America divided

[buffalopundit]

I didn't think you were talking about Know-Nothing Party. But thanks for the entirely unnecessary clarification.

Attachment 4648

Well, clearly you did because you suggested that Nazis and Putin were socialists or communists. The first one is laughably untrue, and the second was true 30 years ago, but isn't today.

[mark blazejewski]

Well, clearly you did because you suggested that Nazis and Putin were socialists or communists. The first one is laughably untrue, and the second was true 30 years ago, but isn't today.

Nope. I did not suggest anything. You inferred it. (I had a BTW at the start of the second sentence; a separate thought.)

I did say that the Nazis were leftists, and they were. Did you ever hear of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei? That would be the National Socialist German Workers Party. Hardly RIGHT WING. The left chronically mis-labels Nazis as right-wingers. In 1920s and 1930s Germany, the right was closely identified with the Conservative Monarchists, not the Nazis. A supporting observation: Many in the Prussian military aristocracy resisted Hitler.

I also said the Communists were leftists. And they were. And still are. I did not address Putin.

[buffalopundit]

Nope. I did not suggest anything. You inferred it. (I had a BTW at the start of the second sentence; a separate thought.)

I did say that the Nazis were leftists, and they were. Did you ever hear of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei? That would be the National Socialist German Workers Party. Hardly RIGHT WING.

This is quite possibly the most ignorant piece of nonsense available in right-wing psyches today. The Nazis - the National Socialist German Worker's Party - was an ultra-right wing party. Nazis were not Marxist socialists of the left, but nationalist socialists of the far right. While there were some similarities, they weren't due to a unity of ideology, but the similarity of running a one-party totalitarian dictatorship. Let me school you on the difference,

1. The word "socialist" generally speaking is politically defined as holding the needs of a group as more important than the needs of the individual. Marxist socialists believe that the proletarian collective takes precedence over the individual. National socialists believe that the nation (or the Volk, or the Aryan race) is the collective that takes precedence over the rights of the individual. The only thing they have in common is the use of the word "socialism" and that they are both totalitarian in nature, which is defined as a system that effectively asserts total control over every aspect of a person's life - the abolition of the concept of "private". Democratic socialist states, like Canada and in Western Europe, marry the concepts of individual freedom and market economies with collectivism in other areas, such as health care, maternal care, elderly care, social security, etc. In the US, the New Deal and Medicare/Medicaid stand as examples of socialism, where we all contribute to our own retirements, or to everyone's health care, but the concept of individual liberty is much stronger here than in other countries.

2. In theory, Marxists permit trade unions to exist, but not during communism because, the theory goes, one doesn't need a trade union when the workers own the means of production. In practice, the countries we consider/ed to be communist abolished trade unions and set up phony unions to represent workers. The reason why the independent Solidarity trade union in Poland was so significant was that it was a direct challenge to Russian/Warsaw hegemony over labor and acted as a competitor to the party and state. This is what led to martial law to avoid a Russian invasion. Germany abolished trade unions in favor of a similar state-run construct, but because it was a corporatist system, it permitted not just private ownership of business, but encouraged monopolies that would eventually use slave labor. Workers were treated to perks under Naziism - but only German ones due to the racial nationhood ideology. The workers did not, however, own the means of production and there was no widespread nationalization of industry under Naziism or fascism. On the contrary.

3. National Socialists saw their chief struggle as against inferior races - Jews, Slavs, Roma, etc. Communist struggle is, instead, about class; elevating the proletariat to smash feudal nobility and ultimately the bourgeoisie. National Socialism was a fundamentally bourgeois system that used totalitarianism to elevate members of the party and elite military units like the SS to societal levels of proto-nobility. Communists were similarly generous to party members and apparatchiks, and both systems became mired by the careerism and ineptitude of their own bureaucracies, which were not based on merit but loyalty. This was a reflection not of being left or right wing, but of being one-party totalitarian dictatorships.

4. You note that the German right was "closely identified with...monarchists". You're right, but the monarchists and anti-Hitler right were merely to the left of the Nazis (albeit to the right of the center, and the SDP). Indeed, throughout the Nazi regime, many in the professional officer class at least secretly opposed Hitler, or thought he was incompetent, and it was these people who, for instance, attempted to blow him up at the Wolfsschanze. Hitler was constantly at odds with the old generals, but this doesn't mean he was to the left of them.

