Slashdot Mirror

Given what most people today think they know about Fascism, this bare recital of facts is a mystery story. How can a movement which epitomizes the extreme right be so strongly rooted in the extreme left? What was going on in the minds of dedicated socialist militants to turn them into equally dedicated Fascist militants? The link above answers the story, but socialists that read it won't like it.

THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM-BENITO MUSSOLINI (1932)

Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State.

Now of all the players in American politics today, which group does this best describe?

Many times, I've had to ask myself: Has our world gone completely mad? Consider the people who called us racist simply for wanting to enforce our borders. Or the media that tried to convince us that Michelle Fields was actually assaulted. Or the special needs kid who was tortured on Facebook live and made to drink toilet water because he was a white Trump supporter. Or the protesters who planned an acid attack to stop a party and threw batteries and smoke bombs at the attendees. Who are the fascists again?

I'm not a fascist. I feel you don't know what fascism is. Here's a quick primer on fascism, extensively footnoted. It's a fascinating read, highly informative, and you can follow up by reading the books described in the references. Only anti-intellectuals refuse to learn.

"Conservatives are fascists!" - A person that does not know what fascists are. Or, perhaps even more prevalent, a person that does not know what conservatives are. Capitalism and Fascism are completely incompatible. Fascism is totalitarian and only cares about industry in so far that it serves the state - it will therefore never allow free innovation to meet public demand which is the cornerstone of Capitalism. There would be no equivalent of McDonald's, SpaceX, porn sites or surplus of bad airplane novels in a fascist state. You're just another troll, narcissist or blowhard whose arguments are fatally compromised by bad faith, petulance, intellectual laziness and blatant bigotry.

Sure! Here ya go: http://www.la-articles.org.uk/fascism.htm The history of fascism, extensively footnoted and annotated. Think about this: We know the name of the philosopher of capitalism, Adam Smith. We also know the name of the philosopher of Marxism, Karl Marx. So, quick: What is the name of the philosopher of fascism? Yes, exactly. You don't know. Virtually no one knows. This is not because he doesn't exist, but because the political left - which dominates academia, the media and Hollywood - had to get rid of him to avoid confronting fascism and Nazism's unavoidable leftist orientation.

So let's meet the man himself, Giovanni Gentile, who may be termed fascism's Karl Marx. Gentile was, in his day, which is the first half of the 20th century, considered one of Europe's leading philosophers. A student of Hegel and Bergson and director of the Encyclopedia Italiana, Gentile was not merely a widely published and widely influential thinker; he was also a political statesman who served in a variety of important government posts. How, then, has such a prominent and influential figure vanished into the mist of history?

For Gentile, people by themselves are too slothful and inert to form genuine communities by themselves; they have to be mobilized. Here, too, many modern progressives would agree. Speaking in terms with which both Obama and Hillary would sympathize, Gentile emphasized that leaders and organizers are needed to direct and channel the will of the people.

Gentile was, in fact, a lifelong socialist. Like Marx, he viewed socialism as the sine qua non of social justice, the ultimate formula for everyone paying their "fair share." For Gentile, fascism is nothing more than a modified form of socialism, a socialism arising not merely from material deprivation but also from an aroused national consciousness, a socialism that unites rather than divides communities.

Gentile's philosophy closely parallels that of the modern American left. Consider the slogan unveiled by Obama at the 2012 Democratic Convention: "Government is the only thing we all belong to." That apotheosis of the centralized state is utterly congruent with Gentile's thinking. Only Gentile would have provided a comprehensive philosophical defense that the Democrats didn't even attempt. In many respects, Gentile provides a deeper and firmer grounding for modern American progressivism than anyone writing today.

OK, nobody is saying to trust the media without independently researching their claims. We all know to think critically. I challenge you to do your own independent research about Giovanni Gentile, where he came from intellectually, and what he thought. This article would be a good start.

Stories are better, books are better, and movies are better if they cocked you off your axis and you were completely disoriented and you'd really have to rethink everything. You're about to embark on an educational odyssey that's going to challenge you deeply and make you question everything you ever learned. Good luck! It's not as common as it should be that independent thinkers are really challenged and forced outside their comfort zone.

It matters. People are doing research right now and what they're finding is astounding. We've been the victims of a 70 year old lie. I grew up thinking fascism was a right-wing ideology, but it turns out it was left-wing all along. No wonder the Left didn't want it on their side. It would pretty much permanently discredit anything they said, since what the fascists of the 1920s and 30s said sounds very much like what the Progressives of the 2010s say.

History of fascism.

Given what most people today think they know about Fascism, this bare recital of facts is a mystery story. How can a movement which epitomizes the extreme right be so strongly rooted in the extreme left? What was going on in the minds of dedicated socialist militants to turn them into equally dedicated Fascist militants?

So, honest question: what does your independent research into Giovanni Gentile reveal? I'd really like to know. You didn't attack any substance, just a "kill the messenger" fallacy.

CNN is fake news but publishes many true articles every day. Due to the constant "you're a fascist!" accusations from the Left every day, baffled conservatives are doing research into what the hell fascism is in the first place, since they are constantly unjustly accused of being it. Turns out, it wasn't right-wing at all. Mussolini started his career penniless with nothing but a cheap medallion of Karl Marx in his pocket. The truth is starting to come out.

One of the groups that most strongly supported fascism in Italy was the self-designated futurists. Led by Filippo Marinetti, the futurists championed fast cars and new technologies and viewed themselves as on the cutting edge both of the sciences and of art. This was the group that encouraged fascism and Nazism to use new advances in technology and up-to-date techniques of media and propaganda. Historian Zeev Sternhell concludes that far from being reactionary, "The conceptual framework of fascism was nonconformist, avant-garde, and revolutionary in character."

The fascists and the Nazis sought to create a new man and new utopia freed from the shackles of the old religion and old allegiances. The whole mood of fascism and Nazism was beautifully captured in the Nazi youth depicted in the movie Cabaret, who sings not about a lost past but rather that "tomorrow belongs to me." Fascism's appeal was, as both its critics and enthusiasts recognized at the time, more progressive and forward-looking than it was backward and reactionary.

History of fascism

The unique identification of many (soon to me most or all) inkjets and color lasers was not
done for you or me. It was done quietly for law enforcement to be able
to *find* the owner of any printed document.

The enormity of that type of underhanded removal of privacy is
just gobsmacking. And most vendors quietly went along with it.

This technology will no doubt be used in a similar vein - any
picture uploaded onto the internet can be traced back to *you*.

Freedom takes another blow.