1944? 1954? 1984.

Recently I asked a question of a prolific right-wing blogger and active member of ScaifeNet. In his normal Orwellian way, Mitch Berg attempted to turn the world 180 degrees upside down and declare truth to be lies, and lies to be truth.

I asked, "What would you categorize Rush Limbaugh as, who claims Naziism to be a liberal/leftist movement, because (to quote) “after all, it has Socialism in the name.”? This was in reply to Berg's complaint that others, including those on the left, compare right-wing extremism to fascism - and he doesn't like it.

His reply was, "It’s an oversimplification, but there’s a lot of truth to it. Hitler admired the way Lenin seized control of society, and used many of Lenin’s methods. He saw the need to totally subsume society in his ideology"

And my reaction is this; No, there's damned little truth in it outside the fact that each was a totalitarian - Stalin would be closer to Hitler anyway, than Lenin. Such an analogy, however, is extraodinarily simplistic and immature. It is wilfully changing the discussion to Totalitarianism, and then saying liberalism is passingly familiar with socialism so therefore, as Lenin was a communist - and could be calledd a socialist, and communism is totalitarian, ipso facto, liberalism is facism. Utter, commplete, nonsense. First, Lenin was far more committed to communism than socialims, meaning, while he embraced (kinda) the idea of egalitarian economics, he FAR MORE embraced (and Stalin even moreso) the ideals of extremist power grabbing, there is NO relationshp between THAT and liberalism OR socialims. Both of those economic/ethical ideals embrace the ideal of NOT ACCEPTING TOTALITARIANISM - unlike right wing extremism, which mouths equality, but supports the suspension of rights like habeaus corpus.

Further, all totalitarians use scape-goats and half-truths to assume power, and nearly always come out of near anarchy as a precedent (including civil war), but that doesn't make Hitler a Socialist, and certainly doesn't make him a liberal, an ideology which sometimes gets so bound up in tolerance of competing ideals that it stagnates and becomes incapable of action. Hitler was hardly stagnant, he began his programs of extermination and persecution within weeks of taking over as German Chancellor.

He went on "..as Lenin did; he adapted Lenin’s tactics heavily to German society (Russia was a preliterate peasant society with no liberal tradition; Germany, while historically authoritarian, was industrial, educated and somewhat cosmopolitan, and needed a different approach to totalitarianism).

I’d suggest you read Modern Times, by Paul Johnson, which has an excellent account of Hitler’s intellectual relationship with Lenin."

My counter would be to suggest reading about Joe McCarthy, a right-wing extremist red-baiter who had more in common with Hitler than either Lenin or Stalin did with Hitler. Hitler's intellectual relationship to Lenin extends to each's desire to gain power and use that power to deceive and distort issues. Lenin and Hitler are hardly equivilant people. I'd look at the book, but if it attempts to blur the difference between Facism and Communism, then it's silly.

The real point of course was this: This question wasn't abougt Hitler - and the reply was an attempt to confuse the issue that while Righties complain abougt Hilter comparisons, they love to make ludicrous comparisons of Nazism - which was founded on the political/economic philosphies of facism - with liberalism. The two ideologies could hardly be more different. So, the question wasn't about Hitler, it was about Facism, and was ignored. Mitch conveniently ignored the economic model employed by Communism and Nazism (and of course, liberalism), the political positions taken by each system and for that matter, each leader (Lenin and Hitler). One was clearly pro-worker, the other exterminated labor leaders, socialists, social democrats, trade unionist, labor unionists. If Hitler were such a liberal, I'd like to see examples of where liberals engaged in programatic extermination of a race, ethnicity, or religion? I'd also like someone to explain Hitler's extermination of 350,000 or so Social Democrats and Communits? (not to mention starving to death about 3,000,000 Soviet/Slav POW's).

So, I clarified the question:

Do you think Facism is a left wing movement?

The obfuscating reply was, "I think that “right” and “left” are an overused metaphor, (I actually prefer a two-dimensional view based on views of personal and economic liberty), and that “fascism” has been used to imprecisely...that it’s lost most of its meaning."