5. Yes, you are correct that communists are leftists. Putin was a lifelong communist - a party member and KGB agent who came up as a spy in the DDR. He's not a communist now, at least not overtly, because that's not in vogue. After all, how can he consolidate his power by lifting up or smashing oligarchs at will? The party is no longer the vanguard of the Russian political system - the secret police services and spy agencies are. If you kiss Putin's ring, you can be whatever you want to be. Step out of line or out of favor, and you'll find yourself in the gulag, or in exile, or stuffed with enough Polonium to kill you. It my estimation, Putin's contemporary Russia is neo-fascist. He consolidates as much power as possible, stifles individual freedoms of speech, etc. and tolerates little dissent. His country is dependent on energy and export of raw material, because it's too busy being corrupt to evolve and begin producing things that might elevate its economy. Russia isn't even close to China - it's Mexico with nukes. Putin's Russia elevates the idea of Russian nationhood over the rights of the individual, and he is closer to the old pre-Revolutionary Slavophiles, as opposed to the Westernizers. It's a uniquely Russian way of thinking that's hard for Americans to grasp, because our nationhood is not wrapped up in shared religion or race or ethnicity, but instead merely in a shared adherence to a set of values as enshrined in the Constitution, mixed in with some Judeo-Christian morality and Enlightenment-era thoughts on individual rights over the rights of a feudal lord, or a collective of some sort.

So, in short, while Naziism and Communism share the concept of the word "socialism", it doesn't mean Nazis are left-wing. Far, far from it.

[mark blazejewski]

This is quite possibly the most ignorant piece of nonsense available in right-wing psyches today. The Nazis - the National Socialist German Worker's Party - was an ultra-right wing party. Nazis were not Marxist socialists of the left, but nationalist socialists of the far right. While there were some similarities, they weren't due to a unity of ideology, but the similarity of running a one-party totalitarian dictatorship. Let me school you on the difference,

1. The word "socialist" generally speaking is politically defined as holding the needs of a group as more important than the needs of the individual. Marxist socialists believe that the proletarian collective takes precedence over the individual. National socialists believe that the nation (or the Volk, or the Aryan race) is the collective that takes precedence over the rights of the individual. The only thing they have in common is the use of the word "socialism" and that they are both totalitarian in nature, which is defined as a system that effectively asserts total control over every aspect of a person's life - the abolition of the concept of "private". Democratic socialist states, like Canada and in Western Europe, marry the concepts of individual freedom and market economies with collectivism in other areas, such as health care, maternal care, elderly care, social security, etc. In the US, the New Deal and Medicare/Medicaid stand as examples of socialism, where we all contribute to our own retirements, or to everyone's health care, but the concept of individual liberty is much stronger here than in other countries.

2. In theory, Marxists permit trade unions to exist, but not during communism because, the theory goes, one doesn't need a trade union when the workers own the means of production. In practice, the countries we consider/ed to be communist abolished trade unions and set up phony unions to represent workers. The reason why the independent Solidarity trade union in Poland was so significant was that it was a direct challenge to Russian/Warsaw hegemony over labor and acted as a competitor to the party and state. This is what led to martial law to avoid a Russian invasion. Germany abolished trade unions in favor of a similar state-run construct, but because it was a corporatist system, it permitted not just private ownership of business, but encouraged monopolies that would eventually use slave labor. Workers were treated to perks under Naziism - but only German ones due to the racial nationhood ideology. The workers did not, however, own the means of production and there was no widespread nationalization of industry under Naziism or fascism. On the contrary.

3. National Socialists saw their chief struggle as against inferior races - Jews, Slavs, Roma, etc. Communist struggle is, instead, about class; elevating the proletariat to smash feudal nobility and ultimately the bourgeoisie. National Socialism was a fundamentally bourgeois system that used totalitarianism to elevate members of the party and elite military units like the SS to societal levels of proto-nobility. Communists were similarly generous to party members and apparatchiks, and both systems became mired by the careerism and ineptitude of their own bureaucracies, which were not based on merit but loyalty. This was a reflection not of being left or right wing, but of being one-party totalitarian dictatorships.

4. You note that the German right was "closely identified with...monarchists". You're right, but the monarchists and anti-Hitler right were merely to the left of the Nazis (albeit to the right of the center, and the SDP). Indeed, throughout the Nazi regime, many in the professional officer class at least secretly opposed Hitler, or thought he was incompetent, and it was these people who, for instance, attempted to blow him up at the Wolfsschanze. Hitler was constantly at odds with the old generals, but this doesn't mean he was to the left of them.

