This Glen Greenwald thing about the Huffpo Commenters and the discussions with Cynn in the comments remind me of two quotes I see from time to time, written by opponents of Bush, usually in reference to the perception of increasing fascism in the U.S. (along with allegations that 9/11 was a Reichstag Fire for the looming totalitarian impulses of the right, etc.).  I’ve highlighted the quotes in passages below to provide some contextual flavor.

“Huey Long, known as “the Kingfish,” dominated the state of Louisiana from 1928 until his assassination in 1935, at the age of 42. Simultaneously governor and a United States senator, the canny Kingfish uttered a prophecy that haunts me in this late summer of 2005, 70 years after his violent end: “Of course we will have fascism in America but we will call it democracy!” [emphasis mine] I reflected on Huey Long (always mediated for me by his portrait as Willie Stark in Robert Penn Warren’s novel, All the King’s Men) recently, when I listened to President George W Bush addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was thus benefited by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox TV channel, which is the voice of Bushian crusading democracy, very much of the Kingfish’s variety. Even as Bush extolled his Iraq adventure, his regime daily fuses more tightly together elements of oligarchy, plutocracy, and theocracy.”

From ”Reflections in the Evening Land: The celebrated critic Harold Bloom, despairing of contemporary America, turns to his bookshelves to understand the trajectory of his country.” – The Guardian 12/17/05

and…

These are both quotes from the populist Governor of Louisiana, Huey Long – a man celebrated by many on the left.  Although the sentiment of ambivalence expressed in the Guardian Article above is best captured by the New York Times obituary written at the Governor’s death (Governor Long died on 9/10/1935 from complications due to gunshot wounds, putting him some 66 years ahead of some of his fellow ideologues in freezing his worldview in a September 10th mindset):

“What he did and what he promised to do are full of political instruction and also of warning. In his own State of Louisiana he showed how it is possible to destroy self-government while maintaining its ostensible and legal form. He made himself an unquestioned dictator…. In reality, Senator Long set up a Fascist government in Louisiana. It was disguised, but only thinly. There was no outward appearance of a revolution, no march of Black Shirts upon Baton Rouge, but the effectual result was to lodge all the power of the State in the hands of one man. If Fascism ever comes in the United States it will come in something like that way.”

From The New York Times 9/11/35

Where Mr. Greenwald’s latest proclamations of the genuineness of debate and open discussion on the left, versus the intellectually impoverished hate speech on the right become truly, truly fascinating is what has been addressed in a lot of the commentary on the apparent wedding of the so-called Transnational Progressivist Left and Islamic Totalitarianism.

This concept was addressed very early on (less than 6 weeks after 9/11) and in an rather ‘interesting’ fashion in an article discussing the relationship between ‘red’ and ‘black’ fascism, in which the author notes:

“The red fascist is incapable of expressing his aggression in a gut level way and of communicating a high, sustained emotional charge, thus he admires the black fascist’s ability to do these things.  Conversely, the black fascist expresses himself emotionally, sometimes in a nearly incoherent way. … Thus the black fascist benefits from the red fascist’s ability to use logical arguments to persuade liberals into immobilizing any nation’s effort to forcefully oppose the black fascist’s aggression. Eventually the red fascist and the black fascist will turn on each other and one or the other will prevail, but they are temporarily united as one in their hatred of life.”

Some put forth the notion that the marriage of Transnational Progressives and Islamic Totalitarianism (so aptly described by the Shah of Iran as the ”unholy alliance of red and black” ) reflects this sort of arrangement – with Islamic Totalitarianism as the emotionally powerful black fascists and the Transnational Progressive playing the role of the red fascist.  I used to think that this was a pretty accurate assessment.

