AN Italian right-wing party is offering 1500 euros ($1930) to parents who name their babies after wartime fascist dictator Benito Mussolini or his wife Rachele, saying their names are under threat.

The MSI-Fiamma Tricolore party, the descendant of Mussolini’s fascist party, said the initiative in the poor, southern region of Basilicata was meant to keep alive names “at risk of extinction” and pay tribute to the movement’s roots.

“Benito and Rachele are nice names and I hope our original initiative will get people going,” party official Vincenzo Mancusi said.

The bonus – intended to pay for baby clothes and food – applies to babies born in 2009 in five villages where the birth rate is especially low, Mr Mancusi said.

Mussolini ruled from 1922 to 1943 when he was ousted after leading Italy to ruin by entering World War II as an ally of Germany. He was executed along with his mistress Claretta Petacci in 1945.

His widow Rachele died in 1979.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24709063-38200,00.html?from=public_rss

The Martyred 16 Comrades

ALFARTH, FELIX, businessman, b. July 5, I9O1
BAURIEDL, ANDREAS, hatter, b. May 4, I879
CASELLA, THEODOR, bank clerk, a. August 8, 1900
EHRLICH, WILHELM, bank clerk, b. August 19, 1894
FAUST, MARTIN, bank clerk, b. January 27, 19O1
HECHENBERGER, ANTON, locksmith, b. September 28, I 902
KORNER, OSKAR, businessman, b. January 4, I875
KUHN, KARL, headwaiter, b. July 26, I897
LAFORCE, KARL, student of engineering, b. October 28, 1904
NEUBAUER, KURT, valet, b. March 27, I899
PAPE, CLAUS VON, businessman, b. August Id, I904
PFORDTEN, THEODOR SON DER, County Court Councillor, b. May I4, I873
RICKMERS, JOHANN, retired Cavalry Captain, b. May 7, I88I
SCHEUBNER-RICHTER, MAX ERWIN VON, Doctor of Engineering, b. January 9, I884
STRANSKY, LORENZ, RITTER VON, engineer, b. March 14, I889
WOLF, WILHELM, businessman, a. October 19, I898

Strace

An Austrian Jewish leader is convinced that Heinz-Christian Strache, (pictured right) head of the Austrian extreme-right Freedom Party, “is more dangerous” than his predecessor Joerg Haider. **

The Freedom Party saw its vote-share surge by 7.1 percent to 18.1 in Sunday’s early parliament elections, while the other extreme-right party led by Joerg Haider, the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZOe), saw its score more than double to 9.8 percent.

“There is no doubt Strache is more dangerous than Haider,” Raimund Fastenbauer, director general of Vienna’s Jewish Community, said.

“Strache wants the banning of the use of Nazi’s symbols and Nazi’s ideas to be lifted. Such attitude speaks for itself”, he said.

He added: “Not all people who vote for him are neo-Nazis, but the hard core of his party has extreme right-wing backgrounds. He gives people with a neo-Nazi past high positions within the party.”

In the 1999 elections, the Freedom Party — then led by Haider — won 27 per cent of the vote and was included one year later in a coalition government formed by the People’s Party, leading to months of European Union sanctions over statements seen as anti-Semitic or sympathetic to the policies of Adolf Hitler.

The heads of government of fourteen EU members decided to cease cooperation with the Austrian government, as it was felt in many countries that the “cordon sanitaire” against coalitions with parties considered as right-wing extremists, which had mostly held in Western Europe since 1945, had been breached.

Israel then recalled it’s ambassador from Vienna.

After Sunday’s election, observers said that if one of the extreme-right parties is brought in to a government coalition, it could prompt punitive measures from other European Union members. **

Source

BZÖ finance spokesman Josef Bucher has been elected head of the party’s fraction in parliament.

BZÖ leader Stefan Petzner announced Wednesday night that members of the party’s fraction had unanimously voted for the 43-year-old Carinthian.

Only last week, it seemed certain that Petzner himself would become fraction leader. Last night’s vote has only given more credence to rumours that Petzner is about to be axed as party head.

Petzner was confirmed as Jörg Haider’s successor as party leader only one day after Haider died in a car crash on 11 October.

It has been announced that there will be five deputy fraction leaders: Petzner, Haider’s sister and former Social Minister Ursula Haubner, former Defence Minister Herbert Scheibner, former Ombudsman Ewald Stadler and former BZÖ and fraction leader Peter Westenthaler.

Petzner said that he had recommended Bucher for the position of fraction leader. Petzner hailed Bucher for his financial know-how, “vital in times like these”.

http://www.austriantimes.at/index.php?id=9263

Eva S. Balogh’s blog, Hungarian Spectrum, has a very interesting post on The Hungarian far right and David Irving, about which read more below.

You may or may not be aware that Irving has been on tour in the U.S., having been hosted by the likes of the University of Oregon’s Pacifica Forum, led by Professor Emeritus Orval Etter and columnist George Beres (read here and here and here). Pacifica Forum billed Irving as a “legendary British historian and martyr for free speech”. (Read more about Pacifica Forum’s journey through the rabbit hole from leftist peace activism to far right racism here.) Someone who heard Irving speak at Pacifica Forum said he used the term “Jewish tragedy” instead of the term “Holocaust”, explaining that “he meant the tragedy was not that all those Jews were killed, but rather that ‘Jews never asked themselves why they were killed … why they are hated so.’ ” (read letter to editor here: “Irving statements reprehensible”. The Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard naively reported (read here) only that Irving called the Holocaust a tragedy, missing the point of the statement entirely.)

