Sunday 28 June 2009

News gathering AKA Treason

'Iran's intelligence minister, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, has warned the press that the government regards newsgathering as an arrestable offence. "Whoever, under any name or title, collects information in Iran will be arrested, and so far a foreign journalist has been arrested," he said. He did not identify the journalist'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/25/british-arrests-iran-protests

'"Some people with British passports were involved in recent riots," said Mohseni-Ejei, according to Fars.'

'"Those law breakers who invited people to the streets with their statements are responsible for the bloodshed," the minister said'

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE55N1Q920090624?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=11559

Friday 26 June 2009

Lights are going out.....


As clerics demand and sanctify death
As protesters win small battles at great cost
and Iranian blogs fall silent
Update: With regards to my pervious post on the geo-politics of the struggle in Iran, Russia decides for outright hypocracy
'While the US and the UK have criticised Iran's crackdown on the opposition, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said at a G8 foreign ministers' meeting in Italy that no one was willing to condemn Iran over its disputed presidential election, which he called "an exercise in democracy".'

Fragment #2 or Association Football in the Land of the Free




I haven't been writting much about football because being a Newcastle fan at the moment makes the entire game a prolonged torturous reminder of how shite we are. However I could not past by without commenting on this recent result:-


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/8114585.stm


'The United States caused one of the biggest upsets in world football by beating European champions Spain in the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup'


The two nil victory is probably the most impressive result the States have had in the world's most popular game since the one nil victory over England in 1950. Just as then, the US beat a pre-eminent force within the game. Spain's short passing game had savaged some of the best sides in the world and with victory over the Americans would have beaten the international record for going undefeated and consecutive wins. Spain up until this point had been firm favourites for the 2010 World Cup and, with players like Villa, Torres, Xavi, Iniesta, Alonso, Fabregas, Puyot, Ramos and the peerless Casillas, had a fearsome strength in depth.

Whilst some might argue that is only the Confederations Cup (for those un-initiated into the labyrinthine world of FIFA competitions, a money making hook up, feeding off the base international tournaments), the possibility for Spain to break such records should have easily been ample motivation. Thus to the United States Football Team, well done Sirs. And for citizens of the (other) Great Republic, please show your appreciation to one of the foremost sporting achievement of your recent past.

The victory over England in 1950 was an even greater upset. The English, who had up until that point distained the World Cup as some foreign innovation, were the 'Kings of Football'. Their record since the resumption of full internationals in 1945 was impressive. With only 4 losses and 3 draws in thirty games, England came to Brazil and their first World Cup as 3-1 favourites. The USA's odd were 500-1. Whilst the English side included some of leading players in the world and legendary figures such as Alf Ramsey, Billy Wright, Wilf Mannion, Tom Finney and Stan Mortensen, the American team was made up of virtulally unknown part-timers. The US were battered in the first half but came away with a one-nil lead thanks to Joe Gaetjens throwing himself at the ball and putting it past Bert Williams in the 37th minute. Despite a penalty appeal, the English failed to score in the second half and so was born one of the biggest shocks in international sports.

For the English, the shock was dealt with by quasi-denial. There is a folk tale that English sport journalists at first presumed the wire services had made a clerical mistake and the result was actually 10-0 to England. After the defeat, voices were raised that the US team consisted of 'imported talent' and thus defeat came through underhand means. Such hubris was demonstrated in the arrangements that meant Stanley Mathews, the foremost English player of the post war period, had been touring Canada with another group of England players before Brazil and only arrived in time to sit and watch the game. Defeat to Spain in the next game and exit from the competition was taken, not as a sign that English Football was sliding into obsolescence, but as proof of the 'questionable' nature of international tournaments over the test system.

Such Mrs Havisham like arrogance was not finally dismissed till the 1953 massacre by the great Hungarian side of Puskas and Hidegkuti at Wembley. The 1950 defeat had been a clear marker that not only was the traditional tactics of England dying, but to prosper in the new age of world cups and rising powers like Brazil, Spain, the USSR, Hungary and Italy, a new professionalism was needed in organisation and management. The English right back that night in Belo Horizonte, a veteran of the epoch marking defeat in 1953 as well as the 'Miracle on Grass', was to take these lessons and create England's only world conquering team of the modern age; Alf Ramsey.

For the US, the victory did not herald the sport's triumphant march in the Nation's consciousness. Football 's organisation and structures remained stunted despite the heroic efforts of the national team and its rising popularity. While the seventies and early eighties brought the unsustainable spending and glamour of the NASL, Football was consigned to be the sport of immigrants and girls. One hopes that the brilliant efforts of today's team might make it a truly national sport.

The goal scorer that night back in 1953, Joe Gaetjens, was Haitian born, having gone to New York to study. Although he had declared his intention to become an American citizen, he never did so. After a brief stay in France, where he played for Troyes, he returned to Haiti. As it was common to be able to play for multiple national sides then, he went on to play for Haiti in a 1953 qualifier against Mexico. Becoming a businessman and a supporter of local football, he disappeared in 1964, taken by the Tontons macoutes acting under François Duvalier. He, like thousands of others, was presumed killed.

Thursday 25 June 2009

Geo-politics, memory and Iran


If we're honest, there is only two ways regimes collapse. Firstly though external means i.e. military defeat and invasion or secondly the regime itself begins to doubt its 'mandate from Heaven' and seeks to reacquire it. In the latter case, it either exits the stage like the Tsarist regime, or indeed the Shah, or it seeks to reform itself or co-opt the opposition within power, like the monarchy of Louis XVI or the Philippines post Marcos. Long term decay of both societal legitimacy and the self-perception of the 'right' to rule amongst the regime sapped away at the required strength of will to crush ongoing dissent. Yet that will is buttressed by eternal forces too. No state can be truly isolated.

Even during the more isolated point of the Soviet Union's post civil war history 1921-the early thirties, it was still in diplomatic and contact with a host of nominally anti-communist powers, including many of the losers of the Versailles Treaty. These secret contacts and treaties allowed it to materially survive and reinforced its sense of being the 'go to' power over its own territory, a prime goal of any state. By 1991, with its satellites vanishing, China and the eastern branch of the Comintern paralysed by recent strife and former clients moving sideways, its isolation was palpable. Quarantined alone with growing and crippling social problems and nose diving legitimacy, the elites had no other place to turn but inept coups and then ignominious exit. Onwards to the dustbin et al.

It was Carter's refusal to continue to support the 'Great King' that saw off the Pahlavis. Similarly Marcos and Suharto did not last much beyond the removal of the US 'mandate'. I very much doubt if China decided North Korea did not have a geo-political function anymore, it wouldn't last much more than a year.

