Fascism Defined By The 1945 US War Department

[Mark_K]

Capitalism, if left unchecked, will inevitably become fascism.

The force which leads people to demand effective government is usually poverty. That can strike in communism too.

 

[Clove Hitch]

Hey remember that time when you told us who was essential or not


Who's the fascists again?

Trump did that, moron.

 

[Steam Flyer]

Hey remember that time when you told us who was essential or not, shut down business arbitrarily while you gave free hand outs to people who didn't have to work for it, where you deprived property owners the right to remove non paying people from their land and houses and stores and you shut down their churches and synagogues and forbid them from practicing their religious rites and forced people to take untested injections lest they lose their livelihood and forced children into dark bedrooms instead of classrooms and made everyone where cloth diapers on their faces and stand some arbitrary number of feet away from each other and you shut down all forms of entertainment including movies, theaters and places of public gatherings like pubs and restaurants and forbid elderly patients in nursing homes and hospitals from seeing their loved ones and you shut down doctors and dentists who were other wise performing preventive medicine causing a huge spike in non covid deaths and you closed the gyms and the parks and the beaches and then oceans keeping people from rightfully enjoying the air they were born entitled to breath and then when we complained you said we were anti science and you censored our Facebook posts and twitter tweets and YouTube videos and you ostracized and chastised in our workplaces....


Who's the fascists again?

The first step in pulling a person into a fascist movement is to build up their sense of grievance, to tell them how they've been wronged and give them angry slogans to chant in unison.

 

[MagentaLine]

The first step in pulling a person into a fascist movement is to build up their sense of grievance, to tell them how they've been wronged and give them angry slogans to chant in unison.

Pretty sure that would be the first step in any movement including American democracy but nice try.

 

[Virgulino Ferreira]

People tend to use "FASCIST!!" as a generic insult.

Your 11 points perfectly describe today's Venezuela. And Russia. And China. And Stalinist Russia. And possibly ancient Egypt, the shogunate, and many others.

But historically the declared arch-enemy of fascism was Marxism (i.e., bolshevism, communism, socialism, etc), as stated by both sides. Communist fascism, or fascist communism, is a contradiction in terms.

Any definition of fascism must not describe Stalinist Russia too.

The definition of fascism is very contentious in academia. The only rigorous definition of fascism that I know of is the historical one. It was a movement in Italy, with black shirts and Mussolini. It ended there. Fascism and fascists are dead.

Was there something more unique about fascism? I think Umberto Eco's definition is the more functional one. But it's not what most people expect. And it is uncomfortably similar to whatever your political preference is, wherever in the world you are.

Consider what the little man himself, Mussolini, said about the nature of fascism:

Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. ... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the 19th century were the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State. The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State – a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values – interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.

This is quite the opposite of those we usually call fascists lately.

The Berlin Wall had a different name in the Soviet bloc. It was called the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart. We Westerners were the horrible fascists.

It was at that time and in that context, the cold war, that the insult and the rhetorical figure "fascist" emerged, adopted by our leftists.

I think that the use of the term "fascist" in the current discourse is not only wrong, it not only misrepresents and diminishes what fascism was, but also distracts and poisons the debate.

Or we end up like here, with half the country Bolsonarist, screaming that the Lulists are horrible communists (he and they are not); while the other half, the Lulists, scream that the Bolsonarists are horrible fascists (he and they are not). And the moderate voices are silenced by all this shouting, and the country becomes fascist or communist by a difference of 1% of the votes on election day.

 

[Steam Flyer]

Your 11 points perfectly describe today's Venezuela. And Russia. And China. And Stalinist Russia. And possibly ancient Egypt, the shogunate, and many others.

But historically the declared arch-enemy of fascism was Marxism (i.e., bolshevism, communism, socialism, etc), as stated by both sides. Communist fascism, or fascist communism, is a contradiction in terms.

Any definition of fascism must not describe Stalinist Russia too.

The definition of fascism is very contentious in academia. The only rigorous definition of fascism that I know of is the historical one. It was a movement in Italy, with black shirts and Mussolini. It ended there. Fascism and fascists are dead.

Was there something more unique about fascism? I think Umberto Eco's definition is the more functional one. But it's not what most people expect. And it is uncomfortably similar to whatever your political preference is, wherever in the world you are.

