Kristalnacht in America?

[Kaninchen]

As long as the Nazi reference keeps being made, please remember it was not “ultra right”, but was a socialist movement. The Nazi party was a National Socialist party.

Indeed, I do from time to time forget that this is an American board. OK, given American definitions of ‘socialist’, the NSDAP was a socialist party. Given the definitions of everybody else on the planet, it was an ultra-rightist party gaining its votes from the old German right wing parties - while the vote the Socialists (SPD) and Communists (KPD) tended to remain constant ‘in total’ (people moved backwards and forwards between the two) and its finance was very largely from big business who were financing it to smash the Communists.

Since, in power, the NSDAP did not seek state ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange (leaving them in private ownership), in non-American terms, they were not socialists but, given the (totally mysterious to an outsider - it sometimes seems to mean ‘once seen reading the New York Times’ or words to that effect) American definition of ‘socialist’, who knows?

The party program actually sought an end to the cosmopolitan cities, big farms and industrial production - they really wanted to return to a world of (private) small farms and (private) ‘artisan’ craft workshop production, kind of ‘pre-capitalist’ in a sense, the thing was that to achieve that entailed taking on much of the rest of the world (and destroying it) which required bigger business, bigger industries and so on.

On coming to power the first groups sent to the camps were not Jews, they were Socialists and Communists. Of course, these are terms as understood outside the US - American definitions might be ‘once in power, the NSDAP socialists sent the Catholics and Conservatives to the camps’ - Americans are a deeply mysterious people.

 

[Ridgerunner]

IF you have a nation in turmoil with run away inflation, appear to save the country, kill off all the opposition, control the press, make everyone else afraid of you, and blame everything on someone else, you can make yourself into an all powerful dictator.

Just see how easy it was for GW to suspend human rights with the Patriot act. Harness everyone’s fear and they give up their rights all too easily.

Bush couldn’t even control his own party, let alone anyone else. It sometimes seems the only real defense against overweening power is divided government. One party controlling Congress; the other controlling the White House. The worst mischief seems to happen when one party controls all.

I’m a lot more concerned about Congress’ seeming intention to stifle dissent by imposing the “Fairness Doctrine” than I am about the Patriot Act. Totalitarian-minded people don’t much care what the law says, though, if they have enough power. Who was it, in recent times, who obtained the FBI files on political opponents notwithstanding that it is unlawful to do so? It certainly wasn’t G.W. Bush.

But that’s getting off topic, except to the extent that any minority ought to be concerned about an overwhelming concentration of power in the hands of one political point of view.

 

[Muzhik]

So, having had my eyes opened by you to the Jew-hating activities of the American Left, I’d be terribly interested to know about the proportion of physical attacks upon Jews and Jewish communal property committed by left-wing thugs.

Unfortunately, we can’t say because we don’t keep track of the political leanings of criminals – only age, gender, and race. UNLESS it’s being treated as a “Hate Crime” – something which I originally supported but now am afraid of, seeing as how it’s possible for any politically incorrect opposition to be characterized as “hate speech.” (Maybe not so much in America, but in Canada you really need to watch out for the HRC’s knock on the door at 2 AM.)

<><

 

[MelanieAnne]

Regarding Nazis as socialists ~ Yes, I’m sure our European readers have a different “take” on the development of Nazism. This is why I suggested earlier that the focus be on the totalitarian aspects of the UltraLeft as well as the UltraRight. It’s more accurate.

What is inaccurate, or perhaps more correctly described as hypocritical, is for those of the UltraLeft to refer to political enemies as “Nazis” when they themselves are every bit as totalitarian as any Nazi, whether that be the “American” definition or the “European” definition of the term. The point was that the UltraLeft is totalitarian as were the Nazis.

 

[Muzhik]

Indeed, I do from time to time forget that this is an American board. OK, given American definitions of ‘socialist’, the NSDAP was a socialist party. Given the definitions of everybody else on the planet, it was an ultra-rightist party gaining its votes from the old German right wing parties - while the vote the Socialists (SPD) and Communists (KPD) tended to remain constant ‘in total’ (people moved backwards and forwards between the two) and its finance was very largely from big business who were financing it to smash the Communists.

