The first part of an extended series on fascism, triggered by that prick in the White House using the term “Islamo-fascist.”
Turning language on it’s head is a trait of the Bush regime. What Orwell wrote about in his 1984, where a totalitarian state rewrites history to serve it, is the modus operandi of our current government. From a bumbling attempt to edit Wikipedia to excise a term-limits promise, to claiming no-one knew the levees could break following Katrina, to replacing Osama with Saddam with the enemy of the day (the 5 Minute Hate?), to the ‘we never said 9/11 and Saddam’ line, this administration has made mendacity mundane.
Take their favorite hateline du jour – “Islamofascism.” This word has come up in the world, having struggled up from the jingoism ghetto of LGF and third-rate shock jocks (like Mr. Corked Bat, Rush Limbaugh, of Feminazi fame) to the very lips of the frontman-in-chief.
This is stupid, and clever, and stupid in turn. It’s stupid, because fascism is a European and Western political philosophy, drawing it’s roots from the Romans. It is clever, because most people don’t think about fascism, having a very simple equation, to wit: Fascism = Hitler and the Nazis = Very Bad. So they don’t really know much about it. It’s a rebranding of the term to mean Muslims.
The stupid-in-turn part is (and this is where we get all Orwellian) that this government, the Bush regime and their lackeys in Congress and on the judicial bench, are closer to fascism than they want us to realize.
This is why they always freak out so much whenever someone on the left calls them Nazis. The MoveOn.org ads that compared Bush to Hitler are the prime example.
So with the government ACTING fascist, they need to deflect the term. Voila! Islamofascism!
Let’s take a look at what leftist Italian author and professor Umberto Eco has to say.
Fascism is: A fuzzy totalitarianism characterized by selective populism, contempt for the weak, fear of difference, obsession with plots, and a cult of tradition
If you’re not with us, you’re a traitor. NASCAR is a sacrement, the poor are crap, gays are evil, there’s a liberal media plot/Jewish banking plot/homosexual agenda/war on Christmas. The best times were the good old times. Sound familiar?
This week, we’ll be taking a more in-depth look on the subject of fascism; what it is, what it isn’t, and what we should do about it.
For your homework, check out the extended Eco: Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
I agree with you that the Bush Regime is fascist. But I’m not impressed by this half-baked diary.
In the second paragraph you use “it’s” for “its.” That’s a sure sign of mediocre writing and thinking. And the word is “sacrament.” Among other things.
Have you actually done any historical research into the impact of fascist ideas in the Middle East? No, of course not. You’re just skimming along the surface froth of a thousand blog posts. In fact, during the 1930s and 1940s, in opposition to British and French intrusions in the Middle East, the secular Ba’ath Party (which went on to take power in Syria and Iraq) was heavily influenced by the style, ideas, and methods of the Italian and German fascists. Thus, there is a genuine historical reality at the root of the term “Islamofascism,” which the warbloggers and neocons have been browbeating for at least five years.
There are all kinds of reasons why it is totally nuts to apply the term “Islamofascist” to today’s jihadis. Indeed, the term itself embodies the code “Saddam = Al Qaeda.”
But your short diary doesn’t give a hint that you understand any of this. Why don’t you just give a link to David Neiwert at Orcinus and spare us your own stylings?
You left out a very important and most defining aspect of fascism: capitalism. Fascism is only an extreme form of capitalism in which the destruction of capital (military resources through war) reenforces the need for the military-industrial complex to produce more and more for an ever-hungry war machine, and in order to do that, there is the need for a constant and boundless expansion of violence and consumption.
If you can grasp Ecco, the I whole-heartedly suggest Hanna Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” as it is much more informative as a work of Critical theory than Orwell’s novel.
Good point. The diary purports to be starting an in-depth examination, but he left out that central element. I should have mentioned that. As often expressed in this famous quotation–
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power.”–Benito Mussolini
See http://www.fascismusa.com/ for some additional interesting material. I think Dave Neiwert (Orcinus) and more recently Glenn Greenwald have done the best work on this important idea.
Bush is a fascist. Therefore he labels his opponents fascists. This is called “projection.” In Alcoholics Anonymous (which is chockfull of wisdom), this is called the “axiom” or the “central axion” (see the 10th Step discussion in the 12 & 12). People always leap out to label opponents with the trait they fear most deeply about themselves (their “shadow,” as Carl Jung would say).
How this society is turning fascist is the most important story of our day. And the story is not advance, unfortunately, by this jejune diary.
After nitpicking the diarist’s spelling, it serves me right to make several typos in the post above. Ack.