5. Yes, you are correct that communists are leftists. Putin was a lifelong communist - a party member and KGB agent who came up as a spy in the DDR. He's not a communist now, at least not overtly, because that's not in vogue. After all, how can he consolidate his power by lifting up or smashing oligarchs at will? The party is no longer the vanguard of the Russian political system - the secret police services and spy agencies are. If you kiss Putin's ring, you can be whatever you want to be. Step out of line or out of favor, and you'll find yourself in the gulag, or in exile, or stuffed with enough Polonium to kill you. It my estimation, Putin's contemporary Russia is neo-fascist. He consolidates as much power as possible, stifles individual freedoms of speech, etc. and tolerates little dissent. His country is dependent on energy and export of raw material, because it's too busy being corrupt to evolve and begin producing things that might elevate its economy. Russia isn't even close to China - it's Mexico with nukes. Putin's Russia elevates the idea of Russian nationhood over the rights of the individual, and he is closer to the old pre-Revolutionary Slavophiles, as opposed to the Westernizers. It's a uniquely Russian way of thinking that's hard for Americans to grasp, because our nationhood is not wrapped up in shared religion or race or ethnicity, but instead merely in a shared adherence to a set of values as enshrined in the Constitution, mixed in with some Judeo-Christian morality and Enlightenment-era thoughts on individual rights over the rights of a feudal lord, or a collective of some sort.

So, in short, while Naziism and Communism share the concept of the word "socialism", it doesn't mean Nazis are left-wing. Far, far from it.

Mr. B.,

Thank you for the response.

The fact of the matter is that you raised the Nazis and Putin within the context of contemporary American politics. To frame a response within the context of early Marxist thought, or within the weeds of the politically dysfunctional Weimar Republic is interesting, but it only serves to obscure the instant concerns/issues. So, let's do this thumbnail:

(1) Thank you for explaining the difference between Marxist and National Socialists. What you left out was the tendency for both the Marxist, Lenninist, Stalinists, and the National Socialist of Germany, to BOTH be expansionist. American Conservatives, for the most part, were, and are, pretty much ISOLATIONIST. Hence, the current conservative tension with the interventionist Bush wing of the current Republican Party. Therefore, on the foreign aggression point alone, Nazis and Communists are not conservative within its contemporary meaning.

(2) On point two, without regard to worker ownership, the Reichwerke Herman Goring was created in 1937. By the time Germany entered WWII, over 500 key German industries were nationalized, and that was even before Germany switched over to full wartime production after Barbarossa. Therefore, I take issue with a key element of your response under two. Seizing private property is HARDLY a right wing or contemporary American conservative concept.

(3) Unlike the Nazis or the Communists, the right wing or the contemporary American conservative does not favorably view totalitarian government. To the contrary, they celebrate the individual and honor individual human liberties.

(4) You seemed to agree with my viewpoint on the Monarchists. Frankly, in the early days, the only military aristocrat I can think of off the top of my head, that seemed to like the P***k Hitler was Ludendorff, with the Beer Hall Putsch thing. Even though von Hindenburg named Hitler Chancellor, he did so at the urging of von Papen. Actually, von Hindenburg despised the SOB Hitler. The point I was making was that many conservatives of the period favored a return to the monarchy and disliked Hitler. Therefore, the only true appeal that Hitler had to the conservatives of Weimar Germany was his strong Nationalistic views, without serious regard to social, racial and/or economic policies.

(5) and Conclusion: The Hitler regime controlled business, land, banking, the press, and most aspects of everyday German life and culture. That type of governance certainly does not reflect contemporary American Conservatism. In fact, it resembles German conservatism only in that it tilted to the right when compared to the Communist alternative which outright owned and controlled everything.

Furthermore, the Catholic and Protestant churches vigorously opposed the Nazi regime. Those churches are hardly left-wing organizations.

Regarding the characteristics citied above, which U.S. political party best exemplifies those values and characteristics?

I really enjoyed this exchange. Seriously.

[buffalopundit]

Mr. B.,

Thank you for the response.