Consider what the little man himself, Mussolini, said about the nature of fascism:

Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. ... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the 19th century were the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State. The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State – a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values – interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.

This is quite the opposite of those we usually call fascists lately.

The Berlin Wall had a different name in the Soviet bloc. It was called the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart. We Westerners were the horrible fascists.

It was at that time and in that context, the cold war, that the insult and the rhetorical figure "fascist" emerged, adopted by our leftists.

I think that the use of the term "fascist" in the current discourse is not only wrong, it not only misrepresents and diminishes what fascism was, but also distracts and poisons the debate.

Or we end up like here, with half the country Bolsonarist, screaming that the Lulists are horrible communists (he and they are not); while the other half, the Lulists, scream that the Bolsonarists are horrible fascists (he and they are not). And the moderate voices are silenced by all this shouting, and the country becomes fascist or communist by a difference of 1% of the votes on election day.

I am familiar with both Eco's definition and Gentile's, cited in wikipedia and pretty commonly studied in civics and political science. The problem I have with both is that they do not include any way of assessing whether a specific gov't policy is trending toward fascism or not.

As for applying it to lots of different governments, yeah that's the point. You can certainly a "capitalism" to a huge range of economies. But I disagree that all points apply to such a huge number of governments.

For example, the Tokugawa Shogunate had very definite procedures for turning over government authority. It took place after the Shogun died, but the point was to avoid the same kind of civil war that resulted in the Shogunate. Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin did not, they did not give a flip what happened to the country after they died and dared not encourage underlings to think about replacing them.

Militarization of civil organizations... today's Russia, post Ukraine war, I dunno if they are glorifying the military more and more. But before, they did not. People wanted to wear jeans and colorful fashions.

We could similarly nit-pick but I think you'd find on examination that many of the governments you're condemning as fascist were really only 1/2 or perhaps 2/3 fascist. But I'm not claiming my definition is perfect, in fact I'd like to see it improved.

Perhaps virulently opposing socialism or communism should be part of the definition of fascism. I left it out because it seemed too subject to partisan snipery.

 

[Mark_K]

The word stems from the Roman fasces, which symbolized the concept of "strength through unity", and it is a bit disturbing but enlightening to see so many governments who we do not call fascist adopt it in some way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces#:~:text=The fasces, as a bundle,military power, known as imperium.

As the concept is key to all governing, it is an awkward epithet. I prefer to call those who insist on absolute conformity as the "anal retentive bundle of fucksticks" myself.

 

[Fah Kiew Tu]

The first step in pulling a person into a fascist movement is to build up their sense of grievance, to tell them how they've been wronged and give them angry slogans to chant in unison.

So, labour unions are fascist movements then?

Because they tick those boxes for sure.

Methinks you need to add a few more qualifiers to that list.

FKT

 

[3to1]

Pretty sure that would be the first step in any movement including American democracy but nice try.

you don't understand, moron.

 

[Olsonist]

The word Fascismo really only enters the Italian language in about 1920 with the National Fascist Party which followed the Italian Fighting Leagues, both creations of Mussolini. Fascism echoes the Latin word fasces but the concept it defines was modern. Yeah, it makes a Make Italy Great Again appeal to a mythical past but fascism was always about myth and creating a myth.

 

[3to1]

So, labour unions are fascist movements then?

Because they tick those boxes for sure.

Methinks you need to add a few more qualifiers to that list.

FKT

if you can't make the distinction between advocacy and fascism, well...

 

[Fah Kiew Tu]

if you can't make the distinction between advocacy and fascism, well...

Hey, I'm just using the definition provided. You've just implicitly acknowledged that I'm correct.

And regardless, advocacy ceases when physical violence, threats of violence and/or actual obstruction start. And it's back to labour union behaviour...

FWIW I think that labels like 'fascist' and 'communist' or more appropriately Stalinist/Maoist claim to be different but are functionally indistinguishable. They all use force or threats of force by a small self-selected group to make the mass do as they're told. I object to the behaviours.

And before you start, I've said time and again that I consider your current society to be somewhere between oligarchical predatory capitalism and feudal servitude to dynastic masters with STRONG religious intolerance overtones. Frankly it sucks and I'm happy to not live under it.

