This is why I kinda hate the term fascism now, bourgeois democracy has proven itself to be much worse. Old post:
The western left’s use of the term fascism, is borderline white-supremacist at this point. Fascism was a form of colonialism that died by the 1940s, and is only allowed to be demonized in public discourse, because it was a form of colonialism directed also against white europeans. It was defeated, and Germany / Italy / Japan reverted to the more stable form of government for colonialism (practiced by the US, UK, France, the Netherlands, Australia, etc): bourgeois parliamentarism.
British, european, and now US colonizers were doing the exact same thing, and killing far more people for hundreds of years in the global south, yet you don’t hear ppl scared of their countries potentially "adopting parliamentary democracy”. They haven’t changed, and their wealth is still propped up by surplus value theft from the super-exploitation of hundreds of millions of low-paid global south proletarians.
This is why you have new leftists terrified that the UK or US or europe “might turn fascist!!”, betraying that the atrocities propagated by those empires against the global south was and is completely acceptable.
Make no mistake about it: parliamentary / bourgeois democracy is not only a more stable form of government, it’s also far more effective at carrying out colonialism, and killing millions of innocent people.
I do sympathize with that views like that somewhat. Especially since fascism and liberalism aren’t opposites but complimentary aspects used within capitalism.
Then theres the fact that fascism can be a hard thing to pin down with a definition. Do we call Germany and Japan classic fascism and then the Pinochet dictatorship early neoliberal fascism? Where does fascism apply and when? Can fascism exist without mass politics? (If everyone in the US is pacified by so many consumerist options can they form the political mass necessary for Trump to create a real fascist movement like Nazi Germany?) Can we call what the US does abroad in colonial wars and interventions fascist? At what point are racial codes fascism? Fascism is not a structured ideology like communism so it’s very slippery.
Some recommended reading I saw in the news mega is below. Had to skim for the highlights again but you might like it.
This is why I kinda hate the term fascism now, bourgeois democracy has proven itself to be much worse. Old post:
The western left’s use of the term fascism, is borderline white-supremacist at this point. Fascism was a form of colonialism that died by the 1940s, and is only allowed to be demonized in public discourse, because it was a form of colonialism directed also against white europeans. It was defeated, and Germany / Italy / Japan reverted to the more stable form of government for colonialism (practiced by the US, UK, France, the Netherlands, Australia, etc): bourgeois parliamentarism.
British, european, and now US colonizers were doing the exact same thing, and killing far more people for hundreds of years in the global south, yet you don’t hear ppl scared of their countries potentially "adopting parliamentary democracy”. They haven’t changed, and their wealth is still propped up by surplus value theft from the super-exploitation of hundreds of millions of low-paid global south proletarians.
This is why you have new leftists terrified that the UK or US or europe “might turn fascist!!”, betraying that the atrocities propagated by those empires against the global south was and is completely acceptable.
Make no mistake about it: parliamentary / bourgeois democracy is not only a more stable form of government, it’s also far more effective at carrying out colonialism, and killing millions of innocent people.
I do sympathize with that views like that somewhat. Especially since fascism and liberalism aren’t opposites but complimentary aspects used within capitalism.
Then theres the fact that fascism can be a hard thing to pin down with a definition. Do we call Germany and Japan classic fascism and then the Pinochet dictatorship early neoliberal fascism? Where does fascism apply and when? Can fascism exist without mass politics? (If everyone in the US is pacified by so many consumerist options can they form the political mass necessary for Trump to create a real fascist movement like Nazi Germany?) Can we call what the US does abroad in colonial wars and interventions fascist? At what point are racial codes fascism? Fascism is not a structured ideology like communism so it’s very slippery.
Some recommended reading I saw in the news mega is below. Had to skim for the highlights again but you might like it.
https://redsails.org/really-existing-fascism/