What's a Fascist?

[URL=http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html]They Thought They Were Free[/URL] The Germans, 1933-45

Quote:

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

Foreign threats, fear of poverty without a strong and militant leader, and state secrecy.

Quote:

"...Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late."

Cueball wrote:

Who are scholars of the subject?

I certainly don't deny that the Tea Party has fascistic tendencies, but suggesting that having a bunch of wacko's running around on the streets saying regressive and stupid and jingoistic things is an absolute requirement for fascism is plainly absurd. Indeed, evolved fascism, when it has gotten beyond the point of siezing power does everything it can to repress those kinds of social movements and enroll those forces in state institutions (usually the police) so that it can control them.

Please find me a scholar who suggests that Mussolini or Hitler encouraged ranging mobs of morons to disturb the public order after the point at which they had served their usefulness had expired? I doubt you will find any because any scholar on Fascism who is worth their salt has studied closely how Hydreich and Himmler worked to centralize authority within the SS, and remove the grass roots leadership from their movement, once they had used the "Brown Shirts" to help them take over the state.

In the end your point seems to be somehow to diminish the threat of institutionalized fascism by asserting that fascism requires mobs of civilian supporters running around and terrorizing the civilian population and the opposition, when in fact the overt object of fascism is to suppress grass roots initiative, and institute supreme authority within a state run by bureaucratic fiat by a centralized gang whose word is law above the law based in legal procedure or rights for the many.

Those mobs are colourful surely, but they are not the be all and end all of fascism. I think you are allowing yourself to get distracted from the reality by focussing too much on the cosmetics.

Why do you insist then that institutionalized fascist authority can not arrive at supreme authority without populist vigilantes aiding the regression?

Krystal Nacht?

Bacchus wrote:

I suspect the only reason Franco didnt succumb to expansionism was that it took until after WWII for Spain to recover from the civil war and then the world was in no mood for a European expansionist.

Franco did allow voluntary Spanish International Brigades to form and go fight in Russia during WWII.

Actually the primary reason the Hitler never pressed Franco to join his alliance was because Spain was an essential transportation point for raw material imports into occupied Europe. Were Spain in the war it would have been possible for the United Kingdom to create an almost total blockade of the Reich and its allies from essential imports from South America and the world.

It's also strange to remove economy from any definition of distinctions of government types, as if the control of the means of production is irrelevant to governance. Perhaps this impulse to ignore the relationship of the economy to the state has something to do with being indoctrinated into an ideological world view where the market is considered some kind of natural phenomena like the wind that blows over us but is beyond human intervention, and other petty distraction like the notion of state control.

Taking that view, I guess any authoritarian regieme is the same.

Most surprising is the ongoing assertion that fascism can be treated like an absolute form of government in the abstract, where a state is ether fascist or not as opposed to a view where fascism can exist, grow and even diminish inside different forms of state organization, and be encapsulated in "acts" that are fascist. In this way, as long as we can find exceptions to the rule, then we content ourselves that we are not "really there yet" and go back to sleep.

Everyone seems to want to believe that we absolutely need to have wackos wandering the streets in some kind of futuristic Clockwork Orange meets boys from Brazil fantasy in order to be "fascist", and that until the Wacko thugs are knocking at our doors there is no fascism in the state and Stephen Harper is a useless muppet. This even when Stephen can spend billions on superior policing systems, establish a national Integrated Security Unit that unifies all levels of policing from CSIS to the RCMP to the provincial police to local city police forces under a single command and then run a 3 day trial run of martial law in Canada's largest city, without the consent of parliament or democratic debate, cancel Parliament at will, arrest people on suspicion of seditious activities and hold them until they confess, or even detain them indefinitely on "security certificates" and hold bail hearings for dissidents under strict publication bans. 

With all that, who needs Brownshirts?

Don't worry about that, lets spend our time having a debate about the precise semantic definition of what constitutes fascism what constitutes authoritarianism, and how either of those compare to socialist totalitarianism. Pleasant dreams.

Cueball wrote:

Most surprising is the ongoing assertion that fascism is being treated like an absolute form of government in the abstract, where a state can be shown to be fascist or not, as opposed to a view where fascism can exist, grow and even diminish inside different forms of state organization, and be encapsulated in "acts" that are fascist. In this way, as long as we can find exceptions to the rule, then we content ourselves that we are not "really there yet" and go back to sleep.

