#modern fascist movements

[accessible-tumbling]

[ The images included in this post have red underlines added for emphasis.

IDs: The documents obtained by Politico do not outline specific Christian nationalist policies. But Vought has promoted a [underlined] restrictionist immigration agenda, saying a person's background doesn't define who can enter the U.S., but rather, citing Biblical teachings, whether that person "accept[ed] Israel's God, laws and understanding of history." [end underline]

Vought has a close affiliation with Christian nationalist William Wolfe, a former Trump administration official who has advocated for [underlined] overturning same-sex marriage, ending abortion and reducing access to contraceptives. [end underline]

Vought, who declined to comment, is advising Project 2025, a governing agenda that would usher in one of the most conservative executive branches in modern American history. The effort is made up of a constellation of conservative groups run by Trump allies who've constructed a detailed plan to dismantle or overhaul key agencies in a second term. Among other principles, the project's "Mandate for Leadership" states that [underlined] "freedom is defined by God, not man." [end underline]

It also proposes [underlined] increasing surveillance of abortion and maternal mortality reporting in the states, compelling the Food and Drug Administration [underlined] to revoke approval of "chemical abortion drugs" and protecting "religious and moral" objections for employers [end underline] who decline contraception coverage for employees.

One of the groups that partners with Project 2025, Turning Point USA, is among conservative influencers that health professionals have criticized for targeting young women with misleading health concerns about hormonal birth control. Another priority is [underlined] defunding Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive health care to low-income women. [end underline]

Wolfe, who has deleted several posts on X that detail his views, has a more extreme outlook of what a government led by Christian nationalists should propose. In a December post, he called for [underlined] ending sex education in schools, surrogacy and no-fault divorce throughout the country [end underline], as well as forcing men "to provide for their children as soon as it's determined the child is theirs"—a clear incursion by the government into Americans' private lives.

"Christians should reject a Christ-less 'conservatism,'" he expanded in another X missive, "and demand the political movement we are most closely associated with make a return to Christ-centered foundations. Because it's either Christ or chaos, even on the 'Right.'"

end IDs.]

The OP of this post also shared this link to an informational zine about Project 2025 in the replies and recommends checking it out:

Reminder that Project 2025 is a thing; basically, if a Republican presidential candidate is elected next year, they have every intention of instating a full-on fascist government. Among many other horrible things, Project 2025 intends to criminalize anything trans-related as pornographic, and imprison anyone putting out such "pornography."

We really, really gotta do whatever we can to make sure a Republican candidate isn't elected. I know we're probably gonna be faced with shitty choices yet again (and how I wish it wasn't so), but we cannot afford to let this happen.

[quoigenicfromhell]

I don't think some of yall can read

[cruelsister-moved2]

HDS lecture a while ago that i didnt agree with 100% btu the interesting point was how almost every like cultural appropriation trend in religion was disseminated basically as a sale between two culturally xtian white ppl. trends like yoga and sweat lodges are almost never arbitrated by people from the groups who originated them. i think its very different if you’re like interacting with a person/group of minority ethnic/religious people & experiencing their culture through them in which they have the power to define boundaries and tell their own story vs if youre trying to like laser-cut out culture and like take it for your own. its notable that a lot of the cultural appropriation that really makes us grimace the hardest is when its something which has been forcibly divorced from its cultural context. having ur culture taken from u and misrepresented and sold for someone elses profit is very different from feeling that its valuable and desirable and ppl are excited and grateful for u to give them the opportunity to experience it. ppl and culture are inseparable n trying to separate them is an inherently violent act <3 

[knightofdeer]

Fascist propaganda in the 20th century: Epic historical narratives with magic, sometimes even made in the most avant garde style

Fascist propaganda in the 21th century: Back in the '50s nuclear families every weekend went to cinema and then ate hot dogs, but then (((they))) came and made it illegal, we need White Dictatorship to bring it back!

