[lbo-talk] U.S. fascism

[Charles Brown]

One of Carrol's errors in this ongoing argument is , unusual for him, to
forget that the U.S. was not a democracy , but a fascism, for Black people,
Indians and others _domestically_ in the era that it committed horrible
things in the Phillipines ,etc. The law and police,with the doctrine of
criminal syndicalism,  were very tough on trade unions in this period , too.
A massacre of a Black population in Florida in the 1920 _is_ fascism, not
democracy doing a horrible thing.  In a word, he places more importance on
indicating that bourgeois "democracy" does bad things than on teaching that
some of  those things were so bad that it was not and is not democracy.
Of course, unsaid in this usually is that he , and others , are equating
"fascism"  with Nazism.  Italian Fascism, Spanish fascism , Japanese fascism
etc. , which no one seems to have problems calling "fascism",  were not
somehow qualitatively worse than the U.S. post-Reconstruction ;or what the
U.S. today approaches, with its giant prison population, social fascist
Reaganite anti-welfare and anti-social programs, racism, thoroughly
corrupted electoral system, world historic , mind-controlling media or even
with COINTELPRO, political assassinations, etc thirty five years ago, not to
mention one of Carrol's favorites, a one party system pretending to be a two
party system.  .
Even Nazism didn't target the entire domestic German population, but
specific minorities.  How could the Nazis proceed unless the majority of
"superior race" Germans were treated relatively well ?  It wasn't "fascism"
for the favored majority. The "good Germans" were good because they weren't
mistreated, much like the "good Americans" today.
The other regular error is to confine "fascism" to the "domestic" state of a
country, when Nazism's main crime was against peace, committing war. The
U.S. is more like Nazism in this regard than Fascist Italy or Spain was. And
the U.S. crimes against peace have been over 50 years, lasting much longer
than German fascism. What sense does it make to cling to the label
"democracies"and say that they have and can commit  horrible crimes,  and
can be more of a threat to the world than Nazism ?  This is a distinction
without a difference. When they do and are , they aren't democracies , but
fascisms.
Charles
^^^^^^

Carrol said:
One last point. When one predicts Ruin & Repression one is NOT (or at
least I and several others on this list are not) predicting Fascism.
Those who go around labelling this that or the other thing Fascism make
two errors: 1) they usually underestimate the destructiveness of
capitalist regimes at their best, and 2) they lack imagination as to the
possible forms repression and ruin can take.

And there is a worse penalty now for this habit of crying Fascism. It is
clear from some threads on this list that many of the posters really
don't understand that the U.S. can remain a democracy at home AND BE A
TERRIBLE THREAT TO THE WORLD -- more of a threat than Hitler ever was.

Democracies can commit and have commited horrible crimes. The U.S. war
on the Philippine people a century ago was one of the most horrible
massacres of the 20th century. But the U.S. was a democracy then as it
is now.

Even the way elections got handled in Florida in 2000 (and it may happen
again) is not especially new or different. In 1960 I was a rock-ribbed
Democrat like Brad or Luke. I was very angry that Daley in Chicago had
fucked up and sent in the Chicago vote without first checking on how the
Dupage County vote was going. That's why Kennedy almost lost in
Illinois. I remember saying to a friend at Northern Michigan where I was
teaching then, something like "What the hell good are big city machines
if they can't even do a good job of stealing an election." And of course
Texas elections in those days (under the thumb of Lyndon Johnson and
friends) would make Florida in 2000 look like an 8th grade civics text
conception of democracy at its best.

It did take an armed insurrection on a small scale to overthrow the
Memphis city machine back in '48 or so. (I forget the name of the man
who ran that state. "Crump" comes to mind, but I think that was the
Kansas City boss who managed Truman's plitical career.) A group of
veterans got together, stormed the courthouse, and defended the ballot
boxes with arms until they could arrange for an honest counting. There
were shots fired, but I forget if anyone was wounded or not.

And there is even a movie about the massacre of a black community in
Florida back in the '20s; similar events have occurred elsewhere in the
U.S.

There is a frightening naivete in assuming that (whether it is a good
thing or a bad thing) there won't be
very messy radical upheavals in the United States.