Fascist America? Not Exactly

[barracuda]

I haven't yet read the whole Lucaks piece, but I'm confused at what you think is the efficacy of using the term "National Socialism." Nazi Germany wasn't real socialism- quite the opposite- and neither is this. How is it socialism? It's socialism for corporations only, as Greg Palast puts it. Witness the bailout.

When I say "national socialism", I mean to reference Nationalsozialismus, so I don't think we're differing significantly in our thought processes here, wordspeak.

If you examine the typical precepts of fascism, there are a variety of elements which don't really fit the description of the situation we in the US find ourselves in today, primarily among them the concept of dictatorship. You can say a lot about the US, but it is not a dictatorship per se, rather, the single-party leadership is in a state of constant flux as a result of the series of internal coups and counter-coups which have marked the political processes here since the early twentieth century. (Jack Riddler's posting of the details of the Business Plot comes to mind.) There is no supreme leader, the presidency being a mere figurehead or empty puppet.

Nationalsozialismus, however, is a much better fit, incorporating as it does the racism found at the heart of American politics, both foreign and domestic. For while the image of the fanatic Muslim has largely - but not entirely - supplanted that of the Jew or the negro as the scourge of the American Way Of Life, the process is the same: the progress of humanity is dependant upon the success or failure of the American project, and all others are weighed against that standard. All economic considerations are secondary to the success or failure of the goals of the state in this regard. Whatever the true motivations of the warring class may be, their rhetoric is largely indistinguishable from the race hatred that fueled the nazis.

Regarding socialism itself as a political reality in the US, yes, it is massively downplayed at all social strata. Nonetheless, huge swaths of the economically depressed population derive meager benefits from the state in the form of foodstamps, social security, medical assitance, etc., and the power of life and death held by the benificence of Uncle Sam is assured, and taken for granted. Meanwhile, yes, the corporations exist in a state of quasi-nationalisation, buoyed by the never-ending allowances and guarrantees of feeding at the public trough without which they could no longer exist in their current form, and without which they would no longer permit the government to exist in it's current form. So while the differences between American existence and Nationalsozialismus exist, it seems to be a better parallel than fascism, a term whose meaning has been corrupted to the point where it simply signifies a warlike totalitarian nation. It's a handy shorthand, but not quite precise enough, imo.

[yathrib]

Meanwhile, yes, the corporations exist in a state of quasi-nationalisation, buoyed by the never-ending allowances and guarrantees of feeding at the public trough without which they could no longer exist in their current form, and without which they would no longer permit the government to exist in it's current form. So while the differences between American existence and Nationalsozialismus exist, it seems to be a better parallel than fascism, a term whose meaning has been corrupted to the point where it simply signifies a warlike totalitarian nation. It's a handy shorthand, but not quite precise enough, imo.

The difference between contemporary American economics and fascist economics is that in the former, the state sets the tasks and priorities for the corporations. In the current American system, the opposite is the case.

As for the relationship between fascism and socialism, there is one, but not in the sense meant by halfwitted cranks like Jonah Goldberg. Fascism is among other things a response--a reaction, if you will--to the concerns raised by socialism. Socialism tells the working class that they have specific and separate interests within a given society. Fascism tells them their interests can be addressed in the context of their belonging to the nation.

Again, I'm discussing Fascism in the classic Mussolini sense. Regimes that combined authoritarian right wing politics and social organization with strict libertarian economics (Chile, Argentina, etc.) were probably not fascist in this sense either; they were just psychopathic, murdering bastards.

Apologies if I'm vastly oversimplifying. But seriously, take a little time to read a bit about fascist economics. It might not be what you think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism

[Nordic]

. George Carlin said that "Hitler lost WWII but fascism won". Did it ever. Fascism learned from its mistakes and realized that to succeed it would have to do exactly what is described here, to rise slowly and clandestinely, under the disguise of the worship of capitalism and equating it with "our way of life".

