.
It seems that we are in complete agreement, starting with ALL of these being left-wing and collectivist philosophies.
Yes- when many use the word “fascist” they are simply using it as a pejorative. I wrote earlier, “When people were calling Bush “fascist”, that was simply a smear. I challenged them to define fascist, and when they were unable to respond, I educated them and they were reduced to calling him monkey instead. Dear Leader has been RULING as a fascist (most recently demonstrated by his town hall antics).”
When I am labeling Dear Leader and Pelosi, etc., Fascist, I am NOT using it as a pejorative. I am attempting to describe as accurately as possible the system of government they espouse and are trying to bring about, and is the thrust of the argument in that other thread. I ran into a problem, though, when researching the question.
Nazi vs. Fascist: They don’t want to eliminate “class” in society (They don’t want to be saddled with the same health care as the masses, and have never bashed their rich, “high-class” or “elite” supporters.) That leads to the determination “Nazi” does not describe them as well as “Fascist”.
Now, referring to http://open-encyclopedia.com/Fascism they appear in almost every way to operate PRECISELY as Fascists but never goad people into a frenzy by extolling the virtues of the United States. They don’t really do it with racism, either- they merely use that as a pejorative. Their goal seems to be completely “one world” or “globalist” instead in all that they try to do.
To distinguish socialists from communists, refer to http://open-encyclopedia.com/Communism ... Communism, I’ve heard it argued, has never been implemented. Apologies to Marx and Engels, but it is the supporters of communism who make that argument. Communism as it is now defined requires that there be NO “state”.
So, can we properly refer to Dear Leader et al as “Communist”? Here again we run into their definite love of CLASS and elites in society. I have not been able to discover a word that describes Fascism without nationalism.
Either we stipulate that the “whole world” is the “nation” for Dear Leader et al, or we need a new word for their desired governmental system. I proposed “CommuFascist” earlier for this MORE EXTREME form of Fascism.
The whole point, though, is that whether this philosophy is called CommuFascist, or “Progressive”, analysis reveals that Dear Leader, Pelosi, and ALL these super-liberals are espousing a MORE EXTREME FORM of Fascism. Dear Leader is a “one-world” Mussolini.
We are being generous to these leaders of our nation when we describe them as Fascist, not pejorative.
Your “problem” is simply semantics, because the meanings of the terms have not been that well defined to begin with, and have been distorted, made obscure or unrecognizably morphed, often quite deliberately, by interested parties, and depend on the authors’ bias or knowledge.
It has been simply too short a period of time in history of Marx and Engels philosophy of socialism, that German Fascism was born and died. While nominally called Nationalist (after DAP added National Sozialistische) it was in reality - as well as its ally at the time, fascist Japan, despite racism of German Nazis - no less expansionist in nature than explicitly “International” communism. Both were and are totalitarian regimes. The major difference between these totalitarian socialist systems is economics of Control vs Total Ownership of resources and means of production. Besides higher efficiency of control, there is also a built-in mechanism of finger-pointing and deflecting blame for the problems to the “owners” of resources or producers. You can see it clearly in Putin’s Russia or Hu’s China or in Obama / Pelosi / Reid shifting blame on the “enemies of the state”.
Occasionally, when I talk to people who are really interested in knowing and understanding “what is going on?” I give them a brief overview and recommend Jonah Goldberg’s excellent book “Liberal Fascism”. Just the title alone is usually enough to further pique their curiosity, and my “job” is then done - they learn more from this book then they ever knew, and they’ll never again see the political environment in the same light.