It is vented, or it explodes
Steyn on fascism — both flavors — and the “lunatic mainstream”:
Woody Guthrie used to have a label on his guitar: “This Machine Kills Fascists.” Not true, of course. Just the usual self-flattery to which singing Commies are prone. But, in the room where they cook up European conventional wisdom, they could easily pin a sign on the door saying: “This Political Machine Creates Fascists.” One can forgive Bulgaria its wackier demagogues: they are, after all, only two decades removed from one-party totalitarianism. But, in the western half of Continental Europe, politics evolved to the point where almost any issue worth talking about was ruled beyond the bounds of polite society. In good times, it doesn’t matter so much. But in bad times, if the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain issues, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable ones…
On the day of the European elections, the Toronto Sun’s Lorrie Goldstein responded to my observations about his recent column accusing Tamilphobic Canadians of racism. “I wish,” sighed Mr. Goldstein, “Steyn would spend more time disagreeing with what racists say and less time defending their right to say it.” But that’s kind of a crowded market for a pundit to get a piece of the action in. I mean, Canada surely doesn’t need one more delicate flower shrieking “Racism!” at every affront to the multiculti pieties. That hypersensitivity is what’s helped deliver more and more of the European vote to “fringe” parties. You want to talk about immigration? Whoa, racist! Crime? Racist! Welfare? Racist! Islam? Racistracistdoubleracist!!! Nya-nya, can’t hear you with my two anti-racist thumbs in my ears!
Already, the European political class is congratulating itself at holding the tide of neo-nationalism to the low double-digits. I’d say some of these results are pretty remarkable given that these parties are all but excluded from the public discourse and that even a relatively mild dissenter from the consensus such as the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders has been banned from setting foot in Britain and is undergoing prosecution for his views in the Netherlands. What makes the Labour Party “mainstream” with 15 per cent of the vote and UKIP the “fringe” with 17 per cent? Nothing, other than the blinkers of the politico-media class. But if you want to drive the electorate toward the wilder shores in ever greater numbers, keep crying “Racist!” at every opportunity.
Words aren’t vessels of information and communication for the Left; they’re implements of manipulation, clubs with which dissent from Left orthodoxy can be beaten back into compliance. Goldstein’s been right all along.
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It seems the Euros want to repeat the 1920's-1930's.