Re: [Salon] EU to approve Ukraine for membership process



Scott wrote yesterday: "I’m sure Todd will find reason to explain that I’m a fascist."

(All of which follows is merely in "my opinion,” based on my education in political theory, the law, and first hand experience in a “fascist” based, in legal theory, so-called “Court," the U.S. Military Commissions, and its attendant war crime victims. And seeing the same in Israel’s “Military Court" system this past March, and seeing first hand some Settler fascists on that same trip, and its Apartheid system): 

As Chas shared earlier:

With all Eyes on Gaza, Extremist Israeli Squatters seek to Ethnically Cleanse the Palestinian West Bank


Israel Must Take the Gaza Re-settlers Seriously

BLUF: "Dena-Picar, of the settlement Beit Hagai, mocks anyone who treats his plan as delusional. And how right he is! As the last 50 years have shown, any single settler’s hallucination should be taken seriously, and treated as a plan of action by the next government, if not the current one. And when the hallucination is built on overt plans for total destruction and mass expulsion, wars are the most suitable ground for its realization.


(Not calling anyone here a “fascist,” to be clear!) 

But to ask the question, where would I have ever gotten the notion that Americans could hold to, or at least sympathize with, “ideas,” or “political theory,” originating in fascist thought?  Why, from The American Conservative magazine, back in its better, pre-Straussian, days, in 2003 when evidence of it was readily apparent in the person of Michael Ledeen. Who would go on to co-write an ultra-militaristic book with Michael Flynn in 2015, just before signed up by a fellow-fascist-minded person for the 2016 POTUS campaign. With the rest history. 

And Gaza now under attack like the Warsaw Ghetto once was, except by which ethnic group is doing the attacking, with 100% support from American Conservative politicians, particularly of the “New Right.” And their also joining together in a coalition of Americans conspiring to wage aggressive war, as their “Common Plan,” as such a “Conspiracy” was called at Nuremberg.  Even admitting to it by name, as here: 

Attachment: Trump on China.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document



With American "New Right Traditional Conservatives” solidly supportive of the Israeli genocide (see below), and taking what Ledeen argued as a Fascist; a quantum leap forward and beyond anything he could have gotten away with. With Trump having “conditioned” us so much to what he gave a “green light” to Israeli fascists to “finish.” The “Final Solution” argued for by the Israeli Right for so long (see links at top); the “Final Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.” Going on today in all of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which Trump denied was “Occupied.” A “Final Solution” in which American "Traditional Conservatives” were and are in the forefront of, as seen at the recent RJC event. 

So here, is where I first read of “Universal Fascism,” and how that fit the person and ideology of Michael Ledeen, and now taken far beyond where Ledeen was in 2003, with the “National Conservatives,” all of Ledeen, and worse!

With these quotes of Ledeen’s from this critical, and excellent article (you won’t see me saying that of many post-2015 TAC articles): 
“Of all the myths that cloud our understanding, and therefore paralyze our will and action, the most pernicious is that only the Left has a legitimate claim to the revolutionary tradition.”

"Ledeen’s conviction that the Right is as revolutionary as the Left derives from his youthful interest in Italian fascism. In 1975, Ledeen published an interview, in book form, with the Italian historian Renzo de Felice, a man he greatly admires. It caused a great controversy in Italy. Ledeen later made clear that he relished the ire of the left-wing establishment precisely because “De Felice was challenging the conventional wisdom of Italian Marxist historiography, which had always insisted that fascism was a reactionary movement.” What de Felice showed, by contrast, was that Italian fascism was both right-wing and revolutionary. Ledeen had himself argued this very point in his book, Universal Fascism, published in 1972. That work starts with the assertion that it is a mistake to explain the support of fascism by millions of Europeans “solely because they had been hypnotized by the rhetoric of gifted orators and manipulated by skilful propagandists.” “It seems more plausible,” Ledeen argued, “to attempt to explain their enthusiasm by treating them as believers in the rightness of the fascist cause, which had a coherent ideological appeal to a great many people.” For Ledeen, as for the lifelong fascist theoretician and practitioner, Giuseppe Bottai, that appeal lay in the fact that fascism was “the Revolution of the 20th century.”

"Ledeen supports de Felice’s distinction between “fascism-movement” and “fascism-regime.” Mussolini’s regime, he says, was “authoritarian and reactionary”; by contrast, within “fascism-movement,” there were many who were animated by “a desire to renew.” These people wanted “something more revolutionary: the old ruling class had to be swept away so that newer, more dynamic elements—capable of effecting fundamental changes—could come to power.” Like his claim that the common ground between Nazism and Italian fascism was “exceedingly minimal”—Ledeen writes, “The fact of the Axis Pact should not be permitted to become the overriding consideration in this analysis”—Ledeen’s careful distinction between fascist “regime” and “movement” makes him a clear apologist for the latter. “While ‘fascism-movement’ was overcome and eventually suppressed by ‘fascism-regime,’” he explains, “fascism nevertheless constituted a political revolution in Italy. For the first time, there was an attempt to mobilize the masses and to involve them in the political life of the country.” Indeed, Ledeen criticizes Mussolini precisely for not being revolutionary enough. “He never had enough confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in fascism.” Ledeen therefore concurs with the fascist intellectual, Camillo Pellizi, who argues—in a book Ledeen calls “a moving and fundamental work”—that Mussolini’s was “a failed revolution.” Pellizzi had hoped that “the new era was to be the era of youthful genius and creativity”: for him, Ledeen says, the fascist state was “a generator of energy and creativity.” The purest ideologues of fascism, in other words, wanted something very similar to that which Ledeen himself wants now, namely a “worldwide mass movement” enabling the peoples of the world, “liberated” by American militarism, to participate in the “greatest experiment in human freedom.” Ledeen wrote in 1996, “The people yearn for the real thing—revolution.” Stop


And they got it, in the “Trump Revolution,” though it’s not quite in its “Final Stage.” But as conditioned for with an American "Perpetual War” worldview formed in post-9/11 America, leading directly to Trumpism, and the ultra-militarists of the "New Right,” as embodied in the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025 "Common Plan,” advancing Trump’s “On China” war plans (see above). 

