In JFK's own book, the post-war diary of John F. Kennedy, as quoted in Prelude to Leadership (pages 73-74, last two paragraphs).
Posted on 05/24/2013 5:43:41 AM PDT by US Navy Vet
Fascism is not “rightwing” by any stretch of the imagination the way it is used in this country.
Let’s try to keep to American definitions then, unless you are trying to confuse the issue?
We all know that “conservative” and “rightwing” mean very different things in other parts of the world than it does here.
Using the American definition, FASCISM is a leftist ideology
people like hitler and stalin and mao don’t one day get up and say “Hey I am going to seize power and kill millions of people.
They surround themselves with like-minded individuals and grow a power base, bit by bit, until it is too late.
And one of the ways is by getting people into positions of power in education and military and government, who then only hire more like-minded, who suppress opposition (like with the IRS), and who eventually think its OK to ‘eliminate’ millions to achieve their agenda.
Like Bill Ayers. Like the duhmmies at Democrat Underground Like those with the homo-promoting agenda in the military. Like professors in universities.
ALL libtards with no moral compass, except the belief in their own mind that they can kill you, or others like you, for your own good.
And they do it with a clean conscience (such that it is) because they think they are so much more enlightened and better than you. If the Obamanuts were spying on FOX news instead of AP they would have been cheering.
And that's true. Go back to Napoleon, say. Right or left? Peron? Mussolini himself, who started out as a socialist? Stalin in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945? Of course over time on the internet ideas and distinctions get blurred and become cruder, but there's a kernel of truth in what Goldberg wrote.
“because they both use bombs and kill people.”
No, but somehow their policies and programs and ideology kills people regardless of their targeted intentions. Makes no difference to me what side they take in a civil war, nor would I expect opposing forces to take the same side.
Do you really think it would make any difference to the average Cuban if Castro was a Fascist or a Communist ?
Look I agree Fascism and Communism have separate roots. Fascism’s formations stem from Bismarck. Societies have experimented in communal living for centuries. The Pilgrims even tried it without success. However, I see little difference in the outcomes. Soviet Russia was never classless. Party members still had their dachas.
Is Fascism a right wing extreme ideology solely because it is nationalistic? And Communism is left wing because it seeks global power? The end point is still statist socialism or worse.
It seems to me your distinction between Fascism and Communism is one of class divisions. Fascism = Industrialists. Communism = Unions. So what does that make Obama with his unholy trinity of Wall Street, crony capitalism, and union bosses?
I never said Goldberg was a historian. But Liberal Fascism is a muscular tome for the armchair historian and low information voter. And you are correct. He is no Russell Kirk.
And one of JFK’s relatives returned from a trip to the USSR and said, “I have seen the future and it works.” Thanks US Navy Vet.
“Then why did the crowd start laughing?”
They didn’t. Show me a video where I am wrong. You guys are so intent on finding errors where there are none. That was a great moment for the US and I am not sure why the jelly doughnut fallacy needs to be held on to so tightly.
It's not as if the JFK diaries from that trip have just been released recently. They have been available to researchers for decades, as seen by the extensive quoting from them in Nigel Hamilton's "JFK: Restless Youth," published in paperback edition in 1992. The 1937 trip to Nazi Germany is covered in the book and there is no quotation of any kind to indicate that JFK was impressed with the Nazi regime.
The author, by contrast, does not soft-peddle Joe Kennedy's (JFK's father's) admiration for the Nazis during the same time frame. (Joseph Kennedy was US Ambassador to the UK at the time.)
Been looking, but can't find it.
"Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived... He had a mystery about him in the way that he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him. He had in him the stuff of which legends are made."
- John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America
The Post-War diary of John F. Kennedy, as quoted in Prelude to Leadership (pages 73-74, last two paragraphs).
Would not have worked. Another would have risen up in his place, using the assassinated would-be tyrant as a martyr figure.
Do you know when and what context that quote was made? Saying that Hitler “had some mystery about him in the way that he lived and the way that he died” isn’t effusive praise for Hitler, but kind of a neutral statement in and of itself.
