From fascism to exterminism

Around the time of the 2016 election it became popular to revive the word "fascism." Trump was a fascist, we were told. No, I argued, Trump isn't a fascist. A fascist would disdain democracy; Trump is bad, but he's not quite there yet, and besides, "fascism" is a word belonging to an earlier period of history, a period of expanding capitalism. Our period is one of declining capitalism.

Now I still think "fascist" is the wrong word to describe Trump. But mostly because it's too kind -- because Trump is perhaps something of an exterminist.

I first read this term "exterminism" from something Stan Goff said. It wasn't in the piece I linked, but somewhere else. Anyway, Goff's writing is of a piece, and the piece I linked tells the story:

We are living through a long period of exterminism, the last stage of imperialism.

Well, anyway, I did a Google search on it, and it turns out that the celebrated scholar E. P. Thompson did a piece on "exterminism." Thompson thought of "exterminism" when considering the power of the state to wage nuclear war, as a threat to exterminate nearly everyone on the planet. It was republished in Verso a bit over three years ago. Here's Thompson's definition of "exterminism":

Exterminism designates those characteristics of a society — expressed, in differing degrees, within its economy, its polity and its ideology — which thrust it in a direction whose outcome must be the extermination of multitudes. The outcome will be extermination, but this will not happen accidentally (even if the final trigger is "accidental") but as the direct consequence of prior acts of policy, of the accumulation and perfection of the means of extermination, and of the structuring of whole societies so that these are directed towards that end.

Doesn't this describe Donald Trump's coronavirus policy to a T? "So, yeah, lots of people are going to die. Do we look like we give a sh*t?"

Frankly, I expect that only a few of those who die will actually die because of the coronavirus. More likely we will see lots of people dying because they can't get any food to eat, in the same way in which the economic collapse of the Great Depression of 1929-1932 produced large starving populations. We aren't getting free testing, we aren't getting sick leave, and most of us won't have jobs or income or food stamps or anything once most of the population is either quarantined or waiting to get into the ICU.

So it's beginning to look like we ought to revive this term "exterminism." It's the ultimate expression of the ruling class's contempt for the rest of us. You know who's been tested? Rich people.

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The word 'fascism' didn't need reviving in 2016. It has been alive and well, for centuries.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@Paul ADK The word "fascism" is derived from "Fasces," to be sure, which does have a classical Latin origin, but it became an "ism" only with Mussolini, in 1914.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Alligator Ed's picture

@Cassiodorus Whatever happened to call a spade a spade? This is the era of PC political correctness and SJW social justice wars, topped off with an equally unhealthy dose of identarianism. Cause or effect? Doesn't matter. The entire system will be taken down, whether on purpose or, more likely, the system collapses from the long-standing and worsening institutional rot.

I don't know what to call the extreme polarization of our population AND of the warring Duopoly factions--but extremism seems to me, the proper word.

Good on you, Cass, for this fine essay. Some of my other comments down thread will appear.

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ggersh's picture

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/03/links-3-15-2020.html

About a month ago I joked COVID-19 was exposing each East Asian country's weakness. China had intransparent & authoritarian gov't. Japan had inflexible & sclerotic bureaucracy. S Korea had irresponsible cult fanatics.

Turns out US had all three together.

— T.K. of AAK! (@AskAKorean) March 12, 2020

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@ggersh

the admittedly horrible, authoritarian Chinese government for having acted as decisively as it did. Were COVID-19 as rampant and uncontrolled in China as it is/has been in Italy, I'm not sure the world would have a chance to deal with it. I think China, Japan, and South Korea have done better than most places--although I have no idea what Russia is doing.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

edg's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Russia has tested 104,000 people and has 63 confirmed cases. Source: The Moscow Times

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CB's picture

@edg
Vladimir Putin banished Russian citizens who were evacuated from Wuhan to serve 14 days in quarantine in Siberia.

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@CB Surely you know this. It could be true and very interesting, but I'd rather hear it from objective, trustworthy news sources.

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Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

@laurel

RT is about as trustworthy as WaPo, or any of the rest of them. I'm deeply skeptical of the motives and content of any published news or editorial media these days.

