- #71
OrbitalPower
Actually, during World War I, it was the Progressives, the pre-cursors of today's "liberals," who were the most pro-war and nationalistic and staunchly against any protesting. Woodrow Wilson was a bigger fascist than Mussolini when you observe what he did. Read "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg.
This is so ludicrous it's almost unfathomable anybody would utter it. There is comparison between Wilson and Mussolini.
First of all, Mussolini invented Fascism. He was the very definition of fascism; he defined it, and if you go over his society step by step, you see that he was not in any way a liberal democrat.
Wilson was not the most "pro-war" president in US history. He himself originally had reservations about getting into World War I. And while it is true he passed the Espionage and Sedition Acts that imprisoned pacifists, socialists, and isolationists, he did not brutalize them like Mussolini did.
Wilson ended up imprisoning many Socialists during the time, this is well known, as there was a lot of Socialist opposition. Mussolini, on the other hand, directly ordered his black shirted thugs to go around and murder the opposition.
For example, the brilliant socialist Matteotti, who stood up in the Italian Chamber of Deputies to denounce the establishment of dictatorship, was visited by Mussolini's goons one morning and shot to death. This happened to pretty much anybody who "stepped out of line," whereas, in America under Wilson, certain anti-war speech was deemed as aiding an abetting an enemy. So, it wasn't as arbitrary as Mussolini's action.
That's the difference between Fascism and a liberal democracy like America. For all its faults, America was nowhere near a Fascist dictatorship in World War I. And it's generally conservatives who claim anti-war speech is "anti-American" even to this day.
Second, Wilson was fighting for Democracy. In International Relations, which I've studied, they call it "Collective Security." Wilson didn't want to go to war unless all other options had failed[/i], and, of course, something like World War I was far more debatable than Iraq.
What Wilson tried to do was establish the League of Nations. This was understood to be a good idea as it was known that Europe had practically killed itself off by continued warfare. War was continual, in any place in Europe it was likely occurring in some form or another. Of course, his plan failed, but it was in a way a predecessor to the UN and there has been a fair amount of stability in Europe, and America, since the establishment of it. So, it was not a failed idea.
This is in complete contrast to the unilateralism (like what Bush seems to believe in), of Mussolini, who invaded Ethopia and so on for the most dubious of reason.
Lawerence Britt and other political scientists have outlined fascism, and it's generally extreme/militant nationalism, control and/or manipulation of the media by the government and corporation, the continued collusion of government and business, and so on. This is far more Reagan/Bush/Coolidge than Wilson or FDR, who actually weakened corporate power.
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