| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Ubiquitous" |
| Date: |
25 Aug 2006 11:51:07 AM |
| Object: |
Racially or ethnically specific |
Erin Aubry Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times takes Andrew Young to task for
going to work for Wal-Mart, a company whose "determination to keep unions
away that can be described as fascist" (which is true inasmuch as
anything can be described as fascist). But Kaplan defends the bigoted
remarks that got Young fired:
Young's comments were called racist, and I
don't entirely agree. Certainly it's despicable
to exploit racial and economic anxiety in order
to convince the black media that Wal-Mart is
a solution. Being racially or ethnically
specific, however, is not the same as being racist.
"Racially or ethnically specific" is a marvelous euphemism for
prejudiced. Kaplan does have a point, though: One can be prejudiced
without being racist, if one understands racism to mean, as it originally
did, a theory holding that some races are innately superior or inferior
to others. This distinction has been blurred beyond recognition by those
who profit by exaggerating the degree to which old-fashioned racism is a
thing of the present.
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which the
liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn our
military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad for
them, it's failing.
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| User: "Topaz" |
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| Title: Re: Racially or ethnically specific |
25 Aug 2006 08:18:24 PM |
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Here are parts of a post about Mussolini written by a very
anti-Mussolini person. He has done his homework though and cites many
books which are also anti-Mussolini and anti-Fascist. These are some
things they admit:
"He had a profound contempt for those whose overriding ambition was to
be rich. It was a mania, he thought, a kind of disease, and he
comforted himself with the reflection that the rich were rarely happy"
Here Hibbert (1962, p. 47) is describing a lifelong attitude of
Mussolini that continued right into his time as Italy's Prime Minister
- when he refused to take his official salary.
"There was much truth in the comment of a Rome newspaper that the new
fasci did not aim at the defence of the ruling class or the existing
State but wanted to lead the revolutionary forces into the Nationalist
camp so as to prevent a victory of Bolshevism.
even after coming to power, to take drives in the country with his
wife and stop at various
farmhouses on the way for a chat with the family there. He would enjoy
discussing the crops, the weather and all the usual rural topics and
obviously just liked the feeling of being one of the people. His claim
to represent the people was not just theory but heartfelt. And he
never gave up his "anti-bourgeois" rhetoric.
His policies were basically protectionist. He controlled the
exchange-rate of the Italian currency and promoted that old favourite
of the economically illiterate - autarky - meaning that he tried to
get Italy to become wholly self-sufficient rather than rely on foreign
trade. He wanted to protect Italian products from competing foreign
products.
By 1939 he had doubled Italy's grain production from its traditional
level, enabling Italy to cut wheat imports by 75% (Smith, 1967, p.
92).
He made Capri a bird sanctuary (Smith, 1967, p. 84) and in 1926 he
issued a decree reducing the size of newspapers to save wood pulp.
And, believe it or not, he even mandated gasohol - i.e. mixing
industrial alcohol with petroleum products to make fuel for cars
(Smith, 1967, p. 87). Mussolini also disliked the population drift
from rural areas
into the big cities and in 1930 passed a law to put a stop to it
unless official permission was granted
he advocated private enterprise within a strict set of State controls
designed, among other things, to prevent abuse of monopoly power
(Gregor, 1979, Ch. 5).
....a big expansion of public works and a great improvement in social
insurance measures. He also set up the "Dopolavoro" (after work)
organization to give workers cheap recreations of various kinds (cf.
the Nazi Kraft durch Freude movement). His public health measures
(such as the attack on tuberculosis and the setting up of a huge
maternal and child welfare organization) were particularly notable for
their rationality and fficiency and, as such, were rewarded with great
success. For instance, the incidence of uberculosis
dropped dramatically and infant mortality declined by more than 20%
(Gregor, p. 259).
"instituted a programme of public works hitherto unrivalled in modern
Europe. Bridges, canals and roads were built, hospitals and schools,
railway stations and orphanages, swamps were drained and land
reclaimed, forest were planted and universities were endowed."
In 1929 Mussolini and Pope Pius 12th signed the Lateran treaty -
which is still the legal basis for the existence of the Vatican State
to this day - and Pius in fact at one stage
called Mussolini "the man sent by Providence". The treaty recognized
Roman Catholicism as the Italian State religion as well as recognizing
the Vatican as a sovereign state. What Mussolini got in exchange was
acceptance by the church - something that was enormously important in
the Italy of that time.
the great hatred that existed in prewar Germany between the Nazis and
the "Reds". And the early Fascists battled the "Reds" too, of course.
The 1919 election manifesto, for instance, contained policies of
worker control of industry, confiscation of war profits, abolition of
the Stock exchange, land for the
peasants and abolition of the Monarchy and nobility. Further,
Mussolini never ceased to inveigh against "plutocrats".
He wanted a harmonious and united Italy for all Italians of all
classes and was sure that achieving just treatment for the workers
needed neither revolution nor any kind of
artificially enforced equality.
This made Italian Fascism a much more popular creed than Stalin's
Communism. This is perhaps most clearly seen by the always persuasive
"voting with your feet" criterion. Mussolini made no effort to prevent
Italians from emigrating and although some anti-Fascists did, net
emigration actually FELL under Mussolini. Compare this with Stalin and
the Berlin wall.
Mussolini gained power through political rather than revolutionary
means. His famous march on Rome was only superficially revolutionary.
The King of Italy and the army
approved of him because of his pragmatic policies so did not oppose
the march. So this collusion ensured that Mussolini's "revolution" was
essentially bloodless.
His considerable popularity for many years among a wide range of
Italians shows how effective his recipe for achieving that was.
In his "corporate state", Mussolini was the first to create ...a
system of capitalism under tight government control. And his corporate
state was one where the workers had (at least in theory) equal rights
with management.
REFERENCES Amis, M. (2002) Koba the Dread : laughter and the twenty
million.
N.Y.: Talk Miramax
Carsten, F.L. (1967) The rise of Fascism. London: Methuen.
Funk & Wagnall's New Encyclopedia (1983) Funk & Wagnall's
Galbraith, J.K. (1969) The affluent society. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
Gilmour, I.H.J.L. (1978) Inside right. London: Quartet.
Greene, N. (1968) Fascism: An anthology. N.Y.: Crowell.
Gregor, A.J. (1979) Italian Fascism and developmental dictatorship
Princeton, N.J.: Univ. Press.
Hagan, J. (1966) Modern History and its themes. Croydon, Victoria,
Australia: Longmans.
Hibbert, C. (1962) Benito Mussolini Geneva: Heron Books. Herzer, I.
(1989)
The Italian refuge: Rescue of Jews during the holocaust. Washington,
D.C.:
Catholic University of America Press
Horowitz, D. (1998) Up from multiculturalism. Heterodoxy, January.
See:
http://www.cspc.org/het/multicul.htm
Lenin, V.I. (1952) "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder. In:
Selected Works, Vol. II, Part 2. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing
House.
Martino, A. (1998) The modern mask of socialism. 15th John Bonython
lecture,
Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney. See
http://www.cis.org.au/Events/JBL/JBL98.htm
Muravchik, J. (2002) Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism
San
Francisco: Encounter Books.
Smith, D.M. (1967) The theory and practice of Fascism. In: Greene, N.
Fascism: An anthology N.Y.: Crowell.
Steinberg, J. (1990) All or nothing: The Axis and the holocaust
London:
Routledge.
http://www.nationalvanguard.org http://www.natvan.com
http://www.thebirdman.org http://www.ihr.org/
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