[musicofthenightphantomoftheopera]

URGENT UPDATE ON KOSA

Guys, this is getting really scary now. According to Senator Blumenthal they "rewrote the bill' (they didn't change anything actually) and the bill now has bipartisan (both democrat and republican support) with 62 co-sponsors now and could hit the senate as early as next week.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act) Is a strait up fascist mass internet censorship and serveillance bill that if passed, will force you to upload your government ID online in order to verify your age and give not only the government to track everything you do on the internet, but also the pwer to censor and erase anything or anyone they deem a threat to their power all by using the vague wording of the bill to deem it "a danger to kids"

both of the co writers of the bill, Senator Blumenthal, and Senator marsha Blackburn have fully admitted that they will be using this bill to wipe out any anti-isreal content as well as (in Blackburn's own words) "eliminate transgender content"

This bill WILL be used to end modern activism as we know it.

anything related to Free Palestine, Free Congo, Free Sudan, Black Lives Matter, Stop Cop City, LGBTQIA Rights, will be censored and wiped off the face of the internet.

we are looking at Farenheit 451 and 1984 COMBINED. And I still see almost NO ONE talking about it since my initial post I made talking about it last year. Every single one of you need to interact with this post and spread the word. contact your reps. sign petitions (all of which will b linked at the end of this post) AND MAKE SOME GODDAM NOISE. This is the fate of the internet as well as the fate of modern activism and literally the entire internet.

Resources for learning about KOSA:

Petition and Call Script for contacting your senators and reps

Sign the open letter against KOSA

Stop KOSA Movement Linktree

[leikeliscomet]

Asexual theory 101

Right I keep getting asked on most of my asexual posts 'What does this mean OP? Where's the sources?' so imma make a quick ace theory 101 post so if anyone says they don't get it I can say I tried. Let's go:

'What does being ace have to do with race/racism?/There's racism in the ace community???'

Pretty much everything as people of colour experience various forms of sexualisation and desexualisation at the same time, which is why POC are rarely included in asexual representation:

Asexuals of Color Still Seek to Validate Their Asexuality by Ebony Purks

Stereotypes & media about Black masculinity made it harder to come out as asexual by Tyger Songbird

Your Assumptions About Black Queer Masculinity Are Erasing My Asexual Identity by Timinepre Cole

It's Time To Start Celebrating Black Asexuality in Media By Tyger Songbird

Yasmin Benoit: ‘People had a hard time believing that I could be Black and asexual and at Pride’ by Alastair James

Brown and Gray: An Asexual People of Color Zine

'What do TERFS/transphobia have to do with asexuality?'

There's a growing TERF conspiracy theory that asexuality is the side-effect of transitioning. The LGB movement believes the community is exclusively for 'same-sex attracted persons' and so identities that don't involve attraction e.g. the TQIA should be removed. Most backlash towards Yasmin Benoit, aroace activist, is from white TERFs and conservatives:

Acephobic conspiracy theories have transphobic and fascist roots by Sherronda J Brown

'But how can conservatives hate asexuality if they hate sex?'

Because they don't and never did. If the term 'puritan' was used correctly in modern internet discourse, it would be known Christian puritans believe heterosexual sex for reproduction is a gift from god and mandatory so being asexual doesn't exactly fit with that worldview. Their beef is with any form of sex and sexuality that falls outside of cis heterosexual marriage, including asexuality. They're not anti sex but anti sexual autonomy:

"Anti-Sex" and the Real Sexual Politics of the Right by Lee Cicuta (ButchAnarchy)

The religious right is now targeting sexless marriages as “selfishness.” They Want to Ban Those Too by Tyger Songbird

Asexual people targetted by right-wing pundits following landmark report by Harriet Brewis

'What does being ace have to do with gender?'

It's commonly assumed that because patriarchy shames women's sexualities and considers all men's sexuality as biological and unavoidable, that ace women only and exclusively experience dsexualisation whilst ace men only and exclusively are pressured into being sexual beings. This can true as a broad overview but it can vary based on race, disability, class etc. This also becomes complex for asexuals that exist outside the gender binary. This is known as 'gender detachment'.

