From: f_gautjw@ccsvax.sfasu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.activism
Subject: Re: What is Fascism?
Date: 29 Sep 92 12:16:12 CST
Organization: Stephen F. Austin State University

In article <1299600071@igc.apc.org>, NLG Civil Liberties Committee <cberlet@igc.apc.org> writes:
> 
> From: NLG Civil Liberties Committee <cberlet>
> Subject: What is Fascism?
> 
> /* Written  5:24 pm  Sep 27, 1992 by cberlet in cdp:publiceye */
> /* ---------- "What is Fascism?" ---------- */
> 
> What is Fascism?
> 
> by Chip Berlet
 
	[text deleted; see original posting]

 	
>       The seeds of fascism, however, were planted in Italy. 
> "Fascism is reaction," said Mussolini, but reaction to what? The 
> reactionary movement following World War I was based on a 
> rejection of the social theories that formed the basis of the 
> 1789 French Revolution, and whose early formulations in this 
> country had a major influence on our Declaration of Independence, 
> Constitution, and Bill of Rights.
> 	
>       It was Rousseau who is best known for crystallizing these 
> modern social theories in <The Social Contract>. The progeny of 
> these theories are sometimes called Modernism or Modernity 
> because they challenged social theories generally accepted since 
> the days of Machiavelli. The response to the French Revolution 
> and Rousseau, by Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche> and others, poured 
> into an intellectual stew which served up Marxism, socialism, 
> national socialism, fascism, modern liberalism, modern 
> conservatism, communism, and a variety of forms of capitalist 
> participatory democracy.
 	
One might note that the American revolution took place several years before the
French revolution with many differences in principles.  The French revolution
took on an atheistic tone and culminated in total failure with the Reign of
Terror and the propulsion of Napoleon Bonaparte to the seat of power. The
French revolution failed; our revolution, based on Jeffersonian principles,
flowered and grew.  Do you extol the French revolution more than the
American?
         [text deleted]



>       Fascism was forged in the crucible of post-World War I 
> nationalism in Europe. The national aspirations of many European 
> peoples--nations without states, peoples arbitrarily assigned to 
> political entities with little regard for custom or culture--had 
> been crushed after World War I. The humiliation imposed by the 
> victors in the Great War, coupled with the hardship of the 
> economic Depression, created bitterness and anger. That anger 
> frequently found its outlet in an ideology that asserted not just 
> the importance of the nation, but its unquestionable primacy and 
> central predestined role in history.

Like maybe we should maintain military and economic primacy for our government,
regardless of what burden the American tax-payer carries?  In particular
perhaps we should maintain a strong US Marshalls service to keep the
Randy Weavers in line.
> 	

	[text deleted]
> 
> =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =
>   "If fascism came to America, it would be 
>    on a program of Americanism."
>                                                      --Huey P. Long
> =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =
> 	
	Huey P. Long was known most for his demagoguery.


	[text deleted]

> 
> =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =
>   "Reactionary concepts plus revolutionary emotion result in 
>    Fascist mentality."
>                                              --Wilhelm Reich
> =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =


	A nice sounding piece of fluff.  Does it have any meaning?


	 
>       One element shared by all fascist movements, racialist or 
> not, is the apparent lack of consistent political principle 
> behind the ideology--political opportunism in the most basic 
> sense. One virtually unique aspect of fascism is its ruthless 
> drive to attain and hold state power. On that road to power, 
> fascists are willing to abandon any principle to adopt an issue 
> more in vogue and more likely to gain converts.
> 	

Hitler did have a blue print and he spelled it out quite clearly in 'Mein
Kampf". He also followed it.  During the war our strategic planners studied
it for its predictive value in determing his next move.  And fascism is
in no way *unique* in the ruthless drive to attain and hold state power
or else Stalin and countless other tyrants were great fascists. 


>       Hitler, for his part, committed his act of abandonment 
> bloodily and dramatically. When the industrialist power brokers 
> offered control of Germany to Hitler, they knew he was supported 
> by national socialist ideologues who held views incompatible with 
> their idea of profitable enterprise. Hitler solved the problem in 
> the "Night of the Long Knives," during which he had the 
> leadership of the national socialist wing of his constituency 
> murdered in their sleep.


Which gets to the heart of what economic fascism really is:  State Corporatism.

[text deleted]
 	
> 	
>       Fascism and Nazism as ideologies involve, to varying 
> degrees, some of the following hallmarks:
> 	
>      *** Nationalism and super-patriotism with a sense of 
> historic mission.

	Or maybe New World Orders?
> 	
>      *** Aggressive militarism even to the extent of glorifying 
> war as good for the national or individual spirit.
> 	
	Like the Iraqi "war"?

>      *** Use of violence or threats of violence to impose views 
> on others (fascism and Nazism both employed street violence and 
> state violence at different moments in their development).   x  

	Like the attack by the 500 Feds on Randy Weaver?
> 	
>      *** Authoritarian reliance on a leader or elite not 
> constitutionally responsible to an electorate.
> 	
	There you go, talking about our Federal Reserve System and
our other benevolent plutocrats.

>      *** Cult of personality around a charismatic leader.

	Goldfinger?
 	
>      *** Reaction against the values of Modernism, usually with 
> emotional attacks against both liberalism and communism.
> 	
>      *** Exhortations for the homogeneous masses of common folk
> (Volkish in German, Populist in the U.S.) to join voluntarily in 
> a heroic mission--often metaphysical and romanticized in character.


	Colonize Mars?  Create another Saddam Hussein so we can destroy him?

 	
>      *** Dehumanization and scapegoating of the enemy--seeing the 
> enemy as an inferior or subhuman force, perhaps involved in a 
> conspiracy that justifies eradicating them.


	After all, Weaver and his ilk aren't really human anyway.


[text deleted]

	From this sixty year old history of fascism, it is difficult to
distill the essence of what your concept of fascism really is, which
is what the initial inquiry was about.  In fact, it rather obscures it.
Perhaps you would be kind enough to give a three or four line definition
of what you believe fascism is, something less general than "fascism
is reaction".