The Establishment Bourgeois Institutions Will Not Rescue Us
My Latest Interview on the Refuse Fascism Podcast
Here is my latest interview by Samantha Goldman, the remarkable host of the exceptional Refuse Fascism podcast:
Please donate to Refuse Fascism here:
https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/we-refuse-to-accept-a-fascist-america-2?source=direct_link
RefuseFascism Mission Statement
RefuseFascism.org exposes, analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in this country. Seventy-four million people voted for Trump in 2020. The Republi-fascist Party has been purged of dissenting voices. The mass fascist movement has hardened in the wake of their January 6 coup attempt. Fascist initiatives around restricting voting, immigration and abortion rapidly advance in statehouses across the country. The election of Biden has not eliminated the danger, it has only bought some time.
Fascism is not just a gross combination of horrific reactionary policies. It is a qualitative change in how society is governed. Once in power, fascism’s defining feature is the essential elimination of the rule of law and democratic and civil rights. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny, and the aggressive re-institution of oppressive “traditional values.” Truth is obliterated and fascist mobs and threats of violence are unleashed to build their movement and consolidate power.
The Democratic Party will not stop this nightmare. Trump, fascist Fox News, and the Republi-fascist Party have branded them as enemies and “traitors.” Yet, the Democratic Party will consistently pull to try to work with, conciliate with and collaborate with them. There can be no reconciliation with fascism except on the terms of the fascists. Fascism must be resolutely opposed.
RefuseFascism.org unites with people from diverse perspectives to sound the alarm and prevent the consolidation of this American fascism. Through our website, podcast, social media, and publications we engage, dialogue and debate with a broad array of writers, scholars, legal experts and people from different walks of life to educate people on the roots, nature, trajectory of the real and present danger of fascism. And, through our engagement and networking with people and social movements we are forging understanding and relationships aimed at preventing the consolidation of fascism.
Since the founding of RefuseFascism.org our stand and resolve have not wavered:
We pledge to the people of the world:
In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America
The main feature of fascism, usually ignored or obscured in bourgeois societies, is that it has a material-- rather than a cultural or ideological -- base. Fascism infects capitalist economies as the military accumulation of capital becomes increasingly dominant and other means of profit-seeking dry up.
In such circumstances, the dominant capitalists turn to military profiteering, which requires inventing enemies, provoking conflicts, stimulating hatreds, etc., etc. Everything we're now seeing. Read up on two of history's pioneering analysts of fascism, Georgi Dmitrov of Bulgaria and George Seldes of the USA. (See the Amazon Books synopsis of Seldes's 1943 FACTS AND FASCISM. He laid it all out there, yet our top US academic "experts" on fascism ignore him and his work, and obscure the discussion with clouds of abstract pretentious terms,
There's no one way that fascism comes, nor does it shape itself into the same forms. It's creative and adaptive. There's no predictable tipping point as to when the bourgeoisie of a militarily dependent capitalist state seek fascistic solutions. The seeds are always there and always being resown, and it's up to anti-fascists to recognize when they threaten to take over and to figure out how to uproot them. If antifascists can't form a broad and effective coalition to do so, they're going to go down in ruin with their like-minded contemporaries.