How gullible is the mainstream media? Very. Surely it could not be deliberate. (!)

That so-called “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville was about neither uniting nor “the Right.” Whatever its sponsors may pretend to, there is nothing — zero — that is “Right,” “conservative,” much less “Republican” about Nazis, Neo-Nazis, and white supremacists. Edmund Burke enthusiasts these are not.

Yet the historical revisionism that places Nazis on the Right is so rampant that it is used as an assumed truth simply because the mainstream media constantly repeats it, whether out of sheer laziness or — could it be? — incredible ideological bias. So let’s start here to put a halt to this game by going back, back, back to the origins of Nazis.

Let’s turn to economist Ludwig von Mises and his classic text from the Austrian School of Economics: Socialism. The first edition of the book refuting “virtually every form of socialism ever devised” appeared in 1922, and as another famed economist, F.A. Hayek, would write in his foreword to the book: “When Socialism first appeared in 1922, its impact was profound. It gradually but fundamentally altered the outlook of many of the young idealists returning to their university studies after World War I. I know, for I was one of them.”

Twenty-five years later von Mises updated the book with an epilogue, which took on Nazis, Fascists and Communists in the aftermath of World War II. Here, in part, are his words:

It is important to realize that Fascism and Nazism were socialist dictatorships. The communists, both the registered members of the communist parties and the fellow-travelers, stigmatize Fascism and Nazism as the highest and last and most depraved stage of capitalism. This is in perfect agreement with their habit of calling every party which does not unconditionally surrender to the dictates of Moscow — even the German Social Democrats, the classical party of Marxism — hirelings of capitalism.

It is of much greater consequence that the communists have succeeded in changing the semantic connotation of Fascism. Fascism…was a variety of Italian socialism.…

Dictatorship and violent oppression of all dissenters are today exclusively socialist institutions.

The philosophy of the Nazis, the German National Socialist Labor Party, is the purest and most consistent manifestation of the anti-capitalistic and socialist spirit of our age.…

The slogan into which the Nazis condensed their economic philosophy, viz., Gemeinutz geht vor Eigennutz (i.e., the commonweal ranks above private profit), is likewise the idea underlying the American New Deal and the Soviet management of economic affairs. It implies that profit-seeking business harms the vital interests of the immense majority, and that it is the sacred duty of popular government to prevent the emergence of profits by public control of production and distribution.…

For more than seventy years the German professors of political science, history, law, geography and philosophy eagerly imbued their disciples with a hysterical hatred of capitalism, and preached the war of “liberation” against the capitalistic West. The German “socialists of the chair,” much admired in all foreign countries, were the pacemakers of the two World Wars. At the turn of the century the immense majority of Germans were already radical supporters of socialism and aggressive nationalism. They were then already firmly committed to the principles of Naziism. What was lacking and was added later was only a new term to signify their doctrine.

When the Soviet policies of mass extermination of all dissenters and of ruthless violence removed the inhibitions against wholesale murder, which still troubled some of the Germans, nothing could any longer stop the advance of Naziism. The Nazis were quick to adopt the Soviet methods. They imported from Russia: the one-party system and the pre-eminence of this party in political life; the paramount position assigned to the secret police; the concentration camps, the administrative execution or imprisonment of all opponents; the extermination of the families of suspects and of exiles; the methods of propaganda; the organization of affiliated parties abroad and their employment for fighting their domestic governments and espionage and sabotage; the use of the diplomatic and consular service for fomenting revolution; and many other things besides. There were nowhere more docile disciples of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin than the Nazis were.…

The Nazi plan was more comprehensive and therefore more pernicious than that of the Marxians. It aimed at abolishing laissez-faire not only in the production of material goods, but no less in the production of men. The Fuhrer was not only the general manager of all industries; he was also the general manager of the breeding farm intent upon rearing superior men and eliminating inferior stock. A grandiose scheme of eugenics was to be put into effect according to “scientific” principles.”…

The mass slaughters (of Jews) perpetrated in the Nazi horror camps are too horrible to be adequately described by words. But they were the logical and consistent application of (socialist) doctrines and policies parading as applied science and approved by some men who in a sector of the natural sciences have displayed acumen and technical skill in laboratory research.

There is more here, much more.

But let’s move on to today. Let’s go to Monday’s New York Times and this article titled:

‘The Fight for the White Race’: What Some of the Charlottesville Rally Participants Stand For

The story says:

While there is no definitive list of who attended, research by The Times and the Anti-Defamation League identified at least 120 participants who were affiliated with racist and anti-Semitic groups ranging from long-established organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to newer groups that promote white nationalism.

Here are recent statements from 20 of these participants.

In the interest of brevity I will list only three, with the full link above for the rest:

Jason Kessler[,] Virginia
Main organizer of the Charlottesville rally.
“Our entire country would be better off if the South had won the Civil War.”
June 25, 2017, at a rally in Washington, D.C.

Matthew Heimbach[,] Indiana
Founder of the Nationalist Front, an umbrella organization for the white nationalist movement.
“Globalism is the enemy of all of us. And the Jewish oligarchs and the capitalists and the bankers want to enslave the entire world.”
Nov. 5, 2016, at a rally in Harrisburg, Pa.

Richard B. Spencer[,] Montana
Prominent leader of the white nationalist movement.
“America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance and it belongs to us.”
Nov. 19, 2016, at the annual conference of the National Policy Institute.

Just in those three comments alone one sees immediately exactly the beliefs that von Mises identifies as central to Nazism: Identification by race, anti-capitalism, and anti-Semitism. Which is to say, the core beliefs of socialism — the Left.

So.

Message to the mainstream media? No, Nazis, Neo-Nazis and fascists are not “the Right.” They are not about principles of freedom, liberty, limited government, and the civic society. They are about race, the glorification of The State, and hating capitalism.

Which is to say, Nazis, Neo-Nazis, fascists and yes, the Ku Klux Klan — the latter identified by Columbia University historian Eric Foner, as “a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party” and by University of North Carolina historian Allen Trelease’s description of the Klan as the “terrorist arm of the Democratic Party” — are, yes, the Left.

And the brawl America witnessed in Charlottesville between Nazis, Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and Anti-Fa? Yes indeed. That was an intramural battle between American Leftists. They all believe in racism of one sort or another, whether the “white supremacists” on one side or “identity politics” on the other. They all hate capitalism. They hate Jews. And self-evidently they all believe in using violence to achieve their ends.

There was not a conservative among them. Not one. Nor will there ever be.