Alienation, disaffection, hate groups in the US..

The city I live in is very diverse and has sizable immigrant populations (Latin American, African), and is not affluent at all, but I'll grant that my neighborhood is above average in wealth. It's also majority Catholic, not just among the recent immigrants either. Seriously, I'm not pretending there isn't racism here, I've seen it myself, but I just don't think that it takes the form of neo-nazi groups. I know they exist in the US but I just do not believe it is a big social problem right now. Or am I misinformed - any Americans care to weigh in?

I would point out that at this moment in the US there's a large amount of talk in the press about growing anti-Semitism in Europe: there is some good reporting (interesting piece on France in this week's NY Times magazine), and then there are attempts by some on the right to.. well, it is extremely complicated, but my overgeneralized version would be to sort of cement the righteousness of their views and policies by pointing out the faults of Europe in this regard, both past and present.

Here's today's column by David Brooks, who is almost without fail an apologist for the Bush administration. It is a nice piece and I am not attacking what he's written, I'm just mentioning it to point out an undertone of patriotism, that nazis generally are in the political discourse here through a strong association with the history and the faults of Europe. And that groups of disaffected, angry, alienated young people might be hate-filled and racist, but the realm of nazism is associated with foreign countries - so it's a big contradiction to be an extreme nationalist in the US and a nazi, because nazis are foreigners.

Yesterday I was listening briefly - I like to know what the other side's saying - to a radio show by the shameless right-wing shill Sean Hannity, who was talking about the Mel Gibson film and was incredibly insistent on proving that it wasn't anti-Semetic. Now, this is a guy who entirely feeds into anger, disaffection, alienation, and so forth; he spends most of his time on the air complaining about liberals, and he's one of many. And precisely that alienation can reach the point of tarring liberals as quasi-nazi. Hence rignt-wingers referring to Hillary Clinton as "Hitlery."

Fascism, when stripped of its Hilter/Mussolini symbolism and viewed purely as a political agenda, is a different matter. Fascism has long been a strong player in USA politics, if you consider the major tenets of fascism to be:

- rampant national chauvinism with a strong xenophobic/racist strain
- glorification of military prowess and a preference for violent means
- identification of corporate strength with national goals
- approval of a police state to quell political unrest
- ascendence of propaganda machinery in every facet of public life
- pathological anti-communism and anti-socialism

Fascism as such has been more or less mainstream in American politics since the middle of the 20th century. Fascists have dominated the Congress for the last two decades. It's just that the name of fascism can't be used to describe it because "the USA destroyed fascism in WWII."

But the political program I just outlined above is not only active, but a very powerful thread in American political life. There is also a very active liberal, socialist thread in American political life, too. But any objective observor would have to say that the liberal strain has been waning and the fascist strain has been waxing.

What is currently called "conservative" in the USA is a complete misnomer. Conservatism would, for example, never endorse the kind of military adventurism the USA has engaged in for the last 50 years, or the massive bloating of the national debt in peacetime.

The whole difficulty with correctly naming this political philosophy as fascism is not that the moniker doesn't describe it, but that the name of 'fascism' was demonized during a total war and the myth is that it died and with the Allied victory. But, since we can't call it fascism, I would settle for calling it "Reaganism", a term that is highly appropriate, well understood in its implications, and used by the adherents to identify themselves.

It is not incidentally appropriate, too, in its aggrandizment of a heroic figurehead rather than a social aim, goal or philosophy as its touchstone. This is another tendency of fascism, BTW.

Let me repeat, though: America is not yet a Reaganite state. The reaganites have only a razor thin majority in the government and the populace is far less reaganite than their leaders are.

Programmed?

The wording of your "political program" seems very extreme and paranoid. I don't see the xenophobia/racism. I don't see the support for a police-state. I don't see a preference for violent means. And I don't see propaganda machinery in every facet of my life.

I do agree there are some parallels between the hawkish conservatives and fascism, especially in that both put most their chips on the military. Again it seems to me like saying the end goals of neo-cons or Reaganites is military-fascism is no different then saying the end goal of the left is socialism/communism. It's an extremist portrayal used to demonize whichever side you're against. Sorry to derail the thread.

