Gallup: 65% of Democrats have a "positive image of socialism." (nationalist, capitalist)

[foodyum]

Many American democrat's only experience with socialism is living on or visiting a kibbutz or knowing someone who grew up on a kibbutz. It most likely left them with a favorable impression.

[Artisan10]

Originally Posted by Artisan10 View Post
Obviously, any policies that use the threat of violence against peaceful people to take their stuff and give it to others who didn't earn it are bad.

Originally Posted by Freak80

Indeed. That’s why nobody is advocating that.

Theft is the only way socialism can survive. Socialism is evil.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by Haksel257

Fascism is already defined, sorry. It's a specific type of ultranationalist authoritarianism, which is inherently right-wing by definition. You can argue that socialism has historically devolved into fascism, or that the American Left is fascism wrapped up in a Leftist package, but please don't muddy the definitions.

The other guy makes an excellent point Duce was in fact an admitted socialist and if not a Marxist per se an absolute expert on Marx who spoke about/quoted/and argued Marxist theory serially for decades.


It's also worth pointing out not that long ago many in academia, democrats, Candy Crowley on CNN and many others referred to communism as right wing. Finally shame caught up to them.


The same thing is happening vis a vis the The Bavarian Corporal and Duce.....the idea that these pukes were conservative is idiotic. Sure BMW etc. cooperated with TBC because the threat progression was literally, concentration camp or torture and death.

[Haksel257]

Originally Posted by workingclasshero

to say fascism is right wing, just because it is not as left as socialism,... would be like saying that Democrats are right wing because they are not as far left as liberals....

Didn't say that at all.

Originally Posted by workingclasshero

fascism is socialism-lite...therefore it is left wing...you can NOT argue that

Just saying things does not make them true. You do not understand the definition of left and right. I've already conceded that practice and theory are often different, sometimes opposite. But you are definitively wrong in your definitions. To say fascism is right-wing because it is defined as such is stating a fact.

[gwynedd1]

Originally Posted by Haksel257

Fascism is already defined, sorry. It's a specific type of ultranationalist authoritarianism, which is inherently right-wing by definition. You can argue that socialism has historically devolved into fascism, or that the American Left is fascism wrapped up in a Leftist package, but please don't muddy the definitions.

No fascism is not even remotely right wing. Its a leftist movement , far left, actually. it would be nationalist if the model is national socialism Germany. So its a left wing socialist movement , just simply confined to a nation. Its like an extended family on steroids. The Nazi simply retained a few more naturalistic elements like hierarchies that preexisted, and which Marxists like to pretend is a capitalist creation. its nature's creation, and one will never be rid of it except in Marxist Literature.



Don't know what paradigm you are using but it looks to be a Marxist one which considers their "opposite" to be fascism. It likely came from an attempt to cover for collectivism and call it "right wing". The disaster of Nazi Germany is on the leftist account and that is a problem that needed to be covered up. Extreme right wing has no authority . There are no laws or rights of man. Its just force. However even if one is subdued by such force its no recognition of an authority or right. The slave submits, but there is no moral authority. That is "extreme right". So Classical liberalism moved to the left to create a civilian authority to reserve individual rights despite an excess of force.That was to the left of essentially the idea of a cave man arrangement.



The leftists of old aka classical liberals was to have a civil authority protecting individual rights. Its a collectivist idea turned into a force to ironically protect individuals from tyranny of the majority along with tyrannical power.

[t. raleigh fingers]

Originally Posted by Haksel257

Fascism is already defined, sorry. It's a specific type of ultranationalist authoritarianism, which is inherently right-wing by definition. You can argue that socialism has historically devolved into fascism, or that the American Left is fascism wrapped up in a Leftist package, but please don't muddy the definitions.

Hero is spot on here. 'Fascism' was invented and coined by Mussolini, who began as a socialist. His concept was to allow private ownership of the means of production, just with heavy government regulation thereof. He left behind plenty of writings.

