There are No Communists - but a Heck of a lot of Fascists in Congress!

[keyser soze]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCm95lwWh8c

Representative Allen West says there are 80 or so Communists that have taken over Congress. And - while he's wrong about Communists in Congress - he's not far off when it comes to other radicals in Congress.

[Chris]

Liberal Fascists, you mean?

[ramone]

Didn't read it since they are on my ignore list. The title alone is enough to make me laugh out loud.

[Mainecoons]

Not surprising, since liberalism and fascism share so many things in common. Like Eugenics, use of government to control speech and thought, corporatism. And Keyser, you clearly have a problem confusing op ed with fact. :grin:

[Peter1469]

Fascist are creatures of the left. Enjoy them.

[Mister D]

Fascist are creatures of the left. Enjoy them.

In the American context I fully agree with that and I suppose that's all that matter sin this case. The idea that classical liberals are fascists is preposterous.

[keyser soze]

Well there you have it folks...the intellect of the right.... :rofl: it would be unbelievable if it weren't so predictable... amazing.

[Mainecoons]

Yep, it does take a little intellect to understand the difference between opinion and fact. I guess you just don't even have a little intellect.

:grin:

[Peter1469]

Well there you have it folks...the intellect of the right.... :rofl: it would be unbelievable if it weren't so predictable... amazing.

Name me one fascist who champions for limited government.....

[keyser soze]

The right has shown itself to be completely adrift when it comes to understanding the terms they throw around. If you bother to watch the video it's explained very well.

[Chris]

Well there you have it folks...the intellect of the right.... :rofl: it would be unbelievable if it weren't so predictable... amazing.

No better argument than that weak ad hom?

Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt: What FDR had in common with the other charismatic collectivists of the 30s (http://reason.com/archives/2007/09/28/hitler-mussolini-roosevelt): "Roosevelt himself called Mussolini “admirable” and professed that he was “deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.”"

Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt: What FDR had in common with them (http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/hitler-mussolini-roosevelt-what-fdr-had-in-common-with-them/blog-154753/): " "'I don't mind telling you in confidence,' FDR remarked to a White House correspondent, 'that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.'"(p.31). Rexford Tugwell, a leading adviser to the president, had difficulty containing his enthusiasm for Mussolini's program to modernize Italy: "It's the cleanest. . .most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I've ever seen. It makes me envious.""

[keyser soze]

When you take the time to watch the video then you might have something to add to the discussion but you aren't interested enough to educate yourself on what fascism is...and what our stance as a nation has been traditionally regarding it. FDR's vice president is one of the subjects of the video...

[ramone]

No better argument than that weak ad hom?

Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt: What FDR had in common with the other charismatic collectivists of the 30s (http://reason.com/archives/2007/09/28/hitler-mussolini-roosevelt): "Roosevelt himself called Mussolini “admirable” and professed that he was “deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.”"

Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt: What FDR had in common with them (http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/hitler-mussolini-roosevelt-what-fdr-had-in-common-with-them/blog-154753/): " "'I don't mind telling you in confidence,' FDR remarked to a White House correspondent, 'that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.'"(p.31). Rexford Tugwell, a leading adviser to the president, had difficulty containing his enthusiasm for Mussolini's program to modernize Italy: "It's the cleanest. . .most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I've ever seen. It makes me envious.""

It's a progression, Democracy, socialism, and the next step the average liberal doesn't seem to understand is totalitarianism. Possibly they do but it doesn't end there.........the final leap is authoritarianism and this is what narcissist like Obama strive for. Complete control by dictatorship.

[Peter1469]

The right has shown itself to be completely adrift when it comes to understanding the terms they throw around. If you bother to watch the video it's explained very well.

You just don't understand the modern American left-right political spectrum. You are using one that is more suitable to the European political system, or even the one that applied to the Enlightenment when conservatives were the ones who wished to preserve the old order (monarchy) and the left wanted democracy.

