On Feb 21, 2010, at 10:51 AM, Chip Berlet wrote:
> Fascist social movements are typified by an apparent ideological
> lack of a coherent ideology--full of "passionate intensity."
So fascist social movements don't necessarily lead to fascism, except in the few instances that they did?
This use of the word "fascism" is mystifyingly promiscuous. As I've said here about 40 times, the Tea Baggers have a lot in common with more than a century of right-wing petty bourgeois American populism. So did the militia movement of the 1990s (which, by the way, sort of met its end via Tim McVeigh, so seeing him as the culmination of the thing is somewhat strange). American political history is full of crazy right-wing shit. Why get so unusually exercised about it? It's a chronic affliction, about which we can do...what exactly?
But the word "fascism" is great for attracting attention, that's for sure.
Doug