To have witnessed even as a child the descent in Germany from decency to barbarism gave the question “how was it possible” an existential immediacy. So I have wrestled with that question, tried to reconstruct some parts of the past and perhaps intuit some lessons. The German-speaking refugees who came to this country in the ’30s had enthusiastic feelings about the… return to article
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Reader Comments (427)Rabbit returns with empty paws…............
Chopper the Rabbit has given the matter his personally imposed obligatory half hour of searching, before feeling inclined to accept the point that Bush has not actually outright threatened Chavez, at least that is publicly known. This is hardly sufficient grounds to conclude he nor the US government is a threat ongoing to Venezezuala and Chavez in particular.
There is however plenty of evidence of US covert interference and this is ongoing to the extent indicated by the above link.
This is following a time worn tactic, as also evidenced in Iran presently, of CIA and its counterparts being behind attempted coups and assasinations. If you wish to claim the USA does business any other way, then go blow it in the wind.
Rabbit never specifically claimed Bush had made direct threats, although would have expected to have found more than he did, it is true. This is as good as its likely to get so Rabbit will concede gracefully a defeat on this anyway.
...................^>................The contention of Rabbit that Bush or at least his handlers are a threat to the security of Venezuala, and that certainly includes Chavez, stands.
Does Chopper wish to say otherwise?
The following is from a very good article Rabbit found while failing to find any Public threats at Chavez from Bush. It does offer something of a case for Rabbit’s contention in some regards but it is left to stand on it’s own legs.
http://tinyurl.com/bz6zc
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 20, 2005 at 9:19 AM Regardless of religiosity, after 9.11 when Americans think of so called ‘terrorists,’ they instinctively envision Moslems. Since 77% of these Americans are Christian [1] and 2.2% are Jewish, [2] they fail to see their own religions and religious leaders as institutions and individuals promoting terrorism. Robertson makes it abundantly clear to the world that ‘terrorists’ are not just Moslems or even Jewish, but Christian as well.
Terrorists today are religious fundamentalists with politically motivated right wing fascist theocratic agendas. The religious right and NeoCons (US republicans) commonly refer to Islamic extremists and terrorists as ‘Islamo-Fascists’. Enter Islamo-Fascism or Islamofascist in a search engine and you’ll find links to predominantly sites hosting Pro-Iraq War Right Wing Christian hate rhetoric. Enter Christian Fascism, Christofascist and Christo-fascism and you’ll find predominantly left leaning sites with rhetoric opposing US republicans, the Christian GOP, Jewish or Christian NeoCons and the religious right. Theocracies around the world, including the US which today is a definitive theocracy, are also Neo-Fascist.
Theocracies today are right wing fascist political movements because the very nature of religion, regardless if Jewish, Christian or Moslem, is strong authoritarianism. Which by the way means exactly the same as totalitarianism and despotism. Tolerance in Theocracies, like their respective religions, is a trait they simply cannot possibly possess. Theocracies like their religions are not tolerant of non-theists, non-belivers, atheists, infidels, or other religions, much less differing sects within their own religons as seen so readily in Iraq and throughout history by Catholics and Protestants. Theocratic governments are just as absolutistic, perfectionistic, and bi dimensional in its thinking as their respective religions are resulting in the two most corroding human emotions: anxiety and hostility.
This is why the Christian theocracy in the US so strongly conflicts with Islamic theocracies, even though their leaders act and think so alike. The Jewish vs Moslem or Christian vs Moslem ‘us versus them’ adversarial dogma expresses such hostility and anxiety towards each other from their different religions demanding adherence to differring creeds and commands by their respective imaginary skygod or deity. Ultimately Christianity is an off-shoot of Judaism with the same fictional Jehovah SkyGod, so together they team up against Islam much to the chagrin of ‘Christian Identity White Supremacy’ NeoNazi groups in the US who just love to hate Jews. The American, Israeli or any given middle-east Islamic theocracy is referred to as ‘right wing’ and neoconservative. Saddam’s ‘Right Guard’ wasn’t called ‘right’ just to poke fun at the US Christian Fascist right wing overthrowing it.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 20, 2005 at 9:20 AM OH DEAR…...Rabbit is mortified, he forgto to put the post with the quote marks and the url with the post and he never meant to say the above were his words, as anybody who reads the excellent article by…..........hmm…whoever it is by…..
http://tinyurl.com/bz6zc
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 20, 2005 at 9:26 AM The article is fine, Rabbit, but it is, of course, much too narrow in its scope. These wars are first and foremost about imperial power, subjugation, resources. Europe -and later America - have been waging colonial wars for a long, long time. Religious fanaticism (and the accompanying good vs. evil mind-set) is a new element, but focusing too much on it distracts us from the essence. In Chomsky’s excellent (clear, objective, very readable - to be recommended!) “Hegemony or Survival” (from 2003), which includes an overview of the history of US foreign policy, he hardly even mentions the religious right - if at all. The CIA and its predecessors and the US military have been directly or indirectly (through financing, training and support for armies of dictators, death squads, etc.) slaughtering civilians by the millions all over the Third World for a hundred years - making these countries safe for American capital. The United States was the world’s number one rogue state long before the Bushies ascended to power.
Similarly, the BBC docu “The Power of Nightmares” (which I watched last night) is good in its treatment of neo-cons - but it indirectly lets Clinton and all who went before the gang of crooks in power today off the hook, which is dangerously misleading…
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 20, 2005 at 11:48 AM It is the same thing with what will follow these bastards. Once they are gone whoever follows will be considered to be a fresh broom when in reality they won’t be. Just the next pre-chosen anointed one.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 20, 2005 at 12:33 PM http://www.venezuelafoia.info/english.html
The Bush Administration hasn’t just threatened Chavez. In April of 2002 they almost took him out. My how we forget.
chopper:
The prime difference between honest Anarchists and the Randian wolf-pack is that we wish to diminish the coercive power of the STATE. We generally agree on the need for good governance. The Lew Rockwell folks want to eliminate government, but somehow, (no one has ever been able to make clear to me) preserve a powerful police state in order to protect their ungodly accumulations of private property. Still, I admire Ron Paul for some stands he has made.
The Anarchist ideal isn’t to create a perfect society but establish individual freedom of conscience, mutual aid and social solidarity as our personal moral standard, and nurture those tendencies in our fellows. I’m personally quite happy to live my life without dependence on the state. The bastards can go screw themselves.
“The cops don’t need you, and man, they expect the same.” More Zimmy.
My reading of the movie ‘Sin City’ is as a contrast of these two libertarian views. It also puts a new twist on the term ‘graphic violence’.
So, contra, I mean chopper; have you linked to anything I’ve posted?
David:
You are quite right to hold to forgiveness. It’s just that some folks need be on their bleeding knees and overflowing with remorse before forgiveness can be justly offered.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 20, 2005 at 2:15 PM So far, no I haven’t linked to anything you posted, for some reason I’m not able to click on your links with the browser I have. I’ll have to write down your links & put them in the address bar.
Ayn Rand was not an anarchist, she believed in a strictly limited role for the state, sort of a nightwatchman role. I agree that private property cannot be protected without some sort of state, also, I don’t see how a socialist society (in the leftwing version of anarchism) can exist without coercive power. I agree that lessening the coercive power of the state is a good thing (I’d like to see the income tax eliminated, it gives the government way too much power to snoop around in your financial affairs) but I don’t see how it can be eliminated entirely. There will always be antisocial personalities who will want to rob or attack others, this is not going to change.
Posted by chopper on Oct 21, 2005 at 1:49 AM Chopper,
It is nice to find someone I can teach computer stuff to.
It will be the blind leading the more blind.
The links are not active hyperlinks. You have to put them in the address bar of your browser. But you don’t have to write them down.
This method lets you copy and paste any text.
Using your mouse, left click at the beginning of the link/text. Hold (keep pressing) the left click there.
Holding the left click and move the cursor/pointer over the link and let the left click go (stop pressing) when the link is highlighted.
Now right click on the highlighted text. A little box pops up. Left click on copy.
Left click on your browser address bar. Then right click. Little box. Left click on paste.
Copy. Paste. Easy.
——
Now, some computer smart people who know HTML can put an active hyperlink into their comments but most just copy and paste plain old text.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 21, 2005 at 2:50 AM Thanks. I know about pasting, but I didn’t think it would work for this.
Posted by chopper on Oct 21, 2005 at 3:24 AM Ah Chopper…..................Rabbit sees a small problem and wonders is it common to others perchance?
You cannot click on urls on this site. ITT do not provide HTML options and clickable links, though as Jay just showed if one has the skills this is possible too.
You will of course have to copy the urls as posted and paste them into the address bar, Rabbit opens lots of windows as a rule, so uses a spare, and press, ‘GO’.
Natalie has been so good as to bring slow old Rabbit up to date on TINY urls, which allow us to post much shorter urls. This is critical because long urls get broken on this site too, apparently if longer than the comment box, it adds a space, which renders the link useless as a rule.
It is always worth checking peoples sources. It could be that they have shot themselves in the foot, or it may be that one learns something, either way it becomes patently obvious when someone is arguing without checking the sources given and this puts one at a bigger and bigger disadvantage as a debate progresses.
Sorry to be a preachy Rabbit, this is only meant to be a helpful post, hoping it is. Actually Rabbit feels we should get organised and introduce HTML into our postings, prove we can raise ourselves higher on the evolutionary ladder by intent.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 21, 2005 at 3:32 AM HELLO…...................................................^^............ ..............................................
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 21, 2005 at 3:33 AM Has we seen the news about Gates?
Bill Gates has just dumped his US reserves…...................................and changed to EUROs.
Where is Scorpy? ..............OUCH….......
Venezuala dropped their 5 Billion or whatever they had and went Euro the other day, but that is a drop in the bucket to Gates’ 46 Billion!
“The dollar fell 21 percent against a basket of six major currencies from the start of 2002 to the end of last year. The trade deficit swelled to a record $609.3 billion last year and total U.S. government debt rose 8.7 percent to $7.62 trillion in the past 12 months.
“It is a bit scary, Gates said. “We’re in uncharted territory when the world’s reserve currency has so much outstanding debt.”
http://tinyurl.com/7kyu7
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 21, 2005 at 3:39 AM Rabbit-
I was going to to your “christian facists” post point by point, but it is so absurd I’m not going to bother.
Posted by chopper on Oct 21, 2005 at 3:48 AM Nedn’t bother, it wasn’t Rabbit’s words, merely a snip out of an article that many on this site would find of interest.
If you have an issue with any FACT it claims as part of it’s contention, then please be so good as to identify the FACTS you wish to question, we shall see if they hold water.
Rabbit is not of the opinion that the article in quoted or full text, is the whole story and agrees instead with WHIT I think who posted after or was it ANARCHO-SOZI? Sorry can check but its not important. The Christian Fascists are known to Rabbit, as has been detailed on another thread. He can indeed recognise them as the primary cheerleaders and actors of the WOT. They are as such but a facet, but they are a part.
What FACTS have we misunderstood which has brought us to such diametrically opposed views?
List them one by one and Rabbit shall answer them one by one, if he can. Every point you get right, scores a wack on the Rabbit. Every point the Rabbit gets right scores a wack on the Chopper ........................Alright?
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 21, 2005 at 4:07 AM Rabbit, active hyper links in HTML do deem to be allowed on ITT.
Check out Jay’s post at :
Posted by Jay Cline on October 20, 2005 at 11:03 AM
You can click the word “blog” as an active link.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 21, 2005 at 4:50 AM Partisan War Syndrome thread
Posted by Jay Cline on October 20, 2005 at 11:03 AM
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 21, 2005 at 4:52 AM .. and now I see from your previous post on the last page you saw it too. Is it not HTML.? Not allowed only for urls? Jay? What mad skills are you using there?
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 21, 2005 at 4:55 AM HOP HOP Rabbit is back…......Does this help?
... Paragaph tag Video
... HyperLink tag Video
<div> ... </div> Div tag Video
<span> ... </span> Span tag Video
<h1> ... <h1> Header tag (h1 - h6) Video
comments: header tags are used to create headers (think: ‘headlines’ or ‘titles’) and can range in level of importance from 1 to 6; as in <h1> ... </h1> to <h6> ... </h6>. Where h1 is the most important and h6 is the least.