FKT

 

[3to1]

Hey, I'm just using the definition provided. You've just implicitly acknowledged that I'm correct.

And regardless, advocacy ceases when physical violence, threats of violence and/or actual obstruction start. And it's back to labour union behaviour...

FWIW I think that labels like 'fascist' and 'communist' or more appropriately Stalinist/Maoist claim to be different but are functionally indistinguishable. They all use force or threats of force by a small self-selected group to make the mass do as they're told. I object to the behaviours.

And before you start, I've said time and again that I consider your current society to be somewhere between oligarchical predatory capitalism and feudal servitude to dynastic masters with STRONG religious intolerance overtones. Frankly it sucks and I'm happy to not live under it.

FKT

like I said.

 

[Nice!]

The first step in pulling a person into a fascist movement is to build up their sense of grievance, to tell them how they've been wronged and give them angry slogans to chant in unison.

Just to clarify, it's to *build* on their existing grievance. Generally, it starts with chronic financial stress (caused by underregulated capitalism), and then those who would seize control tend to feed that anxiety by providing a scapegoat. This gives a significant majority of the population an opportunity to kick down, blaming a minority for their problems. It causes a distraction, starting a grievance debate on whether that minority is to blame, while those in power continue to seize more power. The current round of so-called culture wars are a perfect example of this kind of distraction.

 

[Virgulino Ferreira]

The problem I have with both is that they do not include any way of assessing whether a specific gov't policy is trending toward fascism or not.

It is possible that I am seeing things from my southern perspective, but I would say that this is not useful. First, why worry only about turning fascist, and not stalinist? Or maoist? The latter has a particularly nasty legacy here in Latin America - a murderous maoist regime was a tangible possibility here in Peru, and it was born in leftist universities (Shining Path). To me, all of these are the same: an abominable evil, a path that should never be taken.

But above all, I think we need to look at and evaluate the fundamentals: totalitarianism, authoritarianism, racism, eugenic ideas, anti-intellectualism, anti-democratic, etc. I don't believe that the mechanics of right-wing authoritarianism are any different than left-wing authoritarianism. I think we are much better equipped to monitor and measure these facets individually. We should universally fear and reject any of these facets as if they were the complete package of fascism or maoism. Totalitarianism should be the dirty word, the ultimate evil. No matter the flavor.

We could similarly nit-pick but I think you'd find on examination that many of the governments you're condemning as fascist were really only 1/2 or perhaps 2/3 fascist.

Yes, degrees of fascism and trending towards total fascism or not, if I got the idea.

Every country, party or person has some fascist characteristics. And Nazi characteristics. And communist features, etc. Some even good, like hygiene. And this obvious fact is weaponized in discourse.

Perhaps virulently opposing socialism or communism should be part of the definition of fascism. I left it out because it seemed too subject to partisan snipery.

I agree. And this is perhaps my main contention, obviously influenced by my experience.

Our right-wing military coup in 1964 was ostensibly to save Brazil from becoming a communist country. Since redemocratization, it is taught thoroughly and exhaustively in school that this is nonsense, ludicrous, that there has never been a remote chance of a communist regime, and that the "red scare" is a common tactic used all over the world by the right wing.

In other words, the "red scare," or accusing someone of being a communist, is basically a joke these days - obvious bullshit. (Bolsonarists have resurrected the "communist" insult, but that's another subject.)

When Bolsonaro was elected, with his pedestrian homophobia, old school sexism and pathetic, retrograde ideas of an incompetent army captain during the dictatorship; the left had multiple orgasms and named him our dear Führer, the epitome of modern fascism. Fascist became the word of the day, every day. The ultimate evil. And so Lula unified the entire center and left of the country, as the only candidate capable of winning (a lie). Anything is better than Bolsonaro, even Lula, right? It was a "fascist scare".

Bolsonaro tried very hard to sell (privatize) giant state-owned companies, even our oil company, to the highest bidder, even to foreign companies. He tried very hard to bring foreign companies to explore Brazil, even to explore mining in the Amazon. The left accused him all the time of being a sellout to foreigners. He was never a xenophobe, never made immigration a problem - quite the contrary, he did a remarkable and exemplary job in welcoming and settling hundreds of thousands of refugees. All of these actions are antithetical to the essence of fascism. Bolsonaro objectively was not a fascist.

