There have been a lot of internets this week on the question of whether or not neoconservatism is essentially fascist. I think the best one was written by BJ regular Elia Isquire, who concludes:
In truth, it seems to me that any argument against neoconservatism as the long-awaited strain of American fascism can only rest on two pillars:
1. As of yet, neoconservatives do not advocate or condone political violence. (They may look the other way or minimize the seriousness of such acts, but that’s a far cry from endorsment.)
2. Similarly, neocons have yet to explicitly argue that election results that are not to their liking are illegitimate and proof that elections themselves have become either hopelessly flawed or for the time being–due to ACORN and New Black Panthers, no doubt–thoroughly corrupt.
I think Elia and the others discussing this are right to treat this as a serious question. I do not say that lightly: I would certainly not describe George Will or Kathleen Parker as even borderline fascist. Say you what you will about the tenets of paleoconservatism, but most paleos just want to take the country back to what they imagine it was like before FDR, not turn the whole country over to a Mansfieldian “untamed prince”.
Corner Stone
“We must go forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!”
You still need a comma, BTW. Maybe Omnes will wholesale you one.
IM
Are we talking about neoconservatives here, who seem something indifferent to domestic issues or the so called conservative movement?
Comrade DougJ
@IM:
Just neoconservatives. It may have to be narrowed further even, to Straussian neoconservatives (I don’t think the Kagans sound fascist to me the way Bill Kristol does).
IM
And shouldn’t fascism be a mass movement? What mass basis do neoconservatives have? The christian right, the NRA, even the tea party – there are masses. But the neocons? Writers and staff of the Weekly Standard don’t amount to mass movement.
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: Some jokes live forever around here.
IM
All twenty or thirty straussian neoconservatives don’t make a fascistic movement. They already had the same problem in the thirties in Germany. And so the revolutionary conservatives like Strauss were pushed away by the successfull fascist movement.
Maude
I’d say Bush 2 was fascist. His buddies made a lot of money by the US government allowing them to cheat and lie. It was state approved corporate corruption.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@efgoldman:
This is true. Sharon Angle and her “2d Amendment remedies” sounds fascist, and then Allen West wanted that radio noisemaker for chief of staff who said “if ballots don’t work, bullets will.” And Joe Apraio strikes me as pretty fucking fascist. But, Will and Parker and their ilk, no.
Comrade Doug J, you do need a comma between “FDR” and “not turn,” however. Take one of mine; I’ve got plenty even if most of my extras will be offered to Omnes Omnibus (as a matter of professional solidarity).
Comrade DougJ
@IM:
No, it’s not a fascist movement, it’s a fascist philosophy.
IM
I mean if neoconservatives tried to talk to war-veterans, they would probably be lynched.
And you need something like that: Blackshirts, Brownshirts, Blueshirts, American Legion.
Chad N Freude
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): @Corner Stone: I have a recording of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Comma Man”.
IM
@Comrade DougJ:
I don’t know. A fascist philosophy that doesn’t even try to organize the masses (some masses)?
Chad N Freude
Is the word “fascism” being tossed around a little too freely? My understanding is that fascism requires a dictator, and I don’t think any of the neocon subcategories are advocating that. Maybe a a strongly authoritarian government, but not a dictatorial one.
If I’m wrong about that I’d like someone to define it for me.
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel)
When I say the word “fascist” out loud I hear Rick from The Young Ones.
It’s a skunked term.
IM
Of course a post-modern fascism could outsource to Blackwater or so.
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: “Wars come and go, but my strawmen stay eternal.”
BJ epitaph.
Turgidson
…at least it’s an ethos?
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: I don’t get the strawmen reference.
Maude
@Comrade DougJ:
You have got it right.
The totalitarian aspect as in WI is creepy.
eemom
@Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel):
hey, thanks for the shout out to Greek independence day. Much appreciated. We Greeks don’t get nearly as much attention as our fellow descendants of Ellis Island, colorful though we are.
