Thursday, July 15, 2010

The Meme of the Living Dead

IT’S BAAAACK!

I’ve reported on several previous occasions about “The Meme That Would Not Die”. Every time I think it’s dead and buried, it claws its way out of the grave and walks abroad, trailing clods of dank earth.

I’m talking about the venerable canard that Vlaams Belang is “fascist”. Or, if you’re a bit fastidious, and don’t want to go all the way, Vlaams Belang is “neo-fascist”. Or maybe “neo-Nazi”, just to make sure the ghost of Auschwitz hovers in the air over your revenant totalitarian.

Frank Vanhecke, Schumann Square, Sept. 11 2007

Whenever the Vlaams-Belang-is-fascist smear is resurrected, I repost the above photo and say:

Look at this picture. Now, tell me: Who are the real fascists?

For the record, the man in the photo is Frank Vanhecke, the party leader of Vlaams Belang. On September 11, 2007, during a peaceful demonstration against Islamization in Brussels, he and other party leaders were knocked down, roughed up, handcuffed, and hauled away to jail by the police. Mr. Vanhecke even had to endure the pain and humiliation of being grabbed by the privates and perp-walked to the bus with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Now, tell me again: Who are the real fascists?

But the meme will not die. Its most recent visit to the land of the living came back in January, when the New York Times Magazine published an article about the LGF wars which included interviews with Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. The author referred to Vlaams Belang as “neofascist”, and said, “Even to most right-wing sensibilities, Vlaams Belang is certainly beyond the pale.”

The most jaw-dropping moment in the article came during the author’s interview with Robert Spencer:

“Filip Dewinter has said some things I deplore,” Spencer says. “But I don’t consider myself responsible for him just because I was at this conference and he was, too. That’s an outrageous kind of guilt by association. Let me ask you this: a few years ago I spoke at a Yom Kippur service, and one of the other speakers was Hillary Clinton. Does that make me a supporter or her work, or her of mine?” [emphasis added]

By referring to “guilt” without even an “alleged” to soften it, Mr. Spencer implicitly supported the author’s contention that Vlaams Belang is “neofascist”. That even a redoubtable Counterjihad warrior like Robert Spencer could still be held in thrall by the “fascist” smear only goes to show how hard the meme is to kill.

Then, of course, we had Glenn Beck and his “fascist” scattergun spraying all those European “right-wing extremists”, including Geert Wilders.

But it gets even worse. The most recent issue of National Review features an article entitled “Censorship as ‘Tolerance’“ by Jacob Mchangama. In the third paragraph of an otherwise excellent overview of the suppression of free speech in Europe, Mr. Mchangama says:
- - - - - - - - -
In Belgium, the admittedly quasi-fascist Flemish-nationalist party Vlaams Blok (now Vlaams Belang) was convicted of racism in 2004.

“Admittedly”? Who “admitted” it?

And where’s the evidence of “fascism”?

Nobody has any. This is just something that everybody knows.

Yes, the Meme of the Living Dead is back. If the venue were The New York Times or The New Republic, it would be a “ho-hum, there they go again” moment. We could simply ignore it and go about our business.

But National Review??

As its in-house superstar, the magazine’s masthead boasts Jonah Goldberg, the author of the indispensable Liberal Fascism. Couldn’t they have asked his advice about the definition of “fascism”?

Nobody knows better than Mr. Goldberg the most important fact about fascism, one that the socialists and communists have successfully obfuscated for the past seventy years: fascism is a form of totalitarian socialism. Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini were three peas in a totalitarian pod.

Vlaams Belang, on the other hand, is one of the most liberty-oriented free-market parties in Europe. It’s less socialist than the Republican Party of the United States. What makes it the enemy of the Belgian (and EU) establishment is its unabashed nationalism and its push for an independent Flanders. This puts it beyond the pale, and makes the “fascist” label necessary so that it can be confined to the Outer Nazi Darkness along with all the other politically unacceptable groups.

