--- "www.leninology. blogspot.com" <leninology at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 1) The European far right is moving in that
> direction, and I provided examples.
This is still too much of a generalization. For one thing, I think you have to differentiate between the "respectable" Nazis like the BNP, Berlusconi, and the German Republikaner, from militant neo-Nazis like the NPD. Yoshie says that the latter type groups are marginal, but as I pointed out, certainly not in this country, where they sometimes control the streets and local office.
I think these kinds of militant, Strasserite, "left-wing" Nazis have a greater populist potential in the long run, since the Berlusconis are too tied to capital to offer a convincing outlet.
>Germany has
> circumstances very specific to it, and far right
> German nationalism therefore usually involves an
> attempt to rehabilitate the Nazis and their record.
Yes and no. For the mainstream right-conservatives, like the right-wing of the CDU and their Bavarian sister party the CSU, it takes the form of affirming the honor of the average Wehrmacht soldier of the second world war while still affirming friendship with the U.S. and commitment to Israel.
This is why I think it is essential to differentiate between the mainstream, anti-Muslim racist (I have a critique of the term "Islamophobia", but I won't go into it here) right, and the militant, anti-capitalist right. The former has more respectability, the latter has more mass potential.
> However, it doesn't matter for the purposes of
> assessing who one should support since the far right
> have often appropriated the language and causes of
> the left. The British far right likes to pretend it
> is 'socialist' when it suits
This is exemplary for the left's failure to come to terms with Fascism and National Socialism. Appropriate the language of the left...yes, I suppose they kind of do that. But I don't doubt their sincerity. I don't think Nazis are being cynical. Spend a few moments reading their web forums or newspapers. They are dead serious about their admiration for Che Guevara and their sympathy for the Palestinians. After all, in their eyes, Germans are also victims of imperialist agression and military occupation.
The left has to seriously give consideration as to why some aspects of leftist ideology (I mean ideology in the bad sense of the word) are so easily appropriated by the far-right. I think writers like Zeev Sternhall and Moishe Postone begin to do this.
> You could be confusing him with Pat Buchanan, but
> then Buchanan is no more to the right than
> Robertson.
Yes, you're right, that's the one I meant, Pat Robertson.
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