AnarchoNinaWrites
Newsflash: Americans not really understanding what fascism is, IS part of why Americans have spent the past 70+ years increasingly embracing fascism. The vast majority of people in this society think "fascism is when funny little moustache, Hugo Boss uniforms, and The Holocaust."
And that idea has PURPOSELY been cultivated in them by a hyper-reactionary ruling class order that ABSORBED fascism after WWII to fight the Cold War and installed fascism in puppet states to maintain global power.
AnarchoNinaWrites
You will forgive me then, if I think that "surrendering to McCarthyism" and "pretending liars who say fascism has no meaning are right" seems pretty counter-productive to me when opposing fascism.
Amazingly enough, there have been perhaps HUNDREDS of books written that cover the topic of what fascism is; I suggest you read one - literally any one of them. Because clearly your reading habits ended after they assigned you 1984 in middle school.
AnarchoNinaWrites
The same goes for genocide. The term has a strict definition; that definition is available for free, all over the internet. I literally just watched a UN official dress down David Lammy for pretending genocide is only when "you kill them all" despite being a human rights lawyer.
There is a FIGHT going on, in our society, about what these words MEAN, and the folks arguing what that Subgenius branded dipshit are arguing, are INVARIABLY on the side of "don't use those words so we can keep killing"
AnarchoNinaWrites
So no, I will be not be surrendering that fight. And yes, I will continue to use the words "genocide" and fascism."
Furthermore, I will remind you that I never once asked you or anyone else to be my editor, and you have no power over me, or what I type. I'm not interested in being told what to do. The whole "anarchist" thing probably shoulda warned you about that.
AnarchoNinaWrites
Anyway; enough with that absolute bellend. I mostly typed this out because this is ACTUALLY important, and I'm concerned if even one person thinks that dipshit had a point because "fascism and genocide don't MEAN anything" is actually a pivotal plank in the arguments and justifications of fascists and people doing genocide right now.
I don't think that muppet is either pro-genocide or a fascist; but his arguments sure do carry water for those people and what they're trying to accomplish.
AnarchoNinaWrites
All of this is of course besides the point that Fanon and Césaire were more or less right when they said, in effect, that fascism is just colonialism applied against people in the imperial core. You literally can't separate either fascism, or genocide for that matter, from the historical application of colonialism because the former creates space for the latter.
Even Bob Paxton recognizes the Slave Power South as a fascist state, for example. Heaven forbid folks ever do any reading tho...
AnarchoNinaWrites
Here, this might not be the first book I'd recommend, but it's widely available to read for free and while I think the general lack of a detailed class analysis hurts Paxton's work, he is still the guy who was warning in the 90's that fascism existed, and could quite easily be a threat in the Pig Empire West going forward.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://files.libcom.org/files/Robert%20O.%20Paxton-The%20Anatomy%20of%20Fascism%20%20-Knopf%20%282004%29.pdf
PS - it took him a while to come around, but eventually Paxton did say Trump was a fascist.
AnarchoNinaWrites
Finally (I know, I said I was done already; sue me) I think what a lot of pedants forget when discussion fascism is basically that it's not 1930 anymore. Nazism and The Holocaust DID happen. Society has a memory about how embracing fascism turns out, so unlike say Nazis and Italian fascism, you can't just pop out and say "hi, we're the fascists" with a smile on your face anymore. Fascists KNOW describing themselves as FASCIST will impede their path to power, so they've adapted their sales pitch.
AnarchoNinaWrites
Back when I was getting in trouble for teaching my students about fascism in a higher learning institute, the phrase I used to use is that fascism seeking power, behaves a lot like water or electricity. It is, broadly speaking, seeking the fastest route to influence and power. They will say anything, they will pretend to be anything, to normalize their ideology and seek that power. So the beast today in 2024, behaves at least rhetorically, different than the literal Nazi Party, to obtain POWER.
AnarchoNinaWrites
Y'all don't get it, these people don't have anything else. You think I'm joking when I say that these guys, nazis, spend literally all day hanging out with other nazis workshopping and game-theorying out how they can get people to embrace fascism, and create the space for a fascist order. But that's not a joke or an exaggeration. Fascists don't really have much else going on; you're busy living your life, they're working out how to ruin it at all hours of the day.