The fact of the matter is that you raised Nazis and Putin within the context of contemporary American politics. To frame a response within the context of early Marxist thought, or within the weeds of the politically dysfunctional Weimar Republic is interesting, but it only serves to obscure the issue. So, let's do this thumbnail:

I did. I think that Putin - much like Milosevic 20 years ago - is a nationalist-socialist. An ex-Communist who stokes national resentments (in Milosevic's case against the west, Croats, Muslims, Kosovars; in Putin's case the west, Ukraine, the EU, NATO), in order to mask and obscure economic failure.

(1) Thank you for explaining the difference between Marxist and National Socialists. What you left out was the tendency for both the Marxist, Lenninist, Stalinists, and the National Socialist of Germany, to BOTH be expansionist. American Conservatives, for the most part, were, and are pretty much ISOLATIONIST. Hence, the current conservative tension with the interventionist Bush wing of the current Republican Party. Therefore, on foreign aggression point alone, Nazis and Communists are not conservative within its contemporary meaning.

They were expansionist. Most totalitarian dictatorships are, but for different reasons. Marxists (which for our purposes includes Leninists/Stalinists) are expansionist in terms of the "International"; that communism marches forward in every country where the worker is oppressed, and it is the class struggle that is the pre-eminent political struggle and - this is key - that it transcends even national boundaries. Marxists would argue that the working class in Germany is no different than the working class in France or anywhere else - it's just a question of how far along the feudalism-to-communism pathway of inevitability they are. On the other hand, fascist expansionism is driven by national pride and most critically ancient resentments - whether real or imagined - of historic territory lost. Hitler wanted "lebensraum" so he expanded "Greater Germany" in all directions to ensure that Germans would have arable land tended to by slave labor, and also access to oil. Mussolini wanted to turn Italy into a colonial power about 60 years after that went out of style, so he invaded weak states in Africa. He also expanded into SudTirol/Alto Adige. Likewise, Putin seeks to expand into Crimea and Ukraine, just like Milosevic did in Bosnia and Kosovo and Croatia 25 years ago, because he is/was taking back lands that he thinks historically belong to the Russian/Serbian people. It's no different than the line in the old, now-omitted, first stanza of the German national anthem, "Von der Maas bis an die Memel". That denoted what Hitler though the German westernmost and easternmost borders were - the Maas (Meuse) is now in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and the Memel is now the border between Russia's Kaliningrad oblast and Lithuania.

tl;dr, while Marxists and fascist are both generally big on territorial expansion, the rationale is from different ideologies. One has to do with the socialist international, while the other has to do with nationalism.

(2) On point two, without regard to worker ownership, the Reichwerke Herman Goring was created in 1937. The time Germany entered WWII, over 500 key German industries were nationalized, and that was even before Germany switched over to full wartime production after Barbarossa. Therefore, I take issue with a key element of your response under two. Seizing private property is HARDLY a right wing or contemporary American conservative concept.

While Germany did nationalize some industry, it permitted private industry to exist, which communist regimes never did. Different communist countries handled private enterprise differently. In most cases, it was completely banned. In some cases, you could buy and sell at a local market, or in Yugoslavia you could even own a family business, provided you didn't employ (and therefore, exploit) anyone not related to you. The spectrum of strictness on this ranges from complete prohibition in North Korea and Hoxha's Albania, to something more lax like Yugoslavia, but in general, in the Warsaw Pact countries, it simply didn't exist except the black market; i.e., all private commerce was criminalized. It is important to remember that many very prominent German private companies - I.G. Farben, Daimler/Mercedes, Bayer, and others were allowed to flourish under Naziism. Certainly, because totalitarian states also act as governmental mafias, whether and how a business operated was subject to Nazi oversight and control, but they were allowed to be privately owned (by Aryans), to engage in private commerce, and employ people.

(3) Unlike the Nazis or the Communists, the right wing or the contemporary American conservative does not favorably view totalitarian government. To the contrary, they celebrate the individual and honor individual human liberties

Absolutely, and the same goes for most American liberals. You get a few straggling hippie a-holes who think Castro was swell, just like some conservatives think Franco or Pinochet were a-ok, but overall Democrats and Republicans agree that totalitarian government is a negative. The arguments that are had are over the fringes of how much government involvement there is in the economy. Democrats would like there to be more, Republicans would like there to be less.

