In school, I was taught that fascism was not in fact right wing, but compared to American Government, it was very much left wing. Our history class taught that the Nazi party of Germany had a meeting with the Communist Party of Germany to discuss a number of things starting on what slogans would be and what category they would say they were. Fascists were very much left wing, but they looked like right wing extremists compared to the communists, so they decided to call the communists left wing and call the fascists right wing to avoid confusion.
Fascism is left wing because you cannot own a business or large home if you don't toe the line that the ruling party draws.. If you don't toe the line, they take your business and give it to someone who will. It is far right of either communism or socialism in that it allows private property at all. In socialism the government owns all the business and makes sure that everyone is paid equally, and in communism the gov't owns everything and makes sure that everyone has everything they need.
So fascism is far right of communism but still pretty far left of American conservatism. It's somewhere in the middle.
Only in America would the question even be asked.
I concur.
President Woodward Wilson was a progressive and an extreme racist to the max.
Was Theodore Roosevelt, also a progressive a racist ? By the true definition not the PC definition, yes. Teddy Roosevelt was a American nationalist. But he despised those those using hyphenating - Americans. But he did looked upon non Europeans as being inferior.
In school, I was taught that fascism was not in fact right wing, but compared to American Government, it was very much left wing. Our history class taught that the Nazi party of Germany had a meeting with the Communist Party of Germany to discuss a number of things starting on what slogans would be and what category they would say they were. Fascists were very much left wing, but they looked like right wing extremists compared to the communists, so they decided to call the communists left wing and call the fascists right wing to avoid confusion.
Fascism is left wing because you cannot own a business or large home if you don't toe the line that the ruling party draws.. If you don't toe the line, they take your business and give it to someone who will. It is far right of either communism or socialism in that it allows private property at all. In socialism the government owns all the business and makes sure that everyone is paid equally, and in communism the gov't owns everything and makes sure that everyone has everything they need.
So fascism is far right of communism but still pretty far left of American conservatism. It's somewhere in the middle.
Low information types tend to confuse Fascism with Mercantilism and Militarism.
Fascism is a loosely defined political philosophy, bu it is definitely a Collectivist, and therefore Left Wing.
The American right's denial of their heritage seems to congeal around Jonas Goldberg's 1990's revisionist polemic.
Beyond getting into your silly guilt by association attack of progressives (in a thread on fascism, but I suppose when you can't turn fascism into liberalism, the next best thing to do is to turn progressives into fascists) argument, I just have to point out that even your beloved Jonah Goldberg understood that Clarence Darrow was anti-eugenics, very clearly shown in Darrow's "The Eugenics Cult".Clarence Darrow
It's especially weird that so many righties fail to see that things like Patriot Act, extralegal detentions, starting wars on a wave of nationalism and militarism and public spending on a big military are not exactly "small government" ... yet they keep on claiming that "small government" defines the right.
Because NEOCONS are not "the american right"; they are con artist democrats wearing thousand dollar suits.
Okay. Maybe you should tell that the many people who are apparently mistaken by assuming that the Republican Party is "right wing".
Beyond getting into your silly guilt by association attack of progressives (in a thread on fascism, but I suppose when you can't turn fascism into liberalism, the next best thing to do is to turn progressives into fascists) argument, I just have to point out that even your beloved Jonah Goldberg understood that Clarence Darrow was anti-eugenics, very clearly shown in Darrow's "The Eugenics Cult".
PS...if all of this exercise is a form of "see, you guys were just as bad" argument, not only is it a conceding that fascism was right wing, it is also acknowledging that under the facade of being "libertarian-right", you are nothing more than a conservative with extreme free-market views......or worse.
