ELSEWHERE

The New York Times has just produced an article that purports to tell us what Fascism is. It is however a very evasive article. There are some scholarly comments and the usual bromides about Fascism being used as just a term of abuse etc. but there is one glaring omission: No mention that the economic policies of all the historical Fascist regimes -- but particularly the Hitler, Mussolini and Peron regimes -- were of the extreme LEFT for their day. And they even defend Saddam's Baath Socialist party against the claim that it was Fascist -- how? They say Iraq was not Fascist because Fascist regimes arise in “failed democracies” and Iraq has had no appreciable history of democracy. But that is just to confuse definition with explanation. And at any event I would have thought that the very first Fascist regime of all -- Napoleon’s French police State -- hardly arose from a failed democracy. Neither the French revolution nor the absolutist monarchy that preceded it had much democracy about them. But I am sure that the NYT would tell us that Napoleon was not a Fascist either -- the cult of the leader, the devotion to national glory -- none of that applied to Napoleonic France did it? . I give a detailed account of what historical Fascism was here.

A Leftist blogger has criticized me for saying things that I did not in fact say: The desperation-fueled disregard for truth and accuracy that one expects of Leftists. I endorsed the Italian Prime Minister’s claim that Mussolini was nowhere nearly as bad as Hitler or Stalin but I did NOT endorse his obviously hyperbolic comment that Mussolini “never killed anyone”. And our Lefty blogger must have a very strange dictionary if he thinks that “standard” means “sole”. I notice that the blogger concerned has removed the very Stalinist-looking iconography that used to adorn his site but there still seems to be a Molotov cocktail there to show how “caring” he is. Lovely!

Much celebration in Britain over the rejection of the Euro by Sweden’s voters. Rightly so. For the thriving British economy to be tied to the sclerotic EU economy would be madness.

The Press looks the other way with Leftist race issues: "The mainstream press has been doing a miserable job covering Cruz Bustamante's ties to the creepy Chicano secessionist group “Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan” (MEChA). This may not be the biggest story of the California recall election, but voters have a right for information about the leading Democratic candidate's views of a group that is certainly racialist, if not racist. A MEChA slogan translates as 'For the race everything. For those outside the race, nothing.' El Plan de Aztlan, the group's founding document, talks about the 'call of our blood' and the need to reclaim the Southwest, Aztlan, from 'the occupying forces of the oppressor.'"

The (antisemitic) “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” nonsense again? “Neo-cons have hijacked US foreign policy: The council on Foreign Relations is the epicenter of the American Establishment. ... So it was startling to pick up the September- October issue and read article after article expressing well-documented alarm at the hijacking of American foreign policy"

I have just transferred Chris Brand’s latest postings here for convenience. As usual he covers intelligence and political correctness but this time he has links to some nice pictures of Brigitte Bardot too!

The Wicked one reports a case where the police NEED to be sued.

In my latest academic upload here (or here) I look at attiudes to authority. Conservatives tend to accept the types of authority that are usual in democratic societies more than Leftists do but Leftists claim that this is a very bad thing and that it shows how “sick” conservatives are. My survey showed the contrary -- that acceptance of conventional authorities correlated with BETTER social adjustment.

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