The new and not-so-new Fascism: have you noticed, re the Meloni election…
…how “God, country, and family” has become the very essence of Fascism?
But here is a cataloging, as best as I can pull together, of the claims used to portray Meloni as fascist:
Meloni “bemoans” the chronically low birthrate in Italy and wants to implement pronatalist policies…
Meloni defends Europe’s “Christian identity.” The American left acts like the mere mention of “Christian” is xenophobic and fascistic. People get furious when this atheist points out that nearly every Christian-majority nation in the world can boast of democratic institutions and high levels of freedom—with a few exceptions of a few places like Russia—while most non-Christian-majority nations can’t. There are thorny ideological and historical reasons for this reality, but reality it is…
Meloni opposes gay marriage, which isn’t legally recognized in Italy. (Nor is gay adoption.) Instead, there are same-sex civil unions, which offer gay couples nearly the same legal protections as marriage—laws that Meloni does not propose overturning. Recall that most Democrats, including Barack Obama, held the same position on the matter until 2012…
Meloni opposes abortion and euthanasia. Every story mentions the protection of life as an evident sign of democratic backsliding. It took some digging to ferret out the official right-wing coalition’s position. Outside nebulous language about life, Meloni promises to fund “alternatives to abortion.”
The Overton window has moved very far in the last decade, hasn’t it?
But cries of “fascist” to refer to just about anything on the right have certainly preceded the last decade. I recall having heard them for much of my lifetime:
Last week, Robert Reich, former secretary of labor during the Clinton administration, tweeted, “Just wondering if ‘DeSantis’ is now officially a synonym for ‘fascist.'” Later in the week, President Joe Biden, once touted as the great unifier, referred to former President Donald Trump and his supporters as “semi-fascist.” These words are just the latest in a long line of Democrats falsely accusing Republicans of being fascists, a disgusting practice that began in 1964.
Aside from being old, foolish, and completely untrue, this trope is nothing new…
Democrats began to describe Republicans as “fascists” in 1964. While campaigning for president, Barry Goldwater was targeted by Pat Brown, then California’s left-wing governor. Of Goldwater’s candidacy, Brown said, “The stench of fascism is in the air.”
A few years after that, the target was Richard Nixon. Nixon’s reputation is forever tarnished in history because of the Watergate scandal. Yet, until then, he was viewed as a political force. In December 1973, theCall published an article titled “Dump Nixon! Stop the fascist tide.” One does not have to go into great detail about its contents to describe the editorial.
More at the link.
Actual Fascists in their heyday between the 1920s and 1940s sometimes did talk about or use some of these ideas, in particular nationalism. Fascism used certain concepts (including the family) to promote itself, but these things were not its essence and what’s more they existed quite strongly at the time in society as a whole.
I wrote about the European opposition to nationalism and its roots in two world wars in this post; it’s relevant. The left has long opposed nationalism for obvious reasons, because leftism is a globalist movement. Religion, especially Christianity in its traditional form, also is a force that leftists decry, although Christianity’s modern “woke” form works in tandem with leftism. Family is another traditional and individualistic force (if you consider a family an individual) which leftists have long opposed. Calling any manifestations of or calls to religion (especially Christianity), nationalism, and/or family “fascist” is ridiculous but serves the purposes of the left quite nicely. It makes many people on the right afraid of appealing to those ideas – but Meloni is apparently uncowed.
And at the moment, victorious.
It started earlier than the 1960s. Truman called Dewey a “fascist” in 1948.
I spent an evening this week with a Christian leader from a majority-Muslim nation. People who decry Europe’s “Christian identity” have no idea what it’s like to be a non-Muslim in a Muslim country. And let us add “Judeo-” to the “Christian” culture which encourages individual dignity and freedom. Israel is by far the freest and most democratic country in its neighborhood.
I think we have to stop being afraid. What’s more fascist than using the FBI to search the former president’s house? Or stage dawn raids on prominent Republicans and pro-lifers? Etc. What’s more fascist than AntiFa street thugs?
Racist? What’s more racist than DEI and reparations?
