The Guardian has identified a trainee nurse and reported US air force reservist called Bailey Ross as the proprietor of a white nationalist publisher in South Dakota.
Ross was also a paid-up member of a white nationalist organization that marched at Charlottesville while enlisted in the United States Coast Guard.
Ross’s company, Agartha Publishing, is part of a wave of extremist publishers using mainstream e-commerce platforms such as Amazon to sell lavishly repackaged fascist and anti-communist books.
While I respect npr somewhat, I have to push back and say I personally don’t find it surprising that the military and other forms of institutionalized violence like the police are not prone to what the media, and by extension, the general public in the US term “extremism”.
Extremism is a relativistic term based off of what is socially accepted at the time. The less socially accepted an act or expressed thought is and the more challenging that act/thought is to the social paradigms in place, the more likely it is that said thought will be painted as extremism and thereby carry a negative connotation.
History repeatedly points to riots and militancy among protest movements as indicating symptoms of a society not representing the interests of particular communities, AND the socially acceptable means of changing their situation proving ineffective.
Militaries and police have historically AT BEST stood by while waiting for fascists/racists/homophobics/nationalists or antifascists/socialists/anarchists to throw the first blow BECAUSE their interests lie only in “maintaining order” and “preserving the peace.”
HOWEVER, I might point out that fascists are far more likely to engage in violents that antifascists. And more poignantly fascists are often prone to using the rhetoric of the police and military, often referring to themselves as wanting to restore order and claiming to only desire.
This is not a mistake. They are courting, often successfully, the police and military to their cause.
Indeed I’d argue that fascism is the immune response of capitalism dating back to its proto-inception when former white slave holders became indignant at the federal laws no longer reflecting their values, and failing to legally protect their right to their “property”. I’d expound on this, but this post is already obviously overly lengthy, so I’ll get to the point.
The police and military are the only institutions our society imbues with socially acceptable and legally defended violence. They supposedly are there to protect the people of a society and the institutions that ensure the longevity of that society, aka the nation. But I’d posit that the police and military have NEVER been in place to protect the people, nor its institutions, even from their earliest inceptions in ANY nation.
Instead they are here to protect and fight for PROPERTY, which capitalists have historically overtly seen PEOPLE as property. One might argue that it is less overt today, but even if that were true, that is a PROBLEM that capitalists want to SOLVE. Because if a PERSON claims they are NOT property, then of what use are they to the capitalist?
So when the police and military AT BEST sit idly by while fascists infect societies across the globe, in all aspects of life, and paint those who are ACTUALLY standing up to them as extremists, I personally would say that the military and police have not failed their people, but that’s only because they were never here for the people in the first place.
To be very clear, I personally think that if you’re a fascist or a fascist sympathizer, then you should not be afforded any rights under the law. Your beliefs are so toxic to society, they are a cancer, and the treatment is nothing short of a death sentence. And if the police and military are unwilling to be part of the cure, then they are part of the cancer.
This is a very, very troubling stance. Imagine, for a moment, that some unnamed, but generally orange-hued person was president and the law of the land was that fascists and fascist sympathizers were not afforded any rights under the law. Holy hell.
Do you really hold this view, or are you just being dramatic?
I actually hold this view. Time and again fascists have infected societies the world over and because capitalism thrives on oppressing some people (usually minorities and immigrants), fascists have been happy to have capitalists simply point a finger to the soon to be opressed, and the military and police, themselves beneficiaries of capitalism, are incentivized to go along.
Oh, I see now. Capitalism.
Do you consider yourself an extremist?
I think the general society I live in today would consider my viewpoints extreme, but I would not label myself an extremist, no. I don’t think most people think their own ideologies as being extreme.
Isn’t society in general the best judge of what is or is not extreme, considering that, as you say, it’s a relative description?
That depends on whether “best” is moral, which are often conflated as being the same thing. Antifascists were considered extremists in Nazi Germany and Italy by the general society, but for hopefully obvious reasons, you can see that Antifascism was a moral and logical response rooted in the survival of those they were persecuting.