In America, words mean what you want them to mean. The same is true in other countries as well. The National Socialist Worker’s Party of Germany (NSAPD) had the words “Socialist” and “Worker’s” in the title, so it would appeal to the working class. Rest assured the people raising money for the party discounted that when they were talking to the capitalists. “National” was in the title for them, meaning they would work to keep the people who had money to keep making money.

It would be the same if I were to form the Grange Party. That would bring up images of the Grange movement: give the land back to the farmers, keep the banks from foreclosing on mortgages, get America off the gold standard and onto the silver standard, things like that. In truth, I could also make it a party against immigrants, pro-life, anti-death penalty, and in favor of shackling all the upper management of the seed companies together and forcing them to work in the fields. I could make the party anything I wanted, regardless of the name.

Since, in power, the NSDAP did not seek state ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange (leaving them in private ownership), in non-American terms, they were not socialists but, given the (totally mysterious to an outsider - it sometimes seems to mean ‘once seen reading the New York Times’ or words to that effect) American definition of ‘socialist’, who knows?

No, no, no! You read the Washington Post if you want to be considered a socialist. The New York Times is for independent thinkers, i.e., they want to be kept independent of any original thinking and are just as happy to subcontract the actual thinking to the people who run the New York Times.

Don’t forget, there’s been a LOT more “social mobility” among the economic classes in America than in Europe. Just because someone was an immigrant didn’t mean they were uneducated or poor. It USUALLY did, but there were enough exceptions that the upper class had to come up with new ways to warn of danger. Anyone who was in favor of workers rights was automatically a socialist. If they were in favor of workers rights and were Jewish, they were anarchists. And if they were Irish, no matter what, they were trouble. Actual political positions didn’t matter, since no matter what the end result would have been loss of power for the ruling class.

Of course, these are terms as understood outside the US - American definitions might be ‘once in power, the NSDAP socialists sent the Catholics and Conservatives to the camps’ - Americans are a deeply mysterious people.

That’s why we’re so sexy, too!

<><

 

[Ridgerunner]

Since most Americans are of European descent, one would not expect there to be as many differences between them as is commonly asserted. After all, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were in office at the same time. And Sarkozy seems to be something like a fiscal “Neocon” with the morals of a Bill Clinton.

 

[Muzhik]

What is inaccurate, or perhaps more correctly described as hypocritical, is for those of the UltraLeft to refer to political enemies as “Nazis” when they themselves are every bit as totalitarian as any Nazi, whether that be the “American” definition or the “European” definition of the term. The point was that the UltraLeft is totalitarian as were the Nazis.

Yes, but they’re totalitarian for the RIGHT reasons. The other side is just plain wrong, and so for their own protection and the protection of our children, they must be suppressed.

My biggest fear about the Neoleft/Ultraleft is the totalitarianism of silence. I don’t mean where someone threatens you or your family if you protest. I’m talking about the social pressure of knowing if you are public with your opposition or your support for something, you won’t get invited to certain social functions; you’ll have friends asking you how you’re feeling, if you’re OK; that your pay raises (or even keeping your job in a downsizing environment) may depend on your political views. You learn to keep silent.

<><

 

[strngrnrth]

Yes, but they’re totalitarian for the RIGHT reasons. The other side is just plain wrong, and so for their own protection and the protection of our children, they must be suppressed.

My biggest fear about the Neoleft/Ultraleft is the totalitarianism of silence. I don’t mean where someone threatens you or your family if you protest. I’m talking about the social pressure of knowing if you are public with your opposition or your support for something, you won’t get invited to certain social functions; you’ll have friends asking you how you’re feeling, if you’re OK; that your pay raises (or even keeping your job in a downsizing environment) may depend on your political views. You learn to keep silent.

<><

Or being flunked out of a college class for “disruptive” refusal to pretend to have reached “consensus” that an opponent is right, or being screamed at in public, not waited on in stores, or even physically attacked for refusing to voice support for a “woman’s right to choose”, or refusing to support a subsidized gay club in a junior high school or refusing to support a minimum wage increase that could plunge thousands into unemployment…

 

[Verisimilitude]

And Sarkozy seems to be something like a fiscal “Neocon” with the morals of a Bill Clinton.