Authoritarianism was necessary to make it work, just as with socialism, but not necessarily an intrinsic part of Mussolini's blueprint.

As Hero says, it was 'socialism-lite' and a form of collectivism, hence left of center.

[gwynedd1]

Originally Posted by t. raleigh fingers

LOL. Yes it is, according to Mussolini, who invented fascism. LOL, what is your definition of 'capitalism' or 'fascism.' LOL, if you have definitions, which is probably a stretch. LOL.

And let it clear that Mussolini was a member of the Italian socialist party. The only differences between his views and socialists is egalitarianism. Fascism is central planning, only explicitly organized into a hierarchy .The only similarity between facism and capitalism is that one expects inequality as a consequences of nature and the other embraces inequality like an organ system. However fascism will likely result in a hierarchy of political power , not any merits that would satisfy a market, hence its socialism , and micro managed and planned economy.

[Artisan10]

Originally Posted by workingclasshero

suggest you actually learn what fascism is , and not by some dictionary, but from the originators, and people who lived through it.


fascism is left wing ideology


Mussolini was a Marxist (leftist)


you should crack a history book....

fascism is socialism-lite

Mussolini was a follower of Marx

When you look at the origin of fascism all the founders of original fascism were leftists. All of then were either Marxists, or socialists, or radicals associated in Britain with the Labour Party, in France with the Socialist Party, in Germany and Italy with either the Marxists or the Communists.


to say that fascism is on the right, just because it is "not as left" or "it goes full circle" as full socialism, is like saying democrats are right-wing, because they are " not as left" as the liberals








Mussolini was a Marxist, who developed his brand of marxism/socialism... he called it fascism..
As an ardent admirer of Marx, Benito Mussolini called his version of Marxist socialism "Fascism". Instead of nationalization--government ownership--of private business, Mussolini advocated government control of business via complete bureaucratic regulation.


Quote:
""Fascism is a system in which the government leaves nominal ownership of the means of production in the hands of private individuals but exercises control by means of regulatory legislation and reaps most of the profit by means of heavy taxation. In effect, fascism is simply a more subtle form of government ownership than is socialism."" Mussolini



fascism has its ties DIRECTLY to marx

Mussolini's election to the Executive was part of the capture of control of the Socialist Party by the hard-line Marxist left, with the expulsion from the Party of those deputies (members of parliament) considered too conciliatory to the bourgeoisie. The shift in Socialist Party control was greeted with delight by Lenin and other revolutionaries throughout the world.

From 1912 to 1914, Mussolini was the Che Guevara of his day, a living saint of leftism. Handsome, courageous, charismatic, an erudite Marxist, a riveting speaker and writer, a dedicated class warrior to the core, he was the peerless duce of the Italian Left. He looked like the head of any future Italian socialist government, elected or revolutionary.

In 1913, while still editor of Avanti!, he began to publish and edit his own journal, Utopia, a forum for controversial discussion among leftwing socialists. Like many such socialist journals founded in hope, it aimed to create a highly-educated cadre of revolutionaries, purged of dogmatic illusions, ready to seize the moment. Two of those who collaborated with Mussolini on Utopia would go on to help found the Italian Communist Party and one to help found the German Communist Party. Others, with Mussolini, would found the Fascist movement.

In October and November 1914, Mussolini switched to a pro-war position. He resigned as editor of Avanti!, joined with pro-war leftists outside the Socialist Party, and launched a new pro-war socialist paper, Il Popolo d'Italia (People of Italy).

Italy entered the war in May 1915, and Mussolini enlisted. In 1917 he was seriously wounded and hospitalized, emerging from the war the most popular of the pro-war socialists, a leader without a movement. Post-war Italy was hag-ridden by civil strife and political violence. Sensing a revolutionary situation in the wake of Russia's Bolshevik coup, the left organized strikes, factory occupations, riots, and political killings. Socialists often beat up and sometimes killed soldiers returning home, just because they had fought in the war. Assaulting political opponents and wrecking their property became an everyday occurrence.