... Image tag Video
LIST TAGS
<ol><li> ... </li></ol> Numbered List tag Video
<ul><li> ... </li></ul> Bullet List tag Video
comments: both list types are made up of one sub-tag, called the ‘list item’: <li> ... </li>. List item tag pairs appear once for every item in the list.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 21, 2005 at 5:00 AM BOLD
ITALIC
<hl>RABBIT</hl>
GO HERE and read a bit…...........hee hee clever Rabbit,......................................................................... .........^^..............................................
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 21, 2005 at 5:13 AM We’ll add documentation for the basic html tags to the system soon. There was a problem with comment spammers using the system to boost their search engine rankings. It’s straightened out now, but I haven’t added the automatic html parsing back until I can test it a bit more. I see rabbit has figured out some of the allowed tags. Thanks for your patience.
Posted by seamus on Oct 21, 2005 at 5:15 AM Rabbit doesn’t mind, it is like walking to the post office when it’s only a few hundred meters.
Why put in an moving sidewalk?
Anything whcih keeps spammers down is cool.
Bah Hate spam….......
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 21, 2005 at 5:17 AM Hello Seamus, it is like the hand of GOD just came down and touched the earth at Rabbit’s feet…........................^^...........................
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 21, 2005 at 5:18 AM My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…. And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people…. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech on 12 April 1922
Posted by whit on Oct 21, 2005 at 5:58 AM The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life…. The National Government regard the two Christian Confessions as the weightiest factors for the maintenance of our nationality. They will respect the agreements concluded between them and the federal States. Their rights are not to be infringed…. It will be the Government’s care to maintain honest co-operation between Church and State; the struggle against materialistic views and for a real national community is just as much in the interest of the German nation as in that of the welfare of our Christian faith. The Government of the Reich, who regard Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation, attach the greatest value to friendly relations with the Holy See and are endeavouring to develop them.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech to the Reichstag on 23 March 1933
Posted by whit on Oct 21, 2005 at 6:00 AM Imbued with the desire to secure for the German people the great religious, moral, and cultural values rooted in the two Christian Confessions, we have abolished the political organizations but strengthened the religious institutions.
-Adolf Hitler, speaking in the Reichstag on 30 Jan. 1934
Posted by whit on Oct 21, 2005 at 6:03 AM Hitler wrote: “I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord..”
When Hitler said this and the quote Whit provided above he was either deluding himself or lying to others. Maybe both somehow.If Hitler was truly doing the “work of the Lord” he would be doing this commandment of the Lord :
<b>“ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. “<b> John 13:34-35
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 21, 2005 at 6:07 AM Seamus, please if you see this…........................................... DO NOT ALLOW SMILIES….........................................
NO SMILIES…..................................NONE…..................ple ease…................................................^^................... ........................
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 21, 2005 at 8:00 AM Monk, you may not have any smilies….... you would be the worst abuser of smilies, Rabbit knows it…...... you…........the Monkey…......... you would be fiddling with those damned smilies and all we’d ever get out of you would be sermons peppered with smilies.
Nat would like them, which is too bad.
Rabbit will not tolerate smilies, they are daft.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 21, 2005 at 8:04 AM “When Hitler said this and the quote Whit provided above he was either deluding himself or lying to others. Maybe both somehow.
If Hitler was truly doing the “work of the Lord” he would be doing this commandment of the Lord :
<b>“ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. “<b> John 13:34-35”
David,
I remember you gave me the same response when I posted similar quotes from Hitler. And something about the answer made sense but seemed to leave something out.
It’s a little clearer to me now. It is not religion per se that is an issue. Rather it is the way in which people take ownership over religion that enables fascist movements. This phenomenon is not isolated to religion either. It is the result of any sort of fundamentalism—right or left leaning.
There is also something ahistorical in your quote given that religion has been the source or justification for so many wars and so much persecution over the course of history.
And there is, at least in the Old Testament, and the non-gospel parts of the New Testament a good deal of judgmentalism along with a little fire and brimstone.
Posted by Neruda on Oct 21, 2005 at 1:45 PM It is the difference between having some understanding that at our highest levels of consciousness we are perhaps made in the image of God and humbly trying to surrender to and harmonize with that flow of the authentic expansive, principles universe, And, in a contracted desire for control over the universe, making “God” in our own image and using him as an agent and a vehicle for our own will.
The one has to do with spirituality, the nuturing and development of the natural spirit of the human collective: the other has to do with religion, the imposition of (often unexamined) beliefs, dogma, and authority for purposes devised by (often mean and self-serving) politically motivated men.
(I’m clearly just making this up as I go and it is not very well refined, but hopefully I get my point across in some crude, deformed way.)
Authur Clarke once said that “One of the greatest tradegies in human history was the hijacking of morality by religion.”
Jesus Christ, David, is one of my biggest heroes. ‘But what does Christian “religion” have to do with him, who said, “He would would save his life, will lose it.”
Do you love me? Feed my sheep. Do you love me? Feed my sheep. Do you love me? Feed my sheep.
NOT: Do you love me? Line you pockets $$$. Do you love me? Steal their oil. Do you love me? Take over the world.
Posted by whit on Oct 21, 2005 at 3:52 PM ConejoEspiritu, I second you on the smiley-faces, and would add blinking, freaking personal icons. I can’t help but think those things are inducing pseudo-epileptic brain freeze in large swaths of the populace.
Great stuff about the mark-ups.
chopper:
“Ayn Rand was not an anarchist.”
Thank God for small favors. She is the Queen Bee of the Anarcho-Capitalists, however. Most prominent in their pantheon, along with Von Mises & Hayek & Eric Hoffer & Bob Heinlein. I love Bob Heinlein, tambien. If you’d like to end income taxes, you should read his first book which is also his last published. It’s titled “For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs”. Interesting Ideas. Practical? Maybe. Maybe not. There are a few limited real world examples of ‘social equity’. Alaska for one, probably the most naturally anarchist/libertarian state in the nation.
“I don’t see how a socialist society (in the left-wing version of anarchism) can exist without coercive power. I agree that lessening the coercive power of the state is a good thing… but I don’t see how it can be eliminated entirely.”
I’m going to try and write this as simply and clearly as I can. Anarchism, in theory or practice, is not concerned with pie in the sky utopian speculation. It is not about trying to impose a philosophical ideology upon the rest of the world. It is all about working with the actually existing conditions of the world in order to cultivate, develop, husband, grow, nourish and realize actually existing tendencies in the human mind and spirit. Indwelling potentialities of our ordinary human desires to seek peace, freedom, and justice. Right here and right now. Anarchism is concerned with discerning the arc of history and focusing on the arrow of social evolution. It rests upon individuals creating for themselves a vision of collective inclusiveness and working with others to clarify and concretize that vision.
It is not surprising that you find it difficult to imagine how an anarcho-socialist society would function. If it were easy to imagine it would be an universal fait accompli. I asked my housemates (in jest) if I should invite you to visit our collective so you might see for yourself. If your ears are burning while you read this, then you understand the response I got. Sorry to say, not all mis compadres share my tolerance for ‘brain dead *****s’. That was the consensus and I duly report it here.
“There will always be antisocial personalities who will want to rob or attack others, this is not going to change”
I doubt you realize how cynical and nihilistic this statement is. I suspect it is merely a truism you have accepted without ever thinking deeply on the matter. Would you be willing to concede that the number of antisocial types produced by a given society can possibly be reduced or even minimized? Do you not think such a possibility is worthy of scientific investigation?
I would like you to consider these questions in the light of what one of my teachers told me, “Even animals will respond to kindness”. A teaching, I must confess, I often find easier to practice with animals than people.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 21, 2005 at 3:53 PM ” given that religion has been the source or justification for so many wars and so much persecution over the course of history.”
False justification.
False if the true message is understood. The judgementalism, in the Bible, you mention is not necessarily endorsed and is even denounced.
” Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
” Matthew 5:43-48
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 21, 2005 at 3:55 PM ‘But what does Christian “religion” have to do with him, who said, “He who would save his life, will lose it.”
Whit, I know what you are saying. It pains me when I see evil men hijacking good ideals for evil purposes. Go to the second page of this thread and read the back and forth when Neruda and I first discussed this hypocricy.
I am trying to reclaim those ideals, maybe hopeless, but to lose is gain.
Letting my little light shine.
I Am who I Am.
I Will Be who I Will Be.
I Will Be who I Will To Be.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 21, 2005 at 4:21 PM Luminous Beauty,
You are exciting. What a fine, discriminating intellect you have. That and your soulfulness inspire my admiration.
Apparently, your obvious attributes are all well-earned and related to your real life as you live it.
This is certainly not a come-on, and I don’t want to presumed to get personal. Yet, based upon what has been shared in this forum and the one other that I have visited, my curiosity and interest in you as a person, as a philosopher, as an example of a life-being-lived have been piqued. I too lived collectively back in my Berkeley days. ‘and it was one of the most valuable and growth-producing experience/period of my somewhat long life. My circumstances are other than that now, but I have never forgotten what I learned.
I hope it is not an appropriate or awkward thing that I would simply express these (off-topic) thoughts. Anyway, good for you, my friend.
I should say that I am, of course, interested in ALL of the personalities who display themselves here and am impressed with you all. LB just warms my heart in some reminiscient way… a familiar energy.
Posted by whit on Oct 21, 2005 at 5:48 PM whit, you’re making me blush. I’m just an old hippie. David, I must say you have my utmost respect and admiration for the stand you have taken and the hard row you have chosen to cultivate. May your endeavors be limitlessly fruitful. neruda, keep on keeping on, compadre. Your namesake is one of my all-time heroes. GeistKanninchen, I think you’re rabbit ears .....^^...... are way cuter than any smileyface. AnarchoSozi, please stick around. You’re perspective is much appreciated. Finally, thank you Natalie, chopper, Jay Cline and all the trolls and shills who post here. It is only with the salt of you guys contrarian skepticism that the stew of these conversations achieves its rich hearty flavor.
It’s my suspicion that these ontological problems of religion have more to do with one’s view of the nature of the self than the nature of god; singular, plural, male, female, or ineffable.
There is a problem with our western culture that the issues around the self are generally considered in terms of either/or, exclusive of any middle ground.
It is generally assumed one either believes in Hume’s atomistic unique and separate individual, the unchanging and eternal soul imbued with free will on the one hand, or on the other, that the self is a illusory chimera, a mere social construct, a collection of unconscious electrical impulses, or the imperfect mundane and material reflection of some vaguely defined trancendental ‘Higher Being’. It is most difficult to show those engaged in promoting either of these extreme views that neither has any meaning except in the context of the other. Indeed it the most supremely difficult task to point the human mind toward the possibilities of what might constitute an inclusive middle ground. The ordinary surface of the mind is as tractable as a herd of cats. It takes an appetite for introspection and steady regular and persistent effort to anchor and focus our attention below the temporal flow of sensations, perceptions, affects, attractions and repulsions, feelings, impulses, reactions, and thoughts that is our everyday consciousness, and even more difficult to then begin the process of learning plainly and clearly to observe the mind for what it truly is. More difficult for some than others, obviously. It is plain to me that you have all to some degree extended yourselves in your own ways in such efforts. For that I salute you.
An unstated negative consequence of this irreconcilable and basically static dualistic conflict of opposing views, beside the danger of fundamentalistic cleaving to one or the other, is how it enables intellectually and/or morally lazy persons who scorn and dismiss deep introspection as mere navel gazing, like some trolls we all know and love here, to adopt a stance that they are independent free thinking individuals because they are not joiners, while actually being totally unreflective ditto-heads, parroting the lines of established custom in the particular ghetto of their own culture of the like-minded. These are the folks most susceptible to the fascist tendency. The ‘true believers’ in Hoffer’s sense.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 21, 2005 at 6:51 PM I love you all. Rabbit, Neruda, Whit, Eadora, Kuya, Whattheheck, Jay even Scorpy and Natalie too. I love you all.
Whit, it is always the right time and place for love.
