More Ways to Misuse the Word Fascist
I've talked in the past about how certain people like to apply the term "fascist" to anyone with whom they don't agree, and I've also noted that the "Not One Damn Dime" people, who apparently want a complete pullout from Iraq, probably disagree with John Kerry's views on how the war should be prosecuted. In fact, I alleged that they would have no problem chanting "John Kerry is a fascist."
It turns out that there really ARE people who label Kerry as a fascist - which again proves how the term "fascist" is so often misused.
Let's start with the Car and Driver forums (huh?):
P: 8/25/2004 1:30:19 PM
Saab Turbo
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And who knew that Kerry was a fascist who wanted to intimidate TV stations and bookstores from running the [Swift Boat Veterans] advert and selling the book!
Let's look at Front Page Mag:
Date: 1/13/2003 1:40:24 PM
Name: Rightminded
Subject: Hey Pubis Hair!
Comment: It pales in comparison.
John Kerry is a Fascist piece of excrement, and is a major player in the party whose elected governor's are beginning to pardon murderers in the last weekend of their reign of tyranny.
But it's not only the right that is calling Kerry a Fascist. The far far left is also using the term (note that they also use the term "Amerika," but with only one K rather than three; "U.$." is also a nice touch):
John Kerry appears well on his way to taking the Democratic party nomination for Presidential candidate in the 2004 election race....There is little difference between Republicans and Democrats from the perspective of the majority of the world's people who suffer so that Amerikan imperialism can profit....
Often the progressive-sounding rhetoric from the Democrats is just window dressing on fascist politics. The Democrats are staunch promoters of imperialism....
For example, Kerry pledges to leave no "American" behind. What does this mean (and why does Kerry feel the need to co-opt the slogan of the feeble-minded, chauvinist POW/MIA movement)? Within U.$. borders there are many non-citizens who suffer in sweatshop jobs and lack even basic legal protections while providing needed labor for the benefit of Amerikan companies....
Since Kerry is very clear he doesn't want to tear down Amerikan imperialism and build a country that serves the interests of the majority of the world's people, these are really code words for expanding Amerikan militarism.
On foreign policy, some claim that the Democrats distinguish themselves from the Republicans. Kerry, after all, talks significant rhetoric about waging peace in Iraq and opposing Bush's unilateralism. But in the end Kerry just wants an imperialist policy that works more closely with other imperialist powers....
To his credit, for an imperialist candidate Kerry has less chauvinist rhetoric on immigration and jobs than some of his competitors for the Democratic nomination. He avoids complaining about job losses to other countries, and has cautious statements in his campaign about immigrants and immigration law. But in the end he still believes that Amerika is only to be enjoyed by Amerikans and calls for "adequately funding border enforcement to ensure that only legal immigrants can enter the country." MIM doesn't expect Democratic candidates for president to recognize the hypocrisy of an artificial militarized border that resulted from the theft of that land by Amerikans from its original inhabitants, the descendants of whom are now considered "illegal immigrants."...
One of Kerry's opponents, John Edwards, has made a trademark of his fascist rhetoric. Sometimes couched in progressive-sounding support for education or opposition to tax breaks for companies, he frequently speaks about the need to keep jobs in the United $tates for Amerikan workers....
With hugely disproportionate imprisonment rates of Blacks and Latinos, Amerikan prisons are one of the most fascist elements of Amerika. Kerry, like all good democrats, supports strengthening this Amerikan institution....
So, what is fascism? If you believe everything you read, fascism is defined as:
- a policy of waging war against third world countries
- the use of political pressure against media outlets
- the pardoning of criminals
- the detention of criminals
- support for citizens of your home country
I hate to break it to all the name-callers, but fascism is actually an economic system that is not really related to the foreign policies of George W. Bush or John Kerry, though it can be argued that it is related to their economic policies:
When most people hear the word "fascism" they naturally think of its ugly racism and anti-Semitism as practiced by the totalitarian regimes of Mussolini and Hitler. But there was also an economic policy component of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and '30s as "corporatism," that was an essential ingredient of economic totalitarianism as practiced by Mussolini and Hitler. So- called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a "model" by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe. A version of economic fascism was in fact adopted in the United States in the 1930s and survives to this day. In the United States these policies were not called "fascism" but "planned capitalism." The word fascism may no longer be politically acceptable, but its synonym "industrial policy" is as popular as ever....
