Embracing The Meme: Calling Fascists What They Are
Dean
Ah, I see that The Watcher's Council, 7 Deadly Sins, Blogs For Bush, Searchlight Crusade, and The Loudest Cricket have all noticed the same thing: we keep being afraid to call fascists and fascist apologists what they are, and it's hurting our cause.
Not long ago, professor Victor Davis Hanson wrote:
Extremists that otherwise would be properly seen in the fascistic mold were instead given a weird pass for their quite public and abhorrent hatred of non-believers and homosexuals, and Neanderthal views of women. Beheadings, murder of Christians, suicide bombing of children, systematic torture — all this and more paled in comparison to hot and cold temperatures in American jails on Cuba. Suddenly despite our enemies’ long record of murdering and carnage, we were in a war not with fascism of the old stamp, but with those who were historical victims of the United States.
Yes, and part of the problem is that we have made the mistake of not more often calling fascists by their real name. Instead we sometimes call them "liberals" (thus offending and alienating good and decent liberals everywhere), or "the far left," or "anti-American," and it's all too vague and non-specific to mean anything.
Scott Koenig said the other day:
I'm disturbed by the trashing of the word "liberal," which used to mean "believing in or allowing more personal freedom" but which now has come to describe anyone who is to the political "left" of the speaker. Being a person who has had a "liberal" thought from time to time, I wish that folks like Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh would find a more precise term to describe people with whom they disagree.
You're absolutely right, Scott. This constant bashing of "liberals" has allowed vile fascist sympathizers and fascist apologists like Michael Moore and the crowd at Daily Kos to pretend that they're liberals who are just victims of the "right-wing attack machine." And chuclkeheads like Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter help them get away with it.
Decent people on the left as well as the right recognize all this; last year, the New York Press' Armond White, an old-school man of the left, rightly called Michael Moore a fascist with a liberal face. He was every bit as correct as Victor Davis Hanson.
Time for more truth in labelling. I'm wondering where the Milbloggers are on this? We need to stop bashing "liberals," and we need to encourage good and decent people in the Democratic Party to purge their ranks of their vile fascist element (and the Republicans too). We need to stop farting around with vague terms like "liberals" or "the far left" or any of that. We need to start calling fascists, fascist sympathizers, and fascist apologists what they are: Fascists.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Embracing The Meme: Calling Fascists What They Are
- Playing Into the Fascists' Hands
- Truth In Labeling: Calling Fascists What They Are
dale.
When they don't just say "jew."
The majority?
Dean - Good post. I think quite a few of us have had similar thoughts brewing for quite awhile. I would differ from you in that I do think there is an important distinction between the hard left and the fascists. However, you still strike an important truth since both share much more in common than most people realize (Fascism being nationalist collectivism and Socialism/Communism being internationalist collectivism).
It is also amazing how little most people know about Fascism despite their willingness to employ the term as a slur. Mix a little patriotism with a regulatory regime that has at least some business-friendly aspects and "Fascism" springs right to the lips throughout the Left. Few people realize that the "corporativa" (I think that's the term in Italian) lauded by the Italian fascists was not a reference to "Corporations" as they are understood today but to trade unions and other civil organizations constituted to support the "new Rome" of Mussolini.
With respect to liberalism - by every historical use of the word until about the mid-70s you and I are liberals (in favor of greater freedom and equality under the law). Not quite Libertarians - as we both recognize the limits of that philosophy - but good, old-fashioned liberals.
And yet, when I criticized the excesses of post-modernism and the hard left on Wildmonk, I received a fair amount of email from nice folks like Dale accusing me of being a (you guessed it) "fascist."
The scary thing is that anyone familiar with the works of Milosz Czezlaw or Leszek Kolakowski sees the seeds of intolerance and even violence being sown in the rhetoric of people like Dale (and Kos, Moore, etc.). "Deluded, war-mongering, gun totting [sic], Bible-thumping right"? Why not just demonize an entire class of people Dale? I recognize that there are points to be made by those who oppose the war (although I often disagree) why won't you?
Given the history of the 20th century, maybe those who support a vigorous response to the rise of Islamic fascism are a little less "deluded" than people, like Dale, who either avoid saying what they would do to respond or who propose, in essence, singing Kumbaya as we link arms with the thugs and murderers who've attacked us.
But neocon doesn't have the same pejorative taint to it that fascist apologist does. I'm looking for something more analogous.
Scott,
The majority? Not according to the polls that I've seen.
Right on, brothah.
f
I was referring to the election. You know - the one that Bush won. Here's a bumper sticker to remind you of that fact.
