Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: Ukraine Violence Spreads: At Least One Killed in Odessa Riots [View all]The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)People on the left, particularly people on its further fringes, have long been in the habit of brandishing 'fascist' and 'nazi' as all-purpose one-size-fits-all terms of abuse for the enemy of the moment, so that for many who are prone to employ them, the terms have lost all meaning, and simply mean 'someone or something I don't like'. They have no idea what the actual characteristics of a fascist government or movement are, and no sense whatever of actual historical circumstances in which fascism and nazism arose and prospered, and what developments flowed from their flowering. This feeds into a second common element of 'lefter than thou' usage of the terms 'fascist' and 'nazi'. This is a tendency to present any degree of rightist presence which can be found in something opposed as both 'proof' that 'nazi fascists' are involved, and further, that the whole thing is dominated by, directed by, and acting to establish, 'nazis' and 'fascists', without the slightest degree of examination being devoted to finding out and understanding what is actually going on. That this will on occasion, as it has now, lead people to chant 'I oppose nazi fascists' while they align themselves with the leading fascist state and ruler in the world at present, and in support of the most blatant imperialist action to be found in the world today, while it can rouse both laughter and some degree of disgust, really ought not to be any surprise....
"It's a feature, not a bug."