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1888, the year [when socialist] Edward Bellamy's novel Looking Backward burst on the American scene.” Set in the year 2000, this futuristic book depicts a utopian society run with the hierarchical efficiency of a military battalion. All workers in this idealized world belong to a unified “industrial army” that labors within the confines of an economy controlled by a coterie of central planners who are deemed to be more capable of fostering prosperity and productivity than is a free marketplace.
As progressives saw things, most societal flaws were attributable to capitalism's inherent injustices. Foremost among those flaws was economic inequality – the plainly observable reality that some people lived in poverty while others basked in splendor.
“America’s original Progressives were also its original, big-government liberals.” They set the stage for the New Deal principles of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who cited the progressives – especially Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson – as the major influences on his ideas about government.
Whereas classical liberalism saw government as a necessary evil whose involvement in social and private affairs needed to be limited wherever practicable, progressivism saw the state as the rightful overseer and regulator of significant portions of American social and economic life. To compensate for the inequities of capitalism in industrial-age America, Progressives favored a government empowered to redistribute private property under the banner of social justice.
Just as progressives were generally enthusiastic about socialist movements in the Soviet Union and Europe, they were also overwhelmingly supportive of the fascist movements in Italy and Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. “In many respects, the founding fathers of modern liberalism, the men and women who laid the intellectual groundwork of the New Deal and the welfare state, thought that fascism sounded like ... a worthwhile 'experiment'”:
H. G. Wells, one of the most influential progressives of the 20th century, said in 1932 that progressives must become “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazis.” Regarding totalitarianism, he stated: “I have never been able to escape altogether from its relentless logic.” Calling for a “‘Phoenix Rebirth’ of Liberalism” under the umbrella of “Liberal Fascism,” Wells said: “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis.”
The poet Wallace Stevens pronounced himself “pro-Mussolini personally.”
The eminent historian Charles Beard wrote of Mussolini’s efforts: “Beyond question, an amazing experiment is being made [in Italy], an experiment in reconciling individualism and socialism.”
Muckraking journalists almost universally admired Mussolini. Lincoln Steffens, for one, said that Italian fascism made Western democracy, by comparison, look like a system run by “petty persons with petty purposes.” Mussolini, Steffens proclaimed reverently, had been “formed” by God “out of the rib of Italy.”
McClure’s Magazine founder Samuel McClure, an important figure in the muckraking movement, described Italian fascism as “a great step forward and the first new ideal in government since the founding of the American Republic.”
After having vistited Italy and interviewed Mussolini in 1926, the American humorist Will Rogers, who was informally dubbed “Ambassador-at-Large of the United States” by the National Press Club, said of the fascist dictator: “I’m pretty high on that bird.” “Dictator form of government is the greatest form of government,” Rogers wrote, “that is, if you have the right dictator.”
Reporter Ida Tarbell was deeply impressed by Mussolini's attitudes regarding labor, affectionately dubbing him “a despot with a dimple.” NAACP co-founder W. E. B. DuBois saw National Socialism as a worthy model for economic organization. The establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, he wrote, had been “absolutely necessary to get the state in order.” In 1937 DuBois stated: “there is today, in some respects, more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past.”
FDR adviser Rexford Guy Tugwell said of Italian fascism: “It's the cleanest, neatest, most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I've ever seen. It makes me envious.”
New Republic editor George Soule, who avidly supported FDR, noted approvingly that the Roosevelt administration was “trying out the economics of fascism.”
Playwright George Bernard Shaw hailed Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini as the world’s great “progressive” leaders because they “did things,” unlike the leaders of those “putrefying corpses” called parliamentary democracies.
progressives' affinity for fascism was quite understandable because, contrary to popular misconception: “Fascism, properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left.”
American fascism “was moderated by many special factors—geographical size, ethnic diversity, Jeffersonian individualism, a strong liberal tradition, and so on. As a result, American fascism is milder, more friendly, more 'maternal' than its foreign counterparts.... Nice fascism. The best term to describe it is 'liberal fascism'” – a phenomenon characterized by “nannying, not bullying.” In the early decades of the 20th century, it was simply called progressivism.
“Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism, and today’s liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism.”
It should be noted, at this point, that fascism is closely related not only to progressivism, but also to communism. The chief difference between fascism and communism is that the former is rooted in nationalism and seeks to create a socialist utopia within the confines of a particular country's borders; thus the Nazis embraced “National Socialism.” Communism, by contrast, seeks to transcend national boundaries and promote a worldwide proletariat revolution, where the foot soldiers are bound together not by a common nationality but by their membership in the same economic class. This was expressed by Karl Marx's famous exhortation in the Communist Manifesto: “Workers of the world, unite!” Apart from this distinction, communism and fascism are kindred spirits of anti-capitalism. “closely related, historical competitors for the same constituents, seeking to dominate and control the same social space.” “[i]n terms of their theory and practice the differences are minimal.”
That said, we can see that fascism, communism, and progressivism are all closely related to one another. The progressive U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was a devoted disciple of the German philosopher Georg Hegel, whose ideas – most notably his view of history as an evolutionary, unfolding process where conflicting forces constantly battle in order to bring about change and progress – also had a profound influence on Karl Marx. Mussolini, for his part, carried with him a medallion of Marx. Progressives commonly saw Mussolini’s project and Lenin’s as linked enterprises. The progressive muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens referred to the “Russian-Italian” method as if the two were flip sides of the same coin. Steffens and his fellow progressives generally saw Mussolini, Lenin, and Stalin as three men pursuing a similar objective: the fundamental transformation of corrupt and outdated societies.
Because progressivism embraces the ideal of nationalism and touts the so-called “Third Way” between capitalism and communism, its pedigree is closer to fascism than to communism. Progressivism and fascism share the totalitarian belief that with the proper amount of tinkering, social engineers will be able to realize the utopian dream of establishing a nation where perfect equality reigns. This mindset accounts for the support that the early progressives gave to eugenics.
American progressives, for the most part, did not disavow fascism until the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust became manifest during World War II. After the war, those progressives who had praised Mussolini and Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s had no choice but to dissociate themselves from fascism. Accordingly, leftist intellectuals redefined fascism as 'right-wing' and projected their own sins onto conservatives, even as they continued to borrow heavily from fascist and pre-fascist thought. This progressive campaign to recast fascism as the "right-wing" antithesis of communism was aided by Joseph Stalin, who began to label all of the most blatantly evil traits shared by communism and fascism alike, as simply “fascist.”
fascism, liberalism, communism, marxism, socialism, nazism progressiveism...all the same family
Neo Conservatives are what the name implies...new conservatives. In reality they have no party loyalty, they are ideologues.
At one time, Democrats were very hawkish...LBJ is a good example. The party shifted and became more dovish. The members who had been in the party were unhappy about the shift and went over to the Republican side. Their views and ideology did not change. They are not social conservatives, nor or they small govt. conservatives. They are not conservative at all. Their main goal is interventionalism and control through military might and strength. They tend to have very pro Israel stance.
They are not unique to the Republican party. There are neocons on Obama's cabinet. Bush was not a neocon, but his cabinet had a huge amount.
The most prominent neocon rag is the weekly standard.
1888, the year [when socialist] Edward Bellamy's novel Looking Backward burst on the American scene.” Set in the year 2000, this futuristic book depicts a utopian society run with the hierarchical efficiency of a military battalion. All workers in this idealized world belong to a unified “industrial army” that labors within the confines of an economy controlled by a coterie of central planners who are deemed to be more capable of fostering prosperity and productivity than is a free marketplace.
As progressives saw things, most societal flaws were attributable to capitalism's inherent injustices. Foremost among those flaws was economic inequality – the plainly observable reality that some people lived in poverty while others basked in splendor.