Everyone seems to want to believe that we absolutely need to have wackos wandering the streets in some kind of futuristic Clockwork Orange meets boys from Brazil fantasy in order to be "fascist", and that until the Wacko thugs a knocking at our doors there is no fascism in the state and Stephen Harper is a useless muppet. This even when Stephen can spend billions on superior policing systems, establish a national Integrated Security Unit that bonds all levels of policing from CSIS to the RCMP to local city police forces, and then run a 3 day trial run of martial law in Canada's largest city, without the consent of parliament or democratic debate, cancel Parliament at will, arrest people on suspicion of seditious activities and hold them until they confess, or even detain them indefinitely on "security certificates" and hold bail hearings for dissident under strict publication bans. 

With all that, who needs Brownshirts?

Pleasant dreams.

we're there alright. Bigtime.

complete with pleasant dreams...

support the fighters

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Violent, single-party rule gets more to the heart of it, IMO.

Single-party rule is probably the most salient factor when identifying fascism.

The US primary system that entrenches two pro-capitalist parties seems to be a clever way of moving towards fascism but it goes against the fascistic belief that society is organically a single entity, a family with a strong father/patriarch.

Yes, the two-party system is just an illusion of democracy. It's not even a fair shell game when the rich are buying both the government and so-called opposition parties and their so-called leaders. Why else are voter turnouts in the US and Canada as low as they are today? It's not because the millions not voting are able to observe real differences between the two. Whether conscious of it or not, millions don't vote because at some level they realize the result is always the same. Dollar democracies are not real democracies. What we have in North America is a variation on election rigging.

I thought that when folks started listing leftist authoritarian states as fascist that they were in need of a refreshing sleep.  

The fascist leader assumes a superiority that's positively Wagnerian, and may build Volks autos (there is quite a story in Wolfsburg, Germany, about how Adolph picked that town as home for his wagon) but would never talk about powet TO the people in some final governing structure.  It is the super figure of German philosophy and history that is missing in the Teaparty crowd, for sure.

I believe Steve shows a definite inclination toward such a belief, however.

...plus there is that whole U.S. tradition of radical local militias (which was certainly the birthplace of the Teaparty). I don't think Adolph or Benito would have been too happy with random mobs of grassroots grass-chewing conspiracy theorists who were armed to the teeth (and painting hitler moustaches on the leader they want to bring down).

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/militia_m.asp?xpicked=4&item=19

(edit.. after your smiley, George)

I mean look at those guys. They don't even know how to hem their pants or stand in straight rows. Those are bags, not uniforms.

jrootham wrote:

If we do not describe our situation in terms that most people will understand and accept they will not be convinced of the truth of what we say.  That's why this matters.

So it's all about couching our language so as to be ever-so-careful to never offend the fascists or their supporters?

jrootham wrote:

If we do not describe our situation in terms that most people will understand and accept they will not be convinced of the truth of what we say.  That's why this matters.

In trying for democratic change Cueball's position is as about as useful as tits on a bull.

Woody Allen doesn't seem to have problem explaining things to people on terms they can understand.

No. Lets be really honest here and admit that fascism is a particular form of government where the national ideal is expressed in the personal will of the a supreme dictator, who is above policy, prodedure and the law.

But lest diminish meaning and argument in favour of dumbing down the discourse and erase any need to look at history or truth or make any analysis at all abiove murmering sentiment that amounts to the intellectual equivalent of singing Kumbaya over and over again until we are so numbed by our repeated mantra that we convince ourselves that everything is just fine.

Quote:

But lest diminish meaning and argument in favour of dumbing down the discourse and erase any need to look at history or truth or make any analysis at all

It's not clear whether you're suggesting that trivial, exaggerative use of "fascist" and "fascism" constitutes dumbing down the discourse, or constitutes the "analysis" that would be the opposite.

Fidel posted an article I found particularly interesting especially as I was writing in another thread about the same issue. The article, however, makes the connection 90% of the way and then stops -- curiously.

Yes the article makes it clear that the government would rather spend on the military than on social programs and that social programs will get devastated over time by the commitment of this amount of money.

What the article does not do is ask a very important question. Which of the two effects of the initiative is the most important objective and which is the bonus?

If we look at the other policies of the government we might see a consistency that is alarming.