I don’t recall bringing up morality at all. My question still stands.
My apologies, my previous statement was an implication and was not explicit.
I think that any form of thought or activity that lies outside of the acceptable norms of a society can be painted as extremism by the majority with disastrous results, and thusly the results are so abhorrent to conclude that society is NOT the best judge of what is extremist or not because calling something extremism or someone extremist often connotates moral judgment on said actions or persons.
I would dispute that you can’t disect moral judgent from the invocation of the term extremism.
Btw, if I were you, I would next point out that if my claim that society is not the best judgement of extremism, then ask then who or what is?
To which I would respond that we should throw out the term as it actually just refers to those who want changes to society that upset the paradigm under which it is founded.
My opinion is that a society that is based on inclusivity as its core value is probably better than the one we have right now. With the following caveats:
Said society would need to have an addendum that it need exclude those who would tout exclusivity and violently express the necessity of exclusivity in preferential treatment of one group over another. This society would have to fundamentally acknowledge that speech, left unchecked, can be violent even by inference.
I genuinely await your rebuttal.
This is how you end up with political dissidents taking one way helicopter rides, or being raped to death in a gulag, or being rounded up and forcibly sterilized in an interment camp. No one should be denied their rights under the law. Ever.
I’ll be even more clear. Just so you understand where I stand here. I generally want democracy, but I also don’t want even the most subtle of routes open for fascism to worm its way back into political discourse like it is now.
Free speech and free forms of expression have long been historically shown to be abused by disingenuous bad actors.
These rights have been utilized as a back door for fascists to overtake Democratic institutions by invoking these rights while simultaneously infringing on these same rights for immigrants, people of color, and those within the LGBTQ community.
So no. If you want fundamental change in the world, then you need to change the fundamental foundations of how the entire societal structure is conceived, and that starts with explicitly hard red lining any and all fascist speech and fascist rights. I have no illusions that this will happen any time soon. But I stand by this belief.
I’m 50 and I’ve watched as the term “Fasciscm” has been redefined over the years. The difference between this wiki page from 2004 and today’s is eyebrow raising. In less than 20 years the definition has been expanded to the point where it arguably includes, via “subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation”, nearly the entirety of the modern day Democratic Party!
If declaring someone to be “fascist” allowed the Government to declare them an Outlaw then it will be weaponized to remove political opposition. Examples abound; China, Venezuela, Cuba, the USSR then Russia, Chile and a whole pile more. The instant that a Government gets the power to declare people Outlaws based on their beliefs they eliminate them, brutally.
I shudder every time I see someone spout off about “banning the republican party” for this very reason.
I believe that you are pushing this in good faith but I also have no, and I mean absolutely none, faith that such ability wouldn’t be massively misused. You don’t solve Authoritarian-ism by paving the way for Totalitarianism.
Yes. I am only 10 years younger than you, but a decade’s more experience is not to be discounted by any means.
I’ll push back on this and say that scholars and historians have struggled with the exact definition of fascism, but it is in my personal opinion that said scholars are MUCH closer to defining fascism today than they have even a decade ago, to the point where I actually do believe we have come to a concrete definition today.
Even your comparison of the two Wikipedia articles exemplifies this imho, although it is apparent you and I differ on our raising of the eyebrows. As the article from 2004 mainly points more to the history of fascism than the current article which, given the benefit of more data, has more data to draw from further defining fascism and how it has been expressed today.
I actually share your skepticism that this power could be wielded responsibly, which is why I’m generally not surprised nor upset at it not being a popular opinion.
In short, I am skeptical of my own beliefs, yes. And perhaps I lack your foresight, but I generally hold the belief that there aren’t other legitimate likely solutions to the eradication of fascism that exist within the current frameworks of societal public discourse, and am unwilling to relent, throw up my hands, and give up.