JIM BENNETT WONDERS: “Where have all the Fascists gone?”

After the Germans invaded and occupied most of the rest of Continental Europe, this myth contends, they recruited a few isolated losers and opportunists to form puppet governments, which were hated by the great mass of the population, most of whom supported the resistance.

After the war, goes the myth, this handful of collaborators was punished, and in Germany and Italy themselves, the great mass of the population who had gone along realized their errors and became ardent democrats.

What this myth (promoted partly to allow the construction of NATO) ignores is the fact that fascism, and the proto-fascist movements from which the historical fascist parties emerged, was an integral part of the Continental European cultural and political scene for several generations prior to its political-military victory of 1940, and represented a major current in Continental political and social thought. . . .

Integral to the fascist message were the hatred of individualism and free markets and hostility to the Anglo-American culture that they saw (accurately enough) as the source of those values in the modern world. They hated the popular culture that they saw as eroding respect for the traditional forms of European cultural authority. Of course, they despised the Jews as agents of modernism among them, but that current was muted in post-war Europe, since the fascists had successfully achieved their agenda of destroying the Jewish communities as significant economic and cultural forces on the European continent.

Well, if you want the answer, you’ll have to follow the link and read the whole thing.

HERE’S A STORY OF A RALLY AGAINST THE PATRIOT ACT IN UTAH, featuring a rather diverse group of people from across the political spectrum.

Meanwhile here’s a somewhat less diverse group that’s also opposed, and librarians are also unhappy.

And you can find critical newspaper editorials in the Roanoke Times, the Denver Post, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Palm Beach Post, to name just a few.

More posting later — but it’s a beautiful day, and I don’t want to get sucked in. And if you’ve emailed me, I haven’t checked that since Friday, since I know I’ll get sucked in if I do. Later.

A WELL-KNOWN IRANIAN BLOGGER AND JOURNALIST HAS BEEN ARRESTED: Jeff Jarvis has more on this. Hmm. I wonder who people could contact about this.

BLACKENED RAINBOWS, a psychologist’s blog about teenagers, goth culture, and more, has a rather nice review of my wife’s documentary, Six.

(Yeah, I’m taking the weekend off, more or less. But I stopped by the office, and the computer’s right here, and, well. . . .)

I HAVEN’T BEEN KIDNAPPED. AS YOU CAN SEE, I’ve basically taken the day off. I haven’t even checked email. I’ll probably post some stuff tomorrow, though. Happy Easter, Passover, etc.!

MEGAN MCARDLE WRITES THAT IF THE AIRLINES COLLAPSE, it’s the executives’ fault, not the unions’.

In an unrelated development (er, I think) she now has a cooking column.

HERE’S A CNN OBITUARY that The Smoking Gun somehow missed.

N.Z. BEAR AND JEFF JARVIS have some thoughts on Iraqi media reform that are very much worth reading.

NGOS IN AFRICA — the latest form of colonialism? That’s what Roger Bate argues.

I GOT AN EMAIL earlier from another blogger who wanted to know if I was mad for some reason. Nope — I just missed some earlier emails in the overwhelming flood and thus didn’t reply.

Sorry but I’ve actually been busier than usual this semester with my actual job, and email traffic, which was barely manageable in December, is now out of control. And there was a war, too. I’m sorry, but though I do the best I can my best just isn’t good enough when it comes to the massive volume of mail I get.

Heck, Daniel Drezner is already complaining about the volume of email he’s getting. It only gets worse, Dan.

TRAFFIC CAMERAS are a longtime InstaPundit issue, one of many eclipsed by the war in recent months. Here’s a report of a suit against the District of Columbia, demanding a refund of all fines levied via traffic-cam.

HERE’S SOME PATRIOT ACT GOOD NEWS:

Washington – House Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. said Thursday that he would fight any effort now to make permanent many of the expanded police powers enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks as part of the USA Patriot Act.

“That will be done over my dead body,” said Sensenbrenner in an interview.

The Menomonee Falls Republican also said it was “way premature” for Congress to consider a new package of anti-terrorism proposals being drafted by the Justice Department – a so-called “Patriot Act Two.”

Before that happens, he said, the “burden of proof” is on the Justice Department to prove the merits of what he called “Patriot Act One.”

It certainly is. You might want to let Sensenbrenner know that you appreciate his efforts. I do.

LOTS OF PICS OF IRANIAN BLOGGERS — this blogger-bash thing seems to be a universal phenomenon. . . .

(Via Andrea Harris).