One of the most outspoken American fascists was economist Lawrence Dennis....The big stumbling block to the development of economic fascism, Dennis bemoaned, was "liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights."...
So-called "corporatism" as practiced by Mussolini and revered by so many intellectuals and policy makers had several key elements: The state comes before the individual. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines fascism as "a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized, autocratic government." This stands in stark contrast to the classical liberal idea that individuals have natural rights that pre-exist government; that government derives its "just powers" only through the consent of the governed; and that the principal function of government is to protect the lives, liberties, and properties of its citizens, not to aggrandize the state.
Mussolini viewed these liberal ideas (in the European sense of the word "liberal") as the antithesis of fascism: "The Fascist conception of life," Mussolini wrote, "stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual."
Mussolini thought it was unnatural for a government to protect individual rights: "The maxim that society exists only for the well-being and freedom of the individuals composing it does not seem to be in conformity with nature's plans." "If classical liberalism spells individualism," Mussolini continued, "Fascism spells government."...
Another keystone of Italian corporatism was the idea that the government's interventions in the economy should not be conducted on an ad hoc basis, but should be "coordinated" by some kind of central planning board. Government intervention in Italy was "too diverse, varied, contrasting. There has been disorganic . . . intervention, case by case, as the need arises," Mussolini complained in 1935. Fascism would correct this by directing the economy toward "certain fixed objectives" and would "introduce order in the economic field."...
These exact sentiments were expressed by Robert Reich (current U.S. Secretary of Labor) and Ira Magaziner (current federal government's health care reform "Czar") in their book Minding America's Business....Current industrial policy interventions, Reich and Magaziner bemoaned, are "the product of fragmented and uncoordinated decisions made by [many different] executive agencies, the Congress, and independent regulatory agencies . . . There is no integrated strategy to use these programs to improve the . . . U.S. economy."...
A third defining characteristic of economic fascism is that private property and business ownership are permitted, but are in reality controlled by government through a business-government "partnership." As Ayn Rand often noted, however, in such a partnership government is always the senior or dominating "partner."
In Mussolini's Italy, businesses were grouped by the government into legally recognized "syndicates" such as the "National Fascist Confederation of Commerce," the "National Fascist Confederation of Credit and Insurance," and so on. All of these "fascist confederations" were "coordinated" by a network of government planning agencies called "corporations," one for each industry. One large "National Council of Corporations" served as a national overseer of the individual "corporations" and had the power to "issue regulations of a compulsory character."
The purpose of this byzantine regulatory arrangement was so that the government could "secure collaboration . . . between the various categories of producers in each particular trade or branch of productive activity." Government-orchestrated "collaboration" was necessary because "the principle of private initiative" could only be useful "in the service of the national interest" as defined by government bureaucrats....
To call Bush or Kerry economic fascists is laughable. There is a difference between promoting policies that support business (e.g. Bush's and Kerry's support for guest worker programs and/or amnesty that serve to lower wages) and wanting to have the government exert complete control of business. Imagine Bush or Kerry calling Wal-Mart and telling them to raise their prices 1.3% in their California stores; it strains credibility to believe that either of them want to control business to that level.
Ralph Nader, on the other hand, might be a different story (emphasis mine):
Nader’s real problem is that his agenda is absolutely destructive. Ralph Nader is nothing more than a fascist totalitarian that seeks to create what would be one of the most repressive political regimes in history. That, not how many electoral votes he may take from Al Gore, is why this man is and has been a real threat to our freedom.
