On Mar 30, 10:42*pm, Nickname unavailable wrote:
Fascism, Nazism and Conservatism, the ties that bind:"the Left" were
the people who were beaten and murdered in the 1920s by the squadristi
and the Brownshirts; and the
first Germans sent off to Nazi
concentration camps like
Dachau were not Jews but socialists,
communists, and other
left-wing political prisoners, including
"liberal" priests
and clerics.
Without their revisionist lies, today's extreme radical kooky
right
has nothing.
Fascism, Nazism and Conservatism
European fascism drew on existing anti-modernist
conservatism, and on
the conservative reaction to communism
and 19th-century socialism.
Conservative thinkers such as
historian Oswald Spengler provided much
of the world view
(Weltanschauung) of the Nazi movement.
In Britain, the conservative Daily Mail enthusiastically
backed Sir
Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and
part of the
Conservative Party supported closer ties with
Nazi Germany.
When defeat in World War II ideologically and historically
discredited fascism, almost all Western conservatives tried
to
distance themselves from it. Nevertheless, many post-war
Western
conservatives continued to admire the Franco regime
in Spain, clearly
conservative but also fascist in origin.
With the end of the Franco
regime and Portugal's Estado Novo
in the 1970s, the relationship
between conservatism and
classical European fascism was further
weakened.
Militarism is perhaps the most striking similarity between
Fascism
and contemporary American conservatism. Of course,
there are many
liberals in America who support the military
and even call for
increased military spending.
Even so, American liberals are traditionally more skeptical
of the
military than American conservatives. It is often said
that
Neoconservatives, like Hitler, see the military as a
paradigm for
problem solving (even in situations that may
render militarism
impractical or unethical).
The relationship of fascism to right-wing ideologies
(including some
that are described as neo-fascist) is still
an issue for
conservatives and their opponents. Especially in
Germany, there is a
constant exchange of ideology and
persons, between the influential
national-conservative
movement, and self-identified national-
socialist groups. In
Italy too, there is no clear line between
conservatives, and
movements inspired by the Italian Fascism of the
1920s to
1940s, including the Alleanza Nazionale which is member of
the governing coalition under premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Conservative
attitudes to the 20th-century fascist regimes
are still an issue..
Under an ideological definition of Socialism, for example one
stating
that only a system adhering to the principles of
Marxism can qualify
as socialist there is a well-defined gap
between Nazism and
socialism. Nazi leaders were opposed to
the Marxist idea of class
conflict and opposed the idea that
capitalism should be abolished and
that workers should
control the means of production. For those who
consider class
conflict and the abolition of capitalism as essential
components of socialism, these factors alone are sufficient
to
categorize "National Socialism" as non-socialist.
-------------------------
The 2000 book, Right-Wing Populism in
America, details its
history from Bacon's Rebellion to the Ku Klux
Klan to the
modern-day Posse Comitatus and militia/Patriot
movements.
What distinguishes these populists from their left-wing
counterparts, as Berlet explains, is that "they combine
attacks on
socially oppressed groups with grassroots mass
mobilization and
distorted forms of antielitism based on
scapegoating." Other
notorious right wing figures in 20th
century history include Father
Charles Coughlin, the rabid
anti-Semitic radio talker of the 1930s,
and Sen. Joe
McCarthy.
Beyond the Klan, there were the Silver Shirts, the American
Nazi
Party, the Posse Comitatus, the Aryan Nations, or the
National
Alliance -- all of them openly right wing fascist
organizations, many
of them involved in some of the nation's
most horrific historical
events. (The Oklahoma City bombing,
for instance), then there was
William Dudley Pelley, Gerald
L.K.Smith, George Lincoln Rockwell,
William Potter Gale,
Richard Butler, and David Duke -- all of them
bona fide right
wing racists and fascists.
"the Left" were the people who were beaten and murdered in
the 1920s
by the squadristi and the Brownshirts; and the
first Germans sent off
to Nazi concentration camps like
Dachau were not Jews but socialists,
communists, and other
left-wing political prisoners, including
"liberal" priests
and clerics.
Then why did the Nazis HATE Marxism, Communism, and
Socialism? Just
how uneducated do you Conservative
propagandists assume we are?
Everybody knows the Nazis were
right wingers.
* From "World Book Encyclopedia", 1958, p. 5467:
* * The name
National Socialist German Workers Party does not
* * correctly
describe the Nazi movement. *It was neither
* * socialist nor
organized for the benefit of workers. *The
* * name was apparently
developed in an effort to win the
* * support of the working
classes....
* * Nazism was only a part of of the broad social
movement
* * known as Fascism which gained millions of supporters in
* * many countries during the 1930's....
* * The industrialists gave
financial support to the party
* * because they thought the Nazis
would protect them from
* * from socialism and communism, and from
the increasing
* * strength of the labor unions.
* End Quotes.
britannica.com
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/ar...16,56489+1+551
11,00.html Nazi Party June 24 '00
* *"The [Nazi] party's socialist
orientation was basically a
* *demagogic gambit designed to attract
support from the
* *working class."
("Gambit;" *From "legs."