Whilst the situation in Iran does not seem to approach the total existential crisis of the Soviet regime, the multiplicity of elites that make up the regime would fear real isolation. Of course, I don't mean isolation from the west. Western powers since the fall of the Shah and the rise of the intrinsically 'anti-Imperialist' Islamic Republic have had few cards to play. With a structurally imposed thirst for oil and gas and little in the way of diplomatic and economic levers over Iran, the west, in terms of governments, kind of doesn't matter, except in a negative way. Believe me, I am no fan of 'engagement', or state sanctioned dictator rim-jobbing, but the fact remains. The power of external support and thus elite self-belief rests on Russia and China.

Whilst China provides a still insatiable market for Iranian raw materials, Russia provides technical backing and support for the military. Without these props, the regular military could not keeps itself armed against Great and various Little Satans and continue to support its proxies. Similarly, Oil revenue is the life blood of the entire state. Take away the thirstiest market and you effect ever arm of the Iranian system. The mandate of continued Chinese and Russian support is the keystone to the ability of the Regime to remain unreformed and repress. Alas, I couldn't think of two powers less likely to take a stance in favour of the people

States are not really design to be moral agents in International affairs and the CCP and the 'managed democracy' of Russia are a-moral agents par excellent. The heirs of Deng Xiaoping are not known for their sympathy towards street protest either. Indeed, China's new economy and society is based of purposely 'forgetting' events such as those in Tehran today. The ghost of June 4th must haunt Beijing's imaginings when looking at those 'tweets', mobile photo shots of blood covered hands, grainy pictures of innocents killed. If technology had allowed such samizdat coverage of Tienanmen, how much more deadly to the regime it might have been, how much harder to erase? For the CCP, failing to back Iran might well be as toxic as Vergennes' support of the colonies. As studious historians of the Great Revolution of 1789, the Politburo of the CCP will undoubtedly see the parallel.

James Fallow has some thoughts on the currently 'muted' Chinese official reaction

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/iran_in_china.php

One of the few pieces to emerge merely regurgitates the theocrats' 'The West did it' narrative

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/GlobalTimesIran.jpg

Russia, whilst it may lack such a painful spectre of crowd power, is well at home with 'extra-democratic' measures. Even before the rise of FSB veteran and Judo fan Vladimir, the illegal dissolution of the Russian Parliament in 1993 and the subsequent deaths of at least 187 people demonstrated an 'ambivalence' towards democratic norms. Indeed, one detects a certain sorrow amongst the 'managers' that the Soviet Union's demise and the birth of the Russian federation were performed on the streets in 1991. Just as blowing the shit out of the Duma with a T72 shows a certain lack of care with protests over popular power, so the continued killing of opponents and journalists address a fundamental lack of sympathy with those resisting oppression.

Whilst the depictions of the struggle in Iran within the mostly state control media have been wider than in China, they have still conformed to the Mullah's take. Arminadinnerjacket was the winner, protests are merely sore losers and next! etc. Bearing in mind the very low standard set by the Russian state for its own 'free and fair' elections, that is hardly a surprise. There have been a few hints of alternative readings, the results being 'shaky' for instance, but it is a minor story, soon to be forgotten and filed away.

More here

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2009/06/17/what-to-make-of-the-russian-media-s-reaction-to-iran.aspx

Depressing given the key nature of both. However, both regimes would not stand for extended chaos. That would be a vast disruption to Russia's Great Game playing, and China's supply concerns. If the struggle cannot be easily repressed, if the bouts of protest followed by crackdown followed by protests become systemic, like in 1979, then the picture changes. Iran ceases to be a welcome customer of arms and purveyor of oleaginous goodness a bit under the weather and becomes a liability. Such an unpredictable maelstrom would not only be a destabilising element in western assumptions and power politics but a serious threat to both Chinese and Russian geo-politics.

I hope such attrition, or more rightly an awful contest between protesters' bones and slowly eroding batons need not come to past. Cracks in the elites and those who serve within the institutions of state have appeared. IF what John Simpson says is
true here:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8116825.stm

then the internal doubt needed to end any regime may be spreading.

Either way, it will be a contest of will. Truth, justice and plain old boring humanity are on the protesters side. The longer they can heroically hold out (Please let it not be too long), the base nature of geo-politics, that usual arena of the a-moral and merely evil, might well come to their aid too
ps. Lionel Beehner is a cunt, coy cunt as well

Wednesday 24 June 2009

Poetry Fruit Corner

Red-Handed

for a host of martyrs
comes into this surge
sons of sons taken
and daughters of daughters
wed, raped and hungby
hook, shah and Qomish crook
first time as tragedy
second as tragedy heightened

and the blood, as red
as the paint on the frescoes
of each martyr in turn
except them without use,
virtue, a tin of vice
bathes pleading hands
thrown out as columns
measuring Cyrus' people

caught red handed
caught and taken
to be cut into mere grief
relic slipped under earth
speechless, unheard
fading from the instance
of the butcher's slice
embraced by nameless quantity

by Courtney Bernays

Tuesday 23 June 2009

Must see freebie

The Brilliant Errol Morris' brilliant 'Fog of War'

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8653788864462752804

Errol Morris' site

http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow.html

Update: Morris' piece 'Mr Death' too, lucky souls you are (hilariously hosted by some holocaust dening retards who singularly and spectacularly fail to get the point)

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=654178281151939378&q=Mr.+Death%3A+The+Rise+and+Fall+of+Fred+A.+Leuchter%2C+Jr

'The worse.......the better'


I've been wanting to do my ideal type series on Neo-Conservatism for a while. Like Fascism or Neo-Liberalism, it, as a precise descriptive label albeit discursive, has been made almost meaningless in the repeated sloppiness of its use. Anything objectionable is Neo-con, anything the States does (even under Obama) is Neo-con directed, anything other than whole hearted support for 'anti-imperialist' murderers and terrorists is Neo-con.
Briefly, Neo-Conservatism is a constant exploration of the world to find a manichean division between a petrified and homogeneous sense of western/American/'Judeo-Christian' culture and some demonic other. The need for that search was a platonic view of mass society and democracy. By giving a society a sense of historic mission and a narrative of confrontation with evil, atomisation and chronic disunity and tumults might be overcome. The world must be made to be or made to be conceived as binary as to create the unity of the 'good', a useful deception/interpretation/vision beyond. Just as important is the unity of the 'bad' or other. If cracks appear in this monolith, then they must be denied or made meaningless or even threatening.
So to:
Daniel Pipes

Max Boot


Marty Peretz
(HT. George Packer)
The Iranian students, those workers out in solidarity, those ordinary citizens, those snotty leisure class-ists of John Wight's imagination, are similarly reduced by these stalwarts. They are either merely flotsam, caught up in the Great Game, as bad as the militia beating and killing them or agents whom might just ruin the whole show.
Neither (some of) SU or Commentary
Marg Bar Khomanai!