A young man who plays football for Nebraska (Brian Buschini) committed the unpardonable sin of expressing his support for the unspeakable “fascist” lady whose recent victory has gladdened some but caused masses of mis-educated pseudo-intellectuals to sink to new depths of hysteria and stupidity. Unfortunately, he then made the mistake of issuing an “apology” to the “wokesters” on social media who had directed their wrath at him. Orwell, of course, warned nearly eighty years ago that the term had degenerated into nothing more than a term of abuse.
It’s almost as if fascism is always falling on the Republicans but landing on the Democrats.
Never, never, never back down from your beliefs.
I totally support the new Italian PM and wish her success.
I ran across a speech she delivered referenced below, denouncing French Pres Macron for some idiot thing he said.
Again, I agree with what she said, but listening to the delivery, I was reminded of a certain Austrian politician’s cadence and phrasing when listening to her in Italian. I hope my impression is unique to me.
Start at 1:30 if you’re in a hurry.
https://tinyurl.com/yhakb5fd
A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on Facebook, quoting Hannah Arendt from her 1951 book “The Origins of Totalitarianism”.
“I like Arendt. However, the use of general labels like “masses” and superficial formulations like “everything and nothing” in this quotation is an example of how liberal thinkers undermine their cause with abstract verbiage. The fascists and psychopaths that have taken over the Republican Party in the US are not “masses” but Christian zealots. They don’t believe in “nothing and everything” but in the literal interpretation of the Bible and all the Bronze-age superstitiions, misogyny, paternalism, and the obsession with moral purity that it entails. They have been taught by orthodox authoritarian church leaders and greedy politicians that liberals and secularists are doing the work of the Devil and that those who do not oppose them are complicit in their crimes against God. To win the war for civilization, liberals and humanists need to recognize who their enemy is and what motivates them. Referring to Stephen Skeel’s comment, the Christian-right was behind Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930’s just as it was in Trump’s rise to power.”– Misha Van De Veire.
Of course, Christians were not behind Hitler’s rise to power, and I’m not sure there was a “Christian-right” identity at that time.
But this encapsulates what the left view as the enemy, in a way I hadn’t considered. Christians, especially Evangelicals were one of the most important groups voting for President Trump in 2016. We (Christians) are the enemy, as well as anyone who holds dear traditional family values that have always been the glue to hold the nation together.
Italy’s Meloni supports love of God, Family and Country.
Lenin’s view of God,
“there is nothing more abominable than religion and all worship of a divinity is a necrophilia.”
Lenin’s view of family,
“Destroy the family, you destroy the country”
Lenin’s view of love of country,
“If we can effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just one generation, we will have won that country.”
Lenin’s advice; how to fight against love of God, Family & Country,
“We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.”
I just ran across this prescient essay by IRINA EREMIA-BRAGIN, who left communist Romania as a young girl, and speaks with knowledge of true totalitarianism and the danger the left is flirting with in their new Wokeism.
She observes: “THE SOCIAL JUSTICE movement satisfies a deep hunger for meaning, for purpose, for belonging, for dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Young “social justice warriors” see no connection between Marxist teachers, Marxist textbooks, Marxist principles, Marxist slogans and Stalinist gulags, the Chinese Cultural revolution, the starvation, incarceration, torture and murder of millions.
How can totalitarianism invade democracy, destroy its institutions, enslave its citizens, and replace freedom with terror? Precisely by exploiting the deep human hunger for meaning and connection. No current political analyst explains the rise to power of the Marxist movement now infiltrating an ever-growing number of our social, educational, cultural, literary, media and business institutions better than Hannah Arendt, in her 1951 work, The Origins of Totalitarianism.”
As she describes what Arendt observed about the beginnings of a totalitarian movement, this parallels what Robert Malone and Dr. Mattias Desmet have described as Mass Formation.
This is a powerful article.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-rise-of-totalitarianism-in-america-639579
I agree with neo’s deeper analysis of fascism.
However, for the left and many in the liberal West, fascism is like pornography. They can’t define it, but they know it when they see it.
Case closed.
They mostly know fascism by its style — strong leaders, emphasis on patriotism, work ethic, family, traditional sex roles, anti-abortion and conservative Christianity.
If one is aware how deeply weird and anti-Christian the Nazis were, the last may seem a non-sequitur. However, many German churches were rather flexible when it came to Nazism. Perhaps as an ally against the Communists; perhaps in the hope the crocodile would eat them last.
