Nonviolent Fascism, Violent Anti-Fascism

A quote from Steven Erlanger in The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, 13 May 2008

This combination of national pride, rightist politics, language purity and racially tinged opposition to big-city mores and immigration is a classic formula these days in modern Europe, a kind of nonviolent fascism.

A quote from Jewish Press Media Monitor, 18 October 2006

New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Steven Erlanger is so openly pro-Palestinian in his reporting that he’s beginning to call to mind perhaps his most biased predecessor in that post – the truly execrable Deborah Sontag, whose transparently one-sided dispatches would invariably read as though she wrote them with a PLO flag draped over her word processor.
 
A quote from The Local, 8 March 2008

Leaders of the far-right Sweden Democrats live under constant threat of violence, according to new report from the Swedish security service Säpo. Säpo reports that it receives an average of 4.5 reports per month of cases of threats made to Sweden's district and county councillors. The threats are systematic, often involve violence, and come from autonomous groups across Sweden.

Urban Stupidity

Who knew that wanting to live in a prettier setting closer to nature - or just golf courses and a tree - amounted to racism, re: "racially tinged opposition to big-city mores."  This sentence lets me know the kind of synthetic soul behind the quote.  These NYT types are the worst: anyone who does not want to trade their pleasant life in a proper house for the rat-infested cubicle of city life must be some white supremacist militant. 

Attention to detail

Funny, but Mr. Erlanger or his NYTimes "editors-editor" may have realised something is not quite right with the "classic" definition of modern European fascists, because the NYTimes version dated 14.05.2008 ascribes it to as of yet unspecified "critics":

"That combination of national pride, rightist politics, language purity and racially tinged opposition to immigration is a classic formula these days in modern Europe, what critics call a kind of nonviolent fascism."

:)