FYI the Fascists were very much in bed with FIAT, Breda, Pirelli (and other corporate groups), the Roman Catholic Church, half the Court and wealthy landowners in the very country it started from. This is kind of right wing in my book.

Are you even Italian? Was your grandfather a Party member and war criminal?

I assume not? dictatorships are, well, dictatorships whatever their color.

Surprisingly they're all the same.

Sorry you're getting downvoted if you're going to argue without watching the video.

Kind of difficult on a TOR connection...

Then why are you arguing over the video?

You probably downvoted the OP as well and haven't even watched the fucking video.

Please stop abusing this community.

Firstly, I am not downvoting anyone here.

Secondly, OP can explain the video's strong points if s/he so desires. Discussion is a two-way street and s/he can provide arguments just as much as I do.

Speaking of capitalism & peasants wanting land back, have you heard of this Italian gal's work? This book review is long, seems to give a fair & detailed assesment of the book.

https://endofcapitalism.com/2009/11/05/who-were-the-witches-patriarchal-terror-and-the-creation-of-capitalism/

I haven't, but thanks for the link. There's a couple of passages in this review I find quite poignant and, all things considering, quite obvious:

...the persecution of witches was not just some error of ignorant peasants, but in fact the deliberate policy of Church and State, the very ruling class of society. To put this in perspective, today witchcraft would be a far-fetched cause for alarm, but the fear of hidden terrorists who could strike at any moment because they “hate our freedom” is widespread.

Spot on.

&nbsp:

...The book argues that these gruesome executions not only punished “witches” but graphically demonstrated the repercussions for any kind of disobedience to the clergy or nobility. In particular, the witch burnings were meant to terrify women into accepting “a new patriarchal order where women’s bodies, their labor, their sexual and reproductive powers were placed under the control of the state and transformed into economic resources”

Now - despite me not quite agreeing with the author's gender take on the whole matter, it is certainly true that these methods of population control have been there since the dawn of times. The only things that have changed are the masters who benefitted from them: yesterday, it was the church. today it's the bankers.

If you're interested in more, there's a no-commercial-use free pdf online. Hard to get the url on mobile but I can dig it up if google isn't cooperative.

This is exactly right. Hell, in Spain, Franco made King Ferdinand his successor. You can't get more conservative than that, from a European perspective. There's a reason why Trotsky defined fascism as socialism by the bourgeoisie.

That is also why placing fascism on the extreme right is not appropriate for American politics.

American conservatives don't draw from a monarchic past. We don't have any history of rule by strongmen, or the church. For the most part (our peculiar institution of slavery being the exception to this rule), America grew through independent farmers forging their way West, and always governing themselves through democratic means.

For America (and perhaps only for America) fascism is extremely leftist. Our extreme Right would be some sort of weak federacy, with the states wielding the majority of power. It's completely unlike European conservatism.

All centralizing forces are left leaning. Decentralization is conservative.

That's what it pretty much boils down to IMO. Collectivism vs individual rights. Livestock of the state vs individual liberty.

Hmm. Individual Liberty sounds pretty Liberal to me. Typically in American discourse "Liberal" is synonymous with the Left, and certainly contrary to Conservatism which by definition conserves the existing order -- which has meant through most history deference to a monarch and religious authority. That is antithetical to individual liberty.

These terms have no resemblance to their historical meanings anymore, especially the term liberal.

Well certainly not if you are trying to redefine liberal to describe fascism. But the way most people use it --- increased personal liberties, increased social liberties then, yes, it does match its historical meaning. The only place things get confused is in tax policy, where liberals favor more redistribution and there conservatives claim that is restricting personal liberty to accumulate wealth.

Well certainly not if you are trying to redefine liberal to describe fascism.

Nobody said that, although Obama's policies were pretty corporatist and the DNC leadership sure is pretty corrupt and corporatist. Actually the establishment left sure wants to dismantle american liberties pretty bad. Freedom of speech, the second amendment, the 4th amendment. And they just play on the emotions of the poor, minority and illegal to gain support for those goals.

Saudi Arabia is left leaning?

Their totalitarian aren't they?

I don't think you are using left leaning and conservative properly in your thesis.

Saudi Arabia murders gays and atheists, punishes women for being raped and basically refuse any social progress.

That's not "left leaning"

What you consider left with your eurosentric view of liberty is what is incorrect. I am talking about universal values you are talking about the myopic nature of American politics.

"conservative" doesn't mean freedom loving and unfettered liberty.

"Conservative" is keeping traditions and not changing

You are conflating right wing / left wing with totalitarian vs. freedom.

That's not correct

Were traditional societies centralized or decentralized. Answer carefully.

How far back are we going in "tradition"? Because less than 10% of the global population lives under rule of a monarch.

100 years ago nearly a quarter of the population was under just one (British) crown

I'm talking about societies living under natural law.

make whatever point you are opaquely trying to make, so I can show that is has nothing to do with your incorrect usage of "conservative" and "left wing" in this instance.