MikeJ
@Chad N Freude:
It would be nice if everybody were talking about the same thing when they say “fascist”.
Eco spelled out a version of it. Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt.
Comrade DougJ
@Chad N Freude:
Strauss believed in “rule by the wise” and was very skeptical about democracy.
IM
@efgoldman:
Do you call FDR a fascist?
Thesis: You can commit fascist acts without being a fascist.
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel)
@eemom: παρακαλώ
IM
@Comrade DougJ:
But was even pre 1933 Strauss a fascist? A authoritarian right-winger, yes, but is that quite the same?
karen marie
@IM: Really? You don’t consider the teabaggery as “organizing the masses”?
A fascist movement doesn’t need adherents to comprehend “intellectual underpinnings.” In fact, it is probably easier if they don’t.
Chad N Freude
@Comrade DougJ: Yesbut. There have been and still are elected dictators. Would a military junta qualify as fascistically dictatorial? Authoritarian? I don’t think the (possibly cryptofascist) governors are at the level of Hitler and Mussolini and Hugo Chavez (you saw what I did there), although they probably wouldn’t mind being there.
Chad N Freude
@IM: That’s kinda what I’m asking.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Maude: The whole episode in WI is a bit on the totalitarian side, but then King John I of Ohio (aka Gov. Napoleon Heartland (TM) )is a bit on the totalitarian side:
This was his message to lobbyists, when asking them to “join his team to make Ohio great.” Just days after winning by a plurality, he told them:“If you think you’re going to stop us, you’re crazy. You will not stop us. We will beat you.” Lovely, isn’t he? Contempraneous story of the meeting.
Garrigus Carraig
@Maude: If that were the standard for fascism, it was game over a long time ago here.
@efgoldman: There were six parties in that election, so that comparison doesn’t quite fly.
@Chad N Freude: Well, Sullivan seems to imply that the unitary executive is what dictatorship looks like here. And C-Plus Augustus jokingly remarked that preznittin’ would be easier if he were a dictator FWIW.
Comrade DougJ
@IM:
I actually don’t think neoconservatives are fascists, but I think they come close. Strauss embraced Mussolini for a time, for example.
I think the whole philosophy is awfully close to fascism, though it doesn’t quite get all the way there.
Linda Featheringill
Wikipedia
Marxist definition of fascism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism#Marxist_definition
1. Right Wing: Fascists are fervently against: Marxism, Socialism, Anarchism, Communism, Environmentalism; etc – in essence, they are against the progressive left in total, including moderate lefts (social democrats, etc). Fascism is an extreme right wing ideology, though it can be opportunistic.
2. Nationalism: Fascism places a very strong emphasis on patriotism and nationalism. Criticism of the nation’s main ideals, especially war, is lambasted as unpatriotic at best, and treason at worst. State propaganda consistently broadcasts threats of attack, while justifying pre-emptive war. Fascism invariably seeks to instill in its people the warrior mentality: to always be vigilant, wary of strangers and suspicious of foreigners.
3. Hierarchy: Fascist society is ruled by a righteous leader, who is supported by an elite secret vanguard of capitalists. Hierarchy is prevalent throughout all aspects of society – every street, every workplace, every school, will have its local Hitler, part police-informer, part bureaucrat – and society is prepared for war at all times. The absolute power of the social hierarchy prevails over everything, and thus a totalitarian society is formed. Representative government is acceptable only if it can be controlled and regulated, direct democracy (e.g. Communism) is the greatest of all crimes. Any who oppose the social hierarchy of fascism will be imprisoned or executed.
4. Anti-equality: Fascism loathes the principles of economic equality and disdains equality between immigrant and citizen. Some forms of fascism extend the fight against equality into other areas: gender, sexual, minority or religious rights, for example.
5. Religious: Fascism contains a strong amount of reactionary religious beliefs, harking back to times when religion was strict, potent, and pure. Nearly all Fascist societies are Christian, and are supported by Catholic and Protestant churches.
