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.
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.
While the criticism is on point, I think you’re underselling the legitimate dire fear modern leftists have when they see the brutality of the periphery returning home. We have to recognize that - individually - we’re incredibly weak in the face of a mobilized police state. And we have every reason to be horrified of The Jakarta Method being visited on LA or Atlanta or Houston, particularly if we’re members of that domestic political underclass so often targeted for abuse.
Any opposition must be a unified and organized resistance. But we are also plagued by mass surveillance, structural alienation, and a profound sense of vulnerability cultivated over decades of “War On” maximalist state propaganda. So we’re feeling weak, we don’t know who we can trust, and we see this horrifying inevitability cresting over our heads like a tsunami.
This isn’t a betrayal of comrades abroad but a reflection of our own dismal moral, disunity, and despair. It represents one more hurdle for a modern western left to overcome and should be received as such, rather than used as a bludgeon to degrade left-wing moral even further.
Far better to be awake and aware and justifiably afraid of the threat of fascism than blind to it as the unaligned, compromised by it as the liberals, or enthusiastically participatory as the conservatives.
I think this is the critique I share. A lot of leftists who seem to be from outside the US are putting on their theory and history caps and pointing out how bad the US is as an imperial power, ignoring that right now Americans who see what is happening would do anything to revert things to the way they were even if that was the neo liberal status quo. Sure could have used this analysis in more peaceful times when the Jakarta method wasn’t a real possibility facing socialist discourse. When facing fascism at home the last thing you care about is exactly the precise and correct way history should play out. In this sense I feel like the left absolutely fails constantly, for all the talk of international solidarity there sure is a lack of organizing. Can’t organize with anyone who isn’t a Marxist, I guess?
I also feel like saying the US was always fascist is skewing the definition of fascism and defanging it. “America was always fascist” makes it seem like the real fascism we are facing should be business as usual. Fascism is a distinct and brutal form of capitalism. Marxists have known about this, and I feel conflating with neo liberalism is revisionist.
The analysis is correct, in that America was always a force of oppression across the globe, but that doesn’t change the fact the local population enjoyed some sort of stability and predictability. Economically suppressed with a corporate two party system? Of course. Arbitrary overt censorship and rounding up of civilians? Not necessarily, and that is where we are going. Is it hypocritical to turn a blind eye to the suffering of people around the world? Sure, but most people are not aware of this, and doesn’t change the sheer terror you begin to feel when the oppression comes home.
I think you’re underselling the legitimate dire fear modern leftists have when they see the brutality of the periphery returning home.
Liberal democracies have historically been as brutal to their domestic populations as any historical fascist formulation. You can look at how the US treated (and still treats) it’s internal colonies / minorities. Nazi Germany explicitly wanted to carry out in eastern europe, what the US successfully carried out against native peoples, and failed.
Even outside of internal colonies, if you look at how the US or Britain treated its workers or its poor of their own races(they arguably entirely defeated its domestic working class movement, rebased their countries on finance capital, and exported class struggle to the global south), it doesn’t look any different than how the historical fascist
countries also defeated their working class movements.
To me, the basis of this is western chauvinism, and belief that “liberal democracy” isn’t far worse. By pointing a finger at fascism, they get to keep their belief in the supremacy of their mode of government, that continues to wreak havoc on not just the globe, but internally also. It’s a subtle form of western-supremacist scapegoating (pointing a finger at a settler-colonialism that dared to attack western countries also)
I don’t disagree that liberal democracies are capable and have been brutal to their populations, but to say they are just as brutal as fascism is just disingenuous. Contrary to popular belief, the average American does not live day to day in fear that they are about to get fucked by the state for no reason at all, and that’s even acknowledging the measures the state goes to criminalize and punish the most desperate in us society. We don’t fear state repression and death for the wrong opinion, looking a certain way.
It’s even more absurd to conflate fascism with European western democracies with their myriad of safety nets. I think painting things in this light doesn’t make socialism more appealing, just makes fascism look more acceptable and less dangerous.
I agree with critiques on us imperialism and the need for socialism, I just think it’s strange to treat fascism with kids gloves
Contrary to popular belief, the average American does not live day to day in fear that they are about to get fucked by the state for no reason at all, and that’s even acknowledging the measures the state goes to criminalize and punish the most desperate in us society.
We don’t fear state repression and death for the wrong opinion, looking a certain way.
Oh, and just like 2 years ago facebook handed over chat messages of a woman helping her daughter get an abortion to local cops. She’s in prison now.
And these are only recent things, the US is an entire country built upon the graves of indigenous peoples: something nazi germany aspired and failed to do in eastern europe.