*shrug* Societal programming, social conditioning via school, mass media, etc. Not too surprising; by the time I was ten and Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, I was already well aware that Nazis = swaztika = bad guys and so forth, for instance.

the programming thing isnt so difficult to accept. the word programming has mega negative connotations, understandably, but can you really envisage a society where this does not take place

perhaps if we replace the word 'programming' and replace it with the more friendly 'socialization' it wont seem quite so ott.

you can talk about the "traditional depiction" of Nazis as a sort of "archetypal bad guys" - I'm not denying they gist of what Ned said, that we pick up these things from our culture. But you don't describe them the way Aimless did unless you mean something different.

The swastika isn't a symbol of Nazism, just a symbol that Nazis used. Like how "It's My Life" isn't a No Doubt song, or whatever.

I used it, not to imply that people would not or could not figure out on their own that Nazism was morally flawed, "given an objective introduction to the facts". Such an outcome is purely hypothetical anyway, because the general public of the USA, increasingly with the passage of time, has little or no grasp of the "objective facts" of Nazism.

Those objective facts are totally submerged in the myth, in the mind of the general public. The myth, as reinforced ad infinitum by the popular media is simply that Nazis were evil scum who wore sinister but snappy uniforms and somehow got into control of several million faceless soldiers who obeyed them like automatons and who consequently decided to conquer the world and annihilate the jews for little apparent reason other than their appetite for madness and sadism.

For the liberally inclined, the myth also includes the rather vague, but tantalizing, appendix that we are all capable of acting like Nazis, but this belief is usually accepted without the slightest understanding of what this means or entails.

To my thinking, a pervasive belief that exists purely apart from either personal experience or objective knowledge can best be described as programming. Agree or don't agree - that is my viewpoint.

As for the xenophobia, think back only to the nonsense of Freedom Fries and 'cheese-eating surrender monkeys' we were treated to by Reaganite members of Congress and the Bush administration no long ago. Does the fact that those members of Congress expected to gain favour with their constituents for these remarks suggest anything to you? Or how about the coining of terms like "peaceniks"? These examples are so familiar and accepted as normal, it is easy to overlook what that means.

Which rather brings me to my main point, which is that when you genuinely know the facts of history and contemporary politics, the fact that the Nazis and certain factions in American politics share much in common should be more unsurprising than surprising.

Politics is nothing if not pragmatic. The Nazis were, within limits, wildly successful. They unified and mobilized germans into a very sharp weapon and came rather close to achieving some wildly ambitious goals. The idea that no politicians in America would borrow from them, or even rediscover their techniques for themselves, is preposterous. Remember that Karl Rove consciously studies Mark Hannah and you may learn something.

Didn't Timothy McVeigh wake a lot of people up to the emergence of neo-nazi militia's in the states?

Has all of this simply gone away now?

I think they've gained solidarity through the internet, mostly, and the effusion of their ideology worldwide has probably picked up a few new recruits, or at least allowed isolated people of like mind to become vocal.

"What bothers me more is how they rub shoulders with people who claim to not espouse those views - people who just claim to be conservative Republicans or whatever."

This is no different than the groups the left flirt with, such as the black racism institutionalized on college campuses. Rather than worrying solely about one side's racist tendencies it ought to be all the more troubling that both sides flirt with racism and that each side seems blind to its own strains of unadulterated hatred.

You may find it comical to hate on the French, but that doesn't drain it of xenophobic signifigance. You reinforce my point by showing once again that xenophobia is so ingrained in the public mind that it passes as normal. Ha ha. Surrender monkeys.

You are clever to pick out that "peaceniks" and "fascists" may both be used as political name calling. But my point obviously whizzed over your head. I cited "peacenik" in the context of xenophobia. My point being that this particular slur relied for its effect on identifying its object with Russia. To the small extent that "fascist" identifies the object with the huns or japs, then it reinforces my point rather than undermines it.

You mention huns and japs, but say nothing of Il Duce. Do you hate Italy because you call Bush a fascist? I guess you're just a victim of the same institutionalized xenophobia you accuse everyone else of.

(xpost OH NOW YOU'VE RUINED IT)

What on earth are you talking about? I love when people I've never seen on ILX before suddenly appear to make neo-conservative arguments.