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CB's picture

@BayAreaLefty

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CB's picture

@laurel @laurel
These news propaganda agencies actually used that term, Siberia, to describe where the Russian government sent Russian citizens from China to be quarantined. What they didn't tell you that it was a modern city of 700,000 with all the amenities. If you check the link I supplied you will understand. Most people will automatically think of "gulag" in the middle of nowhere. The Russians had used a military flight to pick up their citizens from Wuhan and they have an airbase in Tyumen, Siberia. It was just convenient for them. When their quarantine is over they will be flown on to Moscow.

Just another example how those two propaganda subtly spread shit about countries they want to denigrate and/or destroy.

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@CB . Thank you, it's quite an eye-opener, and I would imagine they said it that way to evoke horror in their readers. If you have a sign-on and the article is current, you could write a comment to the NYT. NYT used to be an interesting place for commenting. They went sour for me ~ five years ago with hit pieces on Bernie. Dishonest, too -- they tried at first to paint him as a has-been whose supporters were all old faded hippies.

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Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

Alligator Ed's picture

@CB Probably due to my ineptitude in navigating Russia Today. If I missed it, it was probably under my large nose, which blocks my little beady eyes from seeing it. Please direct me, kindly CB. Help.

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CB's picture

@Alligator Ed

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Alligator Ed's picture

@CB Pretty place but probably only warm enough for swimming outdoors two months yearly.

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CB's picture

@Alligator Ed
11 km from Tyumen you can relax and rejuvenate your scales in the

Verkhny Bor hot springs

Siberian nature is very unpredictable and varied, and not everyone is aware that bathing, for example, is possible not only in summer, in one of numerous Siberian rivers and lakes, but also in winter — in hot mineral springs. Around Tyumen, there are hot springs, which are very popular both among the locals and among the tourists. They even became a kind of a city’s feature.

A hot spring is an open-air swimming pool with chloride-sodium-bromine mineral water. The water temperature in such a spring reaches 45 degrees Celsius, so it is always open. According to experts, bathing in this water has a positive effect on your body and is especially beneficial for people suffering from cardio-vascular and nervous system diseases. And open-air bathing in winter in the hot water is an extremely fascinating experience!

After a few hours of luxurious soaking you can invigorate your gastric juices at The Chum Restaurant.

City of Gastronomy

Tyumen has many restaurants offering the unique Northern cuisine. When asked about the most interesting dining sites, locals often name the Chum Restaurant...
...
The most popular dishes are sliced frozen whitefish and venison salad. Besides, the restaurant was sanctified by a real Siberian shaman, so people believe that if you make a wish there, it will certainly come true.

More information on studyinrussia.ru:
https://studyinrussia.ru/en/life-in-russia/discover-russia/towns/tyumen/

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Alligator Ed's picture

@CB But if I went now, would I be able to return to the good ol' US of A? Does the travel ban apply to reptiles?

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Cassiodorus's picture

@ggersh https://www.facebook.com/groups/peoplescoronavirusresponse/permalink/227...

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

to mean "any authoritarian bigot."

They use the word "Nazi" similarly.

It drives me fucking crazy.

Personally, I think Trump's opponents are closer to being fascists than he is. Which does not mean I think "Trump good/Trump opponents bad."

Apparently Mussolini didn't say this,

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."

but if you agree that fascism should more properly be called corporatism, that it involves the increasing identification of the interests of the state with the interests of large private-sector business and financial entities, then actually it's the Bushes and Clintons and their ilk (in both parties) who are the pre-eminent fascists around here.

I like that definition because it a)describes a real tendency in modern politics, and b)it IS a definition. In other words, it attempts to define fascism, it's curious about what fascism IS, instead of just throwing the word around willy-nilly.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Alligator Ed's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal The trains will run on time....s/

Seriously for a change, they system Benito and company crafted was the merger of state and corporations, but the black shirts didn't call it corporatism. Not sure what they called it, other than the Italian word for Fascism (yes, I know fasces is Latin. Anybody who brings that up will summarily be whipped by bundled tree branches).

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

And your point is a good one, which also attempts to define one of the primary tendencies of modern politics and business.

