What is Fascism?

George Orwell What is Fascism? “... even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come. (G.O.) TRIBUNE 1944 I have seen the words ‘Fascist in sympathy’, or ‘of Fascist tendency’, or just plain ‘Fascist’, applied in all seriousness to ... Of all the unanswered questions of our time, perhaps the most important is: ‘What is Fascism?’ One of the social survey organizations in America recently asked this question of a hundred different people, and got answers ranging from ‘pure democracy’ to ‘pure diabolism’. In this country if you ask the average thinking person to define Fascism, he usually answers by pointing to the German and Italian régimes. But this is very unsatisfactory, because even the major Fascist states differ from one another a good deal in structure and ideology. [...] Learned controversies, reverberating for years on end in American magazines, have not even been able to determine whether or not Fascism is a form of capitalism. But still, when we apply the term ‘Fascism’ to Germany or Japan or Mussolini's Italy, we know broadly what we mean. It is in internal politics that this word has lost the last vestige of meaning. For if you examine the press you will find that there is almost no set of people — certainly no political party or organized body of any kind — which has not been denounced as Fascist during the past ten years. Here I am not speaking of the verbal use of the term ‘Fascist’. I am speaking of what I have seen in print. I have seen the words ‘Fascist in sympathy’, or ‘of Fascist tendency’, or just plain ‘Fascist’, applied in all seriousness to the following bodies of people: Conservatives: All Conservatives, appeasers or anti-appeasers, are held to be subjectively pro-Fascist. British rule in India and the Colonies is held to be indistinguishable from Nazism. Organizations of what one might call a patriotic and traditional type are labelled crypto-Fascist or ‘Fascist-minded’. Examples are the Boy Scouts, the Metropolitan Police, M.I.5, the British Legion. Key phrase: ‘The public schools are breeding-grounds of Fascism’. Socialists: Defenders of old-style capitalism (example, Sir Ernest Benn) maintain that Socialism and Fascism are the same thing. Some Catholic journalists maintain that Socialists have been the principal collaborators in the Nazi-occupied countries. The same accusation is made from a different angle by the Communist party during its ultra-Left phases. In the period 1930-35 the Daily Worker habitually referred to the Labour Party as the Labour Fascists. This is echoed by other Left extremists such as Anarchists. Some Indian Nationalists consider the British trade unions to be Fascist organizations. Communists: A considerable school of thought (examples, Rauschning, Peter Drucker, James Burnham, F. A. Voigt) refuses to recognize a difference between the Nazi and Soviet régimes, and holds that all Fascists and Communists are aiming at approximately the same thing and are even to some extent the same people. Leaders in The Times (pre-war) have referred to the U.S.S.R. as a ‘Fascist country’. Again from a different angle this is echoed by Anarchists and Trotskyists. Trotskyists: Communists charge the Trotskyists proper, i.e. Trotsky's own organization, with being a crypto-Fascist organization in Nazi pay. This was widely believed on the Left during the Popular Front period. In their ultra-Right phases the Communists tend to apply the same accusation to all factions to the Left of themselves, e.g. Common Wealth or the I.L.P. Catholics: Outside its own ranks, the Catholic Church is almost universally regarded as pro-Fascist, both objectively and subjectively; War resisters: Pacifists and others who are anti-war are frequently accused not only of making things easier for the Axis, but of becoming tinged with pro-Fascist feeling. Supporters of the war: War resisters usually base their case on the claim that British imperialism is worse than Nazism, and tend to apply the term ‘Fascist’ to anyone who wishes for a military victory. The supporters of the People's Convention came near to claiming that willingness to resist a Nazi invasion was a sign of Fascist sympathies. The Home Guard was denounced as a Fascist organization as soon as it appeared. In addition, the whole of the Left tends to equate militarism with Fascism. Politically conscious private soldiers nearly always refer to their officers as ‘Fascist-minded’ or ‘natural Fascists’. Battle-schools, spit and polish, saluting of officers are all considered conducive to Fascism. Before the war, joining the Territorials was regarded as a sign of Fascist tendencies. Conscription and a professional army are both denounced as Fascist phenomena. Nationalists: Nationalism is universally regarded as inherently Fascist, but this is held only to apply to such national movements as the speaker happens to disapprove of. Arab nationalism, Polish nationalism, Finnish nationalism, the Indian Congress Party, the Muslim League, Zionism, and the I.R.A. are all described as Fascist but not by the same people. 1. Invoke a threat 2. Establish secret Homeland prisons 3. Develop a paramilitary force 4. Surveil ordinary citizens 5. Infiltrate citisens groups 6. Target key individuals 7. Restrict the Press 8. Cast dissent as treason 9. Subvert the rule of law 10. Disarm the citizens It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else. Yet underneath all this mess there does lie a kind of buried meaning. To begin with, it is clear that there are very great differences, some of them easy to point out and not easy to explain away, between the régimes called Fascist and those called democratic. Secondly, if ‘Fascist’ means ‘in sympathy with Hitler’, some of the accusations I have listed above are obviously very much more justified than others. Thirdly, even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come. But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one — not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword. 1944 THE END ____BD____ George Orwell: ‘What is Fascism?’ First published: Tribune. — GB, London. — 1944. Reprinted: — ‘The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell’. — 1968. [FULL] Not to put too fine a point on it, but years ago I read a rather lengthy tome that attempted to differentiate Fascism from Communism.  Went through esoterica like trains running on schedule, and what not.  Boiled down to it's simplest form, however,  Fascism left ownership in private hands, but could dictate what was produced. Communism  seized ownership, and left it to party hacks to run the machinery.  As some wag put it; Communists always called Nazis “Fascists,” it was a way to avoid admitting that the Nazis were fellow  Socialists. Neither pass our constitutional muster.

