Andrea Widburg: Russia, Ukraine, & Nazis

 

At American Thinker, Andrea Widburg brings some historical clarity to the word “Nazi” as it is being bandied about in the reporting on Russia and Ukraine:

The word “Nazi” is suddenly everywhere. This isn’t the modern habit of calling everyone we don’t like a “Nazi.” Instead, because of events in Ukraine, the word is showing up in the news, where it has real-world ramifications. . . .

. . . Communism and fascism are the two bastard children of the socialist ideology. Communism calls for the destruction of private property, with the government owning and controlling the means of production, ostensibly for the people’s benefit. Fascism allows private property to exist, provided that the property owners understand that they have no rights separate from the state. Both are totalitarian systems that call themselves “democracies” because people are required to vote for pre-approved chosen candidates. These governments are inevitably repressive.

Most of the world’s governments today are fascist. All power rests in the government, which allows private property to exist but subordinates that property to government control. In China, the control is militaristic and obvious. In Europe, through the EU, it’s bureaucratic and someone more subtle. The current American system—a dominant political party disdainful of the Constitution working hand-in-glove with massive corporate, technocratic interests—is increasingly fascist.

Not all fascists, though, are Nazis. The National Socialist Party in Germany added a few twists to baseline fascist totalitarianism: A quest for world domination and racial obsessions. These two factors led Nazis to believe it was their right to enslave all inferior races except for the Jews, whom they intended to exterminate entirely.

. . .

In the fight for control in Ukraine, both governments are European-style right wing (i.e., totalitarian) governments and both are nationalists. Putin is showing an unnerving yen for regional domination. However, neither the governments nor their troops are Nazis, although each has the potential to be.

Full column is here (includes her chart of forms of government measured by individual freedoms). 

# # #

Google Redefines The Word ‘Fascism’

image credit: The Right Stuff

Left is right. Up is down. And now Google is redefining the word “Fascist.” From Derek Hunter at the Daily Caller:

Has Google, the world’s most popular search engine, changed the definition of the word “fascism” to protect liberal mobs using violence to silence those who disagree with them politically? The evidence suggest they have.

You see it on signs at every protest or riot — liberals accuse President Donald Trump of being a fascist. The word’s association with Adolf Hitler and its use now is no accident, it’s meant to strike fear in people’s hearts of tyranny.

Merriam-Webster defines the word “fascism” as “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.” The secondary definition is “a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.”

This definition reflects the fact that Nazis were, in fact, both fascists and of the political left. They were the “National Socialist German Workers Party,” which favored a heavy-handed government in business and the personal lives of its citizens.

The authoritarian government of Nazi Germany not only oppressed opposing political views and used violence to enforce it, they supported a powerful central government which heaped social benefits on its citizens. The second part of Nazism is the “socialist” part, which is very similar to what the modern American political left advocates. For all their bluster to the contrary, Hitler was a man of the extreme left, and so was fellow fascist and Axis Powers member Benito Mussolini.

But if you type the word into Google, the definition they provide is quite different.

The world’s largest search engine pins fascism on the political right, not the left.

Google defines fascism as, “an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.” (emphasis added)

Read the rest here.

Not good, but this is not new. A few months ago, I blogged on this subject here.

# # #