|
powerclown, irate: it is interesting to find us in any kind of agreement--for this fleeting moment at least, good....
but the agreement seems to result from an edit of my post that avoids what i was actually saying. it seems that the rest of us are treated to a bit of semantic warfare from the right even on this level, over the usage of the term fascism. the tactics are obvious: try whenever possible to shortcircuit usage of the term, either by ruling it out altogether (the fatuous godwin's device) or making a great production out of claiming that it means nothing. fact is, folks, that the term fascism has meanings, these meanings refer to forms of conservative authoritarian types of governance, to patterns within those forms of conservative authoritarian governance, many of which in fact can and should be applied to the operations that i like to group together as bushworld. the second tactic seems to function as a plan b, should the first fail: try to focus on the most minute element of an argument and generate an illusion of movement around that. presumably the desired effect is to divert the conversation.
i use the term tactics and refer to the right as a political bloc in this simply because the same moves come form conservatives over and over and over--even from those who might not agree amongst themselves about many issues, but who for whatever reason choose to participate in the general culture of contemporary conservatism. i figure the participation has to explain the persistance of these moves. but the actual link, in this case, is speculative.
at any rate, i think there are definite parallels between the conservatism of george w bush and his administration and aspects of fascism. these parallels are troubling, to say the least. but this is not to say that bushworld is a rerun of nazism, of italian fascism, of franco, or peron, of salazar or anyone else...they are simply parallels. history does not repeat...but is is in the same tradition, it uses the same logic, form its fetishism of the military through its contempt for law and for the possibilities of democratic process to its particular usage of the collective mental disorder called nationalism. the list of parallels could be made quite long--there are features that would not fit into it, however. that fascism is a way to talk about some aspects of this sorry administrations ideology but not all of it does not mean that there fore the term fascism is a problem. you would think this kind of argument is too basic to even require being made. you would think adults would know this sort of thing already.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|