>On Sat, 7 Jun 2003 11:47:39 EDT, <BrownBingb at aol.com> wrote:
>
>>Furthermore, the U.S. is not "domestically" fascist right now.
>>However, by being so insistent that the term "fascist" not be used
>>to describe the potential and direction of the measures being taken
>>today, one implies an American exceptionalism in the vein that "It
>>can't happen here. We're special."
>
> Yup, Carrol is showing Lovestoneite tendencies!
I agree that recklessly deploying the word fascist isn't helpful; it's bad analysis and provokes unwarranted hysteria. But for Carrol there doesn't seem to be much difference between fascism and bourgeois liberal democracy - it's all shadings along the same spectrum. Of course it doesn't matter who's in the White House either. And there's nothing much we can do until the revolution comes, however and whenever that might be.
That's just as unhelpful as reckless deployment of the word fascist. It's as if the struggles of the last several centuries for civil liberties and the right to vote don't count for anything. And it's as if nothing is being lost by their relentless erosion either. There are a lot of ways in which the American form of capitalist repression is different from the European. Britain fighting the IRA, France the Algerians, Spain the Basques, Italy the Red Brigades all abused civil liberties in the name of order. But there's something different about how the U.S. goes about the business of repression - there's more reverence for the military, more God and flag (no other remotely democratic country has a pledge of allegiance, right?), more religious lunacy. Sure that's always been part of the culture, but there's more of it now, and pressure for even more. And it's pretty damned scary.
Doug