Rush, Newspeak
and Fascism:
An exegesis
POSTED AUGUST 30, 2003 --
Introduction
Is fascism an obsolete term? Even if it resurrects itself as a significant political threat, can we use the term with any effectiveness?
My friend John McKay, discussing the matter at his Weblog archy, wonders if the degraded state of the term has rendered it useless. After all, it has in many respects become a catchall for any kind of totalitarianism, rather than the special and certainly cause-specific phenomenon it was. Anyone using the word nowadays is most often merely participating in this degradation.
Nonetheless, I think Robert O. Paxton has it right in his essay "The Five Stages of Fascism":
We cannot give up in the face of these difficulties. A real phenomenon exists. Indeed, fascism is the most original political novelty of the twentieth century, no less. ... If we cannot examine fascism synthetically, we risk being unable to understand this century, or the next. We must have a word, and for lack of a better one, we must employ the word that Mussolini borrowed from the vocabulary of the Italian Left in 1919, before his movement had assumed its mature form. Obliged to use the term fascism, we ought to use it well.
The following essay is devoted to that idea. Its purpose is, if nothing else, to give the reader a clear understanding of fascism not merely as a historical force but a living one.
The essay originally appeared as a series of posts at my Weblog Orcinus, sparked by an erroneous report of something Rush Limbaugh reportedly had told his radio audience. The error was soon corrected, but the remarks had in any event stirred me to write about my concerns about the way the political climate in America is heading, based on material and information I'd been gathering on a variety of issues pertaining to the radical right and its increasing ideological traffic with mainstream conservatism.
Because Orcinus is generally intended as an actual journal -- a place for me to work out writing ideas and to post original source material on news stories and events that interest me -- much of what appeared on the blog was in many ways a rough draft. Moreover, since it is a public enterprise, I obtained much feedback during the course of writing it, some of which affected the content and nature of the essay and appears in the current text.
The version that appears before you is, of course, considerably edited and rewritten. There is a good deal of new material that did not appear anywhere on the blog. Whole sections have been rearranged and edited down, and the order of the argument is not exactly what appears on the blog. In this respect, it may be an instructive exercise for anyone interested in the writing process to compare the two; but in any event, this version is the definitive edition, since a number of errors and repetitions, as well as logical missteps, can be found in the rough draft, naturally.
While I establish early in the essay that this is an attempt at a "scholarly" discussion of fascism, I should however clarify that I am in fact merely a journalist, not a scholar, nor do I pretend to be one. The following essay is more in the way of a journalistic survey of the academic literature regarding fascism, and an attempt at a kind of lay analysis of the literature's contents as it relates to the current political context. However, none of the ideas regarding the core of fascism, nor its many accompanying traits, are my own. "Rush" is mostly drawn from a body of scholarly work on fascism that's broadly accepted as the important texts on the subject, and I'll urge anyone interested in examining the matter seriously to read them. There's a bibliography at the end.
The core of my interest in fascism is closely connected to my work in trying to understand the motivations of right-wing extremists, because my experience was that in most regards many of these folks were seemingly ordinary people. And I was furthermore intrigued by the historical phenomenon of the Holocaust, particularly the problem of how a nation full ordinary people could allow such a monstrosity to happen. I'm interested in fascism as a real-world phenomenon and not an abstract and distant concept.
As such, I'm hoping this essay if nothing else helps advance a wider understanding of fascism in the general public, because I've come to understand that this awareness is essential if we are to combat it.
I'd like to thank the many people who have contributed to "Rush" both in the collection of material beforehand as well as during the writing process:
- My fellow bloggers who contributed ideas and points that became part of the text, including John McKay at archy; James R. Maclean at The Watch (now Pacific Views); Richard Einhorn at Tristero; Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest; and Gil Smart at Smart Remarks
- The many other bloggers whose links to the essay have contributed mightily to its seeming popularity, and whose abiding interest in my work at Orcinus is deeply appreciated: Atrios at Eschaton; Avedon Carol at Sideshow; Kynn Bartlett at Shock and Awe; Ginger Mayerson at Hackenblog; Jeralyn Merritt at TalkLeft; Mark Woods at wood s lot; Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Electrolite; Richard at Peking Duck; Bryant at Population: One; Chris Woolery at Hegemoney.com; Digby at Hullabaloo; Kevin Hayden at Reach M High Cowboy Network Noose; John Constantine at Hellblazer; Michael Finley at world gone wrong; Christian at Radio Free Blogistan; Lisa English at Ruminate This; John Emerson at Zizka; and many others who I'm sure I managed to overlook. Many, many thanks to Jennifer at Media Whores Online for the many links.
- A very special thanks to Paula at Stonerwitch, who not only contributed ideas but who volunteered the time and effort required to convert "Rush" to a PDF file.
- The many readers who wrote in to express their interest, and particularly those who contributed their thoughts, many of which made their way into the text: Matthew Davis, Christopher Skinner, John Burns, and the pseudonymous Farmer.
- Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League, Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates for their regular advice and contributing interviews.
- Brenda Kitterman of Not In Our Town for inviting me to Kalispell; and Paul deArmond of Public Good for keeping me informed about events in Bellingham.
- Last but not least: My wife, Lisa Dowling, whose remarkable ability at keeping the ship afloat is what enables me to write, and whose patience with my disappearance into the shop seems endless; and my daughter Fiona Rose, whose sweet nature often allowed me to keep working while she played with her colors, books and blocks, and whose smile always reawakens that old desire to make the world a better place.
David Neiwert
Seattle
June 2003
Next: I: Projecting Fascism.
*. David Neiwert is a freelance journalist based in Seattle. His reportage for MSNBC.com on domestic terrorism won the National Press Club Award for Distinguished Online Journalism in 2000. He is the author of In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest (1999, WSU Press), as well as the forthcoming Death on the Fourth of July: Hate Crimes and the American Landscape (Palgrave/St. Martin's Press, 2004) and Strawberry Days: The Rise and Fall of the Bellevue Japanese-American Community (publisher pending, 2004). His freelance work can be found at Salon.com, the Washington Post, MSNBC and various other publications. He can be contacted at Orcinus.