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| England & Wales | 141 |
| Iran | 226 |
| I$rael | 163 |
| I$rael II | 560? |
| Lebanon | 172 |
| Syria | 93 |
| United $tates | 701 |
| Black men in U.$. prisons | 3504 |
Source: (1)
The Bush administration uses the term "Islamo-fascist" lately to refer to any Islamic actor that claims national independence from Uncle $am. William Arkin at the Washington Post explains who is included: "the Bush administration of late tends to lump al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorists into one 'Islamo- fascist' camp."(2) Hamas is the majority party of the elected government of Palestine and Hezbollah is the "Party of God" with seats in the Lebanese Parliament.
Lest anyone think Arkin is criticizing, he is actually saying that Bush underestimates how Islamic Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda really is. So chalk up another ultra-culture warrior in Arkin. The leading reactionary publication National Review also says the same thing.(3)
The argument of the Zionists and neo-conservatives on this point is based on a simple propaganda trick. Instead of using a consistent definition of fascism, the way MIM does, these propagandists play guilt by association. Likewise, since we can dig up some old-style fascists in Idaho or more importantly because David Duke won the Republican nomination for governor in Louisiana, we could say the whole united $tates is fascist and have a great basis. In fact, we would have a much better argument that the united $tates already is fascist than Arkin and Mark Levin at the National Review make about Islamic peoples.
The fact is that Germany, Italy and Japan in World War II were all advanced capitalist countries, with their own colonies. Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran do not have colonies and nor can they dominate other countries with a military-backed banking system. Imperialism is a pre-requisite for fascism.
The frankly spoken imperialist, Rick Santorum is a senator from Pennsylvania. "'Terror, like blitzkrieg, is a tactic of war. It is not the enemy,' Santorum said."(4) Apparently Santorum realized that the "terrorism" football is a little vague and does not play sufficiently for Blue states (states that voted for Gore and Kerr) like Pennsylvania.
"'We fought then (in World War II) because we knew that our survival was at stake. The tyrants would never stop attacking us until they had defeated us, or we had defeated them,' said Santorum. 'We're in the same kind of conflict today.'"Santorum identified Iran as 'the keystone of the Islamic fascist structure' and the greatest loather of American freedoms. 'The largest piece of this mosaic, the keystone of the Islamic fascist structure, is Iran,' he said.
"'It's a complex mosaic, stretching across the world, but Iran is the central piece, touching all the others in one way or another. Iran not only supports these organizations -- it created Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, and is the driving force behind Hamas -- but it is a threat to the civilized world all by itself.'"(4)
This idea of "Islamo-fascism" is very catchy. The bourgeoisie of the India Times jumped on the bandwagon: "It is time the Indian Muslims sent a message loud and clear to Pakistan that its brand of Islamo Fascism and the terrorists it is breeding will be countered and decimated by Indian Muslims and Hindus united."(5)
Political correctness India-style then enters:
"The use of the phrase 'Islamic Fascism' does not imply the religion Islam is fascist in nature. It only refers to a Fascist Regime that swears by Islam and attempts to legitimise its fascism by subverting the meaning and essence of Islam. Offstumped is proud of the Indian Muslim community that rejected this brand of fascism on August 14th 1947 by choosing to remain in India and reject the fascist idea of a Islamic State of Pakistan."(5)The problem is that if Pakistan is fascist, it would only be because its government is such a lackey of Bush. The India Times should go check where Pakistan gets its support.
So to review, thus far we have shown arch-reactionaries Bush and Santorum use the term "Islamo-fascism," as does the "East Coast Establishment" Washington Post, the National Review and a mainline faction of the Indian bourgeoisie, itself hoping to be Bush's preferred lackey.
The Washington Post was a clue that the term "Islamo-fascist" is not confined to the Republican Party wing of imperialist reaction. How far into the left-wing of parasitism does the usage go, one might ask. The answer is that it goes all the way.
This week Boston's "alternative" paper, "The Phoenix," echoed "Islamofascism."
The would-be British bombers are part of the same dedicated group of Islamofascists who attacked New York and Washington, Indonesia and Madrid, and London last summer.(6)
This was right after the week in which they denounced Hezbollah as the source of war in the Middle East and the whole world.
This same "The Phoenix" is the "alternative" face of the Democratic Party in Massachusetts. It's where the Democratic Party is allowed to be pro-marijuana, pro-phone sex, pro-pornography, pro-call girls and voice of the rock'n'roll industry. In actual fact, by political ties, hirings and marriages, "The Phoenix" is tied to its more middle-aged cousin the official voice of Massachusetts imperialists the Boston Globe, the Massachusetts injustice system and the top ranks of the Democratic Party.
If we read "The Phoenix" carefully, we will learn that it has always had Dan Kennedy as the intellectual voice of the Democratic Party's bourgeois internationalism, oddly, even though Dan Kennedy and the The Boston Phoenix are not running for president and do not exist in a state where international politics is much up for grabs--since the whole state is a Democratic Party bastion.
What "The Phoenix" is though is very important as an example of something broader. It represents a certain lifestyle wing of the Democratic Party, an ideological connection point between the urban youth demographic and the imperialists' plans. "Islamo-fascism" is the tar word of choice for "The Phoenix," because it is easy to tar Iran (and the Taliban in power) as anti-sex.