(4) You seemed to agree with my viewpoint on the Monarchists. Frankly, in the early days, the only military aristocrat that seemed to like the P***k Hitler was Ludendorff, with the Beer Hall Putsch thing. Even though von Hindenburg named Hitler Chancellor, he did so at the urging of von Papen. Actually, von Hindenburg despised the SOB Hitler. The point I was making was that many conservatives of the period favored a return to the monarchy and disliked Hitler. Therefore, the only true appeal that Hitler had to the conservatives of Weimar Germany was his strong Nationalistic views, with regard to social, racial and/or economic policies.

I think what you've written is accurate. To clarify: I do not equate conservatives or conservatism with Naziism. I don't think that even the more right-leaning conservatives whom I detest, such as Ted Cruz, are anything close to Nazis. But the overall discussion is about where Nazis lie on the political spectrum; it's the very far right, and the word "socialist" in NSDAP doesn't change that.

(5) and Conclusion: The Hitler regime controlled business, land, banking, the press, and most aspects of everyday German life and culture. That type of governance certainly does not reflect contemporary American Conservatism. In fact, it resembles German conservatism only in that it tilted to the right when compared to the Communist alternative which outright owned everything.

What you've described in terms of Hitler's control is totalitarianism. In the DDR, the Party and the Stasi continued the same thing for another 50 years, only they substituted capitalism and class for Judaism as the chief evil. Actually, the DDR is a perfect example of my overall thesis about the nature of right and left socialism. It is the perfect mirror image of Naziism, where it waged war against what they called "reactionary capitalism" while most of their people could watch TV programs and commercials in their own language showing a world most of them couldn't fathom, much less visit until 1989. Meanwhile, every single aspect of their lives was under total state control. There was no distinction between public and private; from birth to death, from friends to colleagues, from lovers to children, were potential enemies, potential spies, potential informants. All of it was for the advancement of the party and the state. It was a sick and twisted fate that the people of East Germany had to endure after a decade of oppression and war under Hitler.

Let me be perfectly clear here: my parents escaped a totalitarian regime and I take these things very seriously. I don't think it's a joke, and I don't use words like "totalitarianism" and fascism (and others) lightly. All fascists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are fascists. Indeed, most aren't. I also don't think that Donald Trump, for instance, is a true conservative. I think he plays one on TV, I think he knows what to say and what people will react to. But I also think some of the things he's advocated for are fascistic in nature, and I am very concerned about not just what his policies may be, but his temperament. All of that is besides the point.

Furthermore, the Catholic and Protestant churches vigorously opposed the Nazi regime. Those churches are hardly left-wing organizations.

I disagree with you here. I don't know about the Protestant churches, but the Catholic Church was not necessarily hostile to Naziism in many predominately Catholic countries (Croatia's quisling NDH, for example), because the Church saw fascism as a bulwark against Godless communism. It was the Catholic clergy who set up and ran the ratlines enabling the escape to South American freedom for great many Nazis - not just rank & file, but the real SS psychotic mass murderers.

Regarding the characteristics citied above, which U.S. political party best exemplifies those values and characteristics?

Neither the Republicans nor Democrats deserve to be smeared with the epithet of "fascist" or "communist", respectively. The Republican and Democratic parties occupy the areas closest to the center of the political spectrum, while communists are the extreme left and fascists the extreme right. Both domestic parties believe in individual freedoms, free enterprise, the American dream, freedom of speech, to worship, to travel, to bear arms, etc. (Sure, some don't, but overall, there are plenty of, e.g., Democrats who hunt or carry a gun for protection). We all agree on the basic liberties enshrined in the Constitution, even when we sometimes argue - often vehemently - over their meaning and interpretation.

I will note this: your argument seems to be that communists are for totalitarian control, and liberals/Democrats argue for more government involvement in the economy, while conservatives argue for less government involvement, and because Nazis are totalitarian, that would skew towards "more government involvement in the economy". I concede the point you're making, whereby the hard-right extreme might be libertarianism or even something anarchical. That's an interesting issue that I think has perplexed a lot of political scientists, and many have now abandoned the right/left spectrum and expanded it to incorporate these other ideologies. Nevertheless, the reason why Nazis and fascists - both of which arose specifically as a reaction to Marxism - are counted on the right is because the ideologies of nationalism ranging from simple jingoism to downright racial or national supremacy cannot be placed on the left, because the left rejects them in favor of class struggle. It is true that conservatives are very conscious of national pride and patriotism, and perceive themselves to be more patriotic than liberals, and that's why the right gets everyone who counts themselves as part of the "nationalism" group.

