THE AMERICAN ROOTS OF FASCISM

The American "Progressives" were the first Fascists of the 20th century

"Fascism" is a term that was originally coined by the Italian dictator Mussolini to describe his adaptation of Marxism to the conditions of Italy after World War I. Lenin in Russia made somewhat different adaptations of Marxism to the conditions in Russia during the same period and his adaptations came to be called Marxism/Leninism. Mussolini stayed closer to Marx in that he felt that Italy had to go through a capitalist stage before it could reach socialism whereas Lenin attempted to push Russia straight from feudalism into socialism. Mussolini's principal modification of Marxism was his rejection of the notion of class war, something that put him decisively at odds with Lenin's "Reds".

If the term "Fascism" means anything of itself it means "Groupism" -- as the fasci of Italy at the time were simply groups of political activists. The fasces of ancient Roman times were of course the bundles of rods carried by the lictors to symbolize the great strength of the organized Roman people. The idea again was that people were stronger in groups than as individuals.

Mussolini's ideas and system were very influential and he had many imitators -- not the least of which was Adolf Hitler -- and some even survived World War II -- such as Peron and Chiang Kai Shek. I have set out at length elsewhere what Mussolini's Italian Fascism was all about so I will simply summarize here by saying that Fascism was a nationalist form of extreme socialism whereas Trotskyism was/is a internationalist form of extreme socialism and Leninism was somewhere in between.

So was Mussolini a totally original thinker? Not at all. Students of ancient history see Sparta as the first Fascist State and students of Marx identify Fascism with Bonapartism -- the type of regime devised by Napoleon Bonaparte and revived by his nephew Napoleon III. But Mussolini was quite intellectual and his thinking was in fact much more up-to-date than that would suggest. He was certainly influenced by Marx and the ancient world but he had a whole range of ideas that extended beyond that. And where did he turn for up-to-date ideas? To America, of course! And the American ideas that influenced him were in fact hard to miss. They were the ideas of the American "Progressives". And who was the best known Progressive in the world at that time? None other than the President of the United States -- Woodrow Wilson -- the man who was most responsible for the postwar order in Europe. So Mussolini had to do little more than read his newspapers to hear at least some things about the ideas of the American Progressives.

And what those ideas were is pretty amazing. "Progressive" was the label favoured by the American Left of the day -- as it still is -- and yet they believed in such things as war being a purifying force, the subjugation of democracy to elite leadership, book-burning, stiff-arm salutes, loyalty oaths, flag ceremonies, the inferiority of blacks and Jews and, of course eugenics. And who said this: "Conformity will be the only virtue and any man who refuses to conform will have to pay the penalty." It could easily have been Mussolini or Hitler but it was in fact Woodrow Wilson.

So 20th century Fascism was in fact an American invention, or more precisely an invention of the American Left. Like many American ideas to this day, however, it proved immensely popular in Europe and it was only in Europe that it was put fully into practice. As it does today, American conservatism kept the American Left in some check in the first half of the 20th century so it was only in Europe that their ideas could come into full bloom. For documentation of the many surprising statements I have just made, see an expanded version of this post here (extra copies here and here) and for deep background on the Progressives see this essay on Croly, one of the leading lights of Progressivism. Note the agony caused to Croly by the need to keep within democracy.

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ELSEWHERE

There is a good summary here of Australian attitudes to their alliance with America. Formal alliances in the form of treaties and other bits of paper have a history of worthlessness. It is alliances that spring from the heart that matter.

Groan! Is nothing sacred? I have just found a spelling mistake in the Times of London. In this story, they say "complementary" when they mean "complimentary". Both are proper words so a spellchecker could not have caught the mistake. It certainly confirms the decline of British education.

There is an interesting post here that suggests a "third way" between the present futile "war on drugs" and complete drug legalization: He suggests that a big research effort be put into finding and selling non-addictive and non-harmful alternatives to the current "pleasure drugs". Maybe it is indeed time to look at that again -- despite the fact that heroin originated in exactly that way: It was originally devised and promoted as a non-addictive alternative to morphine!

Dick McDonald has an extremely good point about the way the new Democrat leader in the Senate has denigrated Justice Thomas. If any Republican had said the same there would be banner headlines calling for his resignation on every newspaper in the country.

Capitalism strikes a blow against media bias: "Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation's largest radio station operator, has selected Fox News Radio to provide national news for most of its news and talk stations in deal expected to nearly double Fox's radio presence. No terms of the five-year cash deal were disclosed Monday. But Fox, a unit of News Corp., says if all options in the agreement are exercised, its radio service could have more than 500 affiliates by the middle of next year".

Anti-Bush demonstrators observed: "What we see ... is an almost pure fanaticism -- that radical spirit of alienation that ultimately motivates the Jihadis, too. This nihilism is the splinter in the heart of our modernity; it rejects everything; it proposes, finally, nothing in its place. It is the devil himself speaking out of his void.... To understand it, we must look into the very faces contorted with rage, and the mouths uttering the vilest obscenities. The evil is not coming from outside them: it is instead welling from the void within. And yet the tragedy of these people -- whose fanaticism puts them beyond the pale of give-and-take in party politics, and whose views, should they spread, would take the whole democratic order down with them -- is that they know even less about themselves than they know about the world they condemn. They are angry, but finally they don't know why. They don't believe in evil, as a category; yet it haunts them externally on every side: "Bush" being only the straw man of the moment.... They see evil everywhere. They rail, and they rail."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They put up a man whose policies seemed to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though the Left have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

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