And let’s face it: when the detractors of Vlaams Belang say “fascist”, they deliberately conflate the word with “Nazi”, with the ultimate goal being to bring the Holocaust Cone of Silence down over the party so that its message can never, ever be heard by anyone who hopes to remain respectable.

This shunning of “Nazis” is very effective. It results in what I call the Screaming Nazi Heeber-Jeebers, a highly contagious affliction that causes anyone so accused to run and hide under the bed and keep very, very quiet until the fever passes.

The appropriate response to the Nazi accusation is not to deny it, because denial implicitly acknowledges the validity of the assumptions behind the accusation. The proper reaction is to ignore the accuser, or even better, laugh in his face.

Just imagine a prominent talking head on TV, one of the usual conservative suspects. Picture him being called “racist” or a “fascist”. Now see him double over with laughter at his interviewer, tears running down his face, speechless in his merriment.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Vlaams Belang is repeatedly smeared as “fascist” because of its predecessor, Vlaams Blok. If you trace its history far enough back, you find ex-Nazis and Nazi sympathizers. This puts the modern party beyond the pale, even though none of those old leaders remain, and there’s no sign of Jew-hatred left in Vlaams Belang.

The ugly secret about Belgium — and most of the rest of Europe — is that there are far more anti-Semites on the Left than the Right, and farther Left you go, the more virulent the Jew-hatred. Filip Dewinter has steadfastly championed the Jews of Antwerp in the Flemish parliament, while some of his socialist colleagues were marching in alongside radical Muslims, chanting “Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas!”

The Ranting ManWe have a parallel situation in the United States with the Democrats, who until the 1960s were the party of bigotry, segregation, and white supremacy. Forty years later Sen. Robert Byrd could hang with the Progressives, despite the fact that he was a former Ku Klux Klan leader. Nobody held it against him.

However, any Republican who ventures within a hundred miles of a Confederate flag can expect a tsunami of vitriol branding him a “racist”, a “supporter of slavery”, and much, much more. There’s nothing anyone can do anything about this double standard; it’s just the way the rigged media game works. The Progressives get away with virtually anything, but a conservative is doomed.

It’s the same with the communists. Ex-communists — some of them with blood on their hands — have practiced politics openly in Europe since 1989. There’s a tacit agreement among the elite not to look too closely at the past indiscretions of the Left, but the Right is fair game.

And so it is with Vlaams Belang. After years and years of attacks, the only thing definite its opponents could come up with is that Filip Dewinter has a cross on his bookshelf. Nevertheless, the rules of the game make the party “neo-fascist”, and that’s that. Everybody knows it.

Et tu, National Review?

It’s time to sharpen our wooden stakes and dust off the silver bullets: this undead meme needs to be sent to its final abode.

22 comments:

rickl said...

Off topic:
I've noticed that your monthly archives only comprise about a week's worth of posts near the end of the month. I don't see any button for "next page".

I was trying to see if there were any responses to my Halley's Comet comment of a few days ago, but I can't find that thread at all. (It was the one about John O'Neill's book review.)

Baron Bodissey said...

rickl --

This is a new blogger "feature" -- they changed their system so that it cuts off all pages at a certain number of bytes, which makes the archives useless.

I'm in the process of changing our template to show "next post" and "previous post" links. Right now I have the old-style template, and I have to build a new-style template and try to make it look like the old one before I implement it. In other words, the switchover is nasty. That's why I haven't finished it yet.

Until then, I suggest that you do what I do: use the "recent posts" list on the sidebar. You can keep jumping back in time from post to post that way.

Sean O'Brian said...

I don't see how National Review can write coherently about Europe without placing itself in something of a bind. Let me explain. NR is a conservative-libertarian magazine correct? So as you say, Baron, it should support liberty-oriented free-market parties in Europe. Yet what would that actually entail in practice?

