From: "Karl Carlile" <joseph-AT-indigo.ie> Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 19:05:58 +0000 Subject: Fascism&freespeech4 A KARL CARLILE MESSAGE: RICHARD: Civil libertarians - by which I mean those who understand and support the original intent of the Bill of Rights - must support the inviolability of freedom of speech for _all_ political points of view. Any support for selective censorship - even against fascists - has only one lasting institutional consequence: it serves to grant to the government the right to decide what speech is permissable. KARL: As I intimated in previous postings the question of supporting the denial of free speech to fascism is a tactical or strategical matter. At present it would be politically incorrect to seek the denial of free speech to fascism. In other words there is nothing to be gained politically by denying free speech to fascism under circumstances that are not alone unrevolutionary but not even "partially revolutionary". Under circumstances where a significant revolutionary working class movement exists together with a significant fascist movement then the conditions for seeking the denial of free speech for fascism might exist. Under circumstances where the class struggle has developed to fever pitch and the question of seizing state power is increasingly becoming an issue then it might make sense to seek to deny free speech to fascism. Under such a scenario the conditions may exist for marxism and social democracy taking joint action to fight fascism and deny it freedom of speech. Under these circumstances too the conditions for forcing the capitalist state through mass pressure to institutionally deny free speech to fascism may be present. On the other hand if the state fails to yield to mass popular pressure then this reveals all the more starkly the class character of the state and its inability to resist fascism. Such a development raises all the more urgently the need for the proletariat to attack the capitalist state and seize state power as the only effective means to defeat fascism. It makes acutely clear to the masses that the only way to abolish fascism is by abolishing the state and the capitalist system that is the source of fasicism. In seizing state power the working class will be forced to close down parliamentary institutions replacing them with directly democratic proletarian organs of power. The revolutionary proletariat will be compelled to expropriate bourgeois newspapers, radio and television stations. In other words it will be compelled in its class interests to deny freedom of speech to the bourgeoisie. Furthermore seizing state power will most probably entail a certain amount of bloodshed which in itself cosnstitutes a further denial of free speech. Overall then the right to free speech is not an absolute transhistorical right. The bourgeoisie concede free speech when it suits their class interests to institute this formal right. However it must be understood that is merely a formal right and not necessarily a substantive right. The daily experience of the working class supports this observation. If workers in a factory exercise free speech by urging fellow workers to join a workers' union in a traditionally non-unionised firm they will quickly discover how substantive freedom of speech as a right is. There exists copious other evidence in support of this observation. We only have to look back to the McCathyite era in the US to understand that free speech is not an absolute right. Communists have never viewed free speech as an absolute right. Indeed in a genuinely free society, a communist society, free speech would not exist as a formal right since it would form a constituent part of one's day to day existence. Communists do not absolutely support freedom of speech for a bourgeoisie that can utlise it to mobilise support against the working class movement. When communists do not seek the denial of free speech to capitalists and their ideologues it is a tactical matter and not a matter of universal norms. Tactically it, in general, makes sense to seek to deny the capitalist class free speech when the revolutionary movement is a significant and growing political force engaged in the revolutionary development of the class struggle. Indeed the revolutionary development of the struggle against the bourgoeoisie is a development of the struggle to deny the bourgeoisie free speech.The working class struggle to seize state power in order to crush the capitalist class. When in power the working class. to protect its interests. deny the bourgeoisie right to free speech. The struggle, then, to abolish capitalism and introduce communist relations is a struggle to progressively deny the capitalist class free speech. As the struggle develops the working class progressively establish political spaces, such as workers' councils, that increasingly deny the bourgeoisie free speech such as workers councils. Furthermore the right to free speech as a formal right is in many ways a farce and merely designed to disguise the inherently exploitative, oppressive and unfree nature of capitalism. It cannot be successfully argued that free speech is an inherent democratic right within western democracies: For example within western Europe, or indeed the US, one cannot validly argue that the semi-illiterate incoherent drop-out from a heavily disadvantaged background has freedom of speech in the same measure as the clever Harvard educated middle class person. In other words discursivity is assymetrical and invested with the power relations of capital. Greetings, Karl Yours etc., Karl --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005