Carrol Cox sighed:
Sigh. Tyranny, real tyranny, is quite possibly not far off -- but if and when it comes it will no more be fascism than it will be divine-right monarchy or Latin-American style military dictatorships. We do not know what in what form tyranny, if it comes, will come to the united states, but we do know it will NOT be fascism and it will NOT be divine-right monarchy and it will NOT be an 'oriental dispotism.'
^^^^^
CB: Good Grief ( Charlie Brown said). It won't be "tyranny" either. That was in ancient Greece, even more remote in time than fascism.
Lets call it "Excessive deathery". The U.S. state is an "excessive deathery"
^^^^^^^
Carrol: Forms of repression like other political forms are
specific to specific historical conjunctions. It may be worse than fascism -- and I suspect that if the u.s. ruling class moved to destroy bourgeois democracy the it _would_ be much worse than fascism. Fascism was profoundly inefficient. The U.S.
ruling class can be pretty fucking stupid, but I suspect they would be smart enough to get behin something more efficient.
^^^^^ CB: Why are these bourgeoisie smarter than the bourgeoisie of the 1920's and 30's who got behind fascism, like Henry Ford materially suppporting Hitler very early on ?
^^^
Carrol: Using the cry of fascism will contribute to disarming ourselves before whatever new form of tyranny does appear.
^^^^^ CB: Last sentence is an interesting claim. What's the argument ? Is it that not warning people will allow them to do things that will make them better prepared to fight fascism when it comes ? That certainly seems odd on the face of it. Counterintuitive. Surprise better than forewarning. Somehow not calling fascism "fascism" in 1920 or 1930 would have been a better way to have prevented or defeated fascism ?
I disagree with Carrol's "no warning" tactic. I say nip it in the bud, for it's harder to defeat when it's in full bloom.
A paradox occurs to anyone who thinks about this a bit more closely about how to warn and prepare people , somehow. The word "fascism" did not have the meaning in 1920 or 1930 that it had in 1945 or has today. An effective warning of fascism's danger would have had to be in the form of a word, like,...."tyranny" to really alert masses of Europeans in 1920 or 30. So, today, even though the next "tyranny" won't be "fascism" or any of the ancient forms of tyranny, ( including it won't be "tyranny" which is older than fascism) whatever the new form of "fascism" that might come to the U.S.if we don't prevent it, it will of course not be fascism , exactly. But rhetorically the best way to warn people is to use a historical term like "fascism" which has in it the terror and fear from its actual historical existence. Using the proper name for what might come won't arouse people emotionally to fight it, because it has not yet reined in terror and fear in actuality ; just as crying "fascism" in the 1920's wouldn't have aroused people to the danger of it, because it was new.
Digression: What terror regime might come won't be "tyranny" either. That was in ancient Greece, even more remote in time from tomorrow U.S.A. than actual historical fascism. Whatever might come will be more like fascism than Tyranny.
Just substituting another classical European graeco-roman word for "fascism", like "tyranny", doesn't get Carrol out of the same problem he attributes to those who use "fascism" to describe the current trend, tendency and direction dominating the United States' state.
A dialectical approach looks at the direction of movement of a thing. The direction of the balance of political "forces" dominating the U.S. state have been tending toward the rightwing of the U.S. ruling class for 25 years. That's the trend...
...popular history: the "fasces" are the bundle of rods in the Roman SPQR symbol. Mussolini was a "classical" ( in both senses) thinker in his modern politics. The bourgeois brought slavery and colonialism in with wage-labor. Ellen Meikens Woods is correct. The wage-labor system is not a sufficient cause of slavery and colonialism in the Americas, Africa and the East. They derives from the historical allegience to "fasces" by the bourgeoisie right at capitalism's primitive accumulation in slavery and colonialism. I'd even say the bourgeoisie invented looking back at Greek and Rome as models , as part of the "primitive accumulation" of bourgeois ideology and worldview. The bourgeoisie chose to become the cultural heirs of the Greeks and Romans. The bourgeois beginning in relation to feudalism is to turn from the feudal manor to wage-labor ;with slavery and colonialism tacked on, not entirely following from the logic of first sections of _Capital_; the tacking on, this retrofitting, is justified by Roman and Greek ancient precedent. In plain language, it was ok to do the thieving plunder because the bourgeoisie considered Greece and Rome "great" ancient civilizations. Alexander was "the Great". Alexander had conquered and plundered , so it was high culture to do so.
The colonialism follows somewhat from the constant growth implied in capital, in that the local territory of jolly ole England, et al. gets "overcrowded", madding crowds ( see Malthus :>)) But lets take Woods as correct that slavery and colonialism don't follow from pure original capitalism in the country side in jolly olde England. Whence the slavery and colonialism of Rule Britannia ? It's in the "ia".
Back to the concrete situation, specific historical conjunction:
Anyway, afterall, C's discussion above seems imprudent. Seems wiser to use the term "fascist" in the pre-cancerous stages of a potential fullblown cancer-fascist situation. In the pre-cancerous phase, use of the term might prevent total spread of the fascist-cancer. This is sort of in the American style of John Dean: "There's a cancer growing on the Presidency, Mr. President. " There's a fascist cancer growing on the three branches of the U.S. state. If the American People don't remove it, we are in trouble.
Iraqi's are already in trouble. This "cancer", this "Excessive Deathery" has killed 600,000 of them.