Maserati? Aston Martin, surely.
Hey! My poppa drives a Maserati! Take that back at once!
Besides, Maserati doesn't even have a Formula 1 team. When fascism truly rises again (thanks to Ecclestone and Mosely), it will be driving a McLaren.
BTW, Mosely has some rather interesting habits that support your Godwin call quite nicely, Doc.
Tsk, tsk. 
LuLu (and ferg):
Hey, I'm just as good as my information.
The illo is of a Maserati 250F F1, a Formula One car that made its debut in 1954.
I obviously wasn't referring to your father's Maserati! 
I'd forgotten about Max's, er, predilections. Article amended with h/t.
Since you don't seem to know how to recognize fascism, Dawg, let me point to some current examples.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z...h?
v=zgTMA1SxnCo
It was the "BBC and Zionist provocateurs" that made them do it!
And just as there were fellow travellers for Mussolini (there's still a mural of him - painted in the 30s - in a local church) and Stalin in their day, there are contemporary apologists for fascism today.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/marti...-press-
tv.thtml
Note the reference to Canadian-Iranian journalist filmmaker Maziar Bahari.
But, don't worry, you don't have to post about Iran when that other middle-eastern country beginning with the letter "I" is available.
Kevvie:
Not to put too fine a point upon it--you're an idiot. I suspect this doesn't come as news to you.
Obviously you know nothing whatsoever about fascism if you apply the word to Islamism, even in its wilder forms. Iran is not a corporate state. Look it up.
Now go back to your slavish apologies for the excesses of that other I-country. What are a few hundred Gazan civilians among friends? Praise Israel and pass the white phosphorus and cluster munitions.
Touched a nerve?
From Wikipedia:
Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak. Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state. Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement. Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept. Fascism is much defined by what it opposes, what scholars call the fascist negations - its opposition to individualism, rationalism, liberalism, conservatism and communism.
Just substitute "Iranian Islamism/ists" for "Fascism" above, season with some religious references, and it seems a pretty snug fit.
Iran: this is what fascism looks like
http://polizeros.com/2009/06/16/...ism-looks-like/
(But, hold out for another 1.857 weeks and you'll be safe to post again about that other "I" country.)
Touched a nerve?
Nope. I call 'em as I see 'em, and that includes basement-dwelling teenage blog commenters.
Wikipedia on fascism, eh? *Snicker*. Want a reading list?
Anyway, lessee about that "snug fit."
Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak.
Iranian ideology is Islamist. Nothing about race in there. Nothing about crushing the weak. The people running Iran are rather more focussed than that.
Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state.
Why do I smell an undistributed middle here? In any case, Iran isn't a one-party state:
Formal political parties are a relatively new phenomenon in Iran and most conservatives still prefer to work through political pressure groups rather than parties; often political parties or coalitions are formed prior to elections and disbanded soon thereafter; a loose pro-reform coalition called the 2nd Khordad Front, which includes political parties as well as less formal groups and organizations, achieved considerable success in elections for the sixth Majles in early 2000; groups in the coalition included the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), Executives of Construction Party (Kargozaran), Solidarity Party, Islamic Labor Party, Mardom Salari, Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization (MIRO), and Militant Clerics Society (Ruhaniyun); the coalition participated in the seventh Majles elections in early 2004; following his defeat in the 2005 presidential elections, former MCS Secretary General and sixth Majles Speaker Mehdi KARUBI formed the National Trust Party; a new conservative group, Islamic Iran Developers Coalition (Abadgaran), took a leading position in the new Majles after winning a majority of the seats in February 2004;; following the 2004 Majles elections, traditional and hardline conservatives have attempted to close ranks under the United Front of Principlists and the Broad Popular Coalition of Principlists; several reformist groups, such as the Islamic Revolution, came together as a reformist coalition in advance of the 2008 Majles elections; the IIPF has repeatedly complained that the overwhelming majority of its candidates have been unfairly disqualified from the 2008 elections. --CIA World Factbook
Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement.