6. Capitalist: Fascism does not require revolution to exist in captialist society: fascists can be elected into office (though their disdain for elections usually means manipulation of the electoral system). They view parliamentary and congressional systems of government to be inefficient and weak, and will do their best to minimize its power over their policy agenda. Fascism exhibits the worst kind of capitalism where corporate power is absolute, and all vestiges of workers’ rights are destroyed.
7. War: Fascism is capitalism at the stage of impotent imperialism. War can create markets that would not otherwise exist by wreaking massive devastation on a society, which then requires reconstruction! Fascism can thus “liberate” the survivors, provide huge loans to that society so fascist corporations can begin the process of rebuilding.
8. Voluntarist Ideology: Fascism adopts a certain kind of “voluntarism;” they believe that an act of will, if sufficiently powerful, can make something true. Thus all sorts of ideas about racial inferiority, historical destiny, even physical science, are supported by means of violence, in the belief that they can be made true. It is this sense that Fascism is subjectivist.
9. Anti-Modern: Fascism loathes all kinds of modernism, especially creativity in the arts, whether acting as a mirror for life (where it does not conform to the Fascist ideal), or expressing deviant or innovative points of view. Fascism invariably burns books and victimizes artists, and artists which do not promote the fascists ideals are seen as “decadent.” Fascism is hostile to broad learning and interest in other cultures, since such pursuits threaten the dominance of fascist myths. The peddling of conspiracy theories is usually substituted for the objective study of history.
IM
@karen marie:
But the tea-party people don’t follow the neocons. They follow Beck or Palin or even Paul and son.
Your average fascist did at least knew who were the leader of his movement, e. g. Hitler and not Leo Strauss (or Schmitt or Jünger or Otto Strasser)
Nylund
The bar for fascism was set pretty high in the 20th century. “They’re not Hitler” doesn’t make me sleep any better at night. There is plenty of room for “bad things” before one enters the Mussolini/Hitler zone. Is “looking the other way” after implicitly suggesting violence better than explicitly condoning political violence? Yes. Does that make it any more acceptable? No.
By worrying so much about a bar that has been set so high, we’re implicitly condoning all the lesser, but still terrible things they do and say that remain below the Hitler/Mussolini line.
Its like saying that beatings are ok because they’re not murders. But guess what? Beatings still suck.
If you actually wait until they’ve crossed over into “true fascism” you’ve waited too long.
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel)
@efgoldman: I am celebrating the melting pot. But limiting myself to the I/J part of the alphabet.
I have a grandmother from Southampton UK. The Jutes supposedly settled in Hampshire around the 4th century AD. So, I’ve got that covered.
patrick II
History, and politics is a process. Even if the country could be returned to the imaginary “golden time” before FDR, it could not stay in stasis. The conditions of that time, the concentration of wealth and power and ruthless capitalism, would once again lead to a depression and civil disorder. It would probably be worse this time because of modern conditions, including incredibly powerful international corporations and near total media capture by the right. The resultant desperation and disorder would either lead to a new FDR, or some sort of fascist state. It is not that neo-conservatives are necessarily fascist (and that can be argued) — but they are at least anti-democratic. The ends they desire cannot be supported democratically and will likely lead to fascism whether that was their original goal or not.
Each small step will seem expedient in a downward cycle as they seek order from a system that cannot support it without broad use of unrestrained power.
Linda Featheringill
I just posted a comment that gave 9 features of the fasci but the comment is in moderation. The comment did contain several isms.
Anyway, the meat of comment can be found in Wikipedia, Marks-ish [:-)] definition.
Chad N Freude
@efgoldman: Eco says in that piece
While the essay is very interesting, I don’t get the St Augustine + Stonhenge(!) = Ur-Fascism.
