One of the reasons why both pro-Obama and anti-Obama observers may be reluctant to see him as fascist is that both tend to accept the prevailing notion that fascism is on the political right, while it is obvious that Obama is on the political left.
Back in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widely — and correctly — regarded as being on the political left. Jonah Goldberg’s great book “Liberal Fascism” cites overwhelming evidence of the fascists’ consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the left’s embrace of the fascists as one of their own during the 1920s.
Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.
It was in the 1930s, when ugly internal and international actions by Hitler and Mussolini repelled the world, that the left distanced themselves from fascism and its Nazi offshoot — and verbally transferred these totalitarian dictatorships to the right, saddling their opponents with these pariahs.
What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people — like themselves — need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.
For some eerie parallels of our current situation with that of Argentina's collapse, please see the illustrated tale entitled "Don't Cry for Me, America."
1 comment:
What we have are people like the hollyweirdos, the medias and academia who want to paint the ones they disagree with and to denigrate them - they call the fascisms right wing ideologies. They are not. I notice it on some movies and TV shows. Of course, we heard and read the left spouting that sort of thing out when Bush was running for President.
Remember when they used to call us 'neo-cons'? I told them that there is nothing new about conservatism and it was their really lamo way to try to tie 'neo-Nazi' to conservatives. So I had a teaching moment (quite often) and told them that the socialism, progressivism, nazism, communism/marxism and also islam are all left wing ideologies. One can make a comparison chart of them. Some are more left wing than others but islam is the most radical and oppressive... for their 'god'.
liberals don't like it when we shove their crap right back at them.
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