The Big Lie About 'Islamic Fascism'
LewRockwell.com
by Eric Margolis
The latest big lie unveiled by Washington's neoconservatives are the poisonous terms, "Islamo-Fascists" and "Islamic Fascists." They are the new, hot buzzwords among America's far right and Christian fundamentalists.
President George W. Bush made a point last week of using "Islamofacists" when recently speaking of Hezbullah and Hamas - both, by the way, democratically elected parties. A Canadian government minister from the Conservative Party compared Lebanon's Hezbullah to Nazi Germany.
The term "Islamofascist" is utterly without meaning, but packed with emotional explosives. It is a propaganda creation worthy Dr. Goebbels, and the latest expression of the big lie technique being used by neocons in Washington's propaganda war against its enemies in the Muslim World.
This ugly term was probably first coined in Israel - as was the other hugely successful propaganda term, "terrorism" - to dehumanize and demonize opponents and deny them any rational political motivation, hence removing any need to deal with their grievances and demands.
As the brilliant humanist Sir Peter Ustinov so succinctly put it, "Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich."
Both the terms "terrorism" and "fascist" have been so abused and overused that they have lost any original meaning. The best modern definition I've read of fascism comes in former Colombia University Professor Robert Paxton's superb 2004 book, The Anatomy of Fascism.
Paxton defines fascism's essence, which he aptly terms its "emotional lava" as: 1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one's group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign "contamination."
Fascism demands a succession of wars, foreign conquests, and national threats to keep the nation in a state of fear, anxiety and patriotic hypertension. Those who disagree are branded ideological traitors. All successful fascists regimes, Paxton points out, allied themselves to traditional conservative parties, and to the military-industrial complex.
Highly conservative and militaristic regimes are not necessarily fascist, says Paxton. True fascism requires relentless aggression abroad and a semi-religious adoration of the regime at home.
None of the many Muslim groups opposing US-British control of the Mideast fit Paxton's definitive analysis. The only truly fascist group ever to emerge in the Mideast was Lebanon's Maronite Christian Phalange Party in the 1930's which, ironically, became an ally of Israel's rightwing in the 1980's.
It is grotesque watching the Bush Administration and Tony Blair maintain the ludicrous pretense they are re-fighting World War II. The only similarity between that era and today is the cultivation of fear, war fever and racist-religious hate by US neoconservatives and America's religious far right, which is now boiling with hatred for anything Muslim.
Under the guise of fighting a "third world war" against "Islamic fascism," America's far right is infecting its own nation with the harbingers of WWII totalitarianism. Read more
db: As always the Blairite neocons here mirror the US lies - John Reid has recently been referring to the 'fascist' threat - relating to the overhyped so-called plot to 'murder on an unimaginable scale' via the alleged 'plan' to bring down ten, or seven, maybe four, or three possibly two or less planes over the Atlantic, or elsewhere, soon - or sometime. [Follow link above to NYT item that was not published in the UK , via Cryptome]
by Eric Margolis
The latest big lie unveiled by Washington's neoconservatives are the poisonous terms, "Islamo-Fascists" and "Islamic Fascists." They are the new, hot buzzwords among America's far right and Christian fundamentalists.
President George W. Bush made a point last week of using "Islamofacists" when recently speaking of Hezbullah and Hamas - both, by the way, democratically elected parties. A Canadian government minister from the Conservative Party compared Lebanon's Hezbullah to Nazi Germany.
The term "Islamofascist" is utterly without meaning, but packed with emotional explosives. It is a propaganda creation worthy Dr. Goebbels, and the latest expression of the big lie technique being used by neocons in Washington's propaganda war against its enemies in the Muslim World.
This ugly term was probably first coined in Israel - as was the other hugely successful propaganda term, "terrorism" - to dehumanize and demonize opponents and deny them any rational political motivation, hence removing any need to deal with their grievances and demands.
As the brilliant humanist Sir Peter Ustinov so succinctly put it, "Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich."
Both the terms "terrorism" and "fascist" have been so abused and overused that they have lost any original meaning. The best modern definition I've read of fascism comes in former Colombia University Professor Robert Paxton's superb 2004 book, The Anatomy of Fascism.
Paxton defines fascism's essence, which he aptly terms its "emotional lava" as: 1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one's group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign "contamination."
Fascism demands a succession of wars, foreign conquests, and national threats to keep the nation in a state of fear, anxiety and patriotic hypertension. Those who disagree are branded ideological traitors. All successful fascists regimes, Paxton points out, allied themselves to traditional conservative parties, and to the military-industrial complex.
Highly conservative and militaristic regimes are not necessarily fascist, says Paxton. True fascism requires relentless aggression abroad and a semi-religious adoration of the regime at home.
None of the many Muslim groups opposing US-British control of the Mideast fit Paxton's definitive analysis. The only truly fascist group ever to emerge in the Mideast was Lebanon's Maronite Christian Phalange Party in the 1930's which, ironically, became an ally of Israel's rightwing in the 1980's.
It is grotesque watching the Bush Administration and Tony Blair maintain the ludicrous pretense they are re-fighting World War II. The only similarity between that era and today is the cultivation of fear, war fever and racist-religious hate by US neoconservatives and America's religious far right, which is now boiling with hatred for anything Muslim.
Under the guise of fighting a "third world war" against "Islamic fascism," America's far right is infecting its own nation with the harbingers of WWII totalitarianism. Read more
db: As always the Blairite neocons here mirror the US lies - John Reid has recently been referring to the 'fascist' threat - relating to the overhyped so-called plot to 'murder on an unimaginable scale' via the alleged 'plan' to bring down ten, or seven, maybe four, or three possibly two or less planes over the Atlantic, or elsewhere, soon - or sometime. [Follow link above to NYT item that was not published in the UK , via Cryptome]
posted by exoplanet at 1:22 AM
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