On 1/7/2013 4:58 AM, Roger Clough wrote:
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Fascism
Not everybody agrees, but...
"Liberal Fascism
In the book, Goldberg argues that fascist movements were and are left-wing. He
claims that both
modern liberalism and fascism descended from progressivism,
and that prior to World War II, "fascism was widely viewed as a progressive
social movement
with many liberal and left-wing adherents in Europe and the United States".[2]
Goldberg writes that there was more to fascism than bigotry and genocide, and
argues
that those characteristics were not so much a feature of Italian fascism, but
rather of German
Nazism, which was allegedly forced upon the Italian fascists "after the Nazis
had invaded northern
Italy and created a puppet government in Salò."[3]
He argues that over time, the term fascism has lost its original meaning and
has descended
to the level of being "a modern word for 'heretic,' branding an individual
worthy of
excommunication from the body politic", noting that in 1946, the socialist and
anti-fascist
writer George Orwell described the word as no longer having any meaning except
to signify
"something not desirable".[4][4][5]"
Which is why conservatives invent terms like "liberal fascism" to smear
progressives.
Of course the political extremes of left and right tend to meet because extremes have to
be imposed. So Maoism and Nazism both became cults of their leaders. But fascism was a
respectable political philosophy before WW2, and it was a conservative, authoritarian,
right-wing philosophy because it emphasized that the worth of the individual came from his
fulfilling his niche within the superbeing of the state and the state had it's own value.
The state did not exist just to serve its citizens.
Brent
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