BNP faces meltdown at local polls after defections and infighting

[Arakhor]

Thank you for that. (I say that mainly so we can end a political thread in amity, rather than in fear and confusion.)

 

[innonimatu]

'Tis a hard one, because (as with other non-liberalist ideologies) there have been so few examples, and the extent to which they've succeded in implementing their ideology as opposed to making concessions with the Liberalist system around it is debateable (for example, siding with big business - fundamental shift in ideological practice or something intended only to be a short-term "necessary evil" such as the Bolshevik's NEP?). Essentially, Mussolini's regime can be regarded as more or less typical, and there should be particular emphasis on the revolutionary rhetoric in trying to create an ideal where the citizenry and the state are combined as one, through the process of creating a kind of "new person" as the citizen; to this end, a Fascist government can be seen as one utilizing the welfare state to perhaps promote an exessive amount of programs and the such in aid of this, such as funding workers' enrollment in after-hours sports clubs, holiday clubs, cur buying schemes, etc. Such was also carried through by the Nazis (who before ~1924 [and the Munich Putsch maybe?] I'd say were somewhat atypical Fascists, but following this became somewhat more radically atypical though could still be defined within the Fascist spectrum).

Not very helpful, but as it is there's a limited pool of "Fascist" states and the ideology backing itself is only loosely coherent.

Fascism is often way overrated as a coherent ideology. The reason it's so hard to define is that they were not that unique in their historic setting. For example, they were "reactionaries" opposed to modernity in social relations, valuing instead some perceived past ideal going back to the middle ages - except that this ideal was quite different between the italians, the nazis (all that Wagner fetishism), the spanish, etc. Fascist states could not look similar because they carried dissimilar historic luggage.
They were "totalitarians" (silly term) in trying to plan for all the activity of the population and fit it within state-controlled institutions, but just about every european state was trying to do that in the early 20th century. Go far enough in searching for the root of this interest and you'll bump into Bismark's social policies!
I guess that you can list a set of basic principles which together make up a fascist ideology, but the actual implementation could be quite different. That's why Franco can indeed be described as fascist. And even Suharto, and even the BNP.

 

[Tee Kay]

Curiously, all the symptoms were or are present in almost every country calling itself communist.

 

[Quackers]

Fascism is anti-communist, anti-democratic, anti-individualist, anti-liberal, anti-parliamentary, anti-bourgeois and anti-proletarian, anti-conservative on certain issues, and in a number of cases anti-capitalist.[16] Fascism rejects the concepts of egalitarianism, materialism, and rationalism in favour of action, discipline, hierarchy, spirit, and will.[17] In economics, fascists oppose liberalism (as a bourgeois movement) and Marxism (as a proletarian movement) for being exclusive economic class-based movements.[18] Fascists present their ideology as that of an economically trans-class movement that promotes resolving economic class conflict to secure national solidarity.[19] They support a regulated, multi-class, integrated national economic system.

In conclusion: nobody can agree upon a common fascist definition.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Curiously, all the symptoms were or are present in almost every country calling itself communist.

Even more curiously, it describes what many from the far-right wish to do with their existing supposedly democratic and secular governments.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Even more curiously, it describes what many from the far-right wish to do with their existing supposedly democratic and secular governments.

That's nonsense, everybody knows that the Nazis were left-wing.
National-socialism is first and foremost socialism.

 

[Newbunkle]

And the democratic people's republic of korea is first and foremost democratic and for the people! See? It's in the name!

 

[Flying Pig]

Curiously, all the symptoms were or are present in almost every country calling itself communist.

On the Political Compass website, the author made the good point that if you had Hitler and Stalin sit down together and agree not to discuss economics, they'd probably get on fairly well. The usual left/right wing scale of ideology only tells half the picture and relies heavily on certain policies which usually correlate to economic leanings - at extreme ends of the spectrum, they don't.

 

[Tee Kay]

An alternative political compass:

 

[Formaldehyde]

That's nonsense, everybody knows that the Nazis were left-wing.

Calling the Nazis "left-wing" is what is really "nonsense".

First They came... - Pastor Martin Niemoller

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

And which of those points do not describe many from the American far-right these days?

On the Political Compass website, the author made the good point that if you had Hitler and Stalin sit down together and agree not to discuss economics, they'd probably get on fairly well. The usual left/right wing scale of ideology only tells half the picture and relies heavily on certain policies which usually correlate to economic leanings - at extreme ends of the spectrum, they don't.

This is why I think the libertarian / authoritarian rating is far more important, and why someone as reactionary as Ron Paul can still hold views which are clearly not authoritarian. But most members of the far-right seem to be quite authoritarian.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

First They came... - Pastor Martin Niemoller

And which of those points do not describe many from the American far-right these days?

"First they came for the babies,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a baby.

Then they came for the healthcare industry
and I didn't speak out because I'm not a healthcare industry

Then they came for the white, christian heterosexual males
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a white, christian, heterosexual male

...
"

 

[Formaldehyde]

Good point White Christian heterosexual males are so discriminated against by our mutual cultures. Take the BNP, for instance. They should make it a hate crime to even try to discuss their own views with them.

 

[Flying Pig]

Good point White Christian heterosexual males are so discriminated against by our mutual cultures. Take the BNP, for instance. They should make it a hate crime to even try to discuss their own views with them.

Well there is a strong feeling in this country that, while we haven't quite got to the stage of reverse racism, race is at least far more played up than it ought to be. There are actually very few people around who hold racist attitudes beyond the idea that 'they get all the jobs because of reverse discrimination': in my view and in the views of many others your social class is far more a point of discrimination than your skin colour.

 

[RedRalph]

On the Political Compass website, the author made the good point that if you had Hitler and Stalin sit down together and agree not to discuss economics, they'd probably get on fairly well.

Yeah, that's utter, unadulterated rubbish though.

 

[GinandTonic]

Well there is a strong feeling in this country that, while we haven't quite got to the stage of reverse racism, race is at least far more played up than it ought to be. There are actually very few people around who hold racist attitudes beyond the idea that 'they get all the jobs because of reverse discrimination': in my view and in the views of many others your social class is far more a point of discrimination than your skin colour.

Well you have to figure into that summation the resentment of immigrants as "separate" from racism per se and the whole council house/ exportation of jobs cluster-fudge.

I was driving a mixed race retiree round london the other day and she complained about the recent immigrants having "hundreds" of kids to get the few surviving council flats and explained the reason the traffic island was in such a ******** place near the bus stop was because the bus planning was outsourced to india so the guy had probably never even seen the place to realise how much better it would have been three yards down the street. Then she was talking about the parrot cull the council wanted to do and near wet herself laughing over "coming over here with their bloody plumage, green bloody basta... [etc etc]".

Even in the multicultural heart of London old black ladies are saying things about recent immigration that make a guardian reader wince. The fact its not so focused on race is inching in the right direction, but its not time for champers and cigars quite yet.