[Cid_Yama]

As a result of the failure of the right, the German people elected a moderately leftist government to lead the nation's rebuilding. It was named the Weimar Republic for the city in which the new post-imperial constitution was written. The new government was led by Friedrich Ebert, head of the German Socialist Party.

But the country's new parliamentary system had allowed dozens of parties to run, making it impossible for any one party to win an outright majority. Ebert's party had achieved the highest portion of votes, 38%, in the first post-War elections, held in January 1919. Ebert would have to govern by coalition.

It was at this time that the right wing made its crucial decision. Despite its shocking, naked failure over the prior decade, despite the horrific devastation it had wrought on the German people, despite the discrediting of everything they had purported to stand for, they would fight Ebert, his new government, and its plans for recovery. They would do everything they could to make sure that the new government failed.

Their strategy was two-fold: first, stoke the resentment of the population about the calamitous state of its living conditions-no matter that those conditions had been created by the very right-wing oligarchs who now pretended to befriend the little guy. Rage is rage. It is glandular and unseeing. Once catalyzed it is easy to turn on any subject.

And stoking resentment was easy to do. Just before the War ended, the military concocted its most sensational lie: the German army hadn't actually been defeated. It had been "stabbed in the back" by communists, traitors, and Jews. It was an easy lie to sell. It entwined an attack on an alien political ideology - liberalism- with the latent, pervasive myth of German racial superiority.

The second strategy of the right was to prevent the new government from succeeding. To begin with, success of the left would conspicuously advertise the failure of the right. Moreover, success by the left would legitimize republican government, so hated by the oligarchs of the right. Much better for the people to be ruled by the self-aggrandizing right-wing autocracy that had governed Germany for centuries.

So the rightists set out to do everything they could to make it impossible for the leftists to govern. They would use parliamentary maneuver, shifting coalitions, domination of the new mass media, legislative obstruction, staged public relations spectacles, relentless pressure by narrow but powerful interests, judicial intimidation and, eventually, outright murder of their political opponents.

Contrition for their abject failure, humility for their destructive hubris, compassion for their crippled country-those had nothing to do with it. All they possessed was a blinding, visceral hatred of the left and a masturbatory lust for the return to power.

Eventually, they succeeded. Every setback in recovery - and there would inevitably be many - was met with hysterical demonizing of the left wing government. The lie was repeated relentlessly that the government was run by communists, traitors, and Jews-the same furtive cabal that had purportedly stabbed the country in the back at the end of the War. They steadily chipped away at the efficacy and, thereby, the legitimacy of successive republican governments.

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[Ibon]

This text has parallels to our current situation and should give pause for concern that on this tight rope we are walking there is a grave risk that we could go down a dark path as Germany did afterwards. There is a huge main difference though. We are not unified as an Aryan nation. We do believe in our exceptionalism in a nationalistic sense but we shouldn't forget that the white race in America is barely a majority and in not to long from now will lose that position. How will we unify our identity? And against what enemy? Mexicans, Iranians, terrorists, muslims?

The world was a different place in the 30's in that race and culture and nations where crystalized in their own camps. Today is different. I don't see the clear lines being drawn as it was in the 30's where you could demonize your enemy.

It seems we could apply this tyranny and neo fascism only against ourselves internally.

How would the elite and wealthy manipulate the playbook to create an enemy that would take us down that path. Where and who is the enemy?

I don't see it. This is all pure frustration and rage and has no real long term traction. Hope I'm wrong.

[Ayoob]

Multiculturalism was a bad idea to begin with, and now its disastrous consequences are going to visit us at home. We haven't fought a war on our own soil in quite a long time.

[Oakley]

Multiculturalism was a bad idea to begin with, and now its disastrous consequences are going to visit us at home. We haven't fought a war on our own soil in quite a long time.

And multiculturalism on top of the end of the oil age, I think could easily lead to "tribal warfare", as existing political institutions crumble under the pressure of extreme scarcity. Already we have divisions in the USA based on ethnicity. It is not implausible to think that these could become the basis of division as we reorganize socially to compete for the crumbs that remain at the end of the oil age.

