|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Chip Berlet
||
|| Hi,
||
|| What new thing?
||
|| Political repression?
|| Authoritarian demagoguery?
|| Globalization on behalf of corporate interests?
|| Unilateral warmongering?
|| Roundup of residents based on ethnicity?
||
|| All of this has happened before. It is completely ahistorical
|| to say this
|| is all a new thing.
||
True, but your list isn't complete. How about a reactionary agenda that is trying to set the clock back to 1950? How about mass popular support? And how about what the public supports in terms of policy: Most people believe that this openly corrupt govt that is turning the surplus into pork as fast as it can will look out for their interests. Most people accept that "Enduring freedom" won't end terrorism and may actually make it worse, but think it's a damn fine thing. There are many examples like this of widespread irrationalism. Another thing you've missed is the organizational aspect. A great number of reactionary, racist, militarist, anti-working class, social darwinist, fundamentalist, anti-democracy, and irrational conspiracist organizations have been fighting with ever-increasing ferocity for the reins of power since the 80's. This coup has been in the making for a long time, with key liberal strongholds in academia, the judiciary, and the media falling one by one.
And I'll tell you what is _really_ new. What's totally unprecedented is the technological apparatus of surveillance, control, and retribution/war of which the far-right clique in government disposes, and which is growing daily.
(...)
||
|| We should oppose government repression under capitalism, but not pretend
|| that only fascism--not ordinary capitalism under stress--could bring us
|| political repression based on ethnic scapegoating.
||
|| When you argue that only fascism could explain the current level of
|| political repression you end up as an apologist for the
|| repressive potential
|| of capitalism.
There's no contradiction insofar as Fascism has been the capitalist class's Bonapartist last resort. Speaking from personal experience, when trade union activities and student dissent were used to fuel hysteria over an imminent communist takeover, capitalists started funding the Grey Wolves paramilitary. The same capitalists are now pitted against the same fascists bec the latter are jeopardizing Turkey's acceptance into the EU. Capitalism endures; fascism is just a passing phase.
US capitalists didn't have to break the glass and reach for the fascist boot bec they were able to simply machine-gun the working class into submission without any interruption of so-called democracy. They didn't need the KKK or some other band of thughs to do the job; the local cops, the national guard, and Pinkerton's goons were good enough.
(...)
|| Furthermore, at a time when actual fascist political and social
|| movements
|| exist in the world and are aligned against corporate
|| globalization, using
|| the term fascism with such a lack of clarity creates more
|| problems than it
|| solves.
||
Maybe not. The current ruling clique's unilateralism and its intention of eliminating or weakening international institutions translates as a policy of reducing globalisation to the naked, lawless plunder of weak states by the strong, of poor populations by powerful military-capitalist alliances, and of open rivalry between capitalist powers - all of this bec the US military-capitalist alliance wants to use its full-spectrum dominance to its fullest advantage. This is a typically fascist, darwinistic view of international relationships.
|| As is pointed out, some of the same features behind interwar European
|| fascism exist today:
||
|| > The present period
|| > is clearly not just a periodic conservativism, there is
|| > nothing very conservative about it, it is active reaction.
|| > There are the cross-class demogogic characteristics, the
|| > reliance of force, the rampant anti-liberalism, the
|| > promotioon of anti-reason, the disregard for the rule of law,
|| > the scapegoating and public hate campaigns.
||
|| But these are all elements that can be found in several
|| different systems
|| and styles of politics, especially right-wing populism. I do
|| not think it is
|| as much a reactionary moment of proto-fascist barabarism as a
|| coalition of
|| several tendencies each using 9/11 to opportunistically advance
|| its agenda.
||
|| Militarism
|| Unilaterialism
|| Corporate expansion
|| The "Terrorism" Industry indentified by Herman and O'Sullivan
|| Christian conservatism & fundamentalism
|| anti-tax
|| anti-regulation (anti-envionmentlaism)
So according to you the proof that this isn't fascism is bec there's a coalition of forces - presumably as opposed to a monolithic force? The items on the agenda are all typical fascist fare, and so is the opportunism. The fragmentation of forces seems to be the problem, and I agree that it's not a minor detail.
Admittedly, there are no historical precedents of such a fragmented fascist coalition. It's usually the left that's split into a zillion pieces while the Fasces - the Roman axe enclosed in rods - remains one, although even in the country where this symbol originated, Mussolini and d'Annunzio competed for a while. The Shrub, a poor excuse for a Hitler, commands nowhere near the unquestioned authority of a fascist leader. The coalition around him, united by virtue of his poll ratings, would certainly come apart if his ratings went down. Although those ratings are to a large measure determined by a controlled media, that control too will vanish if events like Enron or a big reverse in the fortunes of war or the economy were to sway public opinion. This is no formula for a facist state.
Unconditional obedience of the leader is something that - surprisingly - doesn't figure in any theory of fascism I can remember. Maybe it should. The racist and xenophobic movements in Europe that are commonly called neofascist don't exhibit such a trait among their adherents. In fact, a significant portion of their supporters are simply middle-class people who quite pragmatically think that the quickest way to solve the problems of crime, unemployment, etc., is to kick the foreigners out. We infer from the fact that they don't care if this attitude is called racist or not that they _are_ racists, but that clearly begs the question. So "neofascists" may not all be fascists and they are certainly unlikely to ever set up a fascist state.
But are they any less harmful and is the US far right coalition any less harmful? The fact that political activity remains nominally free will not mean much as the controls on state covert action and surveillance are lifted one by one, and the effectiveness of such activities increase in orders of magnitude with vastly increased funding. A point may be reached where gross violations of rights can no longer be reported by the media because the apparatus of surveillance and covert action is being used to muzzle it, there being no longer any controls to prevent such abuses. On the global front, full-spectrum dominance will only work on weak states and won't keep the EU or Russia quiet. However vicious the US war machine may be against easy targets (especially civilians), it certainly won't confront the EU or Russia. A real fascist state would take on the world, but body bags would mean the end of the current ruling clique's hegemony. Otherwise it wouldn't be so eager to cover up combat losses and would seek to make propaganda capital of its dead heroes.
So what is the best countermove? An antifascist bloc is a good idea even if the state isn't fascist, because all the elements of fascism are there except one - obedience - and the result is more dangerous than anything ever seen before bec of the technological quantum leap in surveillance, control, and police/military power. A broad political coalition must be formed against the far right. US progressives must recognize that they are faced with a common threat whose effects are no different from fascism and which is not "just a passing phase". IOW the problem isn't going to go away. It's unlikely that this coalition of far-right activists with their capitalist backers will ever allow a dem election victory again. The October surpise and the 2001 election coup are the first two in a series. Secondly, an internationalist alliance with European antifascist movements is needed to stop the spread of the US media blackout to the EU and to keep the EU media spotlight on the US govt's crimes.
Hakki