Impossible for Men, Unremarkable for Women by Canton Winer

My Work on Gender Detachment and Asexuality Strikes a Nerve by Canton Winer

'There's asexual studies now?'

Yup. On the general experiences of asexual people in the UK, including discrimination in education, the workplace and healthcare:

The National LGBT Survey (2018)

Ace in the UK Report (2023)

Specific names:

Asexual theorists: Ianna Hawkins, Michael Paramo, Julia Sondra Decker, Canton Winer (non-ace), Sherronda J Brown, Angela Chen

Asexual activists: Yasmin Benoit, Tyger Songbird, Marshall Blount (TheGentleAce), Kimberly Butler (TheAsexualGoddess)

And I'm gonna update this with more if they're worth adding. I don't wanna hear any excuses anymore or blame towards aces of colour, gay aces or trans aces for not being specific enough anymore. Read!

[infamousbrad]

I warned you.

About 15 years ago, I had a minor moment of Internet fame when I wrote a lengthy essay series on LiveJournal called "Christians in the Hand of an Angry God." In it, I argued that right-wing evangelical "Christianity" was literally Satanic by scriptural standards, was literally the cult of anti-Christ that Jesus prophesied in Matthew 25:31-46, that they were literally worshiping a made-up guy with the same name to justify cruelty, just like Jesus predicted they would the week before the crucifixion.

And at least half of the people who read it and praised it called it excellent satire. They saw my point, thought I was onto something, but couldn't take seriously that I literally meant what I literally said.

"Do not commit the sin of empathy."

Jesus' prophesy that these people were coming was not especially miraculous, in hindsight. No philosophy or theological movement becomes a large organized church, let alone a majority faith of a nation, without needing rich people's money, and/or government funding, to pay for it all.

And rich people in general, and right-wing governments in general, get to be the way they are by believing that the poor and the down-trodden can never be shown anything but cruelty, should never be rewarded, or else they'll lose all motivation to obey, to work hard, to be good. (By contrast, they believe that the same thing would happen to rich, powerful, popular people if they were ever punished in any way, if they were ever anything but rewarded.)

And rich people and governments are not going to subsidize your church foundation funds, your church repair funds, et cetera if you tell them that they're evil. But someone definitely will come along and offer to take that money. The people who take that money and conform won't even all be lying psychopaths; if you truly believe that your organization matters, is doing irreplaceable good in the world, you'll sacrifice any principle of your faith to keep the bills paid, you'll look away from or excuse any sin. It's that or see it all shrink and crumble into irrelevance.

I've come to the conclusion that it may not actually be possible to be a good person while practicing the majority faith of the land you live in. Or, if it is possible, well, like the man said, "straight is the gate and narrow is the way, and few there be that find it."

The Episcopal Church has its own legacy of sin, they've long overlooked a laundry list of crimes to pay their own bills, so don't rush to congratulate a mainline bishop for preaching mainline Christianity or take too much pleasure from Trump and his fascist followers being surprised that that happened. But do remember this:

From the mid-1970s to the present, right-wing billionaires have poured a LOT of money into church expansion and maintenance conditional on them distorting the Bible's teachings to make it appear that Jesus was pro-fascist. "To deceive, if it were possible, the very elect." So when honest theologians tell you that this is literally anti-Christ, literally checks every box in the Bible's description of the future cult of anti-Christ, you need to hear us.

The modern book and movie image of "the Antichrist" was a well-funded propaganda campaign to distract you from the plain language of the scriptures. The biblical anti-Christ is not some socialist liberal peacenik. The biblical anti-Christ is everyone who tells you that Jesus wants you to be cruel to "the least of these, my brethren" so that they'll straighten up and fly right.

[elbiotipo]

The thing about comparing various political candidates to Hitler is not only that you look like an idiot, but Hitler is dead. The original Nazis are dead or pushing over 90 years old. While we can argue about how successful desnazification was, Nazi Germany was crushed and defeated. Almost a century ago.