The USSR collapsed and divided in the 1990's based on previous national identities, and we may well be on a similar path, but without the previous national identities for a basis of reorganization. What could be the basis for reorganization? States? Red/Blue? Ethnicity? Don't automatically assume the federal government will endure.

[vtsnowedin]

That opening post is quite the diatribe. It forgets to mention the real cause of the failure of the Wiemar Republic which was the treaty of Versailles. It imposed such heavy war reparations on Germany that No government right or left could have succeeded.

[Ludi]

Multiculturalism was a bad idea to begin with, and now its disastrous consequences are going to visit us at home. We haven't fought a war on our own soil in quite a long time.

So, all Americans should have been British, or what are you saying? Which culture would you have preferred, among those that make up America?

[Cid_Yama]

This was written a year and a half ago. Boy, did he call that playbook right.

They're following the same script.

[BasilBoy]

:razz: That opening post is quite the diatribe. It forgets to mention the real cause of the failure of the Wiemar Republic which was the treaty of Versailles. It imposed such heavy war reparations on Germany that No government right or left could have succeeded.

...well, one could argue that the current financial crisis, the national debt, the deficit, peak oil, etc... is imposing analogous difficulties for governing today.

[dsula]

Which culture would you have preferred, among those that make up America?

European would be nice. Northern European even better. Thanks for asking.

[vtsnowedin]

:razz: That opening post is quite the diatribe. It forgets to mention the real cause of the failure of the Wiemar Republic which was the treaty of Versailles. It imposed such heavy war reparations on Germany that No government right or left could have succeeded.

...well, one could argue that the current financial crisis, the national debt, the deficit, peak oil, etc... is imposing analogous difficulties for governing today.

Yes the difficulties of our present and near future conditions do pose extreme challenges on all world governments and it is not yet clear that any government in the world can rise to the challenge. But to suggest that one side of the political spectrum would deliberately destroy it's country to ensure the other sides defeat is to go too far by a mile.

[Plantagenet]

The National Socialists were just another group of totalitarian socialists like the communists---they were a party of the left.

The national socialist movement had its origin in the 19th and early 20th century international socialist movement. The fascists and the national socialists were those socialists who split from the socialist international during WWI when the socialist international proclaimed that all workers were brothers and so shouldn't fight for their countries---the facists and national socialists split from the socialist international and decided to fight for their countries, so the international socialists labelled them, as communists and socialists always do to splittist factions, as "rightists" ---- Cid and other leftists still use this terminology today.

But the German national socialists and Italian facists were socialist totalitarians---they never supported protecting individual freedoms from an expansive state or limiting the size of government----they were all about eliminating individual freedoms and exerting political control over the courts and media and maximizing governmental control of every part of society and private industry----and that puts them clearly on the left.

And just as there were "useful idiots" on the left who admired the socialist dictators of the USSR, there were useful idiots on the left who admired the national socialist dictators in Germany and Italy--- For instance, the famous author and British leftist H.G. Wells argued that liberals and progressives in Britain should become "liberal fascists" and "enlightened Nazis," as he told the Young Liberals at Oxford in a speech in July 1932.

[PrestonSturges]

The National Socialists were just another group of totalitarian socialists like the communists---they were a party of the left.

Dude, stop trying to pretend you read "Liberal Fascism." You don't need to read it, because it's a P.O.S., but don't pretend you read it.

Umberto Eco wrote about growing up under Mussolini and laid out the differences between Fascsim and Communism. As Hitler said too many times to count, Fascism and Nazism are "spiritual" movements of blood, spirit, will, earth. Everything is about purity and racism.

Communism is based on scientific and logical "materialism," the idea that human nature is like electricity that can be precisely controlled according to natural laws. That's why communism is not specifically racial - it sees man as plastic and malleable.

Spirituality and materialism are on opposite sides of the Reformation.

Fascism and Communism could not be farther apart.

People that try to say they are the similar are usually Nazi apologists and neofascists.

[efarmer]

Are they prone to being judgmental as well?

