Phalangist movements are more traditionalistic and less totalitarian than fascism proper, relying on a reactive alliance of existing traditionalist class/caste groups rather than mass mobilization through all-encompassing novel ideology and correspondingly are less expansively agressive in their assertion of nationalist claims. Many strains nowadays on the far right would be more usefully described and analyzed in terms of phalangist tendencies rather than in terms of fascism proper: an organization such as, e.g., the American Legion, might at times express such tendencies. The basic point I was making was that fascism emerged an historically unique juncture of the development of socio-political affairs in Europe and it is little likely that we will ever see the re-emergence of full-blown fascism ever again, while it’s highly likely that we will witness much that is woeful or abusive. Using “fascism” as an epithet to label any authoritatian, dictatorial, tyrannical or otherwise oppressive and abusive tendency, whether only on the right or on the left, as well, just muddles the issues, whereas a more differentiated categorical vocabulary in interpreting and analysizing different political-historical situations might more usefully provide some sense of orientation in these “interesting” times. Someone else above gave a good example of the effects of such conflations, but I’ll add another one of my own: the Cold War identification of Nazism/fascism with Stalinism/communism under the rubric of “totalitarianism”. There were, of course, analogies between the two, with strong similarities in terms of mass mobilization through an all-encompassing, totalizing ideology, combined with the extensive and intrusive deployment of state-organized terror. But there were just as strong differences in the historical situations, aims and complexions of the respective regimes. But, of course, the conflation was a deliberate ideological trope, mobilizing the fight against and opprobrium of fascism for the aggressive “containment” of communism, stigmatizing any effort at mutual accommodation, peaceful coexistence or gradualism between the two “blocs” as “appeasemnt”, while disguising/justifying, that is, denegating, oppressive or imperialistic alliances or manoeuvres on behalf of the “free world”. (This is not to deny, of course, that there was much that was oppressive, culpable or dangerously inept on the other side, as well. It’s just to emphasize the importance of clarifying the ideological dynamics and power diffentials operating in various situations.)

Carl Schmitt might have been a nasty piece of work, but his work still constitutes a useful reminder against complacent assumptions, such as that “liberal democracy” is somehow the natural or inevitable political estate, condition or terminus ad quem of mankind, that law and legal proceduralism are somehow a self-grounding and “transparent” medium, that the substance and limits of politics consist solely in representational processes, and that authoritarianism and democracy are simple opposites. His agonistic definition of the political as being determined and organized by the distinction between friend and foe is, of course, an analytic statement,- (though keeping in mind, as Bateson put it, the “report/command” structure of every statement),- that, though weak on understanding how a political community is “internally” constituted, does usefully bring out the issues of the competitive/oppositional organization of power that all but inevitably ensues. As for the Busheviks, though Bush is definitely a divider and not a uniter and is unstinting in his arrogant, corrupt, and reckless usurpation of power, it would be difficult to attribute to them anything like the cold and stark clarity of the Schmittian outlook. Were Schmitt alive today, though I doubt he was known for his sense of humor, I suspect the Iraq invasion would have provoked him to gales of Mephistophelian laughter. (Perhaps he is, in fact, so laughing in unheard realms.)

But once we’re on the topic of “political theology”, perhaps a glance back at the first such analyst might be of some interest: Spinoza’a contention, based on his metaphysics on the “conatus essendi”, that right extends as far as power. That was precisely not an identification of right with power, “might makes right”, but an assertion that rights could not meaningfully be talked of without the capacity to sustain them. In fact, he deployed the claim to criticize, from a “democratic” perspective, Hobbes’ theory of sovereignty based on an authoritarian social contract. That men would voluntarily transfer the whole of their right to a sovereign in exchange for protection and survival and that they would adhere to their contractual obligations as moral duties when the sovereign proved abusive of the putative contract Spinoza regarded as weak claims that reasonable men would not sustain and that could have no causal/rational- (the two were identical for him)- explanatory force. In other words, he turned the Enlightened critique of superstition on Hobbes’ own claim to establish a bold new “science” of politics. Following up on that, I’ll just remark that it might be more useful to delineate the realm of politics as the expression, for better or for worse, of the relational nexuses that comprise social life processes, including the power differentials that are constantly negotiated in them, rather than analysing it in terms of the utilitarian calculation of interests, since it is the resulting “values” and their conflicts, (which can be “internal” to positions, as well as, occurring ‘externally” between positions), that frame the perception and identification of “interests” by actual individual and group agents. Interpretation and analysis in terms of such an expressive conception of the political might better capture the real force of the interests at play in the organization of effective power than programmatic analysis based on the imputation of “objective” interests, with its denegation of the very agency it ostensibly appeals to. But still the question remains, hanging over us like the Sword of Damocles: what is power?

