Counter-Currents
1,287 words
Albert Finney portrays Political Machine Boss Leo O’Bannon in the Goebbels Award winning film, Miller’s Crossing (1990)
In recent years, I have encountered a handful of passionate, self-identifying Fascists who have demonstrated that they have absolutely no idea what the term actually means. For some it means a Conan the Barbarian style ethos guiding atomized individuals in a lawless society in which one earns the right to go to the 7-11 by packing a pistol. For another it means a state apparatus which finds inventive ways to apply Biblical punishments to homosexuals. (I hope ISIS does not prove disappointing to him.) America’s anti-fascists think it is synonymous with the Military-Industrial Complex. All of these people would be sorely disappointed and surprised had they lived under any Fascist regime of the past.
Americans who aspire to a certain kind of Fascism do not need to look to Mussolini or the Hispanic countries for inspiration. There are plenty of homegrown examples in big cities where Irish and Italian politicians are comfortably in charge. There is, in fact, an ethnic Catholic way of bringing Order out of Chaos (to borrow a phrase}.
Historians will tell you that Fascism is incredibly fluid and hard to pin down. Is it Modernist or Traditional? Socialist or Capitalist? Catholic or Pagan? Racio-nationalist or patriotic? Anti-Semitic or neutral? The fact is that Fascism is more of a mindset than a doctrine, one of populism and authoritarianism, which adapts to the problems of the time and place and makes no attempt to transplant a foreign form into a new setting.
Mayor Daley’s two commandments for lower tier members of the Chicago Machine
The Fascist mindset is the result of two things. One is a reaction, not necessarily to the rise of the Left, but to the rise of the special interests. These special interests will fight to the death over very narrow areas of policy-making power, which others see as a minor concern. Multiply this by every narrow area of policy-making and government becomes a market in which residents are butchered for lobbies of every kind, from right to left, from capitalists to public sector employee unions. Asymmetric Interest Theory tells us that the special interest lobby will win every time . . . unless there is an authoritarian figure keeping all parties in line.
The second aspect of the Fascist mindset is not the result of a strong nationalist sentiment, as many believe, but is in fact the creative response to the problem of a void of nationalism. When very few citizens are dedicated to the identity to which the state’s borders correspond, chaos and corruption will follow. Italy was a very young country filled with regionalists and amoral familists when Mussolini adapted socialism to their unique circumstances and created a new nationalism. The South American countries were filled with rather recent immigrants, former slaves, colonized peoples, and rootless cross-breeds. From Pinochet to Chavez, South American “Fascists” emphasize military discipline, nationalism, and their favorite strand of Catholicism to invent nationalistic solidarity in societies where there is no history of solidarity.
Large, ethnically diverse American cities in the late industrial era facing Negro invasion, Jewish subversion, and special interest lobbies seeking their piece of the pie have governing problems closer to those of Italy and South American countries than the governing problems of relatively homogeneous colonial settlements facing lack of infrastructure, long winters, and Indian raids. While Chicago and similar cities are full of “90 Minute Patriots,” when it comes to the powerful, their sense of Chicagoan civic duty (or “Chicagoan Nationalism”) will never check their personal greed and ambition. That is why the iron fist of a political boss is needed to remind people when they have spent enough time at the trough. The difference between a Machine Boss and a corrupt politician lies in his ability to do this. The Boss’ system is sustainable; the corrupt politician is grabbing money from the register while the store is on fire.
The Party Boss’ relation with the people is mediated through a system of representation within the Democratic Party. Client-patron relationships are created which are fluid and depend on the lower rungs of the ladder maintaining stability and receiving appropriate benefits as a result. The “carrots” could be city jobs, contracts, envelopes of cash known as “street money,” frozen Christmas Turkeys, and other smaller payoffs. The “stick” is being thrown into outer darkness of the political process. The legend is that anyone not registered as a Democrat and staying in line would never get their sidewalk fixed in a Machine-run city.