I really enjoyed this exchange. Seriouysly.

Me too.

[mark blazejewski]

I did. I think that Putin - much like Milosevic 20 years ago - is a nationalist-socialist. An ex-Communist who stokes national resentments (in Milosevic's case against the west, Croats, Muslims, Kosovars; in Putin's case the west, Ukraine, the EU, NATO), in order to mask and obscure economic failure.



They were expansionist. Most totalitarian dictatorships are, but for different reasons. Marxists (which for our purposes includes Leninists/Stalinists) are expansionist in terms of the "International"; that communism marches forward in every country where the worker is oppressed, and it is the class struggle that is the pre-eminent political struggle and - this is key - that it transcends even national boundaries. Marxists would argue that the working class in Germany is no different than the working class in France or anywhere else - it's just a question of how far along the feudalism-to-communism pathway of inevitability they are. On the other hand, fascist expansionism is driven by national pride and most critically ancient resentments - whether real or imagined - of historic territory lost. Hitler wanted "lebensraum" so he expanded "Greater Germany" in all directions to ensure that Germans would have arable land tended to by slave labor, and also access to oil. Mussolini wanted to turn Italy into a colonial power about 60 years after that went out of style, so he invaded weak states in Africa. He also expanded into SudTirol/Alto Adige. Likewise, Putin seeks to expand into Crimea and Ukraine, just like Milosevic did in Bosnia and Kosovo and Croatia 25 years ago, because he is/was taking back lands that he thinks historically belong to the Russian/Serbian people. It's no different than the line in the old, now-omitted, first stanza of the German national anthem, "Von der Maas bis an die Memel". That denoted what Hitler though the German westernmost and easternmost borders were - the Maas (Meuse) is now in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and the Memel is now the border between Russia's Kaliningrad oblast and Lithuania.

tl;dr, while Marxists and fascist are both generally big on territorial expansion, the rationale is from different ideologies. One has to do with the socialist international, while the other has to do with nationalism.



While Germany did nationalize some industry, it permitted private industry to exist, which communist regimes never did. Different communist countries handled private enterprise differently. In most cases, it was completely banned. In some cases, you could buy and sell at a local market, or in Yugoslavia you could even own a family business, provided you didn't employ (and therefore, exploit) anyone not related to you. The spectrum of strictness on this ranges from complete prohibition in North Korea and Hoxha's Albania, to something more lax like Yugoslavia, but in general, in the Warsaw Pact countries, it simply didn't exist except the black market; i.e., all private commerce was criminalized. It is important to remember that many very prominent German private companies - I.G. Farben, Daimler/Mercedes, Bayer, and others were allowed to flourish under Naziism. Certainly, because totalitarian states also act as governmental mafias, whether and how a business operated was subject to Nazi oversight and control, but they were allowed to be privately owned (by Aryans), to engage in private commerce, and employ people.



Absolutely, and the same goes for most American liberals. You get a few straggling hippie a-holes who think Castro was swell, just like some conservatives think Franco or Pinochet were a-ok, but overall Democrats and Republicans agree that totalitarian government is a negative. The arguments that are had are over the fringes of how much government involvement there is in the economy. Democrats would like there to be more, Republicans would like there to be less.



I think what you've written is accurate. To clarify: I do not equate conservatives or conservatism with Naziism. I don't think that even the more right-leaning conservatives whom I detest, such as Ted Cruz, are anything close to Nazis. But the overall discussion is about where Nazis lie on the political spectrum; it's the very far right, and the word "socialist" in NSDAP doesn't change that.



What you've described in terms of Hitler's control is totalitarianism. In the DDR, the Party and the Stasi continued the same thing for another 50 years, only they substituted capitalism and class for Judaism as the chief evil. Actually, the DDR is a perfect example of my overall thesis about the nature of right and left socialism. It is the perfect mirror image of Naziism, where it waged war against what they called "reactionary capitalism" while most of their people could watch TV programs and commercials in their own language showing a world most of them couldn't fathom, much less visit until 1989. Meanwhile, every single aspect of their lives was under total state control. There was no distinction between public and private; from birth to death, from friends to colleagues, from lovers to children, were potential enemies, potential spies, potential informants. All of it was for the advancement of the party and the state. It was a sick and twisted fate that the people of East Germany had to endure after a decade of oppression and war under Hitler.

