This is what I consider the modern face of Fascism.
I know you're not supposed to use that word, because it really upsets Fascists.
But really, long passionately argued essays about how democratic governance is stopping us from returning to the good old days and we should let the powerful do whatever they want.
Using dubious emotional arguments like laundromats can't be historic buildings? Calling things dictatorships, run by the articulate? Warning that nations fail if everyone gets a seat at the table?
>This is what I consider the modern face of Fascism
I see the word Fascism thrown around so much these days, I realized I've forgotten the real meaning of the word, so I had to look it up, and it seems that what the author is saying shares no overlap with the true meaning of the word.
I would suggest coining a new term for whatever it is you're trying to describe, rather than attempting to reinvent the definition of an existing term, because not only is it confusing, but it feels like a manipulative use of language.
> [F]ascism is best defined as a revolutionary form of nationalism, one that sets out to be a political, social and ethical revolution, welding the "people" into a dynamic national community under new elites infused with heroic values. The core myth that inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, cathartic national rebirth (palingenesis) can stem the tide of decadence. -- Roger Griffin
> Marxists argue that fascism represents the last attempt of a ruling class (specifically, the capitalist bourgeoisie) to preserve its grip on power in the face of an imminent proletarian revolution. Fascist movements are not necessarily created by the ruling class, but they can only gain political power with the help of that class and with funding from big business. Once in power, the fascists serve the interests of their benefactors
> It is usually assumed, for instance, that Fascism is inherently warlike, that it thrives in an atmosphere of war hysteria and can only solve its economic problems by means of war preparation or foreign conquests. But clearly this is not true of, say, Portugal or the various South American dictatorships. Or again, antisemitism is supposed to be one of the distinguishing marks of Fascism; but some Fascist movements are not antisemitic. Learned controversies, reverberating for years on end in American magazines, have not even been able to determine whether or not Fascism is a form of capitalism. But still, when we apply the term ‘Fascism’ to Germany or Japan or Mussolini's Italy, we know broadly what we mean. -- Orwell
> The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power -- FDR
I thought I was clear on the aspects I recognised.
Democratic control over things that affect everyone and benefit everyone is necessary to avoid e.g. free rider problems, pollution.
Democratically restricting other people's rights, to the extent that people are not allowed to e.g. subdivide a house into a duplex, all because it would reduce the voters' property values, is immoral and counter productive.
Certain rights should not be subject to democracy to the same extent as other laws. When a country comes up with a constitution enumerating rights and makes amending those rights very difficult, that's saying that those rights should be (to some extent) removed from democratic control.
But you are absolutely right, when people talk about reducing democratic control, they often secretly mean giving power to technocrats rather than returning power to the people.
The counter to the democratic outcome not being “your personal choice” is to admit defeat, rest up, reflect, and look for better, more popular positions next time. Ie continue engagement in the relevant systems. Attend local council meetings or other hearings - and be polite, respectful and thus some base level respectable. In the US, democratic republic norms are aggregate personal acts and not a state. Like jury duty.
The two most famous Fascist movements in history replaced democratic governments after initially attacking them as failures for decades beforehand and promising to return the nation to greatness and save it from failure.
They did (most of) the famously bad stuff they are remembered for after they took over and abolished the democracy and its institutions, so no one could stop them.
Many of the people they killed would have lived in democracies all their life. And became targeted because they stood in the way of them politically in that democracy.
So I feel a blanket rule of "you can't call anyone a Fascist in a democracy" is not particularly historically insightful or useful, no matter how many countries and/or dictatorships you've visited.
That's not the point of my comment. The point is that today we use those words without any notion of the scale they imply.
So they lost their meaning. To me it's the other side of virtue signaling, easy words to toss around to get an ego trip without having to think too hard about the nuances of the world. And you can only do that precisely because you live in a free society, because the people you are calling fascist will not kill you for doing it. Because you have the education to do so. Because you have the time and energie to do so. Because you are safe with the medium and your audience to do so. And because you don't have a fascist as a leader that is so obviously so dangerous that calling someone fascist on tweeter in comparison would make you feel stupid since it's so obviously dispropostionate.
The point is, the people doing that are immature, unexperienced, and use a word that meant to target the horrors and evil of this world to attack what are merely bad people.
It's not a political statment that they are making. It's a demonstration of how naive, ignorant and arrogant they are.
And it's an insult to people living with actual fascists every day, that one does from the comfort of their sofa where they can get food delivered and watch youtube video.
You can call someone fascist in a democracy, but then they must have in their political program the same thing as Mussolini or Hitler did. The burden is on the person to quote Main Kampf (which I doubt their read) or show similar live actions and show the parallel.
And it cannot be a single thing, it's a collection of ideas and behaviors. A racist or a pro life or somebody going to a book burning is not diserving the title. Because it's only one thing. Everybody is doing ine thing somebody else find terrible.
> World Fascism: a Historical Encyclopedia notes that "Although he was authoritarian and ruled dictatorially, Pinochet's support of neoliberal economic policies and his unwillingness to support national businesses distinguished him from classical fascists.
See, if you sell the nationalized companies to your family, and they profit from selling your countries resources abroad, then you're no true Fascist.
