>Doug said:
>
>>I think it's kind of reckless to call people fascists who don't have
>>a modern state and a giant industrial machine behind them. The word
>>should mean something more than icky and repressive.
>
>Chip pointed out, quite correctly I think, that fascism doesn't need all
>that modern state and giant industrial machinery behind them; that's not
>what makes fascism.
We're playing word games to some extent, but what does it mean to apply the same term to Germany under Hitler and al-Qaeda? One is big, hierarchical, and centralized and the other isn't. One fought conventional wars, the other doesn't. They have different social roots, different ideologies, and different enemies. I don't see the point of using the same word for both.
Doug