Letters to the Editor
MacK..
Published Letters: 477 Editor's Choice: 49
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Nazi = Fascist but Fascist ≠ Nazi
[Read the article: Follow-up to the silence from the ADL regarding Fox News and right-wing talk radio]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I always regarded O'Reilly and the Neocons as ignorant butt-heads especially when it comes to slinging this stuff around.
A first problem is that at least aspects of what O'Reilly slings around can be described as "Fascist," indeed, aspects of the Likudniks, Glen Beck, Podhoretz and numerous other neocons could reasonably be described as fascisistic at least. The trouble is that calling them Nazi's is inaccurate.
"Nazism was a subset of fascism, with peculiar features, for example its extreme antisemitism or for that matter its acute racism which did not form a significant part of say the Spanish incarnation of Fascism -- and antisemitism was not even a significant element of the early form of Italian fascism (though Mussolini's regime did become seriously anti-semetic in the 1940s.) many European countries has somewhat more benign fascist movements, for example the Irish Blueshirts, who in 1939 formed the group largely in favor of neutral Ireland entering the war on the Allied side.
Fascism is defined in say the Oxford English Dictionary (Shorter) as aligned with right-wing authoritarianism. Encyclopedia Britanica (peer reviewed unlike Wikipedia) describes Fascism as:
"Philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state's authority, and harsh suppression of dissent. Martial virtues are celebrated, while liberal and democratic values are disparaged."
Now if one takes the Wikipedia entry, we can get the following for checklist for Fox, O'Reilly, the current Republican Party, Dick Cheney, Dobson, Coulter, the NeoCons etc:
Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology
(generally tied to a mass movement)
that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the needs of the state.
Fascists seek to forge a type of national unity,
usually based on (but not limited to)
ethnic,
cultural,
or racial attributes.
Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts:
nationalism,
sexism,
statism,
militarism,
totalitarianism,
anti-communism,
corporatism,
populism,
collectivism,
and opposition to
economic liberalism
and political liberalism
So let's see -- so far they only just miss totalitarianism (though I could make a case for the Republicans never meeting a Latin American Dictator they did not swoon for and, for that matter never forget Cheney's 80s Love-in with Saddam Hussein) and their version of economic liberalism, well isn't very liberal.
Anyway, my point is that, all in all, the Republican Party is well, beginning to come very close to a fascist party the way it is going.
As for "Racial Attributes" -- well I personally have heard a drunk Anne Coulter ranting about the miscegenation problems that would result from immigration, back when she was a staffer for Spence Abraham (It was that indiscreet rant that is said to have got her fired, little problem of a well known Republican immigration lawyer with a Chinese wife being the addressee being invited to join the discussion. So who knows . . .
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Richard Perle and Thomas C's Point
[Read the article: Follow-up to the silence from the ADL regarding Fox News and right-wing talk radio]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thomas C says:
"The left didn't make it mainstream. The rightwing, and most particularly the neocons, were the ones who succeeded it making it mainstream. The left did not succeed in enlisting mainstream politicians to deploy Nazi analogies. The right, however, had conservatives in the Bush administration and congress tarring as Chamberlain-like appeasers anyone who opposed or even questioned bush's illegal war in Iraq. This is the worst sort of devaluation of the currency of the Nazi epithet, because it equated Iraq with the Nazis and the Holocaust."
A funny but through story. In the 1980s Richard Perle (note Chicken Hawk) was visiting the UK and found himself on TV debating Denis Healy, then the deputy leader of the Labour Party and Shadow Minister of Defense on detente, nuclear disarmament, etc. Healy was on a link from the House of Commons studio, Perle in the main studio and Sir Robin Day was the interviewer/moderator. Perle started into the debate with Healy (who in debate twice reduced Thatcher to tears) unprepared and full of his own shit. As he started to lose, Perle announced that "the Labour party wanted to appease the Soviets the same way they appeased Hitler" (problem Chamberlain was a Tory) and driveled on from there about the lack of courage of the European Left. Finally he started to insinuate that Healy was a coward, pretty directly in fact. Then the bell went for a vote in the House of Commons and Healy signed off, Perle sitting there with a smug look, sure he had got the better of the encounter. That was when Robin Day put the knife in:
"That was the Right Honourable, Major Sir Denis Healy, MP, Military Cross, Beach Commander Anzio! -- etc., etc." (that's just a summary of what has been declassified of Healy's military career (Commando service behind German lines in Italy, Yugoslavia details are still classified.) I seem to also recall that Healey's reserve rank when he retired from the reserves was in fact Major General.
It was about a decade before Perle was seen in London again -- after been condemned by Tories as well as Labour, and apparently a phone call to Washington from the Thatcher Government telling the Reagan admin that he as a jackass and persona non-grata.