Oh why do we even respond to these threads... The Nazi party said these things, so these things bad. Ahhh...Nooo. The Nazi party was bad because of many other things it said and did. Things that far FAR far outweighed policy issues on possible social goals. And..since no one would read this tripe without a hook -- lets through in Hillary's name just for fun.
Specious reasoning coupled with a complete misunderstanding of history. That is not to say that I condemn the author for attempting to be politicaly iconoclastic; I believe in challenging accepted wisdoms which don't bear close scrutiny, but in this case it is an argument without real substance, aside from the basic commonalities which could be found between almost any two political systems. 1) One thing popular history tends to overlook, in that in this regard the Nazis preceded us down the road, and it makes for uncomfortable bedfellows, idealogically speaking, is that the Nazis rise in popularity and primary purpose was not an opposition to the Jews, or a belief in a Third Riech, but an idealogical and practical antipathy towards communism. Europe at the time, most notably in Germany an Spain, was a polarized cauldron of competing political visions, with most only agreeing that the status quo was not working. There was a very real possibility that communism would catch on in Germany as it had in Russia, and were it not for the Nazis it probably would have. They opposed the Treaty of Versailles, which they saw as a betrayal, they stood, for the most part, for 'protection of racial purity', but their predominant platform was direct, often violent opposition towards the communist movement within Germany. The intital stormtroopers, brown shirts, etc. did not go around beating up Jews so much as they served the function of storming communist rallies, meetings,etc. and ending them with clubs and boots. To now try and put them in the same bed is akin to suggesting that man and fish are related as both have two eyes, a mouth, eat, etc... 2) Idealogically they were incompatible. Most of the remaining points among the 25 not mentioned clearly point out this difference, but it can even be seen within some of the examples the author did deem to reprint: "We demand the education of specially gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State. " Right there you have, if you look beyond the commonality that the article attempts to point out, a central division between the two systems. Communism demands the edication of all chldren at the expense of the State, or rather at the expense of all. The education of the gifted would be seen as a benefit of this process, but secondary to the benefit of the basic education of all young people. National Socialism distinguishes along the lines of superior vs. inferior persons in a manner which is starkly antithetical to the principles Marx espoused. 3) The attempt to draw lines between the two based on the name 'Socialist' is ridiculous. Both China and the USSR called themselves Republics. In a manner of speaking, both were, but that does not suggest that they held similar political ideologies with the American Republican party. Purely playground reasoning. 4) " 11. Abolition of incomes unearned by work. Breaking of the thraldom of interest. " Again a central distinction becomes apparent with respect to property and income. The Nazis espoused the idea of a meritocracy in terms of a relationship between labor, ability, and resultinat station and income. Communism sees what we would call income as merely an enacted redistribution of what already belongs to us. They beleive that everything belongs to the people, or the State as a reprentative of the people, and the idea of 'earning' more based on what you achieve is outside that thinking, in principle. As we know, in practice the political sprectrum is more of a circle thanan ongoing straight line, and as either ideology reaches it's extremes it reverts towards the extremes of it's opposite. This is only in practice, not in principle, and is soley based on the relationship between the individual and the State. Each extreme advocates a surrender of individual status and priorities for the good of the whole, but whereas Communism sees that whole as being a collective of eqaul citizens under the direction of a wholly representative and practically limited administration, National Socialism sees that whole as a top-down establishment of functionaries fullfilling their purpose as deemed by ability, race, labor,etc. for the betterment of the State, not the collective. In the latter the achievments of the State are the motivation, in the former the equalization of the individuals is the primary goal. As said, in practice they bear similarities in terms of practical relationship between individual and government, but even there they are polar opposites in principle. Obviously the Hillary inclusion is off the mark even along the lines of premise upon which this article is constructed, as she has never advocated the extremism needed to draw the two sides together in practice. Americans often make the mistake of assuming that the idealogical spectrum in the US mirrors the original deliniation, or that of the globe, but in fact the US in general is pretty far right of center, and so those who stand left of center in comparisaon within the US, aside from the extremes, actually usually stand closer to center than their opponents. That said, I am not a Hillary fan or apologist. I merely point out the flaw in thinking which presupposes her as the opposite extreme to Hitler.
That was an article in slate that simply noted a recent study that found that the conservative press was less likely to dissent or criticize conservative politicians than the "liberal" press was to do the same to liberals -- the title was just an attention grabber, and bad judgment by the headline writers at Slate, IMO. The article itself contained no attempt to argue that George Bush or any other republican was the reincarnated soul of Josef Stalin Contrast that with this hysterical silliness, which equates the junior senator from New York with Hitler, an obsession that I still don't understand.
maybe the answer is an article comparing Bush to an eggplant 1. neither one has done anything to help the economy 2. neither one is as smart as the average dog 3. neither won the popular vote in 2000 4. neither served in Vietnam the list could go on and on
I can feel the luv... There are some great responses to mull over, but seriously glynch, is your post an homage to T_J or what? In terms of action, this bbs has yet to let me down.
