1933?

Vanity | January 24, 2009 | Nathan Ledford

[nathanbedford]

Between the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 and the dawn hours of September 1,1939, there was time enough to birth a new generation in England and on the continent and to forget every lesson learned in the mud and blood of Flanders and Passchendaele.

And so were the English, French, and we Americans duped in 1933. Or were we all? Did we not seek to be duped? Churchill read Mein Kampf and so did others. Why was he nearly alone in taking a lesson from it? What is it in men that encourages us to rationalize evil? I certainly do not think it is a anything as prosaic as "unwisdom, carelessness or good nature" that ultimately accounts for it. I think there is a more sinister impulse implanted in men.

The signs were all there to see: the cult of personality; the intolerance of contrary opinion; the formation of extra-normal operatives such as political street organizations and youth organizations; playing on victimology; the creation of an us against them mentality; the demonization of opponents; the false sense of urgency; the immunity from the rule of law for the elites; the fawning of the media; the distortion of science; the tinkering with life in the laboratory; the mass psychosis.

[nathanbedford]

Between the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 and the dawn hours of September 1,1939, there was time enough to birth a new generation in England and on the continent and to forget every lesson learned in the mud and blood of Flanders and Passchendaele.

.

The new generation, and, alas, the generation that had been tutored in the blood and mud of the trenches at the cost of 10 million lives, forgot their lessons, worse, they contrived rationalizations to turn history and common sense on their heads. Both sides of the trenches got their lessons wrong. The Germans concluded that losing war was intolerable. The French and the English concluded that war itself was intolerable. Thus, the Germans made themselves vulnerable to a homicidal megalomaniac who would create a cult of personality, deprive them of their discernment, and ruin them utterly even to the point of cannibalism. He would bring them to war, he would bring them to intolerable conditions, he would bring them to ruin. From beginning to end most of them would remain under his hypnotic thrall.

Alas, the English also got their lessons wrong too, they turned to the Lotus. Abhorring evil, they chose to cope with it by simply denying its existence. Or at least they would deal with it by returning good for evil, appeasement for aggression. Up to the very cusp of Armageddon they thought they could bargain with Faust. They saved their umbrage which should have been directed at Hitler and turned it on the Jeremiah, on John the Baptist, one of their own, who was vainly summoning them to the Shield and Buckler of their sacred honor.

Lest we Americans grow too smug, our humility should be increased by recognizing that we chose to cope with evil with a geographical cure: we would leave it in Europe. Our arrogance was reinforced by an accident of geography, we were separated from Hitler by an ocean and therefore we could say that we were separated from evil by our righteousness. Our self -deception nearly let slip the whole world into a new dark age.

In Volume one, The Gathering Storm, of his historic (the Actual publishing of these volumes was a matter itself of history) as well as historical account of The Second World War, Churchill identifies his theme:

How the English-speaking peoples

through their unwisdom

carelessness and good nature

allowed the wicked

to rearm

Living today in Germany, I am fascinated by the Teutonic way of seeing the world and am drawn to explore the "Hitler Zeit" or, the "Hitler Times", as they are now euphemistically described, with my neighbors. Yet, it would be boorish to barge into such a sensitive subject with people who are unfailingly polite. So I have contrived a game to draw them out, I ask them the following question: Who is the greatest man of the 20th century? Most often the answer I hear is, Adenauer. I suppose that is understandable, if not inspiring. Sometimes, I hear one from the following genre: Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Theresa. I take this as evidence of the leftist educational influence in Germany. I have never heard the name, Winston Churchill, spontaneously advanced in response to my question in Germany. At first I was surprised but now I understand that this is part of a tapestry that is best left folded over. The fault for the second world war lies not with the German people but with Adolph Hitler alone or in company with a few of his henchmen. The German people themselves, you see, were duped. In many ways I believe Germans have taken the wrong lessions from the second war as they did from the first. The problem is seen as the Nazis and so they must today be suppressed. Rather than defend liberty of speech, they adopt the Nazi tactic and suppress speech. They see a grave danger in Scientology and virtually outlaw it. But then they saw a greater danger in George Bush than in Vladimir Putin.

