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I think it's stupid to say they have always been fascist, but people definitely don't grasp what fascism is, they think it's people marching in nice grey uniforms on the street and concentration camps out in the open and if you try to call anything that's not that they call you stupid and overreacting
"All men are created equal"
is slave state
Always has been
Would you say it might apply to an openly genocidal state conquering its neighbors?
How about when that state also has up to 30% of its population by region in racial chattel slavery?
How about when the genocide is done and the slavery ended but it still enforces apartheid politics?
How about when it overthrows the government of any neighbor it disagrees with?
Invades other countries and kills millions?
But, hey. It's not technically fascism as long it's white men voting to do that, right? They usually weren't even Italian! It's stupid to call it fascism when it doesn't come from Rome!
Those are definitely trait you'd expect from fascism, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient to be fascist. Fascism is not just doing a bad thing. It's a very specific set of traits, which the US does not meet —in my opinion and any other informed opinion that I've seen.
Uh huh.
So when I kick down your door and execute you for not agreeing with me politically, it won't be a fascist action, good to know.
But, hey, as FUN LITTLE EXCERCISE let's look at Umberto Eco's 14 points.
1: The cult of tradition/syncretism
Fun Fact: we're based on a model of the Roman Republic. You know, the thing that conquered all its neighbors and turned into an Empire? It's not like we adopted any of their other symbols, right? Definitely don't have a fasces in the House Chamber.
It's not like the fastest growing religion in this country is the one where they pretend Jesus came to America to bless it specifically. Fuck Australia and South America tho.
2: Rejection of modernism
Ok, fair enough, never been a big failure of America until recently. America was founded on Enlightenment ideals, whether or not it lived up to them. Gosh, it's a good thing they haven't been dirty words in the right for a century!
3: Action for action's sake. Thinking is a form of emasculation.
Don't even try.
4: Disagreement is treason.
Okay, fair enough, we're a contentious bunch, and we can all agree that as long as they aren't a filthy commie we can all say the things we basically agree on.
5: Ur-fascism is racist by definition. Fear of differences is a primary motivation.
Bro. The genocides... Plural. And ever present.
6: Appeal to social frustrations.
I mean, literally how people get elected.
7: The obsession with a narrative.
The American Experiment (didn't invent democracy or republics btw). Manifest Destiny. The Lost Cause. American Exceptionalism. Even The Arsenal of Democracy. The Red Menace. The Deep State.
8: The enemy is both weak and strong.
The savage Indians need Civilization or they'll kill you in their sleep! Let's go take their land! These Africans are like children that need to be guided! They'll also kill you in your sleep! These commies are starving and will conquer the world!
9: Pacifism is treason.
Find an American that's an actual pacifist without being part of a weird religious cult (that actually reads the Bible)
10: Contempt for the weak.
Lol.
11: The cult of the hero.
The cult of individualism. See also: Lol.
12: Machismo and weapon fetishization.
...
13: Selective populism.
The silent majority. The educated voter. The landowners. The slave holders. The petite bourgeois.
You fucking done with your denial yet?
14: Newspeak. Fascism employs a deliberately limited vocabulary to stifle dissent.
Go unalive yourself, you deliberately blinded ostrich.
(Don't actually, but maybe grow the fuck up and realize that times we fought monarchists and Nazis doesn't change everything else)
So when I kick down your door and execute you for not agreeing with me politically, it won't be a fascist action, good to know.
It could be. They can do that without being fascist as well. It is neither necessary nor sufficient.
Im probably not going to go through all these, but for 1 your example is far too broad. Every single thing we make is inspired by other things in the past. That's how we improve. A cult of tradition is more like saying "we are the third Roman empire (third riech), and we are deserving of inheriting their history. We will enforce this idea and destroy anything counter to it." America does have better examples of this that what you used though. I wouldn't argue it doesn't have a cult of tradition.
For 8, that's also a bad example. I don't think there was an idea the natives were strong. They were just savage and violent. They needed us to "civilize" them was the (bullshit) idea. I don't recall seeing much ever about them being particularly strong, just murderous and evil. A better example, though you have to get fairly modern, is communism. It's both a useless form of government destined to fail, but also we need to send solders and spies all over to protect other countries from falling to it.
