[lbo-talk] Neocons Inspired By Italian Fascists?

Shane Taylor s-t-t at juno.com
Mon Jun 30 15:12:38 PDT 2003


mike larkin wrote:


> http://amconmag.com/06_30_03/feature.html

Doug Henwood wrote:


> Interesting piece. I wonder what people like Carrol
> & Chip who police the use of the word "fascism"
> think of it.

In the piece, Ledeen adores revolution for its own sake -- as if the banner under which it's waged seems a secondary matter: "creative destruction," "tear down the old order every day," a whirlwind undoing traditional societies; just as they must attack, we must destroy, etc. My take is that the piece does a better job of demonstrating how fascism animates Ledeen than how it drives US foreign policy.

Interestingly, Ledeen, like Chip and unlike many usages of the word fascism, recognizes the importance of populism to fascism. If this be fascism, where are the Bush Youth??

I think both Carrol and Chip have made solid points on what's wrong with the term fascism, but I don't know of anything that merits its use today.

I think Carrol was right when he once said that speaking of today's authoritarians as "fascist" is as useful as describing the authoritarian turns of Europe between the wars as "Bonapartist." Also, lefties and trade unionists and opposition party leaders aren't, after all, being round up or shot. Immigrants are facing an assault, even detainments akin to disappearances, but not every authoritarian turn is evidence of syndicated history.

Just as Alan Wald wrote how the Trotskyist influence was overblown, I think the same can be said of the use of fascism in this piece. Lieven was more accurate when citing wounded nationalism. That Sept. 11 (it's ideological use) is a baptism, an absolution of US foreign policy granting it a new innocence, and hence new license, explains more than Mussolini's ghost.

Besides, this Administration, with it's war without end, warrants it's own, new pejorative.

-- Shane

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