I have argued for a time that the prime spending directive of the government is to get rid of money in order to justify reductions down the road -- even force them on future governments. In other words the Cons are, I believe, looking to get rid of any money that could be either now or later put to some social purpose they do not believe in. People assume that they are choosing where to put the money but that is not their perspective of government. Their main concern is to reduce government, disable it from doing those things they do not want to do. Clement said recently over the Census (another act of Con Sabotage) that he is the most anti-establishment guy he knows and the CBC thought it was funny. The reality is he is telling the truth. These people do not have different spending priorities (as did Mulroney's Cons) these people are anti-government first and foremost. the Stimulus spending for example simply became an opportunity to flush money away -- anywhere-- so long as it did not go to anything the Cons did not believe in -- that is why very little went to public transit. Again people see the fact that little went to public transit as a lost competition with Con ridings instead of seeing that Con ridings were the vehicle to avoid putting it in public transit. It is important that people recognize that this government sees governance in the negative not what they want to do but what they seek to avoid doing is what matters. (Ask not what the government can do for you but what you can stop the government from doing is the mantra).

So looking back to military spending-- sure it is nice to have a big war machine but the real objective is to strip the government's ability to do all those nasty social spending things. The war machine is a side benefit. Seen this way, all the government's expenditures make sense and all are consistent. It is terrifying however to consider that this government's prime directive is to disable the government. This is the same as many people (including Fidel who posted the article) said before Harper was elected-- that the Cons intend to be more destructive to our national government than the BQ and that they intend to swing the wrecking ball as soon as they get in town. This is what we are seeing-- the actual spending is a distraction from the purpose. Now sure, many of the spending is what Cons like -- tax cuts, war machine, patronage to friends, spending for political advantage, but the purpose is to disable the government and all this spending has that purpose. It is no accident that the Cons are wrecking the fiscal capacity of the federal government-- that is in fact the prime purpose and suits their political ideology perfectly even if some of the spending targets appear not to.

Absolutely.

This is driven by an ideology that is so anti government that they want to destroy the ability for the government they hold to make decisions, to initiate anything or to function at all.

Fidel, I do want to clarify that this is not imperialism form the government of the United States -- who these same forces want to disable and subvert but from the boardrooms of the United States who want unfettered access to public capital and the fruit of the labour of working people.

In that sense the US government is their lapdog. How do you like the idea that our government is the lapdog of a lapdog when it is not being a direct lapdog to those interests directly.

Canadians, if they want to have any hope of dealing with this will need to recognize that the role of the Conservative party in government is indeed a mission of sabotage. They are exactly what Tony Clement told the media last week when he said he is the most anti-establishment person he knows. They are the government they seek to tear down.

We have had right wing governments before -- even ones that promoted the idea of "smaller government." But this is the first government in Canadian history that I believe has a primary mission of destruction of its own institution.

I do accept that the Liberals are a big part of the problem but they do not see themselves in the same mission-- they are the dupes, the idiots buying the propaganda while still thinking they are somehow saving the government from ruin. The Cons, I think have no illusion about their desire to damage government so seriously that no future electoral choice can fix itself for a generation. The assumption is they will be back in power before the government can fix itself and redo the tax. This means, if they succeed, that no election would be relevant and no future government would be relevant. This government is in effect perpetrating a coup on all future governments, stripping them of their sovereign decision-making power.

I recommend telling those who ask that you're with the NSC. It throws them off and makes them think you're with either CSIS or the CIA.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Cueball -- put me down for an 8 (if they executed them it would be a 10).

Exactly what I was typing:

An 8. If they'd killed a few, a 9. If they killed indiscriminantly, 10.

Sean: "This government is in effect perpetrating a coup on all future governments, stripping them of their sovereign decision-making power."

Right on, Sean.

This does not smack of fascism, just Libertarian, 19th century liberal economics (neo-liberal as it were). But Steve certainly seems to be playing the Straussian bag of tricks to get there, including using the "noble lie"a... just like the benevolent king should - the end justifying the means.

Cueball wrote:

What do you think? On a scale of 1 to 10 how fascist is that?

I think we might hum and haw about it because I assume you're referring to an oppressive act that took place this past summer here in Canada.

If we were to use a similar example that took place in a communist country there is no way you could call it fascist.

So taken in isolation I wouldn't call it fascist at all. Oppressive, authoritarian, abusive, illegal... yes. But I wouldn't personally call it fascist. It gets back to the central point that the word has been used so loosely that people have forgotten what it actually means.

(edit)

We could even call it a movement toward a police state, but even that is not the same as fascism.

So what words are you suggesting to move people that are currently ambivalent? 

I think calling TO an unfortunate incident will light the passion of the people to oppose this obvious descent into a police state.  Or maybe we can say that the government overreacted in its deployment of the peace officers and we can't let this happen again, that should really fire up the electorate. 

This is a petty little colony in a global imperial state, who cares whether you call it fascist or something else. I agree that Harper is no Hitler much closer to a Quisling IMO.  

I still think that comprador best describes Steve.