Comments

2

Then how does one explain that all the right wing parties rapidly advancing in scandavian countries also believe in large state welfare and national control of key economic sectors, but just for their people?

Socialists can very easily be racists.

3

Seriously! Did everyone sleep through their middle school social studies classes, their high school government classes, and somehow manage to skip out of their college history classes? Naziism was a political system, not an economic system. Fascism was the economic system. Just because they called themselves National Socialists, doesn’t mean they were socialists. If they called themselves tunafish sandwiches, it doesn’t mean they were.

4

Karatani title truncated, s/b "From Modes of Production to Modes of Exchange".

7

These dumb mother fuckers dont know that the folk community was an intentional coopting and redefining of Bolshevik socialism because Hitler hated them; what was socialistic was that all Germans were to be held to the same status as the master race, but what Hitler called National Socialism is in fact the epitome of fascism, or the surrendering of personal freedom to the state. Everything else is an attempt to normalize fascism, and you cancerous traitors trying to revive it by playing into Hitler's hands can die with your evil ancestors that my grandfather proudly put into the grave.

8

"... what Hitler called National Socialism is in fact the epitome of fascism, or the surrendering of personal freedom to the state."

Yeah, but when the state's headed by someone so Godlike, like trumpfy, eg, who WOULDN'T wanna give up their Freedoms for the Strength! and Security!* (and Purity of Essence!) trumpfy promises (many of) us!?

"Everything else is an attempt to normalize fascism, and you cancerous traitors trying to revive it by playing into Hitler's hands can die with your evil ancestors that my grandfather proudly put into the grave."

Very well said, Garby.
Merry Christmas!
and/or
Happy Holydays!

*well, "Security" thru War
so, you (+ your Progenies)
may as well prepare to Die.
Hey -- we ALL gotta sacrifice.

9

Wow! Collectivism is socialism? where have I heard this before?

Demagogues always use populism to capture part of working people to their cause and dismantle the left. It doesn't make it socialism.

10

Speaking of purity of essence:

"Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb presents a transcendent misogynist motif, recurrent across the breadth of Kubrick’s oeuvre.

Within the director’s Cold War satire, the masculine is consistently privileged over the subaltern feminine. Rather than the absolutist dichotomy of John Foster Dulles, who perceived the Cold War as no less a struggle between good and evil, Kubrick translates the Cold War discourse by proffering his own interpretation; for the director, the global standoff constitutes not only a battle of ideologies, but also a battle of the sexes.

The Cold War is a bitter confrontation between the supremacy of the patriarchic “capitalist” male and the inferior “communist” female. Cold War brinksmanship is represented by the auteur as the ultimate expression of masculine potency. Within this milieu, strength through action is privileged over effeminate reflection.

Yet Kubrick intellectually destroys the foundation upon which the Cold warriors base their discriminatory arguments. In the concluding sequence, the auteur unambiguously reveals the consequence of violent and unrestrained misogynist gender dynamics: mutually assured destruction."

Stanley Kubrick: "Purity of Essence" Purified
David C. Pricer English 578
– Dr. John Hellmann

https://lima.osu.edu/current-students/the-learning-center/the-writing-center/ohio-state-writing-awards/stanley-kubrick-purity-of-essence-purified.html

Mutually Assured Destruction
Why you MAD, Bro?

11

@8 Merry Xmas, kristofarian. Have a happy new year!

12

If one defines socialism as 'the ownership and control of the means of production by the workers, or by the community in general,' then the only way Naziism could be considered a species of socialism would be if one agreed with the Nazi view of the people, the Volk, as a unitary organism governed by the FĂĽhrerprinzip, a sort of group mind manifesting itself as the great leader. While the more romantic Nazis may have entertained such a concept, it seems like an odd proposition for non-Nazis to take seriously.

14

Ugh. The allies fought against the axis not because of economic or even political ideology, but because there invaded other countries that did not want to be invaded. Had America invaded and smashed Mexico, then set their sights on Ottawa, there would have been a similar response.

One thing Americans generally don't know is what "National" in "National Socialism" means. Nation means an ethnic group. So if someone suggested "white socialism" with other races as not qualifying for the socialist largesse of the state, that'd be Naziism at it's core here in America. You can see why Naziism nearly requires the identification and elimination of outsiders - they're a drain on the system. The Nazis had a saying for disabled people, "life unworthy of life"; but what they really meant was Life That Wasn't Pulling It's Own Weight.

We see that line of thinking all the time in America. Lazy bums just too lazy to get a job. Rich shmucks too greedy, etc. They're not contributing to the greater whole.

No way that could go wrong, could it?

15

Hey, I just met this weird guy in his late 20's wearing a diaper and hanging out on my university campus. He told me that the Democrats are the real racists because they started the KKK.

16

@15 -- not to worry -- that's just one of our resident Trolls. Everyone (well, almost) knows that History is def not their strong suit -- they don't get Out much, but when they do, stand way back.

Say, you didn't Feed it, didja? It's best
not to, it just makes them royally Dependent.

Speaking of which, I bet it's diaper was looking a little Heavy...
If anyone could benefit from a little Socialism, it's def them
and yet, no one hates equality of distribution more. Sad.

17

Moving Nazism over into the "left-wing" column has been a long-term project of conservative punditry since approximately 1941. In this little Twitter spat we can witness firsthand the near-complete success of this project within the conservative bubble. It is now taken as gospel among conservative deep-thinkers not only that Nazis were left-wingers (because socialism,) but that the root of all their evil lay in their penchant for taxpayer-funded healthcare and not in their penchant for military conquest and mass murder.

This line of argument has proven spectacularly persuasive among conservatives desperate to un-connect the dots between their own beliefs and those of the most universally reviled Bad Guys of the modern age.

There are two important tricks to swallowing this bromide:
One: A broad, malleable definition of "socialism" that can be expanded or contracted to include things they don't like and exclude things they do like. In spite of the fact that the definition of socialism being used is so broad as to include every nation on every side of WWII, including all of the Allies, you are certainly not going to hear conservatives crediting socialists with winning the war, anymore than you'll hear them thanking the USSR for throwing every last able-bodied man they could round up into the wood-chipper of the advancing German army. Nope, you're only going to hear more of this "This is what my grampa (who bought a house and went to school thanks to the G.I. Bill) fought against!"

Two: Conveniently ignoring the considerable historical overlap in goals, tactics, and ideology between conservative "America First" nationalist ideology and fascism, from the thirties to the present. The fact that some of the USA's most prominent plutocrats actively plotted a fascist overthrow of the FDR administration is not taught in history classes, so maybe that helps explain why those currently working at the behest of today's plutocrats (including direct descendants of those very same plotters) to dismantle the last vestiges of the New Deal steadfastly refuse to admit that they have taken up the historical fascist cause. We have also collectively decided to politely avoid mentioning that many of America's most revered historical figures, from Henry Ford to Charles Lindbergh, were vocal proponents of Nazism right up until Pearl Harbor made that position untenable.

The latter requires that one confine one's historical studies to the sort of revisionist history coloring books produced by charlatans like D'Souza and steadfastly ignore all other scholarship. The former only requires that every disastrous historical occurrence be retroactively re-branded "socialism," and every past success be re-branded as "free market USA USA USA!"

The goal is basic No-True-Scotsman-ing: All of history's mistakes are caused by the Other Team, whereas Our Team is blameless, our reputation spotless.


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