----- Original Message ----- From: "Wojtek Sokolowski" <swsokolowski at yahoo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 3:27 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Allen, racism, fascism and beyond
>
> --- 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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