Good essay, good thought.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

thirty-five years now. And that's why I made so many political mistakes up till around 2011. I didn't understand that a majority of the powerful were actually exterminists. Because, in my view, that's crazy. It's especially crazy when applied to climate, but don't get me started.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

RantingRooster's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal poke poke poke...

[video:https://youtu.be/SGyOaCXr8Lw]

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C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal as I've pointed out repeatedly, is a product of the elite's collective immersion in fantasies of money and property and commodities. They can't do anything because they are so lost in capitalism that all they can think of is: "let's do a few Boy Scout or Girl Scout deeds here and there while keeping the existing system intact." It's obviously not going to work, but since their primary function is to keep an existing system intact, they won't do anything else.

Climate Change Mitigation in Fantasy and Reality

Password: AddletonAP2009

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Trump hatred is just a manifestation of denial and scapegoating. He is NOT unique, he is not the worst,he is not a Sauron, or a Satan, or even a Hitler - hell, Hitler wasn't a Hitler. Trump is not as bad as W, and neither could match the evil of Reagan, who was nothing but an Archie Bunker who got lucky. None of those devolved into exterminists - being responsible for 8 billion deaths would be bad for their legacy, bad for their standing in the polls, bad for business. Trump hatred is nothing but explaining away how owe didn't do anything about W, or how our parents didn't do anything about Reagan.

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On to Biden since 1973

@doh1304 It's hard to apply the word extremism as an experience, because for most of us it's been a 40 -50 year slow walk to get to this point. We're those frogs everyone brings up. The extremism doesn't occur when the water goes from 208 degrees to 212 degrees, it's been rising all along.

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edg's picture

@Snode

ExtERminism, not extREmism. Derived from extermination. Unless you're referring to a different subject than the essay is.

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@edg I usually can catch myself. I plead Emily Litilla.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@doh1304 But you do have to concede that it's amazing that they found one of their own to run "against" him who not only shares nearly all of his policy portfolio, but also his mental dysfunction.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

RantingRooster's picture

Are you kidding? We (the US population) can't even hold a meaningful conversation now, but you want to add another term to the word salad we engage in that poses as dialog?

On a more serious note:

Peter Frase from Jacobin;

One thing we can be certain of is that capitalism will end. Maybe not soon, but probably before too long; humanity has never before managed to craft an eternal social system, after all, and capitalism is a notably more precarious and volatile order than most of those that preceded it. The question, then, is what will come next. Rosa Luxemburg, reacting to the beginnings of World War I, cited a line from Engels: “Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.” In that spirit I offer a thought experiment, an attempt to make sense of our possible futures. These are a few of the socialisms we may reach if a resurgent Left is successful, and the barbarisms we may be consigned to if we fail.

snip

There are therefore four logical combinations of the two oppositions, resource abundance vs. scarcity and egalitarianism vs. hierarchy. To put things in somewhat vulgar-Marxist terms, the first axis dictates the economic base of the post-capitalist future, while the second pertains to the socio-political superstructure. Two possible futures are socialisms (only one of which I will actually call by that name) while the other two are contrasting flavors of barbarism.

We (The US) are already barbarians, we just dress nice. When a "society" allows it's fellow citizens to die, simply because they can not afford healthcare services, we have reached a state of "Barbarism", which has existed in the US for quite some time, like since before the colonies revolted against the British.

We ARE the barbarians...

[video:https://youtu.be/6DXDU48RHLU]

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C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

@RantingRooster . Capitalism accounts for certain features of human activity but it bases itself in the lowest element of our existence, survival mode materialism. It's always there, of course -- after all, we are animals. But there is so much more to human existence. The ultimate goal cannot be the mere accumulation of material wealth; this short-changes everything we are capable of.

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Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

Alligator Ed's picture

@laurel Capitalism is a cancer, which has co-opted its purported masters, those whom the people select to protect the system. But who watches the watchers? The watched bribe the watchers routinely. We know how that works out.

The fiduciary is an economic control, run amok. Using a biological analogy, the fiduciary system works best when it benefits the host, sort of like an immune system. That means the proper operation of any fiduciary system MUST benefit the society as a whole. But the elites have bought the system (as in bought and sold), turning the autoimmune societal function into a state of escalating self-destruction. A hyperimmune response, one which instead of protecting the host as per usual, the current fiduciary system only benefits the cancer cells--the Oligarchs.

