More Thoughts on Fascism

I came across this quote in Robert O. Paxton's THE ANATOMY OF FASCISM:

"Whenever fascist parties acquired power, however, they did nothing to carry out [their] anticapitalist threats. By contrast, they enforced with the utmost violence and thoroughness their threats against socialism. Street fights over turf with young communists were among their most powerful propaganda images. Once in power, fascist regimes banned strikes, dis­solved independent labor unions, lowered wage earners' purchasing power, and showered money on armaments industries, to the immense satisfac­tion of employers."

Fundamental to the establishment of the inalienable rights of all human beings as defined in the Declaration of Independence which marked the beginning of these United States is the separation of powers as defined in our Constitution. In fact, our very real freedom and liberty (when it does exist at the individual level) stems directly from the separation of power in this nation raised to the nth power: between church and state, between branches of government, between political parties, between employees and employers (when unions exist, protecting the rights of workers), between public school and parents in the minds of our children, ad infinitum.

The biggest danger (like in HUGE) from the Straussian Neocons is that by using a centralized loyalty to the Neocon leadership within the framework of the Christian Right (it's all about establishing an elite to rule for the benefit of the masses lest we succumb to some idealogy--ain't that a hoot!), the Neocons eliminate de facto separation of power.

The secularist is bought off with the concept that the pursuit of self-interest ultimately brings the greatest collective good ... with the benchmark for the pursuit of self-interest defined as a mix of personal wealth and power. And as FEMA's Mike Brown and Defense's Don Rumsfeld have shown, loyalty trumps competence in the Neocon scheme of awards.

The religious true-believer is bought off with the Biblical story of Job. God rewards those who stay the course.

The trouble I have with the Left is that they believe that if they get THEIR hands on the controls of the distribution of wealth and power, THEY will create Nirvana for the masses.

At least under Capitalism (not Monopolism), you have the creative tension between the interests of the working class vs. the interests of the owners, expressed in the distribution of profit. One benefit of Capitalism is this creative tension ... at least until we have a 1984 world, or become a banana republic, or descend entirely into fascism.

The very real problem with the atheistic Communist state, is it's failure to sustain the essential characteristic it defines in human history, the dialectic of thesis and antithesis. It is the struggle between what "is" and what we can imagine "ought to be" that defines in our choosing "what we will in turn create for our future" this essential characteristic of being human. We can choose.

Eliminate choice, and we no longer are human beings. Without the separation of power, there is no choice.