“America’s original Progressives were also its original, big-government liberals.” They set the stage for the New Deal principles of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who cited the progressives – especially Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson – as the major influences on his ideas about government.
Whereas classical liberalism saw government as a necessary evil whose involvement in social and private affairs needed to be limited wherever practicable, progressivism saw the state as the rightful overseer and regulator of significant portions of American social and economic life. To compensate for the inequities of capitalism in industrial-age America, Progressives favored a government empowered to redistribute private property under the banner of social justice.
Just as progressives were generally enthusiastic about socialist movements in the Soviet Union and Europe, they were also overwhelmingly supportive of the fascist movements in Italy and Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. “In many respects, the founding fathers of modern liberalism, the men and women who laid the intellectual groundwork of the New Deal and the welfare state, thought that fascism sounded like ... a worthwhile 'experiment'”:
H. G. Wells, one of the most influential progressives of the 20th century, said in 1932 that progressives must become “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazis.” Regarding totalitarianism, he stated: “I have never been able to escape altogether from its relentless logic.” Calling for a “‘Phoenix Rebirth’ of Liberalism” under the umbrella of “Liberal Fascism,” Wells said: “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis.”
The poet Wallace Stevens pronounced himself “pro-Mussolini personally.”
The eminent historian Charles Beard wrote of Mussolini’s efforts: “Beyond question, an amazing experiment is being made [in Italy], an experiment in reconciling individualism and socialism.”
Muckraking journalists almost universally admired Mussolini. Lincoln Steffens, for one, said that Italian fascism made Western democracy, by comparison, look like a system run by “petty persons with petty purposes.” Mussolini, Steffens proclaimed reverently, had been “formed” by God “out of the rib of Italy.”
McClure’s Magazine founder Samuel McClure, an important figure in the muckraking movement, described Italian fascism as “a great step forward and the first new ideal in government since the founding of the American Republic.”
After having vistited Italy and interviewed Mussolini in 1926, the American humorist Will Rogers, who was informally dubbed “Ambassador-at-Large of the United States” by the National Press Club, said of the fascist dictator: “I’m pretty high on that bird.” “Dictator form of government is the greatest form of government,” Rogers wrote, “that is, if you have the right dictator.”
Reporter Ida Tarbell was deeply impressed by Mussolini's attitudes regarding labor, affectionately dubbing him “a despot with a dimple.” NAACP co-founder W. E. B. DuBois saw National Socialism as a worthy model for economic organization. The establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, he wrote, had been “absolutely necessary to get the state in order.” In 1937 DuBois stated: “there is today, in some respects, more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past.”
FDR adviser Rexford Guy Tugwell said of Italian fascism: “It's the cleanest, neatest, most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I've ever seen. It makes me envious.”
New Republic editor George Soule, who avidly supported FDR, noted approvingly that the Roosevelt administration was “trying out the economics of fascism.”
Playwright George Bernard Shaw hailed Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini as the world’s great “progressive” leaders because they “did things,” unlike the leaders of those “putrefying corpses” called parliamentary democracies.
progressives' affinity for fascism was quite understandable because, contrary to popular misconception: “Fascism, properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left.”
American fascism “was moderated by many special factors—geographical size, ethnic diversity, Jeffersonian individualism, a strong liberal tradition, and so on. As a result, American fascism is milder, more friendly, more 'maternal' than its foreign counterparts.... Nice fascism. The best term to describe it is 'liberal fascism'” – a phenomenon characterized by “nannying, not bullying.” In the early decades of the 20th century, it was simply called progressivism.
“Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism, and today’s liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism.”
It should be noted, at this point, that fascism is closely related not only to progressivism, but also to communism. The chief difference between fascism and communism is that the former is rooted in nationalism and seeks to create a socialist utopia within the confines of a particular country's borders; thus the Nazis embraced “National Socialism.” Communism, by contrast, seeks to transcend national boundaries and promote a worldwide proletariat revolution, where the foot soldiers are bound together not by a common nationality but by their membership in the same economic class. This was expressed by Karl Marx's famous exhortation in the Communist Manifesto: “Workers of the world, unite!” Apart from this distinction, communism and fascism are kindred spirits of anti-capitalism. “closely related, historical competitors for the same constituents, seeking to dominate and control the same social space.” “[i]n terms of their theory and practice the differences are minimal.”
