Of the various actors involved in Spain’s reversion to democracy, I wouldn’t rate Franco, but that’s another topic.
On Eco’s list of features of fascism, I’d gloss the idea of opposition to modernism as more a matter of valuing the simplistic and grandiloquent over the complex, moderate and uncertain. Both fascists and nazis prized technological modernism, the cult of speed and of size - another form of extremism.
If you smear your feces on the walls of the Capitol…you might be a fascist!
No! Hitler never smeared his shit on walls, so NOT a fascist.
Try harder.
I agree. Franco’s main contribution to Spain becoming a democracy was dying.
Franco, Mannerheim, Horthy. All authoritarians but not subscribers to the ideological fascist claptrap that was extrapolated from authoritarianism. They had to make their accommodations with Hitler, as Pilsudski and Attaturk would have to had if they’d lived long enough.
ETA: the Swedes and the Swiss were not authoritarians and managed to steer clear of Hitler by paying bribes, not blood.
This just in:
Wasn’t it Martin Luther who nailed his 95 feces to the door?
No. He was too constipated.
The Dutch just put in the far-right, anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) , and it remains to be seen what coalition it will form.
Far Right Populism is springing up all over the place.
I’ve been inspired to compose a bit of doggerel:
The America-hating fuckstick said
If you disagree with me, then you’re vermin.
(Someone should tell the dumb cluck dickhead
It sounds better in the original German)
Excellent!
Although @RitterSport’s post makes for a good couplet:
He also called people on the left “vermin.”
Probably sounded better in the original German.
You could even add a triplet:
Got laughs from Goebbels (Joe) and Goering (Herman).
OK, but to give credit where it’s due, I got that from Krugman, who credited Molly Ivins with coining it. I guess accidentally making it into a couplet was mine.
Not from folks named Cohen, Lipschitz, and Berman.
IIRC she was referring to Pat Buchanan’s speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention, in which Pat mused about a “cultural war”, to “take back our nation”.
Both Bush and Quayle tried to distance themselves from that speech.
I would love to go back to the days when that was the worst thing a presidential candidate said!
Blasphemy! You put on that internal infernal Fake News station. The only thing worse would have been the spawn of Satan MSNBC.
Ah, the good old days!
They’re both fascists. They haven’t yet succeeded in all of their goals, but it’s having those goals that makes them fascist. If you’re going to argue that you’re not an actual fascist until you’ve taken over totalitarian control of your country, then you’d have to conclude that there was only one fascist each in Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain. Goebbels, Himmler, Goering? They didn’t rule Germany, so they weren’t fascists.
Yes. To argue otherwise is simple excuse-making for fascists, and is suspiciously fascistic in itself.
Well, as long as they didn’t elect a fascist party it’s not really that bad!
Well, have they publically espoused a desire or plan to take over totalitarian control of our country? or is that just what we think they would like to do?
I mean certainly there is the American Nazi party- they are fascists.