Dale: There is no need for an analogous term. There are those of us who oppose fascism, and those of us who embrace it, apologize for it, and sympathize with it. There are those on the far right--the Llewrockwellians and the Buchananites--who are every bit as much fascist apologists and fascist sympathizers as shitbags like Michael Moore and Markos Moulitsas.
But "neocon" certainly does have the same "taint" with the fascist sympathizers and the fascist apologists. Indeed, if you listen to those hatemongering pigs talk, "neocons" are murdering imperialist racist scum (when they don't simply mean "jew").
As for polls: you call yourself a scientist? Chrikey. This reminds me of the idiots who say that polls showed that a majority of Americans believed Saddam was behind 9/11, when in point of fact not one single poll has ever shown any such thing.
President Bush currently has a high job disapproval rating, and a majority of Americans think the Iraq war was a "mistake." But I know lots of people who support the liberation of Iraq from fascist tyranny who disapprove of Bush or think the operation should be managed differently. Furthermore, any such polls are (as you should know) a snapshot of attitudes in time. That doesn't translate to saying "the liberation of Iraq was immoral" or "the liberation of Iraq was evil" or "we should have left Saddam alone."
I myself have several times wondered if taking out Saddam was a mistake--given the constant spew of fascist propaganda from our press and from fascist apologists and fascist sympathizers under the (utterly dishonest) rubric of "criticizing the administration's policies."
Show me the poll that says a majority of Americans agree that our action in taking out Saddam was immoral. Show me the poll that says a majority of Americans want to pull out right now and apologize to the fascists. Go on, show it to me.
There is a small problem with quibbling about the definition of the word "liberal." Words take on new meanings over time.
For example: The word "gay." If I constantly wrote about how gay I was, then most would assume I am homosexual - even if the context clearly pointed to a different definition. Nevertheless, if you look it up in the dictionary, among the definitions of "gay" are "1. joyous and lively; merry, 2. bright, brilliant."
But the co-option of the term to mean "3. a homosexual, esp. a male homosexual" has effectively removed gay from the acceptable list of adjectives meaning "joyous and lively."
While I applaud your desire to fight for the meaning of the word "liberal," defined as "1. generous, 2. ample, abundant, 3. not literal or strict, 4. tolerant; broad minded, 5. favoring reform or progress," I am afraid that the word has already undergone its Orwellian transformation.
In the double-speak of modern day politics, liberal now means stingy, scarce, strict, narrow-minded, anti-reform, and obstructionistic. And like the word gay, its original meaning is lost to its users. We all know only too well who the "liberals" are. They are Kos, and Michael Moore. Like it or not, the word is already lost.
Unfortunately for you and I, we now must modify the word "liberal" with the word "classical." Or you might term "old-fashioned." Or, in true oxy-moronic fashion, you might be deemed a "conservative liberal." But the days when you could proudly refer to yourself as simply a "liberal" died in the late 60's around the time you were born.
You are too late for the fight. Castigating conservatives for using the term "liberal" in its modern double-speak rendition is as fruitless as a heterosexual man being offended when others misunderstand him when he calls himself "gay."
It was suggested to me that the WMGTBT right who support the current occupant of the White House might properly be branded the Majority.
I merely pointed out that what data was available on the matter did not support that contention. A point which you would appear to agree with in saying "President Bush currently has a high job disapproval rating, and a majority of Americans think the Iraq war was a 'mistake.'"
dale
If you're a believer in the whole left-right mythology, then perhaps "Communist" would be better. But that has its own baggage, even more weighty than that surrounding "Fascist". For example, the state of Israel was socially very Communist at its founding--if you stipulate the 19th-century definition, before it was used by the politial heirs of Lenin.
Personally, I prefer terms like "control freak" or "paranoid" or "opportunist" or "lackey", based on the subtle flavor the subject's particular brand of totalitarianism exudes.
And the Chinese are rapidly becoming National Communist fascists, too.
Hussein was bad, but not near the threat that America is to the coming world utopia run by the b'crats from the World Gov't.
I'm not sure these people are evil, just massively deluded in a way that happens to correspond with their envy.
Supposedly, fascist Italy and Nazi Germany as well were supposed to be revivals of the Roman Imperium -- the influence of Roman history and might on Hitler and the nazis is often overlooked.
I hear their fondness for using the word "fascist", "Nazi" and "Bushitler", and it brings to mind the word "projection".
I'll agree that most of the so-called anti-war people are actually just unclear on things rather than being outright fascists and/or fascist apologists. My sister is a delight and I love her to death - but she's also a Marxist and a college professor in New York City...there's just no way to get into her head and make her understand that she gets to live the sheltered life of a New York intellectual because some kid from Akron is wielding an M-16 in Fallujah. My sister and I (wisely) steer clear of any political discussions - but I'll bet dollars to donuts that she subscribes in large part to the Michael Moore/MoveOn views on the war...and she really is a very intelligent and magnificently well educated lady. Just living in a very, very different reality from most of us.