An indelible memory I have from the sixties World Book Encyclopedia was a photo of Hitler and a quote from a German Christian to the effect, “I believe in Jesus Christ and that he sent us Adolph Hitler.”
They do it because it works. No one wants to be a Nazi or a Fascist. For some reason it is still ok to be a communist or a socialist when they killed as many or more people as did the Nazis and Fascists. Not to mention nearly as good a trick as the Devil getting people to believe he doesn’t exist is the trick the communists/socialists pulled where Nazis and Fascists are right wing in American politics.
I watched Meloni’s 2019 speech at the World Congress of Families that has been making the rounds. As a rule I don’t like watching political speeches because I hate the feeling of being manipulated. But I have to admit that the way she modulates her emotions — from vulnerable to defiant — is very effective. I can see why she is popular and feared.
David Horowitz writes and speaks very well on the topic of Communists and Leftists and the ends justifying the means. I’ve had one close friend in particular who fit that description and it took me awhile to understand that he would say anything in the moment that might be to his advantage. He emoted like someone with strong convictions, but he could change his “convictions” on a whim. It was literally all about power. He was also funny and a good athlete, so I spent a great deal of time with him for many years, but I had to adjust my normal responses to ignore what he was saying when he went on his rants. It was a waste of time to engage him in debate because he often didn’t mean what he was saying, or even believe the words coming out of his own mouth.
Not so coincidentally, he went on to work in Democrat politics and has risen fairly high in Bernie Sanders’ orbit as a political advisor.
Although I don’t think this fits most of the Europeans currently opposed to nationalist movements (they are too young); I can understand why, after WWI and WWII many Europeans developed a knee-jerk revulsion to nationalism.
Any successful military campaign rallies around a simple, common theme; ein Volk, religious crusades, carthago delenda est… Europeans suffered inconceivable atrocities between 1910 and 1946. If I were an adult living there during those years I would be very nervous about any leader I saw rallying the masses around simple themes.
I think this is why a lot of Jews have a revulsion to nationalism. They have suffered so many times in their history when a leader rallies the masses around a theme of nationalism, religion, race or ethnicity.
However, nihilism is not an effective foundation to build a nation on, and we see the fruits of that destructive political philosophy in modern day Europe.
I despise Fascism. Also Stalinism, All forms of dictatorship. But I love God, family, and country. What does that make me?
I guess racist was getting stale, so now fascist is the insult du jour.
I hope that people who are the target of such slander will just laugh; and reply, “is that the best you got? It was lame, before it became so stale.”
Of course a mean spirited soul could demand that Biden, AOC, Whoopi, or one of the other deep thinkers on the left to define “Fascist” and then laugh at their effort. A really mean twist would be to then insist that they annotate the actions that justified labeling the individual thusly.
As kids we had, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. Well, we know that in the public market place words can hurt. There was the other childish retort, “it takes one to know one.”
I still go with laughing. Treat fools like fools. At least some people will notice.
I recently read the autobiography of author Frederick Forsyth. Courtesy of fluent German and French acquired from summer visits to the Continent as a child, he spent some time as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in France and East Germany ( GDR).
Forsyth wrote that the GDR referred to the Hitler regime as neither “Nazi” nor “German,” but as “Fascist.” As he put it, according to the GDR, after WW2 the “Fascists” teletransported themselves to Bonn.
Forsyth made a visit to the Buchenwald (birch forest,he translates) camp, which the GDR had turned into an educational explication of what the Nazis had done. In a bar near the Buchwald camp, he got into a conversation with a roughly-dressed German who, after hearing Forsyth order beer in fluent German, assumed that Forsyth was German. After visiting Buchenwald, Forsyth made it a point to inform him he was not German, but English, and produced his UK passport after the German expressed skepticism.
After some conversation, Forsyth got an uncomfortable feeling about the German. He asked the German if he had been at the camp, suspecting that the German had been a camp guard.”Not this one,” came the reply.
(Much of his books were takeoffs on what he lived. Dogs of War was based on his time as a journalist in Biafra. Day of the Jackal was based on his conversations with DeGaulle’s guards while being assigned to DeGaulle-watching, leading FF to conclude that the OAS was so infiltrated that only an outsider could have taken out DeGaulle.)