And so were the English, French, and we Americans duped in 1933. Or were we all? Did we not seek to be duped? Churchill read Mein Kampf and so did others. Why was he nearly alone in taking a lesson from it? What is it in men that encourages us to rationalize evil? I certainly do not think it is a anything as prosaic as "unwisdom, carelessness or good nature" that ultimately accounts for it. I think there is a more sinister impulse implanted in men.

The signs were all there to see: the cult of personality; the intolerance of contrary opinion; the formation of extra-normal operatives such as political street organizations and youth organizations; playing on victimology; the creation of an us against them mentality; the demonization of opponents; the false sense of urgency; the immunity from the rule of law for the elites; the fawning of the media; the distortion of science; the tinkering with life in the laboratory; the mass psychosis.

George Bush and Winston Churchill share a one admirable characteristic in common, both men repudiate pettiness. So Bush carried this normally noble character trait to a fault in turning the other cheek to his attackers to the destruction of his own administration. Churchill would not denigrate even Chamberlain personally. Yet there is no question that Churchill could identify evil. He saw it from the very beginning in Hitler. He might have misjudged Mussolini a bit in the early going, but Churchill nailed Hitler from the get go, from even before the day Hitler came to power in 1933. He was never deceived, either, about the murderous tyrants of the Kremlin and their evil, pernicious doctrine. I tell my German friends that I think Winston Churchill was the greatest man of the 20th century, "because he single-handedly saved the world- once from fascism and once, with others, from communism."

What is the point of all this? Well, it is high time that I got to the point. More than one Freeper has asked me to comment on the early doings of the Obama administration. Believe it or not, this is a vanity about that. Am I comparing Obama to Hitler? Yes I am. I would rather make the point by identifying parallels with communism, the Soviets, their gulags, their repression, mao tse- tung's cult of personality, the treatment in the press, their domination of academia. But I am writing this to persuade people so I pick Hitler rather than Mao, Hitler rather than Che Guevera, Hitler rather than Hugo Chavez, because in today's world it is politically correct to attack Nazis and unproductive to attack extreme leftism.

How dare one compare unfavorably our first black president, freely elected by the people, with one of history's most evil men, Adolf Hitler? I'll leave that for you to ponder. If this vanity slips out somehow from FreeRepublic, probably because it is identified as an execrable example of hate on the right, the debate will be confined to how the right must be censored, they will say that it is far more dangerous than, for example, Scientology (but perhaps with less influence.) But others with a more open mind might just open those minds further to the parallels between Obama and Hitler. They might consider what it was about the English state of mind after the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month which very nearly led them into gotterdammerung. They might consider how Churchill was shunned and dismissed as a war monger. They might see some parallels in our society today in the way in which we are treating our Jeremiahs, our John the Baptists. I am bound to say in sadness that I see no Winston Churchill in our midst but I do see that it is 1933 for Obama's America.

On October 25 of last year, before the election, I published this on Free Republic:

How conservatives can contrive to come out of the wilderness or whether they can come out at all cannot now be foreseen. Much depends on whether Obama merely perverts our institutions and traditional liberties or succeeds in subverting the Constitution à la Hugo Chavez. Obama has many tools short of violence and few institutional obstacles stand in his way. He has the overwhelming justification of the financial crisis which might well become a depression. He will pack the court. He will use the treaty making power to detour around our constitutional liberties. The propaganda machine will be overwhelming. The bright side, if it can be counted as such, is that all will not be well on the left. Hillary will exercise her ambitions, inevitably at the expense of Obama. Every special-interest group will be calling in their IOUs. In the long run, an extreme leftist coalition cannot hold together unless it moves beyond our constitutional government toward some sort of repressive regime. I look for Stalin versus Trotsky wars on the left with the potential for these internicine battles to spin out of control. Who knows where that will lead? Much depends on whether the left stays within the model of a representative democracy or seeks to extend its power with subversion of our historical liberties.

