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Author Topic: Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!  (Read 3987 times)

Ian Absentia

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #15 on: July 22, 2007, 02:14:06 AM »
Quote from: Werekoala
You're still missing the main point of my question and the discussion, I think. Communism belongs on the ash-heap of history along with Facism, and glorifying it should be no more acceptable than glorifying Facism.
That's exactly the point I've been making, though.  Revolutionary communism (we're not discussing communism as an economic philosophy) isn't being glorified, it's being trivialised.  Okay, with the exception of the movies, but in those cases it's being capitalised upon.  See the irony in that?

Fascism, on the other hand, just doesn't sell as well.  It gets taken much more seriously because it's still perceived as an imminent threat to society.*  People who dress up in neatly pressed brown shirts and jackboots generally look like they mean business, and so are confronted more vigorously.  There's very little irony in casually looking like a goose-stepper.

!i!

(*As I mentioned in an earlier post, I know a few Ukranians and Chinese who do bear Revolutionary Communism in recent memory, and so still perceive it as an imminent threat to society, or at least fail to see the humor in co-opting its regalia and imagery into popular culture.  To them, the commie-kitsch ain't cool.)

Ian Absentia

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #16 on: July 22, 2007, 02:27:43 AM »
Quote from: Koltar
They're both BAD - and many of us will be happier when the iconagraphy of both of those things is no longer treated as a fashion statement by some.
G'ah!  D'uh!  Could this statement have been more equivocative?

!i!

jeff37923

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #17 on: July 22, 2007, 03:21:38 AM »
Quote from: Ian Absentia
G'ah!  D'uh!  Could this statement have been more equivocative?

!i!


Once again, messin' with sasquatch.

:D ;)
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Sosthenes

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #18 on: July 22, 2007, 09:05:34 AM »
Well, what symbology or theory does pure fascism have? It's rather easy to separate Communism from the worst excesses of Stalinism, but fascism itself is rather ill-defined. No big manifestos, no well-known symbol.

When you see a t-shirt with the "fasces" on it, it's more likely there's a history major in it than a totalitarian...
 

droog

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #19 on: July 22, 2007, 09:43:23 AM »
One possible answer to your conundrum is that fascism takes its manifestoes from the general culture. Many features of fascist thought are quite acceptable, particularly at this end of the 21st century. While communism, by definition, represents a break with the capitalist state, fascism is actually a development of it. Which is to say that fascism is all around you and therefore hard to see.

I refer you to this article:

Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
The past lives on in your front room
The poor still weak the rich still rule
History lives in the books at home
The books at home

Gang of Four
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Sosthenes

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #20 on: July 22, 2007, 10:28:14 AM »
Hmm? Are we reading the same article (not that it's a particularly good one)? The link between capitalism and fascism is pretty elusive. Totalitarian systems and capitalism don't mix much.
 

droog

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #21 on: July 22, 2007, 10:42:31 AM »
Fascism is a particular development of the capitalist state in crisis. Lenin thought that liberal democracy made 'the best possible shell' for capitalism. That is because, under ideal conditions, the freedom of the bourgeoisie to manage their affairs without interference from the state is paramount.

In conditions of economic crisis, capitalism starts to fail on its big promise: increasing wealth for all. Social unrest follows. At this point there is little to do but for the state to step in in some way. You can try for Keynesian pump-priming (AKA the New Deal), or you can repress the population while stimulating the economy by making war abroad (AKA fascism). Repressing the population with Cossacks is difficult these days, so an apparatus of propaganda must be deployed. The appeal to tradition, 'Blood and Soil', the fixation on external enemies--it's all there.
The past lives on in your front room
The poor still weak the rich still rule
History lives in the books at home
The books at home

Gang of Four
[/size]

Pseudoephedrine
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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #22 on: July 22, 2007, 11:03:43 AM »
The problem with the classic Leninist analysis of fascism is that it doesn't really explain modern China, which has gone from socialist to fascist without really having a liberal-capitalist phase in the middle.
Running
The Pernicious Light, or The Wreckers of Sword Island;
A Goblin's Progress, or Of Cannons and Canons;
An Oration on the Dignity of Tash, or On the Elves and Their Lies
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Sosthenes

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #23 on: July 22, 2007, 11:07:41 AM »
Quote from: droog
Fascism is a particular development of the capitalist state in crisis.