I made my point /u/compensatedshill.

Wgatever was your point, you made it poorly

Yeah they try that tactic of "if you say something enough it might be true"

I've been seeing that lately that some right wingers can't come to grips with having some leftist views and try to say conservatism is the new anarchy because "small government".

Monarchy is left leaning? The "right" has its initial definition as the side that is backs and is in favor of the existing power structure. It comes from the same "left/right" dichotomy that gives us words like "sinister" or "right hand man". Fascism is considered right wing because it explicitly championed economic control exclusively by majority nationalist elements, an appeal to historical greatness and unitary political power in a savior like great leader.

Norway and Sweden are pretty left-leaning and both monarchies. Canada also a monarchy very liberal is it not?

They have constitutional monarchies with limited powers for their heads of state. Nobody who wanted to push back the power of parliament and put power into the hands of the king/queen would be called a "liberal".

That makes it less of a monarchy??

What point exactly do you think you are trying to make?

This is true for America, but it's pretty unique in its origin and growth.

For the rest of the world, and those that emerged from monarchies, in particular, Fascism is extreme right.

Dinesh D'souza is not a credible person to talk about this and PragerU is a right wing propaganda.

He actually used the "National Socialist" meme.

So much "conservatism is actually the real anarchy!" when they have another video Everyone should stay for the national anthem using the black chick who wore the flag dress.

This was a good definition by dictionary.com

A system of government that flourished in Europe from the 1920s to the end of World War II. Germany under Adolf Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, and Spain under Franco were all fascist states. As a rule, fascist governments are dominated by a dictator, who usually possesses a magnetic personality, wears a showy uniform, and rallies his followers by mass parades; appeals to strident nationalism; and promotes suspicion or hatred of both foreigners and “impure” people within his own nation, such as the Jews in Germany. Although both communism and fascism are forms of totalitarianism, fascism does not demand state ownership of the means of production, nor is fascism committed to the achievement of economic equality. In theory, communism opposes the identification of government with a single charismatic leader (the “ cult of personality”), which is the cornerstone of fascism. Whereas communists are considered left-wing, fascists are usually described as right-wing.

Note : Today, the term fascist is used loosely to refer to military dictatorships, as well as governments or individuals that profess racism and that act in an arbitrary, high-handed manner.

The difference is economic theory Dinesh. Wouldn't expect a political hack to understand the nuance when you make so much money spreading propaganda as a token conservative Indian.

Bernie played you. He took his pieces of silver and ran to his masters. No one is going to listen to someone dumb enough to associate themselves with a crooked self serving politician.

Removed. Rule 10

"dumb enough"? Eh? Or what? Was it my tone?

Did you know the only party to vote against Hitlers emporement laws were social democrats (left)? To which he answered: "I didn't want votes from people like you anyway."

But really that was only because at that point, socialists and communists were already in prison. He must have feared the competition, I guess?

I certainly wouldn't call Chilean dictator Augosto Pinochet a "leftist."

The longer you keep falling for the fake left/right paradigm, the longer you're going to sit in this shit-encrusted livestock pen we currently know as Earth. The controllers of this holographic matrix want you to choose a side, choose a "brand," and then exhaust yourself throughout your Earthly incarnation in the distractions, scandals, and other made-up storylines that these silly dichotomies engender.

No wonder we are the quarantined North Korea of the galaxy.

Exactly. Partisan politics are just another weapon of class warfare.

Comparing everything on a left/right spectrum is the worst way to compare multi dimensional ideologies. Fascism obviously had some similarities to communism but they aren't the same. For example, while the government planned the economy, private property still existed under fascism. The division of classes is also very instrumental to fascism.

That can't be correct, because America is federalist. Decentralized government doesn't fit into this binary spectrum.

Well you could as you would still have an established government. Where you would put it would be tricky, thus my point of left/right spectrums being the worst for politics.

America is an oligarchy edging towards outright nationalist Christian fascism.

I hope so. Clerical Fascism.

Communism and Fascism are just different flavors of Socialism.

Socialism is just the State trying to control everything, using bettering the collective or bribing the poor as the excuse for their power acquisition.

Clearly you know nothing of what Fascism is.

That's all you got? I'm surprised you didn't have a meme ready.

We have to simplify things for the idiot masses like you. Clearly it hasn't worked.

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.--Thomas Jefferson

You made no argument, no debate, and now resort to name calling. Classic.

FYI I would have respected you even if you made a poor/failed attempt at debate and believed completely different than me.

You can't define yourself out of the fact fascism is a. Right wing ideology. Don't be simple.

I'm not trying to, I'm just going by historical facts.. The National Socialist German Workers' Party were socialists and Mussulini was the head of the Socialist group also. These are historical facts.

So what makes Fascism right wing ideology? It's easy to believe if you were taught/indoctrinated into thinking everything bad must be right wing, but that is just not reality.

The way that the political scheme was structured was right wing. It was authoritarian. It was top down. It was a leader that dictated a bunch of stuff to other people under him. Just because something has socialism in the name doesn't mean it is actually socialism.