VAT is compulsory for all member states of the European Union - to take just one example of "big government". The EU is simultaneously socialist and post-political. This is a part of its inbuilt structure. Therefore the libertarian approach to take to the EU is to call for its abolishment. Then real politics could begin. The rub is that it suits the Beltway establishment to have all or most European countries lumped together in one large blob.

For NR to seriously advocate a non-socialist politics for Europe it would have to support breaking up the EU. To do that it would have to position itself against Washington and Brussels and with the disreputable fringe parties of Europe. IOW they might as well hire Ned May as their new Editor-in-Chief! You're into right-wing nutter territory before you've even begun.

In Jacob Mchangama's article he writes that there is "a pan-European consensus...that require[s] the restriction rather than the protection of freedom of speech." Uh huh. A Google search tells me Mr. Mchangama belong to CEPOS - an independent Danish think tank that promotes "limited government". Interesting concept. Maybe someone should set up a new EU committee to look into it.

Baron Bodissey said...

Sean,

What you say is partially right. Yes, National Review is conservative, but it is not generally considered libertarian, although it has libertarian leanings (as do I). It's less neocon than the Weekly Standard (and by "neocon" I mean "supports American military intervention overseas to spread democracy and build nations", and not "Jewish"), but more neocon than Chronicles.

American conservatives are often divided about the EU. When confronted with the realities of the EU -- centralized socialist bureaucratic control of absolutely everything -- they don't like it, but some of them get all warm and fuzzy about the general idea, as if it were the Articles of Confederation all over again, but in Europe. Plus the specter of the Soviet Union hangs over everything, so by that standard the EU is good because it can stop the Russkis.

Generally speaking, though, I'd say that conservative Americans don't like the EU. Affection for Brussels in the USA is more likely to come from the comsymps on the Left.

And conservatives are not part of the "Beltway establishment", even when a conservative gets elected president -- in which case the establishment puts up with him and thwarts him and bides its time until he is gone and normal Progressive governance returns to the White House.

National Review doesn't always get Europe wrong, especially the native European writers. David Pryce-Jones usually gets it right, as does John O'Sullivan. And Anthony Daniels you already know about.

The overwhelming factor -- the elephant in the room -- is massive, appalling ignorance about Europe. Conservatives are a bit better than liberals, but even so, the vast majority of Americans don't know what they're talking about when they discuss Europe.

It goes both ways, of course. Most Europeans don't understand the USA, although they often think they do.

Tanstaafl said...

In 2007 I was deeply disturbed by this event and these photos. I still am.

The same demonization is happening in America.

The A3P replies to the New York Daily News and Huffington Post.

The totalitarian repression of "fascism" is a jewish-bolshevist impluse. The reason "nazi" has become an increasingly popular epithet, even as the NSDAP receeds into history, is that Western media, politics, finance, and law is increasingly owned, manned, and influenced by jews and philo-semites concerned first and foremost with jewish interests. This is why "hate" laws exist. This is why "PC" trumps free speech. This is why Israel is constantly in our news. This is why the expression of perfectly natural ethnocentric instincts (eg. Tea Party, Arizona's laws) are pathologized as "racism".

This is why politicians of all parties send such explicit, friendly signals to jews and Israel, even while they scorn and ignore the interests of their majorities. It is also why some European nationalists have decided to pander to jews, to distasteful extremes, and keep doing so even when their adoration and respect goes unrequited.

Since 1933 organized jewry has stood in very effective opposition to nationalism, at least in White countries. This makes European nationalism framed in terms of protecting jews absurd. They don't buy it. And even if the philo-semitic nationalists are sincere, how do us non-jews fit in? We should stand tall and defend our countries to better serve and protect jews?

You wonder where this "fascist" "nazi" nonsense comes from? It's about White self-abnegation. It's about thinking that protecting jews is more important than protecting ourselves.

Anonymous said...

No, not this rubbish again! I could excuse the New York Times for not liking Vlaams Belang--after all, what can one expect from such a paper--but National Review??? Seriously?

