[lbo-talk] What is you know what ?

Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org
Fri Feb 17 07:12:17 PST 2006


jthorn65

I think it's pretty safe to say CB uses a definition of fascism that seems more in keeping with the work of Thayer Watkins and most of this list do not. Is fascism more corporatist or totalitarian? CB seems to think corporatist and the list seems to lean towards totalitarian. At least that's how I read this discussion.

^^^^^ CB: I will look into who Thayer Watkins is. I'd say my definition of fascist tends to the international legal definition that was established in the Nuremburg trials of the Nazi war criminals. The legal principles established there have been encoded generally as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. Crimes against peace are war crimes or criminal wars. Crimes against humanity are genocides. I'll try to find a net reprint of the definitions of these crimes.

That is the best route , because the best theoretical definition in my opinion, though close to your corporatist definition ( which is Mussolini's defintion; so straight from the horse's mouth; although I don't think I'd want to adopt wholly the horse's definition as mine) as anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly and finance capital,opposed to open terrorist rule of the most chauvinist , reactionary , most racist sectors of finance capital, that definition is a bit radical for a Popular front defense against neo-fascist tendencies. So, lets stick with the legal definitions established by the "Allies" in 1945. The U.S. fifteen year war and blockade on Iraq ( blockades are acts of war in traditional international law) is a crime against peace _and_ a crime against humanity, in that it is genocidal given the U.S. racist national ideologies, anti-darker skinned peoples history.

^^^^^^^^ None of this means I don't see similarities between what exists today and facism, just that I think the path we are on will not lead to fascism as I believe most people define it. It will take us somewhere new.

^^^^^ CB: Someone phrased it "on the road to fascism". We aren't so much "on the road to fascism" as "Y'all can get to fascism on that road y"alls on now". Hopefully, we can steer things along the road not to fascism when we get to those forks in the road.

^^^^^^

Ultimately if fascism is more a form of corporatism the US has a far too pluralistic system to fit in that category in my opinion. I don't see that changing in my lifetime or even very soon afterward. If fascism is rather more a form of totalitarianism the US is no closer to that definition. However that doesn't mean someone like Bush wouldn't wish to have such a set-up. I believe he would like to be in the ruling elite of an authoritarian regime. Too bad for him he isn't going to get one.

Calling our current regine "fucked up" however is hardly illuminating. Someone more clever than I am will simply need to come up with a snappy new term to describe the current set-up. The system we currently live under is unique in enough aspects to warrant an "ism" of its own.

If I can't call the cops "bloody fascists" when they harrass me what fun would that be?

John Thornton

^^^^^^

CB: Truly , and somebody saying you aren't being politically correct when you say it. They aren't technically "pigs" either.



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