AnarchoNinaWrites
And NEWSFLASH: fascists are NOT the most HONEST of people.
They are not going to just come out and say "yeah we're the Nazis, we love Hitler, we're going to fucking murder you" until they have enough power to tell you to get on the truck and ensure your compliance by force.
Fascism adapts its arguments and rhetoric, constantly. And they will and do, lie to you, to obtain power. What never changes is their PURPOSE.
AnarchoNinaWrites
So that's why it's important to say "this too, is fascism." They wouldn't be working so hard to keep you from REALIZING that, if allowing you to do so wouldn't hurt their ability to seize power and eliminate their enemies.
AnarchoNinaWrites
Hell, even in a wholly established order, they will lie, they will create new official histories. What's "the truth" in a fascist society can change from one day to the next depending on the needs of the ruling fascist order. Hannah Arendt wrote multiple chapters about the way officially recognized truth is manipulated for power in a fascist regime and how folks devoted to that order simply changed stream because there is no "truth" under fascism; only power. Truth is what power can make it.
The Sleight Doctor 🃏
@AnarchoNinaWrites Yeah, listen to Nina folks. We didn't defeat the Nazis after WWII, we enthusiastically recruited all their top scientists, engineers and technicians to prevent their expertise falling into the hands of the Soviet Union. We even enlisted those who had paramilitary training into NATO's extralegal stay-behind networks, which engaged in espionage, subversion, sabotage, assasinations and worse throughout Western Europe during the Cold War.
And that was *before* shit got dark...
Eli Wallach's favorite Bass
@AnarchoNinaWrites like what happened with Matt Walsh right after the election and he admitted, "Yeah we can all say that project 2025 is the agenda now, right?"
Eli Wallach's favorite Bass
@considermycat @AnarchoNinaWrites
Ironically, their first uniforms (well maybe not their first uniforms but the uniforms that most people interacted with earliest,) were the brown shirts.... Leftover army surplus that gave them a uniform to wear so that they could harass people for not giving the heil Hitler salute to them in the street
AnarchoNinaWrites
@voxofgod @considermycat Specifically leftover uniforms from the German colonial forces.
Highly recommend a book called "The Kaiser's Holocaust" for some more insight into why that's important.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8250985-the-kaiser-s-holocaust
Jae
@AnarchoNinaWrites Yeah I read some centrist newspaper writer yesterday saying “fascism was 90 years ago, we live in a very different world” – as if the Trumpists weren’t being *completely open* about their fascistic intent. But like you say: they don’t generally wear uniforms (yet), so it can’t be fascism…
Eli Wallach's favorite Bass
@AnarchoNinaWrites Just took a quick gander and it's a quick example of literally what you were talking about regarding fascism being colonialism applied at home: Colonialism went home in the form of those uniforms
GhostOnTheHalfShell
And I’ll add the observation that the current fascist movement has been funded and developed and institutionalized over a half century in the form of the Koch network, its allies and adjacents.
They have the advantage over the Nazis of generational institution and indoctrination.
AnarchoNinaWrites
@GhostOnTheHalfShell In total fairness, the prior existence of Prussian Military Cult, German colonialism, and the widespread societal embrace of race "science" in mainstream German society also gave the Nazis a similar advantage. But point taken.
Edwardo Lobo
And this fact that they don't care about truth they only care about power is a useful way to recognize them. It's not whily diagnostic on its own but it's a good tell to look for other things.
And a good reason not to trust whoever is doing that.
AnarchoNinaWrites
@AGreenCup Okay so it kinda depends on what you're looking for.
The VERY first place I'd start is a free essay you can find online for free that will take you a very short time to read - Ur Fascism, by Umberto Eco
Then, "How Fascism Works" by Jason Stanley because it's contemporary; but Stanley's advice for FIGHTING fascism is the most lib she possible.
So for that, I'd suggest "Fascism: What it is And How to Fight It" by Leon Trotsky; also available free online.
L
@AnarchoNinaWrites What would be the first book you’d recomend? I’ve taken a look at the reading list on fascism on your blog, which ones do you think are the most impactful or were most formative for you? Is it Cesaire? Fannon? Hedges? Trying to cram as much as I can but we don’t really have ten years anymore :((
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