> Mussolini, a leading member of the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano) before World War I, became a fierce antisocialist after the war. After coming to power, he banned all Marxist organizations and replaced their trade unions with government-controlled corporatist unions. Until he instituted a war economy in the mid-1930s, Mussolini allowed industrialists to run their companies with a minimum of government interference. Despite his former anticapitalist rhetoric, he cut taxes on business, permitted cartel growth, decreed wage reduction, and rescinded the eight-hour-workday law. Between 1928 and 1932 real wages in Italy dropped by almost half. Mussolini admitted that the standard of living had fallen but stated that “fortunately the Italian people were not accustomed to eating much and therefore feel the privation less acutely than others.
> In the political discourse of the fascist right, economic problems related to large disparities of wealth between rich and poor were treated as problems of social status and class prejudice. Rather than attacking upper-class wealth, fascists attacked upper-class snobbism.
> Fascist movements criticized parliamentary democracy for allowing the Marxist threat to exist in the first place. According to Hitler, democracy undermined the natural selection of ruling elites and was “nothing other than the systematic cultivation of human failure.” Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, maintained that the people never rule themselves and claimed that every history-making epoch had been created by aristocrats.
That last one could have been inserted into the current article and fitted perfectly.
Why do people have such a false, cartoon-like, impression of what actual historical fascist movements did?
But you're right, it's much more important that he killed people:
> Fascist squads, militias inspired by Mussolini but often created by local leaders, swept through the countryside of the Po Valley and the Puglian plains, rounded up Socialists, burned down union and party offices, and terrorized the local population. Hundreds of radicals were humiliated, beaten, or killed. In late 1920, the Blackshirt squads, often with the direct help of landowners, began to attack local government institutions and prevent left-wing administrations from taking power. Mussolini encouraged the squads—although he soon tried to control them—and organized similar raids in and around Milan. By late 1921, the Fascists controlled large parts of Italy, and the left, in part because of its failures during the postwar years, had all but collapsed. The government, dominated by middle-class Liberals, did little to combat this lawlessness, both through weak political will and a desire to see the mainly working-class left defeated. As the Fascist movement built a broad base of support around the powerful ideas of nationalism and anti-Bolshevism, Mussolini began planning to seize power at the national level.
Letting neighbors veto projects isn't democracy. Democracy is "rule by the public". That means the whole public, not just a small subset of it. Why were the neighbors consulted but not those in other parts of the city, or other parts of the state?
Localism is sham democracy, it's oligarchy wearing an democratic mask.
Furthermore, giving people a seat at the table is not the same as giving them veto power. People should have a right to voice their opinion, not to unilaterally control others.
> Using dubious emotional arguments like laundromats can't be historic buildings?
Ironically, the state preventing people from demolishing irrelevant structures to build housing that will exist entirely on their own private property is actual Fascism. I suspect it's a Fascism you're sympathetic to, but it's much more literally Fascism than the alternative.
> The building’s sardonic “historic laundromat” nickname stems from a 2018 study the city conducted to determine whether the property should be preserved as a historic asset.
> The concern at the time was not that the building itself might have historic value, but that as the building’s onetime offices of certain local activist and nonprofit groups it might be worth preserving.
> This did not turn out to be the case, and the contemptuous shorthand term has stuck with the building ever since.
Fascism is a dead political movement that lived in Europe beginning to mid 20th century. Everything else that came afterwards is something else, different. By using that term you are referring to those dead political parties. Who is a Nazi nowadays? The political party does not exist anymore as far as I know. ie No one is a Nazi today.
You do you, use that word if you want but you are not promoting a healthy conversation if you start labelling people and assuming to know their perspective.
I agree that democratic governance is good. Yet let's be frank, kids have no place at the table. It is the responsibility of their parents to listen to them and promote their needs at the said table. ie at the table everyone should be taken into consideration (whether they are a kid or not) but not everyone should be at the table. (as for who is a kid and who is not, that is another subject)
I believe not everyone deserves to be at the table, the same way not everyone deserves to be part of a board of directors. As for why, I am certain you can figure that out on your own.
I answered you because I was slightly disturbed by your use of the word fascism. I hope you see that we are on the same boat.
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On an adjacent note, personally, I do not care about nations/organizations. I care about people. Individuals. Does my country care about me? No, a country has no brain, no emotion. The question anthropomorphizes an entity emerging from a group individuals. A group cannot love me but each or any individual of said group can.
The article is arguing that the people the author agrees with should have more authority to do what they want and the people they disagree with should have less. And when those people won't leave then "we need to be okay ruffling some feathers". Sounds pretty fascist aligning to me.
If you can tell me that I cannot do something with my property, and I want the freedom to tell you to take a hike, I don't see how that makes me a fascist.
I know you're not supposed to use that word, because it really upsets Fascists.
But really, long passionately argued essays about how democratic governance is stopping us from returning to the good old days and we should let the powerful do whatever they want.
Using dubious emotional arguments like laundromats can't be historic buildings? Calling things dictatorships, run by the articulate? Warning that nations fail if everyone gets a seat at the table?
This is not a good thing.