Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 09:00:51 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Bourgeois politics and fascism


Louis:

Pat Buchanan said yesterday to 250 reporters, "New Hampshire, like every 
other part of American, feels that sense of economic security, economic 
stress. They are suffering, too, from wages that seem to go down as the 
Dow Jones hits 5000."

Some l*st members interpret such rhetoric as "fascist".

Meanwhile, Bob Dole has jumped on the populist bandwagon. He said 
yesterday that "Corporate profits are setting records and so are 
corporate layoffs. The bond market finished a spectacular year. But the 
real average hourly wage is 5 percent lower than it was a decade ago. Two 
years ago, family earnings were hit with the largest tax increase in the 
history of America."

Is Dole now playing with fascism?

As for Clinton, he is cited in the latest Nation magazine as having been 
responsible for more anti-labor policies than any President since 
Eisenhower or something to that effect. 

The pantload from Arkansas runs as a Reagan type, grinning at the 
cameras, saying things like "The economy is doing just fine--all we have 
to do is fine-tune it a bit." 

So what is Clinton? Another fascist for kow-towing to Wall St.? A liberal?

Isn't it entirely possible that bourgeois politics utilizes themes in a 
demagogic manner that have only the most tenuous connection to the 
class-struggle. Yesterday, Dole was a rock-ribbed Republican who catered 
his message to the Republican Party's traditional base: country-club 
members, corporate vice-presidents and assorted Babbits.

Then he re-fashions himself as a populist. This effort is simply a 
mechanism to get votes.

When we talk about fascism, we must talk about fascist *movements* 
otherwise it is very easy to get lost in the woods.



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