[Marxism] re: Buying off the German people

["M. Junaid Alam" <mjunaidalam@xxxxxxxxxx>]

"

CB: Just as we discuss the lack of differences between Dems and Reps , it is
time to emphasis the lack of difference between the bourgeois
democratic-republican and fascist forms of the bourgoeis state."

Actually Charles, I think your analytical attempt to conflate American 
imperialism
with fascism contains exactly the same flaw as that of conflating Democrats with
Republicans. It is a kind of moral protest against the crisis we face but
misunderstands the nature of the crisis.

As was the main point in my theoretical piece on the DP, the main problem with 
the
DP from the standpoint of social change is *not* the "lack of difference" from
Republicans- it the precise *nature* of the *presence* of  difference.
That is to say, what matters is the specific ways and modes in which
Democratic differences with Republicans enable conservatism. So here,
it may feel good to morally condemn the Democrats as being as bad as
the Republicans, but that actually concedes too much ground to what
the DP is intrinsically.

Similarly, condemning Americanism as fascism is too kind a compliment
to Americanism. And this is precisely why liberals call Bush a fascist -
remember, these are people who have been mocking socialists for attacking
capitalism as evil. Now all of a sudden they are characterizing the leading
section of capitalism in power as the epitome of evil. This should give
pause for thought among serious thinkers. What is going on here? Hyperbolic
condemnation of Bush becomes an excuse for Democrats themselves being so
right wing.

Where all this matters is, again, understanding how Americanism functions.
Let's be honest with ourselves here. People being blacklisted from Hollywood
is not the same thing as being thrown into an oven. 2 people being executed for
spying for another country, one of whom the evidence now shows was partially
guilty on that charge, is hardly comparable to Dachau. It is ridiculous to say
we are talking about the same phenomenon at work.

Americanism doesn't need government-funded and trained Gestapo. The system
produces more voluntary agents of thuggery, like Daniel Pipes and O'Reilly
and Ann Coulter and their hordes of minions. The real people at the top
don't share the attitudes and prejudices of the kind of people who gravitate
to Fox News. They just spread the bile to get other people to support them.
This became eminently clear to me when I read through that Defense Science
Board document I posted to this list under the title "Imperialists Agree with
Our Analysis of Terror War."

I got an e-mail not 5 minutes ago from some guy who looked at the
Left Hook bio page, noticed my name and my co-editor Derek Seidman's,
and blasted me for being an "Arab nigger/nigger Arab" working with a "damned
Jew", etc. Is he working for some massive fascist bureaucracy? Highly unlikely.
The hate behind this kind of sentiment is in the noxious social air without
the need for a government-directed totalitarian respiratory system.

Nazism is too crude and uncomplicated a model to serve as any basis for 
comparison.
We have to confront and understand Americanism, instead of drawing up 
caricatures of
what is really going on based on what happened in Germany 55 years ago just
because it feels good.


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