[Cid_Yama]

Fascism is a term used to describe authoritarian nationalist political ideologies or mass movements that are concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence and seek to achieve a millenarian national rebirth by exalting the nation or race, and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity.

Fascists promote a type of national unity that is usually based on (but not limited to) ethnic, cultural, national, racial, and/or religious attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as among its integral parts: nationalism, militarism, anti-communism, totalitarianism, statism, dictatorship, economic planning (including corporatism and autarky), populism, collectivism, autocracy and opposition to classic political and economic liberalism.

Mussolini (who coined the term) defined fascism as a collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, classical liberalism, democracy and individualism. He wrote in The Doctrine of Fascism:

Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity…. The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value…. Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number…. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State.

link

A key feature of fascism is that it uses it's mass movement to attack the organizations of the working class - parties of the left and trades unions.

Fascism, in many respects, is an ideology of negativism: anti-liberal, anti-Communist, anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, etc. As a political and economic system in Italy, it combined elements of corporatism, totalitarianism, nationalism, and anti-communism.

Fascism developed in opposition to socialism and communism.

Fascists are right-wing authoritarians, and when they attempt to control the ideology of the population they are totalitarian.

When I hear right-wing authoritarians try to define Fascists as being left-wing, it is either an attempt to hide they are fascists, or they don't like the idea that they could be fascists.

Attempting to redefine the term Fascist into it's opposite is very Orwellian and totalitarian.

Fascism has a very specific definition in the field of political science and is not open to interpretation.

Educate yourself.

[PrestonSturges]

And if you want to read about the commonalities of fascism and communism, you can read Erick Fromm and Karl Popper, who saw both first hand. The commonalities aren't in the politics at all, which is why the "liberal fascism" crowd comes across as total 'tards.

The commonality is that the same thieving rat-fink can't-mind-their-own-business petty sadists try to toady their way up the ladder of the both systems. That's how you can have people like Huck ridiculing people with pre-existiing conditions. The sadism is an essential part of the pitch.

The stuff that was written in the 1960's was more focused on the threat of communism. As recently as 1995, Ecco could not conceive of a situation where the middle class could to turned to Fascism, but he knew that when it happened television and the internet where a small group of astro-turf protesters would be pitched to the country as the "will of the people."

[dorlomin]

What a shockingly bad historiography of late WWI and early interbellum Germany. No mention of the widespread strikes and failed revolutions in the late WWI germany, what would be crucial in froming the "stabbed in the back" story. No mention of the use of Friekorps to suppress comunist revultionary coups in parts of Germany hence giving the ultra right a huge sense of legitimacy. No mention of Eberts signing of the Versialle treaty....

The national socialist movement had its origin in the 19th and early 20th century international socialist movement. The fascists and the national socialists were those socialists who split from the socialist international during WWI when the socialist international proclaimed that all workers were brothers and so shouldn't fight for their countries

Pure unadulterated bullsh*t. Just made up gubbins. None of the early NSDAP people had any association with socialists in general, the origins of the NSDAP is the Thule society a load of mystical Aryian balls about fantasy Altantis islands near Greenland. Its progenators were Nietzche, Sophenhauser and going further back to the Romantics (Byron, Geothe and company). None of the founders of the NSDAP had any connection to the second international, most of them were violently anti socialist with a few murder attampts to their names. The only real socialist strain was from Ernst Rohm and that was largely anti capitalism derived from anti semitism.

Arse gravy is about the best description of your post.

[Plantagenet]

The fascists and the national socialists were those socialists who split from the socialist international during WWI when the socialist international proclaimed that all workers were brothers and so shouldn't fight for their countries

Pure unadulterated bullsh*t. Just made up gubbins...etc. etc.

Why is it that the more ill-informed someone is, the more likely he is to be a pottymouth?