However, under Lula, we are seeing the institutionalization of the infamous "newspeak" of the Workers' Party, the same party that effectively has a private red army.

Just yesterday Lula was hosting Maduro from Venezuela here. Lula told the whole world: Venezuela is a democracy. To call it a brutal dictatorship, with terrible human rights violations, is a "narrative construction" invented by the Americans, Lula said. "Sanctions are worse than war".

By most definitions of fascism, Lula's governments objectively have more fascist characteristics than Bolsonaro's. Like the enormous strengthening of the army and the military industrial complex. But I prefer Lula to Bolsonaro. Does that make me more fascist than the other way around? I know I fear a coup from Lula much less than from Bolsonaro.

Venezuela is never called fascist here. Because everybody here knows that fascism is a right-wing thing - we learned that in school. By definition, left-wing fascism doesn't exist. If you say that, they will laugh at you.

And nothing is as close to evil as fascism. Venezuela is not fascist. Iran is not fascist. China is not fascist. So they don't come even remotely close to the evils of fascist Italy, and it's not even valid to make a comparison.

Evil was the "Nazi-fascist and genocidal Bolsonaro government". This is how Lula's Workers Party refers to him, as do millions of voters, and notably the impeached president Dilma - who was not impeached, but deposed in a coup, according to the now official newspeak.



Gee... I definitely have a fascist penchant for making long megalomaniac speeches.... Just give me a thumbs up or down, if you will, and let's go have a beer at the Random PicThread bar.

 

[Olsonist]

So, labour unions are fascist movements then?

Because they tick those boxes for sure.

Methinks you need to add a few more qualifiers to that list.

FKT

Labor unions are about grievance? No, that's stupid.
Labor unions are about money and rights.

The National Labor Relation Board delineate union rights as:

You have the right to form, join or assist a union. You have the right to organize a union to negotiate with your employer over your terms and conditions of employment.​

 

[MagentaLine]

you don't understand, moron.

The word is moran, moran. Get a brian.

 

[Steam Flyer]

So, labour unions are fascist movements then?

Because they tick those boxes for sure.

Methinks you need to add a few more qualifiers to that list.

FKT

One or two, some of them.
I certainly never encountered any unions that wanted controlled gov't contracts with low wages, nor any that wanted it's members to wear uniforms and march in formation, beyond rookie apprentices anyway (and only a few, then). Maybe unions down under are different.

Any union that ticked 3 or more of those boxes, I wouldn't hesitate to called trending toward fascism.

 

[Steam Flyer]

It is possible that I am seeing things from my southern perspective, but I would say that this is not useful. First, why worry only about turning fascist, and not stalinist? Or maoist? The latter has a particularly nasty legacy here in Latin America - a murderous maoist regime was a tangible possibility here in Peru, and it was born in leftist universities (Shining Path). To me, all of these are the same: an abominable evil, a path that should never be taken.

But above all, I think we need to look at and evaluate the fundamentals: totalitarianism, authoritarianism, racism, eugenic ideas, anti-intellectualism, anti-democratic, etc. I don't believe that the mechanics of right-wing authoritarianism are any different than left-wing authoritarianism. I think we are much better equipped to monitor and measure these facets individually. We should universally fear and reject any of these facets as if they were the complete package of fascism or maoism. Totalitarianism should be the dirty word, the ultimate evil. No matter the flavor.



Yes, degrees of fascism and trending towards total fascism or not, if I got the idea.

Every country, party or person has some fascist characteristics. And Nazi characteristics. And communist features, etc. Some even good, like hygiene. And this obvious fact is weaponized in discourse.



I agree. And this is perhaps my main contention, obviously influenced by my experience.

Our right-wing military coup in 1964 was ostensibly to save Brazil from becoming a communist country. Since redemocratization, it is taught thoroughly and exhaustively in school that this is nonsense, ludicrous, that there has never been a remote chance of a communist regime, and that the "red scare" is a common tactic used all over the world by the right wing.

In other words, the "red scare," or accusing someone of being a communist, is basically a joke these days - obvious bullshit. (Bolsonarists have resurrected the "communist" insult, but that's another subject.)

