The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China are not examples of "Progressive" countries. They are Authoritarian regimes.
Swing and a miss. Conservatives are such poor students.
Oh, they most certainly are. The leaders of the progressive movement of the 1920's and 30's were famous for extolling the virtues of the fascist regimes. This is all well known history. What is also well known is that before the oppression, and the terror could begin, the people had to be disarmed.
Funny how that works.
Progressives are even poorer students.
- H. G. Wells, one of the most influential progressives of the 20th century, said in 1932 that progressives must become “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazis.” Regarding totalitarianism, he stated: “I have never been able to escape altogether from its relentless logic.” Calling for a “‘Phoenix Rebirth’ of Liberalism” under the umbrella of “Liberal Fascism,” Wells said: “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis.”
- The poet Wallace Stevens pronounced himself “pro-Mussolini personally.”
- The eminent historian Charles Beard wrote of Mussolini’s efforts: “Beyond question, an amazing experiment is being made [in Italy], an experiment in reconciling individualism and socialism.”
- Muckraking journalists almost universally admired Mussolini. Lincoln Steffens, for one, said that Italian fascism made Western democracy, by comparison, look like a system run by “petty persons with petty purposes.” Mussolini, Steffens proclaimed reverently, had been “formed” by God “out of the rib of Italy.”
- McClure’s Magazine founder Samuel McClure, an important figure in the muckraking movement, described Italian fascism as “a great step forward and the first new ideal in government since the founding of the American Republic.”
- After having vistited Italy and interviewed Mussolini in 1926, the American humorist Will Rogers, who was informally dubbed “Ambassador-at-Large of the United States” by the National Press Club, said of the fascist dictator: “I’m pretty high on that bird.” “Dictator form of government is the greatest form of government,” Rogers wrote, “that is, if you have the right dictator.”
- Reporter Ida Tarbell was deeply impressed by Mussolini's attitudes regarding labor, affectionately dubbing him “a despot with a dimple.”
- NAACP co-founder W. E. B. DuBois saw National Socialism as a worthy model for economic organization. The establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, he wrote, had been “absolutely necessary to get the state in order.” In 1937 DuBois stated: “there is today, in some respects, more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past.”
- FDR adviser Rexford Guy Tugwell said of Italian fascism: “It's the cleanest, neatest, most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I've ever seen. It makes me envious.”
- New Republic editor George Soule, who avidly supported FDR, noted approvingly that the Roosevelt administration was “trying out the economics of fascism.”
- Playwright George Bernard Shaw hailed Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini as the world’s great “progressive” leaders because they “did things,” unlike the leaders of those “putrefying corpses” called parliamentary democracies.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1223
All said during the greatest economic calamity since the Dark Ages. A calamity that resulted from unchecked, unfettered Capitalism run amok.
The Soviet Union was unfettered capitalism run amuck? Even if that were true, how do you justify the murder of 60 million PEASANTS? They weren't capitalists, they WERE
the ones being oppressed. Luuuucy, you've got some esplainin to doooo.....
All those quotes in praise of Fascist were made in the depths of the Great Depression. Those who praised Facism were doing so based upon the turnaround of the Fascist economies.
That Great Depression occurred due to uncheck, unfettered Capitalism.
They admired the precision and speed with which things were accomplished. When the Collectivization of the Ukrainian farms was underway, with the attendant 3 to 5 million dead that that entailed the progressives hailed it as a necessary act. The KNEW that millions were dying and felt it appropriate. I hate to tell you but mass murder, for any reason is NEVER acceptable, no matter how fucked up your personal belief system is.
The facts are millions were dying, the progressives knew it.....and they APPLAUDED it.
Progressivism has murdered more people in the last 150 years, than all the religions in the world have managed to murder in the last 2,000 years.
