Old fascism was seen by the average person as something from the Right; now it is clearly from the Left.

Ttbn,

That's how it works: ultimately, any strong alternative to imperfect democracy leads to various tarted-up forms of totalitarianism, Left AND Right, which degenerate into fascism by any other name. Hence the confusion amongst intellectuals back in the twenties who admired both Soviet communism AND Italian fascism simultaneously - they perceived that both were forms of state-controlled repressive government, they both went in for massive central planning schemes, they both had to open up vast prison camps.

The Soviets probably went further down the fascist road than even Mussolini with their programs for the extermination of unreliables [Pol Pot followed suit with his extermination of 'intellectuals']. Certainly, the Nazis went further down that inevitable road with their planned, industrial-scale extermination of Jewish people. But it's no coincidence that Hitler called his party the German National-Socialist Workers' Party.

Friedrich Hayek proposed that, instead of some sort of straight-line polarity between socialism and fascism, with liberal democracy somewhere in the middle, we should think of a flexible triangle, with swinging arms at the end of which were socialism and outright fascism and Nazism, with both of them closer to each other and antithetical to democracy. That works for me.

In fact, if you read the article, and substitute the words 'Sovietism' or 'Bolshevism' for 'Nazism' and/or 'fascism', apart from the obvious and piddly differences in dress, slogans, etc., they aren't that different. Try it.

Joe

The stench of its ideals is the best way to describe new fascism. It's insidious as it seeks to infiltrate today's political parties and is completely deaf to any new or different idea or ideal.

It cannot, will not, accept that climate change is real and we have caused some of it! Or that we must abandon fossil fuel and coal now inside a single decade!

And will self identify in these pages by rubbishing all those who advocate a move away from coal to, for peaceful purpose, nuclear energy? As the only reliable, dispatchable, affordable, alternative carbon-free energy.

Yes, there is one example of very broad scale, as hundreds of acres of solar voltaic, getting, daylight only, renewables down to below that produced by NG @5 cents PKWH?

[I could given my druthers get it down below a cent PKWH and in complete safety!]

But that 5 cents per example, is in a not for profit paradigm, rolled out by one of the oil-rich Arab states. Safe from new Fascism due to the fact that they are somewhat benign dictatorships.

Fascism has therefore targeted already divided democracies (Brexit, the rust belt of America etc.) and the best divisive vehicle is on climate change and fossil fuels, both of which are extremely contentious and hotly contested. And grist to the mill for divide and rule fascism!

Couldn't happen here because unlike the saner, more progressive Arabians, our hard-right, self evidently, infiltrated government has no business in business.

Why?

Because that would serve to unite us, wouldn't it? And therefore, not the friend of new Fascism!?
Alan B.

Hey Joe. Erudite and educated comment mate! And well said!

Just the same, take care where you cast those pearls of wisdom Joe.

The swill selling swine/Fascists are likely to take umbrage at such truth-telling!? And because sane comment and the facts are contrary to GOOD PROPAGANDA!
Alan B.

Rubbish. It's a war of the genders, to be ultimately fought-out in the bedroom.

The Democrat army wife to raise her children alone,

The Republican soldiers in perpetual mission-ego.

All else is too confused to make sense from the tea leaves so far.

Dan

Certainly in the US antifa, lying feminist and the democrats are all strongly opposed to democracy. Surely that fits the defintion of facism. With the left, they have perverted language and use the word facist to stop anyone exposing their perverted narratives. It has taken a President from outside of the swamp to expose this.

Runner,

Not sure how you come to that conclusion - and then leap to an extreme. I would have thought that the dems, incompetent as they may be, are at least as democratically-minded as the GOP. How many of them in the House have been accused of crimes and misdemeanours against the US state, for instance ?

Joe

loudmouth2

the democrats have never accepted the deplorables verdict. From the day Trump was elected they spoke of impeachment. They lied, made up a Russian collusion scandal and even with egg all over their faces they dug in deeper. The democrats supported and encouraged the lying feminist making up fake rape claims against Kavaunagh simply because they saw him as a threat to them killing babies. Facism might not be the right word but its every bit as bad. Trump has exposed how totally bereft of any morals and decency the democrats are. I know you hate Trump. He certainly has tons of fault. However compared to the lying, undemocratic, cheating democrats he is a breath of fresh air.

