^^^^ CB: The Soviet defensive war against the fascists was anti-fascist, for example, as were the Korean and Viet Namese defensive wars against U.S. fascist war.
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Or, for that matter, fascistic/racists or any other -ist oppression and the one that simply results from "ordinary" power inequalities that have been with the humankind since the dawn of history and, I may add, are the rule in the state of nature?
^^^^^ CB: No war is not found "in the state of nature". The first human societies didn't have the institution of war. That occurs with the origin of the state; since the dawn of _written_ history with the origin of the state. Your anthropology is wrong here.
Racist wars begin with racism, which begins with capitalism, and its primitive accumulation with slavey and colonialism. Fascist war begins with the imperialist phase of capitalism.
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I do not mean to sound flippant, I simply want to say that you seem to have your causal order backwards.
^^^^ CB: It's not so much your being flippant , but wrong about the history and pre-history of humanity with respect to the point of origin of war. War only begins with class divided society and the state.
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Power inequality is a part of life, the stronger eats the weaker, period.
^^^^^ CB: Not to be flippant but ,wrong. That begins with class divided society. For most of human existence human society is communal, communist.
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It is true of the natural order, and it is true of human societies since the dawn of history.
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CB: Since the dawn of _written_ history.
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What seems to be distinctive about human history in that respect is that humans routinely rationalize and ex-post-facto justify that exploitation of power inequalities by inventing reasons for them, which quickly solidify into ideologies, like fascism, racism, religion, nationalism or kindred "-isms."
^^^^^ CB: No it doesn't seem like that for early human history.
Fascism and nationalism, and racism as ideologies only arise in the last 100 and 500 years respectively.
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As a result, taking advantage of power inequality no longer appears to be a purely opportunistic behavior putting humans on basically the same level as animals, but instead a rational consequence of some higher moral order. In short, the "-isms" in question are nothing more than attempts to rationalize and ennoble the animalist traits in human behavior.
^^^^ CB: Yes, class divided society is living like animals , but actually worse than animals, as compared with the original forms of human society.
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Therefore, the causal order is power inequality causing ideologies attempting to justify it, not the other way around. Being determines consciousness, if you will.
^^^^^ CB: Yes, the causal order is that ruling classes cause ideologies that preserve their class rule. The ruling ideas of every age in written history are the ideas and ideologies of the ruling classes. Fascism is a ruling class ideology in the imperialist phase of capitalism.
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Therefore, denouncing and attacking ideologies that grew out of power inequalities is like attacking the shadow instead of the thing that casts it.
^^^^ CB: No, I'm denouncing the _practice_, and the ruling class behind the ideology and practice. My defintion of fascism is rooted in class, emphasizes the ruling class behind fascist ideology; that is, my analysis of fascism is a historical materialist understanding of fascism.
But the practice is to suppress fascist organization and practice.
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In fact, there is no difference between fascistic and non-fascistic oppression, racist and non-racist one, etc. - they are all the same kind of human behavior rooted in the same causal factor: power inequality.
^^^^ CB: Well fascist repression is on the more virulent end of the terrorist scale. It is an enforcement of power inequality, yes.
Anti-fascist repression is the opposite of this. It is an effort to _overcome_ fascist repression, fight fire with fire.
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The only way of changing that is to eliminate the root cause, not the attenuation of the shadow that it casts.
^^^^ CB: Yes, the root cause is capitalism. Must eliminate that to eliminate the danger of fascism for all times.
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This can be demonstrated by the fact that every new wave of immigrants to this country gave birth to a new set of ethnic stereotypes, which were later attenuated. That trajectory of change - sudden appearance and then a gradual subsidence can only be explained by changes in power of the targeted group: as they got off the boat they landed at the bottom of the power ladder, which gave birth to ideological expressions of that power inequality. As these groups were fighting its way up the power ladder, these ideological expressions subsided (or in some cases even disappeared,e.g. in case of the Irish).
^^^^^ CB: It's not quite this uniform. Africans were brought over in boats, long ago , but subsequently arriving European immigrant groups passed them up on the power ladder. This pattern is refracted by racism ( one of your major blindspots). Indigenous peoples who were already here were left at the bottom too.
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So as I see it, calling any form of inequality names ("fascism," racism" imperialism" "sexism" etc.) is purely symbolic and rather futile.
^^^^ CB: This is stupid. Of course we have names for different social and political phenomena. What do you want to do ? Communicate by extrasensory perception ?
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It is like cursing at the troops invading your territory - it means less than a mosquito bite. If one does not like the incursion, one needs to secure enough power to forestall it, or otherwise put one's tail between one's legs and withdraw to a safer location.
^^^^ CB: No, it is the only and obvious way that we organize struggle against it.
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Cursing one's enemies is the weapon (or perhaps its substitute) of the weak and the sign of weakness. That is the main reason why one should not engage in it, even if it is the only thing one can do in a given situation. Remaining silent may create doubts about one's power, cursing removes that doubt.
Wojtek ^^^^^
CB: Use of "fascist" is not cursing anymore than use of "capitalist" or "imperialist" or "racist" , et al. It is a scientific term.