I assume here that Fletcher is talking about the need for a transparent and democratic, but centralized socialist organization that would form the core of a new oppositional movement (not 3rd party electoral venture). The enthusiasm behind DSOC/DSA during the early years was that in a left prone to fragmenting into sects it was actually uniting and growing in size and influence. With our current balance of forces a lot of the activity or agitation we’re doing today (as socialists and not just as generic progressives working on important single-issues) is marginal. We are dealing with the strongest ruling class in human history and we are operating in the nerve-center of capital. Such a reality necessitates some radical thinking and solutions if the objective is a shot at contesting these powerful and dangerous movements and not just keeping up “the good fight.”

“…there was a striking lack of relationship between its material and numerical strength and its political effectiveness. The very term ‘movement’ was misleading since it implied some kind of enrolment or personal participation of large numbers. If anything was characteristic of fascism, it was its independence of such popular manifestations. Though usually aiming at a mass following, its potential strength was reckoned not by the numbers of its adherents but by the influence of the persons in high position whose good will the fascist leaders posessed, and whose influence in the community could be counted upon to shelter them from the consequences of an abortive revolt, thus taking the risks out of revolution.

A country approaching the fascist phase showed symptoms among which the existence of a fascist movement proper was not necessarily one. At least as important signs were the spread of irrationalistic philosophies, racialist aesthetics, anticapitalist demagogy, heterodox currency views, criticism of the party system, widespread disparagement of the ‘regime,’ or whatever was the name given to the existing democratic setup… Hitler was eventually put in power by the feudalist clique around President Hindenburg, just as Mussolini and Primo de Rivera were ushered into office by their respective sovereigns. Yet Hitler had a vast movement to support him; Mussolini had a small one; Primo de Rivera had none. In no case was an actual revolution against constituted authority launched; fascist tactics were invariable those of a sham rebellion arranged with the tacit approval of the authorities who pretended to have been overwhelmed by force.”

This new Palin-led anti-establishment Teabagger strain in the Republican Party reminds me creepily of the spontaneous rise of the fascist movement in the wake of the Great Depression. We can’t afford to give them an inch. As Bill Fletcher Jr. said at this year’s Democratic Socialists of America convention, “They… are… dangerous!” It’s easy for college kids to laugh at how detached from reality they seem, but this movement is really frickin dangerous, and it is absolutely imperative that the democratic Left of this country effectively out-organize them in the years ahead.

The backlash against the inherent failures of capitalism can take very ugly forms. It’s up to us to guide popular outrage at the system in a constructive direction.