Today in America it is the right (sans social cons) that wish more freedom and representative democracy and it is the left that want more government controls rather than less.

So if you insist on using your left right slide, you need to place yourself on the right and me on the left.

[keyser soze]

You just don't understand the modern American left-right political spectrum. You are using one that is more suitable to the European political system, or even the one that applied to the Enlightenment when conservatives were the ones who wished to preserve the old order (monarchy) and the left wanted democracy.

Today in America it is the right (sans social cons) that wish more freedom and representative democracy and it is the left that want more government controls rather than less.

So if you insist on using your left right slide, you need to place yourself on the right and me on the left.
I really thought you had more on the ball than this. Are you serious? Did you listen to the OP?

[Peter1469]

Almost everything presented as "fact" in the video is either completely incorrect or tainted and misleading.

[keyser soze]

Really? Maybe you'll educate us on the facts as related to the video....

[Chris]

When you take the time to watch the video then you might have something to add to the discussion but you aren't interested enough to educate yourself on what fascism is...and what our stance as a nation has been traditionally regarding it. FDR's vice president is one of the subjects of the video...

Why don't you, soze, try to educate us what fascism is, what the video is about, its facts and falsities? All I see is you issuing cat calls from the peanut gallery. Get down on the floor here and state your piece.

[ramone]

Why don't you, soze, try to educate us what fascism is, what the video is about, its facts and falsities? All I see is you issuing cat calls from the peanut gallery. Get down on the floor here and state your piece.

It's hard for somebody to educate when they don't have a clue as to what they speak of Chris. This seems to be the case here.

[Alias]

Really? Maybe you'll educate us on the facts as related to the video....

The facts are we have Marxists in the US Government who hold elected office and appointed positions.

[Alias]

According to a lefty, a "fascist" is anyone who your emotions tell you is a "fascist". We know a "fascist" is evil and we know all those who oppose the left is evil. Very simple stuff here.

[ramone]

I had a picture taken for my new drivers license and when I looked at it I had horns and a big red face. Didn't get the big ass hand and tail though. Wonder why, guess I'm not pure evil. LOL

[spunkloaf]

Fascist are creatures of the left. Enjoy them.

That statement is abominable.

[spunkloaf]

According to a lefty, a "fascist" is anyone who your emotions tell you is a "fascist". We know a "fascist" is evil and we know all those who oppose the left is evil. Very simple stuff here.

Are you ever going to try and have an intelligent conversation? You don't want to debate anything, you just want to piss off your opposition and throw angry comments around.

If that's your choice, that's your choice. I have a feeling you'd want to be more involved than that though.

[wingrider]

That statement is abominable.
is that like a Yeti, or one of those snow creatures in the Himalayas?

[Peter1469]

That statement is abominable.


Don't worry Spunk, not your type of left. Just the type that runs the Dem party.

[spunkloaf]

Don't worry Spunk, not your type of left. Just the type that runs the Dem party.

Just sayin. I know people CRINGE upon being politically correct, but if there is one thing that absolutely requires it, it's when they generalize groups of different political thinkers.

[Alias]

Are you ever going to try and have an intelligent conversation? You don't want to debate anything, you just want to piss off your opposition and throw angry comments around.

If that's your choice, that's your choice. I have a feeling you'd want to be more involved than that though.

I would love to have an intelligent conversation. When I come across one, I'll jump in.

[Alias]

Just sayin. I know people CRINGE upon being politically correct, but if there is one thing that absolutely requires it, it's when they generalize groups of different political thinkers.

Perhaps I would be more accurate if I used the term "moonbat". A moonbat is a lefty who doesn't think, but just spews propaganda.

[spunkloaf]

I would love to have an intelligent conversation. When I come across one, I'll jump in.

Start one then, I'll debate with you.

[spunkloaf]

Perhaps I would be more accurate if I used the term "moonbat". A moonbat is a lefty who doesn't think, but just spews propaganda.

