I’m talking about where one states jingoistic or political rhetoric that goes beyond just making an exhortation or stating a personal opinion to where character assasination is used to dehumanize the opposition.
Yes, I am talking about modern corporatism where the gov’t sells itself out to the highest bidder. To where gov’t does the bidding of and becomes a tool of the corporation, and no longer answers to the people to whom it is meant to serve. Whereby the people then become the de facto chattel of industry. A return to the days of robber barons and the company town, of the plantation owner and the sharecropper, 21st century style.
This could be regarded as a form of fascism, should it come to that.
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I’m talking about where one states jingoistic or political rhetoric that goes beyond just making an exhortation or stating a personal opinion to where character assasination is used to dehumanize the opposition.[/QUOTE
OK, so give me an example of something from a politician (not some dimwit talking head) that goes beyond “I hate the oppostion”.
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I’m talking about where one states jingoistic or political rhetoric that goes beyond just making an exhortation or stating a personal opinion to where character assasination is used to dehumanize the opposition.
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OK, so give me an example of something from a politician (not some dimwit talking head) that goes beyond “I hate the oppostion”.[/QUOTE]
Here’s a quick one by Rick Santorum:
“If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything… The definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.”
While not blatantly jingoistic, I’d call that character assassination aimed at a group of people by a politician. Obviously John, national American politicians tend to be a bit careful about their sound bites. However, I see no reason to believe that talking heads should be excused for readily fanning exclusionary nationalistic bigotry. A government needs to be pretty far out of the control of it’s constituency before you see the free use of hate speech in public by the politicians themselves. Propagandists are not as readily answerable to the public. Nationalistic bigotry can also dehumanize others by example rather than by speech alone. Abu Ghraib is one; not only were prisoners were tortured against the conventions of the Geneva convention for the ‘good’ of our national security, many right-wingers have celebrated this treatment loudly. More character assassination, even if it does not involve organ failure in its target victims.
Here’s an example of domestic jingoistic behavior that embraces exclusion which doesn’t past my smell test; the use of loyalty oaths required by the president and vice-president when on the campaign trail. While obviously not illegal, it was an attempt to quell free speech by men who are supposed to be my president and vice-president. They were willing to exclude half the nation they represent from the presence of their supporters. There were attempts to call this a security measure, yet security has worked just fine for generations of presidents without such strictures. It’s us versus them.
That would certainly be a bad thing, but you couldn’t call it “a form of fascism” without radically redefining the term “fascism”. In fact, it’s pretty contradictory to fascist thought, which sees industry as a tool of the state, and not the other way around.
There’s a difference between feudalism and fascism, no? Feudalism is where the landowners are also the government.
Look, I’m trying to argue that labeling all authoritarian government schemes “fascist” means that we lose a valuable word describing a particular type of totalitarian ideology. Fascism has pretensions to completely alter society, it is a popular or populist movement, it is contemptous of democracy, capitalism and the rule of law, it worships tradition at the same time as it radically transforms society, it worships action at the expense of thought, it exhalts the individual will at the same time as it subordinates the individual to the group.
George Bush stuffing ballot boxes and calling his opponent nasty names and ignoring human rights and toadying to big money interests and lying to the American people isn’t fascism, even if we stipulated for the sake of argument that he was in fact doing those things.
I’m going to repeat my question that I asked earlier. Are there any other political movements besides 1930s Spain, Italy and Germany that can be appropriately labeled fascist? If America is sliding towards fascism, are we the only nation besides Spain, Italy and Germany to experience the dangers of fascism? Have there been times other than 2005 when America–or any other country at any other time–was in danger of sliding into fascism?
I’ll grant you that given the correct conditions any country anywhere could conceiveably become fascist. Is America closer to those conditions than we were in the 1950s? The 1960s? What about McCarthy? How about Nixon? Is Russia headed for Fascism? What countries…besides Spain, Italy, and Germany, have turned fascist? If there are no other fascist countries recorded in history, it seems odd to me that America is on the verge of turning fascist.
This is a non-answer. In the first instance, what do you mean by “viable”? How can an idea ever be considered “extinct”, especially when it is still entertained and promoted by organised groups?
In the latter, why does “radical Islam” exclude fascism? Would you consider the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to have been fascist? What about North Korea? If not, why not?
Michael Ledeen (I’ll assume you know who he is) has said the he considers China to be a rare example of a “matured” fascist state. What’s your take on that?
Thanks for the reply, but I’m still not seeing whether or not it is a matter of degree, or if there are other underlying circumstances necessary to make the distinction. No fault to you - it appears this is an ongoing debate amongst historians/pol. scientists…
First, I want to apologize, because I’m heading out the door. So this response won’t be as detailed as it might.