So for this connection of the petty-bourgeoisie to the imperialists, the fascism thing is about lifestyle freedom. It would fly well in Las Vegas too, but mostly in the Blue State big cities.
When we want to know why only 6% of Amerikans support Lebanon's side in the conflict with I$rael, we have to look at how the Republican-Democratic tag-team works. In the Blue States, the image of Iran is unpopular for many the same reasons Republicans are unpopular--views of religion and sex.
Likewise, in the Village Voice of New York City, a columnist simultaneously talks about why men having sex with 17 year-old men (with an in-between-the-lines idea on why it's OK despite supposedly being illegal) and "Islamo-fascism." "This won't stop Islamo-fascism, of course. We're still going to have to fight these bastards; unlike some of my lefty pals, I'm all for fighting the bastards."(7)
So there it is ranging from the National Review to the Village Voice--the "Islamo-fascism" idea does fly. At this time, Phyllis Chesler is attempting outreach to the Republican wing of reaction. She is pro-choice and pro-war. To seal the deal for a war on Iran, these culture warriors from the Blue State mentality would like nothing better than for the Republicans to give up their abortion credo in the name of fighting Iran. Iran after all, has laws restricting abortion except to save the life of the mother or to terminate deformed or retarded fetuses.(8) With Hillary Clinton as president, we could yet see the deal be an attack on Iran for not having sufficient abortion choice. It would not be the first time that the imperialists decided to seal their unity under a pro-choice banner.
The Blue State versus Red State conflict over lifestyle has no underlying
division on Iran, because of the unity of the oppressor nation. Instead of
thinking that there are some good things and bad things about Iran relative to
other capitalist countries, the Blue State pseudo-feminist is apt to say:
"Violence and intimidation existed for thousands of years before commercial pornography, and countries today with no pornography, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, do not boast strong women's rights records."(9)
The fake Maoists inside u.$. borders have working ties with the organization that made that statement and with Phyllis Chesler who favors an attack on Iran. They've also received favorable reviews in "The Phoenix."
On the Trotskyist side, there is also vacillation. According to the most popular Trotskyist site in the world staffed mainly out of England, there is no such thing as an Islamic fundamentalist who is anti-imperialist. "This does not mean that the Islamic fundamentalist movements are progressive or have any genuine anti-imperialist credentials,"(10) the Trotskyists said in half-hearted rebuttal of Christopher Hitchens, a noted critic of the Vietnam War who has joined the Culture War against the Middle East. It would be closer to the truth that there is no such thing as a Trotskyist who is anti-imperialist. Hezbollah just defeated I$rael. Since Lenin died, Trotskyists have only provided services to imperialism, never once doing anything like we just saw Hezbollah do.
The Trotskyists live in decadent imperialist countries and the Iranians live in a capitalist country perhaps with some feudal vestiges. Like the "Feminists for Free Expression," it does not occur to these Trotskyists that there might be some positive aspects of Islamic lifestyle relative to imperialist lifestyle and that on the whole there is not a real inferiority or superiority on that basis. While not openly working for Democratic or Republican Party imperialists, the left-wing of parasitism generally works in such a way that it is easy for the imperialists to harvest the benefits of the lifestyle-oriented politics of libertarians, anarchists, Trotskyists and others claiming some kind of political independence.
Islamic lifestyle is repressive in some ways but Western lifestyle is too, which is why the united $tates is the world's imprisonment leader and England leads within Europe. Capitalism is dominating the whole world and the social problems from that surface in different ways. Amerikans fear Islamic peoples, but dark-skinned Islamic peoples could fear the united $tates too: there they would have a much greater chance of imprisonment and being surrounded by pornography. Judging by prison statistics, if Iran is fascist and the united $tates is free, then freedom means imprisonment.
Notes:
1. Source: Imperialist Tony Blair's "Home Office,"
http://www.csdp.org/research/r234.pdf; The figures for I$rael vary greatly depending on the source and timing.
I$raeli statistics for January 2000 count less than 2000 Palestinian prisoners, but that may exclude military
prisoners. BBC reports 9153 Palestinians in I$raeli prisons for July, 2006, which could well be more than total
I$raelis in I$raeli prisons. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5211930.stm
Al-Jazeera.net reported over 28,000 Palestinians in I$raeli prisons. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/93C55FF6-C6D3-491F-9E67-48AEDEFFB4A6.htm
2. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/08/is_it_al_qaeda_you_betcha.html
3. http://levin.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGQ3ZDhiNzU1MzJmMzU3OTNkZWI3MDQ4MWM5NjZhMzQ=
4. http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060720-065051-3531r
5. http://o3.indiatimes.com/yossarin/archive/2006/08/16/1250745.aspx
6. http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid20461.aspx The lead story for The Phoenix at the same time
of this blast at "Islamo-fascism" was "Oral [sex] is the new second base. . ."
7. http://www.villagevoice.com/people/0249,savage,40310,24.html
8. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4436445.stm
9. http://www.ffeusa.org/html/board/index.html
10. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/oct2001/hitc-o05.shtml