it’s not the dagger through the swastika that bothers me. fascism as a social practice should be killed.
but to say that "the only good fascist is a dead one" evokes for me
re-inscription of the form of masculinity that empowers fascism in the
first place (what Stan Goff calls the gendered degeneration of American
politics).
it also sounds like an echo of the public morality of a death penalty
state where imagining the deaths of real people is not the moral
equivalent of war, but war itself.
Woody Guthrie’s guitar said "this machine kills fascists", but it was not a dagger that he carried, was it? besides, if there are fascists, as there are racists, the problem is
poorly understood as individual existence of any sort. fascism and
racism are ways of ordering social reality. and like I say, I have no
problem killing those orders. but how do you touch the problem of
killing an order of things via the symbolic execution of individuals?
it is precisely by mistaking racism and fascism as something confined
to Klan membership that encourages everyone to ignore widespread
ignorance and apathy. notice for example how Klan arguments against gay
marriage are no different than arguments propounded from pulpits and
podiums everywhere else in Texas. they are fascist and racist arguments
no doubt.
the slogan that "the only good fascist is a dead one", because
it re-inscribes fascist masculinity, death penalty mentality, and
ideological misdirection as to the problem that fascism poses, takes
the bait that Klan logic offers. it is therefore an expression of pure
reaction.
please re-consider–gm
Texas Civil Rights Review 