Mussolini and a group of adherents launched the Fascist movement in 1919. The initiators were mostly men of the left: revolutionary syndicalists and Marxists. They took with them some non-socialist nationalists and futurists, and recruited heavily among soldiers returning from the war. The Fascists adopted the black shirts of the anarchists and Giovinezza (Youth), the song of the front-line soldiers.

Apart from its ardent nationalism and pro-war foreign policy, the Fascist program was a mixture of radical left, moderate left, democratic, and liberal measures, and for more than a year the new movement was not notably more violent than other socialist groupings.

Mussolini was showered with accolades from sundry quarters. Winston Churchill called him "the greatest living legislator." Cole Porter gave him a terrific plug in a hit song. Sigmund Freud sent him an autographed copy of one of his books, inscribed to "the Hero of Culture." The more taciturn Stalin supplied Mussolini with the plans of the May Day parades in Red Square, to help him polish up his Fascist pageants.


As Marxists used to say, fascism "appeals to the basest instincts," implying that leftists were at a disadvantage because they could appeal only to noble instincts like envy of the rich. Since it is irrational, fascism is sadistic, and nationalist by nature. Leftist regimes are also invariably sadistic, and nationalist, but that's because of regrettable mistakes or pressure of difficult circumstances. Leftists want what's best but keep meeting unexpected setbacks, whereas fascists have chosen to a different path.

Fascism was a movement with its roots primarily in the left. Its leaders and initiators were secular-minded, highly progressive intellectuals, hard-headed haters of existing society and especially of its most bourgeois aspects.




truth


F.D. Roosevelt, found in Mussolini's policies part of his inspiration for the semi-socialist "New Deal" and referred to Mussolini in 1933 as "that admirable Italian gentleman". Mussolini was plausible to an amazingly wide range of people -- not the least to the people of Italy.

And Roosevelt and his political allies practiced what they preached. As UPI financial journalist Martin Hutchinson has pointed out, the USA in the 1940s was a place "with price controls, government licensing of transportation, state intervention in the steel and auto industries, interest rates that were set by Treasury fiat and a capital market in which banks were not allowed to operate. Also a "democracy" in which electoral districts were wildly unequal and 15 percent of the population was denied the vote." By modern-day standards the USA of that time had considerable Fascist elements too. American Leftism was Fascist even then.

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.”






And if Marx was not a Leftist, who would be? Mussolini's "Fascist" ideas were in fact Marxist, and hence Leftist.






fascism..socialism lite.. corporatism, massive corporations that run everything, CONTROLLED by massive governmental regulations and taxes..anti individual freedom, anti individual capitalism.. pro- crony capitalism (corporatism)



Nazism, fascism, communism, socialism , Marxism ALL come from the progressive movement..ALL are about REDUCING individual RIGHTS and freedoms


Quote:
"A Marxist/Fascist/Liberal begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of socialism, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." Saul Alinsky

Zbigniew Brzezinski far leftist liberal (socialist) mentor to Carter, Bush1, clinton, cheney, and Obama and Biden







Zbigniew Brzezinski again





""""Stalin is my "brother".."""" - FDR after Tehran











Stalin called FDR in Dec 1933, "a decided and courageous leader." In 1934 he praised FDR's "initiative, courage and determination".


FDR defined Freedom of Religion as Stalin did.

FDR defined Freedom of Speech as Stalin did, i.e. he used the Marxist formulation 'Freedom of Information' in his speeches.

FDR pressed a bill to eliminate the right to bear arms, the guarantee of all others.

