascism should opposed and more democratic and progressive modern values
and democratic politics should be defended."
>
> One worries about this last statement and those who feel they need to
articulate it. Who supports the hijackers? Who thinks they are a force for
progressive change? Who is Kellner's statement directed at?
>
> Tanya
>