Cheers, Ken Hanly ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chip Berlet" <cberlet at igc.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 7:20 PM Subject: RE: Clerical Fascism & Totalitarianism
> Hi,
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> > [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Carrol Cox
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 4:22 PM
> > To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> > Subject: Re: Clerical Fascism & Totalitarianism
> >
> >
> > Chip, Perhaps what bothers me in your take on fascism can be expressed
> > in the old formal terms of genus & species. First at the merely verbal
> > level: your term "clerical fascism" in effect treats fascism
> > as a genus,
> > _clerical_ fasicism as a species distinct from _______ fascism
> > (Mussolini, Hitler). Fascism for you is a generic term. But
>
> Yup, that's an accurate summary. I think that in the interwar period there
> were three species of fascism: Italian Corporatism, German Racial
> Nationalism, and Clerical Fascist movements like the Croatian Ustashi and
> Rumanian Iron Guard.
>
> But in the post WWII era there have been a number of new innovations as
> well, such as the revival of Third Position Strasserism, neonazi
skinheads,
> etc.
>
> >
> > In several of your posts you focus (and this sounds right to me) on
> > organicism as a generic trait of (your) fascism: it is shared by
> > Mussolini & bin Laden but not by Ben Bella. So far, so good.
> > That is, I
> > would agree that an organic conception of the state is indeed vicious,
> > and (not really having extensive empirical knowledge of my own here)
> > I'll accept your argument that bin Laden's politics manifest
> > an organic
> > view of the state. So, incidentally, does Plato -- and in
> > fact Bertrand
> > Russell called Plato a fascist. But I think we would both
> > agree that it
> > is not too useful to hall Plato into our taxonomy of fascism.
>
> Well, we can forgive Plato, but yes, organicism/integralism is part of the
> totalitarian aspect of fascist movements that lead to brutal suppression
of
> dissent. Osama bin Laden envisions independent organicist theocracies
across
> the Muslim world. Just like the fascist Third Position wants independent
> organicist racially-pure nation states.
>
> >
> > But Mussolini's fascism came to power under quite specific historical
> > conditions. And though those conditions could be described in a number
> > of quite different ways, I don't think those descriptions would apply,
> > without great stress, to the conditions in which bin Laden's "fascism"
> > emerged. I'm not drawing any particular conclusion here, just
> > pulling on
> > some loose strings (or what appear to me to be possible loose
> > strings).
>
> I totally agree with you. Different conditions produce different species
of
> fascism.
>
> > Both Hitler's and Mussolini's movements emerged, and seized power, in
> > nations that were essentially modern capitalist states but
> > with varying
> > [I don't know the accurate phrase] ?remnants of feudal attitudes?; and
> > both states had in addition been defeated in a great war. (Italy was
> > only nominally among the victors.) And in addition both states had
> > large and active communist parties, with significant support from the
> > new communist power to the east. And that war, moreover, had emerged
> > from a period of nearly half a century which had seen the last great
> > competitive drive among European powers to stake out their
> > claims to the
> > colonized or subordinated worlds of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
> >
> > Fascism was one of several different political responses to
> > that complex
> > of conditions. Roosevelt's New Deal was another response. Japan's
> > Co-Prosperity Sphere was a third. In other words, we _could_
> > have as our
> > genus (though we don't have a name for it)
> > political-response-to-capitalist-crisis), and note that one of those
> > specific responses _also_ belonged to the genus of organicist theories
> > or practices. (This is pretty clumsy, but I hope makes some sense.)
>
> Not clumsy, and in this pen I would toss a number of right-wing populist
> responses to the capitalist crisis, some of which are repressive and
> authoritarian, but not all of which are fascist, much less clerical
fascist.
>
> >
> > Now, shifting from history to politics, I would presume our primary
> > concern here in 21st c. U.S. is the question, Can It Happen Here, the
> > "It" being something like "organicist response to capitalist crisis"?
>
> Well, if you mean seizure of state power, probably not in the US, but
> repressive right-wing populist movements, including the most extreme
> variant--fascist movements such as the National Alliance, can influence
> people like McVeigh who killed a bunch of people in a terrorist attack.
> McVeigh was closer to the fascist National Alliance than the right-wing
> populist militias. Both are bad. One is worse. Even small fascist
movements
> and groups can cause havoc on the community level.
>
> But if we are talking about Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, then
fascist
> movements might actually threaten state power in some places, and in the
> case of the Taliban, I would argue have seized state power. And it is
pretty
> easy to call the BJP party in India at least quasi-fascist, or
> ethnonationalists heading down that road.
>
>
> >
> > And for me there is another worry behind or beside that question: does
> > there exist some _other_ route to the suppression of
> > bourgeois democracy
> > and the working class, not "organicist," differing as much from either
> > Hitler or bin Laden as they differ from Napoleon III or from the
> > Japanese ruling class that built the Coprosperity Sphere?
> >
> > I've never given this a lot of thought, so I'm not claiming to have
> > provided any particular argument, but perhaps I have muddied
> > the pool a
> > bit.
> >
> > Carrol
>
> The argument of Robert Antonio is that there is just such a new type of
> right-wing anti-capitalist movement which he calls Reactionary Tribalism.
I
> am discussing with him whether reactionary movements emerging from
> semi-feudalist societies fit under that umbrella or not. Maybe they are
just
> plain reactionary and not modernist. Also if Islamic clerical fascism is a
> subset of reactionary tribalism or a different critter.
>
> It's complicated, and there is little agreement at this stage. Sigh...
>
> But all the points you raise are totally valid. More sighs...
>
> -Chip
>
>
>