On 1/1/07, Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Marxism does not utterly disdain the struggle for reforms of capitalism.<
right.
Premature anti-fascism is a preemptive reform of capitalism. In this struggle, in 2007 in the U.S., Marxists should use the term "fascism" liberally.<
I'm afraid that the use of the phrase "premature anti-fascism" is dressing up a problem with too much glory. The "premature anti-fascists" of an earlier era were CPers, Trotskyists, socialists, etc. who went to Spain to fight France during the Civil War. They were then persecuted, even though the US turned against fascism. The people nowadays who yell about fascism seem to be saying we have fascism right now, or on the road to it. Maybe, but I think the kind of "fascism" we may be having right now is very different from that of the 1930s (and is especially different from the German brand of fascism). The folks who yell about fascism seem to be using the word as a more emotive word for "authoritarianism" or "violation of civil liberties." It's good for pumping up the adrenaline but not for intellectual clarity. It's a little like fuzzing up the barrier between seduction under the influence of alcohol and rape. Both are bad, but the former is not the same as the latter. Rape is forcible, though I shouldn't have to say that. 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. In many ways, it was akin to Cointelpro back during the 1970s, which also applied to unpopular minorities (e.g., the Black Panther Party). The fascism in the Mussolini or Franco sense of the word was aimed at very popular movements tending toward becoming the majority. The authoritarianism of recent years in the US isn't that kind of fascism as much as it's American as apple pie. I don't see how liberally fuzzing up distinctions encourages reforms. Please explain. -- Jim Devine / "Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it, because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us." -- Stephen Colbert.
