KARL: Hi Andy! I think you missed the entire point of my posting on
fascism and free speech. When I said that it is politically correct
not to deny fascism the right of free speech it was in a tactical and
strategic context that this was meant. You misunderstood me, I
suspect, to mean that fascists are not to be denied free speech
within the context of an some eternal moral paradigm going back to
Cromagnon and beyond to Neanderthalia. I can visualise you Andy
ostentatiously and proudly displaying a placard calling for Free
speech for nearderthals. For me, as I just intimated, the question of
supporting the right of free speech for fascists is a political one
entailing tactical and strategic considerations.
ANDY: Following Chomsky's argument, if you believe in freedom of
speech, you believe in freedom of speech precisely for those views
which you find abhorrent and are oppose to. Freedom of speech would
be a non-issue if we all agreed.
KARL: Given the above views of yours can we then conclude that
within the context of a social revolution fascists have the right to
free speech even if that speech is helping to mobilise considerable
reactionary support that may eventually threaten the social
revolution. Given that social revolution entails violent conflict
between the forces of socialism and the forces of capitalism is free
speech not to be denied to the latter (including fascists). Does
this mean that in the violence of the class war we may direct our
fire power at the forces of capitalism while not denying them free
speech.
ANDY: If you silence fascists publically, then they move below ground,
put on suits, employ crafty euphemisms.
KARL: The denial of free speech to fascist has as its aim the
elimination of the osurce of fascism which is capitlaism. Its aim is
not the silencing of fascism. Every mongrel in the street knows that
fascism is not silenced by the denial of free speech. The fight
against free speech for fascism is simply one individual layer in
the fight against fascism's source, capitalism.
ANDY: You do not silence fascism;you simply make it harder to detect
fascists. I want fascists screaming as loudly as possible. I want to
know right where they are, preferably at all times.
KARL: Surely the profession of the revolutionary is not the
profession of the private detective. Why do you want to know where
the fascist are at all times? Is it to gaze at them all the more,
particularly if they are of female gender (forgive the possibly
implicit sexism here. I just couldn't resist it Andy.)
Surely commies seek to achieve socialism rather than engage in mere
voyeuristic exercses.
ANDY: I want (female) Nazis with their SS pins on, goosestepping and
waving swastikas, right down mainstreet, where I can get a good look
at their faces. I want to get to know them. (Brackets mine).
KARL: You kinky thing Andy! ANd your into faces too. My aren't you a
big stud!
By this stage they may "goosesteppping... down the mainstreet" past your
house into government buildings after seriously beating you up for
taking "a good look at their faces".
ANDY: How can you refute fascist ideas, if you don't engage the debate?
KARL: You seem to forget that the struggle for socialism is not
tantamount to some petty bourgeois debating society with its
standing orders et alia but a concrete class struggle entailing
theory, debate, organisation, strikes armed action etc. Fascist
ideas are ultimately refuted at the bayonet points of working class
revolutionary militias.
ANDREW: The US government forbade communists to speak of their ideas.
Communists were imprisoned, not for any deed, but what for they
thought and wrote about. Mussolini imprisoned Antonio Gramsci because
of Gramsci's ideas. The judge that sentenced Gramsci said "We have to
stop this mind from working for 20 years." I regard these actions as
deplorable and the sign a society that is not free. Why would those
opposed to capitalism and fascism seek the same actions?
KARL: These communists (for the most part probably stalinists rather
than commies, even so...) were denied free speech because there is a
really a phenomenon called the class struggle. They were denied free
speech because "communists" are potentially or actually a threat to
the system. Free speech is only a (tactical) means by
which the bourgeoisie maintain, develop and stabilise capitalist
relations. It does not exist because the bourgeoisie believe in some
absolute eternal moral values. If this were the case then there might
be some argument for supporting the perpetuation of capitalism.
Andy: Fascism is authoritarian capitalism. Trying to sanitize capitalism
does the struggle for freedom and democracy no good at all.
KARL: If commies support the denial of free speech to fascists it is
not because they, as you claim, seek "to sanitize capitalism " but
because they seek to overthrow it. Hardnosed commies, like myself, are not
of the species that when you scratch its surface you find an
all-purpose liberal underneath.
ANDY: No question about it. Let Nazis talk. If they do more than talk, pull the
trigger. It's self-defense.
KARL: By then Andy they may have pulled the trigger on you. Surely
if the fascists going to pull the trigger, obviously you are being
horribly euphemistic here, then you anticipate this by forestalling
their actions.
To conclude: Ultimately an anti-fascist struggle centres around the
aboliton of the source of all fascism which is capitalism. The only
real way to defeat fascism is by defeating capitalism. It is in this
context that the support or denial of free speech to fascists must
be viewed which is why it is no more than a tactical or strategic
issue.
It is not, as some lefties mistakenly believe, an absolute question
of either invariable support or denial of free speech for
fascists. Transcendental absolutes, such as these, revolutionaries
leave to scholastics.