Sure...just don't confuse me and say "LEFTY moonbats" because it will throw me off and defeat the purpose.

[Chris]

Friedrich August von Hayek, Nazism is Socialism (http://www.brookesnews.com/091910hayeknazis.html), published in the spring of 1933:
Incomprehensible as the recent events in Germany must seem to anyone who has known that country chiefly in the democratic post-war years, any attempt fully to understand these developments must treat them as the culmination of tendencies which date back to a period long before the Great War. Nothing could be more superficial than to consider the forces which dominate the Germany of today as reactionary in the sense that they want a return to the social and economic order of 1914.

The persecution of the Marxists, and of democrats in general, tends to obscure the fundamental fact that National "Socialism" is a genuine socialist movement, whose leading ideas are the final fruit of the anti-liberal tendencies which have been steadily gaining ground in Germany since the later part of the Bismarckian era, and which led the majority of the German intelligentsia first to "socialism of the chair" and later to Marxism in its social-democratic or communist form....

If you read John T. Flynn's 1944 As We Go Marching about the rise of Mussolini in Italy you get that same story of socialism culminating in fascism.

[Peter1469]

Friedrich August von Hayek, Nazism is Socialism (http://www.brookesnews.com/091910hayeknazis.html), published in the spring of 1933:

If you read John T. Flynn's 1944 As We Go Marching about the rise of Mussolini in Italy you get that same story of socialism culminating in fascism.

It is always amusing to see creatures of the left claim that fascism is on the right.

[spunkloaf]

It is always amusing to see creatures of the left claim that fascism is on the right.

If FOX was not around, I'm sure people would say that less.

[Peter1469]

If FOX was not around, I'm sure people would say that less.

Not really relevant. I hear people say stupid things every day without Fox being involved.

Fascists are statists. That is left.

A citizen making under 10,000 a year would not know any difference in his life living under fascism or communism or socialism.

That citizen would have a very different experience living in a free society.

Think before you respond, or you may prove my point without intending to.

[keyser soze]

Fascism by definition is corporatism and now more than ever that's America...look at the policies being promoted and put into practice. I laugh when I see someone claim that fascism is leftist it's too ignorant to respond to. I have yet to see anyone back up the claim, historically or otherwise. I doubt anyone here even watched the video.

Who would think fascism is left? The same ones that throw everything against the wall in an effort to find something, anything that will stick. That isn't a discussion or an argument. History doesn't count only revisionist history promoted by propagandists with a mission. Dumb down the American public as fast as possible. Good luck with that...

Jonah Goldberg's 'Liberal Fascism' fraud is now right-wing conventional wisdo (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/jonah-goldbergs-liberal-fascism-frau)m


Video....


One of the hallmarks of the American right's utter descent into complete wingnuttery is the increasing willingness of its footsoldiers to buy into palpably, provably false nonsense and embrace it as fact. This ranges from the Birthers' insistence that Barack Obama hasn't produced a birth certificate to the teabaggers' claims that health-care reform means we'll be euthanizing senior citizens.
One of the most persistent components of this is the right's ardent embrace of the fraudulent thesis of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism (http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/01/liberal-fascism-response.html) -- to wit, that "properly understood, fascism is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left." The embrace of this fraud as somehow truthful has produced those teabaggers' signs bearing swastikas (suggesting that health-care reform is fascist) and signs showing Barack Obama as Hitler and, moreover, the claims that Obama is marching the nation down the road to fascism.

It's been particularly embraced by movement conservatives in their efforts to whitewash from public view (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/conservatives-are-trying-whitewash-f)the existence of right-wing extremists (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/right-wings-are-always-eager-dismiss) among their ranks.