Anonymous said...

Forgot to say this in my last comment: Do we know anything about the author of the offending article? I searched his name on the internet and I got some hits for a Danish person. Is he Danish? I would expect a conservative European to understand the whole Vlaams Belang situation better than an American.

The statement about Vlaams Belang also raises some questions about National Review. After all, as we say in Russian: Рыба гниет с головы (a fish rots from the head).

Tanstaafl said...

The overwhelming factor -- the elephant in the room -- is massive, appalling ignorance about Europe. Conservatives are a bit better than liberals, but even so, the vast majority of Americans don't know what they're talking about when they discuss Europe.

It goes both ways, of course. Most Europeans don't understand the USA, although they often think they do.


This elephant is a creation of the media. Take for example the media's spin on the Polanski affair as a conflict between "puritanical" American values and the looser sexual mores of Europeans. It's complete BS. Read the stories closely, and pay attention to who's telling them, and it's clear the conflict is between a transnational judaized political and media elite appalled that one of their own, behaving perfectly normal by their standards, is threatened with lynching by the ignorant unwashed hoi polloi. Reading the comments of the hoi polloi, in every country, responding to the media's lectures, and anyone can see they are uniformly aghast at the arrogance of these elites.

The vast majority in America and Europe are kept ignorant, confused, and divided by this kind of disinformation from a media which is hostile to us.

Fjordman said...

Tanstaafl: You have your own blog. If you want to spam your own site by writing the same comment a zillion times then by all means do so, but don't do it at this blog. It's rude.

Jewish Odysseus said...

There has never been a war of resistance in all of history that didn't involve a coalition with different types. Typically some opportunists, scoundrels, or misfits join every cause. But when your cause is as threatened and marginalized and frightened as is the modern European resistance, it is absolutely suicidal to impose some kind of crackpot PC loyalty test. And you people need to understand, it is NOT a war of Europe against Islamism...IT IS A WAR OF ISLAMISM AGAINST THE WHOLE WORLD, AND VERY FEW PEOPLE ARE ACTIVELY RESISTING.

Certainly National Review writers shd know better than to spend their time spitting on resisters beaten on the streets by the real imperialist invaders and their traitor red allies.

I herewith humbly offer the JewishOdysseus test for judging a morally acceptable cause by its members:

1--Do its members refrain from issuing death threats?
2--Do its members engage in lawful, normal exercise of free speech and protest?
3--Do its members refrain from violently suppressing other people who choose to engage in normal free speech and protest, but have different views?
4--Do its members refrain from receiving funds from hostile foreign governments?
5--Do its members refrain from receiving instructions from hostile foreign governments?
6--Do its members refrain from receiving weapons and terrorist training from hostile foreign governments?
7--Do its members refrain from inciting violence against other law-abiding citizens?
8--Do its members seek to import an alien ideology into their country?

I haven't seen a single credible claim that the anti-Islamization protests are linked to such unacceptable activities. Yet, somehow the people who oppose them feel the need to use violence, threats, and official corruption to protect "goodness and niceness," as the late great Maxwell Smart put it.

Tanstaafl said...

Fjordman,

The suggestion that we Whites have our own interests, independent of jewish interests, really disturbs you, doesn't it? You don't want to answer it and don't want to even hear it.

Since you don't have your own blog, and since you didn't answer (and, to be fair, maybe didn't see) the criticism at mine, and since I have your attention here, perhaps you could address it now.

A while back you wrote a call to arms, posted at GoV, Why Israel’s Struggle Is Our Struggle, Too:

Rather than unfairly attacking Israel we should thank Israelis for having served as brave frontline soldiers against the global Islamic Jihad for generations. They are fighting our fight, and we spit them in the face for it.

In sum it is a delusionally positive view of Israel and jews coupled with a delusionally negative view of how "we" (by whom you seem to mean Europeans) have treated them.