The same can be said for communism. I don't really buy those dialectic arguments...
 

droog

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #24 on: July 22, 2007, 11:10:37 AM »
I'm not sure I would agree that China is a fascist state, though it certainly exhibits some of the characteristics. But then, I'm not sure I'd agree it was ever communist either.
The past lives on in your front room
The poor still weak the rich still rule
History lives in the books at home
The books at home

Gang of Four
[/size]

droog

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #25 on: July 22, 2007, 11:14:46 AM »
Quote from: Sosthenes
The same can be said for communism. I don't really buy those dialectic arguments...

If you're not buying, what are you offering for sale?
The past lives on in your front room
The poor still weak the rich still rule
History lives in the books at home
The books at home

Gang of Four
[/size]

Sosthenes

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #26 on: July 22, 2007, 11:36:22 AM »
Patented Lederhosen with built-in diapers?

Maybe I'm a little behind on my definitions, but some of the effects of fascism just don't mix with a capitalist economy. In a totalitarian regime privately-owned capital is restricted, as is free market enterprise. Also, real capitalism is a pretty modern concept, and fascism doesn't play nicely with modernism.

I think one problem in a discussion like this is that we're usually comparing two different platforms. Communism is usually represented by the theory surrounding it (marxist, leninist), whereas the only thing fascism has is the particular implementation (Hitler, Mussolini, Franco). Pictures of apples versus rotten oranges.
 

Pseudoephedrine
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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #27 on: July 22, 2007, 06:55:35 PM »
Quote from: droog
I'm not sure I would agree that China is a fascist state, though it certainly exhibits some of the characteristics. But then, I'm not sure I'd agree it was ever communist either.


It definitely was. Anything else is revisionist "Not a True Scotsman" crap. Now, Maoism isn't a particularly intellectually robust form of scientific socialism, and it was one of the greatest fuck ups of mankind's history in practice, but there's a difference between doing something badly and not doing it at all.

On the other hand, it no longer is socialist, except in name. The "harmonious society" kick of the current leadership is unquestionably fascist. I think it's one of the most fascinating transitions of the 20th/21st centuries precisely because history is exceeding our theories once more.
Running
The Pernicious Light, or The Wreckers of Sword Island;
A Goblin's Progress, or Of Cannons and Canons;
An Oration on the Dignity of Tash, or On the Elves and Their Lies
All for S&W Complete
Playing: Dark Heresy, WFRP 2e

"Elves don't want you cutting down trees but they sell wood items, they don't care about the forests, they''re the fuckin' wood mafia." -Anonymous

Ian Absentia

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #28 on: July 22, 2007, 07:03:05 PM »
Quote from: Pseudoephedrine
The "harmonious society" kick of the current leadership is unquestionably fascist. I think it's one of the most fascinating transitions of the 20th/21st centuries precisely because history is exceeding our theories once more.
It might also be viewed as a return to the status quo that has prevailed in China for the last few millennia.

!i!

Kyle Aaron

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Spinoff: I'm becoming a Fascist!
« Reply #29 on: July 22, 2007, 09:57:34 PM »
Capitalism doesn't mix with fascism? Say what? Capitalism is inseparable with it. Go read Goebbels' diaries, there's a lovely bit where old Shicklegruber has come out of prison and makes a speech about how it's important to buddy up to the capitalists, the only true enemies are Jews and Bolsheviks. Since Goebbels had been saying that the commies had the same aims as the Nazis, and the capitalists were the ones who were destroying Germany, this really upset Goebbels, and he wondered if he should follow the Austrian anymore. Being a natural slug, Goebbels soon changed his mind, of course - but the point is, fascism in its original Italian and contemporary German form were absolutely inseparable from capitalism.

And then you get all those South American and European fascist dictatorships which were extremely buddy-buddy with capitalists of all kinds.

Sure, it wasn't free market capitalism, but then neither is what we have today.

Capitalism is the natural friend of fascism. "We've got money, you've got power, let's get together and make more of both."
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