Luminous Beauty who is so Gloriously Bright, Ich liebe dich am allermeisten. Thank you for the wish of fruitfulness. It is a hard row to cultivate. Lots of tares to sort through for the wheat but worth the effort.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 21, 2005 at 7:48 PM Rabbit hops around, feeling the love and all, but would prefer to avoid group hugs as such. Rabbit is an Aries as well as a Rabbit, doesn’t like being smothered. Yet it is good to see all the shiny ones meeting each other, it is for this Rabbit lives. Luminous Beauty has always been called exactly this, by Rabbit, who has rather a habit (maybe a knack) of re-naming things, it has been observed. Rabbit often finds things with the wrong names, and sets about alerting folks to the mis-naming in his small way.
It might be added that Rabbit only resorts to initials when he is in doubt about what direction the name should tend, eg; WTH. Enough said, Rabbit hates overt displays of emotion. Blah….
Best way to follow Rabbit writings is to read like a Rabbit moves. Two or three words at a time…pull the mind up… two or three more words.. pull the mind up and so on.
Rabbit knows some…........... will get the point. ............ Others can ...........just put this down…..........to Rabbit’s oddness.
The Monkey as a Monk is the best person to hoe the row of the Christian for Rabbit’s peace of mind. The Rabbit thinks that most of the apparent failings of current expressions of Christianity in the white house are due to the Mistaken belief that OLD TESTAMENT writings are GOD’s WORD kind of scripture. This is the part with all the horrible blood and gore and murder, rape and WAR…the teachings of the Jesus guy are simple and easy to understand. They were not new, nor was any part of the Bible narrative unique in history or even original.
This applies to the virgin birth, star over the manger, the occupation even of carpenter. many of the Jesus miracles wre copied from other earlier saviors See Zoroastroism for another much older story which parralels the Jesus birth. The message of love and tolerance, of charity and fairness was NEW only to the Jewish, ratbags to whom it was being addressed.
The Christians were meant to be those who followed this new doctrine of the Jesus guy, and if that was all it was, they would be a lot closer to their ideals than they are. The thing failed to evolve the way it should because the Old Testament has still been treated as somehow a part of the message. It is not. The Old Testament should not be considered of any more consequence than as a historical narrative, albeit a largely idealised and fable-ised one.
Without the rest of the often horrid and unfathomable narrative, the teachings of the Jesus guy are simple, and perfect. By following these teachings alone one would be on an excellent path of life. Living in harmony and evolving harmoniously along side of all life. The rest of it, including and even especially Revelations should be viewed as a mixture of fable, one sided historical narrative and various ravings of prophesy. This is without even delving into the actual history of the book, it’s alterations exclusions translations etc.
The mistake christianity is making, may be to include Judaism in their beliefs, within their ranks I mean. They really are the antithesis to Jesus teachings, the Jews are meant to drop their beliefs and become christians by Rabbit’s reading of the “Judeao Christian” history.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 22, 2005 at 4:55 AM Eidolon Lagomorph -
We basically have stopped communicating, based on your repeated citing of websites such as Rense. Rense is not only slanted, it is grossly dishonest. I quit reading Rense long ago because I had observed that only gullible fools read Rense, unless it is for the entertainment value. But Rense gets old fast, no matter how entertaining it can be.
Case in point:
You cited:
>>http://tinyurl.com/7kyu7<<
Bill Gate’s comments were quoted accurately therein. But Rense says, writing on October 20, that, “Bill Gates openly stated yesterday (October 19) he is pulling out of the dollar and is instead investing in euros.”
Well, no. The quote by Mr. Gates was originally from Bloomberg, a legitimate source of economic and financial news, and was dated January 2005. From January 2005 to October 2005, the dollar has appreciated 4% against the Euro and 12% against the currencies of the USA’s major trading partners; the yen recently hit a 25 month low against the dollar.
If Mr. Gates bought $1 billion in Euros in January, he is now down $40 million. If Mr. Gates had put his entire $46.6 billion in Euros in January, he would now be down $1,864 million, or nearly two billion dollars. The secret of financial success is to buy low, sell high, and not the other way around. Everyone seems to have waited until the dollar reached a low point, and then rushed to buy dollars. Feel free to join them if you think it is such a good deal.
Another Rense article you quoted recently was that the USA was running out of food, and there was only fifteen pounds of food available for each person in the USA. This is too ridiculous for comment, so I didn’t bother at the time. But if you would come down off your ideological high-horse and learn to think, you wouldn’t read such absurd sites and you wouldn’t repeat such gross errors. You have already said that you have no background in economics, and you prove it every day. You seem not to have any knowledge on any useful subject.
But I think you are determined to pursue your silly little ideology no matter what it costs. The cost, of course, is that Liberals do worse and worse in elections: Oz, GB, USA, Afghanistan, Iraq, you name it and the Liberals and terrorists are losing elections. So I guess I really do appreciate you efforts. You have a sort of stupid genius for saying silly things
.
Posted by scorp on Oct 22, 2005 at 5:30 AM I just wanted to return the love to you all and enjoy these discussions a great deal because of the intelligence you bring to the table.
Thanks to all
Posted by Neruda on Oct 22, 2005 at 6:08 AM luminous beauty- Re: The statement I made about the enduring existence of antisocial personalities, I don’t consider it nihilistic or cynical at all. In fact I think all of us have the capacity for evil, in religious terms it would be called original sin. Human nature hasn’t really changed over the millenia, which is why I think utopian schemes to redo society are doomed to fail, sometimes disasterously such as the French and Bolshevik revolutions.
Posted by chopper on Oct 22, 2005 at 6:10 AM “But I think you are determined to pursue your silly little ideology no matter what it costs. The cost, of course, is that Liberals do worse and worse in elections: Oz, GB, USA, Afghanistan, Iraq, you name it and the Liberals and terrorists are losing elections. So I guess I really do appreciate you efforts. You have a sort of stupid genius for saying silly things”
I must begin by saying that I don’t find unwavering adherence to an ideological stance to be particularly constructive. A perfect example of this is the above quote.
Let’s begin with the fact that many of the newly elected officials in Afghanistan are local warlords with private militias (quite the heroes of democracy). However wonderful the fact of election is how much more progress would have been made had we stayed to fully support the process of change rather than make it tangential to the imperial war in Iraq. Perhaps Scorp prefers Warlords to liberals and does not see this as a problem.
Iraq continues to be a “catastrophic success.” And even some American generals recognize that our presence in Iraq boosts terrorist recruitment efforts. The conservative strategy was to run terrorists out of Afghanistan and then provide them with a much more strategic location from which to recruit by completely destabalizing Iraq with no plan or conception for how to rebuild. Maybe Scorp feels that liberals could have somehow done a worse job.
As for the election here. Let’s remember that Gore won the popular vote in 2000 and in all probability won Florida. More importantly Repubs have leveraged fear and prejudice into fantastic election strategies. But there is no genius to appealing to the lowest common denominator. And yet scandal after scandal after scandal after lie after lie after lie does not seem to give some people pause to think. I will not speak on Oz and GB as they are not areas where I have any real knowledge.
I also think a better gauge of idealogies is their impact. While liberalism certainly has limitations and failings (topic for future discussion) liberal policies led to the dramatic rise of the middle class in this country after WWII. While conservative policies have managed only to increase the number of people living at or below the poverty level, increased the income gap, and squeezed the middle class.
I will stop here now.
Posted by Neruda on Oct 22, 2005 at 6:31 AM Even the SCORP?
Assuming you were asking me that question I can only say a qualified yes.
Some antagonism is good fuel for the fire of discussion. Or it’s late and I am a bit tired.
Posted by Neruda on Oct 22, 2005 at 6:36 AM SCORPY as always setting new benchmarks in ignorance. For the twentieth time you dimwitted contortionist, Rense is a news reference site. The article you are referring to is reprinted and linked to the original source, so what’s the point of claiming that Rense is anything but accurately reporting? You are right we are not
http://www.sebimeyer.com/?p=1229
which was from
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aO.Rl7JwFWy8&re efer=news_index
So how does that paint Rense as misleading anybody?
As you say…..... Bloomberg news…....., so that just shows my source of RENSE does check out as always, idiot.
So you are not equating the Venezualan pulling out of dollars and the Oil for euros and the coming Iranian oil bourse and the US deficit is anything but signs of a good strong US economy? this would be putting words in your mouth but .........................
Scorpy nobody converts 46.6 Billion dollars to Euros overnight, even a Rabbit knows this takes time…...
One gets out of something when one see’s it’s future as being insecure, and Gates has demonstrably gotten out of Dollars and the fact that he foresaw the fall as far back as January only further shows him to be a pretty sharp business man. Of course seeing a trend in time and geting out means one may lose a little by not waiting longer, but such things as this are not possible to predict with enough certainty to make it worth the risk if you see impending collapse.
The only reason Rabbit used the example was to show that he was out of dollars and into Euros because he foresees the collapse of the dollar. Read his words again, and explain how you can keep using sixty year old history to illustrate your imagined points which NOBODY has ever taken for more than twaddle because you have NEVER even shown a grain of reason in your time polluting these threads. You are the only participant of discussions on this site, who is of no use whatsoever to himself or anybody else. Even the Monk loathes you, probably.
Do the damned test you toad and tell us your results.
The dollar fell 21 percent against a basket of six major currencies from the start of 2002 to the end of last year. The trade deficit swelled to a record $609.3 billion last year and total U.S. government debt rose 8.7 percent to $7.62 trillion in the past 12 months.
“It is a bit scary,” Gates said. “We’re in uncharted territory when the world’s reserve currency has so much outstanding debt.”
Sixty year old history and economic thinking makes Scorpy scof at Bill Gates, he will now tell us Gates is a lousy businessman.
Is Bill Gates a lousy businessman Scorpy?
Is it a lousy idea for people to get out of dollars, does Scorpy contend they are a good investment? how about US government bonds Scorp? Good stuff too are they?
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 22, 2005 at 6:36 AM Even the SCORP?
Yes, even the Scorp. Scorp needs love too.. thus saith the Monk.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 22, 2005 at 7:42 AM The Scorp needs the stick. He get’s enough love when looking in the mirror.
Yes Neruda, you probably are just tired….hee hee…
It is after all after midnight for you is it not?
Here it is late afternoon.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 22, 2005 at 7:46 AM SCORPY
Don’t touch your linked name unless you want to see more stupid economists bleating doom and gloom.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 22, 2005 at 8:25 AM ” The Scorp needs the stick. “
Spare the rod, spoil the child.
But remember the story of the prodigal son.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 22, 2005 at 8:28 AM Rabbit just isn’t that into using Christian Ideolgy examples, they are generally too complex and usurped in usage by the hijackers. The same source is such a minefield of controversy and useless historical narrative. It is misinterpreted as having more consequence than it’s actual mere sideshow within the carnival of history would justify.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 22, 2005 at 8:51 AM chopper, chopper, chopper, what will we do with you?
I think all of us have the capacity for evil, in religious terms it would be called original sin.
Don’t we also have the capacity to do good? Have you achieved the peak and perfection of knowledge and wisdom? Are you no wiser or knowledgeable than when you were an infant? Is there not the slightest chance that you are capable of becoming little more generous and kind? Are you enslaved to your opinions or are you free to change your mind? Yes, human nature has always been like this, mutable. Our collective and personal knowledge and understanding of human nature is likewise subject to change and capable of growth. Would you like to prove me wrong just for spite? That would be your loss.
I think utopian schemes to redo society are doomed to fail
Well, duh.
Anarchism, in theory or practice, is not concerned with pie in the sky utopian speculation. It is not about trying to impose a philosophical ideology upon the rest of the world. It is all about working with the actually existing conditions of the world in order to cultivate, develop, husband, grow, nourish and realize actually existing tendencies in the human mind and spirit.I’ll say it again:
Anarchism, in theory or practice, is not concerned with pie in the sky utopian speculation. It is not about trying to impose a philosophical ideology upon the rest of the world. It is all about working with the actually existing conditions of the world in order to cultivate, develop, husband, grow, nourish and realize actually existing tendencies in the human mind and spirit.
Is it necessary to repeat myself a third time?
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 22, 2005 at 2:06 PM Here is a simple question for you chop. Which personal philosophy do you find more admirable?
I want to leave the world a better place than I found it.
He who dies with the most toys, wins.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 22, 2005 at 2:30 PM Interesting discussion you two are having Chopper and LB.
I hate to say this but I find myself quite the centrist on this topic.
