Posted on 4/23/2003, 4:35:53 PM by Chancellor Palpatine
Fascism is a form of extreme right-wing ideology that celebrates the nation or the race as an organic community transcending all other loyalties. It emphasizes a myth of national or racial rebirth after a period of decline or destruction. To this end, fascism calls for a "spiritual revolution" against signs of moral decay such as individualism and materialism, and seeks to purge "alien" forces and groups that threaten the organic community. Fascism tends to celebrate masculinity, youth, mystical unity, and the regenerative power of violence. Often, but not always, it promotes racial superiority doctrines, ethnic persecution, imperialist expansion, and genocide. At the same time, fascists may embrace a form of internationalism based on either racial or ideological solidarity across national boundaries. Usually fascism espouses open male supremacy, though sometimes it may also promote female solidarity and new opportunities for women of the privileged nation or race.
Fascism's approach to politics is both populist--in that it seeks to activate "the people" as a whole against perceived oppressors or enemies--and elitist--in that it treats the people's will as embodied in a select group, or often one supreme leader, from whom authority proceeds downward. Fascism seeks to organize a cadre-led mass movement in a drive to seize state power. It seeks to forcibly subordinate all spheres of society to its ideological vision of organic community, usually through a totalitarian state. Both as a movement and a regime, fascism uses mass organizations as a system of integration and control, and uses organized violence to suppress opposition, although the scale of violence varies widely.
Fascism is hostile to Marxism, liberalism, and conservatism, yet it borrows concepts and practices from all three. Fascism rejects the principles of class struggle and workers' internationalism as threats to national or racial unity, yet it often exploits real grievances against capitalists and landowners through ethnic scapegoating or radical-sounding conspiracy theories. Fascism rejects the liberal doctrines of individual autonomy and rights, political pluralism, and representative government, yet it advocates broad popular participation in politics and may use parliamentary channels in its drive to power. Its vision of a "new order" clashes with the conservative attachment to tradition-based institutions and hierarchies, yet fascism often romanticizes the past as inspiration for national rebirth.
Fascism has a complex relationship with established elites and the non-fascist right. It is never a mere puppet of the ruling class, but an autonomous movement with its own social base. In practice, fascism defends capitalism against instability and the left, but also pursues an agenda that sometimes clashes with capitalist interests in significant ways. There has been much cooperation, competition, and interaction between fascism and other sections of the right, producing various hybrid movements and regimes.
Merriam Webster defines it thusly:1. often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
This was something from a noxious fascist apologetics site:
The charge that Fascism was coercive is one of those tragic misconceptions which only serves to illustrate the hatred and bitterness of those who despise the heroic and the visionary. The prattle about "dictatorship" emanates from people who prefer the cataleptic inertia of social democracy in contrast to the dynamic will to action of the Fascist temperament. The term "dictatorship" is not always synonymous with coercion. By his use of the word "dictatorship" Mosley interpreted this as "leadership" and in the nineteen thirties he explained, "Fascism is not dictatorship in the old sense of that word, which implies government against the will of the people. Fascism is dictatorship in the modern sense of the word, which implies government armed by the people with power to solve problems which the people are determined to overcome'. In order to function and work Fascism depended on the will of the people; without that will there would be no Organic Nation. In this context Fascism deviated from Left Socialism in that the essence of Fascist action was based on leadership and initiative and, in practice, was seen to be the leadership of the people with their popular consent. It had nothing to do with the stifling controls of Socialism in this respect, rather Fascism tended to lead and only intervene when any section threatened the interests of the organic whole.
The tragedy of Fascism was that it was not given a chance to blossom. A second disastrous war with all the hysteria and propaganda blurred a lot of the truth. Fascism should be remembered for its dynamism, its heroism and its vision during a time when something new was desperately needed to save man from self destruction. Fascism faced the facts of the pre-war world; and now we face the facts of a world which has changed so rapidly. What new force for the future can inspire hope in the same way that Fascism did so many years ago?
Right-wing, yet opposed to individualism and materialism?? It's the Left-wing that believes in class identity and which focuses on non-material wishes and desires for a future utopia.
Most famous Fascist: Adolf Hitler, leader of German National Socialism. You know, the German Workers Party. Right-wing? Don't think so.
Look at the things that Pat Buchanan says - one minute he is talking out of the farthest left hand corners of his mouth on protectionism for unions, and the next minute, he is talking out of the farthest right hand corners of his mouth on issues of culture. Meanwhile, he is utterly consistent on a few issues only. First, he has utter disdain and scorn for normal conservatives and their views of economic expansion and the preservation of a peaceful atmosphere for trade - especially when they turn out to be successful and correct. Second, he identifies his main scapegoats - Hispanic immigrants and Jews, blaming them for all social ills. To listen to him, you get the consistent message that no normal white guy would follow a neocon line were it not for the manipulation by "those groups". Finally, he idealizes Northern European heritage and culture among all others.
Our present conflict is with terrorists and political systems which produce international chaos. Who cares whether we can distort old definitions sufficiently to wrap around our current adversaries? No matter what we call them, we gotta beat them.
A flawed Phoenix.
I agree. I'd argue that it's very left wing. However, leftwingers like to call conservatives "fascists" (apparently not understanding what fascism is, at all), so it does carry a rightwing connotation.
Characterizing fascism as rightwing is only important to communists wishing to deflect from their failed ideology. Fascism is rightwing only to communists who benefit from the distinction and to those who haven't given the idea a second thought.
AND the trains ran on time. ;-)
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