Paradoxical Phenonemon of Liberal Fascism, by Rick Gunderman

Disclaimer: I despise (and I would type that all in caps if I didn’t think it would discredit my journalistic integrity) it when terms like “fascist” are overused. In fact, fascist/fascism seem to be the most pervasively overused terms across the political spectrum, being abused by communists, socialists, anarchists, liberals, conservatives and right-libertarians alike. Nevertheless, I find myself in the unprecedented personal dilemma of having to use this term to accurately label this new current that I have been observing. Perhaps it’s time to review my pet peeve…

I have been interested in politics to varying degrees since childhood. Somewhere between Grade 1 and Grade 4 a teacher of mine introduced the class to the concept of “government” and made an attempt to explain it to us. Whether the half-assed assessment provided by the teacher was a result of the teacher’s own ineptitude, the administration’s lax focus on civics, or an overall trend of keeping extensive and critical thought on our political process minimal is irrelevant, albeit thought-provoking.

In either case, I recall vividly my surge into politics.

I was fifteen years old and had just completed by Grade 10 year at Westmount Secondary School – which, for the record, is an oppressive institution – and there was a federal election campaign in full swing. I had always noticed and paid the most mild amounts of attention to elections in the past, but this one was different. I had taken a half-semester class on “civics” and I became very interested in the outcome of this election.

Were the Liberals going to win another majority, this time under newly-minted leader Paul Martin? Were the Greens going to be allowed to participate in the CBC debate, much less were they going to win a seat? And where did this Stephen Harper fella and his “Conservative Party” come from? What happened to the Progressive Conservative Party, and that Canadian Alliance?

Easy questions to answer, and it took me only a few days of pouring through the Hamilton Spectator to get caught up on the situation.

Having fulfilled all of my initial questions, I moved on and began to ask myself what the difference between all these parties were.

At that point I knew this: the Conservatives were “right-wing”, the Liberals were “centre”, and the NDP and Greens (and to some extent the Bloc Quebecois) were “left”. But I didn’t know what that meant.

Applying my pre-existing “political views” to this election as a no-brainer. I was what Propagandhi calls a “pre-teen McCarthyist”. I thought cops should kick the shit out of every criminal they came across, the death penalty should be re-introduced and abortion re-criminalized, women should stay at home with the kids while the men go out and earn the dough, marijuana users should be locked up for 25 to life, and that the army should occupy our streets to keep us safe from all the dangerous minorities. I’m not shitting about that last one, either. It was that bad.

So, what’s a middle-class semi-suburban white teenage boy to do?

I had my dad stick a sign on our front lawn that read “Vote Leon O’Connor, Conservative Party”.

I did have some reservations about conservatism, though. I was in favour of recognizing same-sex marriage. I thought universal health care and public education were indispensable. I was not religious and therefore saw no value in institutionalizing biblical morals in law.

So really, my “conservatism” came down to this: let’s all be free, but under the heavy thumb of a government that will protect us from each other.

It took a high school physics teacher in cargo shorts, a student-wage job at a fast-food restaurant, and Rush’s “Freewill” to make me realize what a clown I was being.

It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened quickly enough. Within a few months of reading progressive and liberal literature, pouring over the NDP’s website, learning about Greenpeace and PETA, and familiarizing myself with socialism (albeit in the form of “social democracy”) that I completely renounced conservatism in any way.

It took another little while before I finally fully internalized social libertarianism and genuine socialism. I had been pandering to the social democratic ideal of a capitalist economy collaborating with a democratic “peoples’” government before I finally gave up on social democracy courtesy of consistently weak NDP campaigns and activities.

Point is, when I became politically aware I had a stain on me that prevented what, at this point, would seem like a natural direction to libertarian socialism for me. That stain was liberal fascism.

It is a fusion of classical liberal ideals about liberty and 20th Century reaction in the form of authoritarianism.

The former is basic and simple: the Enlightenment bred ideas about individual freedom and anti-establishment sentiment. They wanted the people associating (and buying and selling) freely.

The latter, however, is more complex.

By the time the turn of the century came around there was little reason to suggest a massive event that would shake the world was less than 20 years away. Revolutionary ferment had last touched Europe in 1848, before the ideas of socialism (more specifically Marxism) had been introduced to the masses. The European ruling class, despite a persistent frustration caused by organized labour movements, must have felt fairly secure in their position.

Even though there was revolutionary activity in some parts of the world – arguably the most notable of which included Zapata’s uprising in Mexico – the globe was unquestionably under dominance of Europe or of European people living in the Americas, Australia, Africa or Asia.

When the First World War broke out, the class consciousness of the European masses had still not been fully tapped into. Despite significant movements in Italy, France, Spain and Germany, it would be Russia that would step up to the plate.

Russia was a relatively backwards country, with perhaps 10% of the population belonging to the Marxian “proletariat”. The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov, aka Vladimir Lenin, formulated a plan to contemporize Marx’s ideas. Contrary to Marx’s prediction, European capitalism had become stronger since his time, not weaker.

Lenin proposed a disciplined party of full-time revolutionaries working to seize power in the name of the workers. He produced the idea of “democratic centralism”, which is to say that every member of the party has a right to participate in a free debate, but once a conclusion is reached democratically every member is expected to conform to this.

With this, Lenin all but ensured that once his party took power it would not be functioning in good faith with the working class. After all, if the party is made of full-time revolutionaries and not rank-and-file workers, how can the workers then claim to be holding power?

Lenin’s successful revolution naturally gave way to Stalin’s bureaucratic centralism, which completed the establishment of the USSR as a capitalist state. It was never a workers’ state: the workers never held power.

Reaction to this among the European ruling class was devastating. They became terrified that a Leninist take-over in their country was all but unavoidable. From this attitude came fascism.

Fascism is a clear attempt to weaken the class consciousness, convincing the workers that it is not class that unites them, but “nationality”. By doing this, the national ruling class was able to secure the devotion of the lower classes, notably the unemployed and middle-class owner-workers. This is how Mussolini, Franco and Hitler all came to power, and there were notable fascist movements in the UK, France, and elsewhere.

Fascism, being class denialist, does not see root causes for things. They do not see petty crime as a result of “having nothing and having nothing to lose”. They do not see serious crimes as an example of anti-social behaviour by those who feel alienated because of a dog-eat-dog society.

To them, the cause of all social problems is a lack of national unity and a lack of a strong state to paternally rule the nation.

Even though manifest fascism was defeated in World War 2, anti-Leninism was not. By this time, however, Leninism had erroneously become synonymous with “communism”, a fact that paralyzed leftist movements for the decades to come and still lasts today.

Now that the USSR, the “bastion for socialism” (this is so incorrect I would need a whole book to explain what’s wrong with it), has collapsed, it seemed that capitalism and nationalism had found their place in the sun. They had won the good fight against those puppy-kicking, baby-eating, godless commies.

How often are we taught as kids that we must respect authority? We are taught to fall in line and listen to our superiors, be they teachers, parents or bosses. We are taught never to critically think and to simply swallow what is put in front of us.

Next time you see a middle-aged American politician praising his or her (likely his) country for being the Land of Liberty, don’t be surprised if you also hear him or her (likely him) continue to suggest brutalizing the alienated, executing the deviant, oppressing the oppressed, and conquering foreign lands. Liberal fascism at work.

~ by redrising on May 1, 2008.