--- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I still think calling the Bush people fascists is an
> insult to fascists.
>
> Fascists had:
>
> Personal bravery
> Really good poets
> Fashion sense
>
[WS:] Excuse me? They were pretty philistine thugs of
the Wenn ich Kultur hoere entsichere ich meinen
Browning variety. They coopted a few aristocrats that
used to dominate the German army into their ranks who
might have the qualities that you describe plus the
appreciation of good art, but most of them had rather
petit bourgeois sensibilities.
I think a better distinction between Bushies and European autocrats that you refer to (but not fascists!) can be derived from the Alexis deTocqueville characterisation of the American life, and in particular his concept of the tyranny of the majority. It is a distintion between the old Europe with its aristocratic authoritarianism and apperciation of the high culture, and the new world philistine anti-intellectualism and populism leading to the tyranny of the majority. Fascism is definitely of the latter variety.
Another point - I disagree with John Thronton that there are similarities between the American regime and fascism. The American regime is basically a plutocracy with strong populist elements and anti-institutional attitudes. Fascism, by contrast, is a form of etatisme or a regime in which the state and its institutional spinoffs play the central role. Both share populist elements as and appeals, but they are very different institutionally.
Their impacts on the everyday life is very different as well. The fascism regime is a form of paternalistic authoritarian welfare state that feeds and tightly controls its subjects. The US regime by contrast is fundamentally laissez faire - it's main raison d'etre is to provide contracting opportunities and property rights protections to the well connected businessmen but beyond that it does not provide any support to its subjects, but it is relatively free of totalitarian controls.
Wojtek
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