by Robert M. Traxler
I would like everyone who refers to folks like Ranger Rick and I as fascists to know that the concept or phrase was coined by Benito Mussolini, the dictator of the Italians from 1925 to 1945. Originally a revolutionary socialist and the son of a prominent socialist leader, he was a school teacher, brick mason, community organizer, reporter, soldier, editor, publisher and politician.
Mussolini developed fascism (from a Latin word meaning bundle or political group) after analyzing elections in which the socialist party could never get more than 7% of the vote. He advocated two changes in socialist doctrine. Mussolini’s service in WWI made a deep impact on him, as did serving with deeply religious men, so he added religion and nationalism to socialism.
The concept of socialism as a pure socialist if not Marxist organization, was replaced with socialism that allowed religion. The Roman Catholic Church is headquartered in Italy, after all, and nationalism, two concepts that were toxic to the socialist party. The people of Italy embraced the new socialist doctrine and Mussolini and the fascists took control of the nation.
Adolph Hitler watched and learned from Mussolini, even referring to him as “my teacher,” and modeled the National Socialists German Workers Party after the fascists in Italy. Many of the Nazi concepts and most of its organization were copies of Mussolini’s model.
The contemporary politically correct definition refers to fascists as right wing, something that puzzles me. Besides being nationalistic, there is nothing right wing about fascism or that is conservative in its practice. Total government control of all aspects of life from womb to tomb, control of the economy, labor, production and distribution were the pillars of fascism. national health care, income redistribution, guaranteed minimum wage for all, government work for all who wish to work, massive civic action projects, sound familiar?
Read the Green New Deal, listen to a speech by Senator Bernie Sanders (hardly a right wing
person) and judge for yourself. Well, if we are allowed to judge for ourselves by the media mob/academics/progressives who tell us what we must think and say or be shouted down, oddly the same tactics the fascists (Baathists in middle eastern nations) in at least 11 countries used from 1925 to today.
We have been spoon-fed the party line that fascists are bad. No argument from me on that point, but the honest truth is that fascism is 90% socialism, OK it is not pure Marxism, but it is much more socialism than capitalism. Those who refer to government plans to assist the downtrodden as socialism fail to note that nothing in a market-driven republic prohibits helping folks in need. They also fail to note that socialism is an economic and governing system that empowers the government, not the individual.
The 300-pound gorilla in the presidential election is, will the swamp dwellers, the establishment Democrats, allow Senator Sanders to win the nomination? He should have last primary election cycle, but the swamp dwellers would not allow him to win, rigging the process to favor Secretary Hillary Clinton. I would love to see a head-to-head choice between a non-apologetic socialist and a free market capitalist. My money, pun intended, is on the capitalist.
At least Senator Sanders is a socialist who does not openly support religion or nationalism, simply because it is the politically expedient thing to do in an election cycle. Senator Sanders is closer to Karl Marx than Benito Mussolini in political doctrine; I would not call him a fascist, but the argument could be made he is a Marxist.
Is being a Marxist a good or bad thing in a constitutional republic? An election could answer that question. No surprise that I do not think Marxism or fascism would be good for our nation.
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