Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> --- On Wed, 7/2/08, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> PS. I share your view that Obama - if elected, which is likely - will be a big disappointment to liberals and pwogies - but not because of a "flaw" in his character ("flip-flopping" and the like), but because this country is fascist to its core and the majority of the population (anywhere between a half and two thirds in my opinion) like it that way.
Probably Doug's casual dismissal of this nonsense is best, "Nah. We're not collectivist enough." If I were grading this as a freshman theme I jwould lower it a grade for simple sloppy diction inits use of the word "fascism," which is clearly not used with any attempt at precision here but jsut as a wek and ineffective synonym for "real real REAL BAD."
It is just because the U.S. is NOT fascist, is resistent to fascism, that it needs to develop so many other means and institutions of repression. One of those is the Democratic Party, which with few exceptions has been the initiartor & usually the implementer of moves for more systematic repression. One can start with the prosecution of Debs and the Palmer raids under Wilson, move through the Dies Committee and the Japanese Intenment Camps, the steps under the Kennedy administratio towards wgat Nixon Christened the "War on Crime," through Clinton's Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the present sincere cooperation of the Democrats in Congress with various oppressive moves.
It is really stupid and dangerous to throw the word "Fascist" around. It blinds us to the real authoritarian, even totalitarian, elements in the u.s. that are prior to fascism and more efficient than it -- after all, Hitler is gone but the U.S. Constitution and the DP are still (triumphantly) with us.
Carrol