I don’t know. It could be a Boy Scout. You’d have to look more closely at the uniform.
The primary component of fascism in my view is authoritarianism. That can come from anywhere - the desire to control others isn’t monopolized by the left or right.
If you believe this, you need to learn a lot more history.
excavating reminded me of another feature of fascism: a profoundly ignorant populace that accepts rewritten history as fact (see any Texas history textbook on slavery, or randomly turn on Fox News).
I agree.
Communist regimes are certainly totalitarian dictatorships. And they have had periods when they had cults of personality (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro).
But communist regimes aren’t overtly militaristic. They claim that peace is their goal. I realize they often stray away from that goal but so do western democracies. The point is that they present peace as a positive and war as a negative. Fascist regimes do the opposite.
Communist regimes also lack the belief in inherent tribalism that is a central pillar of fascism. Communism claims to be a universal ideology in which everyone is potentially welcome and equal. In an ideal communist world, everyone would be a communist. This is not true of fascism; fascist believed that there is one group that is better than everyone else and that people who are outside of this group can never enter in. Communists believe you can convert people into communists; fascists believe outsiders can’t be converted to insiders and must therefore be subjugated or eliminated.
Disagree. There is an authoritarian left but generally there are major differences between right wing and left wing authoritarianism.
Right wing tends to be nationalistic, while left wing doesn’t believe in national borders.
Right wing believes in racial and gender heirarchies, left wingers generally do not (at least nominally)
Right wing authoritarians tend to be friendly to powerful corporations, left wing ones are not
etc.
Fascism is more right wing authoritarianism, motivated by a sense of defenselessness in the face of domestic and foreign threats.
And not all authoritarian regimes are ideological. I wouldn’t personally consider the dictatorship in Syria to be either right or left wing. A lot of dictatorships are just about maintaining the power and status of the dictator and their inner circle, not about any political ideology. Personally I’d consider Islamic extremist groups fascist (like Al Qaeda or ISIL), North Korea is arguably fascist, and the resurgence of neofascism in Europe & the US in response to globalization and islamic migration is fascist too. But its nothing like Venezuela which is a different kind of authoritarian regime.
Also from Orwell:
Mussolini on Fascism: The Docrine of Fascism
I forgot another major difference between communist regimes and fascist regimes; their temporal orientation.
Fascist regimes present a mythological and pseudohistorical basis for their legitimacy. They will claim to be the successors of some past golden age who are trying to revive that golden age.
Communist regimes present a pseudoscientific basis for their legitimacy. They will claim they are making a clean break with the past and are moving forward into an ideal future as something new.
Webelos sounds communistic. Should be Mebelos.
There are many left wing nationalist movements out there.
If they can make the trains run on time, they are a Fascist.
Where is it you guys are hearing the word “fascism” these days? Maybe I don’t get out enough, but I haven’t heard anyone use the term other than historically (Hitler, etc.) or in reference to Trump. Both uses seem legitimate and non controversial. Are people really calling people like Bernie or Romney fascists?
Didn’t hippies toss out the word from time to time in reference to the [del]fuzz[/del] constabulary?
I think that Trump supporters resent being called out for embracing fascism. They still want to embrace fascism, they just don’t think it’s nice that we make them feel bad about it.
Interesting, I was just looking at the websters online dictionary and wikipedia definition of this word last night.
Trump et al are (seemingly) a textbook fascist group, as far as I can tell. Obama and congress at that time had some facist qualities, but were not fascists per sé. Were/are there people labeling Mr. Obama as fascist? I seem to remember it, but can’t say for certain.
Fringe groups were comparing him to the Nazis for health care, for one example. I only remember it because of one viral example where Barney Franks schooled someone who was holding up a poster showing obamhitler and asked Barney about the “nazi policy” of obamacare.
The deal is still on the table: We’ll be nice to them if they stop being [del]stupid[/del] fascists.
I don’t know man, there’s going to come a point where an awful lot of Trump supporters are going to try to walk back a lot of their actions and words, I’m not at all prepared to let it slide with out some contrition.
Too many people on this rock as it is. I say we round up people who have demonstrated a willingness to nurture and champion fascist views, sterilize them, and put them to work in highly supervised closed communities. For their own safety, of course.
Why do you think this will happen?