Carlin Saw It

ISMs - 63 Year Old Heads Up ...

63 Years Ago ...  (Make your kids watch)

Frank 'n Evvy

Fascists

Stuff You Knew but want to pass on ... Today's Democrats are Fascists

“ Barack Obama and his minions in the administration as well as many Democrats in the Congress are often described as Socialists, or in the extreme as Marxists.  However, their actions and strategy are straight out of the fascist economic playbook.  They have become the modern reincarnation of the fascist mindset, without the militarism of Italy and Germany, that dominated Europe in the 1920s and '30s. Over the past seventy years, the left and their allies in the media have succeeded in labeling fascism as a right-wing or conservative philosophy when it in reality was an offshoot of socialism. As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalistic veneer.  In its day (the 1920's and 1930's), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and Marxism, with its violent socially divisive prosecution of the bourgeoisie. Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities.  Where socialism abolished money and prices; fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically.  [Emphasis added.] Under fascism, the state, through official agencies, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture.  Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission.  Levels of consumption were dictated by the state, and "excess" incomes had to be surrendered as taxes or "loans". To maintain high employment and minimize popular discontent, fascist governments also undertook massive public-works programs financed by steep taxes, borrowing and fiat money creation.  [Emphasis added.]  [American Thinker cont] 'fece-ists by any other name would smell like crap '.

McAssholes

McReason #792 to Nuke San Francisco Bans Happy Meals

From the fascists who routinely apply that appellation to everyone else.

When you drive with fascism ...

When You Drive a VOLT

two models to choose from TWO MODELS TO CHOOSE FROM News that Government Motors has introduced the VOLT electric car that will cost $41,000, and travel 40 miles on its battery charge, triggered thoughts of Al Gore, the Father of American Techno Fascism.  He must be humping a battery charger in his rented hotel room as we speak.  My yearning for some on-point didacticism led me to unearth this homage (ho-mazhhhh),  Al Gore's Fried Green Fascism.   You're welcome.

Stop Beck

What do you call political movements that silence opposition?