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was the partnership of the state and "business" as co equals to form a government. We do that all the time, big time. Except our trains don't run on time.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@Snode The fascists, however, were largely interested in crushing opposition and abolishing democracy, which goes far beyond the simple inclusion of corporations as junior partners in the state.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Bisbonian's picture

@Cassiodorus , I would insist that it is not the corporations who are the 'junior partners', but rather, the government itself.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

@Cassiodorus .

The fascists, however, were largely interested in crushing opposition and abolishing democracy

This is precisely what the DNC is doing right now. DWS, Tom Perez, HRC, and hundreds of DNC-employed minions, including the MSM, are shamelessly carrying out this precise fascist dictum.

See them for what they are.

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Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

Cassiodorus's picture

@laurel The fascists of old were really up-front about their disdain for democracy. The first, last, and only election allowed by Hitler was in March of 1933. Here is what happened in that election. The DNC charades are small potatoes when compared to what Hitler did then.

The DNC is like the PRI in Mexico -- they're cool with elections but they like to cheat now and then, just enough to tip the scales. Eventually the PRI relented, though, and AMLO was allowed to be President. The main problem with the Demopublicans and the Republicrats is that their ideas of governance will end up killing us all. I'm not sure they understand this, which is why when push comes to shove they might let Bernie win. But, yes, if they are allowed to win indefinitely, we will all die.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Alligator Ed's picture

@Cassiodorus The Duopolitans are not interested in any other than the well-being of the Elite Caste. But the DNC will never allow that flaming, raving, fire-breathiest commie-socialist Vermonter anywhere near 1600 Pennsylvania--not even on school tours.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus

whether the businessmen are junior partners, as in Nazi Germany, or senior partners, as here. None of this would be possible without authoritarian political and social structures.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal This diary wouldn't exist.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus

Fascists in the twenty-first century might not behave the same as those in the era of the movement's birth.

But that's heading toward a less useful semantic discussion than the one you were having in your essay.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal in crowing "Fascism! Fascism!" and spreading ignorance of what historical fascism was. Fascism originated with Mussolini, or more likely with his ghostwriter Giovanni Gentile. Mussolini had no interest in permitting the slightest hint of formal democracy. Existing power loves formal democracy here in the US -- it allows the public to own the elites' choices like nothing else would.

There is an alternative term, championed by the late professor Sheldon Wolin: "Inverted Totalitarianism." Use that term.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Snode

big business, not the state, has the upper hand in the partnership.

also because the powerful no longer want to have a civilization.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Capitalism that can't be made to generate the highest levels of ROI, no matter how essential it is to the survival of society. Anything of potential value can be disrupted, converted, privatized, enclosed, dammed, polluted, broken up or destroyed, if that yields additional profit for the investor class. That includes any type of government, common lands, the air and water, gene pools, product, company, industry, institution, occupation, or class of the population.

Taken to it's inevitable conclusion, economic Exterminism becomes societal Suicidism. Another term for that is Nihilism. When that is the dominant paradigm of the ruling class, it's Subversion From Above. Exterminism can manifest as mass poulation transfers, pogroms, "ethnic cleansing" and very real genocide.

Subversion From Above leading to collective suicide is inherent to the late Capitalist system, even if it's not the immediate intention. Subversion is not so much a conspiracy as just another day at the office.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@leveymg was engaged in an anti-nuclear-weapons movement; the two webpages I cited scream "nuclear weapons" throughout their lengthy content. If you want to read about the form of exterminism which Thompson opposed, please pick up a copy of Robert Scheer's With Enough Shovels.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus self-made by the old peasantry as by the new capitalist classes through enclosure and other measures to force proletaritization. Thompson's concerns with the extermination of the communal way of life, and the lethal suppression of those who resisted the privatization of the commons in England, as he documented in "The Making of the English Working Class", long pre-dated his involvement with the Ban the Bomb movement.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@leveymg Exterminism is about physical extermination, not the "extermination" of a way of life.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

forward-thinking planners,

@Cassiodorus @Cassiodorus ,

call it "depopulation" . . . sounds so much nicer, you know.