Pongo
It kind of seems to me that the two points Isquire makes to prove the neocons aren’t fascist actually prove that that is exactly the way the movement is going. The problem is with definition–both of ‘fascism’ and of ‘neocon.’ Maybe traditional neoconservatives do not promote political violence, but a neoconservative sect of their number (Tea Party) most certainly does. I don’t know how you can say supporting members with signs that endorse ‘second amendment solutions’ or put targets on political rivals is not promoting political violence?
As to point two, what is the ‘birther’ movement if not an organized effort to de-legitimize an election?
They may not be there yet, but they are well on their way and getting bolder about it all the time.
bago
War management under FDR/Truman:
Taxes are raised on the wealthy.
Citizens are asked to contribute in the form of War Bonds.
War Profiteering is considered unpatriotic.
Both the war on Japan and Germany are over in 5 years.
Rebuilt both countries into economic superpowers.
Unionized labor grew the economy and expanded employment.
G.I. Bill educates the workforce to the point where we are landing men on the moon.
War Management under Bush/Cheney
Taxes were lowered on the wealthy.
Citizens were asked to go shopping.
War Profiteering becomes essential as contractors outnumber the actual soldiers.
Both wars are still occurring a decade later.
Afghanistan and Iraq are….. yeah.
The economy is at its worst since the Great Depression.
Republican candidates are gutting universities and talking of dismantling public schools.
Bankers hated FDR. They loved Bush.
Nylund
Is anyone supposed to feel that much better after we decide that technically they aren’t fascist, but rather, just have a lot of quasi-fascist tendencies?
kdaug
Agreed.
ETA: With DougJ’s FP post – haven’t waded through yall’s swill yet.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel):
Me too!
IM
But a lot of people on the right admired Mussolini or supported Franco. Some were fascists, some not.
There were almost a dozen right-wing dictatorships in Europe in the thirties. I would at most classify six or so as fascist.
Same with movements: The Blueshirts e. g. in Ireland looked a bit dubious, but that wasn’t really a fascist movement.
Was Huey Long a fascist? The American Legion a fascist organization? McCarthy?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@efgoldman:
I guess this is the part the Kochtopus think tankers forgot to mention to Kasich, Snyder and the FitzWalkerstan leadership: play it close to the vest and don’t be too obvious.
ppcli
“Fascism” isn’t the best analytical category here, though of course it can be useful to lay out specific comparisons between particular persons and events here and in (say) quite different manifestations in Nazi Germany, Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy, Pétain’s France. But they’re all very different. To cite just one example, the relationship between the Nazis and German churches was quite complicated, a point that people like Jonah Goldberg try to generate a lot of fog out of. On the other hand, Francoist Spain and Vichy France were open about their connections to the Catholic hierarchy, and religious conservatives in those societies were among the biggest supporters of the regime. There are just too many different aspects of “Fascism” to expect that a movement here will fit with all of them.
Of course this is in addition to the obvious, huge obstacle that these comparisons tend to be so incendiary on their face that they tend to derail discussion rather than foster insight.
But there are specific points of comparison that are worrying. The instinct for what the Nazi regime called “Gleichschaltung” (roughly – “coordination” or “bringing into line”) is one that’s unsettling. One genius of English – speaking governments (and the U.S. has always done this particularly well) is the avoidance of fanaticism through division of powers. There are just too many different wheels of power for one disciplined and coordinated faction to impose an oppressive regime. (The subordination of military force to civilian authority is a crucial element, so it was not a happy development that Bush seemed to be constantly chipping away at this separation, giving frankly partisan speeches at military academies, strutting around in flightsuits, etc.) One thing that’s unsettling about the current movements is the extent to which they regard every bit of resistance as something to be simply annihilated rather than dealt with. Unions support the Democratic party financially? Crush them. Civil service doesn’t act exactly as you want, as quickly as you want? Replace all the career people, valued for their expertise, with fervent true believers, competent or not. (When Monica Goodling – in charge of hiring all Justice department attorneys, remember – slipped and spoke of her oath to the president rather than the constitution, I was not surprised. Another worrying thing about the Bush years was the functional institution of a Führerprinzip in the Justice department.)