While I do believe in the possibility of excellence in human life and conduct, I don’t quite believe in the perfectibility of any aspect of human life. However I take this stand because I believe that personally and socially we are always developing and changing.
So we have not only to develop a society that is both just and prosperous but we must also have the means and disposition to protect it. And justice and equality of opportunity may in fact make the job of protecting society much easier.
However I think it would be a mistake to underestimate the power of irrationality in human societies. Despite my hopes and desires for it to be otherwise, antisocial behavior is a reality we must be alert to and one which often requires policing.
Posted by Neruda on Oct 22, 2005 at 3:38 PM LB -
Your physical and ideological vanity and narcissism are amusing/bemusing/downright repulsive:
nar·cis·sism (när’sĭ-sĭz’əm) also nar·cism (-sĭz’əm), n.
1) Excessive love or admiration of oneself. See synonyms at conceit.
2) A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.
3) Erotic pleasure derived from contemplation or admiration of one’s own body or self, especially as a fixation on or a regression to an infantile stage of development.
>> I want to leave the world a better place than I found it. <<
Do you have a single example in all history of anarchists leaving the world a better place? No, you do not.
Do you have a single example in all history of fascists leaving the world a better place? No, you do not.
Do you have a single example in all history of communists/socialists/Liberals leaving the world a better place? No, you do not.
The only political-economic system that consistently produces freedom and prosperity for anyone who consistently applies it is free-market capitalism. But you criticize the most successful practitioners and proponents for not achieving instantaneous results, or for not producing equal results for all people. And you work to defeat real good in favor of utopian perfection.
The best thing you can say for your form of anarchism is that it MIGHT not be co-opted by fascists or communists in the short term.
So you pursue an unworkable option for your own conceit and lack of self-esteem, and the world suffers for your efforts. Knock yourself out, girl/boy/whatever.
Posted by scorp on Oct 22, 2005 at 4:09 PM Scorp,
Your level of venom and demegoguery only serve to undercut and valid points you make.
“The only political-economic system that consistently produces freedom and prosperity for anyone who consistently applies it is free-market capitalism.”
I agree with you that the free market system has lifted the overall standard of living across the board in a way that no other economic system every has. However it is important to recognize that while there has been an across the board rise, it has in no way been as beneficial for all. And without some controls it enables exploitation and abuse.
So I agree it’s the best system we have ever had. And I think you can recognize it needs some work. At least I hope you can agree.
“Do you have a single example in all history of communists/socialists/Liberals leaving the world a better place? No, you do not.”
First of all if capitalism and religion are not equivalent to fascism then liberal is not equivalent to socialism or communism. And socialism is not equivalent to communism.
Second of all: civil rights, voting rights, the GI bill, Head Start, the Peace Corps, and there are more did in fact improve many people’s lives. In fact the GI Bill alone enabled a great many people to join the middle class which helped raise the U.S. to its leading position in the world. These were all liberal policies.
I suggest that before you continue to rant in these non-sensical and off-the-cuff ways you think about what you are trying to say. Otherwise any valid point you make will be buried in the nonsense.
Posted by Neruda on Oct 22, 2005 at 4:35 PM Rabbit,
The LINK I provided for the story of the prodigal son is actually a comparison piece of the Buddhist parallel with the Christain story.
Take from it what you will. Ears to hear and eyes to see.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 22, 2005 at 5:24 PM Scorp:
Given this choice would you rather be poor and happy, or rich and miserable? If you can answer that question honestly to yourself, then I have done some little thing to make the world a better place.
I am dedicated to working for the happiness of my self and others. It doesn’t bother me if you don’t appreciate it, nor does it please me to win praise from others. (Stop it, guys. People who know me might see this, and I’ll never hear the end of it.) I find meaning in what i do I and that is my satisfaction. You are perfectly free to be an * if you wish. But at some real moment in time, you will die and be remembered but briefly by those who knew you as an *. For no other reason than you are no longer around, you will have left the world a better place.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 22, 2005 at 5:25 PM If <a >this</a> works then I will have learned something useful. It’s all good.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 22, 2005 at 5:42 PM Scorp,
The good Nazis thought Hitler and his reich were the greatest thing to hit the planet… the answer… the final solution. They perspective was a self-induced illusion of distorted, needy minds. They glorified themselves and denied and minimized the evils they did to others.
Scorp, you are like a brain-washed, deluded Nazi. Demanding that the world be the way you want to see it. It isn’t, and it wasn’t true that the Jews ate their babies.
You take all that hateful shit inside you and project the darkness onto others. You know little about American foreign policy from any other perspective than that of the self-serving propaganda of the military-industrial, corporate-sponsored U.S. government.
Posted by whit on Oct 22, 2005 at 6:38 PM luminous- Yes, we have the capacity to improve ourselves, not others, not if they don’t want to be improved, and none of us are going to reach perfection. I agree we should all make the attempt, a few will make heroic efforts (exceptional people, such as saints and those who make extraordinary achievments), some will make more modest efforts, and many will just try to get by. And there will always be those who are actively evil, and even the rest of us will continue to have our failings. I’m working on myself but I still backslide. If I didn’t think we could make things better I wouldn’t have joined the organizations I belong to, such as the NRA (which I suspect you would regard with horror), the Knights of Columbus (about which I suspect you would be ambivalent) and the St. Vincent de Paul Society (which you might even like).
As to your question, definitely it is better to try to leave the world a better place. I think those who merely try to accumulate the most toys will one day discover their lives have been misspent. That doesn’t mean I think some form of socialism is the way to go, a limited government in my view necessarily implies a free market economy. In fact I believe socialism inevitably leads to some form of tyranny.
What all this means is that we can strive to improve things, and we should, but it is going to be mostly around the margins. And even this is going to lead to conflict, since we disagree on what a good or just society should be.
Posted by chopper on Oct 22, 2005 at 9:52 PM luminous- Part of my thinking was well stated by George Orwell (not generally considered a rightwing fanatic) who once said “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” He also said. “On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time.” I don’t think either of these conditions will ever change.
I imagine after this post you’ll consider me more hopeless than ever!
Posted by chopper on Oct 22, 2005 at 10:14 PM Totally off topic .... sorry ....
Luminous Beauty,
Good job on learning a little HTML. It is useful.
I have a question for you. Scorp hinted at it, a little crudely.
Are you a boy or a girl?
I am sure that someone with your understanding will know why I ask this : to better understand you and myself too.
When I come across people with possibly genderless “user names” I always find myself thinking of these ambiguous ones as; Girl or Boy. My judgement based on their words. Further from their words; I define them as Old or Young ... and other convienent labels.
Since I can’t easily imagine a man calling himself Luminous Beauty I have judged that you are a woman. It explains my reactions to you and that of the other men too. But I won’t be dismayed if I am wrong. Since my love for you and everyone else is “brother sister love”, mostly… heehee.
Know Rabbit and WTH is a man as they have said so. I think Neruda is a man too, based on his namesakes . Whit is a man. Kuya is a man but I wondered at first. Pease Kuya no offence intended, in a way it is a compliment, same for Neruda and Whit if I am wrong. It is possible there are clues one way or the other that I have missed.
Please forgive my curiosity. I would like to know. Some people drop hints to let others know “who” they are. Some are obvious and others not so much so.
So, please, Curious Dave wants to know?
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 22, 2005 at 10:36 PM Back on topic ... or supporting the debate about the topic ......
More than ever, I am enjoying these discussions. I see everyone making a contribution. Salt for the stew. Or pepper. Everyone stirring.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 22, 2005 at 11:52 PM ” It is only with the salt of your guys contrarian skepticism that the stew of these conversations achieves its rich hearty flavor. ” - Luminous Beauty
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 23, 2005 at 12:01 AM Contrarians ... maybe a new political party for cynics?
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 23, 2005 at 12:02 AM ... what a nice paradox ...
The other side of the spectrum could call us the same.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 23, 2005 at 12:03 AM chopper;
au contraire, mon ami. You have just made me a little more hopeful. A certain amount of passionate disagreement is a good thing. It’s only when the guns and clubs and knives come out that things get out of hand. I’m sure that steady working at the margins will eventually lead to the center of the page. Give us another 500 years or so and then we can get together and compare notes. Until then, one can only do what one can do.
I do admire some aspects of the NRA such as teaching gun safety. I just think Wayne LaPierre is a tool. I don’t hunt myself, but I have a cousin who has been a president of Ducks Unlimited. Another organization that does good things besides kill defenseless animals. I’ve actually been feted by the Knights of Columbus and during my rambling youth was delighted on occasion to dine at Vinnies. O yeah. And Eric Blair was a Trotskyite. I hope quoting him favorably isn’t causing you too great an internal conflict.
David:
I almost hate to give up a good mystery, but since you’re asking so nicely… I’ll just say that one of the things I am working on in myself is to connect to my feminine side. I saw the movie North Country yesterday and I cried nearly all the way through it. It’s difficult to say how I got the handle of luminous beauty. It just kind of evolved from many disparate elements. Something inspired by this
image , this song , this
poem and a late night conversation about great actresses of cinema.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 12:17 AM “North Country” is a great movie by the way, for man or woman. Lotsa Bob Dylan on the soundtrack.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 12:35 AM Luminous Beauty,
You and I are brothers then. No dismay here. Even better. Less complicated, mostly.
Waiting for more clever clues to fill in the rest of the mystery.
Oh, Sweet mystery of life.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 23, 2005 at 12:50 AM chopper:
As for changing people who don’t want to change. Change itself will take care of that. Don’t underestimate the power of simple human kindness. Maybe pick up Kurasawa’s Yojimbo and watch it with that theme in mind.
If you smile at me, I will understand. Because that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language
David Crosby
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 12:52 AM Luminous Beauty,
I went to see “North Country” last nite myself and agree with you that it is a powerful movie one that might help us all to reframe some issues that we might tend to skirt around a bit.
Posted by whit on Oct 23, 2005 at 1:12 AM luminous beauty- Yes, I know Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) was a leftist, and he & I would undoubtedly have disagreed about many things. He was, however, by all accounts a remarkably honest man, and he had a clear eyed view of the Soviet Union when most on the left were gaga about it. His book “Homage to Catalonia” about his experiences in the Spanish Civil war gave a vivid account of his time there. He joined a Trotskyite milita, mainly because it happened to be operating in the area he was in. This eventually got him in hot water with the Assualt Guards, who were controlled by communists loyal to the Soviet Union, and who often seemed more interested in fighting other factions on the left than in fighting the Falange. As he stated in his book, he was lucky to get out of Spain alive. This book was not in favor among leftists for a long time because it painted communist influence in the Spanish Civil war in a bad light.
Posted by chopper on Oct 23, 2005 at 1:19 AM We are still uncomfortable with the idea that the people from next door, the next village and the next country are the same as ourselves.
We see them, not us. Some see rivals, not equals. Others see enemies, not friends.
The difference is not in the person judged, but in the the person judging.
When, instead of calling them rivals or enemies, we can call them our equal or friend it is not them that have changed for the better, it is us.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 23, 2005 at 1:20 AM luminous beauty- Perhaps, but I don’t thing human evil will ever disappear this side of the Second Coming. And I don’t really expect to be around in 500 years unless some of the more visionary folks at Tech Central Station are right!
Posted by chopper on Oct 23, 2005 at 1:23 AM I don’t have problems with anyone anywhere until they do something destructive.
Posted by chopper on Oct 23, 2005 at 1:24 AM This book was not in favor among leftists for a long time because it painted communist influence in the Spanish Civil war in a bad light
Some leftists, chop. Put down the broad brush, will ya, please? You really don’t think the Trotskyites and Anarchists, much less the democratic socialists of various stripes, have been singing the praises of Stalin all these years, do ya? I can’t recall even Tisa saying much effusive or extravagant about the Soviet influence in Spain. I am much obliged for the oblique support for the Republican Cause, though. Every little bit helps. No Pasaran, eh, Compadre. I loved Homage. I thought he might be a little effusive in his praise of the Anarchists, though.
Emma Goldman and Peter Kropotkin were calling Lenin a monster to his face when fatass Republican fartbags, Boren, Taft, Harding (now just the second worst president, ever) et. al. were hemming and hawing and blowing gas while waging a covert war against the SU. Another stupid little war long ago whose only real accomplishment was to push Stalin into absolute control. What is it about this story that sounds familiar?