I wanna lick John Hodgman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW7OPByRGDY

Monday 22 June 2009

Iran


Here at the Republic, we are not known for our fastidious ongoing coverage of current affairs nor our fastidious grooming habits. Quite frankly, there are comrades far better at it than I.
Here
Here
And here
My solidarity is, naturally given my zio-infected mind hole, with the 'Tehran Trendies'. Much of the twentieth century was a competition between totalitarians and theocrats over who could make capitalism look good. The Islamic 'Republic' is a delightful mix of both. Thirty years of being force fed this scrumptious cocktail on top of 25 years of 'enlightened despotism' has left millions of 'Gucci glad covert agents of Bibi' feeling worse for wear. Having lived through hypocritical repression, the attritional warfare of the Iran-Iraq war and having been materialistically failed completely, the 'twitter-archy' ceased to take an election stolen so insultingly obviously on the chin.
Yes, none of the candidates are Lincoln. Yes, twitter is hardly the samizdat of the poorest of the poor and Yes, Iran remains a country deeply rooted to religion. None of this changes there is only one 'side' here worthy of support. Those much derided students and the assorted vanguardist capitalist infidel nokia charged cat pigs have taken to the streets to protest. They have been beaten, imprisoned and killed. The Trade Unions have come out in their support. They have organised and attended demos far beyond the evil that is North Tehran. If members of SWSS, a proper fully non-bourgeois student sect (hardy sons of the soil ona and all) had a hundredth of the bravery of those effete troublemakers, then you might actually have get somewhere.
Short Order Cook said it best
'About 0.6% of Twitter’s users are in Iran, which is about on a par with other 3rd world countries like Ireland, France, Russia and South Korea.

On Facebook, Iran contains 1.3% of the world’s users, which is the same amount as other countries filled with backwards peasants such as Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela.

This is only to be expected, as like these other countries, a huge majority of the population (30%) live outside cities and only a tiny proportion (30%) are educated to A level standard or higher. Plus, there are only a handful of university students in the country (3.5 million), and these are the ones who usually cause trouble in these kinds of situations.

Unemployment stands at only 20% and inflation is low at 24%, having reached a peak of only 30% a couple of months ago. With figures like these it’s not surprising that the Iranian people are happy with the sterling job that Ahmadinejad is doing!'
Also see here
"Iran and its citizens are considered by the Shiite theocracy to be the private property of the anointed mullahs. This totalitarian idea was originally based on a piece of religious quackery promulgated by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and known as velayat-e faqui. Under the terms of this edict—which originally placed the clerics in charge of the lives and property of orphans, the indigent, and the insane—the entire population is now declared to be a childlike ward of the black-robed state"
Such naughty children!
One thing that has surprised me, even more than the bravery and courage of the 'neo-liberal traitors to the mighty anti-Imperialist meta-narrative', has been the increasing unease of the usual anti-Imperialists over weather to excuse this 'internal affair'. Whilst the professional schills have been hard at work, the part-timers have been either supportive (at times superbly so) of the protests, silenced by confusion or driven insane bridging the gaps. Turning point or no, interesting methinks.

Wednesday 17 June 2009

Fragment


Flitting about on intertubes, I happen apon this petrified tragedy from that century just gone, a hundred years crammed with such example. Here is just one.


"Born Dorothea Gerson in Berlin.....Gerson began her career as a touring singer and actress in the Holtorf Tournee Truppe alongside actor Mathias Wieman.....where she met and married her first husband, film director Veit. The couple married in 1922 and divorced in 1924. Harlan would eventually direct the highly anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda film Jud Süß (1940) by request of Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels.


In 1920, Dora Gerson was cast to appear in the successful film adaptation of the Karl May penned novel
Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses (On the Brink of Paradise) and later followed that same year in another May adaptation entitled Die Todeskarawane (Caravan of Death). Both films included Hungarian actor Béla Lugosi in the cast. However, both films are now considered lost films.


Gerson continued to perform as a popular cabaret singer throughout the 1920s as well as acting in films. By 1933 however, when the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, the German-Jewish population was systematically stripped of rights and Gerson's career slowed dramatically. Blacklisted from performing in "Aryan" films, Gerson began recording music for a small Jewish record company. Dora Gerson also began recording in the Yiddish language during this time, and the 1936 song "Der Rebe Hot Geheysn Freylekh Zayn" became highly regarded by the Jews of Europe in the 1930s. Her best remembered recordings from this era were the songs "Backbord und Steuerbord" and "Vorbei" (Beyond Recall), which was an emotional ballad, subtlety memorializing a Germany before the rise of the Nazi Party.


In 1936 Dora Gerson relocated with relatives to the Netherlands fleeing Nazi persecution. On May 10, 1940, however, Germany invaded the Netherlands. Soon, the Jews of the Netherlands were subject to the same anti-Semitic laws and restrictions as in Germany. After several years of living under oppressive Nazi occupation, the Gerson family began to plan to escape. In 1942 Gerson and her family were seized trying to flee to Switzerland....The family were sent by railroad car to transit camp Westerbork bound for the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland. Dora Gerson was murdered at Auschwitz on February 14, 1943 at the age of 43."

For some reason, these fragments evoke in me the memory of reading the brutal calvary of Sofya in Life and Fate. A child of the century, destroyed by a cruelty, seemly woven into every second

Monday 15 June 2009

Anti-Semitism of the Left




After reading a few posts recently on Marx's anti-Semitism:-

Here

and here

I wanted add a few thoughts. Whilst I agree entirely that Marx and indeed much of the left, in the past have held and today do hold prejudiced and bigotted views on Jews and Judaism, I suggest that theirs is a quantatively different kind of anti-Semitism than that of either the Christian, Islamic or Nationalist kinds. This makes it no more obnoxious or harmful but rather it places it more firmly within the weltanschuanng of the left. This then raises issues that those who wish the left to truely leave this malignant tradition behind and how best to avoid similar fallacies.

Christian anti-Semitism is based on the particular collective accusation of deicide and the failure of the Jews to heed the new order of things brought about by Jesus. Islamic Juduophobia is founded similarly on Jewish rejection of the new 'truth' and their role as the early enemies of the prophet. Nationalist bigotry against the nefarious mythical 'Jude' comes from the Jews' seemly inherent 'alien' and a-national nature and their again innate 'decadence'. The similarities are clear, but the differences are vital too. One can see many synthesis of these narratives and these accusations. The original examples of the Blood libels in the Islamic world conjoined Christian and Nationalist versions of Jew hatred with Koranic sectarianism. Codreanu's passionate hatred of the Jews came from both a Christian 'Christ-killer' perspective and a Nationalist 'Cancer' one.
The leftist (i.e. Liberal, Radical/Jacobin, Socialist, Anarchist, Bolshevik Communist, anti-Imperialist) form of anti-Semitism is based on two levels, economic and philosophic. Economically, the Jews' position within Islamic and Christian pre-industrial society as being barred from land ownership placed them outside the whole economic basis of society. The opening up and 'rationalisation' of the Professions in the 19th century further isolated prominent Jews from the 'moral' and good economy. Jew had, pre-industrialisation, became a catch-all for the 'usurer', the proto-capitalist, those not bound by the various forms of contractual and tradition that governed feudal economic and property. Further, as the feudal system became to croak under the strains, the vast expansion of litigation involved placed the Lawyer, the 'schister' as arbiter. Jews thus were doubly damned by social circumstances. They represented a violent innovation in economics and a caste now in command of the revolutionised means of legal restitution. The Jew, as a clinched villain and demon in theocratic vernacular, was now clad additionally in the clothes of the quintessential capitalist iconoclast. Judaism was depicted as a strategy of cabal-esque exploitation, one directed by the 'diabolical' Talmud against naive Gentiles.

