On Liberal Fascism:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

As this book keeps recurring as a topic in this community, I'll remind the apologists for this particular piece of fishwrap what exactly it is that they're trying to claim as high scholarship on international fascism of the 1920s through the 1940s:

Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

_______________

So, let's have a look-see. WEB Du Bois is this guy:



......

Yes, I totally see it! The guy who invented modern civil rights tactics would be absolutely fond of a pan-German Jew hater like Hitler.

Wilson hardly could have espoused fascism given that it didn't exist until the HARDING Administration and by then he was insensible from strokes. Mussolini, an ex-socialist, invented the movement. I suppose Wilson also had magic voodoo powers to influence events before they even happened.

I also hardly think the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Legion_of_America counts as "friendly." 

Someone also ought to talk to Goldberg about his misogyny issues. I mean, really, a schoolteacher giving a hug is equal to Babi Yar. *snerk*.

And that Irving Berlin song?

It goes like this:

In Japan our hands are tied, ve don't like it.
Mussolini's on our side, ve don't like it.

So those on this community that reference this particular book that could more or less define the TVTropes Critical Research Failure on its own........this is what you're referencing. And this, BTW, is why I have a hard time taking anything the Goldberg apologists say seriously.

Comments

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

What does fascism mean to him? Seriously... I don't know of one "liberal" who wants a military dictatorship state. The concept doesn't even make sense in a fantasy context?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Fascism simply means "bad people." It has no relationship to the actual interwar totalitarian movement that pioneered such things as death squads and ethnic cleansing as a solution to the issue of integrating minorities into new states.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

What a bizarre association... I read a little about the book and the weirdness is just overwhelming. Intellectual roots of fascism in Rousseau? The stupid is too much.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It helps if you think of this as the historical version of Christopher Paolini's works. As far as serious history is concerned the good analyses of fascism are the ones Paft mentioned in the other thread, plus Michael Mann's Fascists.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

To quote (http://calitreview.com/303):

I’ve got a long definition in the book, but a short one would be an instinctual religious impulse – usually gussied-up as a secular or modern ideology – that seeks to impose uniformity in thought and action throughout the entire society. All oars in a fascistic society must pull together. The personal is political because everything goes together. Political correctness is one name we give to such efforts in civil society.

The military aspect is a definite pattern, but not a necessity.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is. It is no co-incidence that the bedrock of fascism was always Freikorps-style post-WWI paramilitaries. Nor is it a co-incidence that Hitler and company made their societies geared towards military-style hierarchies. The heart of fascism is the paramilitary. The similar heart of Bolshevism is not the Red Army but the Party-state.

No Fascist state could ever have managed the Great Purge of 1937....

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It is no co-incidence that the bedrock of fascism was always Freikorps-style post-WWI paramilitaries.

No, it was never a bedrock, just a trend. That the left here has successfully done so using pseudo-democratic means doesn't change the end result.

The heart of fascism is the paramilitary. The similar heart of Bolshevism is not the Red Army but the Party-state.

Wow. How the hell do you get that?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, actually it *was* the Bedrock. The Fascio de Combaittmento, the Sturmabteilungen, the Legion of the Archangel St. Michael, the Arrow Guard, even the Ustase all drew heavily from Right-Wing WWI veterans' paramilitaries. They were European analogues of the White League.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

Are you unaware of the Night of the Long Knives?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You mean where Hitler created the first modern purge? Yes, I am.

That does not disprove my thesis one bit as the wilder SA was replaced by the more organized and more evil SS. The paramilitary basis changed not at all, just the particular paramilitary. The blackjackets were much more dangerous than the Brownshirts.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

How is militarism not a necessity? You can't have an authoritarian state without a military force to crush any form of opposition. The other trite stuff about political correctness and uniformity is not germane to fascism any more than it is to the art of pigeon breeding.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Let's not forget, however, that communist dictatorships like the PLA, SRV, and USSR were born of civil war also. To some extent it can really be debated as to whether or not there was ever an opportunity for any of them to be truly liberal and free once they'd survived the kind of dogpiling they went through to seize power. In fact I daresay if any national leadership ever had an entitlement to be paranoid, the Soviet leadership would have been it.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

You can't have an authoritarian state without a military force to crush any form of opposition.

Sure you can. Military isn't the only kind of force available to use.

The other trite stuff about political correctness and uniformity is not germane to fascism any more than it is to the art of pigeon breeding.

Not germane? It's more germane than military might, for sure. Besides, his argument isn't that it's a perfect parallel, more that it's a modern version.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Wrong. An authoritarian state without a military is in deep shit the first time a significant uprising is launched, and rest assured it would be.

The closest modern analogue to fascism would actually be something like the Ba'ath had the Ba'ath emphasized an Arab nationalism with heavily Islamized overtones the way groups like the Arrow Cross and the Legion of the Archangel St. Michael did Christianity.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Wrong. An authoritarian state without a military is in deep shit the first time a significant uprising is launched, and rest assured it would be.

Are police military?

The closest modern analogue to fascism would actually be something like the Ba'ath had the Ba'ath emphasized an Arab nationalism with heavily Islamized overtones the way groups like the Arrow Cross and the Legion of the Archangel St. Michael did Christianity.

I'd say the closest modern analogue is Chavez in Venuezuela, except he's kind of terrible at it. Putin's trying it, too, but it might be taking him longer than he wants.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Police aren't enough. If you're going to repress someone like Yemelian Pugachev cops aren't going to halt it.

Actually Saddam Al-Majid had the closest analogue along with the Assads in Syria. Ba'athism was a secular nationalist one-party ideology, while Fascism was heavily identified with Christianity in a lot of ways where Communism, like Ba'athism was heavily and aggressively secularist.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to indulge the militaristic fantasy further.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Imperial Japan is militarism.

Wilson's USA? Not so much.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Police are paramilitary, yes.

They have a chain of command. They carry and can fire weapons to take down hostiles, as yoda might say: 'legally permitted to kill are they'

SWAT teams are pretty military-like, now aint they?

So, I disagree with you when you said:

"Military isn't the only kind of force available to use."

So tell me, what other kind of force do fascists have?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, then you've successfully aided my point. Police are fine.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

What the hell are you talking about?
You said that there are other means of force besides the military.
But the police are paramilitary, just as the SS was.

So what the hell are you on about?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

underlanker's point is that the military is the military. I asked if the police count, he didn't think so, but you're aiding my point. Thus...

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I am not underlankers.

Police are paramilitary forces--so fascists rely upon military and para-military forces to oppress and repress the people.

Underlankers can disagree all he likes, but they are paramilitary organizations.

So do you have any response to *me*?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not in the actual fascist societies. The Arrow Cross and the SA/SS were very much not within traditional police boundaries. The police of the Nazi era was identical in structure to that of the Weimar Republic, save the addition of a *secret* police agency. Those, like the NKVD/Cheka/KGB tend as a rule to be associated with one-party states though precursors date all the way back to the Classical Age.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, Police are the establishment. In actual fascist societies they kept the regular police intact and added extralegal secret police organizations like the Gestapo in addition to them. Fascists damned the establishment as much as the Commies did, they just did so for reasons that were very, very different.