Repost from the old site.
Well, not completely, but good enough, anyway. At least the author of Entitled to an Opinion, TGGP, has a general idea, instead of driving on the wrong highway for hundreds of miles at night with no map, insisting all along that they are headed in the right direction, when the truth is they are driving fast as can be in the opposite direction, which is what most people do when they read me.
He understands about Stalin and Nazism, the Old Left and the New Left, Cultural Marxism and Identity Politics and the Frankfurt School and that whole journey on the wrong turnoff. In other words, he understands history.
The Soviet-Chinese split, the Holodomor, the new socialist man, the Soviet war against Islamic fundamentalism in the Caucasus and Central Asia, the Trotsky-Stalin split, the links between Trotskyites and neocons, etc.
Best of all, TGGP seems to have figured out the obvious – that I am neither a fascist, nor a Rightist, nor a reactionary, nor a racist, nor an anti-Semite, no, none of these things. Of course not! No more than Trotsky or Mao were. How could anyone be so foolish? I am a pan-humanist anti-racist universalist. Is that not clear as air? It’s amazing that people can’t seem to figure this out.
Do we attack the racism, ultranationalism and even backwards, barbaric cultures of many ethnic groups? Do we engage in cultural critique in the finest tradition of the Left? Sure we do! But so did Marx, Stalin and Mao.
TGGP is smart, and he knows more history that 95% of the population. Not only that, but he is a libertarian who is a generally nice guy and doesn’t have his head up his ass. Rare.
TGGP’s also a genuine intellectual blogger; I have been feasting at his site for the past few days now, always learning new things. And so is everyone he links to.
Unfortunately, many of them are libertarians, but these days, I mostly read rightwing sites anyway. Why read the Left? I already know most of those arguments. It’s like reading a book over and over. Why not read the ideological enemy?
Plus it’s always fascinating to, thespian-like, try to put yourself into a totally alien mindset, to see what it feels like to think like a fascist, a Nazi, a racist, a libertarian, or whatever. TGGP is a hell of a good writer. Which is scary, since, like most insecure authors, I hate competition.
He’s totally wrong about Communism and Nazism being similar (but it’s understandable how people get led into that wrong turn), and he can’t understand why I link to and quote far right and even fascist sites.
Communism and fascism are both totalitarian; they both kill people, use lots of propaganda, love speeches and rallies, and can be expansionist, but for entirely different reasons. It’s easy to see people mixing them up. I often wonder why fascists hate us myself.
I must say it is insulting to be called a fascist and or lumped in with them. Bear in mind that these people hate us, threaten us, attack us, and often kill us. To declare that I am the same as, and have the same ideology as, an enemy that wishes me dead. for purely ideological reasons no less, disgusts me.
If we are the same, why do they hate us so much? Are fascists stupid? They can’t be, so there must be some logical reason why they hate us. Spend a lot of time studying fascism or hanging out on fascist forums and you should be able to figure it out after a while (you will get a sort of a “Gestalt” “I know it when I see it” feeling about what fascism is).
Bottom line: fascism is just extreme nationalism. What they hate most about us Commies is that we are the most anti-nationalist (internationalist) element in society. For that, we must die.
As far as linking to rightwing sites, well, sometimes they have great information. And sometimes I agree with them! Is that illegal yet? Must I wear an ideological straight jacket? What if I don’t like the way it fits? And if a fascist or racist site has good information (which they often do), why not link to it (with a warning, which I do)? And what’s wrong with studying the enemy anyway?
Regarding his confusion about fascism, that is understandable, but TGGP needs to read this link, Two Ways of Looking at Fascism, by Matthew Lyons, from anarchist blog Three Way Fight. It’s one of the best things I’ve read about fascism, and there are not many other subjects about which more nonsense is written.
The piece is too long to describe in full, but Matthew makes a good case for including the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Indian Hindu nationalism, some US Christian fundamentalism and the US militia movement as forms of fascism, along with totally confusing movements like Third Positionism and Strasserism, which aims to marry fascism and Communism by promoting fascist and racist nationalism along with socialist economics.
More authors are working the fascist puzzle nowadays, linking the confusing dots better than ever. We are finally getting somewhere in understanding this confusing phenomenon. More stuff by Lyons here. Definitely worth a look if you’ve got the time and you can get your mind around it.