Edited to remove a space between "them" and "selves" in the subject line.

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Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

Alligator Ed's picture

@leveymg is selecting the appropriate time frame used to calculate the essential period during which an economic operation is allowed to continue before evaluating the rate of return. A period of 3 months, which seems to be the current American model (for many years) inevitably leads to what has been called subversion from above.

Another consideration should be long term planning as the period to consider ROI. A well-constructed 5 year plan, provided the public interest is served, yields a much more equitable result than 3 month scoop and run.

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@Alligator Ed as one where the Generals are in charge. Neither consider any individual to be of much value. We're all just profit margins or body counts to them.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

...using the word 'fascism' to define politics in the 21st century:

...and besides, "fascism" is a word belonging to an earlier period of history, a period of expanding capitalism. Our period is one of declining capitalism.

.
Exactly. 'Fascism' is mostly used by people who don't really understand how bound it is to the history that defined it. It is much too small a word to find context in the infinitely complex system that we live in.

As for exterminism, which you seemed to suggest was a gradual layering of policies that are so mindlessly coercive and stubbornly negligent that, taken as a whole, they consign the governed into self-extinction. You ask:

Doesn't this describe Donald Trump's coronavirus policy to a T? "So, yeah, lots of people are going to die. Do we look like we give a sh*t?"

.

I can understand how the term 'exterminism' could be pinned on Trump, but Trump so actively resists extinction as a fate for any of his "properties." And the US has now become one of Trump's properties. I think of exterminism as a deliberate plan or device. For example, establishing a national doomsday device that will be triggered by the governed if they do not accede to the demands of the State..

After following your link and reading the brilliant essay by Stan Goff, I realize that 'exterminism' actually has a more indirect meaning that is easier to link to Trump. Exterminism is the unfortunate by-product of a thoughtless and self-absorbed system, rather than a nihilistic act of coercion. (Goff certainly does live a considered life, doesn't he? I could hardly tear myself away.) His lament:

In my opinion, there will be no technological utopia, or any stable utopia . . . ever. What we are facing now is a world that is ruined, ripped up, microtoxified down to the last cell, the last grain of dust, the last drop of water; a world with cities of tens of millions living in desperate favelas; a world with dying and rising oceans; a world in which the climate has been destabilized for millennia. A world of refugees. We are living through a long period of exterminism, the last stage of imperialism. My socialism is not the socialism of writing a new society on a blank page, but the socialism of disaster triage.

.

Somehow, this entire discussion of exterminism reminds me very much of the Democratic Party, which is currently busy exterminating itself. It's latest rally for "No matter who, Vote Blue" is not-so-much a cry for help as it is a signal of its final destruction. In his essay, Goff reminded me why I loathe the term, "Progressive" so much. He firmly rejects the "myth" that human history is a history of progress:

The term “progressive,” which gets thrown around like a Frisbee at a dog park, is rooted in this exact idea . . . and it is the reason I refuse to call myself a “progressive.” It’s a uniquely modern idea and — in its origins — uniquely patriarchal, racist, and imperialist.

.

Earlier, I was reading a long and argumentative thread where the Left in the Primaries were explaining to the Democrats that, no, they would not be voting "blue" in the 2020 election if Biden was the nominee. No matter how fiercely the Democrats played the Trump card or the Supreme Court card, the Left would not budge. They were done with the Party. The Democrats were apoplectic. They were angry, insulting, threatening, and then begging. The Left seemed bored and tired of explaining themselves.

Which side were the exterminists?

Someone came along and posted a tweet and video comment from a younger Lawrence O'Donnell telling the Left how to deal with the DNC. This is surely exterminism in action.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic @Pluto's Republic that progressivism was patriarchal or racist when its tenets where defined by the great Eleanor Roosevelt.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Battle of Blair Mountain

characterize a movement as only one thing. It depends how tightly controlled, from the top, the movement is and by whom. The less homogenous it is, the more carefully one must talk about it. Assuming there's a future, it will be interesting to see how the future describes the BLM movement, since I see at least two quite different versions of it.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Pluto's Republic

The Democrats were apoplectic. They were angry, insulting, threatening, and then begging.