GOOD FOR THEM: Here are some lefties who are condemning Castro’s latest repression. Alterman’s on the list.

TOMMY FRANKS, SAVIOR OF WETLANDS? Yep.

“Everyone is harping about Saddam’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction,” said Alwash, “but here he used water as a mass destruction weapon. He used it to destroy a culture that has lasted 5,000 years. And I’m afraid it has made me somewhat cynical that the international community stood by and did nothing while it was happening.”

The marshes were an integral part of the Iraqi culture and collective psyche, said Alwash, and their loss is an emotional blow that is hard for outsiders to understand.

Ecological scientists are in general accord with Alwash that the destruction of the marshes was a catastrophe of global significance.

“By any measure, this was one of the most important wetland systems in the world,” said Scott McCreary, a principal and co-founder of Concur Inc., an East Bay consulting group that specializes in developing consensus solutions to natural resource conflicts. “It was on par with other great mega-deltas such as the Yangtze and the Amazon.”

Somehow, I doubt Bush will get any credit for this. (Via The Corner).

I’VE TOTALLY DROPPED THE BALL on gun-blogging over the last several months, one of several topics that have suffered because of the war. But you can see a Harvard Law School debate on the topic by going here and following the link. I haven’t watched it myself, but it should be interesting.

FEDAYEEN AT YALE? Uh, not exactly.

JAMES LILEKS WRITES about Madonna, children’s books, and more. But not about the war. Well, not quite. Oh, and there’s something about krill, too.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT (it was posted a bit late yesterday), I’ve got more on the Iraq oil trust fund idea over at GlennReynolds.com.

I’m gathering reader emails, too, and I’m going to post more on it here, later.

PHIL CARTER ANSWERS SOME QUESTIONS about the war, in response to a piece (linked therein) by Fred Kaplan in Slate.

ANOTHER FASCINATING ARTICLE IN THE ARAB NEWS:

Countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia — not to speak of Japan — went ahead by leaps and bounds. These were countries that had been utterly devastated by World War II and other wars in the region.

But they rose from the ashes, and now, with the fall of a tyrant, a fresh breeze is also blowing in the Arab world. A wind of change.

The Arab world, moreover, is younger, with a population that has access to enough information to see others speeding ahead. They are not content to remain bystanders, but want to be travelers themselves on the road to progress.

They aspire to a free society, human dignity and mechanisms that shield them from the oppression and humiliations exercised by the likes of the Baath regime. They want governments that guarantee them the human rights, freedom, justice and equality that are central to the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

They want a society that is tolerant and sovereign and where all views are fairly represented. They want a vehicle that will clear the decks of the medieval garbage that has resulted in regression and stagnation. . . .

We must not let future generations down by bequeathing them a legacy of a society that is divided, a national debt that will break their backs, an educational system that churns out parrots and a society that wallows in self-pity and snivels in mortification at the first sign of a problem.

I hope we’ll see more of this kind of thinking.

HERE’S AN INTERESTING PIECE IN THE SPECTATOR about Britain and Europe:

The question has to be asked, ‘Why does the UK have to pay the costs of the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] and suffer the indignities of the CFP [Common Fisheries Policy] in order to be associated with a group of nations which are both economically unsuccessful and will take a diminishing share of its exports over the next few decades?’ It cannot be because Britain wants to participate in a common European defence and foreign policy, as the diplomatic shambles of recent weeks has discredited that option; it cannot be because Britain wants to abandon its currency and introduce the euro, as opinion polls show a decisive majority in favour of keeping the pound; and it cannot be because Britain wants to be absorbed into a European political superstate, as European federalism has been and remains unpopular at all levels.

The message has to be that — putting sentiment and treaty obligations to one side — the case for continued British membership of the EU is weaker today than it has ever been.

I wonder how many people in Britain are thinking this way now.

MORE BAD NEWS FOR CHIRAC:

DEBLIN, Poland — Poland on Friday signed a deal to buy 48 U.S.-made F-16 jet fighters for $3.5 billion, the biggest defense contract by a former Soviet bloc country since the end of the Cold War.

The Polish government announced last December that it had chosen the U.S. government-backed offer over two rival European offers — the Swedish-British Gripen jet and the French-made Mirage 2000.

I’m sure that Chirac’s nasty cracks about New Europe weren’t the only reason, but I’m also sure that they didn’t help.

THE SECURITY COUNCIL IS DEMANDING U.S. ACTION. Heh.

LOOTED IRAQI ANTIQUITIES are already showing up — in Paris. Go figure.