And again, with the exception of "the fascist movement."
Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept.
Of course, liberal democracies reject the notion of class conflict as well.
Fascism is much defined by what it opposes, what scholars call the fascist negations - its opposition to individualism, rationalism, liberalism, conservatism and communism.
One could argue that Islamism might be defined in the same way, except that it stands opposed to fascism too. But defining something by what it isn't strikes me as methodologically dodgy.
Still no evidence that Iran is a corporate state (look it up). Or engages in the cult of charismatic leadership, hierarchy, racism and xenophobic nationalism.
Charismatic leadership.
Hmmm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Ruh...hollah_Khomeini
Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state.
From the same Wikipedia entry: "In his writings and preachings he expanded the Shi'a Usuli theory of velayat-e faqih, the 'guardianship of the jurisconsult (clerical authority)' to include theocratic political rule by Islamic jurists."
Iranian ideology is Islamist. Nothing about race in there.
See under Relgion, Islamism.
One could argue that Islamism might be defined in the same way, except that it stands opposed to fascism too.
Ooh, very convincing... not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isl...i/
Islamofascism
Do I have to pick out the pertinent items?
This is too easy.
1) The Ayatollah is dead.
2) Evasion noted. Iran is not a one-party state. And many one-party states are not fascist.
3) Islam is not, doctrinally speaking, racist.
4) I repeat: Islamism is not fascism. I can offer scores of references on this, but here's a good one, dealing with so-called "Islamofascism":
The key problem with the label is its stunning ignorance of both fascism and jihadism. Fascism was a specific, secular, modernizing ideology—what historian Stanley Payne has called “revolutionary hyper-nationalism”—that emerged out of Europe’s ruins in WWI. It was focused above all on exalting the nation. Search in vain for any resemblance to a transnational, religious movement that claims to seek the restoration of a theocratic state. In art and architecture, fascists were champions of modernism; jihadists clearly have no such interests. The valorization of war and death that Hitchens cites in his defense as proof of the similarity between the two is common to all armed revolutionary movements.
In addition to its rhetorical and historical errors, the designation reveals interventionists’ monomania about the lessons of WWII. Every threat must be likened to Nazism as much as possible, and every crisis must be another Munich 1938. Historical myopia of this sort leads to strategic blindness, as the endless use of WWII analogies to rationalize the Iraq War has abundantly shown.
Just a wee hint, Kevin--don't quote Wikipedia if you want to have a serious discussion. I used to penalize my students for using it as a reference, and rightly so.
Ha, ha. Just as I always expected: an alliance between the left-apologists of Islamism and the paleo-conservatives.
http://richarddawkins.net/articl...-with-the-
World
Just a wee hint, Dawg--don't quote Patrick Buchanan's rag if you want to have a serious discussion. (Or, if you persist in looking for Larison's work, the publication of that other virulent anti-semite, Taki Theodoracopulos.)
Larison is an anti-Semite? Gawd, you're a boob. He's a classic paleoconservative. I thought his politics might appeal to you. I quoted him precisely because his politics and mine are so opposed.
In any case, because I know you'd never stoop to ad hominem (look it up), what about what Larison actually argued?
Fact: there is no comparison to be made between fascism and Islamism. None. You haven't made a single point so far in trying to prove the opposite.
Semi-literate wikipedia quoters aside, this Godwin's law nonsense is a bit tiresome. The one bit of history anybody knows is the second world war. Yet, it has been declared unmentionable except when calling for more violent wars of choice (as with the Hitch, and Stockwell Doris Day).
Looks like the World Jewish Congress is taking a different view than the CJC:
http://www.tsn.ca/auto_racing/st...tory/?
id=283783
"NEW YORK - The World Jewish Congress is calling for Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone to resign after he was quoted as saying that Adolf Hitler "got things done."
[...]