With that “mutation” (didn’t have far to mutate to; see Burnham/Kendall/Leo Strauss) into a fascist world view apparent in how so many so-called “Traditional Conservatives” turned to the promoters of such, as Leo Strauss’s “political theory” (propagated by this generations’s “Conservatives” most prominently by way of the Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College. That is, the bastions of "West Coast Straussians," as TraditionalConservative Claes Ryn favorably commented of how close they had become, to “Traditional Conservatives” now), as Strauss first shared the same “theory” with German fascist Carl Schmitt. 

Before having to “hide it,” and adapt it, to his new land’s “democratic doctrine," the better to subvert the latter, on arriving in the U.S. And taking up a position first at my graduate school alma mater, The New School. Before he moved on to the University of Chicago to birth what came to be called “Straussianism,” shared in kind with “native” American citizens making for a conjoining of the two into the “Conservative Movement,” as hindsight (history) allows us to see. 

And now allying themselves with others with the same kind of fascist mindset/worldview. Like National Conservative Yoram Hazony and his fellow Israeli Settler Fascists, allied as they are with “Universal National Conservatism,” and the Netanyahu Fascist Coalition government, prosecuting the genocide of Palestinians as their “Final Solution” as called for by Netanyahu’s fascist father, Benzion (as I shared a couple days ago). 

And with Hazony’s making it clear that he, and the NatCons, share fascism’s own political theory’s “origins,” in their opposition to the “Main Enemy,” the “Enlightenment.” With an ideological result identical to fascism’s own, as one sees in Settler Fascist ongoing “genocide.” 

But, I will say that the politicians that TAC has indicated favor for, Giorgia Meloni for one, and those your magazine, The American Conservative, favorably promotes, as the “New Right” (as has QI), beginning with Trump, DeSantis, Hawley, Gaetz, as “Right-wing Peaceniks,” to start with, and promotion of Yoram Hazony’s fascist ideology which he chose to call “National Conservatism” for deception purposes (and not “National Fascism,” or even “Conservative Revolutionaries” which had already been spoken for, in 1920’s Germany, as Carl Schmitt was an advocate of, before a very slight turn right, into a Nazi), are the ones I would start with in listing anything of a "New Fascism.” 


All merely in my opinion, and people should judge for themselves, which is difficult in that there is only such a slight difference between the two parties now. But Hazony differentiates the two quite well!

So where does Hazony stand on the “Gaza Re-settlers?” I think this says it all. So let’s at least dispel any illusions here of what the “New Right” stands for, and is!

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Wow! For the first time in decades, #Israeli soldiers prayed in the ancient synagogue in #Gaza which was built in the 6th century and where a beautiful mosaic floor depicting King David was unearthed years ago. #Jews have returned to Gaza!! #Israel #Hamas

Ironic that all the “New Rightists,” the “Traditional Conservatives,” make Michael Ledeen look like a “Moderate,” if not even a “Liberal!” 



On Nov 7, 2023, at 1:45 PM, SCOTT MCCONNELL via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:

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Here's a piece I wrote because the Newsweek editor saw my twitter feed and askied me for it. It falls in the Pro Russia pro Israel camp, unlike Matt Duss (pro Ukraine pro Palestine), Max Biumenthal (pro Russia pro Palestine) and the entire DC establishment (pro Ukraine, pro Israel).  I’m sure Todd will find reason to explain that I’m a fascist. But I welcomed the opportunity to sort through my feelings and why I arriived at them. 
/Scott McConnell
On Nov 7, 2023, at 11:48 AM, Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:


7 Nov, 2023

EU to approve Ukraine for membership process – Reuters

The bloc’s officials had previously said widespread corruption was one of the main obstacles preventing Kiev from joining
EU to approve Ukraine for membership process – Reuters

The European Commission will officially recommend starting membership negotiations with Ukraine on Wednesday, Reuters has reported. An unnamed senior Ukrainian government official told the agency that Kiev expected the commission to deliver a “positive” appraisal of its membership bid, according to a Monday article.

The final decision will be made at an EU summit in December, with the bloc’s executive body having to prepare a report on Ukraine’s progress across seven reform areas by that time. The document will also assess the progress made by Moldova and Georgia, Reuters reported.

A senior French diplomat told the media outlet that the “consensus is clear” overall, and that support for Kiev remained “very solid.

During her visit to the Ukrainian capital on Saturday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the country had met over 90% of the requirements to start formal membership negotiations. She added that corruption and the rights of ethnic minorities were among the areas that required work in the meantime.

Speaking last month, von der Leyen emphasized that the accession process was strictly “merit-based,” and Ukraine should not expect any shortcuts on the path to full membership.

Her predecessor as president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has also argued that the Eastern European country is too corrupt to join the EU anytime soon.

Around the same time, outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stressed that setting a specific date for EU expansion was unwise, after European Council President Charles Michel said he would like to see Kiev in the EU by 2030.

The decision to launch accession talks with Ukraine would require the unanimous consent of all 27 member states.

Hungary has repeatedly expressed its misgivings regarding Kiev’s potential membership. According to the country’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, Budapest will block EU accession talks for Ukraine as long as Kiev continues to discriminate against the Hungarian ethnic minority in the west of the country.

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