Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Lots of people are bringing up WW2 to counter fascism. But let's keep in mind what happened in the interwar period. Many countries polarized into the extreme right and the extreme left. Fascism and Communists. Fighting in the streets, gunning each other down, collapsing into civil war. Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain.
Some liberal democracies resisted this polarization. Democracy survived in Great Britain, the Netherlands, the U.S., etc. because the center held, and liberal values prevailed against the simplistic dogma and inflammatory hatreds of the left and right. Abandoning liberalism to combat the far right is not a winning tactic.
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My Grandfather used to chuckle as he told me how he and his mates smashed up a Black shirt canteen in the east end of London back in the 1930's, the look of mirth on his face as he told me of throwing the tea urn down the stairs on top of the facists they'd thrown down the stairs first,
'oh how they howled when they got scalded with the tea urn!'
Still miss my Grandpa