Fascism?

[JamesWales]

Re: Fascism?

Is anybody arguing in favour of communism in this thread? Or, is it that anyone who says they are left of centre politically is now assumed to be a communist?

If you scroll up you can see there was a debate about whether these are fascist traits or traits of all governments or traits of extremists of both left and right..

[JamesWales]

Re: Fascism?

Isn’t the point that they weren’t one of the most murderous regimes in history during the period Doucas mentions. I don’t believe for a second that the millions of Germans who backed the Nazis in the thirties did so because they were aware of what Hitler was going to do in the early forties - were they really in favour of the culling of the Jews on a scale like that?

I believe that it is completely possible for people who consider themselves to be entirely reasonable and normal to be won over by extreme parties on the right and left if the right buttons are pushed. We can argue the toss about the list of fourteen points about fascism as much as we like, but my point is that the current Government ticks more of those boxes than any other one, Conservative or Labour, of my lifetime. I said earlier in the thread that I put a question mark in the title because I wasn’t convinced that it was Fascism that I was referring to, but I do find some of the responses which followed a bit complacent - I can’t remember a time more like the thirties in my life than now and I feel it’s now a bit easier to see how people were taken in by the likes of Hitler and Mussolini back then.

I suppose when you put it like that, it's a fair question to ask, although personally I would view it in the same way as asking whether Cardiff City on the trajectory to Champions League football having beaten Norwich 1-0 last week. We were moving in that direction afterall..

More generally, I think this kind of talk leads to people like Doucus speading more of his insults. I think there is also a concern about some on the left using fear as a voting technique..ie...vote for us, or else you get Tory fascism!

This is the kind of tactic some Republicans use in Florida to drive up the latino vote - ie, vote for us or else you get Democrat communism!

I think it's a bit of a radical and inflammatory position to take personally, but so be it.

[Lither_1927]

Re: Fascism?

I applaud your history of opposing fascism Jon. Can I ask your position on communism? You cite historical examples like Mussolini etc, and then allude to the last ten years in Hungary, Poland, USA etc.

What of the historical examples of communism around the world? Do you oppose that in equal measure?

That's a genuine open question. I used to be very left wing myself, would wear a CCCP top and generally viewed communism as good, if slightly misguided, until I fully understood the horrors of communism. I wonder whether that's your position?

Jon has conveniently disappeared without answering this post and my question on what Fascist intellectuals he has actually read. But he has read fascist graffiti....

[jon1959]

Re: Fascism?

Jon has conveniently disappeared without answering this post and my question on what Fascist intellectuals he has actually read. But he has read fascist graffiti....

Not disappeared but had other things to do and unwilling to feed some strands of this thread. However (and this will be a mistake):

Lither (or Slither or Hitler) - you are either a determined WUM or (as you appear) a racist, white nationalist and a neo-Nazi. Like your co-thinkers in the USA (from the KKK to the Proud Boys) you also tick the boxes of Fox endorsed conspiracy theories, support for an authoritarian Russian mafia-police state, and a dollop of antisemitism. The only surprises are that you don't yet appear to be a Zionist (maybe that is more an evangelical Protestant view than Catholic?) and you have some confused distinction in your head about significant differences between Italian and German fascism. There were differences of course, but not significant. Same ideology. And your hero Oswald Moseley was a close friend of Hitler - he married Diana Mitford (another Nazi like her sister Unity) in Goebel's home with Hitler as guest of honour. We would have been on opposite sides at Cable Street. You crack on with reading your scumbag 'fascist philosophers' and avoiding questions about what you disagree with in the writings of their critics. I won't be joining you.

James - I have never worn a CCCP top in my life. In my late teens and twenties I described myself as a communist - but not of the Stalinist or Maoist varieties. The people who thought like me in earlier decades were mostly murdered by Stalin. There has never been a communist paradise anywhere in the world. There have been liberation movements and governments that struggled to transform their societies and economies in the face of blockades and military threats - often with diplomatic and trade ties to the Soviet Union as the only way to survive. Of all the examples across Latin America, North Africa and the Far East, in my opinion Cuba was the most interesting and deserving of support. That is despite harsh repression of dissent (and harsher of sabotage) and an economy that barely survived the US blockade. They got many things wrong - inevitably - but for over 40 years transformed education, health, agriculture and sent out doctors and engineers across the global south to help others. But I don't call myself a communist any more. I still hold some of the same views I did in my twenties, but in practice I have been an active trades unionist and a socialist in the social democratic mainstream for most of my life. I was never a 'supporter' of the Soviet Union - although clearly I believe in collectivism.

[Feedback]

Re: Fascism?

Ok go through the list I posted and tell me which ones apply to the left and why.

I'll just reference the USSR, the Eastern Bloc, China and North Korea.

if you don't think they are/were facist states then you don't understand fascism.

Fascism is all about control so is more up and down rather than left and right.

[Feedback]

Re: Fascism?

Is anybody arguing in favour of communism in this thread? Or, is it that anyone who says they are left of centre politically is now assumed to be a communist?

ahem. i said that the list can apply to left and right in equal measure. Doucas asked for examples. now communists are far left, and this list applies to them.

To help you, no one is suggesting anyone is communist, only that communism is another form of fascism.

[Feedback]

Re: Fascism?

Isn’t the point that they weren’t one of the most murderous regimes in history during the period Doucas mentions. I don’t believe for a second that the millions of Germans who backed the Nazis in the thirties did so because they were aware of what Hitler was going to do in the early forties - were they really in favour of the culling of the Jews on a scale like that?