This exploitative meme is key. Rather than corruption or heresy, exploitation, to the bigot, seemly inherent to their religion, culture and upbringing, was the Jew's crime. Like all capitalists, they were a-social, part of the parasites on the producers. But their 'innate' will to enslave their fellow man came, not from their class or from their individual 'inhumanity' but from their creed or 'race'. As an aside that I shall have to pick up on in another post, race in the 19th century was an extremely contested and ill-defined term. Race was a knot of various ideas about kinship, language, culture and descent, only given its 'modernist' meaning by quack genetics later in the century. But to return, exploitation, unwarranted profit and thus alienation and poverty to 'the hindmost' was part and parcel of the Jewish identity according to those 'foolish socialists' including Marx.

Thus branded with the stamp of inherent exploiters and apologists of the system, Jews were further marked by their commitment to their faith. By refusing to shake off their 'Talmudic Devilishness' upon emancipation and step out into the light of reason etc etc, Jews were further transformed into inherent enemies. This time not just of the working man, but of the march of progress itself. The fact that Jews had suffered years of violence and oppression from theocracy and belief made their continued attachment to their faith seem perverse. Jews, as followers of a ancient 'unenlightened' faith, like those uppity Hebs in seventh century Arabia or first century Judea, 'failed' to succumb to the inevitable. From a philosophical point, Jews, as Berman pointed out sometime ago, give utopias indigestion.

Take away this hatred, this concoction of lies, deceit, bigotry and hatred and the left is none the poorer. The game of much anti-Zionism, of the singular evil of Israeli nationalism, is not a mainstay, it is a growth, albeit one that feeds off many of the tenets of Socialism.
Update: BFB was kind enough to link to me along with this fine (and concise) piece.
Fanon-ism is in many ways a updated, a-materialistic moral version of the philosophical element to Left a-s. I shall have to have a closer look and get back to you

The Mirage of Unity?

Dave Osler has a wee bit of news.

http://www.davidosler.com/2009/06/swp_and_no2eu_prospects_for_le.html#comments

The SWPpies offer open palms to the menagerie of far left grouplets and seek unity/temporary alliance/cardboard front.....again. The proclaimed ignition is the BNP breakthrough, though I suspect the relative financial clout of the CPGB/SP/RMT hook up, the insultingly named No 2 EU, may have something to do with it. The SWP have been the forefront (or vanguard) far left group for much of my political life. Far better for the arch-entryists to get in now to any emergent organisation from the wreckage than be late for the bus.

Frankly, trusting the SWP CC is quite an audacious starting point. Their record on alliance building, fucking over 'fellow' socialists, passionately carnal about Islamists, Communitarians and corrupt Hypocrites, managing to drive a mass movement numbered in the millions into the dust in barely three years, is......erm......poor/fucking amazing. Yet with the deep desperation on the left over the future 'beyond Labour', however, they have been greeted fraternally.

These are a few ideas that will never ever be taken up, but I believe they might help avoid both the mistakes of shack ups past and offer a better run at a society and an electorate much changed since far leftist doctrine was anything other than ossified dogma.

1-Get a Name and stick with it. Brand recognition et al. Why should a movement that changes names more than it changes program be taken more seriously that the provisional Natural Law Party (Militant Yogic faction) or Witch Hunting God Botherers R Us. And try not to fall for some quasi-LOLz slogan. Just because its easy to text, don't make it any good. No 2 EU indeed.

2-Never mention Marx, Engels, Gramsci's breakfast or that mass murderer Lenin. Add to historical materialism or the classic critique, but merely mentioning the holy names long since past on is part secular magical litany part passive aggressive nonsense. There is a case for Socialism, let us and our words, not Charlie's, make it.

3-Make your program possible. Unless you can demonstrate how via real life political action, the cash nexus will disappear and thus make everybody both well fed, hooked up to broadband and Fishing Philsophers, why mention a pipe dream? There are thousands of possible small and inherently socialistic reforms and measures that can produce massive relief for the poorest and most vunerable in society. The 'Socialism of Small things' if you will; making sure that poor kids get a healthy school dinner, that local 'parish level' democracy has a real and meaningful say in planning issues or policing, providing first class in and out of job training. This connect our ideology of collective action and emancipation with the everyday and the urgent requirements of non-politicos.

4-Cost your policies. One might say 'but that's just playing the capitalist's game'. Well until some genius demonstrates how to get from here to free association, it is the game we have to play. Refried Bernstein, I know, but between the choice of doing something within the game or waiting all saintly on the sidelines of real politics and policy, the need for reform, relief and change is too desperate for 'objective conditions to align. Political action is limited by those factors, not precluded or inherent 'reactionary'. By demonstrating a costed set of policies, a workers' party demonstrates that it is serious in it's intent and it's will to carry them out. It would be a clear sign that it is not still a bunch of dreamers.

TINAs fuck me off no end, with their arrogant a-historic presumption that there can be no improvement. It is insulting to the potential of those unborn and their problems and solutions. However, one cannot ignore there is no socialist equivalent to the truely explosive power of the capitalist system (yet). By which I mean, a system of economics that can so effectively and rapidly respond to preceived need. On this matter, my problem with Capitalism is that its preception of need is linked to an insulting picture of human nature and thus devoid of a motive beyond elementary want. By putting forward a case for a human-centric management of capitalism and exploring and experimenting with ways to transcend it, a Workers' party would again demonstrate it is at 'peace' with today and looking forward to new solutions

5-Balance the budget. I have never understood why balancing the expenses of government with its revenues is somehow unsocialistic. In the spirit of the greatest economists to walk the earth, the countless mothers and housewives of the poor, counting every farthing and every ounce of bread, a socialist government needs to live within its means. As a party of the poorest, that means prioritising the policies that benefit those at the bottom over others. It is no cop out, rather a massive realignment within what we have. Again, if someone is keeping the secret of 5 percent growth outside the cash nexus and without the need for fiscal responsibility, please share and I shall welcome withdrawing this missive.

