Julio Huato wrote:
Without being too post-modern, would you be willing to entertain the (remote) possibility that some people are using the term "fascism" in a different sense than yours?
If I may respond, even though you're not supposed to respond to rhetorical questions and Julio was asking Louis: there are a of of definitions of fascism. The tradition that started with Wilhelm Reich and the Frankfurt School used a more psychological definition. I don't find that very useful. It too easily turns into an insult. The kind of definition I like is very similar to that which Louis uses, seeing "fascism" as one form of capitalism, one imposed to save capitalism from a mass working-class opposition. Actually, I think it's okay to use any definition as long as it's made very clear. Definitions are not determined by anyone but people. They are conventions, not facts inherent in nature.
Moreover, under the hypothesis that the proletariat is a global class, would you be willing to accept (temporarily, as a mere exercise in human communication) that some recent events in the globe qualify as *somewhat* revolutionary in the proletarian -- or at least in the anti-imperialist -- sense (e.g. Venezuela), and that Bush's approach to asserting the U.S. imperial interests in the world may be *somewhat* analogous to the methods used by Nazis and fascists in the 1930s?
sure, somewhat. However, I think that it's a mistake to use the rhetoric of calling Bush fascist. Part of the problem is that of the fallacy of argument by analogy. By saying that Bush's approach is "fascist," one is saying that he's like Mussolini or even Hitler. In some ways, it is. But in some ways, it isn't. After all, neither M nor H ruled a country that was the sole superpower in the capitalist world. Neither of them had nuclear weapons. I could go on. In other words, calling Bush's approach fascist is a lot like those guys who interpret all events in terms of the 1917 Russian Revolution. -- Jim Devine / "I wanna be with you in paradise / And it seems so unfair / I can't go to paradise no more / I killed a man back there." -- Bob Dylan.