"With the outbreak of World War I a number of socialist parties initially supported the war when it began in August 1914.[23] Once the war began, Austrian, British, French, German and Russian socialists followed the rising nationalist current by supporting their country's intervention in the war.[13] The outbreak of the war had resulted in a surge of Italian nationalism and the war supported by a variety of political factions. One of the most prominent and popular Italian nationalist supporters of the war was Gabriele d'Annunzio who promoted Italian irredentism and helped sway the Italian public to support intervention in the war.[24] The Italian Liberal Party under the leadership of Paolo Boselli promoted intervention in the war on the side of the Allies and utilized the Dante Aligheri Society to promote Italian nationalism.[25][26] Italian socialists were divided on whether to support the war or oppose it.[27] Prior to Mussolini making a position on the war, a number of revolutionary syndicalists had announced their support of intervention, including Alceste De Ambris, Filippo Corridoni, and Angelo Oliviero Olivetti.[28] However the Italian Socialist Party decided to oppose the war after anti-militarist protestors had been killed, resulting in a general strike called Red Week.[29]
Mussolini initially held official support for the party's decision an in an August 1914 article, Mussolini wrote "Down with the War. We remain neutral."[30] However he saw the war as an opportunity, both for his own ambitions as well as those of socialists and Italians.[30] He was influenced by anti-Austrian Italian nationalist sentiments, believing that the war offered Italians in Austria-Hungary the chance to liberate themselves from rule of the Habsburgs.[30] He eventually decided to declare support for the war by appealing to the need for socialists to overthrow the Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary whom he claimed had consistently repressed socialism.[30] He further justified his position by denouncing the Central Powers for being reactionary powers; for pursuing imperialist designs against Belgium and Serbia as well as historically against Denmark, France, and against Italians, since hundreds of thousands of Italians were under Habsburg rule.[28] He claimed that the fall of Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies and the repression of "reactionary" Turkey would create conditions beneficial for the working class.[28] While he was supportive of the Entente powers, Mussolini responded to the conservative nature of Tsarist Russia by claiming that the mobilization required for the war would undermine Russia's reactionary authoritarianism and the war would bring Russia to social revolution.[28] He claimed that for Italy the war would complete the process of Risorgimento by uniting the Italians in Austria-Hungary into Italy and by allowing the common people of Italy to be participating members of the Italian nation in what would be Italy's first national war.[28] Thus he claimed that the vast social changes that the war could offer meant that it should be supported as a revolutionary war.[28]
As Mussolini's support for the intervention solidified, he became in conflict with socialists who opposed the war. He attacked the opponents of the war and claimed that those proletarians who supported pacifism were out of step with the proletarians who had joined the rising interventionist vanguard that was preparing Italy for a revolutionary war.[31] He began to criticize the Italian Socialist Party and socialism itself for having failed to recognize the national problems that had led to the outbreak of the war.[31] He was expelled from the party due to his support of intervention."

From Wikipedia

[Quinny]

Some people just don't suffer fools gladly!

[PrestonSturges]

When I hear right-wing authoritarians try to define Fascists as being left-wing, it is either an attempt to hide they are fascists, or they don't like the idea that they could be fascists.
Attempting to redefine the term Fascist into it's opposite is very Orwellian and totalitarian.
Fascism has a very specific definition in the field of political science and is not open to interpretation.
Educate yourself.

\
Exactly, notice that the drive to redefine fascism as a leftist phenomenon is exclusively an artifact of the far right.

Right wingers got tired of being called "fascist" so they decided to redefine it.

Of course, then you might ask "Why?"

It's so they can adopt the scripts from Mein Kampf word-for-word. Because according to them, Hitler wasn't really a Fascist, heck he was just crazy a little misunderstood. Jonah Goldberg said Hitler wasn't really a racist. Scratch a little deeper, and you start hearing about Adolph was forced into war by Churchill, scratch a little more, and you find Holocaust denial.

And the main point of Mein Kampf is self defense against the global liberal conspiracy that will kill white Christians.

Which brings us full circle back to Glenn Beck.

And if Hitler were alive today, he'd still be calling the Jews murderous conspirators trying to enslave the white race, but he would beyond any doubt be calling the jews "fascists." And every once in a while, some right wing loud mouth calls someone who lost their grandparents in Auschwitz a "Nazi."

[Cog]

I see Godwin's Law is alive and well on PO.