Thanks GB…I’d forgotten the last one was him.
Nationalism, in the form of multiple, independent, sovereign nations whose Prime Directive is “to secure these rights”, as ours is supposed to be, are not only NOT a threat to peace, they are likely the only sustainable form of global organization.
Because such nations act as a check-and-balance on each other. OTOH when globalist government goes bad, where do we turn to for help and support to turn it back to good?
As we are seeing our own government, who has lost that respect, is demonstrating more and more. They define “democracy” as submission to “the common good”, as defined by the ruling elite.
They forget that unalienable rights are not to be subordinated to the will of others … not even to a majority vote. Only when the exercise of those rights constitutes a clear, present and significant danger to the same rights of others, do they qualify for restriction.
“Because we Know Better™” does not rise to that standard.
Another example of Fascist= bad labeling is Francisco Franco.The narrative we were given years ago on the Spanish Civil War, of fascism versus democracy etc., was, shall we say, rather over-simplified.
For one thing, the “democracy” of the Popular Front government was more sham than reality.
When government police kidnap and kill one of the opposition’s main leaders, it is not difficult to decide that rule of law no longer exists.
When the revolt started, the “Republicans” killed nearly 7,000 Roman Catholic clerics. Which unsurprisingly led the Right/Fascists to conclude there was no point in compromise.
https://www.thepostil.com/franco-freed-from-leftist-myths/
There is a black , conservative, religious couple who have a radio show called “ Airing the Addisons”. On Tuesday, she was talking about how the media tries out different phrases like “ Christian Nationalism” and “ White Christian Nationalism” in the way a cook tries different ingredients to make a new recipe and see what works.
https://afr.net/podcasts/airing-the-addisons/
Forsyth was apparently working with MI 6 at the time when he was reuters it explains some details as in the odessa files,
Hah! The Nazis were conceived as national socialist People of Pink but evolved as transnational socialists with diversity enhancements. The Hutu were tribalist People of Black in perpetual conflict with Tutsi who are tribalist People of Black. The Xhosa are People of Black at war with the Zulu who are People of Black. The Maoists were nationalist People of Yellow, then they transitioned with transnationalist hopes and dreams of their founding father. There’s not much to say about People of White (i.e. albino). Then there is baby privilege that is a forward-looking “burden” on social, redistributive, clinical, political, and fair weather progress. And, of course, the perpetual conflict between feminists who are from Venus and masculinists who are from Mars. No one can forget social progressives who are from Uranus.
I despise Fascism. Also Stalinism, All forms of dictatorship. But I love God, family, and country. What does that make me?
Stephen Polito:
That’s easy.
You are a crypto-fascist. 🙂
_______________________________________
Crypto-fascism is the secret support for, or admiration of, fascism or trends very closely related to the ideology. The term is used to imply that an individual or group keeps this support or admiration hidden to avoid political persecution or political suicide. The common usage is “crypto-fascist”, one who practices this support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-fascism
“many German churches were rather flexible when it came to Nazism.”
Huxley I suspect it was more blatant Jew-hatred than anything. The enemy of my enemy thing, as well as being eaten last.
Leftists were nationalist before they were internationalist. Unification of Italy and Germany, the original Progressives in the US, etc.
They always work towards more centralized power.
“many German churches were rather flexible when it came to Nazism.”
Huxley I suspect it was more blatant Jew-hatred than anything. The enemy of my enemy thing, as well as being eaten last.
I would guess that the example of the French Revolution was foremost in mind for those churches. The Catholic church got taken to the cleaners in that case. Eaten last, yes.
You are a crypto-fascist.
Nice.
Crypto-fascists are nearly invisible. We will tell you who they are. Or you can wear these special sunglasses which will strip away their mask of normalcy so you can see their true ghoulish faces.
Huxley I suspect it was more blatant Jew-hatred than anything.
–John Guillfoyle
I would guess that the example of the French Revolution was foremost in mind for those churches.
–TommyJay
After I posted my comment, I realized I had left out anti-Semitism, which was surely a factor. I imagine neo has written on the subject — the Nazis hardly invented anti-Semitism.