I have been informed that ‘neocon’ is a pejorative in newspeak and they (neocons) don’t like the term to be applied to them.

 

[MelanieAnne]

Yes, but they’re totalitarian for the RIGHT reasons. The other side is just plain wrong, and so for their own protection and the protection of our children, they must be suppressed.

My biggest fear about the Neoleft/Ultraleft is the totalitarianism of silence. I don’t mean where someone threatens you or your family if you protest. I’m talking about the social pressure of knowing if you are public with your opposition or your support for something, you won’t get invited to certain social functions; you’ll have friends asking you how you’re feeling, if you’re OK; that your pay raises (or even keeping your job in a downsizing environment) may depend on your political views. You learn to keep silent.

<><

I’m not sure that I understand you. Are you saying the UltraLeft is Totalitarian for the right reasons? That their bullying people into submission, their intolerance, their racism are all for the right reasons? Their anti-religious attitudes are for the right reasons? Their viciousness is for the right reasons? If so, I don’t agree because I don’t believe intolerance and racism and viciousness is ever right. When is racism or viciousness OK?

 

[Kaninchen]

In America, words mean what you want them to mean. The same is true in other countries as well. The National Socialist Worker’s Party of Germany (NSAPD) had the words “Socialist” and “Worker’s” in the title, so it would appeal to the working class.

It was “Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei” (NSDAP not NSAPD), or, in English ‘National-Socialist German Workers’ Party". It’s not ‘Socialist’, it’s ‘National-Socialist’ it’s not “Workers’ Party”, it’s “German Workers’ Party”. The concepts are very specific to a time and place. It was not, never had been (even in its prior existence - before Hitler existence - as the DAP) and never was a working class party. It was a lower middle class and peasant party, that’s who joined, that’s who fought in the streets, that’s who voted.

Rest assured the people raising money for the party discounted that when they were talking to the capitalists. “National” was in the title for them, meaning they would work to keep the people who had money to keep making money.

Actually, it was the SA beating up the Communists in the streets and the promise of ending the ‘menace’ of socialism and communism that got the money. This was the period immediately after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the Russo-Polish War, ‘Soviets’ in Hungary and Munich and the apparently irresistible rise of the Communist Party in Germany - meanwhile, over the Alps, Fascism had out-thugged the Italian socialists.

Of course, one appreciates that American Conservatives know much more about Germany in the 20’s and 30’s than Germans living through the period knew or the weight of historical evidence shows.

 

[MelanieAnne]

Luckily for me I have the 1st person testimony of my Grandfather who witnessed the rise of the Nazi party in Bavaria. As a result of what he saw, he took his young family to Chicago in 1927. I have heard the words of someone reporting on what they personally saw in Munich in the early years of the development of Nazism. Whatever your terminology, any person with a bit of sense knew back then what was going on, or, if not, learned quickly. That’s not American revisionism. That’s just reality. At least, it was my Opa’s reality.

 

[Muzhik]

I’m not sure that I understand you. Are you saying the UltraLeft is Totalitarian for the right reasons? That their bullying people into submission, their intolerance, their racism are all for the right reasons? Their anti-religious attitudes are for the right reasons? Their viciousness is for the right reasons? If so, I don’t agree because I don’t believe intolerance and racism and viciousness is ever right. When is racism or viciousness OK?

My apologies. I was trying to be droll. One thing that horrifies me is the absolute certitude of people not just that they’re right, not just that the opposition is wrong, but that the rightness of their position is so obvious that there simply is no room for doubt, the opposition MUST be evil (or they’re just very stupid.) This lack of doubt means that any action they take to defeat the opposition MUST be good, no matter how heinous it may appear to others. In their minds, the ends truly do justify the means.

<><

 

[MelanieAnne]

My apologies. I was trying to be droll. One thing that horrifies me is the absolute certitude of people not just that they’re right, not just that the opposition is wrong, but that the rightness of their position is so obvious that there simply is no room for doubt, the opposition MUST be evil (or they’re just very stupid.) This lack of doubt means that any action they take to defeat the opposition MUST be good, no matter how heinous it may appear to others. In their minds, the ends truly do justify the means.

<><

OK, well forgive me for my lack of a sense of humor on the subject. I guess it’s just not funny to me.