Fascism still exists as an idea. Neo-nazism exists as an idea. Fascism is dangerously on the rise today. But these aren't dead nazis rising from the tomb, with the possible exception of the AFD (and even that is arguable). They are the result of modern, current dynamics that are happening right now. Why do you think we see things that for Hitler would be heresy, like Slavic neonazis or white supremacists supporting Israel? Because they are not ghost nazis marching from the 1940s, they're new currents of fascist and ideological allies that have been born from the current conditions of today.

In Argentina, we see the agrarian landowner conservatives allying with the libertarian movement which has found ways to revindicate the murderous military dictatorships to the youth. In the United States, we see the neoconservatives who support the military-complex with the alt-right, the evangelical Dominionists, and a current of white supremacism that has it's roots in the KKK rather than Hitler. And so with other countries. Every country has it's own roots of fascism and it's own horrible expressions, but actual nazis or rather neo-nazis, while present everywhere, aren't the dominant enemy right now.

(in fact, the current expansion of white supremacism is, at is root, almost completely Usamerican in ideological origin, as the US exports it's products and culture, it also exports it's ideological extremists)

To understand and combat fascism one has to understand how it manifests in different periods and places, and how the whole spectrum of the right, while broadly allied in the defense of the current capitalist/imperialist system, has many different currents on it that require different approaches.

[antigonick]

Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. […] But in spite of this fuzziness, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.

The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition [and syncretism]. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth. As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message. […]

Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism. [… For the Nazis], the rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life, but it mainly concerned the rejection of the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course). The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. […]

No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.

Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups [or other minorities]. [...]

To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. [...]

[B]y a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.

For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such a “final solution” implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament.

Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. Since the group is hierarchically organized (according to a military model), every subordinate leader despises his own underlings, and each of them despises his inferiors. This reinforces the sense of mass elitism.

In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. [...] The Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.

Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality).

Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. [...] For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. [...] There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People. Because of its qualitative populism Ur-Fascism must be against “rotten” parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism.

Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in 1984, as the official language of Ingsoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.

—Umberto Eco, in "Ur-Fascism or Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt”

[creature-wizard]

The notion that everyone who identifies as a witch should strive to go "back" to some idealized concept of what witchcraft is "supposed" to be (which is usually based on the modern witchcraft movement in its earlier years) is a product of reactionary thinking.

If you ever study fascism, something that's really hard to miss is their obsession with returning to an idealized past, where everyone follows these glorious traditions that will supposedly ensure a strong and healthy society. The only problem is, these "traditions" are the behavioral patterns of a highly stratified authoritarian culture, which is inherently unhealthy. Many of their so-called traditions are actually extremely recent. Today's fascists are obsessed with "traditional" gender roles and family structures that date back to... *drumroll*

The 1950's.

Maybe it's just a big ol' coincidence, but the 1950's were also the early years of the modern witchcraft movement. In this time, you were supposed to have covens led by a high priest and a high priestess, a feature which strikingly resembles the newly-invented and much-idealized nuclear family. A lot of these people were practicing Christian gender complementarianism in a neopagan hat. Moreover, many of the romantic-era myths about European pagans in the past influenced the modern witchcraft movement. (Heinrich Himmler was into the idea that pagan wise women were persecuted by Jews and Christians. German nationalists were also into the pseudohistorical belief that Ostara was "stolen" to create Easter.)

Witchcraft has been moving past this pseudohistory and broadening beyond the frameworks established in these early days for good reasons. This was not some perfect form of spirituality, it was a spirituality that reflected very particular attitudes and biases of its time. This isn't to say that it was all bad all the time, but rather that a lot of things changed for a good reason.

When people say that we should return to some traditional, true, pure form of witchcraft, what they're functionally saying is that we should take witchcraft back to the 1950's.

Here's an idea: Let's not act like Christian fascists in neopagan hats.

[creekfiend]

I've had something in the back of my brain percolating the concept of Jewish Materialist Anti-Zionism for a while now.

