Fascism Anyone?

Crooks and Liars' post about The Colbert Report: Naomi Wolf on Fascism in America had a reference to Laurence W. Britt's article about Fascism Anyone?. Mr. Britt's analysis is:

Beyond the visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi. This, of course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

For the purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

Analysis of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity.

Emphasis Mine

What follows is a list of characteristics without any explanation of why these characteristics define Fascism. This is really a case of check-list political analysis (If it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck, then it must be a duck).

The main problem with this sort of analysis is that you had no idea of how to fight Fascism. Which points are most important? What if thirteen out of fourteen points are achieved, does stopping one (1) point alone defeat Fascism?

At least in this respect, Dr. Fernandes' analysis is deeper. See Fascism: are we there yet? Although Dr. Fernandes listed caharacteristics, he attempted to form some narrative around them, and came close to establishing the class basis of Fascism.

And how does Mr. Britt conclude his analysis?

Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not.

So he has no fucking idea on what to do! This is more importatnt than playing a game of Spot the Fascist

Trotsky's analysis in "Fascism: What it is and how to fight it" describes the class nature and trajectory of Fascism. With this understanding, one can predict the growth of Fascism and determine how to fight it.

Read more!