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I don't see the distinction. The fascists took those ideas and tied them together so they could sell them as a political brand, with a sideline in coloured shirt sales.

But arguably the older colonial European cultures were equally fascist - concentration camps were a British innovation, after all. They simply called it 'patriotism'.

Now we have a different and more sophisticated brand, which uses financial dictatorship as an excuse for political oppression.

Financial dictatorship has denuded Africa and swept third world populations into corporate slavery, so I'm not sure it's any less morally acceptable in practice than Nazism was. There are fewer outright wars - more or less - but I'd guess the body count is similar, if perhaps less specifically targeted.

The one key difference is that the stated reasons for violence are more subtle - in the sense of not really making any sense - and therefore more difficult to challenge directly.

And if there's any talk of a class - perhaps not a race, not quite - which deserves everything at the expense of the disposable and defective, it never goes far beyond board rooms. (Although from what I hear it's not an unusual sentiment at public schools in the UK.)

I'd suggest this understatement is a feature and not a bug.

Really, the Nazis were terribly vulgar, and one doesn't need to be quite that blatant to get what one wants.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Feb 21st, 2012 at 08:48:33 AM EST
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