Yay I have more hexbears to talk to about it!
In the context of the recent election it was really weird hearing the discourse on this site that seemed mostly to accept the framing of "Trump is a fascist but Biden is not," then turning to Jackson and reading more about the real nature of global fascism: fascism is the political expression of monopoly capital, grown out of the shell of bourgeois democracy and the era of free competition. Fascism secures its power and effects its disguise, mollifying some workers at the expense of others with political reforms that keep the exploitative system going.
Jackson's answer is that repression is a part of revolution. As the vanguard advances it draws backlash from the state, and to overcome this backlash it must submerge itself among the people basically to spread the effects of repression. The wider ranging, more oppressive, and more obvious the character of the government, so much the better for recruitment. His argument seems pretty airtight to me, but it's kinda hard to see where the line is between adventurism/accelerationism and what he's talking about.
Fascism is reform that suppresses the revolutionary elements. Seems like quite a lot of stuff is fascist and the realization is a bit too much to take in at once. I'm pretty sure a lot of hexbears here would be very happy to have a New Deal that isn't racist...
I don't think it's too hard to identify accelerationism because Jackson went into details as to how the vanguard should look like and the criteria that the military should achieve and all that, you know?
Absolutely incredible book that I can't recommend enough to comrades lurking this post! Jackson's exploration of the reality of fascism in the USian context through the racist carceral state was so enlightening to me about why revolution is the only way. The violence inherent in the system will not allow passive transfers of power into the hands of the masses.