9 we do not have really. We are fairly jingoist as a nation, but it's never (or rarely) said to be treason to disagree. After 9/11 it would be hard to be elected whole disagreeing with a war, but Bernie Sanders did and has done fairly well politically and not executed for treason.
11 is not about individualism. It's about every person needs to live their life for the glory of the nation. Individualism is anti-hero. A hero should live their lives (and die) for others. Individualism is you should be self-serving.
Go unalive yourself, you deliberately blinded ostrich.
Wow dude. Wtf is wrong with you? What did I do to you?
(Don't actually, but maybe grow the fuck up and realize that times we fought monarchists and Nazis doesn't change everything else)
No. Obviously not. I never said such. Things change over time and the same nation could be fascist at one point and anarchist at another. Don't imply I said something that I didn't please. This is actually an argument against the US "always" being fascist though, because we haven't met all the traits you've listed at the same time, even using the examples you gave which I don't agree with. Any nation will meet all of those eventually if you give it enough time.
Also, these are traits of fascism. They are not definitionally fascist. Again, probably the main point of fascism is a dictatorship. Without that you can only be fash-ish not fascist.
The US has a centuries long history of genocide and enslavement that continue into today. All their power and wealth is predicated on this bloodshed in the here and now. And it was all done for the sake of private interests.
You deny that it was always fascism because you and your family are settler house servants in this scheme. You get a small piece of property and a middle class lifestyle in exchange for your implicit support for the US to continue to eat the bodies of he colonized and impoverished.
I don't deny it's fascism because I benefit from it. It's because imperialism is not the definition of fascism or we wouldn't have two very different words for that. You want to call it fascism because your political vocabulary apparently sucks. Fascism is not just a synonym for something bad, which I agree the US has done tons of evil. It just isn't that specific word.
My political vocabulary doesn't suck. You're a typical reactionary tankie that thinks that using Lenin's outdated analysis and calling it Marxism gives you the authority to dismiss the grievances of the colonized.
Marxism and capitalism doesn't have stages. Where capitalism exists all of Marx's critiques apply. You use the tied old "muh imperialism" argument because you're a Russian chauvinist that fears that the fascist accusations could apply to current day Russia and the fallen Soviet Union.
Lol. Getting called a tanky for saying America isn't fascist. That's different. I don't know why you're talking about Russia.
Okay fair enough, you're just a western fascist stooge.
Why are you intent on muddling the meaning of words?
The guy you are arguing with conceded that America did bad things, just those things are called something else. What is it with the fetishization of this word in particular?
We can all agree:
Imperialism=bad
Fascism=bad
Imperialism definitionally is not fascism. Words have meaning for a reason.
It's pretty clear that your definition of fascism is heavily predicated on your feelings. And that judicious reservation of judgment is applied to actions that don't effect you while emotional appeals are applied when it does.
Man, it's so easy to dismiss an argument by saying someone is just arguing from emotion. I don't feel like anything I said had anything to do with emotions, but I guess it makes you feel like you won the argument so I'm glad that makes you happy. It doesn't make you right, but whatever.
You were given numerous material examples which you handwaved away. No one is dismissing your argument as emotional. It's emotional because you refuse to engage with the material evidence before you and retreat to unfalsifiable definitions that are based on your feels. This means no one can prove you wrong because know one can know "you're TRUE feelings" Typical concern trolling, seen it a million times.
I didn't handwave them away. I explained why they were wrong, if they were wrong. Also, they aren't sufficient to call something fascist anyway. They are traits of fashism, not the definition of fascism. How have I refused to engage with "the material evidence?" I engaged with all of the comments and detailed my reasoning. I don't think I'm the one being emotional. I'm not the one trying to dismiss an argument by saying someone else isn't engaging in the correct method. I think you are possibly projecting.
Next thing you'll say is that a constitutional monarchy can't be a fascist state.
Why would I say that. That is a dictator. If they meet the other requirements, sure. They aren't just because they have a single person ruling, but they could be.