Well, there you have it Joe and straight from the horse's (runner's) mouth. Some may well suggest the other end? And the secret source of runner's brains?

And a waste of time relying on evidence-based debate. Given runner's vastly superior personal knowledge of what goes on behind closed Dem. doors! Or from anything slightly left of the hard religious right, all of who are kiddy fiddling commies in the ( here comes de Judge) runner's eyes?

It as to be such a comfort to the runner, to know he s always right?
Cheers, Alan B.

great thoughts about this one. A man with first-hand knowledge of fascism and Nazism, Primo Levi, once said that "21st century fascism will be different from the 20th century fascism we know." The three foremost places where old fascism and Nazism came to forth were Italy, Germany and Spain (a mixture of Catholicism and Fascism). Franco's dictadura franquista are a somewhat milder version of German and Italian fascism.

The bigger the public service, the more fascism !

Hi Gus,

Well, apart from the Soviets' wars against Poland and the Baltic countries (1918-1921) and Japan (1938) and Finland (1939), and their invasions of the Caucasus and 'Eastern Turkestan', and their gulags, and the execution of millions, yes, they probably had a smidgin of good intentions.

But my point was that any system which forgoes democracy, which installs a system of total control by a Party or dictator, even if it tarts it up with goals of Utopia and other magical and religious frameworks, and even if it is comparatively efficient, is bound to degenerate into totalitarianism and fascism by any other name.

Late Enlightenment writers such as Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek wrote about the openness/indeterminacy of society and history, that Utopias always hark back to some reactionary past of supposed sweetness and light and harmony, which of course never existed. Blueprints have to assume that there is only The One Way, from which any who deviate must regrettably be 'subtracted'.

The problem with that is that, eventually that's all of us. Even the framers of the Utopia themselves: witness the assassinations (Kirov, Trotsky) and executions (Bela Kun, Bukharin, etc.) of so many of Stalin's erstwhile colleagues and Mao's murder of Lin Piao. Not to mention the tens of millions in gulags: doubters should read just the Introduction to Solzhenitsyn's 'Gulag Archipelago' to get the drift of 'subtraction'.

Democracy is messy, forever incomplete, uncertain, inefficient. A bit like life really. But it's the best system so far devised.

Joe

What is the word for a system that rewards effort & decency ? Democracy certainly doesn't !

Some democrats would literally be suitable to be milked for their venom !

I agree with the article's general point about fascism being anti-modern, opposed to the humanist ethos of the Enlightenment, but I think the authors need to argue a case for fascism being opposed to 'ecology'. It has been the Marxist left, traditionally, that opposed Nature Worship and the Nazis that promoted it. A core outlook of the Hitler Youth League was 'the Religion of the Forests' and in Mein Kampf, in the section on 'Society and Nature', Hitler attacks the 'Judeo Bolsheviks' for being in the forefront of modernity. He expresses the view that everything started to go wrong when humans stopped living in harmony with the laws of nature. By contrast, Marx/Engels argued for the sovereignty of humans over Nature and Mao expressed it as a need for humanity to 'conquer' Nature. It's the exact opposite of how fascists idealized Nature. This is also why the Greens should be seen as right-wing.

This is also why the Greens should be seen as right-wing.
byork,
Greens are extremists of wrong & as such fall into the category of Left-Wing !

Green's are not green. They are communists with green clothing- watermelons. Classic Trotsky strategy. Some on the so called right are for environmental protection some are not. What is called The Right is made of Traditionalists (believe in conserving things- especially culture) and Libertarians (believe in free trade- business). In the end it's the classic question on "what is legitimate power?".

The reason that Traditionalists seem to be historically part of the "so called Right" is perhaps two fold 1. Traditionalists understand that the books need to be balanced in order for the community to function (though it is not their aim to make money necessarily). 2. Traditionalists are old power in some ways derived from aristocracy but with the rise of industrialism and the free marketeers became marginalised within the "power elite".

The old power elite was land and military based but with the industrialists power is factory and technology based.

The events of 1066 seem to be a mile stone on the path to Locke Liberalism where the parliament started to dominate the finances. It lead to disenfranchisement of lands and of the representation of the people within the country itself