When Bolsonaro was elected, with his pedestrian homophobia, old school sexism and pathetic, retrograde ideas of an incompetent army captain during the dictatorship; the left had multiple orgasms and named him our dear Führer, the epitome of modern fascism. Fascist became the word of the day, every day. The ultimate evil. And so Lula unified the entire center and left of the country, as the only candidate capable of winning (a lie). Anything is better than Bolsonaro, even Lula, right? It was a "fascist scare".

Bolsonaro tried very hard to sell (privatize) giant state-owned companies, even our oil company, to the highest bidder, even to foreign companies. He tried very hard to bring foreign companies to explore Brazil, even to explore mining in the Amazon. The left accused him all the time of being a sellout to foreigners. He was never a xenophobe, never made immigration a problem - quite the contrary, he did a remarkable and exemplary job in welcoming and settling hundreds of thousands of refugees. All of these actions are antithetical to the essence of fascism. Bolsonaro objectively was not a fascist.

However, under Lula, we are seeing the institutionalization of the infamous "newspeak" of the Workers' Party, the same party that effectively has a private red army.

Just yesterday Lula was hosting Maduro from Venezuela here. Lula told the whole world: Venezuela is a democracy. To call it a brutal dictatorship, with terrible human rights violations, is a "narrative construction" invented by the Americans, Lula said. "Sanctions are worse than war".

By most definitions of fascism, Lula's governments objectively have more fascist characteristics than Bolsonaro's. Like the enormous strengthening of the army and the military industrial complex. But I prefer Lula to Bolsonaro. Does that make me more fascist than the other way around? I know I fear a coup from Lula much less than from Bolsonaro.

Venezuela is never called fascist here. Because everybody here knows that fascism is a right-wing thing - we learned that in school. By definition, left-wing fascism doesn't exist. If you say that, they will laugh at you.

And nothing is as close to evil as fascism. Venezuela is not fascist. Iran is not fascist. China is not fascist. So they don't come even remotely close to the evils of fascist Italy, and it's not even valid to make a comparison.

Evil was the "Nazi-fascist and genocidal Bolsonaro government". This is how Lula's Workers Party refers to him, as do millions of voters, and notably the impeached president Dilma - who was not impeached, but deposed in a coup, according to the now official newspeak.



Gee... I definitely have a fascist penchant for making long megalomaniac speeches.... Just give me a thumbs up or down, if you will, and let's go have a beer at the Random PicThread bar.

Excellent and specific, thank you.
What I would like to do is produce an engineer's definition of fascism, not a politician's or a publicist's. I like to read Umberto Eco but it is literature not science!

 

[Jules]

Hey remember that time when you told us who was essential or not, shut down business arbitrarily while you gave free hand outs to people who didn't have to work for it, where you deprived property owners the right to remove non paying people from their land and houses and stores and you shut down their churches and synagogues and forbid them from practicing their religious rites and forced people to take untested injections lest they lose their livelihood and forced children into dark bedrooms instead of classrooms and made everyone where cloth diapers on their faces and stand some arbitrary number of feet away from each other and you shut down all forms of entertainment including movies, theaters and places of public gatherings like pubs and restaurants and forbid elderly patients in nursing homes and hospitals from seeing their loved ones and you shut down doctors and dentists who were other wise performing preventive medicine causing a huge spike in non covid deaths and you closed the gyms and the parks and the beaches and then oceans keeping people from rightfully enjoying the air they were born entitled to breath and then when we complained you said we were anti science and you censored our Facebook posts and twitter tweets and YouTube videos and you ostracized and chastised in our workplaces....


Who's the fascists again?

Fascism is government by the few and for the few.

READ:

The majority of PPP loans went to business owners and high-earning households, a new study shows

Of the $510 billion in PPP loans extended in 2020, as little as one quarter went directly to workers, per economists from MIT and the Fed Reserve.

www.businessinsider.com

The billionaires and country clubs that received small business loans from the government

Billionaires, country clubs, private jet companies and Kanye West all received millions in government funding under the Paycheck Protection Program, according to filings.

www.cnbc.com

1 Percent of P.P.P. Borrowers Got Over One-Quarter of the Loan Money (Published 2020)

Newly released data gives the most detailed accounting yet of the pandemic aid provided to 5.2 million businesses that sought forgivable loans.

www.nytimes.com