Doug Henwood wrote:
[a counter-example for those who think we're on the road to fascism]
^^^^ CB: We aren't on the road to fascism, but we can get to fascism on the road we are on.
^^^^^ Carrol Cox : As I've made clear, I have no patience with the label fascism for reactionary currents in u.s. politics, but I would still disagree with the subject line.
^^^^ CB: So, you don't think the KKK warrants a label of fascist ?
^^^^^
If "fascism" (or some closely analogous movement) contests for power in the u.s., I suspect it won't be anti-gay. In fact, I suspect a _real_ u.s. fascist movement wouldn't even be overtly racist or sexist. There's just not going to be any close imitation of the inter-war phenomenon known as fascism, though that is no consolation because there are many other ways that civil and political rights can be crushed.
Carrol
^^^^ CB: Preserving the word "fascist" for some special time and place is political dilettantism or playing word games.
The war on Iraq is already, right now, overtly racist and has common characteristics with the phenomenon of fascism, (which was not limited to the interwar period). The Patriot Act is part of a fascist climate right now.
Get impatient right now and stop speculating what characteristics some future fullblown fascism will have, because it detracts you from fighting the pieces of it already present. It's armchair revolutionism to debate whether or not to call fascist "other ways that civil and political rights can be crushed". The most effective way to fight them is to call them fascism. Any new name you give them will not arouse people in the manner they need to be aroused to fight back.