Round 11...
> 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,
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Chip, actually I am not clinging to it but rendering it like a rapier to these petit bourgeois arguments. En garde ! (By the way, you have a big "Z" on your back )
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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.
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Charles: No. It's just that I am just as careful as Carrol about my use of my definition of "fascism", and so his comparison of me to one of freshman students had to be "excised".
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Try reading the Oxford Readers on Fascism or Nazism, as someone else has suggested.
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Charles: Get your nose out of the Oxford Reader for a moment and try opening your eyes to what Bush is doing and saying.
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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.
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Charles: See my reply to you from 6 months ago.
Dimitrov's and the Party Congress definition not only guided the victorious Communist war effort against the Nazis ( The Communists carried the bulk of the war to the Nazis) , it stands up beautifully over time. A major advantage it has over yours is that it is integrated into an overall theory of anti-capitalism .
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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.
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CB: This is true, but we have a new situation, so we have to be ready for a new development, like a new form of " authoritarian repression" that is not identical to the old fascism , but is just as horrendously repressive and murderous. A "proper" analysis requires a class analysis. What's your class analysis of fascism and the current Bush Nazism ?
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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.
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Charles: You don't support your claim that my "analysis feeds leftists into an alliance with actual fascists" with one iota of evidence or argument. You just assert it as a kind howling non-sequitur.
Analyzing the commonalities between Bushism and Nazism does not in any evident way "feed leftists into an alliance with actual fascists"
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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.
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Charles: You suppose wrong and that you would so suppose makes it sound like you are arguing with something someone else said or that your mind is wondering. How on earth can anyone conclude that comparing Bushism to Nazism implies an alliance with a rightwing faction ? I haven't proposed any alliances with any rightwingers
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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
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Charles: I didn't say that the first Bush adminstration was fascist. I said the current Bush adminstration is The New Nazism. I just pointed out that the current Bush's father and grandfather were comfortable with German Nazis.
If you are not careful , I will call Russ Bellant up and ask him what he thinks of all this.