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 2:31 AM Paradox being the word of the day ... please read ...
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 23, 2005 at 2:34 AM When, instead of calling them rivals or enemies, we can call them our equal or friend it is not them that have changed for the better, it is us.
That’s going on the fridge. Thanx, David.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 2:47 AM And I don’t really expect to be around in 500 years
You and I may long gone, but we will still be here. Don’t be so impatient.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 3:21 AM MONK the Rabbit ALWAYS read people’s link or at least checks them. In this case, the Rabbit plowed throughe examples but must mention that he was once a Christian and specnt four years in seminary, studying the Bible, but Rabbit was for two decades now a Budhist. So the stories and everything that can be read into and about them is long since emblazoned into rabbit’s poor abused head.
Rabbit is an Gnostic and finds the whole discussion of religious doctrine to be… BORING….that is all. religions are all so bloody allegorical and metaphorical, lets call a spade a spade and an ungrateful kid an ungrateful kid and of course the allegories are valid. Anyway Rabbit did read it.
YAY for Luminous Beauty, fun isn’t it? Rabbit wrote them all over his monitor with a texta, but now knows them by heart of course and the damn texta won’t come off. Oh well the wonky computer is not crashing, so it mustn’t mind too much.
SCORPY…..........
.....WACK...............
......WACK.......
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 23, 2005 at 3:36 AM Kuya, Rabbit originally thought you to be a lot younger than you are. But knew and knows all genders..thinks I…... Rabbit’s, unlike Monks have much more basic instincts about male / females.
Nevertheless, Rabbit is as “in touch with his feminine side” as Mrs Rabbit is with her masculine. She is a tough Viking, Rabbit is soft and fluffy.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 23, 2005 at 3:46 AM luminous beauty- Well, I did say most. I’ve got other problems with the Trotskyites and Anarchists (as I generally do with leftists), but at least they weren’t involved in the truly horrific mass murders that the various communist parties indulged in, which actually exceeded those of the Nazis.
Posted by chopper on Oct 23, 2005 at 4:06 AM Wilkerson dismisses the Administration’s attempts to improve America’s image abroad.
“You can’t sell shit,” he said.A totally unnecessary slur on America’s manure salesman. They’ve really lost it, now.
It can’t be said often enough:
A good lie will have traveled half way around the world while the truth is putting on her boots.
—Mark Twain
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 4:24 AM Kuya
Idea of youth came from the perception of idealism, your outlook is youthful, that is not ‘meant’ as a compliment…..........but of course it is.
Rabbit comes from
and is going to
Rabbit’s
sworn ENEMIES
..................................................................^^......... ...............................
Rabbit’s world
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 23, 2005 at 4:30 AM chopper:
No, you didn’t say ‘most’. You said, “This book was not in favor among leftists”. Not most, not some, not some crazy old guy you met at a bookstore, once. I don’t mean to be picky, but you seem to have this annoying habit of thinking you somehow have earned the right to speak collectively for people towards whom you have shown not the least respect or dignity. Please accept this as constructive criticism.
And for God’s sake, quit trying to paint everything as a body stacking contest. Shit is shit. Lord help you if you ever get caught in it, no matter what side you’re on.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 4:50 AM “That’s going on the fridge.”
You honor me.
Your words are written on my heart.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 23, 2005 at 5:22 AM luminous beauty- Actually I did say most a couple of sentences earlier, and that is what I continued to mean. I probably should have been clearer about it. I’m not speaking for those that didn’t like the book, I think it is well documented that many, or most (but certainly not all) leftists (such as Lillian Hellman, for instance) really did hate the book. Actually I picked it up at a wargame convention, one of my more unusual hobbies that will probably properly disgust you.
It has nothing to do with whether or not I respect those on the left. I just happen to disagree with their policy prescriptions. I could just as easily say you don’t seem to have much respect for anyone to the right of say, Tom Hayden or Abbie Hoffman.
As for the body stacking contest, perhaps it is an over-reaction to the constant reminder of the horrers of Nazi Germany (with constant tiresome comparisons of Bush to Hitler) even in popular culture and history while little is said about the Soviet Union or Red China. Both my sons got plenty of lessons in grade school and high school about Nazi Germany (which they should have) but very little was taught about the Soviet Union except for its role in WWII.
Posted by chopper on Oct 23, 2005 at 7:37 AM Rabbit points out only that Bush has become more hated and known for evil than hitler, in his own lifetime.
CHOP CHOP
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 23, 2005 at 12:42 PM Both your sons probably got the usual one eyed dumbed down version of history which passes in America for fact.
To you no doubt it was all worthwhile. Too bad it isn’t worth crap, and to some who likes war games, it must be obvious false information is bound to lead to defeat.
Get ready to be defeated then, because you are seriously short on some important information about who you are and who your enemies are.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 23, 2005 at 1:23 PM Rabbit- Your post makes some rather unwarrented assumptions, in fact I think my last post makes it rather clear that I wasn’t happy with the way history was taught to them. Either you are a careless reader or your mean streak is getting the better of you.
As for the Bush = Hitler equation, it is absurd on its face. Whatever his faults, he is not trying to exterminate an entire ethnic/religious group. But then the whoever = Hitler equation has generally become a substitute for thinking by some on the left.
Posted by chopper on Oct 23, 2005 at 1:58 PM Ok, chop:
You’ve got one Stalinist apologist on record who didn’t like Homage. As much for personal reasons as political. The CPUSA and all their ‘fellow travelers’ plus the various Stalinist micro-factions have never been anything more than a tiny minority on the left, a small minority of American Communists. Together with the Maoists they don’t add up to a fraction of just the most dander-headed factions of Trotskyites. Stalin’s policies caused a lot of disruption to the CPUSA, and most old Reds I’ve known were very sanguine about ‘Uncle Joe’. The more militant tended to reflect Dulles’ infamous quote about Somoza, “Sure he’s a bastard, but he’s our bastard.” Most have communicated to me a deep sense of embarrassment and betrayal. That’s from the horse’s mouth. If you wish to give more credence to horse’s asses like Horowitz, Cristol, D’Souza and the like, that is your privilege. Don’t expect me to give you a pass on it, though.
<i>It has nothing to do with whether or not I respect those on the left. I just happen to disagree with their policy prescriptions. I could just as easily say you don’t seem to have much respect for anyone to the right of say, Tom Hayden or Abbie Hoffman.</i>
You still haven’t read the Hayek essay, have you? Even though I disagree with Hayek’s philosophical stance, I admire his intelligence and rationality. You apparently missed my grudging respect for Ron Paul. On a personal level, I have many conservative friends who are fine people in spite of being confused and blinded by the simplistic Reaganesque posturing that passes for political discourse in this country. I’ve already mentioned my family being rock-ribbed Goldwaterites, although the old guard has pretty much died off. My one sister who has always been a pretty hard headed conservative has been radicalized by GWB. When I showed her the politicalcompass test, she astounded herself by scoring in the vicinity of Gandhi. (people can change) The other is a JW and if a coherent political thought ever goes through her head, I’ve missed it. I still love her, though. My little brother is a sad case. A conservative and a Mormon, he has been cruelly abandoned by church, family (his wife’s family) and party since becoming disabled by MD. He’s pretty bitter about it. My parents story with the Republican Party is just too sordid and sad to relate here.
We all know you disagree with anything left of Joe Lieberman, but little about what those disagreements actually are. Your posts tend to vague generalized assertions. Blanket statements with very little specificity or reasoned, sourced argumentation. Your opinions don’t really amount to a hill of beans, no matter how strongly you believe them to be the truth.
Why would you think I would begrudge you your little hobbies? One of my mates is like you of German Catholic heritage. He’s a great fan of war lit., a real scholar of WWII, and an expert on all kinds of weaponry and armament. He despises paint-ball, though, which I think is good and cathartic juvenile fun. He just reminded me that his step son is a Creative Anachronist, a group for whom I’ve done considerable craft-work. When I was younger I lived and worked at Sturbridge Village, Mass. and helped with Revolutionary War re-enactments. That was a lot of fun. I’m just saying, you really need to get over your stereotypical assumptions about leftists. We are more than just our politics. We are real human beings, not caricatures.
I’m willing to bet your sons didn’t get much education on the Ludlow and Haymarket massacres, Joe Hill and the Wobblies, the Red Scares, the Palmer raids, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Triangle Fire, the Flint strike, Nixon vs. Douglas, HUAC, or Joe McCarthy, either.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 4:36 PM Chopper, you need to go back to school and learn to read. Rabbit did not say “Bush = Hitler”. He said:
“Rabbit points out only that Bush has become more hated and known for evil than hitler, in his own lifetime.”
Rabbit was not comparing the deeds of Hitler with the deeds of Bush. He was referring to how people view him in comparison with how they view/viewed Hitler. Most of you Americans have no idea of how feared and hated Bush (and not just Bush) is around the world. I really don’t know how one could go about actually measuring this comparison objectively, but on the face of it, the claim is not in the least bit ridiculous.
And let’s not forget that Bush is still alive and in office. He and his boys (and girl) could still set the entire Near and Middle East on fire with the first-strike use of nuclear weapons, for example. And let’s not even think about what kinds of evils his domestic policies could end up leading to…
Is the standard “whatever socialist = Stalin” equation of the right more intelligent than the “whoever = Hitler” equation you ascribe to the left?
No, Bush himself is not aiming to exterminate an entire ethnic group, but we mustn’t forget that the tradition (history) he comes from is one in which an entire ethnic group (in fact many different ethnic groups) was in fact virtually exterminated - and very much on purpose: the native peoples.
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 23, 2005 at 6:07 PM Luminous Beauty, please (re)post a link to the Hayek essay. I know you posted it in full, maybe on the God Squad thread, but a repost, just a link, would be easier than going looking for it. Thanks.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 23, 2005 at 8:09 PM
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 8:41 PM This might be of interest to anyone curious about the Spanish Civil War and why Orwell’s account was widely discounted for so long by the mainstream, left right and center.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 23, 2005 at 8:54 PM OK Chopper probably both.
Careless because Rabbit did notice that there was nuance of disproval in your mention of the education, as a Dad can easily recognise it. Rabbit doesn’t even need to re-read your post to re-call this much. Yes, Rabbit has not so much got a mean streak as he can get quite excited when riled, and the result has even been the occassional scratch or bite of a friend. Those who have sufferred such an injury are invariably Rabbit’s best friends, either before or after. However if it is before it is due to a misunderstanding early on, so while Rabbit admits the presumption, and apologises…...............<>..................he is not holding out the olive branch, so much as holding it aloft, ready to wack if the need arises.
Haven’t yet read the replies to your second paragraph but seeing as who has written them they are probably making anything Rabbit says redundant.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 24, 2005 at 1:40 AM Hey Luminous Beauty….. hast thou read Rabbit’s early posts on the God Squad thread? Have a peek sometime…............saves repeating it all here.
In Rabbit’s case, the first wife was being strongly courted by JW’s. Luv them fundy christians…...not. Rabbit’s first root was at an apostolic youth camp, though…..............not all bad….....................sweet Dawn Angel….......................
Her mum caught us in flagrante delicto, woof woof, a few weeks later….......................memories.
All HISTORY now though.
How’s that for getting back on thread?
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 24, 2005 at 2:24 AM Them Rabbits…..........................................^^...................... ............
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 24, 2005 at 2:25 AM Neruda –
Ref: October 22, 2005 at 11:35 AM
>> So I agree it’s (democracy-free-market capitalism) the best system we have ever had. And I think you can recognize it needs some work. <<
Of course. Don’t belabor the obvious. Democracy also has a self-correcting mechanism that other systems of government do not share, which tends to keeps it on track. Thus, if a mistake is made in an election, such as was alleged in the 2000 presidential contest, the voters can come back in 2004 and correct the mistake. Not so among the dictatorships: German, Japanese, Proletariat, Iraqi, whatever.
>> And socialism is not equivalent to communism. <<
So, why was it known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? Socialism and communism pursue similar policies, differing only in degree, and both come from the hopelessly flawed Marxist economic and social theory. Socialist Europe basically follows democratic forms, but is reaping the bitter fruit of economic stagnation and political and economic decline under their socialist economy.
