LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY peristaltor)

Former Senator Rick Santorum isn't a stupid guy, not by a long shot. I used to think so after I heard his utterly baseless slippery-slope argument in support of keeping the Gays from getting uppity married. Now that he's out of office, he's making speeches. I just read one.

It scared the living crap out of me. I mean, in all fairness, he has an excellent point about the President's use of the term "terrorist," as in "target of our war." He told the President:

“Mr. President,” I said, “you are misleading the American public. This is no more a war on terror than the World War II was a war on blitzkrieg. Terror is a tactic; it’s not the enemy. . . . (The enemies are) Islamic fascists, people who use Islam to support their fascist ideology of wanting to control the world. . . . That’s who they are. And if you don’t tell that to the American public, then why would the American public believe it’s true? If you’re not willing to stand up and say what the truth is as an advocate for this war, how are they going to know it?”

(Emphasis mine.)

I wholeheartedly support Mr. Santorum's challenge to tell the truth about the language this Administration uses to justify their every action. About the enemy, though, I'm not so sure.

Fascism as a term started with Mussolini. In his autobiography (never translated into English, as far as I know), he gave readers his history as a young socialist radical espousing the usual brand of revolutionary rhetoric . . . until some men in nice suits convinced him to change his tune. He stopped railing against the evils of capitalism and against the evils of socialism; less a "change" of tune, more of a complete reversal. From then on -- and with the financial support of these well-suited men -- he became a Fascist. The word itself refers to an old single-handed weapon called a fascia (known in name to those of you who play Diablo II), though I am not myself aware of what one actually looks like. The political philosophy behind fascism, though, can be summed up more accurately by Il Duce himself: "Fascism can more accurately be called 'corporatism.'"

(Disclaimer: I got that translated quote from an acquaintance who read the memoirs in the original Italian, an acquaintance with whom I am no longer speaking; sadly, therefore, I cannot indepentantly verify the quote.)

Abiding by laws set forth in the Koran, corporatism cannot work in a strictly Islamic state. Inheritance of wealth must follow family lines, and any extension of credit violates Koranic laws against usury. One scholar (whose name escapes me) even put forth the proposition that these two major cultural differences became the reasons that enabled the Western world to overtake that of the East in wealth, power and therefore influence. Under the Western primo genetor(sp?) laws, large companies passed from father to eldest son, therefore keeping management of the future company manageable; similar companies under Koranic law would be run smoothly only as long as all the involved brothers agreed, and split into pieces if they could not. Therefore, one can find little or no true Mussolini-defined fascism in Islamic countries.

Instead, what Santorum correctly identifies as a threat he misidentifies in nature. Since they seek to spread the influence of religious rule under, in this case, the dominion of Allah, these enemies should be properly referred to as "Dominionist."

To fight the spread of this enemy, Rick suggests America "evangelize, educate, engage, and eradicate." He uses some specious logic in his presentation with the very first word:

Evangelize: I don’t mean Christianize Muslims by evangelizing. What I do mean is to share with them a witness, a witness of what happened in Christendom. Christendom like Islam, was a connection between the church and the state for 1,000 years, over 1,000 years. Papal armies, papal wars; after the reformation, kings going to battle, who were the heads of also the church. This is something that’s very familiar to Christendom and we changed. We modernized.

I agree. These are great ideas to share; but such a worthy propagandist move would really fall under the description "educate," wouldn't it? "Evangelize" really does mean what he claims it doesn't in his very first sentence. This constitutes about as ironic an opener as one can muster.

His evangelistic message really becomes evangelistic as one continues:

(W)e need to re-evangelize Europe. . . . We will be alone unless we somehow get some of our traditional allies back and we will not get them back save faith. (sic)

These secularized countries that are dying (sic). Europe is dying. At their current birthrates, they’re going to lose half their population in 50 years. . . . It is a belief in something other than the self that makes one want to do things for others instead of just yourself, like giving of children. It is faith. It is faith that keeps our populations (sic) rates up. We need to re-evangelize.

Here I get steamingly stabbily angry. Europe is a land mass. What population constitutes the dominant population on that landmass should be the business of future census canvassers, not former politicians from entirely different land masses. So what if a future Europe is not Christian, not white? Who cares? (Other than Rick, of course.)

After all this evangelism, what does he consider "education?" "Invest in the culture," he advises:

I’ll tell you what, answer this question: would you rather have someone, if you wanted to win America, someone get up and give a great political speech or have a movie in every theater across America? If you can answer that question, then you know where you have to start putting some of your resources.

That's right, folks. Pony up the cash to produce movies. Not documentaries, mind you, but movies like Syrianna and others:

We have to fund and produce artifacts of the culture that communicate the message on a broad base scheme, because the other side does. The George Soroses and the Ted Leonsises and the Al Gores do the documentaries that get wide distribution and critical acclaim? Why? Because they are well funded and they’re supported.

Never mind that Gore's movie and the premise therein is supported by massive quantities of scientific evidence; it's still on "the other side."

Oh, and that leftist ideology of Gore's is elsewhere, too. Santorum cites an alliance of convenience Ahmadinejad seems to be making with Chaves in Venezuela:

We need to build closer ties so the spread of leftism, not Islamic fascism, but radical leftist ideology does not spread through our Central and South America. Eradicate: we have to defeat the enemy. We've got to win.

And here's the brain-hurt part, Santorum's unintended gap in logic that makes for the real logical migraine: He calls for action against mislabeled "fascists." Okay. The United States has had problems with fascism before -- and I'm not talking about Europe. Nope. Though largely ignored by current educational curricula, Smedley Butler blew the whistle on a well-funded corporate attempt to seize control of our country in 1933. His account can be found in The Plot To Seize The White House, now out of print but available online. It tells the story of wealthy interests attempting to recruit Butler, a Marine Corps Major General and two-time recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, to lead a group of veterans to Washington and take control of the executive branch. His testimony before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee helped thwart the takeover. Many of those business tycoons indicted in the plot also supported more familiar European fascists. So the definition of "fascist" should not be casted about so loosely.

But today fascists are bad in general, not because of their now-forgotten definition. To correctly call the Islamic jihadists "Dominionist" would be suicide for Santorum, since he made the speech in front of The Council for National Policy, a group whose "members are united in their belief in a free enterprise system, a strong national defense, and support for traditional western values."

Interesting. "Western Values." Sounds innocuous. Who founded this little group? Why, that would be Tim LaHaye, co-author of the "Left Behind" book series. Anyone who writes about what will happen to unworthy sinners left on earth after the Rapture bodily takes the righteous would probably lean toward the more extreme elements of Christianity. We're talking here about the Religious Political Right. Other names involved in the Council would seem to support that assertion.

Yeah, calling Islamic jihadists "Dominionist" in a speech before a Christian Dominionist organization might erode what support he currently has, wouldn't you think? Ah, but even worse, should the members of a group "united in their belief in a free enterprise system" -- some intimately involved with well-known descendants of other free-enterprisists noted years before by General Butler -- ever learn the Mussolini's original definition of "fascist," they might be more than a little peeved at being compared to such jihadists. It's a no-win situation for Rick.



U.S. Marine Major Smedley Butler, American Hero