IX: Obama’s Triumph of the Will: The 2008 Primaries 347Florida’s ten least creative cities turn out to be jobs powerhouses, adding more than 19 percent to
their job totals since 1993—faster growth even than the national economy. [...] Florida’s ten most
creative mid-sized cities are even less impressive economic engines. Since 1993, these cities, which
include such underperformers as Albany, New York, and Dayton, Ohio, have increased their job
totals by about 16 percent—less than the national average.’ (Steven Malangan, “The Curse of the
Creative Class,” City Journal, Winter 2004)
ITALIAN FASCISM AND THE CREATIVE CLASS, 1919-1922
In reality, the situation is far worse. The drooling acolytes of Obama automatically assume that
the presence of artists, writers, movie makers, and other people who claim to be creative is a
guarantee that a social movement is progressive and destined to win. Here once again, a look
backwards at the early years of Italian fascism shows how foolish this attitude really is. The early
years of Italian fascism between 1919 in 1922 saw the participation in the new fascist movement of
a whole series of writers and artists, most of whom were far more gifted than the gaggle of
pretentious no talents who are huddling around Obama. Some of these belonged to the movement or
artistic school known as the futurists. To the surprise of many modern left liberals, it turns out that
these artistically talented futurists were also rabid warmongers, determined to get Italy into World
War I, and then determined to support an aggressive imperialistic foreign policy. The founder of the
futurist movement was Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who wrote in his 1909 Futurist Manifesto, “We
want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of
the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman. We want to demolish
museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.” The
fascist futurists Marinetti, Carlo Carrà, Gino Severini, Corrado Cagli, Dante Baldelli, Luigi
Russolo, Ardengo Soffici, and Giacomo Balla were the leading painters of Italy at that time.
Umberto Boccioni the chief sculptor of the group, was also an international celebrity. The architect
Antonio Sant’Elia was another fascist futurist. The futurists glorified danger, war, and the machine
age, attacked academies, museums, and other establishment bastions, and spoke out in favor of
fascism.
Even more important for the development of Italian fascism was Gabriele D’Annunzio, who was
by all odds the most famous and influential Italian novelist and poet of the age. D’Annunzio was a
disciple of Nietzsche who belonged to the decadent school of late 19th century literature.
D’Annunzio character of Andrea Sperelli in his novel Il piacere (The Child of Pleasure) evokes a
typical human type of decadent late 19th century European society. Sperelli could certainly teach
Obama’s most decadent followers a thing or two. D’Annunzio agitated for Italy to enter World War
I, and dropped leaflets on the enemy during a daring Italian air raid on Vienna. Later, he became
the leader or Duce of the fascist forces who seized the city of Fiume, in Istria, along the border with
the newly emerging nation of Yugoslavia. Here D’Annunzio developed most of the ceremonies and
rituals which came to characterize the fascist political liturgy, including the Roman salute, the
balcony speech, the chanting of slogans, and other fascist paraphernalia. Even after Mussolini had
emerged as the principal fascist leader, he was always aware that D’Annunzio represented a very
formidable rival who might have been able to oust him under certain circumstances. Given these
fascist precedents, we need to keep our enthusiasm for the new creative class very much under
control. Self-styled creativity is no guarantee of morality, or even of real creativity.
One might be willing to accept the suicide of the post-1968 multicultural, politically correct,
Malthusian, and neo-Luddite Democratic Party, which had proven to be such so useless for social
change or even for defending what had been won under the New Deal. But then what? ‘Obama’s