However apportioning blame isn’t easy. The Christian churches saw Communism coming since 1917 and were rightly concerned. I once read a biography on Pope Pius XII. He gave money to the Nazis before he became pope. He prayed for a Nazi victory at Stalingrad. He was also concerned what would happen to Catholics and Christians if the Nazis won. It’s complicated.
There have been recent developments and assessments which fall in the middle. I’m not particularly sympathetic to the Catholic Church, but I fall in the middle too.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/vatican-documents-show-secret-back-channel-between-pope-pius-xii-and-adolph-hitler
One doesn’t have to return to the French Revolution to find leftist anti-clericism. The Spanish Civil War was quite vivid in that regard:
___________________________
The Red Terror in Spain (Spanish: Terror Rojo)[3] is the name given by historians to various acts of violence committed from 1936 until the end of the Spanish Civil War by sections of nearly all the leftist groups.[4][5] News of the rightist military uprising in July 1936 unleashed a politicidal response, and no Republican controlled region escaped systematic and anticlerical violence, although it was minimal in the Basque Country.[6] The violence consisted of the killing of tens of thousands of people (including 6,832[7] Roman Catholic priests, the vast majority in the summer of 1936 in the wake of the military coup), attacks on the Spanish nobility, business owners, industrialists, and politicians and supporters of the conservative parties, as well as the desecration and burning of monasteries, convents, and churches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror_(Spain)
___________________________
My first glimpse of this side was in Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” written from a leftist view, in the flashback chapter of a leftist mob cleaning house in a small town. Horrific.
It has been several years since I read Eric Metaxes biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but If I recall correctly, the NAZIs made a deliberate effort to erase Jesus’ Jewish heritage in the church teaching. Again, several years since I read the book, but if I recall correctly, the German Government had some financial control over the Lutheran Church in pre war Germany.
https://www.amazon.com/Bonhoeffer-Pastor-Martyr-Prophet-Spy/dp/1400224640/ref=asc_df_1400224640?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=79989597144144&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583589118059054&psc=1
Revolutions are always a good time for “settling accounts”…(under the guise of “VIRTUE” and/or “PATRIOTISM” and/or “RELIGION” and/or “FIGHTING EVIL”, and/or “PROMOTING THE FORWARD ARC OF HISTORY” and/or “TRANSFORMATION” and/or whatever slogan/movement du jour is the current rage….).
(“Funny”, though, that “settling accounts all too often MEANS a coverup (or two, or three)…and/or…erasing monetary or personal debts—which is, essentially just another form of “coverup”…)
America has always tried to avoid this, not always successfully (people being people….). But “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” is pretty strong stuff…if (more or less) honestly adhered to; and the intention is to, it would seem to me, to REDIRECT energies and emotions AWAY from HARMFUL IDEOLOGIES, BEHAVIORS and PSYCHOPATHIES and TOWARDS more (socially and politically—AND PERSONALLY) constructive ones.
Methinks the UBER-IDEOLOGICAL Democrats have decided that NOW is the time to “settle accounts”…
(Their “IDEOLOGY”, to be sure, may be labeled “TOTAL POWER”, “TOTAL CONTROL”…IOW, “TRANSFORMATION”…under the guise of “VIRTUE”, “PATRIOTISM”, and the “GOOD OF SOCIETY”…of course…of course…)
Oops…should be “PSYCHOPATHOLOGIES”…
What a lot of Germans were looking for was the stability and security that they felt in the Kaiser’s time. That wasn’t on offer, so many turned to Hitler. The idea of hierarchy was important to them as well. They interpreted it in different ways, but could come together behind the general idea. They also feared regional as well as class divisions and strongly supported anyone who could promise them unity as well as stability and security.
I’m not sure what that has to do with politics today. Maybe there’s a parallel between US and European politics. In the 1970s and 1980s, some people — conservatives, though not always in the political sense — longed for the 1950s. Today we recognize that those days are gone, and that they aren’t coming back, and maybe that we wouldn’t fit into that world even if it did come back.
Still, there’s an understanding that what we have now is too much of something and we’d like less of it, however we define what “it” is. Maybe it’s like that in Europe, and there’s not some hope for some great transformation of society into what people think it was, but just a recognition that we’ve gone too far, can’t go any further in that direction, and need to backtrack a little.
Still, there’s an understanding that what we have now is too much of something and we’d like less of it, however we define what “it” is.