In these cases, the machine boss selects people to fill elected positions in a way that balances the interests of a stable coalition of diverse groups within a city. Expectations are set regarding the performance of various groups within the coalition, and if all goes well, the spoils are dispersed in a way the coalition members find acceptable. It is easy to underestimate the genius required to conceive of and maintain such a system. The presence or absence of these kinds of Party Machines is why Chicago is not the hellhole of Detroit, nor did Pittsburgh descend to the levels of Cleveland, nor did Boston or to a lesser extent Philadelphia sink to the level of Baltimore. For more information on the struggle of our rnemies to bring these down, see E. Michael Jones book The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal As Ethnic Cleansing
To get a sense of how well the senior Mayor Daley, of Chicago’s Daley Machine played defense on behalf of the White middle class and working class, see how his rival from Obama’s neighborhood, a liberal cuck married to a Jewess, Leon Despres accidentally recounts how awesome Daley was (you won’t find this kind of candor from the Daley Machine veterans because they are too professional to speak loosely):
Ultimately, Fascism is a creative defense mechanism for societies in crisis which lack a rich and settled common identity. More rooted societies have numerous historical movements that Fascism’s potential constituents can rally to for redress of their grievances. Peoples with a healthy sense of nationalism don’t need new flags and uniforms or marches in formation to mobilize the people or encourage sacrifice for the collective. This is why National Liberation Movements have no need for the symbols of the Right and resist dilution when allying with the International Left. National Liberation Movements arise in societies where the rootedness and identity are so strong that they survive without reference to or support from the State.
Some may say that the US is such a society . . . whether or not that is the case, the limitations of Fascism should be addressed here as well. Fascism is a form of defense. In its American form it is a sort of holding pattern for riding out a crisis. Our enemy cannot be fought to a stalemate in which we all agree to go home and recommence battle the following day. This idea is natural to the Indo-Europeans who once sent champions to battle one at a time and would cease hostilities as soon as the sun set. The Semitic opponent is not honor bound; in fact their holy books instruct them to wake up early and kill the opponent in his sleep. Therefore a more strident aggressive approach is needed to expel the culture distorters and recreate A Nice White Country from scratch. This is the prerequisite for preventing the end of the White Majority in the US and Canada.
I am not aware of an American version of a more aggressive political system that might address this problem, but there is such a system we can look to in Europe and, though transplantation would be ineffective, it may certainly provide inspiration.
15 comments
This very much depends upon how you define fascism. If you adopt the Griffin definition, which I do, then fascism is not (always) defensive but can be offensive and revolutionary. I would consider national socialism a form of fascism. Of course the Germans did put on uniforms and march around with a new flag. I myself don’t per se find anything wrong with that (apart from current tactical needs). Objectively speaking, Whites can use a dose of collectivism and discipline. But then again, I’m a fascist (small “f”).
Le Brun bases his definition on the sorts of reasons the masses had for supporting fascist political leaders. This produces a very different definition compared to approaching fascism from the point of view of its intellectual champions, and although it carelessly lumps in Latin American regimes which were at best para-fascist, I would not deny the validity of this approach. Indeed, the approach has a lot to teach ‘neo-fascists,’ who tend to immerse themselves in the palingenetic ethos to such an extent that their ability to take their message to a wider audience is severely compromised.
Although that description fits you, I have in mind more egregious offenders like WLP and his acolytes, who imagined the grandeur of their vision was powerful enough to cause the masses to overlook their everyday needs. What a contrast to the NSDAP, who in their determination to appeal to as many segments of society as possible – in those segments’ own terms – virtually invented the modern political campaign.
Outstanding analysis of the American situation…America is at a turning point, with each day brining challenges and opportunities….thinking like this can help move us forward in defense of European Americans….Sinn Fein..all we have is Ourselves Alone…..
The two Mayor Daleys succeeded in their long tenures not because they were highly skilled political hacks who knew how to wield machine-muscle. Rather their administrations were shored up and preserved by Chicago business interests who knew the value of institutional stability. Someone I knew who worked in municipal finance there in the 70s explained the Daley phenomenon to me this way: “They like him because he’s steady, he’s reliable, and he makes sure that Chicago stays a City That Works.”
This attractive model for defining fascism leads me to the conclusion that Trump is executing a more pure and direct fascism than anything we’re proposing. Fascism, when understood in this game theory manner as an organic reaction to the cancerous growth of parochial interests, suggests that identitarianism diverged from fascism at some point well a decade or so before I was born and that ours is now an integrally parochial interest at odds (along with Jewry and civic unions) with a purely fascist project to forge a common interest.
The best we could hope for from authentic American fascism would be to enjoy a power within the system commensurate with our demographic and socioeconomic position. If anything, that would be lethal to identitarian interests, as it would relieve the pressures and mitigate the processes which could potentially deliver an ethnogenetic reaction of renewed White identit(y/ies) on the North American continent.
This is actually a very interesting take. Dugin and Trump would then be fascists.