*Something designed to trip up
another. Any maneuver by which one
seeks to gain an
advantage.)
* *"By 1932 big-business circles had
begun to finance the
* *Nazi electoral campaigns, and ....."
"Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the *party came to
* * power
in Germany in 1933 and governed by totalitarian....
Next year:
*"Hitler crushed the Nazi Party's left, or
* *socialist-oriented,
* wing in 1934, executing Ernst Röhm and other rebellious
* * SA
leaders at this time. Thereafter, Hitler's word was
* * the supreme
and undisputed command in the party."
===========
From the Concord
Desk Encyclopedia, 1977, Fascism, p 455:
* *"It
rejects...liberalism... and socialism. Instead it
* *promotes
*an organic social order whereby the individual will find
* * *his
own place in family, profession and society
* * *according to his
character and ability. *Nationalism and
* * *militarism are its
logical products and thus it has
* * *close ties with Nazism.
`Fascist` has become a term of
* * *abuse for many because of the
ugly aspects of fascism,
* * *and is often used of anyone whose views
are right wing.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/B...&type=booklist
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines conservatism as “a preference for
the historically inherited rather than the abstract and ideal,”
explaining that “conservatives prefer institutions and practices that
have evolved gradually and are manifestations of continuity and
stability.” But without a historical, political, and cultural frame of
reference, this definition tells us little about the principles that
conservatism upholds. The established traditions of different cultures
vary greatly, and thus “conservatism” means something unique in each
culture. As the author and syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg has
pointed out:
“To say a conservative is someone who wishes to conserve is
technically correct but practically useless. 'Liberals' these days are
in many respects more conservative than 'conservatives.' American
conservatives want to change all sorts of things, while liberals are
keen on keeping the status quo (at least until they get into power).
The most doctrinaire Communists in the Soviet Politburo were routinely
called 'conservatives' by Kremlinologists.”
To be conservative within a revolutionary tradition simply means to
conserve the paradigm peculiar to that revolution. In the United
States, the libertarian ethos of the American Revolution inspired a
tradition based on individual rights, free markets and democratic
constitutions. To be conservative, or on the “right,” in the context
of the democratic West means to preserve the classical liberal,
individualist and free-market framework that is its historic
achievement. Among the highest values of this framework a
-individual rights and freedoms (as opposed to group rights, group
privileges, and group-identity politics [i.e. Socialism-NAZI]);
-the rule of law (as opposed to the rule of men [i.e. Socialism-NAZI],
as manifested in judicial activism and the view that the Constitution
is a "living," and therefore infinitely malleable, document);
-private property (as opposed to the communality of property that is
apportioned "equitably" by a central government [I.E. Socialism-
NAZI]);
-free markets (as opposed to an economy that is managed and controlled
by bureaucrats); and
-limited government (as opposed to a massive, omnipotent government
that micromanages virtually all aspects of people's lives [I.E.
Socialism-NAZI]).
Jonah Goldberg expands upon this theme:
“[A] conservative in America is a liberal in the classical sense —
because the institutions conservatives seek to preserve are liberal
institutions. This is why Hayek [
http://mises.org/page/1454/Biography...Hayek-18991992
] explicitly exempted American conservatism from his essay 'Why I am
Not a Conservative.' The conservatives he disliked were mostly
continental thinkers who liked the marriage of Church and State,
hereditary aristocracies, overly clever cheese, and the rest. The
conservatives he liked were Burke, the American founders, Locke et
al.”
Conservatism (in its current sense as a phenomenon in Western culture)
denies the perfectibility of humanity; it rejects the optimistic
notion that human beings can be morally improved through social and
political change. Unlike the French Enlightenment philosopher Jean-
Jacques Rousseau, who characterized the political institutions of his
day as “chains” hindering man’s expression of his natural goodness,
conservatism assumes that human beings are naturally flawed; that they
are prone to such vices as selfishness, anarchy, irrationality, and
violence; and that to curb the base and destructive instincts that are
part and parcel of the human condition, we must rely upon traditional
political and cultural institutions -- without whose restraining power
there could be no ethical behavior and no responsible use of liberty.
This brand of conservatism began to develop as a distinct political
attitude and movement in the late eighteenth century, in reaction to
the upheavals caused by the French Revolution. The term “conservative”
was coined in France after 1815 by supporters of the newly restored
Bourbon monarchy. Fifteen years thereafter, the British politician
and writer John Wilson Croker used the term to describe the British
Tory Party. John Calhoun, a staunch defender of states’ rights in the
United States, used the term in the 1830s.
The recognized father of modern conservatism (though he never used the
term himself) is the British parliamentarian and political writer
Edmund Burke, whose 1790 treatise Reflections on the Revolution in
France rejected the violent, untraditional methods of the French
Revolution. But Burke was not opposed to social change as a matter of
unwavering principle. Indeed, he supported the American Revolution
(1775–83), which he considered a justified defense of traditional
liberties against King George III’s tyranny.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/g...156&type=issue
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/v...ory.asp?id=286
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/v...ory.asp?id=714
The "Inventor" of Modern Conservatism
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/A...servatism.html