It is a useful and succinct way to explain how fascist mass movements gain state power.
It certainly is what happened in both Italy and Germany, but in those cases there was also a stong and vibrant political left that needed to be countered. So the situation we have here in the U.S. today is a large right-wing populist movement without a strong left, so that a more likely potential scenario given another economic downturn or major terrorist attack is a major transition of power to right-wing Republicans and a rollback of social welfare and progressive policies to before the New Deal. Meanwhile, a dramatic increase in scapegoating and aggression against people of color, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, abortion rights advocates, and the LGBTQ communities.
See my cover story in the current issue of the Progressive.
Chip
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 1:47 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Fascism, right-wing populism,and contemporary research
On Feb 19, 2010, at 1:36 PM, Ted Winslow wrote:
> Do you mean that fascism is only a possibility where it can be shown
> to be in the rational interest of a small set of individuals bent on
> maintaining and furthering their sadistic domination and
> exploitation of the world?
I suppose there are exceptions, but why not, yeah? ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk