A far-right Italian party is offering $1900 to parents who name their children after the fascist dictator Mussolini or his wife.
The small Movimento Sociale-Fiamma Tricolore (MS-FT) party denies its gesture is racist and says the names Benito and Rachele are merely “nice”.
The cash incentive is available in five areas of southern Italy and is designed to help the region’s low birth rate.
Together the names Benito and Rachele mean only one thing to Italians – they signify their former dictator and his wife.
But the party says the choice of names is what it called “purely casual”.
At least one parent has to be Italian. Just in case the question of nationality came to mind.
Wonder how many girls born next July or so will be named – Sarah?
[Comment deleted – Violation of Posting Guidelines. – ed.]
#2 You have 56 DAYS, 3 Hrs 15 Min 14.9 Sec
to remain an angry republican. After that, salute the new president, President B Hussein Obama.
Ouch! That will sting at first, but you’ll be fine.
How much for my dog Adolf?
What makes this party ‘neo-con’? While described as far-right(not neo-con) every policy description I’ve seen shows them to be a fascist LIBERAL organization.
“closely tied to the legacy of Italian Social Republic (RSI). The RSI is usually seen by the party as the example of what Fascism should have been, in particular as an example of true welfare state.”
“for us the political synthesis originated from the thought of Benito Mussolini is for us the only political, economical and spiritual system able to bring the freedom and social justice that are today denied to Italians and all other world populations.”
“Tricolur Flame maintains a fairly strong anti-capitalistic stance, and it can be thought to be the Italian party closest to third positionist ideology.”
Liberals need to realize just how close fascism is to their own ideology, and how much praise Italy received from lefties back in the day.
#5 – still accepting propaganda over reality, eh? But, then, given who you pimped for – the last 3 elections, should we expect anything different?
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I’m sure all the Italians are running out to fornicate, oops, procreate.
#5 MikeN
Go back and read up on Fascism my friend. Fascists hate Communists, Liberals, and Conservatives equally. Fascism steals elements from both ends of the political spectrum as a tool for popular totalitarian rule. Linking it to an ideology which you dislike is a pretty weak argument.
I wish I was joking about this. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the article this morning. But my wife and I were in Italy a few years ago and had the nicest, gentlest old man help us out of a ditch. His name was Benito.
We’ve always loved the name Ben and Benito just sounded like a wonderful name. We vowed then that if we ever had a boy we’d name him Benito. He is due in February and now there’s nothing but conflict with people when we say we want to name him Benito. So much conflict that we’re trying to come up with alternative names.
It’s unfortunate when a name get’s the negative branding like this.
I wonder if these neocons realize that Mussolini’s father was a Marxist who named his boy after Benito Juarez in hopes he would be an enlightened leader. Kids, what are you gonna do with them?
#12 – I think your definitions of Fascism, Liberal, Conservative are interesting.
It demonstrates that the meaning of many words changes with the time and culture.
I’ve often been told by people that “Communism is the opposite of Fascism” – to which I respond “Was Stalin a Communist or a Fascist?”
During the early 1980s it always amused me when they showed the old Soviet leaders on TV and described them as “hard-line conservatives”.
It’s been said that the most ardent revolutionary becomes a conservative the day after the revolution.
The words “liberal” and “neo-con” are thrown around as insults – to the point where I don’t know what people mean any more.
I think I’m a “Liberal Conservative” – I want to allow as much individual freedom as possible, with as little government involvement as possible, so I don’t have to pay for it.
You can have all the drugs you want, but don’t ask me to pay for them. I don’t mind paying for socialized health-care, but the appropriate treatment for drug addiction is to stop taking drugs.
You can paint yourself purple and dance naked down the street, but don’t expect me to join in the parade. On the other hand, if everyone was doing it, I’d look foolish.
Angry liberal editors fail to make “neo-con” have the same impact as “liberal”. Nice try, however.
#4 – Way to own yourself. Why are we angry, when we’re so well positioned for ’10? Your worship is noted.
Why am not surprised that none of you lot obviously have never read anything by Mussolini.
You struggle with definitions less difficult than networking an Apple. Har!
#15: I’ve never read anything by Mussolini, so you’re assertion that none of us have never read anything by Mussolini doesn’t hold water.
And if you’re asserting that I struggled with my definitions or that they are in any way inaccurate, I’d love to hear exactly how. A lot of people have a hard time with the distinction between government and economy types. It’s not exactly clear. Add to that the fact that there are no systems that conform to any one definition things get muddier. Then when you add the added dimension that many people get attached to one term or another and continue to use it even after it is no longer applicable. This makes me, for one, hesitant to call anyone liberal or conservative no matter how I intend the term.
And “less difficult than networking an Apple”?? That ENTIRELY depends on the Apple (assuming you mean an Apple computer) and what you’re networking it to. I’ve got to say getting my father’s Mac to communicate with my mother’s PC over the network was not exactly trivial. I didn’t have all that much difficulty since I’m pretty familiar with setting up samba, but it’s not something your average user is likely to be able to handle. Getting a Mac to authenticate via Active Directory and assigning privileges on that Mac to domain users is more difficult still…
If you’re going to parse Fascism, Mussolini and Miklos Horthy were the two early Fascist heads of government to spend some time defining their politics.
Your commentary is certainly more to the point than most – but, still reasonable to include as part of the whole for the reason stated.
Your first paragraph is enough of an illogical mess that it makes no sense at all.
BTW – there are some folks who show up here once in a while who indeed understand what Mussolini proposed about the role of the state as servant to corporations. Just not today – yet.
Actually, I’m surprised that moss didn’t bring the “corporate statism” up. Must be watching Champions League matches, today.
welfare state, anti-capitalist, third-positionist, social justice, are these buzz words you associate with neo-cons or liberals?
#19 Cherry pickin’
#19, Lyin’ Mike,
Fascism
My post got flagged so I’ll edit it myself.
#21 Give it up. Arguing with a guy who thinks that the “third-position” is a liberal thing is pointless. PoliSci majors are shaking their heads, even in Nevada.
I tend to think the third position is what you do after each person has been on top.