The Nader message goes as follows: Business corporations are creating products that harm all of us, they are polluting our air, water, and ground, and they deny us the true spiritual benefits of life. Those corporations are also buying politicians who blindly do the will of their evil masters bent upon enslaving all of us and doing us irreparable harm. The only way to stop them is to either regulate them into oblivious or seize their property outright. At the same time, the government must outlaw large numbers of products or use taxation and other restrictions to discourage people from purchasing them.
Take coffee, for example. While many of Nader’s supporters in places like Seattle like to discuss the Greatness of Their Candidate over coffee, Nader himself has said that coffee is a poison foisted upon us by vicious corporations. The only way to deal with coffee, in Nader’s view, is to outlaw it, and the same goes for cigarettes and alcoholic beverages....
Nader’s "greatest" achievement in his war against automobile firms has been his successful crusade to force manufacturers to install dangerous air bags. While air bags have saved some lives, other lives have been snuffed – especially those of small children – because the air bag itself explodes at a dangerous rate of speed....
Let us now look at a nation in which Nader were in control. (Assume Nader were elected president and was able to use dictatorial powers to achieve whatever he wanted.) First, and most important, the private automobile would be outlawed, leaving all of us either to walk or use crowded public transportation. Since trucks and other forms of transportation using internal combustion engines would also be outlawed, prices for goods (the few things Ralph would allow us to buy) would also be frightfully expensive.
It does not take a genius to realize that our worlds would be turned upside down. In order to keep us from clandestinely purchasing things like tobacco and coffee, Ralph would have to increase the vast police powers of the state....Mass starvation would follow within a relatively short time as crops would fail (fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides would be outlawed) and what was grown would not be able to be promptly harvested and delivered to markets....
For those who believe this assessment of a Nader presidency to be too harsh, remember just what our modern, industrial society has produced. The high standards of living that so many of us enjoy have not just happened. They are the results of a highly productive industrial economy that has come about because of institutions like private property and free markets, both of which Nader openly despises and would destroy if given the chance....
According to this 1998 article about South Korea, government control of business does not work:
Beginning in the 1970s, Korea's phenomenal economic growth was dubbed the "Korean miracle" and touted as a model for the developing world. It is clear now, however, that the miracle was largely an illusion.
Korea's accomplishments were built on massive levels of debt and central government control of business decisions. The Seoul government subsidized sprawling business groups, known as chaebols, and simultaneously protected them from foreign competition by shielding domestic markets from foreign investment and imports. Eventually, Korea's $500 billion economy became far too complex for economic bureaucrats to control effectively. Bad business decisions proliferated, and this led in turn to over capacity in core industries and inadequate demand in both domestic and international markets. For instance, while the United States has only three auto makers, Korea has five. Despite sagging sales in markets both at home and abroad, the previous Korean government defied sound business logic and approved the nation's fifth auto company just last year.
Last month, Hyundai Motor Company laid off 8,000 of its 30,000 autoworkers. Around 8,000 more are idle as a result of sharply declining production. Strains upon medium- and small-sized companies are even more serious. Since the economic crash began last November, company bankruptcies have exceeded 3,000 per month. Unemployment, which totaled about 400,000 this time last year, is approaching the 1.5 million level.
Korea's combined domestic and foreign currency debt is estimated to be as high as $730 billion--almost twice the size of its 1997 gross national product. This crushing financial burden brought the Korean economy to its knees late last year, and the previous Korean administration turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for aid. The result was a $57 billion IMF bailout package....
President Kim's December 18, 1997, election victory and February 25 inauguration were bittersweet events for the former opposition leader....For many years, he criticized the central government planning and massive debt-leveraged growth that wrecked the economy he now is struggling to revive. Once in office, he wasted no time in turning the Korean government's policies in the right direction.
Ending his nation's rock-solid protectionist stance, President Kim has called for fully opening Korea's stock and real estate markets and company equity ownership to foreigners.
I'm laughing at the idea of either Bush or Kerry preventing foreigners from buying stock in U.S. companies.
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