Letters from Our Readers

Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor

29 Jul 2020

This week cutting through the corporate media buzz on US fascism was on your minds. We share your letters for “Who Is the Most Dangerous Fascist?.”

“Who Is the Most Dangerous Fascist?” by Glen Ford calls for clarity on understanding the concept of fascism and its relation to the evils of the US duopoly.

Stuart L. Cipinko writes:

“Frankly, the notion that either Trump or Biden (likely his VP) will be Prez is an abomination, as is the reality that these two are our only realistic, factual choices. How can we conceivably call this a democracy? Not only the Electoral College, big stumbling block though that is to a true democracy; but that we have only a single party with two heads (a Janus Party): one with red faces, the other with blue ones. They are both corporate-capitalist-imperialist, determined to ensure, to force US global hegemonic control. Both are totally unconcerned about the poorer, working and impoverished classes and have been since the 1970s. Both are all too bloody happy to destroy, devastate, murder the lives of other peoples, in other cultures, societies far from these shores (therefore NO national security threat, but maybe an economic one, shades of the original Cold War). There is no, no difference between the two faces - and this election makes it even more blatant.”

Jess James writes:

“I don't care what anyone says Donald Trump's foreign policy has been surprisingly a lot less lethal then Obama's and certainly less lethal then Hillary's, in this situation Donald Trump is the better candidate.”

Dann Petrovich writes:

“When Trump attacked Venezuela and Syria? This is what they want him to do but he is resisting. Risk his and his family lives.”

Diane Gee writes:

“Spot on. The only thing I think was missed is that while people were and are distracted by the Trump dog and pony show of misspelled twitter rants? Some of the most devastating environmental deregulation has been passed, which the corporate exec's adore.

The fact that they anointed a bland and blank Biden, over even a centrist like Sanders, says they *may* want to keep the distractor in chief in power. Perhaps. Either one would serve their interests.”

Paul Billings writes:

“Great piece. From my perspective, most Democrats are somewhat ‘liberal’ but hardly progressive. The average American has been raised in an environment of continual war (since 1940) and readily accepts the American prerogative to bomb North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen into oblivion. Americans go to school to learn that ‘free market’ capitalism is the only ‘good’ economic system, while ‘socialism’ is evil. The Soviet Union was always portrayed as the ‘evil empire’. Our enemies were Fidel Castro, along with the leaders of North Korea, China, Iran (since the 1979 Islamic Revolution), Russia, Venezuela, etc- any country impeding US global domination. Most Americans are continuously bombarded with nonsense from corporate media (aka ‘ministry of propaganda’) whose primary function is to promote policies which increase corporate power and profits and US global hegemony. The police are portrayed as helping and ‘protecting’ the public, while the military protects our ‘freedom’ and are constantly lionized by politicians, NFL games and other sporting events. Most Americans have no understanding or intellectual interest about history, economics or geography. I sometimes wonder how many people understand the difference between a progressive (i.e., progressive income tax) vs a regressive (sales) tax?

“As you are well aware, fascism comes to the fore when capitalism breaks down and is used by the ruling elite as an ideological rationale to harness state power to maintain class structure and wealth distribution. The police are employed by the state to protect wealth and property and will not hesitate to harass, beat up or murder ‘Black Lives Matter’ protestors or anyone well else who are perceived as ‘threats’ to the system. Bourgeois democracy is incompatible in a society characterized by vast economic and racial inequity, high unemployment, austerity, poverty and endemic state (i.e., police) violence against working people, coupled with the ongoing theft of public money by the financial elite. The coronavirus has accelerated the economic decline of the US and other western capitalist countries and with it the rapid emergence of fascism. You are dead on when you state ‘Most American leftists are incoherent on the term fascism, and Democrats have utterly destroyed the word’s meaning.’”

Gaining clarity on fundamental political concepts is a major struggle in our time. We must strengthen our understandings of these concepts to build a serious US Left.

Jahan Choudhry is Comments Editor for Black Agenda Report. He is an organizer with the Saturday Free School based in Philadelphia, PA.

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