Round 11...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Charles Brown
> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 10:12 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: The New Nazism
>
>
> The New Nazism
> From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
>
>
> Charles Brown wrote:
> You are quite mistaken that I use terms such as "fascist" or
> "Nazism" in an overbroad and not defined and specific way, as
> if I were a freshman in one of your classes. In fact, I use a
> more rigorous and specific definition than most others. I
> follow Dimitrov. Do you use that specific of a defintion ? I
> doubt it. I'm usually more rigorous than the student or her
> liberal arts professor in examining fascism.
>
Charles, you can cling to the Dimitrov definition, but then your arrogant and snide derision about freshmen and liberal arts is way out of line, because it is you who are ignoring what contemporary liberal arts students are being taught.
Try reading the Oxford Readers on Fascism or Nazism, as someone else has suggested.
The Dimitrov analysis was wrong when formulated, and it is pathetic now in light of the last 50 years of better research into fascism and nazism.
There are many forms of authoritarian repression other than fascism. It is important not to lump them all together because the proper response depends on the proper analysis.
This is especially important right now because there is a wing of fascism--as a social movement--that wants to join forces with the left against corporate globalization and government repression. This is happening around the world. Your analysis feeds leftists into an alliance with actual fascists against common corporate and government enemies. But the left needs to walk a different course that repudiates corporate globalization AND government repression AND nationalistic fascist social movements. I suppose in the 30's you would have been urging an alliance with the Strasser faction against corporate greed and government repression. Smash the corrupt authoritarian regime and the plutocrats, right Charles? Worked so well as a strategy last time around.
And as the person who wrote the introduction to the Bellant book "Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party" and was one of two copy editors, I can assure you that as the original publisher, nobody at Political Research Associates ever thought that the book would be construed to claim that the Bush administration was fascist. Our view was that the book showed that the Republican Party was willing to work with former Nazi collaborators and current fascists in their political campaign network because of a shared anti-communism. Your characterization of the book is just plain wrong.
-Chip Berlet Senior Analyst Political Research Associates