This is part of the reason that I'm with you 100% in your campaign to clearly define the opposition to the war - it might be that if we can apply the term "fascist" to the enemy, then right-thinking liberals and leftists who have been gulled by the fascist apologists will start to rethink their views. We really do have to fight these fascist terrorist to the death - no compromise is possible and, honestly, it shouldn't be too hard to get everyone with any sense on the left to say "hey, I don't like this President Bush and I'll fight him tooth and nail on domestic policy...but on the whole 'killing terrorists issue', I think I'll give him some support"...
When they don't just say "jew."'
I dunno, anyone who associates gun-toting and Bible thumping (what exactly IS Bible thumping?) with American Jews has an impressive imagination :)
I think "jew" is for deluded, war-mongerers who would not be caught dead deer-hunting or in a church.
-H. L. "Bill" Richarson, "Recapture Our Words", Slightly To The Right!
"Communism is Red Fascism, totalitarianism, bigoted and extreme, warmongering, hate mongering, corrupt, and ultra reactionary."
-H. L. "Bill" Richardson, "Recapture Our Words", Slightly To The Right!
"Supposedly, fascist Italy and Nazi Germany as well were supposed to be revivals of the Roman Imperium -- the influence of Roman history and might on Hitler and the nazis is often overlooked."
Here's the "superiority of the Teutonic race" for you: The Germans got their idea of Empire from the Romans ("Kaiser" means "Caesar"). They copied their army from the French. They copied their navy from the English. They copied their fascist form of government from the Italians. They got their idea of "the superiority of the Teutonic race" from a Frenchman (Comte de Gobineau) and then an Englishman (Houston Stuart Chamberlain). They got their idea of an evil "Jewish Conspiracy" from a Russian writing in Paris ("The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"). They copied the Swastika from the Hindus.
"Yeah, but they made the trains run on time!"
If you're in a hurry to get to Auschwitz!
I have to disagree with Scott Harris. I'm too conservative, or reactionary, to tolerate the corruption of our language.
Scott Harris wrote:
"While I applaud your desire to fight for the meaning of the word "liberal," defined as "1. generous, 2. ample, abundant, 3. not literal or strict, 4. tolerant; broad minded, 5. favoring reform or progress," I am afraid that the word has already undergone its Orwellian transformation.
"In the double-speak of modern day politics, liberal now means stingy, scarce, strict, narrow-minded, anti-reform, and obstructionistic."
Dean is definitely liberal in all those sense. I can't necessarily say the same for myself.
Scott Koenig wrote:
"I'm disturbed by the trashing of the word "liberal," which used to mean "believing in or allowing more personal freedom" but which now has come to describe anyone who is to the political "left" of the speaker. Being a person who has had a "liberal" thought from time to time, I wish that folks like Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh would find a more precise term to describe people with whom they disagree."
Yes, I'm liberal in the sense of valuing personal freedom. Not at all in the sense of "Left" on most spectra. Generous? Hmmm.... Strict and increasingly literal in certain ways ("fundamentalist" even), narrow-minded, anti-reform, and obstructionistic. I admire Dean's reclaiming of "liberal", and likewise, I myself reclaim "conservative" and "reactionary". I also admire Dean's idea of flinging the hate-word "fascist" back in the faces of Lord Pork Pork, Ward Eichmann, etc.. I call them collectivists and CommuNazis -- and wear their insults as a badge of honor. Western imperialist Zionist warmonger, etc., etc....
"For example: The word "gay." If I constantly wrote about how gay I was, then most would assume I am homosexual - even if the context clearly pointed to a different definition. Nevertheless, if you look it up in the dictionary, among the definitions of "gay" are "1. joyous and lively; merry, 2. bright, brilliant."
But the co-option of the term to mean "3. a homosexual, esp. a male homosexual" has effectively removed gay from the acceptable list of adjectives meaning "joyous and lively.""
I've never liked the term too much. I stick to homosexusl and heterosexusl, or gynosexual and androsexual. I absolutely refuse to answer to "straight". As a gynosexual, by definition I'm drawn to curves. A man's man should call himself "straight" instead.
daf9 asked:
"And when we drop the euphemism "conservative", what do we call the deluded, war-mongering, gun totting, Bible-thumping right who support the current occupant of the White House?"
Look up the etymology of "pagan" or "heathen". Yes, as I've oft noted before, the true spiritual descendants of the old Romans, Vikings, and Celts who held to the Gods of their ancestors are those who today hold to the God of their ancestors, i.e., fundamentalist Protestants ("Bible-thumpers"), orthodox Catholics, Orthodox Jews. And they refuse to give up their guns.