I was surprised to see wingnut tropes about
"government + industry = fascism" on the Rec list.
Wingnuts say Obama saving the auto industry makes him Hitler in Human Events:
Economic fascism reigns supreme in Barack Obama’s America...
Or American Spectator:
There is a whiff of Fascism emanating from the Obama White House....
Government control over businesses is... Fascism, or more precisely, Mussolini-style corporatism. As Mussolini said, "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
Wingnuts say America's Fascist, so they need to "save" America from Obama, blacks, and liberals. Lyndon LaRouche paints Obama as Hitler and calls HCR fascism. Got it? The diary I refute uses rightwing nutcase tropes, and the Mussolini quote is apparently a right wing hoax.
There are a whole lot of problems with playing fast and lose with the definitions of "fascism." Call Obama Hitler over 'death panels" for instance is itself a Nazi technique, using the "blood libel" of liberals and racial mongrels conspiring to kill Aaryans.
Nazi apologists cherry pick quotes to Fascists or Nazis to suit their ends. Taking Fascists at their word is a weird approach, because it ignores what they did in favor of taking propaganda at face value.
They like to say "Hitler was a liberal," because if Adolph was a lefty, they need to go waaaaay to the right of Hitler, and they can embrace many of his ideas, since he wasn't really that bad any way.
Glenn Beck Loves to play with the definition of "Fascism" because it allows the right to incorporate large chunks of Nazi rhetoric while claiming it proves they aren't Nazis.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Pat Buchannan runs with the theme of Hitler being misunderstood, Hitler the lamb, Hitler the peace maker.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
And then there is Umberto Eco's amazaingly prescient diary about the reawakening of Fascism in the Internet age, as predicted by someone that grew up under Mussolini. Eco notes the danger of people that want to dilute the power of the "Fascist" brand by defining Hitler as ....something else. Spoiler alert - Hitler was a Fascist
http://www.dailykos.com/...
So what makes Nazism special? It's the racial conspiracy theories, the idea that liberals plan to kill white people, an idea that has gone mainstream.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Reviewing Jonah Goldberg and his career as a Nazi apologist and author of "Liberal Fascism"
http://www.dailykos.com/...
More on the use of GOP "blood libels."
http://www.dailykos.com/...
And this going back to Bush43 as Karl Popper's malevolent "Great Man"
http://www.dailykos.com/...