Posted on 12/14/2017 12:09:23 PM PST by Oldpuppymax
“He’s a fascist!”
For decades, this has been a favorite smear of the left, aimed at those on the right. Every Republican president—for that matter, virtually every Republican—since the 1970’s has been called a fascist; now, more than ever.
This label is based on the idea that fascism is a phenomenon of the political right. The left says it is, and some self-styled white supremacists and neo-Nazis embrace the label.
But are they correct?
To answer this question, we have to ask what fascism really means: What is its underlying ideology? Where does it even come from?
These are not easy questions to answer. We know the name of the philosopher of capitalism: Adam Smith. We know the name of the philosopher of Marxism: Karl Marx. But who’s the philosopher of fascism?
Yes—exactly. You don’t know. Don’t feel bad. Almost no one knows. This is not because he doesn’t exist, but because historians, most of whom are on the political left, had to erase him from history in order to avoid confronting fascism’s actual beliefs. So, let me introduce him to you. His name is Giovanni Gentile.
Born in 1875, he was one of the world’s most influential philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. Gentile believed that there were two “diametrically opposed” types of democracy. One is liberal democracy, such as that of the United States, which Gentile dismisses as individualistic—too centered on liberty and personal rights—and therefore selfish. The other, the one Gentile recommends, is “true democracy,” in which individuals willingly subordinate themselves to the state.
Like his philosophical mentor, Karl Marx, Gentile wanted to create a community that resembles the family, a community where we are “all in this together.” It’s easy to see the attraction of this idea. Indeed, it remains a common rhetorical...
(Excerpt) Read more at thecoachsteam.com ...
“The fascist governments in south america (now long gone) were right wing.”
No, they were just as left wing as the people they murdered. They had no respect for rights of the individual, or for a constitutional republic. They loved centralized collective power over the rights of the individual.
The South American regimes were as left as the nazis.
bkmk
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."
Adolf Hitler - Speech of May 1, 1927. "Adolf Hitler, by John Toland, 1976
"Mussolini had once belonged to the bolshevik wing of the Italian socialist party and still, in I924, confessed admiration for Lenin, while Trotsky was quoted as saying that Mussolini was his best pupil." { Mussolini formed his National Fascist Party in 1921 and became Prime Minister in 1924.}
Mussolini, by Denis Mack Smith, 1983
That almost makes the post I am working on superfluous, lol
I’ll continue on with it though.
The left -- Robespierre, Marx, Lenin -- wasn't always pacifistic, tolerant, non-hierarchical and humane. The right -- Bismarck, Hindenburg, Ludendorff -- wasn't always free market and individualistic.
The left of a century or two ago could be very bloodthirsty and intolerant. The European right of past centuries could be statist, hierarchical, and controlling.
Mussolini came out of the socialist movement. There was much about him that was left. But he organized his fascist movement specifically to combat socialism and Communism and allied himself with property owners, so the movement had a serious right-wing component.
Today's liberals and conservatives correspond to the liberal/conservative center of a century ago which was very weak in some countries and viewed with contempt by many in the Interwar period.
Mussolini broke away from the Italian socialist party because he saw World War One as a chance for Italy to take some territory from Austria-Hungary. He agreed with them economically and left to push for an assertive foreign policy.
Without control is there really ownership? And is there really any capitalism when the state controls everything it does not own?
The fact that Mussolini fought other socialist and communist to protect businesses his Fascist party controlled no more stopped him from being a socialist than Stalin killing Trotsky and other communist he saw as threats to his power stopped him from being a socialist/communist.
Many Italian property owners and businessmen would have said yes to both questions.
State control didn't reach down to the level of everyday business decisions. If you supported the party, they weren't going to get in your way.
The traditional European right wasn't as in love with business or free enterprise as many American conservatives are today.
The European so called "capitalisst" and "right" under Hitler & Mussolini were merely necessary and well paid functionaries of a leftwing totalitarian states who needed them for the time being.
If you want to plot the factions of the thirties out on today's political spectrum, fine. It's an academic feel-good activity that doesn't have much to do with what was going on back then.
I'm not saying that fascism or Nazism is definitely right-wing. I'm trying to say that the political spectrum changes over time and the idea that the bad guys are always on one side is more a wish than a reality.
Left and right are two words.
They are words that indicate direction or sometimes ‘to leave something’ or ‘to be correct’
By themselves, they have no other concrete meaning.
Let’s be specific about the distinction, and the unbridgeable gap, between two competing philosophies.
First, let’s describe them in concrete terms... Totalitarianism vs Individualism.
They are diametrically opposed.
What is popularly termed the right and the left are only two flavors of the same totalitarian poison.
I think we make a mistake when we play the L/R-game. What we seek is outside of this box.
‘Conservative’ is what most of us would call ourselves but even that isn’t specific enough,
It has some connotations to it that can muddy the water a bit and necessitate long-winded explanations.
Individualism cuts right to the core.
Individualism puts the Individual above the government. The government serves him not rules him
Freedom is an innate, Natural Right of the Individual. It is always better to err on the side of Freedom.
With Freedom comes the responsibility to protect others’ Freedom. Freedom is not licentiousness.
We act with the knowledge that our Freedom only extends to a point where it does not interfere with the Freedoms of other Individuals.
Totalitarianism in all its disguises seek to control the Individual,
to subject the Individual to the rule of a singular or a group of ‘masterminds’,
to destroy the Individual’s Freedom and place the ‘individual’ in a subservient position to government.
It’s not Right, it’s Wrong
You’ve bought into the labels of the western liberals/leftists who controlled the postwar governments, media and academia.
Read my post #43 for what Hitler and Mussolini told the world they were. Reread the last paragraph of my post 47 (to you) to put their fights with other socialist into the proper perspective.
Bookmark.
Thanks for the post.
The reason Hitler’s Brownshirts wore brown was because the Communists had already claimed the red. Not kidding.
Left...pure socialism at its most defined.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nazism
Along with the Hitler quote in my prior post, it also contains Goebbels quotes that are very revealing. And if Hitler's mouthpiece didn't know what Nazism was about who did?
"We are against the political bourgeoisie, and for genuine nationalism! We are against Marxism, but for true socialism! We are for the first German national state of a socialist nature! We are for the National Socialist German Workers’ Party! " (1932)
"Lenin was the greatest man, second only to Hitler, and that the difference between communism and the Hitler faith was very slight." (1925)
"We and we alone [the Nazis] have the best social welfare measures. Everything is done for the nation. . . .The Jews are the incarnation of capitalism." (1944)
100%. Good explanation, kanawa, thank you.
I think we use left and right because most people use it as shorthand for what they perceive because trying to frame it at totalitarian vs individualism is difficult for some people to grasp.
We understand it, because individualism is exactly what is at the root of freedom, and totalitarianism is the other diametrically opposed end.
Fascism is obviously left-wing, being derived from Socialism, and overall an offshoot for the progenitor of the left, the French Revolution.
That said, I do disagree with the notion of the right wing being anarchistic. I can name a few people from the back of my hand who are self-described anarchists in word and deed and yet were explicitly left-wing, like Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mikhail Bakunin, Karl Marx, Bill Ayers, and the like. Heck, Marx’s Communist Manifesto specifically stated that, in addition to classes being destroyed, the STATE also needed to be destroyed.
Actually, they were always like that. Just ask antifa or various other left-wing groups (not to mention Robespierre and Marx either had destroyed the hierarchy or otherwise had an explicit desire to see the state fade away).
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