It is our task to oppose Zionism without denying the material conditions under which Jews live, and have lived, globally. Zionism is a response to the material conditions of Jews in the global diaspora. It is a response influenced heavily by 19th and 20th century European nationalist movements, and it is a response that has resulted in an absolutely unacceptable level of violence and oppression of Palestinians.

That does not mean that the material conditions under which diaspora Jews live are not of concern or meriting response. The state of Israel has addressed a non-zero number of problems for Jews globally.  It has addressed them at a cost that I do not find acceptable.

The right of return policy has indeed resulted in many many Jews who would have otherwise been killed having somewhere safe to go with no questions asked. It has *unquestionably* resulted in many many fewer deaths of Jews globally than there would have been if it did not exist.

Some of those Jews are my family.

And, the cost in order to found and maintain the nation-state of Israel to justify the policy is an unacceptable cost. Jews should not hold our lives more dear than the lives of anyone else. The right of return policy of the modern state of Israel is not an acceptable solution to me. The violence innate to the founding and maintenance of Israel as a nation state is unacceptable as a price for Palestinians to pay. I do not and will not ever accept it. I understand that the policy, and Zionism, are responses to a problem that is real. I demand a different response.

If you want to understand the current Israeli government as a western antizionist, and you should, I think it is important to understand that it is a far right fascist movement that arose (somewhat inevitably) from the violence (and nationalist mythologies that arose to justify it) innate to the founding and continued maintenance of the state of Israel. In this respect it is almost indistinguishable from the far right fascist movements in the United States that arose (somewhat inevitably) from the violence (and nationalist mythologies that arose to justify it) innate to the founding and continued maintenance of THIS country.

The thing is, when far right fascists in the United States say "white people are oppressed globally!" they're lying. But when far right fascists in Israel say "Jews are oppressed globally!" THAT'S TRUE.

The response is different. The response is "yes, and that does not justify this."

The only way to defeat Zionism is to come up with a better response to antisemitism than Zionism is. I honestly do not think that this should be very difficult considering that many Jews have had deeply Anti-Zionist philosophy is for as long as Zionism has been around so there are a lot of alternative ideas out there. I think there are a lot of arguments to be made that Zionism has not done a whole lot to address the issue of global antisemitism! It is not a difficult argument to make that it is a failed project.

Making people complacent about fascist rhetoric is so much easier if you can make them afraid. Jews have a lot to be afraid of and that includes Jews in Israel. The point is not that the fears are not valid, the point is that the fears do not justify the violence.

I'm going to turn reblogs on for this post (provisionally) later when I can keep an eye on it.

[apas-95]

Couldnt it be argued that the US is still a slave republic? Domestically, there is slave labor through the prison system, human and labor trafficking, and only a few decades ago, if at that, systems such as convict leasing, share cropping, and debt peonage. Internationally, there is also the fact that for conflict minerals, coffee, chocolate, and other commodities, a portion if not the majority of it is sourced from slave labor.

The use of slavery in and of itself doesn't constitute the slave-society stage of production. Slavery continues to exist under feudalism and capitalism, but not as the driving force of society as in the ancient slave republics. Politically, in the modern USA, it is the bourgeoisie that are in power; and economically, it is the exploitation of waged labour (much of it overseas) that is the basis of production.

Further, slaves in the US are owned either by the state, in state prisons, and leased to private companies; or owned by large companies directly in private prisons. The individual or smallholder ownership of slaves was done away with in the USA's previous civil war: carried out between the industrial haute-bourgeois of the developed north, and the agricultural petty gentry of the southern hinterland. Slaves in the US today are the exclusive property of the bourgeoisie, through their corporations or bourgeois state.

