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-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Henwood [mailto:dhenwood at panix.com]
Sent: Wed 7/2/2003 7:21 PM
Cc:
Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Another Comparison of U.S. to Fascism
Chip Berlet wrote:
>So Doug, if reality was determined by everyone you know, bell hooks
>would be President.
I think I'd prefer Al Sharpton myself. I've got issues with symbolic
lower-casing of proper names. I was happy when Jill Johnston gave it
up.
"Fascism" is a dicey classification. I think the Nazis gave it a bad
name, if you know what I mean - by being so violently
exterminationist they obscured other fascist regimes' affinities to
what you call rapacious capitalist imperialism.
A lot of the things Umberto Eco says about ur-Fascism - in the piece
you helped format
<http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html> - sound a lot
like the American Way, especially its current moment - the worship of
tradition mixed with a love of technology, the rejection of
modernism, "the cult of action for action's sake," the treatment of
thought "as a form of emasculation" and culture "[a]s suspect
insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes." "Disagreement
is treason," the feeling of being "besieged [and] plotted against,"
"pacifism is trafficking with the enemy," "life is permanent
warfare." "Selective populism." "Newspeak." Eco says: "Ur-Fascism is
still around us, sometimes in plainclothes."
You prefer to tar Buchanan & Co with the fascist label, and I don't
think that's fair. He's a bigot, for sure, but not all bigotry is
fascist, is it? I don't see how you can have fascism without some
kind of imperialism and militarization of society; Buchanan's not
about that. He's a nativist who'd like to seal the U.S. off from the
outside world and return society to the racial and sexual norms of
the 1840s. Vidal has a lot in common with that. They're not as
anti-intellectual as Bush & Co either.
Doug
________________
Hi,
And here is where the more recent scholarly analysis of fascism, including Ledeen, has merit. There is a difference between a fascist movement and a fascist regime. Fascist movements sound populist and anti-elitist, fascist regimes seek totalitarian control over every aspect of society through repression. Fascist movements decry repression and seek to build mass popular coalitions to topple the regime.
Finally, DOUG, if you had actually READ "Right-Wing Populism in America" you would know these arguments, and understand why it is fair to call Buchanan fascistic. So read the book already and put me on your show.
:-)
Chip
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