This is what I've been calling "Biden bullies." They have to resort to bullying tactics because the candidate they're bullying people for cannot be seen in public. Biden's handlers have been, since August, at the point where any exposure that is not really carefully choreographed has to be really short. Wasn't it that Biden managed an appearance of about seven minutes in St. Louis, and those seven minutes weren't good ones?

And this is the guy who is getting the endorsement of about two-thirds of "the field" as it existed until late last year. Was ever the multiple face of public contempt so obvious? Here is a list of people who don't care if their party has Mr. Gaffe Republican, their weakest candidate (with Bloomberg a close second) running for President because their donors are afraid of Bernie Sanders. Doing it during the global spread of the coronavirus was an additional stroke of genius.

On Doug Henwood's Facebook thread the second-guessers were all echoing each other about how the coronavirus would doom Donald Trump's chances of re-election. The second-guessers have obviously not been thinking about how badly the Democrats want to lose.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

mimi's picture

I don't know if that fits in here. There are two parts to this video. I can't stand if people fight over categorizations, labels and then use that to abuse scienctific facts or obfuscate scienctific facts:
[video:https://youtu.be/0fZ19Ina5cI]
and Tulsi is fighting on:
[video:https://youtu.be/J-kQDD8oUj0]

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kept nagging at me, but I couldn't remember whose it was. I did remember it was about the best definition I'd ever seen for fascism.

Well, a trip across the site this evening landed me at CStMS' Open Thread where enhydra lutris was commenting somewhat mathematically, and there it was, the excellent definition:

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

It works and it's so clean.

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Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

Alligator Ed's picture

Exterminism designates those characteristics of a society — expressed, in differing degrees, within its economy, its polity and its ideology — which thrust it in a direction whose outcome must be the extermination of multitudes. The outcome will be extermination, but this will not happen accidentally (even if the final trigger is "accidental") but as the direct consequence of prior acts of policy, of the accumulation and perfection of the means of extermination, and of the structuring of whole societies so that these are directed towards that end.

Doesn't this describe Donald Trump's coronavirus policy to a T? "So, yeah, lots of people are going to die. Do we look like we give a sh*t?"

What I fault mainly here are:
1. delayed realization COVID-19, hereinafter referred to by me as the Wu Flu, was going to a higher case fatality rate than prior influenzal epidemics since the "Spanish" (really American) flu which literally decimated WW1 military forces.

2. delayed implementation to fast track our country's responsiveness
3. delaying the transition from the initial NO action phase, through the current reactive phase. Cities, counties and communities currently are doing most of what little proactive things are now happening
4. Because testing is so vital not only for case ascertainment but to evaluate changing epidemiology, the delay in Wu Flu testing is egregious.

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I read poets, philosophers, critics, great thinkers, then some hard life set in, and it continues to this day.
Cass, you have been on fire lately.
I have no time anymore to think in your analytical terms, but I once did, before other imperatives arose, took the lead.
You very often remind me of myself decades ago.
I truly appreciate all that you do.
There is a pervasive exterminism (let's kill a whole lot of people, one way or another)right there in our faces.
We need to know and understand exactly what we are looking at, because, as I advise my clients, you cannot address a problem until you can define it.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

What more rock-solid, plain-as-day, common-sense justification could there possibly be for outright violent revolution?

WTF are we waiting for?!?

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Cassiodorus's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/wait-a-second-governor-stuns-msnbc-host...

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont is frustrated over the lack of available coronavirus tests.

Lamont Monday night expressed that frustration to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, saying that one hospital in the small city of Danbury has a hospital where 200 nurses cannot work, apparently because of possible coronavirus exposure – and he has no ability to test them.

“I can tell you Danbury Hospital is at capacity, and they have 200 nurses on furlough because they were in contact,” Governor Lamont told Hayes. “If I could test those nurses, I could potentially get them back into the game.”

Trump's buddies wanted to make a profit off of the testing kits, currently with market value of $1300. So Trump engineered a shortage. And so there it is, folks.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama