Posted on 04/03/2009 8:47:49 AM PDT by Michael Eden
Before we descend into total leftist-fascism, we will probably witness some sort of rebellion, possibly violent.
The character of the great majority of Americans remains more conservative than liberal. But the big problem is leftists are at present ruling this great country. Thirty years ago these types could only get gov jobs as advisors. And even then they weren’t given much power. All that has changed with the current fascist-leftist regime. Obama must be stopped. Legally, but stopped nevertheless.
Eden was perfectly correct when he called them kissing cousins. Because two sides calling themselves different names slaughtered each other in great numbers does not make them totally different. Solzhenitsyn didn't see much difference between communism and nazism.
In response to your comment #99:
First of all, realize that the project of “Hitler: right or left” has been undertaken for DECADES by leftist scholars with the obvious conclusion. It was undertaken by the Communist Party itself (defining fascism as its polar opposite). Do you have any idea how many leftist academics have saddled conservatives with the comparison to fascism/Nazism?
Second, what exactly does “right wing socialism” look like? Can you point to OTHER “conservative socialists” to justify your view that the question as to whether Hitler was right or left wing is murky?
Third, the fact that the Nazi Party changed over time to accomodate Hitler becomes something of a red herring: as Hitler and the Party were rising to power, were he and they right or left wing? Rather than overcomplicate, let’s simplify: take a snapshot of the early 1930s when Hitler STILL had to appeal to a political base. Can you seriously argue to me that the Nazi Party platform (of which I previously enumerated several points) was “right wing”?
Fourth, take other fascist governments - such as Benito Mussolini’s Italy. Was IT “right wing”? Why did so many from the American political left express their affiliation with both Mussolini and (prior to the late 1930s) Adolf Hitler? And if those who are seeing the frightening parallels between Obama’s America and fascism, can we then argue - if “Nazism” and the “fascism” from which it sprang is “right wing” - that Barack Obama is actually a “far right winger” who cleverly disguised himself as a liberal?
Some other points: have you ever done a study of the worldview presuppositions underlying fascism? I have, and they most certainly do not come from the conservative, “right wing” sphere (If Hitler was a conservative, just what the hell was he trying to conserve?). How then can you have radical leftist presuppostions (virtually identical with communism - a later commenter correctly points out that Alexander Solschenizyn - in Gulag Archipelago - did not see any real difference between communism and Nazism ), and somehow end up with a right-wing government?
Here’s why I think your decision to read Rise and Fall was intuitively correct:
It’s interesting that both Mussolini and Hitler so admired ancient Rome. Hitler called it the “crystallization point of a world empire.”
Both Hitler and Mussolini viewed Christianity in essentially Nietzschian terms, as something that dragged down Western Civilization and which needed to be abandoned. They looked to pre-Christianity to find the “greatness” they aspired to.
The American founding fathers would blanche at such a comparison between the American Constitution and the rule of the Roman Caesars; the fascist dictators glorified in it.
Whenever one approaches government as the solution to problems - which since the abandonment of monarchies has been the exclulsive domain of the political left - the tendency is invariably toward the pursuit of absolute power, such as the Caesars came to have.
Once you really get to know Hitler you realize that he isn't a product of an ideology. He is a sociopath of demonic proportions. He had no plans for management except to enlarge himself and destroy anything that stood in his way.
That's why I said it is folly to try an place such a person at some point upon a political continuum when such person is basically apolitical.
In the Germany of his time, he was consider "extreme right" (by the definition of right v left of the time). In retrospect, he defies all such definition.
Certainly the contemporary left tries to say he is a product of right wing ideology. But that too is just a lie.
He transcends such political definition and trying to assign him to any is just a waster of time (which is why it is so intellectually frustrating and irresolvable).
I’m not trying to “place” Hitler in terms of left or right; I agree with you that he would have been anything that would have given him power. He didn’t want “leftism,” he wanted power.
What I am arguing is that fascism itself - and Nazism as well - are thoroughly from the left. There simply is no such thing as “right wing socialism.”
And it was progressive/liberal Americans who were impressed with both communism and its socialist rival fascism. Both Golderg and Veith spend a fair bit of time cataloguing and quoting American leftists who acclaimed fascism. This adoration simply wasn’t coming from the American political right.
And, again, I pointed out that the Nazi platform - which I cited for you - is CLEARLY left wing in its orientation.
Fascism was a political ideology that clearly emerged from the political left.
However, Hitler became Chairman in 1921 and while he paid lip service to its origins and platform initially, he completely co-opted the party after becoming chairman and instituted the Führerprinzip (leadership principal) under which he would personally dictate all policies and strategies. That was the beginning of the post-Hitler party and from that time on the party grew rapidly and quickly became merely a relection of Hitler (neither right or left but with some features of each).
As to the Fascism movement of Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile, I will only state that it is a separate subject and requires treatment as such.
First of all, I have to correct you: Hitler was NOT the “55th member to join,” but the 555th.
Secondly, the fact remains that the Nazi Party platform was and continued to remain a truly leftist platform. The Nazi Party rose to power on that platform. I frankly don’t see how you can simply dismiss it like it somehow didn’t matter.
Hitler didn’t merely “play lip service” to the Nazi Party Platform; he used it to rise to power. He convinced the masses that he was going to bring the platform into reality. If he didn’t actually intend to do that stuff, it doesn’t matter in the slightest: the people who empowered him and made him fuhrer believed that he would. Hence Hitler rose to power on a leftist agenda. Just admit it.
Third, you think Hitler had this pact with the industrial-military complex that somehow qualified as “right wing.” Please do a little reading about communism, and see how totally “militaristic” communism was before continuing to advance this claim. The only difference was that the incredibly militaristic communists officially nationalized their industries, and Hitler took total control of the industrial base in a slightly different way (and I note that the Nazi Party platform even used the TERM “nationalize” in point 13: “We demand the nationalization of all associated industries” (with point 12 relating to “the total confiscation of all war profits”).
Let me again cite Sheldon Richman’s Concise Encyclopedia of Economics:
“Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.”
Both communism and fascism ended up with the government dictating to and controlling the industrial base.
To try to argue that Hitler was somehow “right wing” because he was militaristic is simply bizarre given that the communists were just as militaristic as Hitler was! Hven’t you ever seen those huge military parades with the goose-stepping Soviet troops marching through Red Square with all the tanks and missile launchers? And Hitler practiced socialism - which is COMPLETELY LEFT WING - in essentially confiscating the industrial base toward his agenda.
Hitler was a man of the left, and you’re going to have to explain precisely how he was a man of the right. If Hitler was a conservative, please explain precisely just what it was he was trying to “conserve.”
Sorry, but Hitler was the 55th member. The party added 500 to each member's number to make the rolls appear larger. Ergo, Hitler's number enrollment number assigned was 555.
Sorry, I think you and I have beaten this issue to death. No more from this end.
Winning by sheer attrition is still winning, isn’t it? :)
After all the years of liberal demonizing re: Hitler, Nazism, and conservatives - which was tragically validated by too many left-leaning academics - I am passionate about the issue. And I think it is a VERY important rather than trivial issue.
So you could have counted on me to keep up the argument had you wished to pursue it.
As I said earlier, this issue of position on the political spectrum may be of importance to you, but most of serious students (I know) of the rise and fall of the Third Reich are more focused on learning and understanding than in winning trivial arguments that arise because of a superficial knowledge of the subject.
Winning by attrition? If that makes you feel better.
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