Then you wrote, again at GoV, that "the Western world is in the process of committing suicide and that the ruling ideology after the Second World War, especially from the 1960s on, has been suicidal".

Then, at Mangan's, you called yourself an "ignoro-Semite", "who would prefer to let the philo-Semites and the anti-Semites dance their meaningless verbal tango while we get on with our lives and think as little about Jews as possible".

When I put these various statements together the message I hear is: "pay no mind to jews, except you must send your sons to die serving them, you suicidal morons".

Is that what you're trying to say?

OffendedMan said...

Baron -

I must disagree about your take on Robert Spencer's comment (re Vlaams Belang). He called the guilt by association "outrageous", a far stronger word (IMHO) than "alleged".

To argue about this or that word while Muslims are putting a mosque at Ground Zero would be (again, in my opinion) to argue about deck chairs on the Titanic (while the water rises above our knees).

spackle said...

"The suggestion that we Whites have our own interests, independent of jewish interests, really disturbs you, doesn't it?"

Why does it have to be either or? Is it not possible for a Jew to be Pro-white and pro-Israel? To a white Jewish Conservative (yes, they do exist) who is rational and sound of mind, it would seem common sense is the real key in decision making? As to "Jewish Interests"? I dont even know what those are? Liberal interests? Israeli interests? If it is the latter I dont see anything wrong with Jews supporting Israel as long as it comes from a place of logic.

The problem it seems here is that many people are of the opinion that Jews are ruled from Jerusalem. No matter where they are on the planet. Just as the Irish were thought to be secret Papists . Loyal to Rome over America. It just aint true.

Cobra said...

What is so incomprehensible?
You, guys, need to understand something.
Most of the mentioned people, will oppose nationalism by all means, because they believe European nationalism was responsible for their ethnic group in the past.
While they may support Geert and others like him FOR TACTICAL REASONS TODAY-their work against the islamization of Europe and other western countries, ultimately, they view their nationalism detrimental to their long term agenda.
That is all that matters for them.
People ask why Clinton admin. was so adamant in his war against Serbs in Croatia and Kosovo, despite the fact that by doing so it ensured the spread of Islam in Europe.
The answer is that certain people in key positions, were absolutely determined to cull the spread of nationalism in Eastern Europe.
The same explanation applies to the USA support for Turkey in their quest to join the EU despite the fact that that would ensure the Islam conquest of Europe, as we see clearly now, after the "flotilla" fiasco.
Guys, you really need to understand what Europeans understand very clearly and drop the PC, otherwise our destiny is all but assured.

Cobra said...

Correction:

"because they believe European nationalism was responsible for their ethnic group problems in the past".

. said...

Don't know if you have reported on this already, Baron, since I've been absent from your site for a while, but my brother in Belgium tells me that Vlaams Belang's thunder has been stolen by the New Flemish Alliance, which also wants Flemish independence but jettisons the (insert unpleasant political term here)-ism if Vlaams Belang. He says the Vlaams Belang die-hards are shouting "betrayal," because they have been eclipsed. I do notice that the number of votes cast for Vlaams Belang in the 2010 election was almost 40% less than those cast in 2007.

Baron Bodissey said...

Nodrog --

Yes, I believe we did report on the Flemish election results. I think Dympphna covered it while I was in Zurich.

Chechar said...

@ “Tanstaafl: You have your own blog. If you want to spam your own site by writing the same comment a zillion times then by all means do so, but don't do it at this blog. It's rude.” – Fj

Why rude? Tan is doing what Hunter Wallace advices white nationalist bloggers at Occidental Dissent: show the redpill to those unaware of the Jewish Question, what Wallace calls ironically “discourse poisoning.”

If you consider blogsites like Tan’s or OD like “spam”, I would recommend discussing the JQ here. Or if you prefer, in one of the dozen recent threads at Mangan’s related to the JQ (for a single commenter post from those various threads that elucidates what Tan is trying to explain here, see e.g., this one).

