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Entry: Heil Hillary? Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/heil_hillary#15404 Post contents: The conventional wisdom, wrong always, blames Fascism for "destroying liberal democracy", when the truth is that liberal democracy, as practiced, collapsed when the pillars that maintained it disappered after World War I. Faced with a political system that no longer worked, and given the alternative of a Russian-style revolution, there was a scramble to build up something that could govern, deliver a reasonably sounding ideology to believe in, and shore up the insitutions. Such movements and ideologies were a hodge-podge, a pot-pourri of whatever elements were at hand. Mussolini just created a jerry-built machine that for a while it worked. There is not much point in sking for ideological basis, he grabbed what he could get his hands on. (Same as some of my leftover stews. They have celery in them. when there is celery in the refrigerator, if not, they have something else). As for European fascism, all you had to do to be a fascist was to put on a shirt, say a few nice things about the Duce and you were in. Once inside you could redefine fascism to your heart's content, and no one would excommunicate you for it. So, trying to find an ideological motif to fascism is wasted time. It was a product of desperation, a sort of Rube Goldberg machine, that for a while worked - mainly because people wanted it to work. Sent at: 2008 05 16