While large amounts of raw materials are sourced through slave labour, as are agricultural goods, slave labour in the broadest sense is not applicable to industrial production of the type required by modern capitalism - if for nothing else than reasons of profitability. The slave labourer is effectively themselves human capital, part of the machinery bought wholesale - while they still effectively carry out labour, they fundamentally do not produce surplus value in the same manner as a wage-worker; it is necessary for their food and other reproductive labour to be given to them without cost, in the same way one carries out maintenance on equipment - whereas a wage-worker is only purchased and employed as capital for the duration of the workday, and then is responsible for their own food, housing, and reproductive labour. The principal exception to the use of slave labour in industrial production (which already has an exceedingly high fixed-capital cost compared to agriculture) is in the historical case of fascism, where primitive accumulation and war industry led to conditions favourable to industrial slave labour, which was carried out en-masse by e.g. German industrial syndicates using concentration camp labourers.

While the earlier USA, as a settler nation, made heavy use of both slavery and primitive accumulation, this was necessarily a historically-contingent process, one carried out by the European empires precisely because the Americas had not been 'brought up to' the level of social contradiction they had. Slavery's profitability necessarily fell as the USA industrialised, and remains now only in certain key industries like agriculture and military production. Historically, again, the movement to make slavery a profitable general venture in the era of capitalism is the fascist movement, which attempts generally to replace the proletariat at large by mobilising the higher strata upwards, into petty-bourgeois smallholders (e.g. wehrbauern), converting the middle strata into slaves, and exterminating the lower strata - a movement that fundamentally requires both large swathes of cleared land as well as mass depopulation, due to the lower population density such an essentially backwards mode of production can support. Ultimately, it is a project doomed to failure, due to the impossibility of turning back history - but one the bourgeoisie are inevitably driven to attempt when capitalism starts nearing the end of its profitability.

In the USA, historically, the exploitation of indigenous nations and external colonies has provided a source of profit and primitive accumulation that has rendered a genuine fascist movement effectively unnecessary, despite the middle-class yearning for it, but these systems are themselves drying up, and the US, while not a slave republic, will soon start attempting to fashion itself into one by carving up its population.

I hope this has answered your question, thank you for writing in!

[jewish-sideblog]

Leftists used to contrast themselves with the Right by having consistent universally applied beliefs about unequivocal fairness and human rights. Due to a number of factors the modern "Left" is evolving quickly to just frame itself as an opponent of the Right. The Right says "Human rights only apply to those we deem worthy," and the Left which used to say "No they apply to everyone," is now starting to say "Nuh-uh! They actually only apply those you deem unworthy and anyone you deem worthy is a fascist capitalist genocidal oppressor and should kill themselves!"

Yeah I think you're absolutely right. I used to be a hardcore leftist because I wanted to stand for something I thought was good, not because I wanted to spend all of my time opposing what I considered evil. A movement that exists purely in opposition to its perceived enemies is destined to implode on itself and I think that's bound to happen sooner or later.

[mariacallous]

The great fault of the global left is not that it supports Hamas. For how could Western left-wing movements or left-inclining charities or academic bodies truly support Hamas if they were serious about their politics?

No one outside the most reactionary quarters of Islam shares Hamas’s aim of forcing the peoples of the world to accept “the sovereignty of Islam” or face “carnage, displacement and terror” if they refuse.  You cannot be a progressive and campaign for a state that executes gay men. An American left, which includes in its ranks the Queers for Palestine campaign group, cannot seriously endorse lethal homophobia in its own country.  They will turn a blind eye in Palestine, as we shall see, but not in New York or Chicago.

Finally, no left organisation proudly honours the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the fascist tradition that Hamas embraces with such sinister gusto, although in a sign of a decay that has been building on the left for more than a generation, many will promulgate left-wing conspiracy theories which are as insane as their fascist counterparts.

No, the problem with the global left is that it is not serious about politics. It “fellow travels” with radical Islam rather than supports it. The concept of “fellow travelling,” with its suggestions of tourism, dilettantism, and privilege, is well worth reviving. The phrase comes from the Bolsheviks. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 they looked with appreciation on Westerners who supported them without ever endorsing communism. Artists, writers, and academics who were disgusted with the West, often for good reason, I should add, were quite happy to justify Soviet communism and cover up its crimes without ever becoming communists themselves.