6-Decentralise, decentralise and just for the sheer fun, some more decentralisation. Labour lost its mandate from heaven' because it's centralised solutions were either clumsy, corrupt or aggravated the problem yet more. By making these things a local concern, the emphasise to solve solutions is placed at the foot of the citizenry themselves. No calls for five year plannage. The centre, more often than not, is blind and as a result arrogant and ignorant. If council or parish level democracy are left to find solutions, then those solutions can either remain particular or if they have the legs, general. Yet the responsibility is taken out of the hands of politicos and returned rightly to those who it effects most.

7-The flipside. Take constitutional reform seriously. If we have yet to find how to transcend the Liberal state in practical rather than wide eyed fantasy terms, then we can still make it live up to its promises. The Liberal state declares itself representative, humane, fair and responsive. Where it fails, a serious Socialist movement must, like the Chartists, seek to uphold it to its rhetoric. The failures might be systemic, but by providing socialistic answer, maximising citizen power, placing the state, even in legalistic terms at their behest. If the failures are truely systemic, then a socialist party passionate about the rights denied will again and again be proved right. If there is a possible evolutionary path, the same party is taking the first steps towards their telos. Rights are far to important to leave to the sons of de Robespierre, the black corps of Lawyers. Socialist rights now!

8-Change the rhetoric on class. The popular perception of class has evolved, almost into something unrecognisable. Yet within this new framework, there remains the possibility of communicating the very real nature of class struggle and conflict. Let's use it. Few areas of lift are so fused with class bitterness and division than the service industry, yet within it, the left can only use the old tired responses and thus has be near invisible. Ditch Proletariat, it means nothing today for the majority of the poor in the west. Ditch worker as well, as few of the poor are left in the traditional work place attached that label. Mockingly use the slave names given to those toilers in service, 'Server', 'Team member', 'Sales Executive', 'Account Manager', empty them of their nauseating faux unity. Make them into what they are, other words for Robota, the Drudge, the Serf renumerated to be dehumanised. This, the sheer atomisation, the stark alienation, the constant metaphorical spiting into the faces of the poor. What could be more 'energising'. More relevant than terms build along side HMS Dreadnought

There is a tagline to the original Clerks, 'Just because I serve you, doesn't mean I like you'. I don't propose a manifesto for rudeness. Rather a wider realisation of the nature of the service industry and indeed the cleaning industry, by both the servitors themselves and those they serve, mostly fellow Robota.

9-Tell the theocrats and sky pixie fetishists plus their corrupt enablers to fuck right off

10-Disband the SWP, have other groups bid for members who have been hard working clear headed comrades, send the rest to work in ASDA :)

Even if, and that is an if going on defo, I'm wrong on all counts, a practical, mature socialism, one that reacts to the conflicts of base and nature of superstructure on the poorest is needed. Weather this is another rectal roar form the SWPpies or the first steps in something important, we shall see. There is an urgent need

Monday 8 June 2009

The Republic (eventually) reviews.....Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg


Before I start, I will warn youse. This is going to be over long. A breach of blogging rulez and such but bugger it


Liberal Fascism lays out its thesis into a highly contentious and contested arena. The nature of extremist politics, its dynamics and its causes, conceptions and its brutality have been a constantly urgent debate since the end of the First World War. Born from the Smolny Institute’s crowded offices and out of Mussolini's train carriage on its way to Rome, this debate has been underwritten by a multiplicity of ideas.

Goldberg enters thus a contested field where the debate has a history of its own. Whilst the lineage of the Bolsheviks and later the Communists as well as the non or part Marxist SRs had a clear and direct line to older forms of political ideology, fascism does not. Generic fascism has no great books (Mein Kampf was a vanity piece, much less read than displayed, as was For my Legionnaires). Its roots are syncretic, a true and faithful child of the intellectual melting pot of the fin de Siecle period. As the work of Juan Linz makes clear, Fascism in all its forms entered a crowded political and ideological space in Europe and beyond. It's status as a newcomer marked out its doctrine, its 'tone' and its opportunities for both political growth and ideological autonomy. These factors, the intense atmosphere of synthesis at it's birth and the existing state of the political and philosophical arena should be foremost on the mind of an good analyst on the genus.

As I have little in the way of expertise on American politics, I shall concentrate rather on his exploration of fascism as a genus and its historical manifestations, along with a few note on methodology and his historical model

I will be using the 2007 Penguin paperback edition for references

His definition is thus:- 'Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It take responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, weather by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the "problem" and therefore defined as the enemy' (pg. 23). He then adds 'I will argue that contemporary American liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism'

His proposition is thus. Generic fascism is Statism with a leader cult that seeks a blanket uniformity of no particular orientation. He then highlights that Mussolini had been a leading light in the Italian Socialist movement and that Hitler had described his platform as Socialists and inherently anti-capitalist. Thus Fascism is left wing.
He quotes Roger Griffin, Roger Eatwell, Emilio Gentile and Ernst Nolte, all leading Historians and theorists on the nature of Fascism. It is thus very noticeable that his definition is entirely at odds with Griffin's palengentic ultra nationalism, Eatwell's holisitic national radical third way and Gentile's mass movement of national regeneration. He sums up his take as 'primarily a secular religion' (pg. 3). Note, no mention of nationalism as a political ideology. National is merely a contingent term within his definition.

This is hardly surprising. He quotes but does not engage with Stanley Payne, the leading anglophone expert of Generic fascism as Payne describes fascism as anti-Liberal, anti-Socialist and anti-Conservative, prefering to use the discredited Nolte's similar fascist minimum as straw man. All these scholars, people who have analysed thousands of pieces of primary evidence and know the history inside and out, are merely pandering 'convoluted' (pg. 3) models. Only Goldberg, and he find no academic to support his theory, sees clearly.

His 'minimum' fails on three grounds. Firstly, it does not realise the central nature of the nation to fascism. Without the nation, fascism has neither form nor substance. It becomes as he hypocritically laments, quoting Orwell, 'something undesirable' (pg. 4). Griffin, Eatwell, Gentile and Payne all believe (and have written masterful accounts to back up their claim) that fascism is concerned entirely with national rebirth and regeneration. Whilst the regenerative culturalist element is controversial amongst academics, particularly materialists, Nationalism's key place within fascist ideology is the only unifying element in serious work on the genus. Goldberg barely mentions it or the nationalist traditions within Italy and Germany (his two case studies).

The second failure comes from the real focus of his definition, Statism. He is determined to make fascism entirely a statist doctrine. Rather than their particular nations, fascists were thus solely focused on the 'a-national' state. State worship is in no way a particular mark of fascism as I have mentioned earlier here.


http://thesocialrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/04/making-italians.html


Neither, just as importantly, is it purely 'left' wing. Again, I have mentioned this before on both this blog and in comments on others. That Statism is the use of the modern state to affect political and social change, generally supported by rhetoric reasoning why this is necessary and indeed virtuous, is my 'maximalist' definition. The state is a entity that is implicitly well placed to achieve and pursue ideological goals. This 'promise' has been taken up by groups and 'actors' from across any meaningful political spectrum.


