General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Putin is a Right Wing Fascist Thug [View all]arendt
(5,078 posts)The blanket use of the term fascist to mean any old dictator is a rightwing meme to muddy the divide between extreme right and extreme left. As in, "Hitler was a socialist."
You can correctly point out that Putin was a communist and a KGB guy. But, unless you completely re-define (and thereby render meaningless) the term "fascist", Putin is not one.
Of course, as I said above, it is a rightwing meme to confuse people about the nature of fascism. The use of the word Fascist in the title trivializes the term as a generic insult when, in fact, there are REAL neo-nazis in positions of power in the Ukraine.
Its not the bashing of Putin that I object to, it is the flagrant dumbing down of historical awareness of what fascism really means.
You do acknowledge that one of the first acts of the new regime in Kiev [link:http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-english-ukraine-neofascists-20140313,0,7664312.story#ixzz2vquKXo4S
|was]:
(to) call to abolish the autonomy that protects Crimea's Russian heritage, and its push for a parliamentary vote that downgraded the status of the Russian language, (these acts are) flagrantly provocative to Ukraine's millions of ethnic Russians and incredibly stupid as the first steps of a new government in a divided country.
Drop the "fascist" and you might have a case.