Not at all, says Lenin’s Tomb, making it clear that those who say Bush is fascist are really trying to move dissent into the corpse that is the Democratic Party where it will be rendered harmless.
Naomi Wolf, a Clintonite feminist, on Bush’s ten steps toward fascism. I don’t doubt the existence of fascist potencies in the United States, but to speak of it as a clear and present danger is misleading, to put it blandly. If you ask me, it’s part of this ‘Anyone But Bush’ politics that is destroying the American left and drawing the antiwar movement into the frigid Democratic Party graveyard. The politics of MoveOn.org, Howard Dean’s fan club, and such alignments, are to divert mass disaffection with Bush’s wars into the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Wolf rightly criticises Bush’s openly repressive measures, including the Patriot Act. However, there is no mention of Democratic complicity.
Just look at the Democratic Congress now, elected on an alleged antiwar platform they’ve done nothing to stop the wars except to enact toothless resolutions that make it appear they oppose the wars, but in reality allow them to continue. This is precisely the process of co-optation that Lenin’s Tomb speaks of. The Democratic Party to often pretends to champion change and social justice but in reality just perpetuates the existing system.
As often blogged here, The Avocado Declaration by Peter Camejo (who ran for US president in ’76 for SWP and often runs for governor of California as a Green) details how the Democratic Party exists to co-opt dissent. It remains a classic on the subject.
One important value of the Democratic Party to the corporate world is that it makes the Republican Party possible through the maintenance of stability essential for business as usual by preventing a genuine mass opposition from developing.
That’s why an independent people’s movement, separate from the Twin Parties of Militarism, is needed. That’s what will end the wars and reverse global warming. Don’t cede the power to the Democratic Party, this is something only the people can do.
Bush may not be a fascist, but the playbook he’s playing out of is seventy-five years old, Reichtag and all. Fascism creeps, the longer we deny it the strong it grows. Remind me once again of the difference between Coke, and Pepsi.
We have fascism, Musolini stated that fascism should be called corporatism as it is the coming together the corporate world and the state, we have that union, we have fascism.