I agree that the position of the UltraLeft is that those that do not agree with them are either evil or very stupid. I find that one of the more troublesome aspects of public discourse these days. If there is a disagreement, there is the underlying belief that the “other side” consists of a bunch of morons. This is very common among the UltraLeft. I find the condescension of the UltraLeft very offensive.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes, but they’re totalitarian for the RIGHT reasons. The other side is just plain wrong, and so for their own protection and the protection of our children, they must be suppressed.

My biggest fear about the Neoleft/Ultraleft is the totalitarianism of silence. I don’t mean where someone threatens you or your family if you protest. I’m talking about the social pressure of knowing if you are public with your opposition or your support for something, you won’t get invited to certain social functions; you’ll have friends asking you how you’re feeling, if you’re OK; that your pay raises (or even keeping your job in a downsizing environment) may depend on your political views. You learn to keep silent.

<><

The left is totalitarian for the RIGHT reasons? No one is ever totalitarian for the right reasons. If a group is totalitarian, that fact alone tells you their reasons are not right, or they would not have to have totalitarian powers to impose them.

More than 100 million people murdered by the totalitarian left in the 20th century and your biggest fear of the totalitarian left is social rudeness?

 

[Ridgerunner]

My apologies. I was trying to be droll. One thing that horrifies me is the absolute certitude of people not just that they’re right, not just that the opposition is wrong, but that the rightness of their position is so obvious that there simply is no room for doubt, the opposition MUST be evil (or they’re just very stupid.) This lack of doubt means that any action they take to defeat the opposition MUST be good, no matter how heinous it may appear to others. In their minds, the ends truly do justify the means.

<><

Whew!

 

[strngrnrth]

I agree that the position of the UltraLeft is that those that do not agree with them are either evil or very stupid. I find that one of the more troublesome aspects of public discourse these days. If there is a disagreement, there is the underlying belief that the “other side” consists of a bunch of morons. This is very common among the UltraLeft. I find the condescension of the UltraLeft very offensive.

I was an ultraleftist for a long time. It was just normal to see any other view as dangerous. Therefore we felt we couldn’t afford to hear opposing views. It was totally anti-logic and anti-fact yet we saw ourselves as the reasoning ones. Eventually the cognitive dissonance of constantly screaming “Be rational” without a reasoned argument got to me and I had to reconsider my opinions. Now I run into ultraleftists who are sure, having no experience of me at all, that I couldn’t possibly have started where they are and reasoned my way somewhere else, and they will do whatever they have to to avoid hearing that reasoning.

 

[MelanieAnne]

I was an ultraleftist for a long time. It was just normal to see any other view as dangerous. Therefore we felt we couldn’t afford to hear opposing views. It was totally anti-logic and anti-fact yet we saw ourselves as the reasoning ones. Eventually the cognitive dissonance of constantly screaming “Be rational” without a reasoned argument got to me and I had to reconsider my opinions. Now I run into ultraleftists who are sure, having no experience of me at all, that I couldn’t possibly have started where they are and reasoned my way somewhere else, and they will do whatever they have to to avoid hearing that reasoning.

I once heard the UltraLeft described as not being “deep thinkers”. At the time I thought that description was terribly unfair. As I paid more attention, I found more evidence of the accuracy of that assessment.

 

[Kaninchen]

Luckily for me I have the 1st person testimony of my Grandfather who witnessed the rise of the Nazi party in Bavaria. As a result of what he saw, he took his young family to Chicago in 1927. I have heard the words of someone reporting on what they personally saw in Munich in the early years of the development of Nazism. Whatever your terminology, any person with a bit of sense knew back then what was going on, or, if not, learned quickly. That’s not American revisionism. That’s just reality. At least, it was my Opa’s reality.

I don’t know whether I’d term it ‘revisionism’, more a ‘1984-like’ destruction of ‘meaning’. ‘Revisionism’ rather implies trying to change the understanding of history as the purpose of the action - in the case of American Conservatism, it’s more that the meaning of history is collateral damage to the general appropriation of meaning.

The internal politics of America are of no interest or importance to me, unlike when people try to export such ‘meaning’ to external realities.

 

[MelanieAnne]

The internal politics of America are of no interest or importance to me.

I believe that.