But in the past few days, we’ve seen this business of not just deleting, but the Huffington Post rewriting history to airbrush the behavior of their own readership, and the response of Greenwald and the assertions of many on the left that the left aren’t nearly as spiteful as the right-wing folks, and those on the left who are a bit ‘excessive’ are really just an indicator that ‘Some of us are beyond fed up.’ In other words, the “red fascists” of the Huffpo editors and posters who are airbrushing history (among other things) have entered an implicit alliance with the “black fascism” of the Bush haters.  The tone and extensiveness of the irrational bitterness of the HuffPo commenters suggests that the Transnational sorts may not have to rely solely on violent Islam for its ‘black fascist’ emotional fix.  This has two interesting ideas that go along with it.  First, is that it alleviates the need for ‘the left’ to apologize specifically on behalf of Islamists, by finding another source.  Conversely, the assertion of the folks who hate Bush that ‘the War on Terror has made us less safe’ may provide a psychological cover to assume a more hawkish stance.

Which would, among other things, explain why, for instance, Senator Carl Levin – no neocon he – can say things like:

“I think we ought to take action on all fronts including Syria and any other source of weapons coming in, obviously Iran is the focus – but it shouldn’t be the sole focus.”

The fact that Levin can, and does, make such a statements at odds with the ‘black fascism’ of Islam, while on the other hand, Joe Lieberman is excoriated for his support (or, rather, lack of a desire to see absolute failure) as much as anything else not for the suggestion that we should win, but for the fact that supporting the President and not asserting that Iraq is lost runs counter to the interests of both groups of black fascists upon which Transnational folk may derive sustenance.

In an ideal world, this could actually work out quite well, for it could signal a break in the psychology of displacement, discussed at length in a number of posts by Dr. Sanity on BDS, in particular:

“Rather than blame the terrorists; rather than admiting they have to take action against them; their fear is transformed to anger and displaced onto President Bush. If everything is his fault, then the reality of what happened does not have to be faced (this also explains the intense psychological denial that these same individuals tend to have about 9/11).

Bush becomes the “criminal mastermind”, so devious, so evil, that everything he says is a “lie”, everything he does is part of a vast global consipiracy. His family has intimate ties to Bin Laden and the Saudis; He is trying to enrich his oil business friends; He is trying to avenge the insult to his father by getting rid of Saddam; He plans world domination etc. etc. I could go on an on, but you get the point.”

Since the administration is entering it’s sixth year, fatigue and consequent moderation of its policy towards Syria and Iran has meant that staking out a stronger position on Iran isn’t automatically echoing the Bush position, thereby allowing folks like Carl Levin the daylight needed to squeak by and move away from the reflexively pacific views that have dominated the Democratic party heretofore.  Therefore, it might, just might, might be possible for someone (be they of the left or right) to be elected in 2008 who won’t axiomatically carry water for Islamism, without such a position being Yet Another Referendum on the Florida Supreme Court’s application of the equal protection clause more than 400 Sunday newspaper editions ago.

But getting back to Greenwald’s dedication to vigilance against totalitarianism, noted by Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom here:

The fact that Greenwald(s) right here is arguing that the right side of the blogosphere is positively lousy with prominent sociopaths, while the left’s extremism and sociopathology is so rare that it must be sniffed out like truffles by determined smear merchants—is itself an example of a leading left-wing pundit engaging in the very kind of cartoonish hate-mongering he pretends to detest.  And if it isn’t “extremism” to accuse your political opponents of being sociopaths for, say, supporting NSA surveillance programs, or thinking it okay to house enemy combatants in military camps (rather than executing them summarily for being out of uniform)—then “extremism,” like “torture” or “racism” or “New York Times best-selling author,” has ceased to mean anything.”

and later, in updates to the same post:

Which makes Greenwald(s) an admitted demagogue—and explains, in large part, why his jeremiads are so transparently disingenuous.  Those who cite him approvingly, it follows, are either complicit in his goal of undermining this administration, or else are his (willing?) dupes… That he spent his time today giving cover to those who essentially cheered on the Taliban marks him as someone whose hatred of Bush has, at long last, shown him to be among those whose love of country is provisional—granted on the condition that policies he likes are in place, and leaders he favors are in power.

Reaching all the way back to Governor Long (previous discussion of Governor Long here, here, here, and here) as his proclamations about fascism, I think he was pretty close to the mark, although I might suggest instead that if fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the mantle of anti-fascism.