The impact of this embrace on our national discourse has been deeper than probably anyone suspected when the book was first published last year. Not only is Goldberg's thesis now taken as an article of faith by such right-wing talkers as Rush Limbaugh (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/rush-limbaugh-has-his-fascism-all-ba) (who probably helped inspire Goldberg's thesis in any event), Glenn Beck, (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/projection-much-glenn-beck-warns-fas) Michael Savage, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mvyTETsQ90), but also among the teabagging protesters (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/emerging-right-wing-narrative-obama) whose ranks are increasingly filled byreal right-wing extremists. (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/tea-parties-lose-steam-fringe-conspi)

What's most noteworthy, perhaps, is that Goldberg's thesis is being used to attack anyone who points out the frequently violent and intimidating behavior of these extremists. It's not the right-wing protesters carrying open weapons, Obama=Hitler signs, and openly disrupting the discussion of health-care reform at town-hall sessions who are behaving like Brownshirts, they insist -- it's the liberals who show enough nerve to stand up to them!

We saw this a couple of weeks ago here in western Washington, where Rep. Brian Baird -- who had decried the ugly nature of the town-hall disruptions (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/brown-shirts-town-hall-teabaggers-ra) by in fact comparing some of these extremists to "Brownshirts," and then appearing on the Rachel Maddow show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k9P0N1bSgo), where he compared them to Timothy McVeigh -- was attacked at his town-hall meeting on health care by a former Marine named David Hedrick who accused Baird and House Speaker of Nancy Pelosi of being the real Nazis.

Of course, this ensured him a guest slot on Fox News, and so Hedrick shortly thereafter appeared on Sean Hannity's program to explain his thinking. As you can see, he has absorbed and swallowed Goldberg's thesis whole:
Hannity: I read that one of the main reasons that you wanted to be there is because Congressman Baird had used the term "Brownshirts" to describe people showing up at the town halls. You confronted him on that. What happened?

Hedrick: I did confront him on that, and I don't think it's acceptable language that he is, you know, comparing us to Nazis. And it's -- Pelosi did this, he did this, now he's compared us to McVeigh, and talked about bombings there. And, uh, basically I called him on it, I said, 'You know what? If you want to call us Nazis, let's look at the Nazi doctrine. Let's look at National Socialism. And what is National Socialism? Since you let the cat out of the bag, we'll talk about it.

National Socialism is very much what we see today in this administration. It's a policy on what's line for line -- it's the same economic policy, it's the same political policy. And so if they want to talk about Nazis, then they better be careful about that conversation, because they might find that the swastika is on their own arm.

Of course, a little context for what provoked Hedrick's outrage might be useful. When Baird made his "Brownshirts" and "McVeigh" remarks, (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/brown-shirts-town-hall-teabaggers-ra) he clearly was referring to some of the tactics being used by some of the teabaggers. What he made clear shortly afterward (http://www.columbian.com/article/20090821/NEWS02/708219953/) was that in fact he and his office had been threatened by some of these teabaggers, who faxed death threats and made them by phone as well. One phone message from Aug. 10 said "You think Timothy McVeigh was bad, there is a Ryder Truck out there with your name on it" (according to Baird’s Vancouver district director).

Those are, indeed, classically fascist attempts at political intimidation. Not only was Baird right, but Hedrick's claim about "the real Nazis" is incredibly obtuse for someone from the Pacific Northwest.

read the rest here
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/jonah-goldbergs-liberal-fascism-frau


This is what happens to your brain when you watch and believe Fox News...it's worse than drugs.


But this is palpable nonsense. What makes these people right-wing extremists is that they not only adoptright-wing political positions, they take them to their most extreme logical (if that's the word for it) outcome:

They not only oppose abortion, they believe abortion providers should be killed.
They not only believe that liberal elites control the media and financial institutions, but that a conniving cabal of Jews is at the heart of this conspiracy to destroy America.
They not only despise Big Government, they believe it is part of a New World Order plot to enslave us all.
They not only defend gun rights avidly, they stockpile them out of fear that President Obama plans to send in U.N. troops to take them away from citizens.
They not only oppose homosexuality as immoral, they believe gays and lesbians deserve the death penalty.
They not only oppose civil-rights advances for minorities, they also believe a "race war" is imminent, necessary and desirable.
And on and on. Every part of the agenda of the agenda of right-wing extremists is essentially an extreme expression of conservative positions. And that, fundamentally, is why American fascism always has been and always will be, properly understood, an unmistakable phenomenon of the Right.

