>If we remove the names of the authors, would the statements read differently?
>The pertinent question is: are these ideas themselves fascist, or are they
>otherwise sensible ideas that are exploited by fascists for political
>objectives that the left also opposes.
First of all, it's no accident, as the vulgar Marxists used to say, that Buchanan constantly uses "Goldman Sachs" as his synecdoche for Wall Street. Sure, GS is big and important and the former home of Robert Rubin, but he never says "Merrill Lynch" or "Morgan Stanley." And second, what they have in common is a critique of the internationalization of capital, not capital itself, and a deeply nationalist view of the world (Germany first, America first). Fascism isn't a very imminent danger in the U.S. now - we have no economic crisis, we have no working class in revolt, we have no Bolsheviks to the east - but there's a real continuum there. With the toxicity of nationalism in the Balkans in the news, I wish people would draw the general lesson that you can't have nationalism without some form of xenophobia and racism. If the left stands for anything it should be anti-xenophobic and anti-racist. So yes, the ideas themselves are either fascist or on a continuum that ends in fascism.
Buchanan is no fan of unions, is he?
Doug