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SHOCKING: Kagan's Princeton Thesis Cited German Socialist Who Endorsed Nazis
Human Events ^ | JULY 1, 2010 | Human Events

Posted on 07/02/2010 12:34:17 AM PDT by RobinMasters

Elena Kagan's senior thesis at Princeton University, recounting the history of socialist politics in New York City, cited the theories of an influential German Marxist who notoriously switched allegiances to Nazism after Adolf Hitler attained power.

Werner Sombart was widely recognized as an academic proponent of Marxism and was once praised by Karl Marx's colleague Friedrich Engels as the only German professor who understood Marx's Das Kapital. During World War I, however, Sombart endorsed Germany's "heroic" war against the "capitalist spirit" represented by England. In 1934, Sombart published Deutscher Sozialismus, which advocated the "total ordering of life" as an expression of the German Volksgeist, or "national spirit."

In the introduction to her 1981 thesis, Kagan addresses a question famously asked by Sombart: Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Sozialismus? -- "Why is there no socialism in the United States?"

(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 1981; elenakagan; fascists; kagan; kagantruthfile; marxists; sombart; wernersombart
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To: pelican001

I think you may be right.


41 posted on 07/02/2010 1:23:55 PM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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To: Arcy

It is true that many of them lack intellectual rigor.


42 posted on 07/02/2010 1:26:22 PM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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To: Yardstick
". Benito Mussolini was praised by Lenin "

COuld you please give a reference?

43 posted on 07/02/2010 3:14:33 PM PDT by TopQuark
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To: nathanbedford
" why Kagan's thesis on the advent of socialism in New York City ends with the arrival of the refugees from the diaspora of the Frankfurt school?"

This could've been dictated by the extant literature. If the period after 1933 had been already addressed, it would've been rather difficult for a thesis to be sufficiently novel.

44 posted on 07/02/2010 3:21:00 PM PDT by TopQuark
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To: TopQuark
Pretty sure it's in Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism.

Either that or it's somewhere in the footnotes of a great piece called The Mystery of Fascism by David Ramsay Steele (which Goldberg cites in his book).

45 posted on 07/02/2010 3:22:59 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Yardstick

Thank you very much.


46 posted on 07/02/2010 3:24:49 PM PDT by TopQuark
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To: TopQuark

Well, hang on a second. I just looked through the section of of LF where I thought it was and didn’t see it, and I scanned the footnotes of the Steele piece and didn’t see it. I know I read it somewhere credible, but for the moment I can’t remember where that was. It’s possible I dreamed it or am confusing Mussolini with someone else (maybe it was Gramsci), but I don’t think so (80% sure).


47 posted on 07/02/2010 3:41:30 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: TopQuark

Here’s piece in the Weekly Standard that references Lenin’s comments on Mussolini but doesn’t actually quote him:

http://www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/009/736jyhpe.asp

“”””””””””

Word got around about the young firebrand. Writing from Vienna in the newly founded Pravda, Lenin praised Mussolini for his uncompromising revolutionary stand. A few months later, Mussolini was appointed editor of the national Socialist party daily, Avanti!, and he proved he had the touch: Circulation rose from 34,000 to 60,000 during his first eighteen months. With a style that he called “electric” and “explosive,” he made a reputation as the leading popular journalist in Italy. His star was ascendant, and it was red.

“””””””””

The exact quote could probably be pulled up with some strategic googling.


48 posted on 07/02/2010 3:54:45 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: RobinMasters

There is no reason to tell anyone about what a scum she is. She will be a so called justice and there will be republicans that vote for her.

Our side, cowards all of them. Words mean nothing, actions do.


49 posted on 07/02/2010 3:59:38 PM PDT by dforest
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To: Yardstick
Yes, I was surprised. Having read quite a bit of Lenin, I could not recall any references to Mussolini (or Gramsci).
50 posted on 07/02/2010 7:18:40 PM PDT by TopQuark
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To: TopQuark

Well, I keep finding references to Lenin praising Mussolini but I can’t find the actual quote:

http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=ZTdlOGVkY2EyNDRjMTUzMThkMDBlOWY3Mjk3NzUwMDc=

“The party was founded by Mussolini, a former socialist singled out by Lenin for praise...”

http://www.friesian.com/marx.htm

“...and Lenin himself had praised Mussolini as the great champion of the Italian socialist party in the days before World War I.”


51 posted on 07/02/2010 9:02:35 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Stingray; nathanbedford
she figures to play prominently in Obama’s plans to stack the court in favor of Commie health care

She (and "Obama") couldn't care less about health care.

That's just one tool in their toolbox. They have much bigger fish to fry.

In 2001, "Obama" said this: "But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf."

So, it is crystal clear why Elena Kagan is being appointed to the Court. She is the nucleus of a future Obama majority which will "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution".

And WHY does he need the Court to "break free"? So that, as he said later in the same interview, he will be able to "put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change."

Elena Kagan wrote her college thesis on why socialism had failed in the United States (actually, among displaced European Jews living in New York City, that's all she knew of the United States at the time of her thesis). She ended her thesis with a prayerful hope that a more radical American left would arise in the future.

And here it is. Health care has nothing to do with it.

52 posted on 07/03/2010 4:37:34 AM PDT by Jim Noble (If the answer is "Republican", it must be a stupid question.)
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