Of course, that's only the tip of the iceberg for what's wrong with the whole "liberal fascism" thesis. (http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/01/liberal-fascism-response.html) As Iexplored in some detail more recently, (http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2009/06/fascism-is-not-liberal-profound.html) the historical record itself unequivocally repudiates Goldberg's thesis.

Now, Goldberg has tossed some sneering bon mots my way (in his book, I'm merely the "always comically inept David Neiwart [sic] at Crooks and Liars" (http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmVhMjRmM2JiNGI0NmQzYjM4ODRkNjA4NzkxOWQ2OGY=) (ahem), but he has never addressed this point, which I've raised numerous times. (http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/01/liberal-fascism-response.html) Goldberg tosses all kinds of anecdotal evidence our way in support of his fraudulent thesis, but he refuses to come clean on the bottom line: The historical record is irrevocably clear that fascism, not just in Germany and Italy but also in America, has always been a phenomenon of the Right.

He's not only profoundly misleading large numbers of the American reading public, he is in the process misshaping our national discourse. Because when large numbers of people believe crap that is simply and provably false, not only is our resulting discourse deeply irrational, but so are the democratic outcomes.

[Chris]

"Fascism by definition is corporatism and now more than ever that's America."

Agree, and that's what Mussolini called it as well.

And what is corporatism but the collusion of government and business, the corrupt exchange of power and money.

And who is growing government, not the right, the left.


Goldberg's Liberal Fascism is founded on historical facts. I understand why you would like to consider it fraud, but you need historical facts to show that, not leftist opinions that merely agree with your opinion.

[Peter1469]

Fascism in practice was not corporatism. In 1930s Europe if a corporate leader didn't toe the government line he was disappeared. Not really an equal player at the big-boy table.

What America is living in today is corporatism and not Fascism.

[keyser soze]

Corporatism is fascism...duh...it's explained in the video...really, you should watch it. I doubt a few minutes of exposure to reality would make any lasting impression on your mind so you'd be safe.

[Peter1469]

Corporatism is fascism...duh...it's explained in the video...really, you should watch it. I doubt a few minutes of exposure to reality would make any lasting impression on your mind so you'd be safe.


I watched it, and I identified the error that eluded you: corporatism isn't fascism. In a true fascist government if the CEO of ABC corp told the Great Leader that he was wrong, the CEO of ABC corp would be fed feet first through a wood chipper. In corporatism the CEOs of major corporations use politicians like cheap whores.

Understand the difference?

[keyser soze]

No...first you tried to say it was liberals...now you change your noise but it's still fascism and it's still coming from the right.

[Chris]

Fascism in practice was not corporatism. In 1930s Europe if a corporate leader didn't toe the government line he was disappeared. Not really an equal player at the big-boy table.

What America is living in today is corporatism and not Fascism.

Right, the government had final say.

[Chris]

No...first you tried to say it was liberals...now you change your noise but it's still fascism and it's still coming from the right.

It was liberals, soze, and that's documented in the words of FDR and his fellow travelers. You've done nothing to show it's from the right, nothing at all.

[Peter1469]

No...first you tried to say it was liberals...now you change your noise but it's still fascism and it's still coming from the right.

Left = state control

Right = liberty.

[Mister D]

Corporatism is fascism...duh...it's explained in the video...really, you should watch it. I doubt a few minutes of exposure to reality would make any lasting impression on your mind so you'd be safe.

:smiley_ROFLMAO: But the guy in the video said so!