In politics, as in other things, word meanings sometimes shift. Democracy has such high approval ratings, at least outside the Western democracies, that the basest dictatorships expropriate the term; the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is NOT a democracy. Similar with liberal (small l); the liberalism of the enlightenment was an essential element in the development of American political philosophy. But things change.
>> Like the notion of social class itself, the idea of a liberal elite originated on the left, among early 20th-century anarchists and Trotskyites who noted, correctly, that the Soviet Union was spawning a ‘new class’ of power-mad bureaucrats. <<
Barbara Ehrenreich, NYT >>http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0701-03.htm<<
Before Vietnam, mainstream Democrats were staunchly anti-totalitarian: Kennedy, Humphrey, Jackson. Vietnam marked a turning point. The Democrats expropriated the Liberal (capital L) label in reaction to their own incompetence in Vietnam. Classical liberalism of the Age of Enlightenment and the political philosophy of the Liberal Democrats are polar opposites, most clearly illustrated by the Liberal politicians, academics, and media that support terrorist goals and propagandize American imperfections.
Now look at the power-mad bureaucratic philosophies of the European Union and the recent Liberal Democratic platforms in the USA: more taxes, more bureaucrats, less accountability, less personal responsibility. This is just the opposite of the free-market capitalism and democracy with which you just agreed, and of the liberalism our nation was founded upon. The entire leftist spectrum ranges from communist-socialist-progressive-Liberal, and all are generally accepted to be leftist, from the NYT to Ward Churchill and his ilk.
The Hayek article quoted on this thread explicitly recognizes this shift in the meaning of the term “liberal”; Hayek’s quote, “American radicals and socialists began calling themselves ‘liberals’.” Hayek also recognizes that the European “conservative” label may not apply directly in America; “This difference between liberalism and conservatism must not be obscured by the fact that in the United States it is still possible to defend individual liberty by defending long-established institutions.” In fact, Hayek’s description of European conservativism, that he disavows in the article, is quite the opposite of American conservative principles: free trade, lower taxes, and fewer government controls.
Posted by scorp on Oct 24, 2005 at 4:08 AM Neruda (Cont)
The Twentieth Century was substantially defined by totalitarian terror and murder, and defeat of the terrorists and murderers by democratic states. This is almost becoming a litany of truisms: Totalitarians start wars, democracies win wars totalitarians start. Democracies do not fight wars among themselves. Democracies create freedom and prosperity. Fascists, leftists, anarchists have never freed anyone, nor created prosperity.
Why Bushitler? Why not Bushtalin? In the list of all time killers, Stalin and Mao exceeded anything Hitler did. But Stalin and Mao were leftists, and the left today does not criticize leftists, regardless of how murderous or malevolent they were, or are.
But the left today are like rebels without a cause; nowhere (except Venezuela and Cuba, perhaps) is there an organized program to rebuild the corrupt and inefficient Soviet Union. And Europe is becoming politically and economically and demographically marginalized to the point it must reform, collapse, or join the Caliphate, which would amount to collapsing.
There.are over eighty new democracies in the world in the last one-hundred years, all influenced or created by existing democracies. And free-market capitalism and open markets are growing rapidly everywhere except in Old Europe. So here we have a bunch of dilettante leftists trying to turn back the march of history, and you think I rant? O-o-o-o-kay.
Posted by scorp on Oct 24, 2005 at 4:10 AM ‘Chopper, you need to go back to school and learn to read. Rabbit did not say “Bush = Hitler”. He said:
“Rabbit points out only that Bush has become more hated and known for evil than hitler, in his own lifetime.”’
No, he did not directly say it, in fact you could read his post to mean Bush is even worse than Hitler. It was still a comparison to Hitler.
Posted by chopper on Oct 24, 2005 at 6:11 AM “If you wish to give more credence to horse’s asses like Horowitz, Cristol, D’Souza and the like, that is your privilege. Don’t expect me to give you a pass on it, though.”
I could just as easily say Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky are horse’s asses, which they are of course.
Posted by chopper on Oct 24, 2005 at 6:14 AM “On a personal level, I have many conservative friends who are fine people in spite of being confused and blinded by the simplistic Reaganesque posturing that passes for political discourse in this country”
Luminous Beauty, none of this is meant personally, I have no doubt that you are an outstanding individual, even if I perceive that you are the one who is confused.
Posted by chopper on Oct 24, 2005 at 6:18 AM “Why would you think I would begrudge you your little hobbies? One of my mates is like you of German Catholic heritage. He’s a great fan of war lit., a real scholar of WWII, and an expert on all kinds of weaponry and armament. He despises paint-ball, though, which I think is good and cathartic juvenile fun. He just reminded me that his step son is a Creative Anachronist, a group for whom I’ve done considerable craft-work. When I was younger I lived and worked at Sturbridge Village, Mass. and helped with Revolutionary War re-enactments. That was a lot of fun. I’m just saying, you really need to get over your stereotypical assumptions about leftists. We are more than just our politics. We are real human beings, not caricatures.”
You know, I really need to make it more clear when I’m being facetious. Your friend seems to have a lot of the same interests that I have.
I’ll read the Hayek link.
We’re due to get hit by Wilma in a few hours, so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to post again. Best wishes.
Posted by chopper on Oct 24, 2005 at 6:25 AM ” You know, I really need to make it more clear when I’m being facetious. “
Me too. Sometimes we take ourselves and others too seriously.
Posted by David in Canada on Oct 24, 2005 at 7:20 AM Idiot Scorp
The 2000 election was fraudulantly hijacked.
The 2004 one also. How does this equate to
if a mistake is made in an election, such as was alleged in the 2000 presidential contest, the voters can come back in 2004 and correct the mistake.
The mistake, was a fraud, a dictatorial trick, and it was repeated, this is your example?
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 24, 2005 at 7:32 AM Idiot Scorp.
The labour Party of Oz is a socialist party and Denmark as well as Germany have a Socialist government, or largely so, they are not communists.
Does anyone get the feeling Scorpy is becoming even more backward than before?
Now look at the power-mad bureaucratic philosophies of the European Union and
Another great Scorpism. Perhaps we’d better establish they are power mad bureacracies, compared to the USA, since that is the comparison. We cannot accept any of your grand assumptions idiot Scorp, for you are the grand poobar of bombastic self ironic rhetoric foot shots, and an obnoxious weed to boot.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 24, 2005 at 7:37 AM the left today does not criticize leftists, regardless of how murderous or malevolent they were, or are.
In your head. As always Scorpy argues with the Lefties of his fantasy. You are really just an irritation scorpy, the absolute lowest common denominator. Rabbit finds you to be a cockroach, in the final analysis. You have never been able to string together a single sentence without including at least one major, provably false assumption, yet you have so far managed to avoid ever once actually defending any of you stupid assumptions. You say it is so, and that makes it so.
Excuse Rabbit while he throws up his last lamington…..........................
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 24, 2005 at 7:43 AM Scorpy you rant and you rant, but never a link have we seen, never a straight answer to a difiicult question,
You are the original ranter and NOBODY takes you seriously except the guy in the mirror. You are not even worth taking notice of when you are right, because you don’t know the reasons why you are when you are.
Idiot.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 24, 2005 at 7:47 AM The following is for everybody’s eyes except scorpy, Rabbit does not want Scorpy to read it, and nobody should tell him what it is about…......please..
The TROOPS protecting freedom.
The above link is spceifically forbidden to Scorpy.
Don’t…..
......Scorpy....Don’t ....
.you know it’s a trick,......obviously Rabbit is trying to trick you…....he is trying to make you look so you must not do it….........................of course…...............eyes shut tight…..................................^^........................
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 24, 2005 at 10:01 AM chopper:
You know, I really need to make it more clear when I’m being facetious
It was perfectly clear to me you were being facetious. In a very snide and assumptive manner, too. But I don’t care.
Now I’m being facetious.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 24, 2005 at 1:02 PM P.S., keep your head down, mate. It looks like another real blow. And the wing-nuts keep saying Global Warming is a leftist myth. Hah!
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 24, 2005 at 1:05 PM Why do you think Chomsky is a horses ass? Something you read at FrontPage?
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 24, 2005 at 1:08 PM That many people in this forum think Nazism and “Neo-Conservatism” are equivalent is simply ignorant, absurd, and frankly offensive, given that many neo-conservatives happen to be Jewish. I’ll also note that nowhere is “neo-conservatism” defined here, it’s just the latest buzzword used by the left to demonize those they disagree with.
The article sitself makes the mistake of assuming that one of the main problems of Nazism was it’s alleged mixing with religion; thus we are given the pat conclusion that mixing religion and politics is dangerous, ergo the “religious right” is the greatest threat to democracy. The real purpose of this article is to demonize the present-day right by drawing a false analogy to Nazism.
The problem with Nazism wasn’t the mixing of religion and politics; the problem with Nazism, as with all totalitarian ideologies, was the turning of politics itself into religion, thus supplanting the traditional religion and mores of the people with a form of neo-pagan idolatry. Hitler’s early paens to Christianity were attempts to deceive people as he was in the midst of consolidating his power, not genuine Christian conviction. Hitler was as anti-Christian as he was anti-Jewish and repeatedly stated his desire to smash Christianity and destroy the Chruch.
One must also quibble with some “facts” in Mr. Stern’s article, such as his statement that, “The United States was the sole functioning democracy of the ’30s”. Really? This must be news to the people of Britain, France, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, etc.!
Posted by EmitFlesti on Oct 24, 2005 at 6:53 PM I agree that it is false (and yes, offensive) to equate neo-conservatism with Nazism. One must differentiate between Nazism, a specific historical form of fascism, and fascism in general. One of the most salient features of fascism as it is generally defined in most of the political theory I am familiar with is big government and big business being in bed with each other. (Most importantly, perhaps, some specific subsets of big business like big media, big war industry, etc.).
Does America go marching off to war primarily in the interests of Lockheed Martin, Exxon, Halliburton, etc., etc.? I believe that is what most people are thinking of when they talk about rising fascism in America.
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 24, 2005 at 7:22 PM Very interesting. So, as I take it from the comments, the U.S. is, chorus please, “sliding into Fascism”...And whom is resposible for this dark state of affairs? Why, the “neo-cons”, i.e. “the Jews”.
Interesting, very interesting
Posted by Dr. Laszlo on Oct 24, 2005 at 8:15 PM Noam Chomsky would be more accurately described, in leftist theory and practice, as a “useful idiot”; we have a lot of those hereabouts. If and when the hard line communist cadres succeed in taking over a government, the useful idiots become useless idiots, and are generally shot.
In the Great Purge trials of the early Soviet period, who was it being purged? Some anti -social elements, but mostly the military officer’s corps (this just before Hitler attacked Stalin!), and mid-level communist cadres. Many of the Soviet military officers who were purged were also communists. These useless idiots did serve a purpose, useless or not. Leon Trotsky, so admired by some on these pages, got out of the Soviet Union alive after being expelled by Stalin. But Trotsky was tried in absentia in the Purge Trials and executed in 1940 in Mexico City, making him one of the more prominent useless idiots.
In leftist theory, the communist leadership was perfect, that is, it had perfect understanding of the forces of history as described by Marx, and as modified by Lenin. (If it was so perfect, why did it have to be modified?) The workers and peasants were perfectible. So, if there were problems (there are always lots of problems in communist takeovers), who was at fault? The mid-level communist cadre, of course, for not being sufficiently perfect, and they died by the millions in the Soviet Union. Similarly, the Chinese communists had their own purges, repeatedly.
The Viet Cong fought for years for their belief in a united and communist-controlled Vietnam. When the Liberal Democrats in the United States Congress lied to the South Vietnamese and withdrew promised military and logistical support, South Vietnam collapsed and the North Vietnamese cadre marched in. The first action taken by the North Vietnamese was to shoot the Viet Cong, their putative allies; after all, the North Vietnamese did not need a lot of Viet Cong of doubtful perfection cluttering up the landscape as they went about building a perfect communist totalitarian society.
The same is true of the horrific individual portraits of the Cambodian prisoners awaiting execution at Tuol Sleng. Of the 20,000 or so prisoners executed at Tuol Sleng High School, most were low level communists. When the Vietnamese communists liberated (!) Cambodia and Tuol Sleng, dead bdies were found shackled to iron bed frames, executed just hours before as the Khmer Rouge fled. There were exactly seven surviviors of Tuol Sleng.
