Sort Of Confirmation Of An Idea

MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS has written a two-part book review of a book by Jason Blakely, the second part of which was posted after I made the point about the fact that the Communism and Marxism which the powers of the United States Government, the mass media and the popular culture rose up to oppose so strongly BUT WHICH WE HAVE NEVER BEEN ANY KIND OF DANGER OF GAINING POWER HERE was more than matched by our indigenous form of fascism, white supremacy which is a constant and powerful danger, having been fixed into the Constitution from its inception, made universal by the Supreme Court in Dred Scott, Plessy v Ferguson and in many other decisions and which has almost always been the dominant force in many, at times most of states and, so the Congress and often the presidency.   That thing which the Rehnquist and now Roberts Court is trying their best to revive so as to put its coalition with Big Money into permanent control of the country.   

An interesting point made in that second part of it is worth considering.  I will point out that what is called "liberalism" in the book and the review is that 18th century European "liberalism" and not the older tradition which was based on liberal provision of material support for the poor and destitute.   In its political form it might almost be summed up in the phrase "liberal democracy, " which I've criticized as a dangerous opponent of equality and, so the egalitarian democracy I hold is the only form of government that might withstand the tendencies of all other forms of government to turn into some variety and intensity of gangsterism.

This last point is especially relevant when Blakely turns to socialism which is both a reaction to classical liberalism and a vehicle for progressive politics, the kind of hybridization of ideologies that Blakely's cultural analysis explains and highlights. And, his approach is essential when he considers fascism. Unlike liberalism with Locke's Second Treatise, conservatism with Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, and socialism with Marx and Engels' Capital, fascism has no urtext to guide and shape the movement, making it even more likely to almost spontaneously adopt items from other, even opposing, ideological programs if it helps in the moment:

    "Fascism often befuddles contemporary people as it appears disguised and diluted by more familiar ideological traditions than those typical of the classical, twentieth-century fascisms of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. But the Western democracies have for some time been busy incubating their own homegrown fascist varietals. If these are less obvious than the original fascisms, it is only because the cultural fusions in which they participate have become head-spinning in their eclecticism."

And he correctly notes what is, in the United States, a key ingredient in fascism's appeal: "Fascist politics provides what appears to its followers as a potent antidote to a modern crisis of spiritual homelessness and nihilism." Fascism may critique rationalism and traffic in romantic ideas of blood and soil, but it is a mistake to think that it is irrational. It corresponds to a need other ideologies have failed to address.

I might disagree with the idea that fascism "corresponds to a need" though what need Winter and Blakley mean when that is said.    I would say that fascism pretends to address that but it's no deeper than any form of dishonest PR.