The founder of the modern welfare state, a form of 'Staatsocialismus', informed by teleological ideologies. - Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Sch̦nhausen, Duke of Lauenburg, Prince of Bismarck, (1 April 1815 Р30 July 1898). This rabid 'left' 'winger' of repute installed the world's first state sponsored workers' insurance schemes, under the banner of 'Practical Christianity'. He, like Hitler, suppressed his 'fellow' 'left' 'wingers'. Is Bismarck the world greatest socialist sleeper agent? No, rather he was a conservative, deeply committed to the stability of the core elements of the Imperial throne. He thus used the state to co-opt the burgeoning and increasingly militant working class and to propose an explicitly anti-'creative destruction' form of social stability, a modernist paternalism, if you will. A form of Conservative social contract


Wilhelm the Second of Germany believed that Petr Stoylpin was an even greater leader than Bismarck, much to the chagrin of 'little Nicky'. Under Goldberg's interpretation, we can only see this as a 'far' 'left' talent spotter picking another possible. Stoylpin's conservative reforms were meant to allow the Autocracy to survive in the modern age, to protect his quasi-imbecile monarch from the onrushing challenges of the 20th century. In much conservative intellectual history, Stoylpin is the man who could have averted the Bloody revolution and brought Russia though until he was gunned down in a theatre by a 'intellectual' assassin. He planned to do this by increasing the range of state led welfare beyond Bismarck's model, including a whole raft of factory acts and new government bodies and overseeing the biggest property transfer outside of a revolution, his solution to the land question. He too framed his schema as enlightened autocracy. Is this now a 'left' 'wing' phenomena.


Lest we forget, the great model for Lenin, Stalin and indeed Hitler's command economies. It's another German who would perch on top of it, but not from Trier. Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg was to graze down on a vast state which ran everything from food supplies, industrial organisation and ownership, the Press, the Judiciary and would impose virtually slave labour conditions on millions of Poles and Slavs. This is the birth of the total state, a grand experiment in state power and reach.


While I've heard cases made why the authoritarian dictatorships of central and eastern Europe during the thirties were fascist, I have yet to hear one made that Carol II, Eldest son of Ferdinand I, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria was a socialist. He carried out a parliamentary coup, making the Arch-Patriarch, Prime Minister, he created a single political party, The National Renaissance Front, and banned the largest anti-government movement, a 'fellow' 'left' 'wing' organisation called the Iron Guard. He had a compulsory youth movement to commemorate him and ceded power to various (dare I say, right) radicals to pursue anti-Semitic policies. His 'socialism', his conservative statism was seek the seemly effervescent nature of the fascist and National Socialist regimes (ignoring the bodies underneath, although Carol had one or two of his own) and thus transport Romania beyond a threatening future. For him and his in-house ideologues, only by using totalitarian tools could they 'conserve', only by state action, on a massive and unprecedented size, could Romania's 'essence' be preserved.


We see these tactics and political strategies as well as the rhetoric in Franco's Spain, the 'Estado Nuvo' of Salazar, Alexander of Yugoslavia's dictatorship, the twenty five year reign of the landlocked Admiral Horthy, even the empty hot air spouted by the ROI. This conservative statism was experimental in it's totalitarian sense and as brutal and intrusive as anything perpetrated by the Italian fascists or the Kun regime. Micro-management of morality, both public and private via censorship and political persecution was a common aim of these regimes as they 'nurtured' their ideological well spring.


'Innovations' in state function and the extension of its power and reach are long standing Conservative accomplishments. Pitt's abandonment of Habeas Corpus and the introduction of an income tax are surely right wing 'innovations' as are the forced purchase of the Suez canal by the Disraeli government or the prestigious use of force and provocation by local and federal government in industrial relationships in 19th century America. Consider who was pushing All the vices of statism were used by these regimes in order to preserve stability and protect an particular essence, a basic precept of the right.


The third error is remove Fascism from its time, culturally, materially and ideologically. Rather Goldberg places property and religion as markers, not nationalism, not the inter-war period and the circumstances of the period on the movement today, not its rhetoric, not its self conception. In making fascism a perfectly a-historical label, he is doing exactly what those on the left who he rightly condemns are doing. It is with the oft hand remarks of George Carlin that he does battle and with then his own cathartic take. Fascism is your particular bete noire, the anus of ideology. He can, as it is pre-moulded, apply it to the Social Liberalism of 20th century America and go 'There! Told you'. Frankly, does this make it fascistic to be concerned with public health, or as he mentions as proof of the Nazis' inherent 'left' 'winginess', 'the abolition of child labor (sic)' (pg. 69). He has accidentally bundled onto a truth and mistaken it for a weapon.


Frankly, by making his definition both insipidly bland and just honed enough to catch up 'em lib'rahs, he is being functionally mendacious. State solutions, i.e. using the state for political goals, for experimentation and doing so for an ideological reason are not part of a wing of the political spectrum. Rather they belong to the modern age. This is certainly not to say as such, I find statism somehow 'progressive' in itself. Rather like Modernity and indeed Modernism, it is a Janus faced creature. This modern and visionaire Leviathan is a dazzling repository of power and for those who sought, and continue to seek, political action a siren-like temptation and a stringent panacea.


So we are left with a definition that fails to identify the centre of generic fascism, that makes fascism a sculpted husk and plonks it on the mantle of Social Liberalism.


His case studies of Mussolini and Hitler are lazy. With quite a will, he fails to either come to terms with the time and place nor the political cultures and circumstances at the time. By concentrating on the major figures (neo-big man theory), he removes much of the complexities within Fascism and National Socialism.


In the Italian case, he mentioned the fact that Mussolini, as a socialist agitator and leading ideologue of the party was very well read and had a remarkable recall for leftist writings. He notes that he read Nietzsche, Sorel and Schopenhauer (pg. 34) thus he was inevitably left wing. Schopenhauer, who might be called a father to modern conservatism, Sorel, a thinker who was feted from across the political spectrum and Frederick Nietzsche might have been found on many a conservative or right radical's bedside table. Charles Maurras, the leader of a crypto-Monarchist Jew baiting organisation dedicated to preserving France was a fan of both of these writers. If Maurras is a father of modern Social Liberalism, and not of organic nationalism or proto-fascism, then make the case without exception. You must explain the universal and the particular and where they met


Whilst Goldberg never mentions Papini or the ANI or Corrandini or Voce or D'Annunzio , he concentrates on Sorel's syndicalism....badly. Syndicalism is, according to Goldberg, essential for fascism. Thus one must argue, where are the Hungarian, German and Romania syndicalists? There were none and no reason given for these unique ideological roots of the Italian case. The quote he give from Joshua Maravchik raise yet more conflicts. Syndicalism is a socialism that is 'simultaneously elitist and anti-statist' (Pg. 36). Yes, anti-statists gave birth to a state worshiping ideology.


