SUCCESSFUL LIES

The inestimable Roger Scruton nails the big lie spread around rather vociferously by our new main stream press corps:

It is testimony to the success of Communist propaganda that it has been able to persuade so many people that fascism and and communism are polar opposites and that there is a single scale of political ideology stretching from 'far left' to 'far right'. Thus while communism is on the far left, it is simply one further stage along a road that all intellectuals must go in order not to be contaminated by the true evil of our times, which is fascism.
It is perhaps easier for an English writer than it is for an Italian to see through that nonsense, and to perceive what it is designed to conceal: the deep structural similarity between communism and fascism, both as  a theory and as practice, and their common antagonism to parliamentary and constitutional forms of government.
Even if we accept the - highly fortuitous - identification of national Socialism and Italian Fascism, to speak of either as the true political opposite of communism is to betray the most superficial understanding of modern history. in truth there is an opposite of all the isms, and that is negotiated politics, without an 'ism' and without a goal other than the peaceful coexistence of rivals.
Communism, like Fascism, involved the attempt to create a mass popular movement and a state bound together under the rule of a single party, in which there will be total cohesion around a common goal. It involved the elimination of opposition, by whatever means, and the replacement of ordered dispute between parties by clandestine 'discussion' within the single ruling elite. It involved taking control - in the name of the 'people' - of the means of communication and education and instilling a principle of command throughout the economy.
Both movements regarded law as optional and constitutional restraints as irrelevant - for both were essentially 'revolutionary', led from above by an iron discipline.

The fact that the press are authoring their own demise makes one think that they are either extremely illiterate about history, exceptionally stupid or that they believe that they will be the 'ruling class' in the new Marxist Utopia...if history is any lesson on that front they are in for a huge awakening.