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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (19907)	2/24/2002 11:30:59 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

a great argument that fascism never arose in countries which were not democratic. It was always voted in. Not in Spain.

To: Ilaine who wrote (19907)	2/25/2002 12:34:44 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi CobaltBlue; Re fascism, democracy, and the extension of the vote to poor people. That was one hell of a fascinating post, and right on. Did you also notice a correlation with economic conditions? Has fascism ever arose in a country with low unemployment? One thing that saves the US is that we have a long tradition of accepting immigrants. I think that is just enough to have kept us out of difficulty. -- Carl P.S. It should be noted that in Spain, fascism was voted in: The Spanish Republic was established in 1931 when King Alfonso XIII decided to "suspend the use of (his) Royal Prerogatives" and leave the country.(2) Weakened and discredited by many years of colonial war against the Riffs in Morocco (costing over $800 million), and in the throes of the world economic depression, the monarchy was no longer a viable form of bourgeois rule, and was superceded first by a bourgeois republic and then by Fascism. The Republic established universal suffrage (both sexes), promulgated a skimpy land reform, expanded public education, and reduced the prerogatives of the Army and the Catholic Church. The Catalan and Basque provinces were granted limited independence, and the Barcelona municipal government was reorganized as the Catalan Government, called the "Generalitat."(3) In 1932, General Sanjurjo led a small group of monarchists, landowners, clericalists and army officers in a coup against the Republic, but lacking support from the major forces of the ruling class, it failed. In the elections of November, 1933, however, the forces of the Right made substantial gains. The largest party in the Cortes (parliament) was the Rightist catholic party, CEDA, but the first government was formed as a coalition of Center parties, which halted or reversed many of the earlier reforms and amnestied Sanjurjo.(4) In October, 1934, when a new government was formed with ministers from the CEDA, the Socialists and Communists of the UGT labor federation saw this as the onset of Fascism, and called a general strike in Madrid. The Socialist leadership of the UGT went underground, the large Anarchist-led labor federation (CNT) abstained, and the strike was short-lived. In Catalonia, the Generalitat declared independence from the central government, but the Anarchists again abstained and the rebellion was brief. plp.org

To: Ilaine who wrote (19907)	2/25/2002 1:18:38 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"America for Americans" and "Germany for Germans"? That is the "Nationalism" end of it, Cobalt. The best book I know on the subject is " Ominous Parallels", by Leonard Peikoff. It goes at it from a Philosophical basis and shows the correlation between Hitler's "National Socialism" and American "Liberalism". You can find it at: amazon.com

To: Ilaine who wrote (19907)	2/25/2002 9:17:10 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

My take on it is that American fascism is an extremist outgrowth of populism, and a natural development of extending the voting franchise to non-elite white men in the 19th century. Say what?? I can see an argument for a historical connection between democracy and fascism (I would argue against a tight causal connection) but I find it hard to imagine how you insert the word "natural" in that sentence. Let me see if I can rephrase the argument and expand the social improvement beyond the franchise to "more equality" (which gets us a bit closer to LindyBill's lamenting the successes of the civil rights movement. If you are saying that as minorities get the vote and as barriers to social mobility decline they move up, that, in turn, produces a reaction from the formerly privileged, I'm with you. You can see that in the US right now both as pertains to African Americans and as pertains to women of any color. The connection between that and populism (and on into fascism) is a bit more difficult. Remember that populism came in many stripes. One rendition of it appears in C Vann Woodward's wonderful book about the Georgia politician (name escapes me as I type) who began his career as a class oriented politician (bringing working class whites and blacks together into the same movement, something the Wobblies did as well), discovered it was going nowhere so he began mobilizing along racial lines. Thus, these two forms of populism ran alongside one another, even in the south, let alone the north. Father Coughlin is not the paradigm of populism. I think that story makes the connection between social reaction and fascism problematic. Moreoever, it might well be that in American history (I haven't really thought about this one) populist movements of the racist variety paralleled populist movements of the class kind because the economic conditions which favored each were much the same. Then how about the connection between fascism and democracy? Chile is an interesting counter example. Allende is elected, the military can't take it, draws on US resources, does a coup against Allende, and we have fascism. Hard to say there is a connection there. One can argue about Germany that the connection was via a coup in the 30s but the social basis for the coup was grounded in economic despair. As for the populism of the moment, it's power, at the moment, arises from the willingness of the Republican party to walk the dark side of American politics by forming an alliance with the Ralph Reeds of the world. And, also, not coincidentally, by the successes of minority groups and of women of all colors, which gives a focus for the grievances of white males. Hardly an over extension of the civil rights movement. Just more of the personal and social sickness personified by the anger one sees in white males when their bosses are not other white males. John