In a statement Sunday, Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, says Ecclestone is not fit to serve as head of Formula One and calls on teams, drivers and host countries to suspend their co-operation with him.
..."
If Ecclestone ends up resigning or is removed, will the story be what Ecclestone said or some notion of the "pwoer" of the "Zionist lobby" etc.?
Gawd, you're a boob. He's a classic paleoconservative. I thought his politics might appeal to you.
On the theory that your enemy's enemy is your friend? I always thought you had weak perceptiveness but I never thought it would be this blinkered. (Hint: I'm the left that you left behind.)
I quoted him precisely because his politics and mine are so opposed.
Not so opposed after all, eh? What do they say about bedfellows?
http://snaphanen.dk/2008/04/01/i...unism-to-islam/
This is just silly. You've evaded every point I've raised.
In your own link:
It should be noted that at the present time there is no Islamic totalitarian system in existence that would correspond to the classical definitions of totalitarianism developed by Hannah Arendt, Carl Friedrich and Zbigniev Brzezisnki, among others. Iran, a highly repressive theocracy comes closest.
Is Islamism totalitarian? Why, certainly, but it's totalitarianism that can be distinguished from Communism and fascism. The case being made by the wide range of commentators is really only that it's totalitarian. There are surface similarities among all totalitarianisms. But Islamism is not, as noted, fascist.
Maybe it's Communist:
“Communism,” continues Monnerot, “takes the field both as a secular religion and as a universal State7; it is therefore more comparable to Islam than to the Universal Religion…
Then we have this:
Charles Watson, a Christian missionary in Egypt, in 1937, described Islam as totalitarian by showing how, “by a million roots, penetrating every phase of life, all of them with religious significance, it is able to maintain its hold upon the life of Moslem peoples”.
One can pretty easily substitute the word "Catholic" in the above.
You have to get beyond the superficial here. Think "corporate state" (look it up). They don't have that in Iran. Yet it is a key defining characteristic of classical fascism.
My view of Iran is as a fascist (lower case "f") state, but if you're looking for an upper-case perspective, there's plenty of evidence.
http://books.google.com/books?
id...r#search_anchor
Read the introduction to Chapter 9 (beginning p214): "Populism and Corporatism in Post-Revolutionary Iranian Political Culture"
You can change the definition of fascism by switching the 'f' between upper and lower cases? Neato.
It's an interesting chapter, but I take issue at the outset with this:
Corporatism is recognized as a populist strategy that reconciles class differences and incorporates the nation into an organic whole.
That's ungovernably broad. It could apply to lots of liberal-democratic states.
Is the Iranian economy corporatist? It hardly fits the notion of rationalization of the means of production, for one thing. (Admittedly, neither did Hitler's state.) But the corporation exists for something. Under the fascism of Mussolini, it was hyper-nationalism.
Iran just doesn't exhibit that characteristic. Nor does its undoubted populism equate to a corporate state: where is the unitary party, which, with labout and business, are supposed to form that "organic whole?" I just don't see any evidence of it. Calling Iran "fascist"--big or small f--is just playing with words.
ungovernably broad
??
Your "fascism" (upper or lower case) is a veritable buffet of anti-imperialist leftovers (Canada as a Fascist state?!). I've simply come in and made my own plate.
And hence missed the whole point. Satire, as you and a couple of others have freshly reminded me, is dead.
It could be Dawg that Kevin is using "fascist" in the lefty sense of that term which, like "racist" is applied to positions, people, states with which the lefty disagrees.
I have an 3-year-old link to a New Republic article about Ahmadinejad that now seems remarkably prescient. It's why when I think of the Islamic Republic of Iran I think of the basiji and of fascism.
http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/c...dinejads-
demons
And you can see the influence on Iran's clients in Lebanon and Gaza.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogg...%
20salute.1.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/
blogg..._sworn_in.1.jpg
(Note who are the other stiff-arm saluters: the Phalange!)