Sloegin
@IM: Strauss would have been a Nazi except for an accident of birth. (The 3rd Reich wasn’t big on the Jewish thing).
Chad N Freude
@patrick II:
I’m not so sure about this. Gov. Walker doesn’t have the sense to make his changes subtly and incrementally, and that leads to democratic resistance, but if he did do it with some degree of subtlety over time, I’m not so sure that he wouldn’t continue to be acceptable to the WI voters that elected him.
MikeJ
@efgoldman: He also doesn’t say that the presence of those items defines fascism either. Merely that fascism can coagulate when ressentiment runs high in a society.
The modern GOP is certainly the party of ressentiment, but it doesn’t make them fascist per se. It does mean that a careful eye should be kept on them.
Chad N Freude
@bago: That is awesome! I’m going to clip it and share it with my fellow commiepinko associates.
El Tiburon
Too much emphasis is put on this term ‘fascist’.
Regardless if neocons or teabaggers or conservatives could be considered fascists, the facts are that these groups have a lot in common with fascists
1. Perceived ultra-patriotism
2. Xenophobia
3. Constant need for a a boogyman
4. Worshiip of military
5. Love of corporate power
6. Disdain for elections
7. Hero worship in Dear Leader (of the day)
I could go on. Fact is George Will and the rest would hardly bat an eye if President Palin started jailing and disappearing liberal agitators.
IM
@Sloegin:
Perhaps. In my snarkier moments I say the same. But of his fellow radical right-wingers some switched to the Nazis – Schmitt – and some – Jünger – did not.
IM
@efgoldman:
I blame a fascist plot. :-)
Maude
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I find it scary. It is close to ruling and nowhere near publice service.
@Garrigus Carraig:
Stalin and Hitler hated each other. Stalin was Communist and Hitler was National Socialist. They were both totalitarians.
That is very different than here.
They had iron rule over the people.
The role of corporations in the Third Reich was intermingled with the government on a level that is not happening here.
Big business doesn’t like Obama. That is very good.
Chad N Freude
@Linda Featheringill: That’s pretty good, but the Wikipedia article also has this quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_%28epithet%29:
This captures the intent of my comment at @Chad N Freude. And there are a lot of enlightening (to me) comments in this thread.
Edited to try to get past blockquote mess.
Bill Murray
Due to what happened with Fascism in WW2, the powers that wanted such a system, had to reinvent the various totalitarian political philosophies. I think Sheldon Wolin does a good job explaining how with the concept of inverted totalitarianism (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism)
To quote wikipedia, quoting Wolin
Maude
@efgoldman:
Mine too, what did we do? Has to be a glitch.
patrick II
@Chad N Freude:
I actually agree with that in the short term. Media control is making it possible for people against their own best interests. But the bottom line is that over time their policies just will not work. The economy will not grow through starvation, consolidation of wealth does not trickle down or generally support a healthy economy, military and finance are overhead to a healthy economy — not the source of it, global warming will happen whether they believe it or not. It is a process that will either trend downwards towards authoritarianism and end badly (fascism) or be changed but only with difficulty and sacrifice.
Linda Featheringill
@efgoldman:
Quacking like a duck is not proof that one is a duck but it should attract attention and careful observation.
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel)
@Yutsano: Sung by Lori Lieberman(no relation)
How ’bout that?
Chad N Freude
@Linda Featheringill: If it quacks like a duck, it may be a duck-attracting hunter’s simulation of a duck.
Linda Featheringill
@Chad N Freude:
I think that we could agree that a lot of those people are bullies.
Chad N Freude
@Linda Featheringill: True. They are the Bully Moose Party.
(Gratuitous Palin reference to make the pun work.)
Chad N Freude
@efgoldman: Not any more.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel): I wonder if one of the reasons why that series was so popular is because the music behind it was so solid. One of the main composers had worked on Broadway for years before doing this. And the singer for the adjectives song was a long time jazz singer. She passed away in 2009, I haz a major sad about that. Plus her name was just cool.
