[Marxism] Smoke 'em if you got 'em (and if you don't, that's okay too)

["Jeff Rubard" <jeffrubard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2003 11:31:30 -0800
> From: Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Marxism] Re: Return Of The Renters
> To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID: <3FEDDE12.E6EC0953@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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>
> Yeah, I can see the operational definition of the USA at this point in
> history as not characteristically fascist.  But I agree with Ward
> Churchill about the experience of Native Americans that the US
> Government has operated in a fascistic fashion toward Indians.  I also
> remember, quite vividly, the hyper-belligerent attitude and
> confrontational tactics of the swarm of Republican storm troopers in
> mufti who assaulted the election offices in Florida during the final
> moments of the last Presidential contest.  I can still see their
> hysterical, raging, white, male, thuggish faces, their violent,
> intimidating gestures, and their civilian, middle-class style of dress
> (in lieu of brown shirts or bandoliers).  Fascism is always there for
> the taking, if capital requires it.  Ultimately, though, in the
> capitalist mode fascism remains a subordinate feature, overt or covert,
> dormant or active, as it may be.
>
No, I really have something functional/operational in mind, and I for one
like some hysterical, raging white males -- the ones that aren't thugs,
and frankly that's a pretty piece of anti-labor hysteria *on the hoof*.
But if we have to tarry with the professional milieu, consider Al Gore:
what can be said about the "fighting Al Gore" (the environmentalism being
"thoughtful", like mine) is that he was absolutely non-fascist: he
wouldn't even really know how, because he's never really had to "get with"
corporate America.  What I am talking about is the socio-cultural side of
the "downsourcing' being spoken of, which is considerable: the system
imperatives of private corporations extending well beyond the boundaries
of voluntary  exchange.

It's a growing reality, and it's one traditional liberal political
philosophy is extremely ill-equipped to deal with: however, there are some
writers out of the past who have worthwhile takes which are less than
"militant".  Today I was reading a piece by Wilhelm Reich ("Everyone Is
'Enraptured') about "red fascism", by which he meant Stalinism.  And
although this excludes the question of the fascist (rhetorical) appeal to
workers, which Mr. Walters raised here some time ago, what it also
excludes is the (all too frequent) thought that Stalinists simply weren't
"cagey" enough about their" mixed bizness".  That is to say, the thought
that the Stalinist USSR was something like a degenerate version of Chile
*con gusto*, but that here we know how not to betray real *revolutions*.

Reich essentially puts his foot down and says that if one can't dance for
the time being he doesn't want anything to do with you, revolution or no
(*cover* or no); and I think this is essentially an indication that
"Freudian Marxism" should be a road back to economism(s), rather than an
tuning fork for objectionable members of the underclass.  And I for one am
willing to suggest that many of the phenomena of everyday life, even those
not traditionally associated with big business and right-wing politics,
are caught in new "interfaces" between economics and politics which
squeeze people all kinds of ways they shouldn't be -- such that
traditional dispensations of liberality in American society are being
whittled down to totally unacceptable levels all the time.

Jeff Rubard


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