It is difficult to lift one's gaze above the machinations generated by Obama's new administration to see the path leading out of the wilderness for conservatives and for the country. I think it revolves around the word, liberty. There is every reason to fear that our economic times will closely resemble 1933. Will the political Times parallel 1933 as well? The portents are ominous. The absence of a conservative opposition to raise the standard even against the corruption of Obama's appointees is as dispiriting as it is revealing. We will be lucky, however, if the worst legacy of Obamaism is mere corruption. Yet, we have betrayed ourselves to be too callow even to stand up even against obvious corruption. Somehow, men must raise themselves up and defend their children and their children's birthright. They must recognize evil. They must fight for liberty if only for their childrens' sake. If we succumb to the cult of personality every child in the world is lost for we are the hope of the world.

Here is how Churchill ends his the first volume at England's darkest hour when England must stand alone against the overwhelming power of evil yet, indomitably, he ends on a note of hope:

During these last crowded days of the political crisis my pulse had not quickened at any moment. I took it all as it came. But I cannot conceal from the reader of this truthful account that as I went to bed at about 3 a.m. I was conscious of a profound sense of relief. At last I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial. 10 years in the political wilderness had freed me from ordinary party antagonisms. My warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or would want a preparation for it. I thought I'd do a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail. Therefore, although impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams.

[Not a 60s Hippy]

Read my Home Page.

[hinckley buzzard]

I think there is a more sinister impulse implanted in men.

Solzhenytsin spoke the truth when he observed that the battle line between good and evil runs through every human heart. Many people, and liberals by definition, seek to deny the capacity for evil in themselves. By refusing to acknowledge its presence they allow it to run amok and unimpeded, behind the flimsy figleaves of their bankrupt ideology. Hitler and his kind are made possible by the apathetic and by the left, not the right.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Churchill, an American on his mama’s side. :)

[grey_whiskers]

Your screen name combined with your attacking "The One" will make all your arguments too easily brushed away as sophistry.

"Pretty clever for a skinhead" would be the likely comment.

I disagree with Obama because of abortion.

His mother chose life.

[Twinkie]

“Facts are better than dreams.”

. . bears repeating.

[raybbr]

As usual, your posts are riveting because of the truth and language you use.

BTW, the pogroms have begun. So far, in word only...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

[Woebama]

Reality is hard work. An alternate, happier, and easier “reality,” unchallanged because of speech restrictions, and socially and politically enforced conformity, attracts the left.

[LRS]

Thank you sir.

What gets me, is after 8 years of “Bush = Hitler”, those same people are gleefully and ignorantly goosestepping their way into a new level of insanity.

And for what? Rhetoric? The hope of sticking it to the rich? The change of beating whitey down?

There's no massive unemployment lines. There's no soup kitchen lines overflowing with the hungry. The diseased aren't dying in the street. Yet like we heard in 1992, there are ignorant masses who believe that “It can't get any worse” when they elected Bill Clinton, just because the propaganda experts in the media told them that there lives are hell. Can't get any worse? Their lives are hell? Bull! they don't have the least conception how bad things can get.

There are too many ignorant sheep in this nation. Adolf Hitler (et.al)didn't just occur in a vacuum. He had people who were willing to follow him to hell. The only redeeming factor of those followers, was that they honestly were enduring real rough times. Not rhetoric.

Well, before I start getting too carried away, let me end by pointing at my recent tagline: Just contracts; just laws; just a constitution... . These are the things that keep us a civilized society. Yet those ignorant masses are willing to toss these items aside, and replace them with the personality cult; a form of government our forefathers revolted against in 1776. Oh, that governance can make trains run on time, or even build pyramids. But when the taint begins show on that personality, anarchy, destruction and death follow. This nation's sheep are one foolish lot...

[Congressman Billybob]

Excellent and thoughtful piece of work. At the beginning, I said, this is too long to read now. By the end, I said, this was too important not to read now.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article, "Coming Soon to a TV Near You!"

The Declaration, the Constitution, parts of the Federalist, and America's Owner's Manual, here.

[Larry381]

During the 30’s in Europe there was basically only two political and social movements that attracted European youth.
Fascism and Communism were the only options and liberal democracy was not even in the running.
People in Europe forget, or want to forget, that their were massive fascist and communist movements in most of Europe during the 30’s The fascists promised order and the communists promised a type of Utopia. The two movements were constantly at each other's throats and so weakened the European social and moral fiber of their countries that Hitler had little trouble conquering Holland Belgium and France in May 1940 and the rest of eastern Europe soon after.