NO, facism has a very clear meaning for anyone desiring to understand it. Mitch instead desired to specifically NOT address the fact that it represents control of the government by corporate hegemony - collaberation with that government to enhance the position of the elite, and along with all of it, the dimunition of the middle class by scape-goat politics to pursue their subjegation to enhance a hyper-nationalistic, hyper-militaristic state. He ignored it all, despite knowing it, because it would have indicted Limbaugh as a gasbag, perpetrating deliberate falsehood. There is nearly zero relationship between liberalism and Facism, except when some chuckle-head of a liberal promotes totalitarianism in some form, and THEN it's a relationship with Totalitarianism, not Hitler and certainly not Facims.

He then laid out this whopper, "However, in fact Mussolini was by any rational definition a leftist (REALLY??? So EVERY Social Scientist who has classified Facism as rightwing extremism had it wrong??!! AND, weren't rational besides.. you see, apparently right wing extremism isn't extreme, it doesn't exist.. that's the upshot of this BS argument - they don't seek control, they don't use politics and power as a bludgeon, they don't squelch debate with hate-filled rhetoric, they don't invent excuses to invade countries just because they want to. Nope, hyper-militaristic, xenophobia, it's a complete invention of the left to say that applies to righties.. OMG)

Berg justifies this whopper with nonsesnes, "(he (Mussolin) nationalized industries, created a large complex entitlement state and controlled the media), albeit not a totalitarian (he didn’t use the state to supplant religion, the family

FAT LOAD OF CRAP - those are also halmarks of Facism, and as for control of the media, what would you call Fox News, and all of the right wing radio stations - Open Discussion forums??? Mussolini (and Spear) nationalized industries they needed to for their military programs only as a last resort, but by and large worked hand in glove with those industries instead to provide them a. slave labor b. massive profits, and c. (most importantly) busted unions (including murdering union leaders) to ensure vast profits for those corporations. This is the most gauling of Berg's numerous fictions - to say that Mussolin was some sort of leftist when he openly advocated for violence against those on the left is assinine in the extreme - and advocated for it not because he was a leftist (and to thereby take power) but to payback his corporate partners.

He also propped up and worked closesly with other industrial leaders to make them fabulously wealthy. So Mitch, in one breath talks about liking an analogy of free/totalitarian, and then goes back on the comment to try to peg right-wing hyper-miltarism and corporate/government cooperation, on leftists.. ludicrous.

Also, Mussolini's 'large and complex entitlement state' was anything but large or complex, certainly not as compared to the New Deal. To be sure, he had a few such programs, but they were mostly sops to get control - he believed in the Corporate state, and as the inventor of 'Facism' in fact, he said, Facism is 'Corporati Il Stati' as memory serves, or translated "The Corporate State."

He went on to say, " and every other facet of society). He added to that intense nationalism and a “fascist” personality cult. I do believe many leftists are intellectual thugs, yes"

See, there it is again, conflating nationalism with leftist - since when? Further, Facism - at it's core is pro-corporate conduct, not anti, finally, personality cult - like perhaps as in oh, say the blind acceptance of WMD lies? Intellectual thugs come in lots of varieties, including those who claim that 'If you aren't for us you're against us" (like Joe McCarthy and George Bush) - as well as those who claim that anyone who questions the leader is a traitor- aiding and abetting the enemy (like Joseph Geobells and John Kline and one Mitch Berg).

But yes, some leftists step over the line and engage in the same sort of smear idiocy that people like Sarah Palin do when they (falsely claim they were the victim of sexism) - and become intellectual thugs. Whereas folks like Mussolini and Hitler, were ACTUAL thugs - using juvenile and underhanded tactics to demean their opposition until such time as they had the power to simply kill them.

Intellectual thuggery takes a lot of forms, including distorting the truth, attempting to squelch all debeate by simply attacking the messenger when your message fails, and ... attempting to claim that the thing the people should fear, is freedom of thought -- like questioning the base motives of right wing (or left wing) extremism, where it comes from, and what it truly is. It's better, it appears, to claim there is no such thing, and to blame a scapegoat (like liberalism)for those things which in fact you embrace wholeheartedly.