But wouldn’t that interpretation make the “North Americanism” from Greg Johnson’s cautionary tale real fascism?
https://counter-currents.com/2013/11/north-americanism-a-cautionary-tale/
Interesting piece. The definition of fascism as a creative answer for at least two social problems, both all too current, opens up a number of possibilities. It also helps to show how the Left (and the conservative/inside-the-system rightard establishment) is actually protecting a coalition of exclusive interests and expanding them to the detriment of the majority under the guise of “progress.”
However, I see one defect in the analysis of “national liberation movements.” If one follows the idea of fascism as creating a national sentiment, whereas “liberation movements” would emerge from an already existing one, it seems like fascism is somehow artificial while “liberation movements” would be spontaneous and natural.
This point shall be reversed. Fascism aims at creating a genuine massive sentiment of nationality. It aims at connecting the people with each other – as well as something greater – through the nation. It aims at organicity. On the contrary, so-called “liberation movements” of the last century were hugely financed by the US or the USSR in order to dismantle the European Empires and seize the power in their former territories. There was no real national sentiment there. The “people’s rights” and anti-colonial, not to say anti-White stuff has all been made up by metapolitical manipulations aiming at getting the European countries out. Nothing spontaneous there, merely good ol’ manipulation, deceivingly presented as spontaneous by Leftist medias.
Of course, corporations and the banks have maintained a presence in the so-called decolonized territories while European nations were losing ground. But the point is, fascism aims at something more perennial and genuinely organic while the so-called national struggles were manufactured and have led to more disorder.
Peoples have struggled for freedom long before the USA or the USSR existed. It’s completely unreasonable to describe their efforts as “artificial.” Similarly, people have always felt emotional ties to those they occupy the same territory with, speak the same language as, and share blood ties with, even if they lacked terminology like “national sentiment” with which to frame their affections.
I agree with you that the US and the SU often supported anti-colonial liberation movements for their own economical or ideological purposes, but it goes too far to deny them any spontaneous origin rooted in a genuine nationalistic sentiment. It is true many such movements could not invoke a pre-existing national identity, but the common fate of foreign rule (or misrule) was often enough to create such a (reactionary) identity, enough to form a new nation. This happened for example with the formation of the new nation of Indonesia, where previously no such thing existed.
Independence movements were inspired by the general dissatisfaction with foreign rule, idigenous revolutionary leadership, the inspiring example of similar movements in other colonial entities and only in the last place by some foreign intervention. This is often the process by which nations were formed anyway in history, and not only in the late European colonial period. My country the Netherlands for example was formed by the long struggle (“eighty years war”) against Spain, while no such thing as a “Netherlandic” national identity existed previously. A similar contemporary example of a national identity formed by a liberation struggle (but until now not successful in attaining independence) is the case of the Palestinians. No historical Palestinian identity existed before the intrusion of Zionism, but it arose exactly in the process of resistance against it. National identities are processes, not static identities that are deemed “true” or “false” by outsiders. As long as the process is genuine, the identity is genuine.
“Fascism aims at creating a genuine massive sentiment of nationality. It aims at connecting the people with each other – as well as something greater – through the nation. It aims at organicity. ”
That is reasonable. Perhaps a solution to the “bowling alone” syndrome identified by Putnam, if properly applied.
Excellent article. I never before saw Fascism in this light. Should we really be shooting for a Fascist America where a strongman of sorts keeps the crooks in line? As for me, I’m for the City on the Hill.
Interesting that this analysis also comports with the symbol of (and root meaning of the word) fascism: a bundle of sticks or rods held or tied together by rope or a fist. Without that “holding together” element, the rods or sticks would have a tendency to disperse or fall apart. This article is arguing that this is indeed the situation in which fascism is necessary: when the natural forces are leaving society atomized or unbound, an authority is needed to bind them together, and once done, the society will be stronger for it.
Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley is worth more study. A while back I was doing some research on the rioting at the Democratic National Convention in 1968. There’s a thesis that Daley intentionally unleashed “Gestapo Tactics” in the streets to show the Machine was still in charge. The target of the cops was not only the radicals and protesters, but softline liberals who needed a lesson in the realities of power politics.
It’s a good definition of fascism if we want to use the term universally, and outside of Mussolini’s Italy, for Italy had a culture and a history, in which to base an identity, though there was the same mechanism of spoils. How sad, though, when countries such as Sweden, which had Nationalism, forget who they are, and thus give it away. Fascism is always a compromise. Hitler was good when he was a Nationalist; it didn’t turn out well when he became a Fascist.
Fascism is multi-identity. Nationalism is not.
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