But all you useless idiots on this site do not have much cause for worry. It is extremely unlikely that the communists will return to power. And in spite of the best efforts of Mr. Chomsky, and the New York Times, and Michael Moron, the Islamist headhunters and practitioners of human sacrifices are not going to take over, thanks to us Conservatives. Try not to be too disappointed.
Posted by scorp on Oct 24, 2005 at 8:46 PM Sozi: To define fascism as “big government and big business being in bed with each other” is as wrong as those above who stated that Nazism and “Neo-Conservatism” are equivalent.
Fascism is, above all, the absolute glorification of the state, as summed-up by Mussolini’s phrase: “Everything within the State, Nothing outside the State, Nothing against the State”. The State itself is to be ruled by a dictator deemed to embody the General Will, and thus whose will is defined as coterminous with the state. Fascism exalts the state, and considers individuals to be mere means for the state and the Leader to achieve their own ends. Between the State and individuals there are to be no mediating organizations or layer sof civil society outside the absolute control of the State. None of this has any necessary connection to business; indeed, in a Fascist state all business is to be subsumed under the State and coopted for the State’s ends. Inthis Fascism does not differ in kind, but only in degree and method from Communism and Socialism.
The original Italian Fascist party program consisted of 5 key points: 1. a “Republic” rather than a Monarchy, 2. the absolute separation of Church and State, 3. a national army to implement the will of the Duce and the Fascist party, 4. progressive income tax to punish inherited wealth, 5. the development of worker’s co-operatives. Again, nothing to do with “Big Business”.
It is also worth pointing out that Fascism was originally a movement of the Left. Not only in Mussolini’s case in Italy (he was an avowed socialist, though he broke with the established socialist movements when forming his Fascist party) but also in Germany. Remember, the official name of the Nazi party was the National Socialist German Workers Party. Again, the National Socialists (Nazis, Fascists) only differed in degree and in certain of their methods of operation from International Socialists (Communists, Soviets)
Posted by EmitFlesti on Oct 24, 2005 at 10:40 PM Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker never won a nobel prize in physics.
Posted by sonnbrg on Oct 24, 2005 at 10:55 PM EmitFlesti is quite correct about the founding of fascism as a movement of the left. Of course, the left always had splinter groups that competed for the same audience. Hayak talks about it in the “Road To Serfdom.”
Fritz Stern did very little to show the role of religion in Hitler’s rise. Most political leaders invoke religion but that does is often an afterthought to rally the population. Sometimes religion is used like flag waving. Lincoln and the Abolitionists used religion (“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ...”) and so did the Confederate. Did that make the Civil War a religious war?
As an atheist, I can be a harsh critic of religion’s role in history but this knee-jerk nonsense that involves pointing to the rhetorical style of political leaders just doesn’t prove anything. One has to show centrality and magnitude - not superficial lip-service.
Hitler was a culmination of German culture’s flirtation with irrationalism, blind self-sacrificial obedience, and hostility to individualism. Most people were blind to the threat of Hitler ( http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/2005/09/denial-of-nazism.html ) as people today are in denial about another totalitarian movement - Islamism.
Posted by JasonPappas on Oct 25, 2005 at 12:46 AM Who let the straw men out? Who? Who? Who let the straw men out?
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 25, 2005 at 1:00 AM Chew on this, freaks:
Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt recently wrote an article about fascism (“Fascism Anyone?,” Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20).
Studying the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), Dr. Britt found they all had 14 elements in common. He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The excerpt is in accordance with the magazine’s policy.
The 14 characteristics are:
Powerful and Continuing NationalismFascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottoes, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
Disdain for the Recognition of Human RightsBecause of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying CauseThe people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
Supremacy of the MilitaryEven when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
Rampant SexismThe governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
Controlled Mass MediaSometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
Obsession with National SecurityFear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 25, 2005 at 1:17 AM Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
Corporate Power is ProtectedThe industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
Labor Power is SuppressedBecause the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .
Disdain for Intellectuals and the ArtsFascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
Obsession with Crime and PunishmentUnder fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
Rampant Cronyism and CorruptionFascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
Fraudulent ElectionsSometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
Posted by luminous beauty on Oct 25, 2005 at 1:18 AM >> Fourteen identifying characteristics of fascism. <<
Interesting list.
Now can you tell me a single one of these elements that does not equally apply to communism, as in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, North Korea? Recognizing, of course, that communism is a state religion, as many people have pointed out.
Posted by scorp on Oct 25, 2005 at 1:30 AM You beat me to it, scorp. At the same time, that list holds for Islamist governments as well.
It used to be that communist would boast that they are internationalist and not nationalist like the fascists. But with the rise of Identity politics, “ethnical group consciousness” and nationalism became acceptable in today’s left.
It used to be that communists advocated outright nationalization of industries while fascists left a façade of private property but controlled the industries by regulation, and central command. Today, the left has abandoned nationalization in favor of regulation.
Finally, the rhetoric of the fascists and Nazis refered to some bucolic ideal – they were greens in principle if not in practice. Communists, on the other hand, believed in industrialization - one had to go through a capitalist/industrial phase before communism was possible. Today the left is green, too.
It seems the left has gone down the same road Mussolini has … from classical socialist to outright fascist.
Posted by JasonPappas on Oct 25, 2005 at 2:17 AM “Hitler was a culmination of German culture’s flirtation with irrationalism, blind self-sacrificial obedience, and hostility to individualism. Most people were blind to the threat of Hitler ( http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/2005/09/denial-of-nazi ism.html ) as people today are in denial about another totalitarian movement - Islamism”
I would add Jason that most people are in denial about fundamentalism. Islamism may currently be exhibiting the most savage traits of fundamentalism but christianity has seen it’s share of fundamentalist brutality. And if they were not hampered by the rule of law (at least so far) right wing fundamentalists in this country would inflict a great deal more damage on the U.S. So far they have only managed to make people second class citizens on the basis of sexual orientation. But they are working diligently on other issues, such as the englightened notion of introducing creationism into science education.
And Scorp why is it that the only thing you can ever reply with is “communists committed atrocities.”
I for one agree with you. As with all fundamentalists, they justified ruthlessnes with idealogy.
And for the record. Democracies, like the U.S., have initiated military attacks and they have supported dictators and totalitarian regimes. They supported Sadam Hussein and provided him with biological weapons. They toppled or were involved in bringing down democratically elected governments in Latin America and propped up dictators instead. And I am not providing a link for this. Please open a history book that was not written for grade school.
And yes other governments, leftist governments, have engaged in similar behavior. That does not make it right. This is the kind of thinking that leads people to compare HItler and Stalin’s body counts as a way of attacking “leftists.” Seriously it is about the most moronic thing anyone could say.
If we are serious about improving government, we need to be willing to look at the mistakes and atrocities made by our own society, not just others. Instead there nothing but knee-jerk defensiveness trying to compare body counts.
Posted by Neruda on Oct 25, 2005 at 3:48 AM Neruda, the argument in the last several posts was not about tu quoque, or simly comparing body counts and deciding who was worse, Hitler or Stalin, it was about pointing out the absurdity and simlemindedness of those above who have defined fascism as “Big Government in bed with Big Business” and who have equally fallaciously equated Neo-Conservatism (which, when I use the term means the actual intellectual movement, not the term as it is currently abused and misused by propagandists) and Nazism. I think sensible, sane people would all agree that they, Hitler and Stalin, were both equally vile (Though perhaps I’m presuming too much, Neruda, since you’ve taken as your nom-de-Internet the name of a Stalinist propagandist - who himself swiped that name from the Prague storyteller Jan Neruda)
One could come up with facts and reasonable arguments to support including all of the 14 “fascist points” above in any analysis of Communist and Socialist regimes also. To claim that they are somehow exclusive to Nazi Germany, Chile, Mussolini’s Italy , Francoist Spain, Peronist Argentina, etc. is simply biased propagandising. First of all, it mistakenly assumes that Nazism, Fascism, Communism, and Socialism differ in kind rather than degree. It also makes the mistake of lumping a number of disparate regimes under the same rubric within those categories: Chile under Pinochet (whatever one thinks of him), for example, was hardly similar to Nazism; likewise Mussolini was a far cry from Hitler. Ditto Franco.
Take just the point above about religion and Fascism: Stalin was not averse to appealing to traditional Russian Orthodox sentiment in order to rally the nation around him during WWII. It’s also interesting, in this context, that Stalin was a failed seminary student. One might argue that Stalin didn’t really lose faith as such, he just transferred his faith from the Church to the Party.
Also, many erstwhile supporters of Communism themselves began to refer to the Soviet regime as “fascist” after the crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion; again indicating the extent to which “fascism” is not easily distinguishable from Communism, Nazism, or any other form of totalitarianism.
Furthermore, even if one were to accept for the sake of argument the simplistic definition of Fascism as “Big Government in bed with Big Business”, how would this arrangement be any more intrinsically evil than Communism’s “Big Government in bed with Big Labor Unions, etc.”? Perhaps one could claim that the unions “represent” the workers and the businesses are the “oppressors”, but of course, the workers wouldn’t have jobs to begin with if it weren’t for businesses.
Posted by EmitFlesti on Oct 25, 2005 at 5:10 AM Scorpy can you give us a single one of the 14 which doesn’t also apply to the present US government?. You are once again shooting your foot off, it has before been pointed out you are in the same league as those others you mention.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 25, 2005 at 6:34 AM EmitFlesti, your accusations of what others are saying, and hence the strawman cry from Luminous Beauty, show only that you have barely if at all read the thread and understand the views of anybody much. The suggestion by one of you that one contrats between Neo-con and Nazis was the Jewish involvement with Neo-cons. Guess you don’t know much history then brother because, as you say Fascism, and Communism too, had their roots among jews. The fact that Hitler, and Stalin murdered a lot of Jews was not only done with the knowledge and co-operation of Zionist Jews, it was even perpetrated by them on occassion.
It is necessary to make one thing clear, because the tactics of emotion and rhetoric are ever near around here, when we say Jews we are referring to people in two distinct categories and Rabbit would prefer we could separate the two. People who are Jewish are to Rabbit no different to any other religion, quaint and OK for a crude toold of improvement, as are all religions. Not inherantly bad people and nor is the religion inherantly bad by it’s daily interpretation.
The other group and they are Jews too, is the Zionists. This is their own self title. These people are to an extent a fundamentalist sect within the ranks of ordinary Jews, just like there are fundamentalist sects within Christianity and Islam. None of these groups of fundamentalists are respresentative of the whole creed, and yet none of them are as foreign to each of the creeds general, less strident adherants. Thus, Muslims may not realise how extreme their fundamentalists seem to us, and certainly Christians, even relatively faithless everyday atheists in our society, do not recognise just how extreme their own brand of Fundy’s has become. The same is true maybe of Jews, many of whom fail to recognise that their own Fundamentalists have been dicking around with everybody’s world for quite a while, and right now they seem to be at it again.
have a look at THIS, for some history of Zionist involvement with not only Nazism but with Neo-conism as well.
Be alert to Who exactly</b> is behind this article, it DOES matter for a change.. Nobody is saying that Corporate state is the only thing which can be said about Fascism, but nor can you claim that Jews separate the two, they are there in both instances. More to post shortly about massacres in Poland, of Germans by Zionists pre- German invasion, and this is the trigger which has been lost in history. The Zionists inspired a massacre of German peasants in Polish territory, which had a partial effeect
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 25, 2005 at 7:47 AM “if one were to accept for the sake of argument the simplistic definition of Fascism as “Big Government in bed with Big Business”, how would this arrangement be any more intrinsically evil than Communism’s “Big Government in bed with Big Labor Unions, etc.”?.
EmitFlesti
The thing with communism is that the people who run the unions take over the rest of government too, and anyway, waht the hell has Communism got to do with Nazism or Neo-Conism? If as you say Fascism is also to be found in Communism, then it is even more obvious it could exist within Democracy. The comparison of Neo-Cons to Nazis is valid. From the Backers and puppeteers, to the Reichstag like 911, to the laws, the creed, the blind simplistic absolutism and to the inevitability of it’s UGLY demise, which is yet on the horizon.