Well the only one who made any sense with this whole mess was Bernie Farber. Ecclestone as Farber quite neatly put it is an "ignoramus" who should stick to "pistons and engines"
No argument there.
"Stick to pistons and engines"!!! Love it...gotta hand it to Farber he gives good quote.
Kevin, read some experts on fascism before you open your trap:
http://www.publiceye.org/
fascist...et_fascism.html
http://www.publiceye.org/frontpa...erical-
911.html
http://www.publiceye.org/eyes/wh...s/
whatfasc.html
http://www.publiceye.org/fascist...ist-
echoes.html
http://www.publiceye.org/
fascist...orporatism.html
As usual, sophomoric and obnoxious. http://www.haloscan.com/comments...0862597/
#213083
Argue with it, shit-wad.
Bah! You honestly think fascism in Formula One racing is a threat? That's marginal, man, like neo-Nazi scrawls in public washrooms. The real danger comes from communism in hockey. I swear, if one more coach criticizes a player for individual selfishness and says winning demands a team effort, I'm buying a gun.
Todd,
As other commenters here have already noticed, you are foul-mouthed and verbally limited, i.e. thick and obnoxious, an unpromising combination. Puerile profanity and an ability to use Internet Explorer does not constitute debate. Try again when you are grown up.
Spare me your affected primness, Princess. There's no reason I need to treat brainless trolls like you with anything other than venemous contempt.
You're slime, and you're not interested in anything even approaching argument. I'll happily make verbally kneecapping you a hobby if you keep leaving your mucoid trails around here. Smarten up, and I'll lighten up.
If your comments were any lighter, Todd, they would be homeopathic.
"Trap", "shit-wad", "slime", "mucoid trails" -- you certainly have a way with words. And "Princess" (!)-- you're tough. Nobody messes with you, Todd, no siree.
Believe it.
Ooh... did I make your day? (I had wise guys like you on my boat; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil...leeve_Lt(N)
.png they didn't last long.)
?? What am I supposed to do with your pic? Fall over myself weeping in chagrin that you're a member of the Canadian military? Get real; vermin like you are where one finds them.
Todd: English must not be your first language, eh?
Kevin: When the going gets tough, "tough guys" like Todd take off in their pickup trucks. http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com...yan-
honour.html
I guess you're another one who doesn't read the whole thread, eh Yoyo?
Kevin hates answering straight; all he can do is drive-by trolling. I don't have to take it or encourage him by ignoring it. So long as he acts like an asshole, I'll take great pleasure in showing him up for the ignoramus he is.
He's the one who keeps driving off in his little clown-car while hurling abuse the whole time.
I guess you're another one who doesn't read the whole thread, eh Yoyo?
Quintessentially Todd. The only thing missing is some sparkling expletive like "shit-wad".
Yoyo said:
"The only thing missing is some sparkling expletive like 'shit-wad'."
Of course; why should I verbally abuse you to the extent I have Kevin when you haven't said anything near his league?
After an opening comment like this "Kevin, read some experts on fascism before you open your trap" - Todd | 07.06.09 - 12:12 am I wouldn't bother replying, either. You are, indeed, "foul-mouthed and verbally limited".
Did you read the horseshit Kevin posted and that I responded to?
Yoyo, it's very simple: if you act like an asshole, I do my best to wipe you, whether or not my language upsets your oh-so-delicate sensibilities.
We got the message, Todd. You're one tough hombre. A bit dense maybe, but isn't that a synonym for "muscular"?
??
Yoyo, now you're getting ridiculous.
I point out a more authoritative source than the BS Kevin linked to, and _I'm_ the dense one?
If you don't like how I deal with trolls, that's your business, not mine.
Hmm, "point(ing) out" eh? How thoughtful!
How about: ... before you open your trap - Todd | 07.06.09 - 12:12 am
I've learned all I need to know about you in this exchange.
Don't fret; it's mutual.
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