Forgive me for picking a nit, Brendan, but the proper adjectival form is “Democratic”: the Democratic Party, Democratic proposals, a Democratic Senator, and so on. The people in the party, on the other hand, are Democrats.

It would a vanishingly small nit, were it not for the fact that the misuse of “Democrat” as an adjective is very popular on the American right, apparently for reasons of sound symbolism: “rat,” “crap,” what have you.

‘It may be exceedingly unlikely that President Bush will be impeached, but in the past few days, the I-word has become a topic of considered discussion among constitutional scholars, former intelligence officers and even a few politicians….other political scholars have weighed in. “The American public has to understand that a crime has been committed, a serious crime,” Chris Pyle, a professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College and an expert on government surveillance of civilians, tells Salon. “Looking at this controversy objectively, you inevitably end up with a question of impeachment,” says Jonathan Turley, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law….other political scholars have weighed in. “The American public has to understand that a crime has been committed, a serious crime,” Chris Pyle, a professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College and an expert on government surveillance of civilians, tells Salon. “Looking at this controversy objectively, you inevitably end up with a question of impeachment,” says Jonathan Turley, a professor at the George Washington University School of Law.’

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/12/22/impeach/index.html

Not that any of this will actually happen, with the Democrats being (objectively as they say) on the side of Bush.

Why doesn’t the Democrat party disband? What’s the point of it?

To me ‘phalangism’ is Spanish fascism, ‘nazism’ is German fascism, “black colonels” is Greek fascism, Pinochet’s regime is Chilean fascism and so on. It’s not scientific, but, I think, common enough.

I should have qualified my statement that Thatcher didn’t threaten democracy by saying that it was formal, electoral (“liberal”) democracy she didn’t threaten. Thatcher-Reaganism (“neo-liberalism”) was and is of course an attack on social-democracy and the social and democratic gains of the working classes since the second world war, and as such an absolute menace to any concept, including my own, of “real” democracy.

But I don’t believe Thatcher would ever have considered a coup against the established rules of the liberal democratic game. Clearly a different category to fascism, then.

#73’s fourth makes this foreigner ask, is there a constitutional requirement that the U. S. of A do good? Or is she just prevented from doing bad, good and bad having been defined somewhere in the self same constitution?

If I understand the argument correctly, it runs as follows:

1) We are at “war” because the President says we are.

(Of course, there are specific instances in which we are not, actually, “at war”: whenever those pesky, quaint Geneva Conventions are brought up, for instance. Alternatively, the argument has been made that this “war” is unlike any other “war” in the history of humankind, and that such differences can only be fully grasped and acted upon by the President.)

2) The enemy in this “war” is whoever the President happens to label as such. The person so labeled has no right to contest the label, the President’s power in this respect being absolute.

3) There being no actual enemy foreign power capable of surrendering, the “war” will be over when the President says it’s over.

Now comes my favorite part:

4) It’s all about spreading the benefits of democracy and freedom.

Never mind conceptual dilution, here’s some conceptual attenuation. Not seeing Thatcherism and now its offspring Blairism as an attack on democracy is naive to say the least. It doesn’t require disbanding Parliament to dismantle democracy.

In the Bush administration’s assertion that a wartime President’s status as Commander-in-Chief puts him outside of statutory control, we do see a weak parallel to fascism, since it claims military precedence over civil government. But he is still limited by the Constitution; he cannot, for instance, use the War on Terror as a reason to suspend Congressional elections, and he is still subject to court orders citing Constitutional authority.

Moreover, Bush has not made the WOT a national mission; it is important but not defining. And he certainly has not succeeded in controlling the Congress or the Courts, which makes any centralized hierarchy of his rather less centralized and rather less hierarchical than fascism requires.

So I think accusations of ‘a fascist government’ are a little overdone; I don’t like the idea of a President who puts himself above the law, even if only in some circumstances, but as a practical matter Bush isn’t claiming to be above that many laws, and can cite other Presidents’ actions which may or may not have been Constitutionally valid but don’t seem to have done any long-term harm.

Yes, it’s something to keep an eye on, but there’s no shortage of willing eyes.

By passive-aggressive, sissified, vicarious revelers in gerrymandering and throwing away votes, yes, so consider the source.
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