He then mutters about Sorel. Sorel's social scission, Goldberg's key totem, was not purely about left wing revolutions, rather it was an analytical tools to understand and thus implement mobilising myth. Sorel's case was based on looking at the early Church and its use of myth and struggle and although he was a believer in proletariat revolution, he sought that to rupture and destroy what he conceived of a decadent and weak LIBERAL France, one created by Jacobins and proto-social Liberals. Goldberg uses an example, the use of the Tawana Brawley fake to create social scission by Black leaders (Pg. 37), but fails to use the literally hundreds of similar cases from various political traditions of social scission, the Southern Strategy of Nixonland or the Bismarckean Kulturkampf or even the Dolschstosslegende used by the NVP and the Vaterland Party before the founding of the DAP. He is constantly confusing the universal with particular, barely able to conceive of a comparative case if it dropped in his oatsmeal.


He then produces one of the soiled gems of the piece. 'The French Revolution was the first totalitarian revolution, the mother of modern totalitarianism and the spiritual model for the Italian Fascist, German Nazi and Russian Communist revolutions' (pg. 38). Now there is a relationship between totalitarianism and the 'Divine Republic' but not one as clear cut as he pronounces and filled with far more subtleties and nuances make his analysis seem quite idiotic. Whilst there is a clear lineage between the architects of the 10 August revolution and those a hundred and twenty five years later, the fascists and the great revolution have barely 'seen eye to eye'. More here


http://thesocialrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/02/tennis-courts-say-much.html


Generic Fascism loathed and still loathes the traditions of Liberal, Radical and Socialist narrative that sprung from the Great Revolution. He produces this to link Sorel and thus Mussolini to Rousseau, now the father figure of all the twentieth century's horrors in rightest historical imagination. I will only add briefly that this centrality of Rousseau given to the actions of the 'Divine Republic' is rarely put to bed, Rousseau was very popular but for Emile and his work on education rather then the Social Contract. Whilst he made a been one of the ideological forebears of the revolution, he shares this with other figures, closer to Goldberg's own ideological front door step. Locke, Smith and de Montesquieu are mentioned more in the debates of the Convention and in the letters of even the top of the Montagne (Gould)


He weaves his pygmy version of a 'political religion' take on fascism into Rousseau's 'civil religion'. Again he fails to notice the case that could be made that American Nationalism created a civil religion around the political system and the nation in the late 19th century. If civil religions are so hideous, then surely forcing the oath of allegiance on minors unable to sign legal contracts and the sacralising of the founding fathers is Goldberg's next target.


Fascism, as a syncretic movement, had been applauded by the pacifism of the wider Italian Socialist movement during the intervention crisis and indeed during the first decade of the century. Mussolini found himself outside the Bernsteinian reformists, the Kautsky-ie traditionalists, the Luxembourg-ist and Leninist parts of the 2I and the Austro-Marxists. For all his Leninist like volunteerism, Mussolini could not continue to understand Lenin's internationalism. He was a revolutionary who no longer believed in his cause. In the myth of the cleansing war and the struggles over Italian nationality in Austrian Tyrol and the Intervention crisis, he found his revolution. A revolution and a telos now transformed from the Social Republics or Workers States of Socialism at the time.


Italianism gave him another narrative, one that both appealed to his conceptions of Italy, Historical direction and his own role. He became the propheta and leader for a new Italy. The revolution was not emanciptory, it was transformative. Italy could become the modernist nation par excellent, revitalising its essential nature. Mussolini thought the modern form of nationhood made Socialism impossible and he thought the social Liberalism of Giolitti corrupting and poisonous. His cultural pessimism, his love of Nietszchean distain for the 'Age of Progress' brought him towards a regenerative conception of society. Given his own quasi-poetic depiction of the power of war and struggle to transform, it was redemptive too. And I would argue, using any meaningful definition, right wing.


Goldberg's work on Hitler is also quite breathtaking. He notes neither the influence of that renown and highly regarded bastion of the revolutionary movement , the German High Command or its creation, the Vaterland Partei, on the early DAP/NSDAP. Hitler early political role wasn't primarily to monitor the politics of the troops in 1918/19 for 'dangerous ideas' (pg. 67), rather he was meant to push the dolschstosslengende and reclaim the troops from revolutionary ideas as a public speaker. Drexler's party was merely one group of disperate and marginal figures who came from across the political spectrum, one Hitler belived he could dominate and then transform. As Goldberg's Hitler existed in a vacuum, he fails to note that a 'national' socialist party existed at the time as well as an internationalist one.

The SPD had been a loyal crutch of support to the Imperial German throne thoughout the wars (Ebert had lost two sons) and would expel its internationalist fringe by 1916. It then thundered against the inequities of the Versallies treaty and directed the Freikorps against the early KPD and Polish nationalists. Much SPD invective during the revolutionary period had been filled with nationalist rhetoric, bordering on anti-Slav in opposition to ‘Muscovite’ Bolshevikism. As Hobsbawm notes, one of the most ‘terrible’ cruelties committed by the conservatives onto a SPD member was to question their loyalty to Germany. It was, if one is merely using national socialist as a conglomerate term, a national socialist party. If the Nazis were merely offering a patriotic form of Socialism, how would they be different to the SPD? They were and marked the gulf in blood.


Goldberg highlights the young Hitler's admiration for the Christain Social Party of Fin de Siecle Vienna. Because Franz Josep annuled the election of its leader , Karl Lueger, twice, it must thus be a left wing varient of Popularism. If it was, it also had the backing of the Austrian Church and much of the Christian ruling classes of the city and elsewhere. Odd left wing, you've got there, Jonah.


National Socialism was a nationalism that based its nation worship of pseud race 'science' and on a myhtical unity that it sought to return to or recreate in a modern environment. The socialist in the equation was to simultaneously drive out the atomising, anomic a-social effects of oure capitalism and to destroy the base of class interest and self-preception for a 'classless' neeclass stable society. That type of socialism is in no way leftist, rather it is of the tradition of statsocialismus, socialism as cementing social stability and unity via state action and the destruction of organisations built for class struggle.


Yet National Socialism grew into a pre-formed political space. Its anti-Semitism had been largely made mainstream by much of the political right in the last twenty years of Imperial Germany and when challenged by the Nazis' rhetoric to go further, they did so. The Conservative Revolution of Junger, Jung, Spengler and Schmitt developed a series of ideas, paralel to the Nazis about social trasformation via totalitarian tools, extreme militarism and 'cleansing'. Theirs was a totalising movement based not on the re-creating mission of the fascist but the conservative regenerative one. By seeking to co-opt the power of the Nazi Party State, they planned to bring about a society which both conserved its 'eternal' being whilst modernity-proofing it. These were the bright young things of the German right, the William Buckleys' of their day, if you will forgive me the mischief. They were dedicated to the possibilities of the totalitarian experiment, as surely as any fascist or Bolshevik ever was.