To the guy cutting sugarcane, probably not. To the small business owner or the farmer who owns his own land, there would be a big difference. The Communists would seize and redistribute the property, Fascists would not under most circumstances.
Look I agree Fascism and Communism have separate roots. Fascism’s formations stem from Bismarck. Societies have experimented in communal living for centuries. The Pilgrims even tried it without success. However, I see little difference in the outcomes. Soviet Russia was never classless. Party members still had their dachas.
I just find the whole "individualism = rightwing" and "collectivism = leftwing" to be an extremely simplistic and inaccurate way of describing the political spectrum. The military is obviously a "collectivist" institution in which individualism is stamped out, especially in the Marine Corps. The same is true of traditional Catholicism. Does this make the military or the Pre-Vatican II Catholic Church inherently left-wing institutions?
Is Fascism a right wing extreme ideology solely because it is nationalistic? And Communism is left wing because it seeks global power?
The Left both in America and abroad is militantly opposed to nationalism and ethno-centrism, at least when it's practiced by white Europeans, so on those grounds yes.
It seems to me your distinction between Fascism and Communism is one of class divisions. Fascism = Industrialists. Communism = Labor Unions
Whose political and economic interests you support basically defines the ideological spectrum. That's been my point all along, that by the traditional definitions of conservative/radical or right/left wing, the right supports the interests of those with property and power, the left wants to overthrow them and redistribute it. So by this definition (the dictionary and textbook one, however unsuitable it may be for Goldberg's bumper sticker slogans), Communism was Left and Fascism was right wing.
Communism = Unions. So what does that make Obama with his unholy trinity of Wall Street, crony capitalism, and union bosses?
You raise an interesting point here, and it's not unique to Obama. He's simply carrying on the path of "third way" types like Clinton and Blair, who managed to appeal to both corporate fat cats and to labor unions. And how would you classify the mainstream GOP today, who talk the good talk about free markets but in practice usually opt for crony capitalism? I've heard the term "radical centrism" being used for the former, in that it combines a mixed economy with social radicalism, while the brand of cronyism under Bush looks more like the patron model in Latin American banana republics. All of which shows that the ideological spectrum is a lot more complex than the simplistic view peddled in Liberal Fascism.
I never said Goldberg was a historian. But Liberal Fascism is a muscular tome for the armchair historian and low information voter. And you are correct. He is no Russell Kirk.
One of the things that makes leftism ultimately bankrupt is that its proponents use cliches, catch-words, name-calling, and slogans instead of thought and analysis. Contrast the juvenile radicals of the 60's with their slogans to the National Review right. It's disheartening to see today's "McConservatism" reverse this direction.
In JFK's own book, the post-war diary of John F. Kennedy, as quoted in Prelude to Leadership (pages 73-74, last two paragraphs).
Dunno ‘bout JFK, but it would not be a surprise.
However, I do know that JFK was transferred from a diplomatic post the UK because he was boffing a German spy. Guy had no discretion or restraint.
That quote is attributed to early twentieth century "muckraker" Lincoln Steffens, who, in all probability, was not related to JFK.
A lot of American (and western European) intellectuals traveled to the Soviet Union in the decade following the Bolshevik Revolution and were hoodwinked by the propaganda spewed by their communist hosts.
I recall "Profiles in Courage" and "While England Slept" but no other books written by him.
That is one of the great paradox questions.
Most people would assume that had you assassinated Hitler prior to WW2, that you would go down in history as the greatest hero of all time who saved tens of millions of lives.
But the far likelier reality is that you would go down in history as an evil villain - just another assassin of a world leader.
So instead of being known as the man who prevented the Holocaust and WW2, you'd be lumped in with the John Wilkes Booths and Harvey Oswalds of the world.
How do we know this isn’t just another tactic to smear conservatives?
Thanks, that’s the guy. I think I read the anecdote about him in a *biography* of JFK. :’)
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