This is going beyond Goldbergism and into the realm of Beck pseudoscience/conspiracy/history nonsense. Why would I care what interpretations Samaan has when later he links an obscure American utopian novelist to the NAZI party's love of nationalistic spectacle and pomp? The idea that since Darrow was defending a teacher, and that teacher used a book, which contained pop eugenic theory (which by the 30's in the US was fairly well rejected) was therefore proof that Darrow was at heart a eugenicist....is convoluted at best. The idea of the superiority of one race over another far predates the fad being picked up by early 1900's progressives, it certainly did not originate with them.Because of Darrow's involvement in the Scopes Trial it is hard not to see him as a supporter of eugenics at least at that point because the effect of his argument in court was to support the validity of eugenics as science.
Fascism is the Right wing orgasm of Corporations running the gov't and is pretty much what we have in the USA right now. Big Energy, Banking, Big Pharma and Chemical corporations rule the roost. US Gov't trying to promote GMO seeds for Monsanto. "Too big to fail" bailouts for banksters. Wars to get control of Energy resources. Healthcare bills passed to take care of Big Pharma. We need to discuss starting wars for good business profits.
Um, no Facism isn't about corporations running the government. More like the other way around. The only difference between Facism and Communism, is that Facism wants privately owned corporations to be controlled by the government and Communism wants corporations to be owned and operated by the government.
Both are Left wing, big government systems.
I see most moderates/centrists as fence sitters with their backs to the Right.Its more so a horseshoe. The far right and the far left are a lot closer to each other then they are to the respective moderates on either side.
You make good points, but we must remember that Modern Leftists are well known for criticizing, with great fervor, traits that their opponents do not possess, and which they are often guilty. (The Soviet Union's government endlessly criticized imperialism while seizing territory and people, for example.) But the one major example of a Fascist government which was a close ally of the German National Socialists, another Leftist entity.Just because it is collectivist and therefore Left Wing is a stretch. Yes Fascism is a collectivist, as is Socialism and Communism. But Fascism is all about the conflicts between races and nationalities, whereas Socialism is the conflict between classes. Furthermore, while both want state-controlled industry, it is for far different means. Socialists want to prevent the oppression of the Proletariat. Fascism state control serves to ensure the State becomes self-sufficient, not needing the assistance of foreigners. And the nail on the coffin is that Fascists are nationalist, imperialistic, and militarists, all things criticized in most Left Wing spheres, especially communism and socialism. Fascism is fairly defined. Like every political theory, it varies, but these key concepts must exist for Fascism to permeate.
<--(American) right wing-------------- (American) left wing--(european) socialism--fascism-communism-->
Anyone who thinks fascism is right wing (american right), is not worth wasting any of your life talking to. There is a tiny handful of issues that might fall between the fascist realm and american right. Usually minor social issues with little bearing on the overall government. There is a gigantic mountain of issues the left and fascists are lock step in.
You make good points, but we must remember that Modern Leftists are well known for criticizing, with great fervor, traits that their opponents do not possess, and which they are often guilty. (The Soviet Union's government endlessly criticized imperialism while seizing territory and people, for example.) But the one major example of a Fascist government which was a close ally of the German National Socialists, another Leftist entity.
The American right's denial of their heritage seems to congeal around Jonas Goldberg's 1990's revisionist polemic.
Our Heritage is Madison and Locke, not Marx and Ratzel.
It's especially weird that so many righties fail to see that things like Patriot Act, extralegal detentions, starting wars on a wave of nationalism and militarism and public spending on a big military are not exactly "small government" ... yet they keep on claiming that "small government" defines the right.
...and Father Coughlin, and Charles Lindbergh, and Fritz Kuhn. Are you going to airbrush out all the uncomfortable names?
Early in his career Coughlin was a vocal supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his early New Deal proposals, before later becoming a harsh critic of Roosevelt as too friendly to bankers.[3] In 1934 he announced a new political organization called the National Union for Social Justice. He wrote a platform calling for monetary reforms, the nationalization of major industries and railroads, and protection of the rights of labor...
...After hinting at attacks on Jewish bankers, Coughlin began to use his radio program to issue antisemitic commentary, and later to support at least some of the policies of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.[5] The broadcasts have been called "a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture".[6] His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, with his slogan being Social Justice, first with, and later against, the New Deal....
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