From a lemmygrad post on fascism
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.
While the criticism is on point, I think you’re underselling the legitimate dire fear modern leftists have when they see the brutality of the periphery returning home. We have to recognize that - individually - we’re incredibly weak in the face of a mobilized police state. And we have every reason to be horrified of The Jakarta Method being visited on LA or Atlanta or Houston, particularly if we’re members of that domestic political underclass so often targeted for abuse.
Any opposition must be a unified and organized resistance. But we are also plagued by mass surveillance, structural alienation, and a profound sense of vulnerability cultivated over decades of “War On” maximalist state propaganda. So we’re feeling weak, we don’t know who we can trust, and we see this horrifying inevitability cresting over our heads like a tsunami.
This isn’t a betrayal of comrades abroad but a reflection of our own dismal moral, disunity, and despair. It represents one more hurdle for a modern western left to overcome and should be received as such, rather than used as a bludgeon to degrade left-wing moral even further.
Far better to be awake and aware and justifiably afraid of the threat of fascism than blind to it as the unaligned, compromised by it as the liberals, or enthusiastically participatory as the conservatives.
I think this is the critique I share. A lot of leftists who seem to be from outside the US are putting on their theory and history caps and pointing out how bad the US is as an imperial power, ignoring that right now Americans who see what is happening would do anything to revert things to the way they were even if that was the neo liberal status quo. Sure could have used this analysis in more peaceful times when the Jakarta method wasn’t a real possibility facing socialist discourse. When facing fascism at home the last thing you care about is exactly the precise and correct way history should play out. In this sense I feel like the left absolutely fails constantly, for all the talk of international solidarity there sure is a lack of organizing. Can’t organize with anyone who isn’t a Marxist, I guess?
I also feel like saying the US was always fascist is skewing the definition of fascism and defanging it. “America was always fascist” makes it seem like the real fascism we are facing should be business as usual. Fascism is a distinct and brutal form of capitalism. Marxists have known about this, and I feel conflating with neo liberalism is revisionist.
The analysis is correct, in that America was always a force of oppression across the globe, but that doesn’t change the fact the local population enjoyed some sort of stability and predictability. Economically suppressed with a corporate two party system? Of course. Arbitrary overt censorship and rounding up of civilians? Not necessarily, and that is where we are going. Is it hypocritical to turn a blind eye to the suffering of people around the world? Sure, but most people are not aware of this, and doesn’t change the sheer terror you begin to feel when the oppression comes home.
Liberal democracies have historically been as brutal to their domestic populations as any historical fascist formulation. You can look at how the US treated (and still treats) it’s internal colonies / minorities. Nazi Germany explicitly wanted to carry out in eastern europe, what the US successfully carried out against native peoples, and failed.
Even outside of internal colonies, if you look at how the US or Britain treated its workers or its poor of their own races(they arguably entirely defeated its domestic working class movement, rebased their countries on finance capital, and exported class struggle to the global south), it doesn’t look any different than how the historical fascist countries also defeated their working class movements.
To me, the basis of this is western chauvinism, and belief that “liberal democracy” isn’t far worse. By pointing a finger at fascism, they get to keep their belief in the supremacy of their mode of government, that continues to wreak havoc on not just the globe, but internally also. It’s a subtle form of western-supremacist scapegoating (pointing a finger at a settler-colonialism that dared to attack western countries also)
I don’t disagree that liberal democracies are capable and have been brutal to their populations, but to say they are just as brutal as fascism is just disingenuous. Contrary to popular belief, the average American does not live day to day in fear that they are about to get fucked by the state for no reason at all, and that’s even acknowledging the measures the state goes to criminalize and punish the most desperate in us society. We don’t fear state repression and death for the wrong opinion, looking a certain way.
It’s even more absurd to conflate fascism with European western democracies with their myriad of safety nets. I think painting things in this light doesn’t make socialism more appealing, just makes fascism look more acceptable and less dangerous.
I agree with critiques on us imperialism and the need for socialism, I just think it’s strange to treat fascism with kids gloves
US cops kill ~1000 people every year, imprisons thousands of innocent people in its war on drugs and enslaves them in prison camps, keeps ~40k immigrants in prison camps (about 7k of them are children), and holds many political prisoners. The US even executed an innocent man just a few months ago.
Oh, and just like 2 years ago facebook handed over chat messages of a woman helping her daughter get an abortion to local cops. She’s in prison now.
And these are only recent things, the US is an entire country built upon the graves of indigenous peoples: something nazi germany aspired and failed to do in eastern europe.
You can find a lot more here
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