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[The New Republic] Does American Fascism Exist?

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Os Trigonum, Mar 7, 2023.

  1. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Member

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    No. Fascism at its core is an ideology about maintaining the established hierarchies at all cost.

    Literally self labeled fascists in America like George Lincoln Rockwell thought things like collectivism were evil and that lazier faire economics is the path forward. Same with people like JP Morgan, Ford etc. Charles Lindbergh also waxed lyrical about free markets and the evil of communism and collectivism.

    Again, fascism has no rigid economic system. Whatever economic system maintains the hierarchy is all that matters. For fascists in America when the market supported their cultural standards were fine with market forces drowning out things like LGBTQ media. Today fascists think tech companies should be extremely regulated to make sure people can say the n wors without being suspended.
     
  2. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Member

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    Also the fact that this definition of yours has no distinction between the term communism and fascism, two bitter rivals shows how ineffective your definition is.

    With that definition of yours there is no distinction between two opposing ideologies. That's how you know it's farcical.

    And it's not like you can't say "fascism is collectivism and state control of economy just like communism but with nationalism and racism attached". Because that also describes Soviet communism. You think Soviets were "woke" caring about the Jews and LGBTQ community?
    ****, before the Holocaust Jews were getting slaughtered more in Russia than in Europe.
     
  3. StupidMoniker

    StupidMoniker I lost a bet

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    Self-labelled socialists in America talk about the free market and how we should follow the capitalist Scandanavian model. That doesn't mean that socialism doesn't have an economic system, or that it includes capitalism. People will adopt labels without being adherents of the ideology. Actual real life fascist dictator Benito Mussolini says fascism is state control. Charles Lindbergh spoke rather extensively about his love of freedom and democracy, though he was quite racist. Would you say freedom and democracy are part of fascism or that fascism has no stance on personal freedoms or selection of leaders/implementation of legislation? Henry Ford was an anti-war pacifist, including participating in the Peace Ship to try to end World War I. He also turned his production to help the allies defeat the fascist Axis powers in WWII once the US entered the war, despite opposition to entering the war in the first place (because he is a pacifist). Does fascism support pacifism and anti-war stances, not to mention opposition to fascism? Ford was certainly anti-Semitic, but he wasn't a fascist by any reasonable definition of fascism. Rockwell seemed mostly concerned with racism, less so with economics. He was a big fan of Malcolm X.

    Regardless of what any of these people had to say, I would posit that Mussolini is a far better authority on what fascism is than they are, being that he was the founder of the fascist party and was the dictator of a fascist country.
    There isn't much difference in the definition because they are quite similar. They have different stated enemies (the capitalists vs the opponents of the state) and stated end goals (a classless, stateless society vs an empire with state control of everything), but in practice were quite similar. Remember that Stalin and Hitler were allied before Hitler betrayed the USSR. Had the USSR reached a stateless, classless society, it would have looked much different than fascist Italy, but the Stalinist USSR was quite similar to the fascists. Communism is notably not in favor of state control of the economy, by the way. It is in favor of worker control of the economy. This should be obvious when you realize that communism calls for the abolition of the state.
     
    #43 StupidMoniker, Mar 8, 2023
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2023
  4. VooDooPope

    VooDooPope Love > Hate

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    They can't. They wouldn't want to go WOKE.
     
    FranchiseBlade and fchowd0311 like this.

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