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You will forgive me then, if I think that "surrendering to McCarthyism" and "pretending liars who say fascism has no meaning are right" seems pretty counter-productive to me when opposing fascism.

Amazingly enough, there have been perhaps HUNDREDS of books written that cover the topic of what fascism is; I suggest you read one - literally any one of them. Because clearly your reading habits ended after they assigned you 1984 in middle school.

The same goes for genocide. The term has a strict definition; that definition is available for free, all over the internet. I literally just watched a UN official dress down David Lammy for pretending genocide is only when "you kill them all" despite being a human rights lawyer.

There is a FIGHT going on, in our society, about what these words MEAN, and the folks arguing what that Subgenius branded dipshit are arguing, are INVARIABLY on the side of "don't use those words so we can keep killing"

So no, I will be not be surrendering that fight. And yes, I will continue to use the words "genocide" and fascism."

Furthermore, I will remind you that I never once asked you or anyone else to be my editor, and you have no power over me, or what I type. I'm not interested in being told what to do. The whole "anarchist" thing probably shoulda warned you about that.

Anyway; enough with that absolute bellend. I mostly typed this out because this is ACTUALLY important, and I'm concerned if even one person thinks that dipshit had a point because "fascism and genocide don't MEAN anything" is actually a pivotal plank in the arguments and justifications of fascists and people doing genocide right now.

I don't think that muppet is either pro-genocide or a fascist; but his arguments sure do carry water for those people and what they're trying to accomplish.

All of this is of course besides the point that Fanon and Césaire were more or less right when they said, in effect, that fascism is just colonialism applied against people in the imperial core. You literally can't separate either fascism, or genocide for that matter, from the historical application of colonialism because the former creates space for the latter.

Even Bob Paxton recognizes the Slave Power South as a fascist state, for example. Heaven forbid folks ever do any reading tho...

Here, this might not be the first book I'd recommend, but it's widely available to read for free and while I think the general lack of a detailed class analysis hurts Paxton's work, he is still the guy who was warning in the 90's that fascism existed, and could quite easily be a threat in the Pig Empire West going forward.

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://files.libcom.org/files/Robert%20O.%20Paxton-The%20Anatomy%20of%20Fascism%20%20-Knopf%20%282004%29.pdf

PS - it took him a while to come around, but eventually Paxton did say Trump was a fascist.

Finally (I know, I said I was done already; sue me) I think what a lot of pedants forget when discussion fascism is basically that it's not 1930 anymore. Nazism and The Holocaust DID happen. Society has a memory about how embracing fascism turns out, so unlike say Nazis and Italian fascism, you can't just pop out and say "hi, we're the fascists" with a smile on your face anymore. Fascists KNOW describing themselves as FASCIST will impede their path to power, so they've adapted their sales pitch.

Back when I was getting in trouble for teaching my students about fascism in a higher learning institute, the phrase I used to use is that fascism seeking power, behaves a lot like water or electricity. It is, broadly speaking, seeking the fastest route to influence and power. They will say anything, they will pretend to be anything, to normalize their ideology and seek that power. So the beast today in 2024, behaves at least rhetorically, different than the literal Nazi Party, to obtain POWER.

Y'all don't get it, these people don't have anything else. You think I'm joking when I say that these guys, nazis, spend literally all day hanging out with other nazis workshopping and game-theorying out how they can get people to embrace fascism, and create the space for a fascist order. But that's not a joke or an exaggeration. Fascists don't really have much else going on; you're busy living your life, they're working out how to ruin it at all hours of the day.

And NEWSFLASH: fascists are NOT the most HONEST of people.

They are not going to just come out and say "yeah we're the Nazis, we love Hitler, we're going to fucking murder you" until they have enough power to tell you to get on the truck and ensure your compliance by force.

Fascism adapts its arguments and rhetoric, constantly. And they will and do, lie to you, to obtain power. What never changes is their PURPOSE.