Perhaps what we have now, M, is not enough of something … not enough respect for this:
Human society thrives when …
… individual liberty is respected
… individual responsibility is expected
Instead, we extend Flounderian levels of respect and trust to that little intellectual elite in the far-off capital, thinking that they can plan our lives for us better than we can ourselves … and sell our own close-to-the-problem/skin-in-the-game viewpoint, and the insights that can be derived from it as free men and women, short as inferior and untrustworthy.
So we become the blinded, led by the elite blind, into the ditch.
Not responsible, but irresponsible.
And not free, but in submission.
Not enough, from us.
From the Washington Examiner post:
The comments here show that many people are very well aware that there IS, in fact, a very “realistic fascist threat” – but it’s from the Democrats, not the Republicans.
@ Christopher > “What’s more fascist than using the FBI to search the former president’s house? Or stage dawn raids on prominent Republicans and pro-lifers? Etc. What’s more fascist than AntiFa street thugs? Racist? What’s more racist than DEI and reparations?”
@ JFM > “It’s almost as if fascism is always falling on the Republicans but landing on the Democrats.”
@ Oldflyer > “Of course a mean spirited soul could demand that Biden, AOC, Whoopi, or one of the other deep thinkers on the left to define “Fascist” and then laugh at their effort. A really mean twist would be to then insist that they annotate the actions that justified labeling the individual thusly.”
Several pundits have compiled lists of Democrat actions that easily qualify for the technical definition of fascism (surreptitiously co-opting social media, banks, and other vendors to discriminate against Republicans and conservatives, for one instance).
For each item listed, I tried to think of corresponding instances of the GOP doing the same thing or something similar, and generally came up blank.
Maybe I just don’t know enough history, but there aren’t any recent examples that I am aware of, except when the usual “RINOs” tag along with a Democrat initiative.
It’s a question of power pure and simple (to quote that renowned philosopher, H. Dumpty, who himself was channeling Foucault…).
The Founders UNDERSTOOD that power was problematic and potentially incendiary—utterly destructive, in fact—and designed a system of government that would dilute it as much as possible, using checks and balances and dividing power between federal and state jurisdiction…along with the Electoral College.
The Republicans—those “semi-fascists”—understand that, too (at least to some extent).
The Democrats, in their current incarnation, say F**K THAT!! WE KNOW BETTER… IN FACT WE KNOW BEST… …since we’re more moral, more ethical, more intelligent, more artistic, more creative, more reasonable….
Therefore, we deserve ALL the power. (Needless to say, our opponents are the diametric opposite of us—totally EVIL).
Besides, the founders were all white men, and racist, and sexist, and slave owners.
Old hat.
IRRELEVANT!
REACTIONARY!
ANTI- PROGRESS (and therefore anti-human…)
WE ARE THE FUTURE!!
Yes, the future belongs to us!!
Pure. And simple.
“…The only people who believe such outlandish nonsense are unhinged fanatics…”
Now that any and all memory of James T. Hodgkinson has been essentially deep-sixed…
“Sen. Paul, conservatives warn of ‘violent consequences’ of Biden rhetoric following death of North Dakota teen”—
https://news.yahoo.com/sen-paul-conservatives-warn-violent-204418690.html
Be prepared?…
And wouldn’t ye’ know…
“YouTube Removes Incoming Italian Prime Minister Meloni’s Passionate Speech On Family Breakdown”—
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/09/29/youtube-removes-incoming-italian-prime-minister-melonis-passionate-speech-on-family-breakdown/
+ Bonus (in other “fascist” news)….
Allen West refuses to remain silent…
“The Perils of America’s Woke Military;
“The high – and destructive – cost of Marxism’s infusion into our Armed Forces.”—
https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-perils-of-americas-woke-military/
H/T Blazingcatfur blog.
Key grafs:
“…I find it unconscionable that we are sending billions of dollars to foreign nations, but our troops are being told to sign up for assistance to afford food.
” But this is just a small example of what is happening for our military. The perilous infusion of cultural Marxism into our Armed Forces is far more dangerous….”
