Rick Santorum's family in Italy were Communists

[roguevalley]

http://www.americablog.com/2012/01/santorums-family-in-italy-were.html

Like many of the most hard core anti-fascists, Santorum's family in Italy were communists. It was a similar story elsewhere in Europe where many of the resistance fighters were either communists or far left. What's amusing in this instance though is that the Euro-leftist family is embarrassed over Santorum's extreme right (dare I say "fascist&quot policies.

But the elder Santorum matriarch doesn’t understand why he has diverged so far from the family’s longtime political stance. “In Riva del Garda his grandfather Pietro and uncles were ‘red communists’ to the core,” writes Oggi journalist Giuseppe Fumagalli, likening the family to “Peppone” after a famous fictional Italian communist mayor who fought against an ultraconservative priest known as Don Cammillo and about which a popular television series is based. “But on the other side of the ocean, it’s like his family here doesn’t exist. Instead he draws crowds as the head of the ultraconservative faction of the Republican party, against divorce, gay marriage, abortion, and immigration.” Those politics don’t play well in Riva del Garda, a community of ultraliberals. On the campaign trail, Santorum often touts his grandfather’s flight from Italy “to escape fascism,” but he has neglected to publicly mention their close ties with the Italian Communist Party. “Rick’s grandfather Pietro was a liberal man and he understood right away what was happening in Italy,” Mrs. Santorum told Oggi. “He was anti-fascist to the extreme, and the political climate in 1925 was stifling so he left for America. After a few years he returned to Italy with his wife and children, including Aldo, Rick’s father, who passed away late last year.

[cyberswede]

1. well...I'm still not voting for him.

[roguevalley]

2. me either. my grandpa was a socialist ... that is, the public word for communist where he lived. ;)

[SteveW]

3. Santorum should enshrine the Bill of Attainder provision in Article 1, Sect. 9.

I believe Benito Mussolini was a socialist in Italy before he was kicked out, then becoming a fascist. Perhaps it is the extremeness and fervor -- and not the ideology per se -- which is so attractive in going from one end to the other.

[sofa king]

4. Yep, Mussolini's old man was a socialist, too.

In fact, it seems to me that Benito's father was one of the most important political influences in his life. From his father he inherited the ideas of jingoism and Garibaldi-like military revolution and authoritarian political leadership, as well as a dose of f-the-system anarchy and quite a few socialist ideas.

Interestingly enough, while American Republicans try desperately to play up the non-existent "socialism" part of the Nazi name (kept in to snooker actual socialists, just as "compassionate conservatism" was a naked lie) in order to distance themselves from the political party they most closely resemble, Mussolini really does appear to have had socialist sympathies and really did try to put some of those ideas into practice.

Maybe Poopie Rogers can try explaining that to his base.