By “viable”, I mean “has a chance of being adopted”. I mean, there’s a Flat Earth Society, but I wouldn’t say that flat-earth is a viable scientific theory.
Radical Islam isn’t fascist, for one thing, because it puts ultimate authority in God, and not the state. It says that the state has to be subordinate to the divine will, and that God defines moral values. Fascism says that the state defines morality and that religion has to be subordinate to it.
As for N. Korea, I don’t know much about its ideological underpinnings. It’s definately totalitarian and nasty, but I’m not sure whether or not it’s fascist.
I’d have to see exactly what his argument is before forming an opinion.
It is an ongoing debate. I’d say that one of the big differences is that totalitarianism is a populist/mass form of government, while classical authoritarianism is an elitist form of government. Also, an authoritarian state doesn’t neccesarily have to be strong, while a totalitarian government is. Both medieval England and modern Egypt were/are authoritarian states, but they both were “weak” states…they didn’t exercise much control over their people.
Also, partly related to the first difference, authoritarian governments date back millenia, while totalitarian governments date back to the beginning of the 20th century. There’s sort of a pre-modern/modern distinction there.
Thanks, BG, but I read that already. So what are these wonky academics debating? What’s the difference between “almost no tolerance” in authoritarianism, and totalitarianism intolerance?
<on preview> I see Captain has checked in with more. I will digest and report on my progress/continued confusion…
I’ll go along with your suggestion that plantation owners and sharecroppers tended towards feudalism. However, had the south been more organized and not destroyed by the civil war, it’s not unthinkable that over time individual plantations may have been bought up by a larger agribusiness that could have become monopolistic by the time of the turn of the century.
I believe the neo-conservative proposed changes on Social Security privatization is meant to dismantle that system in the long run and is aimed at the middle-class and the poor which will weaken democratic party middle class funding. (I’m not trying to hijack the thread, please allow for the sake of arguement that from where I sit, it will be an economic disaster) That neo-conservative attempts at what they call tort reform is actually meant to make it difficult for those victimized by corporate malfeasance or negligence to win against those corporations and to not only cap awards but to reduce the income of lawyers who are a strong donor base for the democratic party. They attempt to reduce the power of unions, again IMHO, the third major source of democratic party funding. This suggests that some on the right are trying to push the democratic party into third-party status and essentially have the American pie to themselves. And conservatives are certainly traditionalists.
All of which could well fit into your above definition. Of course, the populist movement is not there yet, but one thing the early populist movements that led to facsism had in common is that they were popular because most of the people were economically hobbled and desperate to find a way out. Big government can provide quick economic boosts (such as our recent tax cuts) that spurred the populace on to follow those that turned out to be fascists. But poor, desperate populations become subservient to such governments in the long run. And yes, I know this is not a picture of America at this time. The thread is not titled ‘Are we fascist yet?’
In another thread you stated:
Again we disagree. For all the talk about smaller government, the right has a tendancy to increase the size of government when in power. Its size certainly exploded during the Reagan administration and even more under this one Bush administration. (BTW, I don’t believe that George Bush is really the man behind all his policies, I don’t believe there is any one person that is. I don’t accuse him of being a proto-fascist, just misguided).
For having such a strong distrust of governmental authority, neo-conservatives like loyalty oaths and distain the questioning of such authority. The anti-tax stance remains, but the former party of fiscal responsibility is OK with record and ever increasing deficits, especially if they take away the safety nets for those that fall on hard times. They aren’t walking the walk, in fact they are enabling what could become a more authoritarian environment should they remain on this track unchecked.
Technically, it may be something different. However when the two are in bed together sharing control over a country, I think it’s likely a type of facsism regardless of whether industry becomes subservient to government or government becomes subservient to industry.
In fact it is possible, should these things be true. Or leading towards it. My point here is you seem to be making a circular argument, in some of your posts, that assumes fascism springs fully formed from the head of Zeus. That any steps that lead up to it cannot be proto-fascistic. Actually you claim in another thread:
This interests me. Please explain why you state this? For instance, Franco’s fascist regime lasted until the seventies; it certainly kept going a long time after WWII. What where the defining characteristics of fascism in the 1930’s Italy and Germany that have disappeared from the world, never to be found again? If you claim fascism is extinct, you should explain why. Until you can give me some reasoning of why this is so, fascism seems a good label to apply according to definitions I and others have given in this thread. If you have alternate definitions of what fascism is / was as used in this thread, please state them.