“ Nestle Confirms: No Ads On Glenn Beck’s Show Last week, advertisements for Nestle Purina Cat Chow began running on Glenn Beck’s show.  We were surprised that Nestle would be willing to associate any of its brands with Glenn Beck’s irresponsible vitriol. As usual, StopBeck participants reached out to Nestle for clarification and urged them to cease advertising on Glenn Beck’s show. The efforts paid off! Nestle confirmed that they do not advertise on Glenn Beck’s show; they advised that the ads were run in error and that the mistake has been corrected. Going forward don’t expect to see Nestle ads on Glenn Beck’s show. Nestle becomes another addition to the growing list of companies that refuse to support Glenn Beck’s vitriol with advertising dollars. Here are the statements Nestle posted on their Twitter page: ” Angelo Carusone is a New Yorker and currently a third-year law student living in Madison, Wisconsin. IOW, he's steeped in leftist ideology. He started his "Stop Beck" campaign last July because of "his concern that the Fox News talk show host and former morning zoo disc jockey "validates the opinions of those who might incite violence."  We assume Angelo meant violence to his leftist ideology, since there seems to be no other example to cite. In the past we've reported on similar decisions by Sargento Cheese, and UPS.  In the latter case, UPS backed off after getting earfuls from people who work for a living and, ergo, natural UPS customers.  I've included here a list of Nestle products.  Peruse it, associate those you're in the habit of buying with Obamunism, and consider alternative products next time you shop. I stopped buying Sargento cheese products, and can report that I've not suffered a bit.  Contact Nestle Here As always, keep the "fuck-yous" to a minimum, and convey your hostility to their support of this un-American effort like the ladies and gentlemen we are.

ABUELITA® BABY RUTH® BIT-O-HONEY® BUITONI® BUTTERFINGER® CARLOS V® CARNATION® Malted Milk CARNATION® Milks CHUNKY® CLASICO™ (soluble coffees from Mexico) COFFEE-MATE® CRUNCH® DIGIORNO® Dolce usto™ DREYER’S® DRUMSTICK® EDY’S® FROSTY PAWS® GOBSTOPPERS® GOOBERS® HÄAGEN-DAZS® Ice Cream HOT POCKETS® brand sandwiches JACK’S® JUICY JUICE® 100% fruit juices LA LECHERA® Sweetened Condensed Milk LAFFY TAFFY® LEAN CUISINE® LEAN POCKETS® brand sandwiches LIBBY'S® Pumpkin LIK-M-AID® Fun Dip MAGGI® Seasonings MAGGI® TASTE OF ASIA™ MILO® powdered beverage & ready-to-drink NERDS® NESCAFÉ® NESCAFÉ® Café con Leche NESQUIK® NESTEA® NESTLÉ® Delicias NESTLÉ® Hot Cocoa Mix NESTLÉ® MIlk Chocolate NIDO® NIPS® OH HENRY!® OOMPAS® PIXY STIX® PUSH-UP® RAISINETS® RUNTS® SNO-CAPS® SPREE® STOUFFER'S® SWEETARTS® TASTER'S CHOICE® THE SKINNY COW® TOLL HOUSE® Morsels & baking ingredients TOMBSTONE® WONKA® 100 GRAND®

Spot the fascist ...

Those who cannot learn from history ...

.. are prolly the only people getting any sleep these days.

Fourth Reich

Moonbattery

GM

Fascists tell producers what to make; Communists sieze production.

Which one governs us?

“ April 7, 2009 Coming Soon From Government Motors This is not a joke, but an actual product scheduled to be produced by the bloated farce that was once General Motors but has now been nationalized by the Obama regime: It's called a PUMA, which stands for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility. Top speed is 35 mph. No word on how much they'll cost, but don't worry, they'll be subsidized by the government, just like the UAW slackers who will make them during the brief gaps between their coffee breaks. ” Moonbattery continued ... (picture added)

Global Twats

Global warming "crisis" officially canceled

Doug Ross reports that the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change will be themed, "Global Warming Crisis: Cancelled," It has been canceled by sound science and common sense." I'd like to think that was the case, and maybe it is, but I think this battle, over political ideology [free markets v. the fascist/socialist model], is  won, and not by the Stars and Stripes.  Like it, or not, our gummint now controls the means of production. If Obama is elected, add your pension and bank account.

Fascism on the rise

Dingell Knows what's 'Fair'

From the people who call everyone else 'fascist' "Can you explain to me why a broadcaster ought not to have to be fair or would not be fair?" he said.