In a country like Spain the results were deadly and resulted in nearly a million killed during the Spanish Civil war. Anybody interested in what could happen in this country when political movements get out of hand need only read what the state of economic and political ferment in Spain was like in the summer of 1936 on the eve of that conflict.

[hellbender]

Hitler would have gone nowhere in politics had Germany not been threatened by economic disaster (esp. runaway inflation) and communist takeover. Many Europeans, not just Germans, embraced some form of fascism in order to defeat communism. In drawing parallels with Hitler, we should also be thinking of how the Left in this country, aided by dopes like Bush, have set up our economy to fail and destroy the savings of the middle class.

[indestructable]

I would suggest that Obama is more akin to the Soviet Bolshevik Commies as opposed to the National Socialists, and would compare him to Lenin. Reason being is his views on race are more similar to the Soviet model as is his collectivist leanings in his views on how an economic system should be run. There is still hate between those two factions (Fascists v Commies) and unfortunately when the communist left (i.e. American left wing) attacks the classical liberal right, they invoke the Nazis, as to compare all whites / people on the right with Nazis by proxy. You’re against Obama? You’re a racist and Nazi. I hear it all the time.

As for Churchill, I definitely admire the man, but I credit Hitler’s doctor, who was injecting him with speed on a regular basis, for the destruction of Nazism. If he hadn’t done that, and Hitler’s judgement hadn’t been impaired, they may have very well won that war.

[SandRat]

The signs were all there to see: the cult of personality; the intolerance of contrary opinion; the formation of extra-normal operatives such as political street organizations and youth organizations; playing on victimology; the creation of an us against them mentality; the demonization of opponents; the false sense of urgency; the immunity from the rule of law for the elites; the fawning of the media; the distortion of science; the tinkering with life in the laboratory; the mass psychosis.

This all sounds like the "O", the LameStreamMedia, Princess Pelousy, Lord HAW-HAW Reid, Field Marshall "Herman" Ted Kennedy, Dennis "Goebbels" Kooksinitch, the Democratic Party et. al., the academia of the Indoctrinate Us.

[nathanbedford]

It is true that the Conservatives in France in 1940 would rather see the Nazis in control of their country than the Communists. Many of them considered that there was no third alternative. One can only imagine how destructive this must've been on French morale.

As the Democrats have coarsened and polarized our political discourse since Ronald Reagan but especially since George Bush, it pushes the Republic ever closer to the point of polarization in which such Hobson's choices will be forced upon us.

The Obama cult seeks to shut down two-sided debate, which is one way of solving the polarization problem. This vanity is my way of groping toward making opposition to the cult of Barak Obama respectable.

[nathanbedford]

Thank you for the very kind words. For my part, I've enjoyed your contributions to Free Republic enormously.

[nathanbedford]

Thanks.

[nathanbedford]

Thank you for your insights about my screen name which I hasten to assure you I take quite seriously. In fact, before it using the screen name I was advised against it buy a friend who insisted, much as you have, that anything I wish to say could be blown away by the wind storm created by the use of the name and avatar of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Upon consideration, I nevertheless concluded to go ahead with the name and heavatar for the reasons which I have expressed in my about page. I would be glad if you would take the time to look at it and let me know whether you think it addresses these concerns.

[jamaksin]

Psst ... actually the “Churchill” volumes were written by the “Syndicate” with Ismay as the lead. [See “In Command of History” by David Reynolds.]

[grey_whiskers]

I'm sorry, I'm afraid I gave *quite* the wrong impression.

I had in fact read your FR homepage maybe a year ago, and was surprised to learn that Forrest had started the KKK to chase out carpetbaggers, not persecute former slaves.

I was even more impressed to hear of what was more or less a deathbed conversion: God is far more merciful than humans!

My point was simply that in the eyes of those who most need your warning, your screen name alone would be enough to disqualify you, and stereotype all FReepers by association.

I'll bet you even voted for Sarah Palin! (wink)

The only point I disagree with you about, is that The One ^TM is not Hitler, but Chamberlain, or worse, Quisling (dare I say Marshall Petain?)

NO Cheers, unfortunately.