Occasional thoughts about political life in 21st century America
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Hey look!
Bill Bennett has an online store. Wow, lots of morally conservative swag. Or swagly conservative morals. Or something. As Slim Pickens once said: "Why shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all of this stuff."
Anti anti-fascists scanning the ether for signs of dissent, disloyalty, and defeatism.
Premature Anti-Fascist
Returning to America from the Spanish Civil War, veterans of the International Brigades who fought against Franco in the republican cause were said to have been branded as Premature Anti-Fascists. That is, they opposed fascism before World War II, before everyone was supposed to oppose fascism, and therefore were likely to be communist subversives, presumptively disloyal because they fought the fascists too soon. Whether the US government actually used the term itself is now contested by anti-communist historians (although it would be difficult to deny the actual persecution of communists and dissidents in 20th century America). I use it for the name of my blog because, in my darker moments, I worry about the proto-fascist tendencies I see at work in America and because, whether the US government or the Brigadists themselves invented the term, it seems to me a bittersweet badge of honor. For more on the Lincolns, see Peter Carroll, The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
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