*
Carrol Cox wrote:*
*"Devine, James" wrote: *
*Right. Scapegoating is always part of fascism.
But I have a nightmare: "black and white, unite and fight -- against Arabs.*
* *
*Scapegoating, of course, has been part of nearly countless different social structures and social movements over the past several thousand words, so its occurrence offers no useful information about the social system in which it occurs.
The events of the last year, however -- namely, the virtual collapse of the anti-war movement as its "leaders" at all levels increasingly focused on supporting the DP -- have brought to the forefront the really movement-breaking nature of labelling the present administration "fascist": that label is essentially a bit of Democratic Party agitation.
I am not trying to reargue the election now but point towards a continuing issue: just how much a threat both to the peoples of the world and its own population is u.s. imperialism? Put differently: who or what is the chief enemy we must oppose? And I think the answer to that is u.s. imperialism: not just this or that particular policy followed by this or that particular administration, but u.s. imperialism in any and all of its guises, present or future.
Hence we _must not_ use labels for this or that administration which detract from recognizing the viciousness and power of u.s. imperialism, and that is precisely what happens when the Bush administration (or the neocons or the evangelicals) are put before us as a radically _different_ sort of threat, a threat so dire that "we" must form a "popular" front with one form of imperialism in order to confront this extraordinary threat.
The label "fascist" for the RP (or any major tendency within it) is an open invitation for us to treat enemies as friends. (This is traditionally referred to as right opportunism.)
Carrol *
* I'd like to add some takes I have on use of the word "fascism". For Trotsky and others at the time of the German and Italian advent of fascism in the 20's and 30s this term had an analytical framework, social forces and class fractions and a definable economic and political context which enabled him and very few others (Dutt did not contribute much) to not only pinpoint the contentions and contradictions present, but to formulate political/economic imperatives and strategies with which to combat this tendency. That his analysis was not taken up by the CP in Germany may or may not have contributed to the strengthening of fascism at the time, but anyone who looks at his writings on fascism can readily see that he had a genius for grasping the heart of a situation, unfolding it and laying bare its elements, a capacity which is certainly not much in evidence today. But of course we are in a period of abject working class collapse. No course of action appears to anyone on the left at the moment; nevertheless, more cogent analysis is for that reason alone needed badly.
Then subsequently the term was applied willy nilly to a disparate array of persons and groupings, such as Roosevelt during the New Deal period and other politicians and public figures in the US and elsewhere (by Henry Wallace too), to the extent that it was becoming diluted to the point of virtual meaninglessness.
Compiling a sloppy list of characteristics supposedly unique to fascism, which apply easily to a large array of historical situations, has no analytical value and is really counter-productive and empiricist in its weakest sense.
Obviously the central factors in the fascism of the 20s, 30s and 40s in Germany had as essential elements the consequences of the Versailles Treaty and the French and British demand for continued payment of reparations at a time when Germany was totally strapped and isolated, the Weimar Republic was collapsing in the midst of rampant inflation and depression, the Communists had several times in the recent period, in 1919 and 1923, threatened revolution and were a strong force still, they existed in the context of a large and for a time well-organized working class, Germany lacked colonies, resources and a trading area commensurate with its industrial and financial capacity, and there was no strong history of bourgeois democracy, with checks and balances, separation of powers and the notion of individual rights. I thought Chris Harman's book on the failed German revolutions was helpful on the 20s period, by the way.
Which of these elements is present today? That isn't to say that bourgeois democracy is not under the gun now, but unless the analogy is a tight one, throwing around the term fascism as to one or the other of the increasingly closely aligned ruling factions in the US serves no useful purpose.
I think that Carrol has said it well. The expression has very limited if any utility as a tool of analysis in the present imperialist context, is at best a scare word and just serves to obfuscate.
Ralph *
