The architects of the party did not want to use the term "Socialist," because of the connections to left-leaning groups; instead, they used the term "socialist" to reflect their belief that the role of social welfare should be moved from the church to the state. There's a lot more to their use of the term "socialist," FYI.

The long and short of what I'm saying, and no one has yet to challenge this, is that most laypeople people use the term "fascist" as a way of hurling insults at someone whose political beliefs do not align with their own. In other words, it's a highly dramatic, downright hysterical, and utterly fallacious way of conducting political discourse.

Anyway, I haven't heard anyone else refer to Obama as "pro-fascist," so I'm going to call this as hysteria.

There's a great Orwell quote about this.

Is it in the article I referenced in my previous post?

Regardless of why they liked the word, they were in practice socialist, either nationalizing industries outright or using taxes, subsidies, and brute force coercion to force industries and people to act in concert with the way the national planning boards envisioned. There was also a huge attack on the profit motive, a concerted effort to bring low-income workers on board (it was originally the National Socialist Workers Party), and an attack on a lot of the moneyed interests in Germany. They were in every sense of the word a socialist party, just people like to pretend that extremist nationalism and socialism can't coexist. They very clearly have in a number of examples (like those cited by EW previously).


And equating people to fascists/nazis is idiotic and most people realize that. I think that's why no one is responding to you on that point, but to argue that "fascist" can never be compared to leftist parties due to their incongruent social policies is a dumb argument. If that's the case they can never be compared to right wing parties either due to their incongruent economic policies. But maybe that's the point, it was an odd mixing of political views which doesn't resemble any significant parties in existence today.

Sorry. I completely skipped that when I read the thread. My apologies.

ETA: looking at the time posted, I think I was probably composing my post right below yours when you posted it. I'm just that much slower.

Here's what I had in mind: "The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable.'" (ETA: I thought I did, but it's not linked in wiki, so who knows)

I had forgotten about it but came across it when I was looking up corporatism and fascism again on Wikipedia which is much lower-brow than your linked article, which I think I read a long time ago just on language generally.

Now there's some irony for you, Mr. Paulson. But yeah, EW, you're sounding a bit hysterical there.

You, and Mr. Orwell, are right.

Munchkin...you need to see some of the other places I have been on the 'net...Obama has been compared to Hitler and David Duke and it's really disgusting...there is a bit of hysteria going on but thankfully it's not visible yet from GC.

So was Bush -- both of them actually. And Reagan. It's par for the course is some circles.

Some people just don't know what to say out of their mouths.....

Outside of GC and Facebook, I'm not on too many sites where I have the opportunity to participate in political discourse, and I really want to keep it that way. This may not be the most hearty, but I'm really not that political, and this is as much as I can handle.

For the record, from an international affairs perspective,

(On the Left) Marxism -> Liberalism -> Moderate <- Realism <- Fascism (On the Right)

Fascism and Marxism are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. It stands to reason, however, that Marxism is solidly on the left (as is the US Democratic Party), and Fascism is solidly on the right. This is why:

According to The Globalization of World Politics, 2nd ed.,

Hitler's NAZI party did not practice the truest form of fascism - Mussolini did, at least ten years before Hitler's rise to power.

Your general point may be true when people are really paying attention to economic systems, but when you see lists like this:http://www.bushwatch.com/fascism.htm, you can see how the little that has to do with how the term is being thrown around.

Right - the term as thrown around is definitely an insult. I have to giggle to myself though when someone calls the candidate on the left a fascist, when really, if they were to the extreme left they'd be a Marxist.

Why Marxist rather than Communist?

And honestly, it might make sense to appropriate a different word for the extreme right wing position if the point is simply to describe the political position without all the totalitarian fun.

Marxism suggests an economic and social view. Fascism bring with it a whole boat load of associations that the far left position is equally as deserving of, and fascism typically doesn't even suggest economic implications to the average person.

In most instances when people use fascism, I think that they neglect the word totalitarian when it would work so nicely.

ETA: And it also seems to me that there is a more likely far right position that is laissez faire capitalism without the state actually serving or merging with the corporations.

Academics who study and write about international affairs prefer the term Marxist rather than Communist, that's all. It boils down to the fact that Marxists call for collectivization of industry (communism) AND lack of government (or really, lack of nation to raise government from as it's all based on class), and Fascists tend to call for corporation of industry AND totalitarianism.

Russia (or the USSR, rather) as a "Communist" country employed collectivization AND totalitarianism, therefore was not a true Marxist country.

So, purely used, either refers to BOTH the economic and political atmosphere of a given country.