On Liberal Fascism:
28/9/10 09:42![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
underlankers.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsAs this book keeps recurring as a topic in this community, I'll remind the apologists for this particular piece of fishwrap what exactly it is that they're trying to claim as high scholarship on international fascism of the 1920s through the 1940s:
Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.
Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.
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So, let's have a look-see. WEB Du Bois is this guy:
......
Yes, I totally see it! The guy who invented modern civil rights tactics would be absolutely fond of a pan-German Jew hater like Hitler.
Wilson hardly could have espoused fascism given that it didn't exist until the HARDING Administration and by then he was insensible from strokes. Mussolini, an ex-socialist, invented the movement. I suppose Wilson also had magic voodoo powers to influence events before they even happened.
I also hardly think the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Legion_of_America counts as "friendly."
Someone also ought to talk to Goldberg about his misogyny issues. I mean, really, a schoolteacher giving a hug is equal to Babi Yar. *snerk*.
And that Irving Berlin song?
It goes like this:
In Japan our hands are tied, ve don't like it.
Mussolini's on our side, ve don't like it.
So those on this community that reference this particular book that could more or less define the TVTropes Critical Research Failure on its own........this is what you're referencing. And this, BTW, is why I have a hard time taking anything the Goldberg apologists say seriously.
Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.
Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.
_______________
So, let's have a look-see. WEB Du Bois is this guy:
......
Yes, I totally see it! The guy who invented modern civil rights tactics would be absolutely fond of a pan-German Jew hater like Hitler.
Wilson hardly could have espoused fascism given that it didn't exist until the HARDING Administration and by then he was insensible from strokes. Mussolini, an ex-socialist, invented the movement. I suppose Wilson also had magic voodoo powers to influence events before they even happened.
I also hardly think the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Legion_of_America counts as "friendly."
Someone also ought to talk to Goldberg about his misogyny issues. I mean, really, a schoolteacher giving a hug is equal to Babi Yar. *snerk*.
And that Irving Berlin song?
It goes like this:
In Japan our hands are tied, ve don't like it.
Mussolini's on our side, ve don't like it.
So those on this community that reference this particular book that could more or less define the TVTropes Critical Research Failure on its own........this is what you're referencing. And this, BTW, is why I have a hard time taking anything the Goldberg apologists say seriously.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 02:35 (UTC)Those are the red skin I am referring to, or are you claiming those are the ONLY features that define Fascism?
If so...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fascism
1) ( sometimes initial capital letter ) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
It seems that the official dictionary definition includes more than just ethnic focus and paramilitarism
www.m-w.com
1) often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
It seems as if the official Dictionary definitions of Fascism disagree with you. In fact even in the second Nationalism is not a prerequisite, merely placing the nation as supremely important over the individual qualifies in that definition.
So now, about that Red Skin, are you ready to admit that apples have more than 1 defining property?
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 11:26 (UTC)Note also that the Merriam-Webster dictionary is a popular dictionary where I'm arguing from the specific subset of history dedicated to studying interwar and WWII-era fascism, with my main sources those of Michael Mann, as they're the most recent analysis of *all* the historical fascists.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 14:43 (UTC)In both cases there is much in common between his policies and beliefs and those political systems, are they a perfect match? No of course not because no one of any import actually practices either anymore however since both in their strict definition are dead political systems and there is no name for what Obama actually is it is entirely reasonable for people to draw parallels between that which has no name and that which is known where there is similarity.
Re: Some useful bits of this "analysis":
Date: 29/9/10 19:37 (UTC)Marxism-Leninism was a revolutionary Vanguardist movement which saw repression as a virtue, not a vice, and encouraged the creation of a new kind of militaristic Communist state. The Soviet state developed a system where the Communist party performed tasks usually done by a multiplicity of distinct bureaucracies in liberal democracies, and where dissension was counter-revolution and hence free to be met with a whiff of grapeshot.
Fascism was also a statist movement but it wrapped statism in regionally-ethnically specific types of statism. The main thing both had in common was party states where the Nazis/Fascists/Ustase/Legion did everything liberal democratic regimes do by distinct bureaucracies, and both developed elaborate repressive apparati.