Charles Brown wrote:
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> CB: I realize this it was a long time ago , and things that long ago are oh so ..what is it , such a turn off for the youthful new lefties, but when the Nazis came to power in 1932, did they put everybody in jail immediately ? No. Did that mean they weren't Nazis in 1932 ? No.
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No, they thought it was Bonapartism -- so it never dawned on them until too late that it was a new kind of tyrany. Now everyone is so interested in screaming "fascism" or "naziism" that they may well blind themselves to a brand new authoritarian threat.
This use of "facism" etc to describe every sort of nastiness reminds me of the time I gave a freshman class as a paper topic to describe "thoughtfulness." By the time they had finished every positive word in english had been emptied of its meaning. Similarly, if you label everything fascist, you empty fascism of meaning, making a mere synonym for nasty.
Carrol