I overheard a Buchanan speech which was full of (very justified) complaints about the Mexican bail-out of the big money-center banks in the US. This class conscious rhetoric is important and has gotten him a response. If he continues climbing in the GOP primaries, watch the ruling class get REALLY upset with him. By the way, when talking about NAFTA he said, "everyone was for it --- leadership of both parties, CEOs of corporations, NY Times, etc. -- who was against it, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Ralph Nadar and Jesse Jackson." --- The question raised about REAL tendencies towards fascism in the US needs to be answered by examining the Buchanan campaign --- is he galvanizing anger the way Hitler and Mussolini did and promising not merely populism (which Hitler gave up in 1934!) but "order" after victory in the cultural war? Is he an agent of mass mobilization (a crucial element of fascism)? These are actually serious questions. Ruling class, reactionary policies which harm real people don't hold a candle to repression by riot and mayhem and murder which is the way fascism "solves problems." Perot had this hair-raising proposal to surround "high crime areas" (read ghettoes) and go house to house arresting all the criminals, consfiscating all the weapons, etc. etc. There's a chilling version of it --- with lots of murder and mayhem --- in the bible of Timothy MacVeigh, _ The Turner Diaries _. It may be alarmist --- but the position for all good socialists and communists in 1932 in Germany if they had perfect foresight would have been in support of the reactionary current rulers of Germany against Hitler. This suggests that the Clinton-Republican coalition with its retrograde policies may be LIGHT YEARS better than a Buchanan-Perot style fascism. Hopefully, I'm wrong! -- Mike Meeropol Economics Department Cultures Past and Present Program Western New England College Springfield, Massachusetts "Don't blame us, we voted for George McGovern!" Unrepentent Leftist!! [EMAIL PROTECTED] [if at bitnet node: in%"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" but that's fading fast!]