But, oh boy, I had forgotten that you believe that “only people who can denounce genuine anti-Semitism yet at the same time criticize liberal Jews are people who are part-Jewish themselves, such as Larry Auster or Takuan Seiyo.” Since most people presently discussing the JQ at Mangan’s are (like me) gentiles, I strongly advice you what in those threads I have just advised Auster and Taksei: read the scholarly treatise Esau’s Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews (Cambridge University Press) by Albert Lindemann, who is Jewish. Read it to check and see if anti-Semitism is as irrational as counter-jihadists believe it is.

Fjordman said...

Tanstaafl: I don't comment at your blog because frankly, it's not that interesting and I only have so many hours at my disposal. I have visited it a couple of times as I try to keep an open mind and noticed that your readers, including Chechar, were speculating whether I am a "crypto-Jew." Just for the record, I am Norwegian as far back as I am able to track, possibly dating all the way back in the same region to the Viking Age, at least on my mother's side. Consequently, I am about as "Germanic" as you can get. I probably don't have a single drop of Jewish blood in my veins, and the religion that I don't believe in is Lutheran Christianity. And no, I don't get paid for any of the essays I post either here, at The Brussels Journal, Jihad Watch or elsewhere. I write for free because I believe in what I write, which makes me either an idealist or a moron. I do wonder about that distinction myself occasionally....

The difference between you and me is that I am rational enough to realize that there is no such thing as a giant hydra with nine heads called "the Jews." If Noam Chomsky is a Leftist moron then you criticize that, but you also support brave Israeli soldiers who risks their lives to defend their country against an evil enemy. I don't see any problem whatsoever in doing both. The problem exists entirely in your head because you see all Jews in the entire world as one giant organism. I don't.

My priorities are quite clear, and they are 1.) Preserving European civilization and the peoples who have created it, that is, whites. 2). Defeating Islam globally. I started out with priority number 2 being number 1 and later changed my mind. This is no secret. But I will still support anybody who fights against Islamic Jihad, provided that it doesn't conflict with priority number 1. I think that sounds like both a sensible and a moral strategy and don't see any contradiction here. I support Israel because they have evil enemies, who also happen to be our enemies, and because I pragmatically believe that it is in Europe's best interest that Israel survives. I will criticize the ADL or others if they deserve it, which they clearly do sometimes, but I have every intention of supporting Israel for as long as I write essays under this name. If you dislike that then you are welcome to do so, but preferably somewhere else. I will never join any anti-Israeli coalition and neither, I suspect, will the Baron. You are therefore wasting your time and mine as well.

Chechar said...

Thanks for clarifying the “crypto Jew” thing (too much Jew love in counter-jihad, like American Robert Spencer waving the Israeli flag in America, is always a little suspect).

@ there is no such thing as a giant hydra with nine heads called "the Jews."

Without naming the author, in my previous post I referred to a comment that Scott posted at Mangan’s. Take note of the last paragraph in the below quotation: it conveys the idea that not every single head of the hydra must be Jewish:

Quote:

Fact: Jews have incredible power to shape policy and culture in America, whether it be through political lobbies, the legal profession (Supreme Court, law professors, trial lawyers), the news media and opinion journalism, the entertainment media, the feminism and diversity industries, the financial industry juggernaut (including their puppets controlling the Fed), etc.

Fact: They aren’t afraid to use that power to make it nearly impossible for any movement that doesn’t explicitly serve their financial and ethnic interests to gain any kind of foothold, much less momentum.

A question for all the Austerian philo-Semites and anti-anti-Semites concerned about the tragic (tragicomic?) plight of Western civilization, the looming demographic and cultural and financial destruction of America, etc.: Do you not see a conflict between your interests and the financial and ethnic interests of Jews? Not unlike the conflict between your interests and black or Mexican financial and ethnic interests?
[...]

