Letter to the editor: No debate — fascism spawned by the right

Letter-writer Dr. Joel I. Last (“In defense of D’Souza,” June 15, TribLIVE) needs to give it up. He champions this wacky, revisionist theory that since Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party contains the word “socialist,” then the Nazis were creatures of the political left. This is like saying the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea must be a bastion of freedom and human rights.

Last tries to fortify his argument by praising Dinesh D’Souza, a convicted felon who most people consider an ideological crackpot on the lunatic fringe of the far, far right.

When my Marine father volunteered to serve in World War II, he didn’t go off to fight socialists. He shipped out to confront the fascist axis of Germany, Italy and Japan.

In the late 1930s, thousand of Americans joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to defend the legitimate Spanish Republic from Gen. Francisco Franco’s rebel fascist hordes. They weren’t confronting socialists, either.

Eric Blair (George Orwell) was seriously wounded in the trenches outside Barcelona. Perhaps Last might check out his memoir, “Homage to Catalonia,” before he continues to rail against “those who censure any ideology with which they disagree.”

Last could enlighten himself by reading books by trained historians such as “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William Shirer, “Wartime” by Milovan Djilas,” “Mussolini and his Generals” by John Gooch or “Stilwell and the American Experience in China” by Barbara Tuchman.

Fascism was the scourge of God spawned by the goons of the toxic right. No longer is there any debate.

Jim Harger

New Kensington