Premature Anti-Fascist: scha·den·freu·de

Heh, heh. Tough luck Rummy.

I guess, you know, freedom is untidy and stuff happens. Like the possibility of justice for assholes like you who think they enjoy impunity for war crimes and torture.

PAF says: Thank you, France.

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.

PAF's Book List: Some Recommendations

Walter Hixson, The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and US Foreign Policy
James Carroll, House of War: The Pentagon and the disastrous rise of American Power
James William Gibson, Warrior Dreams: Violence and Manhood in post-Vietnam America
H. Bruce Franklin, MIA: Mythmaking in America
Jerry Lembke, The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam
Susan Faludi, The Terror Dream
Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism
David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism
Larry Everest, Oil, Power, and Empire
Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow
Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris
Thomas Ricks, Fiasco
Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis
Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone
Gary Dorrien, Imperial Designs
Malise Ruthven, A Fury for God
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack
Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion
Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America

Premature Anti-Fascist

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

scha·den·freu·de

Premature Anti-Fascist

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What Price Empire?

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PAF's Book List: Some Recommendations

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