I agree with Nordic/George Carlin. Let's remember that Bush's grandfather and other American banking conspirators like the Rockefellers funded the Nazis. Rockefeller and Bush interests are still at the helm of the U.S. national security state. So on edit I think the key term for actually expressing the true reality is NAZIS. The people at the top of the military-industrial-complex hierarchy are absolutely NAZIS. That's what people need to understand. They were involved in executing 9/11; they are fucking Nazis. "Fascist" is, indeed, a term too pigeonholed on the Left. But the fact that we can buy a Michael Moore book does not mean our permanent government, responsible for killing JFK, is not run by insane eugenist Nazis. It only means that this is what they can get away with at the current time. They've made a political calculation that in order to maintain and tighten global control and expand their system of capitalism around the world they need to be smart about it, allow a certain amount of pluralism and very much allow the appearance of it. Hence the work of foundations like the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, which promote a liberal pluralism but ultimately hold the interests of preserving the system that allows a tiny elite to control almost all the power and wealth. Some good works have been done about how foundations do this, such as "Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism" by Joan Roelofs. Meanwhile, in many ways the system is methodical in its attacking of the Left- for instance, the purging of hard-Left professors that went on especially in the seventies. You see very few socialist or Marxist professors at universities these days, a tiny percentage of what there used to be. It's a steady, deliberate, long-term war on hard-Leftism.

Barracuda, I haven't yet read the whole Lucaks piece, but I'm confused at what you think is the efficacy of using the term "National Socialism." Nazi Germany wasn't real socialism- quite the opposite- and neither is this. How is it socialism? It's socialism for corporations only, as Greg Palast puts it. Witness the bailout.

Trouble with the term Nazi and even Fascist is that there's this conventional wisdom (which is the opposite of wisdom), that until you've killed several million Jews, you're not either.

Seriously.

People's minds immediately jump to that and dismiss the whole notion of fascism.

The word Nazi is even worse, because it's become a joke. "Soup Nazi" for instance. You can use "Nazi" with anything, to describe someone who's strict.

But yes, it would be nice if people would realize, or even start to get the very IDEA, that the Nazis never really got defeated or went away.

Of course, our media has been working overtime to keep the myth machine alive. The whole "Good War", and "The Greatest Generation" and all that nonsense about how GREAT World War II was, because we defeated the Nazis .... well, people don't want to HEAR that unfortunately that's not really the case.

Also, the whole "Good War" thing keeps recruitment alive, the whole notion that war CAN be good.

[vanlose kid]

good post there Nordic. good thread.

never read The Man in the High Castle as a exercise in what if, always as an unmasking of what is.

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american samizdat

[vanlose kid]

...

Apologies if I'm vastly oversimplifying. But seriously, take a little time to read a bit about fascist economics. It might not be what you think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism

The fascists opposed both international socialism and liberal capitalism, arguing that their views represented a third way. They claimed to provide a realistic economic alternative that was neither laissez-faire capitalism nor communism.[12] They favoured corporatism and class collaboration, believing that the existence of inequality and separate social classes was beneficial (contrary to the views of socialists).[13] Fascists argued that the state had a role in mediating relations between these classes (contrary to the views of liberal capitalists).[14]

nice

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[vanlose kid]

the third way,
Henry VIII-Elisabeth I,
the Anglican church,
neither Guelph nor Ghibelline,
Montague nor Capulet.

...

[wordspeak2]

@Barracuda- check.

@Nordic- I think you're basically right, but it depends on the person. Since I'm almost always around a relatively progressive crowd, I'm usually more in the business of "pushing people further" than dealing with super-mainstream Americans.