At least three others to be considered are Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia, according to Laurence W. Britt. He continues: To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.”
I’ll leave it up to you to dispute those examples if you chose to.
I believe that America in the immediate pre Teddy Roosevelt in the era of the robber barons and monopolies was edging towards fascism although of course we never reached a critical mass to get us there; there was not a mass movement to drive it. However had things gotten desperate enough, and had things continued on that particular fascism could have been considered an option in the US by the twentieth century.
Except, in fascism, government and industry don’t “share control over a country”. In what way do you see your model as a type of fascism?
I wouldn’t say creationism or intelligent design are viable scientific theories either, but somehow enough people have adopted them to make it an issue. Don’t you think there are enough racists and race supremacist groups to consider their ideas a viable concern? Consider also that they can and do make common cause with other (less radical) groups, and thereby bring their ideas into the mainstream.
What about this:
Here is Ledeen’s China argument:
I thought it was interesting. Much as I disagree with Ledeen’s politics, he has studied fascism extensively. It seems to me that fascism is less a strict ideology than a strategic idea meant to gain and keep power.
I also asked about a hundered posts back what you thought, Lemur866, about all the neo-fascist parties in Europe. I’m curious if you think it’s a slanderous label for most or all of them.
According to Wikipedia ‘in corporatism certain unelected bodies take a critical role in the decision-making process’. We have a sort of corporatism in the modern sense now in the US. Think of lobbying, whereby great influence can be given to industries or companies through legislative favoritism. If that influence were doubled, or tripled, you would have a state that might technically leave legislators in charge, but obtaining or holding those positions would be granted by industry, which would generally be given free reign. Robert Locke says that an aspect of corporatism is that government guarantees the flow of material goods, a sort of socialism for those at the top. I would think the greater the degree of corporatism, the more extreme that guaranteed flow of goods, and thus a way of eliminating the need for competition, or reducing it greatly. And the greater the degree of corporatism, the more likely that of quasi-monopolism.
This would most likely lead to a statist economic system. Sooner or later, as I believe you are pointing out, someone would become dominant, either with a figurehead in government doing the will of unelected bodies, or with a head of state emerging from government who begins to nationalize its industry.
However, neo-corporate states do not necessarily become fascist as an end result. If there are also very strong organized labor unions, as in some small European nations, wages can be balanced against productivity. There the state, the corporation, and unions essentially govern together.
Yeah, but that idea…the state, the business owner and the unions governing together is what old style corporatism is. The “corporation” is both the owners and the workers together. That’s the kind of corporatism fascism praises, not the kind where monopolistic companies control everything.
Hey! This is pretty funny. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such Swiftian satire. I like the way you use this direct counterpoint approach [to the original list of Fascist state identifiers] to show how we Americans are ever more unable to confront an issue, but immediately rush to frame it in terms of some imaginary and irrelevant conflict between our “ideals” and somebody else’s, which are just such a big threat (like communism, which was a great example because everyone knows it is dead, but it’s still possible to imagine some shameless neo-con joker in the Bush Admin dredging it up to justify… well, just about anything. This is the stuff of classic social satire). Its kind of nifty how your approach underscores everything that is reactionary in the American psyche. If someone says the Admin is fascist… well, that must be because they’re communist. Or… he-he… even worse: Aetheist! Your reply is almost Swiftian in its daring to represent the repugnant aspects of our society almost to the point where you risk associating yourself with them.
But the crowning glory… especially given the lunatic-fringeness of our American so-called Christians is the bit that sets intellectuals and arts-farts up against religion and morality: as if we all don’t know that anywhere you look in the USA and see a high concentration of religious people (self-defined as such, of course) you also find the highest concentrations of moral depravity. It was definitely a bit of inspiration to include that part in your satire. I can just picture some yokel loudly bellowing out his agreement to [points 9 and 11], probably from some temporary holding cell where he’s being kept under observation during the investigation of the disturbance, and not even realizing you’re making fun of him as being the kind of nitwit who voted for Bush because “I’m against gay marriage” while Bush sells the poor slob even further down the river. Someday… chuckle chuckle… that poor dumb bastard will have wages as low as the godless Chinese! And he doesn’t even know it (yet)! It almost brings tears (of laughter) to the eyes to think of the people who might read this, think it’s supposed to be taken literally, and not even realize that part of what makes the US fascist today is the conviction of gun-toting zealots that being (or saying you are) religious is the same as saying you are moral. “Christian bombs kill with charity” - you could make a poster of that and put it up on a wall and some people wouldn’t even realize it was a joke. But that’s just an idea. You’re doing fine without any help.