FDR told Churchill that "an unwritten Constitution is better than a written one." When reminded there was the Constitution, FDR said after his 1936 inauguration "Yes, but it's the Constitution as I understand it - flexible enough (to do what he wanted)." .......( much like Obama also stated) ....He admiringly told Churchill that Stalin didn't have to worry about Congresses and Parliaments, "he's the whole works." In a letter to a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, FDR wrote- " I hope your committee will not permit doubt as to Constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation." FDR did not believe in Constitutional checks and balances - he tried to destroy and was prepared to defy the Supreme Court and Congress. He did not believe in advise and consent or the rule of law - he waged war and made treaties without Congressional approval. He did not believe in representative democracy and often said that since Congress did not reflect the will of the people they should be ignored.


Probably the best exposition of FDR's procedures regarding the rule of law vs the rule of men was said by his top deputy, KGB agent Harry Hopkins, to his aides - "I want to assure you that we are not afraid of exploring anything within the law, and we have here a lawyer who will declare anything you want to do legal."

FDR defined democracy just as Joseph Stalin did - as the mere act of voting. (Of course he believed it was good to lie to the people to influence their votes. He also engaged in vote fraud - he won the 1928 NY Governor's race solely with massive vote fraud in Buffalo.) In a famous speech FDR said "The truth of the matter was that the public neither knew or understood what was involved...In other words, public opinion would be easy to manipulate." So much for the public will.

















communism.... big government (or communities)...anti-freedom...anti-capitalisms

socialism...big government...anti-freedom...anti capitalist

fascism... big government...anti-freedom....anti capitalist

Three New Deals: Why the Nazis and Fascists Loved FDR - David Gordon - Mises Daily















if we agree that socialism is leftist...and we have a far leftist saying that fascism is a FORM of socialism...then we can conclude that even by the lefts standards fascism is very much a leftist ideology

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this information.

This is what sets capitalism apart from Socialism, Communism and fascism:

Originally Posted by workingclasshero

communism.... big government (or communities)...anti-freedom...anti-capitalisms

socialism...big government...anti-freedom...anti capitalist

fascism... big government...anti-freedom....anti capitalist

[t. raleigh fingers]

communism=elimination of private property. The collective (in practice, the government) owns everything.

socialism=collective ownership of the means of production (factories, farms, businesses), but with private ownership of consumer goods.

capitalism=private ownership of the means of production.

I do not really like the term 'capitalism,' which IIRC was coined by Marx. Everybody does capitalism, in the sense that all governments and individuals play a role in the directing capital to various uses. I prefer the term 'free market' or 'laissez fair.'

[jbgusa]

It's a mixed bag. Government services work best for things that we can't or don't want to live without, but don't generate a profit

Originally Posted by Freak80

Amtrak works pretty well along the Northeast Corridor where it has its own right of way and the distance between cities is small. Elsewhere, it’s not very good. I’d be in favor of shutting down Amtrak in most places outside the NEC. Outside the NEC, the USA is too big and spread out for passenger rail to work well.

There is a space for Amtrak on most of the East Coast. Certainly the AutoTrain is a good thing for the "snowbirds."

Originally Posted by Freak80

Health insurance in the USA is mostly privatized, no? What am I missing?

With Obamacare it's a weird blend of public and private. My wife works the claims of our family assiduously. I am not sure that people less diligent or educated do so well.

Originally Posted by Freak80

I’ve never had a problem with the post office. Are they known for having poor service?

It goes up and down in quality. Unfortunately it's a financial drain because profitable traffic is picked off by email/PDF's and Overnight Courier services. People in Wall, South Dakota still need to be able to send correspondence to Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, or Cadosia, New York to North Platte, Nebraska.

Originally Posted by Freak80

You didn’t mention the Interstate Highway System. That seems to work pretty well.

Ever been on the Cross Bronx Expressway or the Long Island Expressway or for that matter the Beltway?

Originally Posted by Freak80

Public (state) universities work pretty well. Who knew that every college football game was an orgy of Marxist-Leninism?

Of that I'm not so sure. Some seem like vanity projects.

Originally Posted by Freak80

The military works pretty well, at least when it isn’t asked to do things like nation-building.

Again it's a cumbersome mixed bag. It can't manage defeating a rogue guerrilla movement in Afghanistan, for example.