"Tom DeLay's Kampf"

[Bluebear]

By Norman Markowitz


...First of all, Tom DeLay, although the victims of his political savagery are his fellow Americans, is really part of our global problem. When knowledgeable Europeans and Asians, those who know the history of fascism through the world, look at politicians like Tom DeLay, former Senator Jesse Helms, and many other prominent right-wing Republicans, they see American versions of Jean Marie Le Pen in France, Georg Haider in Austria, the National Democrats in Germany, the leaders of political parties that everyone pretty much calls neo-Fascist. What right-wing politicians in the US often sneer at as "political correctness" has been established in anti-racist defamation laws in Germany and other countries which have had direct experience with either fascist regimes or occupation.

The European neo-fascist parties and leaders are clearly differentiated and separated from the principle conservative parties in virtually all European countries. Outside of Italy, the European conservative party leaders really see them as hateful competitors and have little to do with them. In Italy, which has a particularly obnoxious right-wing government led by the media mogul Silvio Berlusconi (who controls virtually all of Italian television, both private and public) the leader of the "former fascist" National Alliance party, Giancarlo Fini, is foreign minister, and that, the Berlusconi government in general and Fini in particularly, is as close as one gets to what we have in the US.....

In the United States, DeLay’s allies and supporters call him a "fixture" of the "conservative movement" attacked by its hated "liberal enemies." But, what is a conservative in America and the world? First of all, conservatives everywhere are suspicious of movements and don’t claim to have one. Conservatives in most places seek to literally "conserve" existing institutions to prevent radical change or "liberalization." Conservatives everywhere support "meritorious elites" technical, judicial, and scientific "experts," in determining policy, and see those with property and wealth as having a far greater stake in the society and far more ability to determine policy than the lower classes, those with little or no property. Conservatives in most places identify with religion, nation, and family, as institutions to maintain social cohesion in order to sustain the existing social order, which is constantly threatened from below by the lower classes, frustrated by their failures and unable to appreciate that those who are successful are wiser and better than they are. Conservatives in most countries are wary of religious fanatics and usually willing to accept religious minorities, if those minorities keep their subordinate "place" in the larger social order.....

Ultra-rightists and open Fascists are in effect cheap political crooks whose gaudy patter is aimed at covering up their corruption, crimes, and drive to establish dictatorial political power. Sing "God Bless America" (or "Deutchsland Uber Alles," or whatever) hate Communists, Socialists, liberals, Jews, Muslims, or whomever is convenient in your political market, and "think with your blood," a Mussolini slogan that translates as think with your emotions and ethnicity, not with your head. That way you can believe Tom DeLay when he says that the " liberal media" are out to get him and "activist judges" are at war with America. You can believe that the occupation of Iraq is about the defense of Freedom and Democracy, and the campaign to privatize Social Security is essentially a campaign to save it. You can just believe, in God, in America, in Japanese Militarism’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, in any abstractions without having to think about anything else and nod your head in agreement when the right-wing politicians ask you Groucho’s question: "Who are you going to believe? Me or your own eyes?"

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/927/1/32/

[NEOBuckeye]

1. Good article. There is a big difference between "Conservative" & "Fascist"

Although today's Republican Party of DeLay, Frist and the Bushes claims to be conservative, it bears little resemblance in action to the Republican party of Dwight Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt, both of whom would be considered "Left-of-Center" by today's political standards in America.

[Mark E. Smith]

2. Interesting Perspective

Really helps to define exactly where the fault line is beginning to break on the far right. It will be interesting to see if the American neo-fascist right sticks with DeLay after Rove and various other Bush handlers dump bug boy's tainted ass. If DeLay successfully reinvents himself as martyr and victim to a Bush sell-out of the far right agenda, things could get wild over in GOPville.

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. Excellent article and important distinction between conservative & fascist

Unfortunately we have the fascists.

Ultra-rightists and open Fascists are in effect cheap political crooks whose gaudy patter is aimed at covering up their corruption, crimes, and drive to establish dictatorial political power.

Yup, that's about right.

Good ole Silvio's government in Italy isn't so popular these days and looks to be going down. Let's hope our people catch on like the Italians have.

Recommended - people need to remember the distinction between the neocon fascist criminals in power now and the traditional conservative Republicans, of which there are few left in politics but more in the general population. We have far more in common with the true conservatives than we do with the corrupt fascists, and we do well to remember and act on that.

[Bluebear]

4. Totally agree

In the old days under a Republican President/Congress, I didn't have anything in common with their policies but I wasn't actually repelled when I saw them on TV. Fiscal responsibility, more libertarianism, those things didn't repel me on the surface. This is NOT what he have ruling this country now.