Please note, I understand it’s an open question how much blame to apportion to Jews for this or that. Did Jews spearhead a destructive movement? Were they necessary and/or sufficient for a destructive movement to occur? Did they merely speed along a destructive movement that was inevitable? Take the pornography industry, for example. It’s no secret that Jews trail-blazed the industry (bringing all their entrepreneurial spirit and legal acumen to advance it into the colossus it is today) and still dominate it. But perhaps somebody else would have done it. Like, perhaps Ireland would eventually have spearheaded a booming porn industry. So, never mind debates apportioning blame.

/ end quote

@ I will never join any anti-Israeli coalition... You are therefore wasting your time and mine as well.

As far as I understand it, Israel is peripheral in JQ studies. Again, cf. Lindemann (and forget Israel for the moment). He mainly deals with the JQ in the 19th century up to the end of World War II, before Israel was established. The real issue is how Jews have behaved in the West and in Russia.

Elan-tima said...

I always appreciate GOV's defence of Vlaams Belang and exposeing the silly attacks by their enemies in Europe and the ignorant in North America.(I support VB's drive to independence from the parasitic French south both for ideological reasons and that my grandmother was Vlaams)

However I must point out that both the supporters and detractors of Vlaams Belang are half right in regards to VB being Fascistic, or not bein Fascistic.

One of the three pillars of Fascism is and was cultural Nationalism which was brewed most notably by the writer Mazzini in the middle of the nineteenth century, firstly to champion the "Risorgimento" that culminated in the establishment of the modern Italien state. "Thought and action" was Mazzini's catch phrase and the Red Shirts of Garibaldi carried that cultural Nationalistic view into battle. Later in the early twentieth century the youth of Italy again began reading Mazzini and others and Nationalism stired the pot of radicalism. Many such as Rocco would chastise Mussolini before the first world war about how his changing political ideas were more like the Nationalists and less like the Socialists. Thus, if any one supports Nationalism in their country or any other, they can rightly be painted with the same brush as a Fascist because to be a Fascist you must also be Nationalistic. My only question is... So what? Do the Math and count the bodies and see which one is higher, Fascists or Nationalists on the one side or Humanisms bastard children Communists, Liberalists or Socialists on the other("Right" or "Left").

Secondly, although I've not read Liberal Fascism by Mr Goldberg (one: because of the Oxymoronic title--Liberalism is deconstructive while Fascism is constructive--two: I try not to rely on second hand agenda info)
He's obviously relying on the fact that Mussolini and many others began their political careers in socialism before becoming Fascists. Hopefully he points out that the DUCE and others turned their backs on Socialism because of the failure of the general strike which then split the movement in two. One side stuck to Marxist doctrine while the other along with Mussolini opted for Sorel's Syndicalism, which was anti-materialistic, but when grafted to Fascism, supported state control over much of society(ie: Totalitarianism).
Vlaams Belang is adamantly not Syndicalistic and are as free market champions as anyone, ergo in that sense NOT Fascistic.

The whole of this is to point out that their are political ideas and traits that interweve among all ideologies and at this point in history we should mock those who point fingers and yell FASCIST for that reason. The best way to confront anyone who accuses you of being a Fascist is to demand they define Fascism. They'll likely stumble and then say intolerant, descriminatory, supressive etc. Just point out that most current governments in one way or another all practice those traits and your adversary will be silent in defeat.
For a superior history of Fascism consult any book by A. James Gregor and leave the slow pitch stuff from Mr Goldberg to the kids.

The Observer said...

Fjordman said ...

“The difference between you and me is that I am rational enough to realize that there is no such thing as a giant hydra with nine heads called "the Jews."

Fjordman, what about Muslims then, is there a giant hydra with nine heads called “the Muslims” or do you recognize that there are there individual differences between people of this particular faith, and that not all of them are hell-bent on destroying the west? And do you recognize that not all of them view Caucasians and people of other faiths and races as inferior human beings?