[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I agree with Bob's analysis of fascism. We almost had it under Nixon also. > I believe the analogy to Weimar Germany is a good one. Even thought there is > not a large Communist movement, there is a danger of fascism here and we have > many aspects of it. Now it the time to act before it is too late. We must > mobilize those heroes who fought the Nazi's the first time and those who > admire them. >
This is, I think, really dangerous thinking, and it can contribute to our losing whatever freedoms we now have in the U.S. Tigers, cobras, grizzlies, brown recluse spiders, crocodiles, hippos, and even owls & deer can kill you -- and if you try to protect against cobras in the same way you protect against hippos or owls, you are in serious trouble. (All you have to do to protect against owls is not wear Davy Crockett style coonskin caps in northern Minnesotat.) There are many forms of authoritarianism which can destroy powers of working-class resistance -- including some forms that have not even been invented yet. Preparations to fight fascism (or nazism) in the U.S. now are dangerous to our liberties (such as they are) -- we would be repeating the immemorial error of stupid generals: preparing to fight the last war. To guard against fascism in the U.S. now is Maginot line thinking. Frankly, I think leftists who keep shouting "fascist" are engaging in word magic, not serious political thought. Carrol Bob Enoch writes: <<But we will miss the essence of our own times if we wait for the outward forms of politics in our period to closely resemble those of the 20's 30's and 40's, in Europe.>> Precisely. And the essence of our own times raises other dangers than a fascist movement. (This is what most lefists ignore in their false cries of "fascist": fascism involves a _movement_.) He continues: <<Where is it written that those who own oil, arms, media and banks, political parties, armies and nuclear weapons must wait for the crisis of capital to become apparent to the masses before they strike?>> Nowhere, of course. But you are looking backwards. The next "strike" as you call it will be as different from fascism as a cobra is from a hippo. Bob again: <<Fascist? Not if you insist upon black shirts.>> Yes I do. Not necessarily shirts or fasces, but some sort of ideology, leadership, and symbolism that generates a _movement_, which involves masses of people. That is why it is really pathetic to use the term "fascist" for Nixon or Bush. In fact, "fascist" fit Roosevelt more nearly than any subsequent leader of the u.s. capitalist class. Probably the only politician of the last 50 years in the U.S. who might conceivably have represented a threat analogous to fascism was Jerry Brown. You have your head screwed on backwards and are blinded to real enemies if you remain trapped by word magic. Carrol _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