The logistics for Irving getting an audience can by tricky. His technique for speaking in public generally goes something like this: 1) anti-Semitic nut job sees ad for Irving appearance on racist website (like this or this); 2) nut job submits application for ticket and prepays by credit card (tickets available here or here, Hitler posters available here); 3) having been approved, nut job receives notice of the details of Irving’s appearance and is told to keep them hush hush.

Before his July 16 speech in New York City, Irving’s website announced the location as the Primavera Restaurant, an upscale Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. When ticket holders arrived, however, they were directed instead to the St. Stephen of Hungary Catholic Church, located nearby. (Read a news account here, Max Blumenthal’s blog account with video here including a virtually identical statement to the one quoted above blaming the Jews for the Holocaust, and a brief piece on the L.A. Jewish Journal blog here.) Below is Blumenthal’s video. Money quotes from Irving: “Hitler…was probably not at all anti-Semitic…” and “(t)he Jews are the architects of Auschwitz”.

With that, you should read Eva Balogh’s post at Hungarian Spetrum for her view of who and what was behind Irving’s appearance, and also to check out the deluge of right wing lunatics in the comments. According to Balogh, Hungary’s far right, including neo-fascist and neo-Nazi elements, has a significant, pernicious influence in Hungarian politics. She presents the evidence that Hungarian rightists in New York City helped set up Irving’s speech. Here’s her take on David Irving and the far right’s New York – Hungary connection:

David Irving made several trips to Hungary where there are no laws against those who deny the Holocaust. Loránt Hegedüs, a Hungarian Reformed minister, was his host, and it was in Hegedüs’s church that he spread his ideas.

…and…

New York Hungarians claim that an extreme right-wing Hungarian group headed by Ernő Hóka often uses (New York’s St. Stephen of Hungary Parrish) for some of his gatherings and that Hóka has close relations with Ákos Szilágyi, the founder of the New York Polgári Kör, part of the network of civic circles of right-minded people who were supposed to rally when the call came from Viktor Orbán. These civic cells at one point seemed to be critically important vehicles of Orbán’s political strategy. Orbán put Csaba Hende, formerly an MDF member of parliament, in charge of the network of cells. Hende by now is so far to the right that only a few days ago he shocked the country by suggesting that when Fidesz takes over the government they will fire all 45,000 policemen and build the force from scratch. Obviously, only those who share the values of Fidesz will be rehired. The establishment of the New York civic cell was inspired by Hende during one of his visits to New York. From the beginning the cell espoused extreme right-wing ideas and had close ties to kuruc.info.hu, a notorious neo-Nazi site advocating the overthrow of the Hungarian government. Recently the American server hosting both of these sites shut them down.This morning Zoltán Szabó, an MSZP member of parliament, responding to the news from New York had a few choice words about Fidesz’s cozy relations with extreme right-wing groups. What Szabó wanted to know was how far Fidesz is willing to go. How long can a so-called “moderate” right of center party maintain close ties with the extreme right? Szabó said that he understands that hard-core right-wing voters are important to Fidesz since they make up between 8% and 10% of the electorate, but surely, he continued, a serious party can’t afford such nefarious association with neo-Nazis.

On György Bolgár’s call-in show this morning Zoltán Szabó reiterated his assessment of the situation. A split second after the conversation with Szabó ended, Ákos Szilágyi, straight from New York, phoned in. He denied that he had anything to do with the invitation. That, he alleged, is the figment of the imagination of László Bartus, editor-in-chief of the Amerikai-Magyar Népszava Szabadság, who, according to Szilágyi, is a liar whom he is suing because of another article he wrote. I checked Amerikai-Magyar Népszava and there was no mention of either Szilágyi or the New York Polgári Kör. It simply said that “according to many people, the St. Stephen Parish of New York has long been a meeting place of people with Nazi sympathies.” Szilágyi, by the way, also claimed that it wasn’t even Hungarians who invited Irving. That is hard to believe. I became especially suspicious when ARA supporters were described as homosexuals and communists. It sounded all too familiar.

First Eva Balogh’s facts, then the deluge of hate. Michael Santomauro (founder of a New York website designed to find people roommates) one of the city’s most vocal anti-Semites (view his websites here and here) and also a Ron Paul supporter (read here), quickly submitted a comment defending Faurisson and Holocaust denial. Santomauro was followed in short order by Danish Holocaust denial blogger Balder (also an apparent Ron Paul supporter, his website features a portrait of Paul as its banner). (View Balder’s websites here and here.) After this, a multitude of others voicing overt hatred of the sort that all too often occurs under cover of screen name. (I know I’ll hear from people asking “why bother covering bigotted comments?” I understand that hate-filled blog comments are commonplace, but, in this instance, two of the commenters are bloggers, and the content and context of their comments seem notable. I also felt bad for the recipient of these comments, having received similar comments here.)

Let me give the voice of reason the last word. The pastor of St. Stephen of Hungary Parish apparently knew nothing about the nature of the talk before it began, beyond the fact that it was a talk about a book. Father Angelo Gambatese, speaking on behalf of the church, said “(w)e are outraged because we do not cater to this kind of bigotry, and we are sorry that it happened.”

New Yorkers at David Irving speech, July 16, 2008

Irving greeting well-wishers after speech

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