For instance, talking with my dad, whose politics are pretty on-point overall but still tainted with some naivete due to just not having the information, I would absolutely use the word Nazi. We can reference Operation Paperclip; we can talk about the true history of WWII. And re the latter I just listened to an excellent Michael Parenti audio clip about how WWII was really a war on Communism, how the west, with rare exception (Churchill), saw Communism as a much greater threat than fascism, collectively refused to make an anti-Nazi pact with Stalin, isolated the U.S.S.R., in some cases tacitly or even overtly (Henry Ford, Rockefellers selling gas materials to the Nazis, Union Banking providing early $).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Lievywdoo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDmovEja ... re=related

So... language is very tricky, and I do think it's important. We have to be "sufficiently familiar to make a connection, but sufficiently alien to make a difference." And jackriddler's right, of course, the nature of the oppression is very compartmentalized. At a simple level one has a lot more success telling a crowd of poor black people that we live in an apartheid state than I have telling my old college friends that. On the other hand, though, my old (liberal) college friends need to here that claim, with a lot of facts right behind it. Middle-class white people certainly don't feel that they're experiencing "fascism" or anything of the sort, though, sure, there's a lot wrong.
But if we can shift the conversation to the nature of who is truly in political control and what their allegiance is... I've had success breaking down to people that these guys behind the military-industrial-complex are absolutely neo-Nazis. I mean, look at the whole history of the CIA propping up the most foul right-wing *fascist* dictators all around the world, as has been aptly documented. This country may not appear "fascist" to the middle-class, but that's only because more open oppression would invite rebellion, but it's pretty blatant to the poor when you look at incarceration and poverty rates, and, more to the point, when you look at the figures at the head of the American empire and what they're doing around the world- it is as brutally oppressive as anything history has ever seen. The Nazi project was about a global takeover by the ruling business elite, and what we're witnessing is absolutely a continuation of that endeavor, only with a carrot to compliment the stick.

[JackRiddler]

Strictly speaking the right name for the present empire can be left to historians.

It's wrong and you want to convey that.

I'd put a lot more emphasis on showing the Nazi in its history (1934 Bankers' Coup attempt, ratlines and Paperclip, Barbie in Bolivia, etc.), which will tend to educate, than on using the Nazi term to describe it, which will polarize.

.

[wordspeak2]

Yeah, perhaps. I think the key point is our government props up dictators around the world what makes you think they care more about Americans? Even if you're not willing to look at evidence of 9/11 insider complicity.
I just think we don't want to fall into a notion that the U.S. government/Empire is better or more free than overtly fascist societies, because that's simply false. Our government has and continues to support the openly fascist regimes, and has made a calculation that's it's not politically feasible in the U.S. at this point, though with over 2 million poor people in prison and an infant mortality rate in the ghettos on par with most African countries- it's not that far off. And certainly if there were a serious threat of political revolution here the gloves would come off faster than we could say, "But, but capitalism is democracy and socialism doesn't work."

[American Dream]

.
Compartments. This is a country in perpetual war, and yet where is this war? Anywhere but here. We are told we are at war, under threat, and half our income taxes are in fact being spent on it; in other parts of the world, ships and troops are deployed, missiles and drones are launched, cars and houses explode, people die. We are told to thank the troops for their service. Excessive security measures at airports, and occasionally on bridges and at subway entrances, are said to be related to it. But no war on my street, right?

It's much the same with fascism. Institutions in which an unforgiving state exercises absolute force over a powerless individual. That's a fair description of what is experienced by most people caught up in the criminal justice-prison-industrial complex. Then there is the ever-expanding surveillance state, and the establishment of doctrines and laws that will allow far worse fascism in practice. Yet there are large areas of life, where most of us spend our daily lives, where it seems remote and silly to even think of fascism. Workplaces often have fascist aspects, but everyone's got the freedom to just walk out the door and take up residence under a bridge. The question of whether you feel or see modern "friendly" fascism in action very much depends on where and who you are.

Here's a representative example of the dynamic:

http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2012/01/06/ ... s-devices/

Microsoft has been granted a patent for its “avoid ghetto” feature for GPS devices.

A GPS device is used to find shortcuts and avoid traffic, but Microsoft’s patent states that a route can be plotted for pedestrians to avoid an “unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures.”

Created for mobile phones, the technology uses the latest crime statistics and weather data and includes them when calculating a route.

[AlicetheKurious]

And certainly if there were a serious threat of political revolution here the gloves would come off faster than we could say, "But, but capitalism is democracy and socialism doesn't work."