Goldberg's model is severely flawed by the assumption that the right has always and forever consisted solely of small government conservatives and the left, statist 'librahs' and socialists. This might have a limited truth to it in the case of late twentieth century America (that binary of Conservative/Liberal is still pretty reductive even then), it fails anywhere else. Fascism took the terminlogy and narratives of Socialism (like Bismarck or Chamberlain or Disraeli or Stolypin) and used them to seek a legitimacy amongst those at the bottom of society as well as giving a economic template to their essential cultural struggle. Anti-Capitalism (as in unfettered markets and Manchesterismus) is as much a part of Metternich or Maurras or Spengler or Dollfuss as it is with Marx or Debs or Bakunin. It has never been an eternal of the left right dichotomy, regardless of the lazy generalisation of polemists of either aisle. We can add Goldberg to that list


Fascists believed society, under the influence of Liberal policy and socialist agitation, was becoming socially dividing and morally decadent; it was reaching a nadir. They sought revolutionary rather than 'evolutionary' means to regenerate this fallen state. But how exactly is this cultural pessimism and wish to act politicaly different that much of the right from the last two hundred years. This dreamers of the day went outside the traditional right because they thought traditional conservatism and radicalism had failed or would fail the challenge of Marxist or Trade Union Socialism and had accomadated the worst 'atomising' aspect of Liberalism. Fascists might well term Conservatives CINOs for all the conserving they had done.


The undoubted 'futurismo' of Fascism was essentially to destroy the crumbling political and social traditions that had not only failed to surmount the storm of modernity but betrayed the national essense and unity by coming to terms with atomising 'cosmopolitan' capitalism, It is noticably that after the elite coup against Mussolini in 1943 and the establishment of the Italian Social Republic (the total neagtion of all the words 'Social Republic' stands for), the rhetoric became hysterical anti-Conservative as well as anti-Communist and anti-Semitic.


The first Fascist state was still a monarchical society, one where many of the major levers of power were held by monarchic conservatives and traditional 'Savoyean' nationalists. It was in alliance that the Fascists ruled Italy, an alliance of both tactics and a shared conception, a shared frame of narrative and fears. The technocrats of the ANI and the modernisers around the throne saw in the fascist project, an opportunity to 'rearm' and reforge Italy for the modern age. Between the fascists and the right was a constant struggle, but one limited to the means and priorities of national regeneration. In Romania, in Hungary, in Austria, Spain, Slovakia, Yugoslavia, the Baltic States, Finland, Portugal as well as Germany and Italy, many Conservatives aligned with the fascist program of social transformation. They offering funds, electoral pacts, government jobs and protection, favourable media coverage and spoke out for political prisoners of the fascist movements and praised their martyrs. These alliances were fractious and at times violent, but in aisle


By no means is the conservative tradition inseparable from those of the ultra-nationalists. Conservatives and Fascist are not the same thing. They have clear differences, clear tensions, post 1945, they had clear memories of mutual bloodletting to send them separate ways. Yet, Conservatism and Fascism, as well as Right Radicals, Corporatists, Neo-traditionalists, Neo-Liberals, Libertarians, one can see a regenerative and re-creating impulse:- Political action as a method of retooling the essential nature of each society to overcome social change.


I am a Socialist, though quite a weird one. I believe in the myth of progress, I believe in progressing emancipation. I hold little regard to much of the institutions and systems of today apart from they normally work better than much of what came before. I don't see this as a reason to hold these things as sacrosanct. I share these broad opinions with the worst monsters in history. This is not a moral point I'm trying to make. Rather extremist politics, the type gleefully willing to take life for the greater good or some other abstract babble exists throughout the political spectrum. Every political tradition that deals seriously with power has the possibility of that bloodletting. One of the most depressing instances is the continued state of denial over the true horror of the Leninist system of governance on the Left. One motif is, of course, that the Soviet Union was state capitalist aka a right wing phenomena with nothing at all to do with Socialism.


Disgusting.


A rubbish book
If you think I'm being unfair or complete wrong headed, please bring them up in the comments

The Devilish Travails and Conflicts of the Gentleman Fellow Traveller by JR von Hartley


Hoorah! Hail! Huzzah! The decadents are trampled, by that somewhat ambivalent innovation, the ballot box, no less. They who so ruthlessly bound the toilers and their literate betters from the holy language of Mr Men-esque 'difference' like taff, scottie, paki, nig-nog, shit-stabber and the merry like. They who did pollute this green (white) and pleasant volk. If only the tramplers looked good in a suit and had nice pedigrees. Such sons of council estate (and minor grammar school) soil are lacking in basic command, of both the Queen's English and over their baser instincts, but never mind.
Their policies, well, they are a mixed bag. Lets forget all this staatsocialismus, your forebears did, in a jolly instances too. On the 'other' problem, your solution merely sounds too drastic. No need to say expulsion, rather control. Cohesion, after all, is our bread and butter, saving the gemienschaft from coyly unspecified threats, though amply hinted at. So as much as we share with those national internationalist socialist socialist beating liberal liberal hating truth tellers, we cannot abide by their directness or even their clumsy untempered attempts to be subtle. One must have be more practiced in euphemising. Indigenous is good but how about 'Good hearted', 'hard working', 'success seeking', 'non-moaning', 'law abiding', John Bull in a Mondeo.
Islam. That is the key. Everything, every particle in the cosmos, every thought in every head comes down to the Mahometodanns. They hate everything that makes us great,
our personal freedoms (though they are right about the puerile promiscuity of the slags and the drunken louts plus the Sodomites, the sheer decadence of it all),
our democracy (although one has to admire the ruthlessness that they crush your fellow non-national double plus internationalist Socialists and Liberals, a possible lesson to be learn with regards to techniques),
our freedom of expression (though I would gladly place many a loud mouth in the stocks, or whatever passes these days, note to self-see what ISI are using)
our respect for women (even the ones who virtually invite rape and then run oft giggling to the abortionist, another one who deserves some jihad, I grant you)
our respect for religion (given the supreme truth of the the Christian Church.....no....not that one, full of paedos and one worldist scum....the other one)
So, as a fellow fellow after a pure and wholesome land, filled with the laughter of innocence 'hard working, common sense' children, lets us rightly rejoice in your historic victory and please don't be alarmed if you should find my light fingers in your rhetoric bag. It is the warm hearted fraternity of the national internationalist socialist socialist beating liberal liberal hating truth tellers with us humble common sensers, pessimists of the world unite and dissemble.
ps. NEVER SPEAK OF THIS IN PUBLIC