Jim D.:
Sorry, it took me a VERY long time to get back to this.
me:
The people nowadays who yell about fascism
On 1/3/07, Charles Brown wrote:
Your claim that people are "yelling" it is telling. It is a subtle
misrepresentation of those using the term so as to characterize them
as
"wild" , overly emotional, or that their thinking is distorted by
their
emotion. I'm not "yelling" about fascism anymore than you are
yelling about
any of the analysis you do.
(1) to me it feels like yelling, because it doesn't make any sense to
stress the "fascist" dimension. (BTW, to see a recent movie that
portrays fascism pretty well, see "Pan's Labyrinth.")
(2) at a demo I went to in 2006, some people were indeed "yelling"
about fascism.
^^^^^
CB: It feels to me like it feels to you like yelling, because that way it
can be characterized as "emotion distorting reason".
So, consider this a whisper: The U.S. war on Iraq is fully fascist.
I believe as to whether it makes sense to stress the fascist dimension is
what we are disputing , no ? Obviously , what I am saying ( not yelling
anymore than you are yelling) is that it is important to stress the fascist
dimension... For the various reasons I have stressed the numerous times this
has come up for debate.
^^^^^^
me:
The authoritarianism we've seen in recent years -- especially right
after 911 -- was forcible only toward an unpopular minority and was
generally accepted by the majority in the US.
Charles:
There's plenty of evidence that the main repression of Nazism was of
"unpopular" minorities. The vast majority of the German population were not
subjected to the very worst repressions. We don't even have to accuse the
"Good Germans" of being inherent "Nazis" to say that they were not nearly as
badly repressed as the despised minorities. In other words, we don't have to
subscribe to a "Goldenwhathisname" [Daniel Jonah Goldhagen] thesis to see
that the German majority was not very repressed compared to the despised
minorities.<
Jim D.: Of course, but the election that put Hitler into power didn't give
him
even a majority. It was Hindenberg who put him in power. His
authoritarian government was clearly a minority government (in
electoral terms). Further, his repression wasn't simply against
unpopular minorities (Jews, gypsies, gays, etc.) It was also against
significant political forces such as the social democrats, labor
unionists, and communists.
^^^^^
CB; Even adding these in makes it a minority of the total population.
^^^^^^
He also intensified and deepened the
repression of women. As he solidified power, of course, the population
of Germans -- atomized by Nazi repression -- slid toward supporting
him, mostly in terms of German nationalism. Even then, the Nazis had
to keep a lot of their worst actions secret.
^^^^^
CB; Agreeing to this, I wouldn't say that the treatment of women was of the
same quality as treatment of Jews, Communists, Gypsy's, Gays or labor
leaders. Only a minority were victims of genocide.
The issue of keeping some things secret does not contradict that it was a
minority that got the genocidal treatment. Also, there is probably a lot of
secret stuff the U.S. doing ( see debate on 9/11 and U.S. potential secret
role)
^^^^^^
Jim D.:
On the other hand, a lot of (maybe most of) the support for Bushian
authoritarianism after 911 was spontaneous (though of course it was
based on generations of miseducation and propaganda). Bush exploited a
majoritarian wave after 911, while Hitler's rise to power was more
based on elite conniving. It's interesting how Bush has undermined the
majoritarian wave by exploiting it, so that more and more it opposes
him. On the other hand, Hitler used his power to make sure that no
majoritarian wave was needed.
^^^^
CB: In the election, Bush had ,what you call above a minority government,
too. Bush stole an election in which he got the minority of the popular
vote. He was put in by the Supreme Court ( our "Hidenburg"). So, that
parallel's Hitler's electoral situation. Also, even the majority of a U.S.
election is only 28% or so, a minority , of the population, since only
around 50% vote.
I'm not sure Hitler didn't have "spontaneous" support.
I don't think the nature of Bush's majority "support" is that much different
than that of Hitler. Both include people who are just being sheep, being
mildly intimidated but not treated nearly as badly as the worst are being
treated.
>From another angel, as a member two of the historically despised and
reviled minorities in the U.S. that have suffered under American fascism in
the Jim Crow period ( and worse, slavery before that) , and genocide against
the indigenous population minority, I do not trust the U.S. majority not to
come up with a new extraordinary oppression of scapegoated and despised
minority in a new crisis. The victimized minority might not be Blacks and
Indians. Might be Latinas and Arabs and some other groups. America has
perpetrated fascism on minorities in the past, and has the
cultural/ideological capability of doing it again. There is no American
exceptionalism to fascist potential.