Let me be perfectly clear here: my parents escaped a totalitarian regime and I take these things very seriously. I don't think it's a joke, and I don't use words like "totalitarianism" and fascism (and others) lightly. All fascists are conservatives, but not all conservatives are fascists. Indeed, most aren't. I also don't think that Donald Trump, for instance, is a true conservative. I think he plays one on TV, I think he knows what to say and what people will react to. But I also think some of the things he's advocated for are fascistic in nature, and I am very concerned about not just what his policies may be, but his temperament. All of that is besides the point.



I disagree with you here. I don't know about the Protestant churches, but the Catholic Church was not necessarily hostile to Naziism in many predominately Catholic countries (Croatia's quisling NDH, for example), because the Church saw fascism as a bulwark against Godless communism. It was the Catholic clergy who set up and ran the ratlines enabling the escape to South American freedom for great many Nazis - not just rank & file, but the real SS psychotic mass murderers.



Neither the Republicans nor Democrats deserve to be smeared with the epithet of "fascist" or "communist", respectively. The Republican and Democratic parties occupy the areas closest to the center of the political spectrum, while communists are the extreme left and fascists the extreme right. Both domestic parties believe in individual freedoms, free enterprise, the American dream, freedom of speech, to worship, to travel, to bear arms, etc. (Sure, some don't, but overall, there are plenty of, e.g., Democrats who hunt or carry a gun for protection). We all agree on the basic liberties enshrined in the Constitution, even when we sometimes argue - often vehemently - over their meaning and interpretation.

I will note this: your argument seems to be that communists are for totalitarian control, and liberals/Democrats argue for more government involvement in the economy, while conservatives argue for less government involvement, and because Nazis are totalitarian, that would skew towards "more government involvement in the economy". I concede the point you're making, whereby the hard-right extreme might be libertarianism or even something anarchical. That's an interesting issue that I think has perplexed a lot of political scientists, and many have now abandoned the right/left spectrum and expanded it to incorporate these other ideologies. Nevertheless, the reason why Nazis and fascists - both of which arose specifically as a reaction to Marxism - are counted on the right is because the ideologies of nationalism ranging from simple jingoism to downright racial or national supremacy cannot be placed on the left, because the left rejects them in favor of class struggle. It is true that conservatives are very conscious of national pride and patriotism, and perceive themselves to be more patriotic than liberals, and that's why the right gets everyone who counts themselves as part of the "nationalism" group.



Me too.

Mr. B.,

I agree that both sides, are unfairly styled with these horrible labels. On the occasions that I may have done that, I am not only sorry, but ashamed. My maternal grandmother was born in the U.S. Her mother died when she was five, and her father took her back to Italy so that his sister could properly raise her. Her aunt owned a small tavern/restaurant. One night in 1920, there was the proverbial bang on the door. Three Fascists thugs demanded to know why there was not a flag displayed that day. Her aunt said that she did not have the money to buy one, so she was in the process of making one.

In some sort of Italian rant, he claimed that her son stole the money that should have went for the flag. The boy was taken out, tied to the back of a truck, and dragged through the streets until dead. She was 90 when she died in 1996 and still cried at every haunting remembrance.

That's Fascist, that's Communist, that's Nazi. That is not Republican or Democrat. Be proud of your family as I am of mine for overcoming evil.

Merry Christmas Mr. B.

[buffalopundit]

Mr. B.,

I agree that both sides, are unfairly styled with these horrible labels. On the occasions that I may have done that, I am not only sorry, but ashamed. My maternal grandmother was born in the U.S. Her mother died when she was five, and her father took her back to Italy so that his sister could properly raise her. Her aunt owned a small tavern/restaurant. One night in 1920, there was the proverbial bang on the door. Three Fascists thugs demanded to know why there was not a flag displayed that day. Her aunt said that she did not have the money to buy one, so she was in the process of making one.

In some sort of Italian rant, he claimed that her son stole the money that should have went for the flag. The boy was taken out, tied to the back of a truck, and dragged through the streets until dead. She was 90 when she died in 1996 and still cried at every haunting remembrance.

That's Fascist, that's Communist, that's Nazi. That is not Republican or Democrat. Be proud of your family as I am of mine for overcoming evil.

Merry Christmas Mr. B.

Heartbreaking story. Merry Christmas to you, too!