The term Fascist should do it, but if you want to broaden the definition to include all those other tyrants, go right ahead, Rabbit just chose to compare the Neo-cons to Nazi, type fascists rather than Communist type Fascists, all of whom such deeply from the well of bitterness.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 25, 2005 at 7:58 AM Documented accounts of Jews who helped Hitler and the Nazis
The little-known origins and history of the Balfour Declaration
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 25, 2005 at 8:38 AM Rabbit, your recent posts are simply a stream of crude anti-semitism, unworthy of debate by any serious rational person with any knowledge of history. Furthermore, linking to an unannotated, unscholarly site called “jews-for-allah.com” hardly clinches your “argument”, such as it is. The name of the site alone is enough to discount it as a source of objective factual information. This sounds like the source for the anti-Semitic “Ramadan Special” that ran on Jordanian state TV this year (transcript available at MEMRI.org) that also accused Jews of a worldwide, specifically the Rothschilds of having hatched a plot in 1812 to take over Europe, and portrayed as being behind every evil thing in the world that has happened since then.
You do, however, have the distinction of being the first person I’ve encountered who has justified the Nazi invasion of Poland on the grounds that it was the Jews were asking for it. Kudos to you for at least taking your anti-Semitism to new heights by finding some new crime to allege, rather than simply relying on the old standbys.
It’s amazing how the radical Left these days engages in the sort of anti-Semitic conspiracy mongering that would have mad the pages of Der Sturmer proud. Who would have thought that one day the anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism of the Left would matasticise to such a degree that it would fuse with Islamo-Fascism to form a unified cancerous growth on civilisation?
Posted by EmitFlesti on Oct 25, 2005 at 9:42 AM They are not CRUDE nor are they anti-semitism, you twerp.
You had best look at the links, even thouigh Rabbit spelled it out, and pointed out the difference between Jews and Zionists, you still get it wrong. You are a wanker, stop wanking around here please.
You have not yet had the info about the POLISH thing, so stop criticising something you have not yet seen, I also told you that was to come.
Read the links given, and you will see that one of them is from a JEWISH group and any facts you wish to question, do so like an honest man, and tell the fact, disprove it, or challenge Rabbit to prove it. Don’t start moron tactics of attacking the source without even addressing what is said in it. Why should rabbit repeat a lot of info you are only going to call him on any way, when Rabbit can link you directly to a source of info ,and if it isn’t good enough, tell us why not, and more will be provided. Unlike EmitFlesti, Rabbit bases his opinons on facts it seems, so back up with facts, or attack with facts, stick your lame opinuions in your ear until you have established they are based on facts. fine by Rabbit, his ears are big, now what facts are you querying?
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 25, 2005 at 12:24 PM You have been given four different, randomly selected sources from about 7,000 with similar info. if any facts are in question, please list them and why, or are you just going to wank about it?
Rabbit is not anti-semitic, or anti anything, except ignorance.
So if you feel somehow Antipathetical towards Rabbit, that would explain it.
.......................................................^^.................... .............................
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 25, 2005 at 12:28 PM Ever heard of Lenin…............ Marx…......................^^.............................
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 25, 2005 at 12:30 PM I have no problem saying that government in bed with favored businesses (it’s never all businesses but some at the expense of others) is fascist in nature even if it is not full blown fascism. Let remember, when government regulates business, some gain and some lose. Clearly government favors some at the expense of others (most often new aspirants to the market.)
Of course, that would make FDR one of the biggest fascists in American history. Actually, he modeled his economic program for controlling businesses after Mussolini’s corporatism. Of course, the most fascist economic aspects were struck down by the Supreme Court. And, of course, FDR, while democratically elected, was faulted for going beyond the customary two terms in office. That’s the closest we’ve come to fascism. And it’s still a long way off.
I also call for less intervention in the economy. This is the only way to end fascist/socialist types of government behavior.
Posted by JasonPappas on Oct 25, 2005 at 12:39 PM By the way, Semites, do not for the most part include most Jews. The people who would most closely be identified as Semites, are the Pallestinians, if Rabbit’s memory serves him correctly.
Who are these Semites towards whom Rabbit is ANTI?
Do we mean people
who speak Semitic languages?
Or do we mean Semitic peoples?Maybe you are going
by the Jewish definition?Rabbit is more along the lines of a
form of Anti-Zionist, to save you guessing.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 25, 2005 at 12:49 PM What’s it like to be insane Rabbit? I pity you and you ingnorant rantings.
For one, thing, Jews who live in Israel are also “Palestinians”. “Palestinian” is not an ethnic-group or national identity. It is simply a geographic term, though it has been propagandized by Arab and Muslim fanatics and treated uncritically by the mainstream media as if it were some distinct national identity. During the time of the British Mandate Jews and Arabs were all equally referred to as “Palestinians.”
As for the “Polish thing”, I haven’t yet seen the “facts” because they don’t exist. Providing links to unannotated, unscholarly “sources” pushing an anti-Semitic agenda (no matter how many of them, or how “random” you claim they are, even if they are by self-loathing former Jews, such as your link to a page from “jews-for-allah.com”) does not prove your claim is true. You, a few old Nazis, and some rabid Islamo-Fascists are the only people in the world who think the Jews caused the Nazi invasion of Poland.
Were you not a delusional anti-Semite, you would also know that the term “anti-Semite” refers specifically, in general political disocurse, to the Jewish people, not the Semitic language group.
Posted by EmitFlesti on Oct 25, 2005 at 4:56 PM EmitFlesti wrote:
“Sozi: To define fascism as “big government and big business being in bed
with each other” is as wrong as those above who stated that Nazism and
“Neo-Conservatism” are equivalent “This kind of misrepresentation can really piss one off. You omitted a few *very* important words. I wrote:
“*One of the most salient features* of fascism as it is generally defined in most of the political theory I am familiar with is ...”Of course you are correct that the “absolute glorification of the state” is another salient feature. I’m pretty much in agreement with the “14 points” to define fascism.
Yes, there is such a thing as “leftist fascism”, but to call the NSDAP or Mussolini leftist or socialist is absurd. Yes, there was a left-wing of the Nazi party, personified by Otto Strasser, but that was eliminated in the “night of long knives” in 1934. The party name contains the word “socialist”? What do names of parties and states mean? The country I’m from was once called the German Democratic Republic. Or how about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (aka North Korea)?
Mussolini was originally a socialist? So what! Many of today’s neo-cons were originally Trotzkyites. (Some) people change and adapt their ideologies.
The fact remains: Leaving the “Jewish question” aside, neither Hitler nor Mussolini ever harmed a hair on the head of “big business”. On the contrary…
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 25, 2005 at 8:02 PM Speaking of big business and fascism, I wonder how many Americans know that GWB’s granddaddy, Prescott Bush, was a major bankroller of Thyssen, one of Nazi Germany’s most important industrialists. Or that the German Army would never have got one kilometre onto enemy territory without General Motors, owner of Opel, producer of the “Opel Blitz”, the “workhorse of the Wehrmacht”. Or of DuPont’s involvement with IG Farben, maker of Zyklon B, the gas that killed millions…
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 25, 2005 at 8:11 PM EmitFlesti:
Yes, the term “anti-Semite” in today’s political discourse means “anti-Jewish” - despite the fact that the term “Semitic” has another, more encompassing meaning. In this other sense, it is totally absurd to call an Arab, who is ethnically speaking a Semite, anti-Semitic.
But you are doing exactly the same thing you are accusing Rabbit of, when you insist on the purely geographical sense of the word “Palestinian”. Using your definition, Ariel Sharon is a Palestinian. You’re pretty much alone in the world with this terminology…
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 25, 2005 at 8:25 PM It wasn’t just that Mussolini was once socialist. He was always a socialist. He came to the realization that a road to socialism, with the absorption of all industries into the state, could be achieved in fact while the façade of capitalism remained. Real ownership is control. Who cares whose name is on the deed if that man can’t control the company? Who cares who sits in the CEOs office if that man must carry out the orders of the state? Besides being a socialist, Mussolini was knowledgeable on the American philosophy of Pragmatism (James, Dewey, etc.) He believed in being flexible, using the props recognizable to the people, and waving the flag.
It was this flexibility that a purist like Lenin could not stand. As an interesting footnote, in the late 1920s and 1930s many American sympathizers of the “Soviet Experiment” believed that Stalin, unlike Lenin, was more flexible and less doctrinaire. This blinded them to the horror unfolding in Russia. Ref:
http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/2005/05/lessons-from-red-decade.html
Posted by JasonPappas on Oct 25, 2005 at 8:38 PM Speaking of what the dumbed-down population of the United States is not aware of:
I wonder how many Americans know that their country stands convicted of war crimes by the International Court of Justice (aka World Court) for the mining of Nicaraguan harbours in the 1980s ...
It’s “down the memory hole”, as Chomsky puts it.Speaking of whom - it is simply beneath the dignity of a thinking individual to respond to the idiotic rantings of someone who would slander this beacon of moral and intellectual integrity. Just as it is beneath the dignity of a thinking individual to respond to the idiotic rantings of scorp. Is he a state department shill who is paid to disrupt the alternative news media?
Posted by Anarcho-Sozi on Oct 25, 2005 at 8:47 PM However you try to qualify it, the point was that treating “Big Business” as an element of Fascism is silly, as it is too vague and meaningless a criterion, like most of the other “14 points”. “Big Business” is simply a scare term used by people who hate industry, innovation, technology, and capital development. It’s also worth pointing out that without “Big Business” you and others on the Left wouldn’t have the very technology that allows you to broadcast you anti-Big Business ideology across the globe in mere seconds!
As for the “Neo-Conservatives”, yes many of them were former Trotskyites, and they are all former Leftists, that is why they are called “Neo”-Conservatives. Again, I use the term here to refer to the intellectual movement godfathered by Irving Kristol and others in the 60s and 70s, and not as the term is presently used by either ignoramuses in the mainstream media who wouldn’t know Irving Kristol from a Crystal Ball and those on the present day Left who use it as a catch-all term for everyone to the Right of Lenin or as a more politce way of saying “Jews”. The Neo-Conservatives repudiated their Trotskyite, Leftist pasts. Fascists and Nazis didn’t so much repudiate their past “Socialism” as transform it, slightly tweaking the ideology and practical program while remaining true to its core principles. Like Communists, Fascist and Nazis were opposed to the all social and political traditions and institutions of their times; thus they were Radicals, not “Conservatives” or “Rightists”. A true Conservative or Rightist of the 1920s or 1930s would have supported the Italian monarchy against Mussolini, and would have supported the legitimist movement to restore the Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies in Germany and Austria.
Also, with regard to “Big Business”, the fact that Nazis and Fascists nominally allowed businesses to remain independent of the government and to have private ownership, does not fundamentally change the fact that businesse in such regimes operated under tight controls and were subject at any time to seizure by the state if the owners got out of line. The Commies had “Big Business” too, they just operated under the fiction that all industry was “owned” by the Workers. Yes, IG Farben produced Zyklon B; but do you seriously think that the Nazis wouldn’t have figured out how to continue manufacturing it for thier own use if the owners of IG Farben had oppsed the Nazis? I’m not exonerating IG Farben; the company and its leaders was as criminal as the regime it served. But Zyklon B was produced for legitimate peaceful industrial purposes long before the Nazis had the idea to use it to murder people in concentration camps (also, it’s worth noting that the idea of “Concentration Camps” itself did not originate with the Nazis, but with Lenin, who established the first Concentration Camps of the Gulag on the Solovetsky Islands). Who do you think built the Communist Camps and the various guns, tanks, ammunition, barbed-wire, etc. to operate them and keep people in line? Businesses! Whether they were nominally private or simply adjuncts or departments of the regime is fundamentally irrelevant.
I’m also intrigued by the name “Anarcho-Sozi.” Presumably this is an abbreviation of “Anarchist-Socialist”, a contradiction in terms which indicates a deep confusion about political nomenclature. An Anarchist cannot at the same time be a Socialist; an Anarchist believes having no government, a Socialist believes in having nothing but government (as Mussolini succinclty put it: “Everthing withing the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State). I have an affinity myself for true Anarchism and Libertarianism (in that vein highly recommend reading Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s book “Democracy: The God that Failed” or anything by the late Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn), though I despise Socialism and all Leftism.
Posted by EmitFlesti on Oct 25, 2005 at 8:50 PM -
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