I believe that it is completely possible for people who consider themselves to be entirely reasonable and normal to be won over by extreme parties on the right and left if the right buttons are pushed. We can argue the toss about the list of fourteen points about fascism as much as we like, but my point is that the current Government ticks more of those boxes than any other one, Conservative or Labour, of my lifetime. I said earlier in the thread that I put a question mark in the title because I wasn’t convinced that it was Fascism that I was referring to, but I do find some of the responses which followed a bit complacent - I can’t remember a time more like the thirties in my life than now and I feel it’s now a bit easier to see how people were taken in by the likes of Hitler and Mussolini back then.

Did you really compare the world in the 1930s with today?

[Lither_1927]

Re: Fascism?

Not disappeared but had other things to do and unwilling to feed some strands of this thread. However (and this will be a mistake):

Lither (or Slither or Hitler) - you are either a determined WUM or (as you appear) a racist, white nationalist and a neo-Nazi. Like your co-thinkers in the USA (from the KKK to the Proud Boys) you also tick the boxes of Fox endorsed conspiracy theories, support for an authoritarian Russian mafia-police state, and a dollop of antisemitism. The only surprises are that you don't yet appear to be a Zionist (maybe that is more an evangelical Protestant view than Catholic?) and you have some confused distinction in your head about significant differences between Italian and German fascism. There were differences of course, but not significant. Same ideology. And your hero Oswald Moseley was a close friend of Hitler - he married Diana Mitford (another Nazi like her sister Unity) in Goebel's home with Hitler as guest of honour. We would have been on opposite sides at Cable Street. You crack on with reading your scumbag 'fascist philosophers' and avoiding questions about what you disagree with in the writings of their critics. I won't be joining you.

James - I have never worn a CCCP top in my life. In my late teens and twenties I described myself as a communist - but not of the Stalinist or Maoist varieties. The people who thought like me in earlier decades were mostly murdered by Stalin. There has never been a communist paradise anywhere in the world. There have been liberation movements and governments that struggled to transform their societies and economies in the face of blockades and military threats - often with diplomatic and trade ties to the Soviet Union as the only way to survive. Of all the examples across Latin America, North Africa and the Far East, in my opinion Cuba was the most interesting and deserving of support. That is despite harsh repression of dissent (and harsher of sabotage) and an economy that barely survived the US blockade. They got many things wrong - inevitably - but for over 40 years transformed education, health, agriculture and sent out doctors and engineers across the global south to help others. But I don't call myself a communist any more. I still hold some of the same views I did in my twenties, but in practice I have been an active trades unionist and a socialist in the social democratic mainstream for most of my life. I was never a 'supporter' of the Soviet Union - although clearly I believe in collectivism.

I'm a Catholic born and raised, not a Protestant. Catholics have a long history of highlighting disruptive Jewish misdemeanours in Europe. We could get into that in another thread one day. But i'd recommend reading "The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit" by E Michael Jones. I have an Ecopy if you'd like it sent somehow. I'm definitely not a Zionist at all sorry. Fox news is "controlled opposition" and not my thing. I note you criticised Oswald Moseley for his teneous association with emotive characters yet no critique of his actual brand of National Socialism. This strengthens my conclusion that you've not actually read the most prominent National Socialist in British history or ANY Fascist intellectuals at all. But you have read Fascist graffiti...
I'm not confused about the differences between Italian fascism and German National Socialism. I provided quotes from both Hitler and Mussolini whìch clearly demonstrate the ideological differences. Do you agree that the two quotes demonstrate a clear difference between Italy and Germany pre 1945?

As for supporting Russia, that's not a Fox news trope. Putin is actually said to be very popular and i believe American Imperialism should leave Russian interests well alone. People like you need to accept that Russians do things differently to us. While you could point to supposed Russian misdemeanours. You have to understand there's a huge propoganda war being waged by Western media outlets against Russia. With that in mind i'd approach any news about Russia with caution.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Fascism?

ahem. i said that the list can apply to left and right in equal measure. Doucas asked for examples. now communists are far left, and this list applies to them.

To help you, no one is suggesting anyone is communist, only that communism is another form of fascism.

That post was addressed to James Wales, not you, so why assume I was talking to you?

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Fascism?

Did you really compare the world in the 1930s with today?

What I said (it’s there in the post you replied to) is that I can’t remember a time more like the thirties than now - that’s not quite what you’re claiming I said, but I’d be interested to hear which decades since the fifties were more like the thirties in your opinion than the 2010s and 20s?

[Feedback]

Re: Fascism?

That post was addressed to James Wales, not you, so why assume I was talking to you?

Because I made the point first.

[Feedback]

Re: Fascism?

What I said (it’s there in the post you replied to) is that I can’t remember a time more like the thirties than now - that’s not quite what you’re claiming I said, but I’d be interested to hear which decades since the fifties were more like the thirties in your opinion than the 2010s and 20s?

Don't get hung up on semantics, I'm not playing that game.

Your opinion may be nowadays and the 30s are more alike than any other decade, but I just don't see it.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Fascism?

Because I made the point first.

What point?

Right, sorry I see it now. I agree, but I don’t think it relates to what James was saying.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Fascism?

Don't get hung up on semantics, I'm not playing that game.

Your opinion may be nowadays and the 30s are more alike than any other decade, but I just don't see it.

You accuse me of being hung up on semantics, which I suppose gives you a means of ignoring the question I asked you if nothing else.

[Feedback]

Re: Fascism?

You accuse me of being hung up on semantics, which I suppose gives you a means of ignoring the question I asked you if nothing else.

I don't think any are like the 30s. To give one such reason, the current decade is not one of appeasement and conciliation, but of increased military spending and sabre rattling.