Does telling people that Bush is a fascist convince them that it's bad? or does it convince them that we're wackos?
^^^^ CB: What you tell them is that the U.S. war on Iraq violates the international law against war that was established in the Nuremburg Trials of fascists.
"Tell" them that there is no reason to have a plan for martial law unless you have a fascist motive, because why would you think the mass of the American population is going to start rioting and tearing up their own country in response to a "terrorist" attack ? The vast majority of Americans would not respond to a "terrorist" attack by joining the "terrorists". They would _fight_ the terrorists. So, a plan for martial law against the vast majority of Americans in response to a "terrorist" attack by a dozen foreign terrorists doesn't make any sense, unless there is another motive for such a plan.
Also, there have been several statements in recent months by ministers ( I think including Bill Moyers) using the term "fascist" and nobody but some rightwing propagandist ( or their leftwing cohorts who are allergic to the word "fascist") has called those ministers wackos.
The fear of being thought of as wacko for using the term "fascist" is paranoid and very exaggerated.
Italy had fascism. Its repression is very comparable to repressions in the U.S. None of you in the "don't use 'fascist' " crowd every mentions Italy, because, Italy demonstrates that "fascism" is appropriately applied to countries with repression less than Nazi Germany. The Minutemen on the U.S.-Mexican border are incipient fascists. The Patriot Act is incipient fascism. Torturing prisoners held in violation of the Geneva Accords etc. is fascist.
There is no reason to be shy about use of the term "fascist". It should not be reserved only for situations such as murder of 27 million Soviets or 6 million Jews.
Just because "fascist" may have been misused by some radicals in the 60's/70's does not mean that sober leftists don't use the term, surrender the term. That's ridiculous. If that were the case, we couldn't use any terms, because all terms get abused at some time or another.
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> One thing left activists do is try to persuade a lot of people to think
differently about the political situation, to change their way of thinking ,
not change our way of thinking to the way a lot of people are thinking
wrong.<
Right. But I don't see Bush as fascist. He's definitely bad.
^^^^^^ CB: The U.S. war and blockade on Iraq (now 15 years long) is fascist. The U.S. war on Viet Nam was fascist.
Bush's fascist tendency is his willingness to ignore and overturn U.S. liberal democratic principles, such as the Geneva Accords or the U.S. Constitutional limits on search and seizure, his willingness to steal the presidential election, and the like; and of course the fascist wars he is waging.
Reaganism and the whole U.S. rightwing trend in this period is in a fascist direction.
You don't wait for fascism to arrive to start using the term "fascist". You _warn_ that things are moving in a fascist direction before fascism actually gets here. It is obviously foolish to wait until there is actually fascism to start using the term "fascist" when it is too late.
^^^^^
(I think the specifics of that badness are quite useful in propaganda. People can connect the dots for themselves. Then we can have an abstract discussion with such terms as "fascism.")
^^^^^ CB: The specifics of Bush's badness have already been put before a lot of Americans. They need a push and a jolt further saying , "hello, this Bush badness is getting to be comparable to those really bad guys we were fighting in WWII." Americans need this type of historical tutoring. They don't get it from television. You have to connect the dots for them.
Again a really sober ( sober like a judge) way of saying it is that the U.S. war on Iraq violates the law established to prevent future fascist wars.
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>> here are the top definitions that a web-search produces for the
word "fascism" (from
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=lang_en&oi=defmore&q=define:Fascism):<
<
> CB: None of these definitions seems to make classes central to the
definition. A definition of fascism that does not make class conflict
central is not worth much to leftists.<
I specifically said that I didn't think that these definitions were correct.
(Strictly speaking, _no_ definition is correct. That's a Platonic conception, i.e., that there's some Ideal Form out there and that our conceptions (definitions) are reflections of it. Rather, definitions are human-made conventions. Some are better than others because they give a more coherent understanding of the real, empirical, world.)
If we want to convice people of the veracity of our perspective, it's important to treat them as thinking human beings. Among other things, that implies that bombarding them with rhetoric and slogans won't impress them (unless they already agree).
^^^^^^^ CB: Nobody said bombard them. Use of rhetoric means to try to persuade them, so we should use rhetoric ( the connotation of "rhetoric" as somehow speaking to them in a way that won't persuade them is an artifact of anti-left thinking coming out of attacks on the political efforts of the 60's and 70's). There is nothing in slogans that is inherently unpersuasive. Depends on the slogan.
Using the term "fascist" _is_ treating them like thinking human beings. Contra your implications, the term "fascist" can be used soberly and technically, as I have suggested. To use "fascist" is to trust the listeners to be thinking enough to understand the gravity of the situation.
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We have to know how others think, not because we should agree with them but because it's a step toward convincing them.
^^^^^^ CB: I agree. I'm saying what I am saying based on the way lots of people think: they don't want their country to be carrying out fascist policies. We point out " hey, your country is carrying out fascist policies. "
^^^^^
Again, I think the sweep of events (actual class struggle) will be more convincing than anything we could say, especially if it affects people personally. In the process, we don't want to convince people that we're crazy.
^^^^^ CB: It's a suburban legend on the left that any use of the term "fascist" makes somebody think you are crazy. Actually, the problem is more that most Americans are so ahistorical that they don't even know the grave significance of the word "fascist".
A better criticism of use of the term "fascist" is that most Americans don't know the significance , the historical significance of the term. In other words, they won't think you are crazy. They won't know what you are talking about ! They won't be shocked into opposing the war, because they don't know that they should be shocked that their government is waging a fascist war.
It is mostly a few leftists ( and O'Reilly demogogues on the right) who have a kneejerk reaction to the use of the term "fascist" as "crazy". The leftists who are nervous about use of "fascist" are caving in and surrendering to the O'Reilly types. O'Reilly's demogogy definitely should be more frequently compared to fascist demogogy. The intellectual left should be doing studies comparing Limbaugh and O'Reilly's methods and styles to Goebbels or Mussolini.