You sound like one of those that believe right wing just means everything I don't like. And if you look at the internet you can find confirmation of your view point in many places. But you can also find confirmation of your view point if you believe the world is flat.

The history books and definition have been so muddied that a person can never be able to convince this truth to others successfully. Even with the name of the Nazi party being the National Socialist German Workers' Party and Mussolini being the head of a socialist group before coming to power the manipulated history and definitions over power common sense when the truth is literally in the the name they chose for themselves.

Mussolini may have been Socialist in his youth but he ended up on MI5's payroll and he was backed by all of Italy's relevant corporations. He was an agent of the very same plutocratic forces he's so hypocritically opposed in his speeches.

Socialism never truly aspires to "wealth equality". That is just the sales pitch to rally support from the poor masses for the powerful to gain more power and control by bribing the poor with the promise of someone else's money.

And you're damn too right. No one does.

It's all about elites and the control they exert on the rest of us: the difference is who will they rely on, party cadres or the military-industrial complex?

Yep. Even full communism seems to forget about equality right before the loot gets divided up.

It's amazing, frankly.

It blows my mind that the nuances between "national socialism" and "international socialism" are so terribly difficult to grasp.

Just different flavors of socialism. Just as Sunni and Shiite Muslims fight each other, they are both still Muslims. We don't call one faction Christian or Jewish just because they have nuanced differences.

Both roads, DNC and RNC lead to fascism, not one more than the other. The west became Sovietized because the guiding principles overlapped on so many points.

All bureaucracies share a lot of features, all autocratic rule shares a lot of features. Long cold war made each side a lot more like each other.

Fascism was very much a rightist movement in Europe, where conservatism meant Kingship. There, the nobles, churches, and bourgeoisie strongly supported their Strong Man to preserve their way of life against communist leftists, who drew their support from the lowest classes.

In America, where conservatism meant supporting independent, rural farmers, fascism was very much leftist. FDR's was a proto-fascist, the only president to win re-election beyond two terms, and his NIRA program tried to centralize and control the economy in a strictly socialist manner.

Fascism is so easy to understand. It's when corporate power superceeds people power.

Here's some interesting writing by george orwell on the subject:

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_saw

Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes. Internally, Germany has a good deal in common with a Socialist state. Ownership has never been abolished, there are still capitalists and workers, and – this is the important point, and the real reason why rich men all over the world tend to sympathize with Fascism – generally speaking the same people are capitalists and the same people workers as before the Nazi revolution. But at the same time the State, which is simply the Nazi Party, is in control of everything. It controls investment, raw materials, rates of interest, working hours, wages. The factory owner still owns his factory, but he is for practical purposes reduced to the status of a manager. Everyone is in effect a State employee, though the salaries vary very greatly. The mere efficiency of such a system, the elimination of waste and obstruction, is obvious. In seven years it has built up the most powerful war machine the world has ever seen.

But the idea underlying Fascism is irreconcilably different from that which underlies Socialism. Socialism aims, ultimately, at a world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equality of human rights for granted. Nazism assumes just the opposite. The driving force behind the Nazi movement is the belief in human inequality, the superiority of Germans to all other races, the right of Germany to rule the world. Outside the German Reich it does not recognize any obligations. Eminent Nazi professors have ‘proved’ over and over again that only nordic man is fully human, have even mooted the idea that non-nordic peoples (such as ourselves) can interbreed with gorillas! Therefore, while a species of war-Socialism exists within the German state, its attitude towards conquered nations is frankly that of an exploiter. The function of the Czechs, Poles, French, etc. is simply to produce such goods as Germany may need, and get in return just as little as will keep them from open rebellion. If we are conquered, our job will probably be to manufacture weapons for Hitler's forthcoming wars with Russia and America. The Nazis aim, in effect, at setting up a kind of caste system, with four main castes corresponding rather closely to those of the Hindu religion. At the top comes the Nazi party, second come the mass of the German people, third come the conquered European populations. Fourth and last are to come the coloured peoples, the ‘semi-apes’ as Hitler calls them, who are to be reduced quite openly to slavery.

So does Dinesh D'Souza.

I generally like Orwell very much, but note how, when trying to explain the distinctions between socialism and fascism, he only talks about Nazism.

But the idea underlying Fascism is irreconcilably different from that which underlies Socialism. Socialism aims, ultimately, at a world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equality of human rights for granted. Nazism assumes just the opposite...[continues to discuss Nazism]

Reading the sourced essay in its entirety, he almost completely ignores Spain and Italy. I'm reluctant to accuse a writer of his caliber of sloppy writing, but those were fascist states, too, and they wreck his attempt to distinguish socialism and fascism with Nazi Germany's caste system.

Sorry you're getting downvoted if you're going to argue without watching the video.

Exactly. Partisan politics are just another weapon of class warfare.

What you consider left with your eurosentric view of liberty is what is incorrect. I am talking about universal values you are talking about the myopic nature of American politics.