> Carrol: Charles mistook me a bit in a recent post. He thought I was using
> rabbits as analogy to political positions. I was using rabbits merely to
> illustrate the logical categories of genus and species. To argue that
> Fascism has feature X and the neoconservatives have feature X is not
> evidence that they are both fascist. Rabbits nurse their young. Lions
> nurse young. That does not mean that rabbits are lions. Basketballs are
> spherical. Planets are spherical. That does not mean that basketballs
> are planets. Fascism is a tyranny, but not all tyrannies are fascist.
>
> Carrol
^^^^^^^ Charles: It is not true strictly that if fascists and neoconservatives have feature X , that it is _not_ evidence that they are both fascist. Maybe and maybe not. For one thing , it depends what feature X is. If it is a defining characteristic of fascism then it most certainly _is_ evidence that they are both fascist. If rabbits and lions both nurse their young , then that is evidence that they are both mammals. Basketballs and planets are both round. This is evidence that they are both spheres.
Your discussion of this topic is starting to enter the genus of sophistry.
A reason to use the term "fascist" ,as I have explained before, is that for people in this period of history it conveys the sense of the most heinous system. Other terms like "tyranny" or "dictatorship" don't pack the same emotional impact that "fascism" and "Nazism" do. Many people in the U.S. must be shocked out of their complacency if we are to build a fightback against the tyranny that the Bush regime seems more and more capable of steering us to.
It is not so important that the potential disaster we now face is not technically, exactly fascism. It is close enough. "Fascism" only has the emotional impact it does today with historical hindsight. To have called the Nazis "fascist" in 1930 would not have warned people of its real danger. Similarly, today, to refer to Bush's trend by the techincally correct new name that it requires will not necessarily warn people sufficiently of the danger it entails, exactly because the heinousness that new term references will not be fully comprehended except in hindsight. "Fascism" and "Nazism" are terms that may stir people to action against the direction of the Bush government. "Bushism" or "neoconservativism" will not likely do so.
The thing is to stir people to action to change the world, not give them the technically correct term to interpret it.
^^^^^
"The Big Shark of the North does not travel alone. It has its followers: fauna in the remoras of the Spanish and Italian subimperialism that benefit from the carcases of the victims the Big Shark tears apart. "
> May 2, 2003
>
> You are not alone. The nazis "no pasaran"
> Speech delivered on May 1, 2003 in La Havana
>
> Heinz Dietrich Esteffan
> Juventud Rebelde
>
> Compañeras y compañeros; citizens of the world: I come from
> the old Europe to tell you that you are not alone; the new
> nazis no pasaran!
>
> I come from the old Europe of Albert Einstein and Karl Marx,
> of Miguel Angel and Cervantes, of Rosa Luxembourg and
> Vladimir I. Lenin, to offer my hand to this legitimate child
> of the humanist and revolutionary legacy of humanity that is
> Cuba.
>
> The most brilliant of this Europe, its art, its science, its
> declaration of human rights, gather us today in this square;
> but at the same time, a deep concern for Europe's darkest
> side has us here together: fascism.
>
> The new fascist axis, Washington-London-Tel Aviv, is
> re-structuring the Middle East, using the terror of its
> weapons and the power of its lies. As soon as it ends its
> butchering of Iraq and Palestine, it has set its eyes on the
> Latin American "Middle East": Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and
> the social movements along this continent, La Patria Grande.
>
> Venezuela, with oil reserves as large as Iraq's, would be
> the loot of the new "Fuehrer" of the West. In Cuba it is
> not "black gold" which draws the Mafia of Miami and
> Washington, but the economic potential of the real estate,
> of tourism, and above all, the intellectual wealth of the
> Cuban School of Biotechnology, whose capacity to advance
> medical science should already be considered humanity's
> patrimony, and whose most recent innovations will astound
> the world in a few years.
>
> The Big Shark of the North does not travel alone. It has
> its followers: fauna in the remoras of the Spanish and
> Italian subimperialism that benefit from the carcases of the
> victims the Big Shark tears apart. This is why, the Spanish
> subimperialism, represented by Jose Maria Aznar, took part
> in the coup d'etat against president Hugo Chavez. Spanish
> capitalists wanted a slice of Venezuelan oil.
>
> Franco's and Mussolini's spiritual heirs are part of the
> international gang of the new fascist project that threatens
> the world, along with one or two intellectuals of
> questionable ethics.
>
> Facing that threat, humanity must resist as it did in the
> '30s: with the widest front of alliances to defend the
> formal bourgeois democracy and international law; very much
> as happened during the war of Iraq, alongside the democratic
> forces of the world, there was resistence from the bourgeois
> elite of France, Germany, Russia, China, and even The
> Vatican.
>
> However, no war in history has been won merely defending,
> and this will not be the exception. This war is a war for
> the future of humanity. This is why, alogside the
> strategic project of defense, is needed a project of
> counteroffense, to stay ahead... for the future.
>
> "Great solutions come out from great crisis," Fidel Castro
> said once. The present is a crisis that requires a great
> solution, and the only profound structural solution near
> Cuba, the continental Patria Grande and humanity, is the new
> civilization based in a participative socialist democracy.
>
> Viva Cuba!
>
> Please pass this message around
>
>
> Free English Translation by
> REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EEUU
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