Also, Jack's point about "compartments" hits the nail right on the head. Even in the most totalitarian system, how oppressive it is depends on who you ask -- or who you are. If you came and visited me here in Egypt and based your impressions solely on the way I and my kind live, you'd almost certainly come away believing that Egypt is one of the freest countries on earth, and wonder what all the fuss was about. To experience the very, very different reality, you'd have to use others (the majority) as your reference, and see it through their eyes.

As for me and other lucky people, we meet the criteria that keeps us members of the human club, which many have internalized as only right and just, and we all have a built-in, automatic "avoid ghetto" mechanism that tells us how to stay safe within our own compartment. What frightens these certified humans more than anything else is the possibility that the criteria or their own individual circumstances may change, and they'd find themselves living the nightmare that the "others" currently experience.

That gnawing fear, sometimes openly acknowledged but sometimes not, is a crucial ingredient in fascist systems, as is the maintenance of a privileged class that does not live the nightmare but always knows it's there for others. Fascist systems systematically produce and stoke that fear because, even more than religion, it is the single most effective way to short-circuit rational thought and morality and to recruit warriors and apologists who will defend any atrocity, no matter how brutal and oppressive, against the 'others' and the looming threat that they will switch places with 'us'.

You can find the same dynamic in apartheid states like Israel, whose apologists define it as a lovely, vibrant democracy for humans, never mind the babies burnt alive, the bulldozed and stolen homes the slow genocide manifested by the denial of the most basic human and civil rights to the "others".

Similarly, I recall reading something written by a member of the privileged elite in Bahrain during the uprising that began last winter; she said that she was shocked by the irrational hatred against the impoverished and disenfranchised masses of Bahraini citizens that she herself experienced when faced with the threat to her own privileged status and to the system that maintained it.

It's no good using reason or moral appeals against this kind of hatred, because the hatred is rooted in fear, and the fear is generated by the system itself. The wider the disparity between the privileged and the oppressed and the greater the suffering of the latter, the more potent the fear and therefore the savagery tolerated or justified by the privileged on their behalf. Inevitably, that savagery becomes turned against those of one's "own kind" who threaten the system in any way, or are suspected of doing so, and inevitably, the illusion of democracy gives way to creeping fascism even among the privileged, whether this privileged group is a class, a race, a country or even a group of countries.

Ironically, the fear and rage generated by this toxic system both among the privileged and the oppressed are the fuel that perpetuates and entrenches the system even further, generating even more fear and rage, etc.

So the question of whether the US is a fascist state depends on narrow or wide your perspective is, and the criteria you use to define those who are privileged and those who are oppressed by the system it imposes, just as whether you define Israel as a democracy depends on who's "in" and who doesn't count. In either case, however, the circle of privilege is growing smaller and smaller and eventually, inevitably, it will be so small that the point will be moot no matter how you define it. That's the point where the narrative begins to change from one that defends "our" entitlement on the basis that "we" are better because we value and defend democracy and human dignity and rights, to one that openly defends fascism as not only necessary, but good. That's also the point at which racial and ethnic and sectarian and other such justifications for privilege are widely and openly promoted (although these count for nothing in individual cases when a member of the privileged group breaks ranks and opposes the system, hence the "nigger-lovers", the "self-hating Jews", the "hippies", "terrorist sympathizers", the "secret Muslims", "nuts", the dreaded "fifth column", etc.)

Within that system, no other logic or reality is possible and the spiral will continue, like a tornado sweeping up everything in its path and using the debris to become even more destructive until it wears itself out. Like tornadoes, such a system is formed at the meeting point between two extremes (air temperature in the former, wealth disparity in the latter) and the greater the difference between the two, the more powerful and devastating it becomes. Unlike temperature variations, however, the acute and growing disparity in wealth between people is man-made and can be changed by creating a different system, if only our rage and fear can be channeled away from each other and onto the system that nurtures them.

[wordspeak2]

Agreed. Well-said.

Wow, a GPS system with built-in redlining- talk about internalized racism!
Seriously, though, that is some ill shit....