It seems that Weimar, Germany was such a successful template…that “Biden” believes it must be replicated in the US…
BUT…YouTube hasn’t gotten to this one (at least not yet)…
“YouTube May Have Yanked New Italian PM’s Viral Speech, but This One’s Just as Good”—
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/athena-thorne/2022/09/28/youtube-may-have-yanked-new-italian-pms-viral-speech-but-this-ones-just-as-good-n1632978
(But give ’em a bit of time…. There’s SO MUCH content out there that MUST be kept hidden from us…and so little time…)
There is a fascist female PM in the world today but not in Italy.
I happen to have just read a letter by Evelyn Waugh on exactly this abuse of the word “fascist”. Really, there is a split between two groups so-called, and has long been. The conservative ones like Franco, Salazar, Horthy, and Dolfuss, I think of as “caretaker fascists”. That is, the entire goal of a “new man” or “new society” is missing. But there is a limit to how far I’ll go to fight a clear development of language. I’ll also point out that Paul Gottfried is vehement that the “fascism = leftism” argument is wrong.
“Family is another traditional and individualistic force (if you consider a family an individual)”
Actually, that defines the main split on the right today. (I don’t count the Never
Trumpers, who are now wholly owned by their leftist paymasters.)
Really, there is a split between two groups so-called, and has long been. The conservative ones like Franco, Salazar, Horthy, and Dolfuss,
Franco, Salazar, and Dollfuss ran constitutionally authoritarian regimes which made use of corporatist institutions. They were antagonists of the Marxist parties and the affiliates of the Marxist parties. That’s the overlapping part of the Venn diagram with the fascist regimes. Horthy was the head of state of a constitutional parliamentary regime, albeit one where crooked elections were the norm; do not believe it had innovative economic policies, good or bad. Its most disagreeable signature (aside from vote fraud) was a series of laws passed abusive to the country’s Jewish minority.
Martin…”They do it because it works. No one wants to be a Nazi or a Fascist. For some reason it is still ok to be a communist or a socialist when they killed as many or more people as did the Nazis and Fascists.”
As a hypothesis, this is (partly) because communists, in theory, want(ed) utopia for everybody; communism is a universalist worldview. Whereas naziism and fascism are particularistic: nazis care only about their own race, and regard other races only as prey..Italian-style fascists care only about their own nation and regard others nations only as prey.
David’s right.
Communists want to—very democratically—impoverish everyone (well, except Party members, of course—isn’t that right, Democrats??)…
Alas, those who don’t play along might not find life outside the game all that enjoyable.
Fascists/Nazis on the other hand are more interested in—shall we say—the aesthetics (among other things) of racial superiority…
But Global Domination (Inc.)—hey, they can shake hands on that!…(If only they could SHARE…well, for more than a year or two…)
Italy has a long history of a significant part of the populace embracing communism. The left-wing party was specifically called communist. The constitution forbid the communists from achieving a majority and power in parliament for reasons of national defense and membership in NATO.
The communists did have power over local governments where they had a majority. When I lived there in the early 90s, IIRC, they ran Bologna. Nationally, I think I read at the time (in the Economist) that communist voters accounted for over 40% of the voting public.
I don’t know enough to understand the social dynamics at play in Italian elections, but I wonder if she might parry the accusations of “fascist” by identifying her opponents as communists (given their previous association and membership in an explicitly communist party) and emphasizing the horrific record of murder, torture, and repression of communists worldwide.
Here’s that canceled video (via Dinesh D’Souza’s twitter feed)—
H/T TechnoFog.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1574263707001008129
I don’t know if it’s the whole thing (it’s only 2:14).
BTW, someone who doesn’t seem to have been referenced here but who very much deserves to be is Oriana Fallaci…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriana_Fallaci
Italy — Communists — Catholics — paging Don Camillo!
(The war is over, so I suppose there are no longer any Fascists in the village.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Camillo_and_Peppone
I read the earlier books while in high school and college, although I’ve only lately realized how much they influenced my political evolution. The oscillating conflict and cooperation of the Priest and the Mayor clearly modeled what many people used to believe should be the norm for political behavior, as I do.
I don’t think Don Camillo would be happy about today’s cancel culture.
His opinion of the wokerati and their CRT, DIE, and other ideological dogmas is also not hard to imagine.
I feel hopeful that this may start the ball rolling in a sane direction. I liked this clip and narration. (under 5 minutes)
https://youtu.be/tI0zcW1Msw0