That said, we can see that fascism, communism, and progressivism are all closely related to one another. The progressive U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was a devoted disciple of the German philosopher Georg Hegel, whose ideas – most notably his view of history as an evolutionary, unfolding process where conflicting forces constantly battle in order to bring about change and progress – also had a profound influence on Karl Marx. Mussolini, for his part, carried with him a medallion of Marx. Progressives commonly saw Mussolini’s project and Lenin’s as linked enterprises. The progressive muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens referred to the “Russian-Italian” method as if the two were flip sides of the same coin. Steffens and his fellow progressives generally saw Mussolini, Lenin, and Stalin as three men pursuing a similar objective: the fundamental transformation of corrupt and outdated societies.
Because progressivism embraces the ideal of nationalism and touts the so-called “Third Way” between capitalism and communism, its pedigree is closer to fascism than to communism. Progressivism and fascism share the totalitarian belief that with the proper amount of tinkering, social engineers will be able to realize the utopian dream of establishing a nation where perfect equality reigns. This mindset accounts for the support that the early progressives gave to eugenics.
American progressives, for the most part, did not disavow fascism until the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust became manifest during World War II. After the war, those progressives who had praised Mussolini and Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s had no choice but to dissociate themselves from fascism. Accordingly, leftist intellectuals redefined fascism as 'right-wing' and projected their own sins onto conservatives, even as they continued to borrow heavily from fascist and pre-fascist thought. This progressive campaign to recast fascism as the "right-wing" antithesis of communism was aided by Joseph Stalin, who began to label all of the most blatantly evil traits shared by communism and fascism alike, as simply “fascist.”
fascism, liberalism, communism, marxism, socialism, nazism progressiveism...all the same family
Very well said, I could not agree more. I only wish I could Rep. you, but I must "spread it around" first. However, it should be noted that fascism is not exclusively a left-wing trait. Fransisco Franco of Spain and Augusto Pinochet of Chile were right-wing fascists, just as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were left-wing fascists.
Neocons are basically modern day fascists. They are the fox news brainwashed, ultra-right wing, huge government, huge spending, anti-freedom and anti-constitution goons.
They have hijacked the GOP and are making a mockery of it. It's not just those on the left upset, but independents, libertarians, and "real" conservatives as well.
neo = new
+
con = conservative
I agree with the above poster. Conservative politicians believe in small government (not no government). They want people to make their own choices whenever that does not adversely effect the rest of society. An opinion that I, as a confirmed liberal, happen to agree with.
Liberals, on the other hand, wish make sure that those in society who CANNOT care for themselves, (the ill, orphaned, injured, dissabeld either mentally or physically, aged, etc.) are being cared for, and therfore, they approve of being taxed enough to provide for a "social safety net".
That social safety net is sometimes abused, no doubt, but we do not generally believe that it should be abolished in response to that. It is, in fact, no more "abused", than "private enterprise", where corporate bosses give themselves huge bonus', and neglect to fund employee retirement plans!
Even in this age of extreme partisianship, I can hope that all might agree to a "middle path".
Some examples of that might be. . . .that mentally stable adults can buy and own firearms, but "assault weapons" are prohibited in non military settings.
Hunters and Fishermen can enjoy their sports, but lead bullets are banned to prevent the many wildlife deaths due to lead posioning in wild animals, etc., etc.
I'm sure I could come up with other "compromise solutions", but I'll encourage you to find your own.
{snip}
fascism, liberalism, communism, marxism, socialism, nazism progressiveism...all the same family
Yup, they are simply self anointed masterminds, who want to use an all power of government to decide how everyone else will be allowed to live their lives.
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