Ah, so some kind of Grand Council wouldn't count either?
It's only fascism when it's effects me you see.
Doing evil things =/= fascism.
Fascists do evil things, so do others.
I think this is the best video on fascism https://youtu.be/5Luu1Beb8ng?si=Bfyx8qpyz9EbuFQX
I don't disagree that fascism has been part of the US always but it has been everywhere, it never went away, but it really came out with trump whether you think Trump is a fascist or just a useful idiot/ opportunist capitalist is up to debate imo. But his following has a large group of fascists.
They worship trump to an almost religious degree, they use fascist symbolism, they are predominantly white and believe they have a right to rule and be on top just because, they accept minorities and some lgb (not T) people as long as it lets them get into the position of power, then turn on them ( as seen by the many leopardsatemyface posts about gay republicans)
Fascism is a specific political ideology that has some telltale signs not just a collection if evil deeds, what's the point of using words if we bend the definition to whatever we want to say?
Man, at this point the word has no more meaning. The definition has been coopted and broadened so much that anything bad is a fash
That's imperialism, fascism is a very, very specific concept.
Lol, brainlet Lenin take.
What an emotional response
Best not to use to academic language when dealing with those that Academia has failed so thoroughly. Or the ones who already know and don't care cuz they got enough of a kickback from kicking down.
That's already happening. We just do it in otuer countries. Genocide denial included.vThis wasn't Fascist enough for the libs.
House of Representatives Votes 269-144 to Ban State Department from Citing Gaza Death Toll
I am pretty sure England allowed the Anschluss and for Germany to take parts of Czechoslovakia before WW2, because they thought that would be enough for Hitler, so does that mean England was fascist?
so does that mean England was fascist?
The biggest imperial and colonial power of perhaps all of history? yeah probably
Why do you conflate two different things --both bad-- but cant distinguish the definitions for each? There's a reason we have separate words for Imperialism and fascism? There's a weird fetish for this word here and you are very intent on applying it for some reason.
I can distinguish the definition for each, which is why I'm applying the label. I'm just using a different definition than you.
To perpetuate supremacy and keep an in group and out group amongst all it's colonies and populations, something that they found necessary in order to be able to extract colonial goods and maintain property, they had to build a hierarchy. That hierarchy was partially based on race. The US was a colonial state and actively engaged in the genocide of the native americans, both before and after, so much so that hitler took notice and said, gimme a slice of that. This happened with basically every colony that England took, even their first ones, like ireland, where now a very slim population actually speaks irish. I don't really feel bad in calling that kind of behavior to be like, prototypically fascist.
Maybe if you were to define fascism as integrally privatizing other public goods, like mussolini and hitler did, then that might swing things a little bit, but america and england both went and did that later on and historically have had no problem with doing that. There's really not a good definition of fascism that I've ever heard that doesn't apply to america or england, other than "oh, well, those countries were super authoritarian", and then somehow they don't recognize, say, that america has 1% of the world's prison population and a massive police state, and the level at which we propagate authoritarian governments globally in order to further our own interests. The semantic argument that people try to hash out over definitions of fascism, it's not the real crux of the issue there, it's just a kind of obfuscation of the real talking point, which is that people aren't realizing the massive amount of bullshit the imperial core has been engaging in on a near constant basis for like the past couple hundred years, and precisely how bad it really is.
Why are we creating our own definitions for words? Fascism is a term used to describe a very specific form of governance characterized by elements not included in your description. Chief among them is ruling by a dictatorship and exclusive single party.
The things you described are indeed bad things, some which have been adopted and implemented by fascist regimes as well. But just because two people engage occasionally in the same practices it doesn't make them twinsies by definition. Sometimes me and my buddy wear the same shirt, but he's a communist and I'm a liberal. Just because we wear the same shirt sometimes it doesn't suddenly make him liberal or me communist.
Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement,[1][2][3] characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race
There is a strange fetishization of this word online and it has since lost any meaning it used to originally have because now every bad thing has become a fash. It's meaningless.
imperliasim and colonialism =/= fascism...