Leon Trotsky put it best when he said of fellow travellers that the question was always “how far would they go”? As long as they did not have live under the control of communists in the 1920s or the control of Islamists in the 2020s, the answer appears to be: a very long way indeed

W.H. Auden said, as he looked back with some contempt on his fellow travelling past, if Britain or the United States or any country he and his friends knew were taken over by a “successful communist revolution with the same phenomena of terror, purges, censorship etc., we would have screamed our heads off”. But as communism happened in backward Russia “a semi-barbarous country which had experienced neither the Renaissance nor the Enlightenment”, they could ignore its crimes in the interests of seeing the capitalist enemy defeated.

You see the same pattern of lies and indulgence in the case of Hamas. Journalists  have produced a multitude of examples of fellow travelling since 7 October but let one meeting of the Oakland City Council in the Bay area of San Francisco speak for them all.

A council member wanted the council to pass a motion that condemned the killings and hostage-taking by Hamas, who, in case we forget, prompted the war that has devastated Gaza, by massacring Israeli civilians. The motion got nowhere

According to one speaker Hamas did not massacre anyone, a modern variant of Holocaust denial that is becoming endemic. “There have not been beheadings of babies and rapings,” a woman said at the meeting. “Israel murdered their own people on October 7.”  Another woman said that calling Hamas a terrorist organization is “ridiculous, racist and plays into the genocidal propaganda that is flooding our media.” Hamas was the “armed wing of the unified Palestinian resistance” , said a third who clearly had no knowledge of the civil war between Hamas and Fatah.

“To condemn Hamas was very anti-Arab racist” cried a fourth. The meeting returned to modern Holocaust denial as a new speaker said the Israeli Defence Forces had murdered their own people and it was “bald propaganda” to suggest otherwise. A man intervened to shout that “to hear them complain about Hamas violence is like listening to a wifebeater complain when his wife finally stands up and fights back”.  

Anyone who contradicted him was a “white supremacist.”

Of course they were.

Now if theocrats were to establish an Islamist tyranny in the Bay area, I am sure every single speaker would scream their heads off, as Auden predicted. They can turn into fellow travellers as there is no more of a prospect of theocracy threatening them than there was of communism threatening readers of the left-wing press in the UK and US in the 1930s.

A serious left would have plenty to complain about. Consider the Israeli position after the breakdown of the ceasefire. The Israeli state is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, a catastrophe of a prime minister, who left his people exposed to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. His war aims are contradictory: you cannot both wipe out Hamas and free the hostages.

Worst of all, the Israeli defence forces are to move to the southern Gaza strip where two million Palestinians are crammed. Just war doctrine holds that a military action must have a reasonable chance of success if the suffering is to be permitted. How, reasonably, can the Israeli army expect to find guerilla fighters hiding in a terrified population?  According to leaks in the Israeli media, Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of state, was warning the Israeli government that, “You can’t operate in southern Gaza in the way you did in the north. There are two million Palestinians there.” But he was ignored.  A radical movement worth having would surely be putting pressure on the Biden administration to force Israel to listen to its concerns.

The radical movement we have will not engage in practical politics because compromise is anathema to it. Any honest account of the war would have to admit that Israel has the right to defend itself against attack. It is just that the military position it finds itself in now may well make its war aims impossible and therefore immoral.

You can see why practical politics has no appeal. Where is the violent satisfaction in sober analysis,  the drama in compromise? Where is the Manichean distinction between the absolute good of the Palestinians and the pure evil of Israel?  

Meanwhile, ever since the Israeli victory in the Six Day War of 1967, you have been able to say that Jewish settler sites on the West Bank were placed there deliberately to make a peace settlement impossible, and ensure that Israel controlled all the territory from “the river to the sea” forever.

A serious left might try to revive a two-state solution by building an international consensus that the settlements must go. Once again, however, that is too tame an aim. For the fellow traveller watching Palestine from a safe distance, satisfaction comes only by embracing Hamas’s call for the destruction of Israel. Some progressives try to dress up the urge to destroy by pretending that Jews and Palestinians will go on to live together in some happy-clappy, multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state. But most must know they are advocating a war to the death. What makes their position so disreputable is that, if they thought about it calmly, they would know it would be a war that only Israel could win. It is the Israelis who have the nuclear weapons, after all.

