The Promise of Fascism

Tonight the wealth of the Obama campaign will be invested in blanket prime time coverage of a propaganda infomercial on all the networks at the same time. The incredible, near billions of dollars invested in the personality cult of Obama will come to a rising climax, one week before elections.

The rise of the messianic role of Obama in Democrat circles as well as the black and Muslim communities has brought to mind the messianic role of leaders of the past, and their affect on the peoples of the world. This has been documented nearly a decade and a half ago, in an Oxford University Press book, called “Fascism”, by Roger Griffin, 1995, in which the original writings of movers and shakers of the fascist movement in the 20th century are documented, and the novel, synthetic, "new man" and Nietchean philosphical overtones are documented.

Griffin takes a previously amorphous subject and gives it form and substance. He summarizes the characteristics of fascism, and I have listed those below. My comments will follow and will be brief; Griffin covers the topic quite adequately without my help. The numbered points below are edited and are not complete; they are representative of the individual point though.

“The mythic core that forms the basis of my ideal type of generic fascism is the vision of the (perceived) crisis of the nation as betokening the birth pangs of a new order. It crystallizes in the image of the national community , once purged and rejuvenated, rising phoenix-like from the ashes of a morally bankrupt state system and the decadent culture associated with it.” Griffin; “Fascism”; Oxford University Press, 1995.”

1. Fascism is anti-liberal [in the traditional, philosophical, non-political sense; ed.]. Fascism radically rejects pluralism, tolerance, individualism, gradualism, pacifism, parliamentary democracy, the separation of powers, the doctrine of “natural rights”, egalitarianism, the rectilinear theory of progress, the open society, cosmopolitanism, one-Worldism, etc.

2. Fascism is anti-conservative.

3. Fascism tends to operate as a charismatic form of politics. Both Fascism and Nazism as regimes were characterized by the centrality of the leader cult, the celebration of public over private space and time, and the constant attempt to use social engineering to regiment people into organizations with an ethos of activism and enthusiasm. ...it... lacks a genuine metaphysical dimension and is the utter antithesis and destroyer of all genuine religious faith. Its compulsive use of religious language of sacrifice, belief, resurrection, redemption, spirit, and its attacks on scepticism, doubt, materialism, consumerism, hedonism as the signs of moral decay are to be understood as the hallmarks of a modern political ideology seeking to offer a panacea to the malaise and anomie of the contemporary society.

4. Fascism is anti-rational. Seeing the most distinctive human faculty… in the capacity to be inspired to heroic action and self-sacrifice through the power of belief, myth, symbols, ‘idees-forces’ such as the nation, the leader, identity, or the regeneration of history [restoring the national greatness; ed.].


5. Fascist ‘socialism’. …may well present the rejuvenation of the national community as transcending class conflict, destroying traditional hierarchy, expunging parasitism, rewarding all the members of the new nation, and harnessing the energies of capitalism and technologies in a new order in which they cease to be exploitative and enslaving.

6. Fascism’s link to totalitarianism. Also implicit in fascism’s mythic core is the drive toward totalitarianism. Far from being driven by nihilism or barbarism, the convinced fascist is a utopian, conceiving the homogeneous, perfectly coordinated national community as a total solution to the problems of modern society. Yet any attempt to expunge all decadence necessarily leads to the creation of a highly centralized ‘total’ state with draconian powers to carry out a comprehensive scheme of social engineering. This will involve massive exercises in regimenting people’s lives, and the creation of an elaborate machinery for manufacturing consensus through propaganda and indoctrination combined with repression and terror directed against alleged enemies, both internal and external, of the new order.

7. The heterogeneity of fascism’s social support. …it has no specific class basis in its support.

8. Fascist racism. By its nature fascism is racist. …[it also rejects] ‘ multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-racial society.

9. Fascist internationalism. Fascism ….is quite capable of generating its own form of internationalism or universalism by fostering a kindred spirit and bond with fascists in other countries engaged in an equivalent struggle…

10. Fascist eclecticism. …Fascism is thus inherently syncretic, bringing heterogeneous currents of ideas into a loose alliance united only by the common struggle for a new order. As a result there is in fascist thought a recurrent element of (and sometimes declared intention of) synthesis [Hegelian; ed.]

Fascism is not all that hard to identify in certain idealist, utopian, charismatic politicos. It will be hard to eradicate once it has been completely tailored to the requisite cultural components in the USA, and installed.

It also will be interesting to see how many of the above points we can pick out of Obama’s propaganda film tonight.