Jacko writes:
“Bearing in mind that I do not feel the US is a fascist state as of yet, I do find it amazing how accurate the above is in defining the political actions, aspirations and machinations of a certain president and his cohorts in all things neoconservative. In fact, every single aspect listed above is incorporated into our nation’s past 6 years, and so much of it at the orchestration of the neocons.”
http://www.madison.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=251668&highlight=#251668
We all have a world-view and rational paradigm from which we approach any issue, and while attempting to cast himself as a reasonable and “non-partisan” moderate, Jacko nevertheless clearly reveals his own particular sharp leanings.
While one may certainly make a valid argument that certain characteristics of fascism are frequently incorporated into the American body politic, it is ludicrous to imply that such aspects are only characteristic of actions and positions taken by those of a political and social perspective that is generally defined as either Republican or conservative – neo or otherwise – or that such interpretations of fascism are limited to either the past 6 years, or to any previous period of a Republican presidency, or for that matter, a Republican political majority.
To turn a phrase, what motivation would a political liberal or Democrat have in portraying either Republicans or conservative views as inherently “fascist”?
Every single criticism of the current president, can be laid at LEAST equally at the feet of every previous (or hopeful) president wearing the Democrat brand. Given the socialistic nature of modern liberalism, my own (admittedly partisan) view is that the threat is somewhat greater from the modern liberal paradigm, which emphasizes classes and groups over individuals.
With all due respect to Wikipedia, it is hardly accurate to characterize fascism as being “opposed to socialism”. While the Nazi’s opposed communism as an anarchistic aberration, Nazi’s themselves were by definition and label “socialists” – their very name being derived from “Nationalsozialismus”, or National Socialism, the ideology of the German National Socialist Workers Party, or as they came to be contemptuously known, the “Nazis”.
To further classify socialism in the same breath as individualism and democracy, as being among the things that fascists are “opposed” to is also quite interesting, since as stated, socialism is a collectivistic and statist ideology that emphasizes the rights and privileges of classes and groups, over the rights of individuals. In a socialist paradigm, the state does not exist to serve the people and to defend their liberties – the people exist to serve and glorify the state, and the “greater good” of the collective.
It is a mistake as well to attempt to diminish or marginalize the issue of jihadic Islamism, by attempting to draw close parallels between current manifestions of Islamic fascism, the Nazi and Italian fascism of the 1930′s, and ANYTHING that is now or has happened previously in the United States.
To do so underscores a sad lack of understanding and knowledge regarding the historical atrocity that was the fascist expression of Hitler’s Nazism, Mussolini’s Italian fascist movement, and the Japanese militarists – as well as the contemporary atrocity of radical fundamentalist jihadic Islamism.
While to many of those espousing a left-of-center perspective, Karl Rove and anyone supportive of a Bush presidency are to be characterized as the devil incarnate, and any view, opinion or judgement presented by such individuals is to be summarily rejected out of hand, Hanson makes a good case for why the term “Islamic fascist”, and “Islamo-fascist” is indeed both accurate, and appropriate – as well as why those characteristics make the Islamist jihadic movement a serious and legitimate concern and threat, to a society whose aspirations and principles are at least grounded in a libertarian ideal, regardless of the actual political practices and excesses of both political brands.