The worst of the global left is dilettantish. It advocates a maximalist position which has a minimal chance of success - just for the thrill of it. David Caute, a historian of fellow travelling with Stalin and communism said that the endorsement of communism by fellow travelling intellectuals in the West “deepened the despair” of Soviet intellectuals. “In their darkest hours they heard themselves condemned by their own kind”.

The 2020s are not the 1930s. I am sure that, if I were a Palestinian in Gaza, my sole concern would be the removal of Israeli forces that threatened me and my family. I would either not care about demonstrations in the West or I would receive some comfort from the knowledge that people all over the world were protesting on my behalf.

Nevertheless, a kind of betrayal is still at work. By inflaming and amplifying the worst elements in Palestine the global left is giving comfort to the worst elements in Israel, which are equally determined to make a compromise impossible.

The New Statesman made that point well when it ran a piece by Celeste Marcus.   She came from the Zionist far right, and was taught doctrines that dehumanised Palestinians. She grew up and grew away from the prejudices of her childhood and became a liberal. But after she moved into her new world, she “recognised immediately that progressive leftists feel about Israelis the way radical Zionists feel about Palestinians: these are not real people.”

The result is that for all its power on the streets and in academia the global left is almost an irrelevance.

“To influence Israel,” she writes, “one must be willing to recognise it. Since leftist leaders cannot bother to do this, they cannot be of real use to Palestinians. This is a betrayal of their own cause.”

The dilettantism of fellow travelling always ends in betrayal and denial for the reason Auden gave: terror is always more tolerable when it happens far, far away.

[wilwheaton]

The GOP is now a radicalized, weaponized authoritarian cult that is marching towards minority, anti-democratic rule. I realize that's a lot of words to basically say a modern fascist movement. This description might be dismissed by centrist stenographer of power as hyperbole, but I'd retort that those people are willfully ignoring all the signs that are blinking red and storming the US capitol wearing MAGA hats. MAGA is a monster fed and created by a conservative movement that forfeited its better judgment for the sake of short-term power in the form of Trump. However, Frankenstein's monster has swallowed its creator. The man who is the leader of the GOP is now a 4 times indicted, twice impeached vulgarian with 91 criminal counts against him who incited his mob against a free and fair election. Despite his litany of carnage, or, more accurately, because of it, his base is further drawn to him as their warrior avatar who will deliver them vengeance, retribution and victory.

Experts on Judge Chutkan and Trump: "Despite her encouraging words, she has yet to take action"

[vacuouslyfalse]

A lot of my dislike for Truman is that he steered the US onto (or perhaps failed to steer the US away from) the track that it was on for the entirety of the Cold War - a complete unwillingness to actually make the case against communism and instead immediately pursue violent suppression of communist movements.

Like, the communists were right about Korea, in terms of complaints if not solutions - Korean society was desperately unequal, land reform was necessary, Japanese collaborators accumulated great wealth and power. And you don't need to be a communist to fix these things! Seizure and redistribution of land, justified as a one-time postwar act to disempower Japanese collaborators, would've gotten you like 80% of the way there already. An actual democratic process, with protections for freedom of speech and religion, would've gotten you a lot farther, especially if you wanted to draw a contrast with the anti-Christian repression of the communists.

Instead, the US set up a rabidly anticommunist dictatorship which violently repressed its political enemies, kept Japanese systems of colonial domination in operation, and actively avoided addressing any of the crippling issues affecting Korean society.

And this was the government that US soldiers killed and died for! Not the modern South Korean democracy, the borderline-fascist dictatorship! It is sheer fucking luck that the modern democracy eventually emerged from the succession of authoritarian systems that governed the country until the late 1980s, decades of lost time that could've been avoided if the US had actually given a shit immediately after WWII.