PS I would so buy the box set of this for teh SamKitteh and Mia.
karen marie
@IM: I don’t see that it matters whether “leaders” like Palin are consciously in favor of fascism. I don’t think knowledge is a requirement to qualify as a fascist. See, comment #38, item number 3.
piratedan
while I agree that sometimes there is some semantic solace in labeling people/your enemy in terms that we can all agree with, can we simply name them “those fuckers” and be done with it? I chose “those fuckers” as a generic term because it is “those fuckers” that are stealing all the wealth, not hiring new employees, scamming the system, destroying education, sowing racial hatred, etc etc etc
It’s the same groups that are spaghettied together in an incestuous relationship as their “moral” base/goon squad/enablers as well as the folks who give them their bully pulpit and marching orders. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t much care who is in charge of them and who is following, I loathe them all.
Parallel 5ths (Ionian Steel)
@Yutsano: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. Those songs were dynamite. And since you got hear them every Saturday, they taught you their musical language.
My fave cover:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1ZUjoKx7cQ
Villago Delenda Est
The fascist movement was dealt a severe brand blow by its German variant, in that people associate fascism with genocide. While Mussolini and Franco were not adverse, by any means, from going around and bashing heads in the streets, they didn’t organize industrialized mass murder the way Hitler and his devoted followers did.
So, ever since, “fascist” has been a very dirty word, which upsets scumbags like the Koch Brothers and their various lackies no end.
The fall of the Soviet Union kinda took the brakes off the slumbering fascist movement in the west. Corporatists love fascism, because the fascists are very big on squashing labor movements…as they’re “unharmonious” with the general “let’s all get together and invade Poland” drive that seems to inspire them. The corporatists get to profit and not have labor demands piss in their cheerios.
Which is why Walker and Kaisch fit the bill, nicely.
The way you deal with these guys in the end is the way the Italians dealt with Mussolini, in the end.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Until such time, of course, when they finally deem it necessary.
.
.
IM
@karen marie:
Now perhaps Palin has the stuff of an Buzz Windrip and perhaps not. But we are talking about neocons, especially. And Palin is really not a neocon, even one of the dumber ones.
Chad N Freude
@Villago Delenda Est: Yikes!
Villago Delenda Est
@IM:
Palin couldn’t tell you anything about neocon other than the name.
She’s really that clueless about the intellectual underpinnings, such as they are, of the entire 21st century “conservative” movement in this country.
What she does know is that she’s riding a wave that is providing her daughters with $800 hand bags, and that’s good.
IM
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yes, but DougJ wanted to discuss Neocons and especially Straussian neocons.
Now Governor Palin: Are you now or have you ever been a Straussian Neocon?
Svensker
@Chad N Freude:
Yes. Ha ha ha.
Comrade DougJ
@IM:
In what sense, Charlie?
mclaren
I think you mean “neoconservatives to do not advocate political violence against upper class white people.” Neocons love political violence against anyone of the dusky persuasion, or anyone with slanty eyes, or anyone who happens to come from south of the border, or anyone who lives in a third world country, or…
Well, you get the idea.
TenguPhule
Round up the Republican Elites, shoot them all and figure out whose the facists later.
Chris
I read Robert Paxton’s “An Anatomy of Fascism” last summer – very good book. Here’s his definition:
I’d say the Tea Party Movement very definitely fulfills 1, 2 and 3.
As for 4, current conditions aren’t comparable to what they used to be in Germany (not least because the TPM doesn’t have a stormtrooper-like force to enforce violence nation-wide). But it’s worth mentioning that the “lone wolves” have already had enough impact on politics that in Arizona, Republican moderates actually resigned from office after the Giffords shooting because death threats and the like from the teabagger base made them too worried to continue.
So yeah, TPM deserves the protofascist label at the very least.