Remembering Red victims

The Washington Times ^ | November 30, 2003 | Jeffrey T. Kuhner

[samtheman]

I agree with everything you said. And you are further correct in saying that I equate Communism and Naziism in an attempt to get the attention of the Left. The reason I do that is because there are parts of the American Left who really believe that they are representatives of all that is good and wonderful on planet earth and that all they care about is loving others and helping the poor and that if there were no Hitlers around, we would all love each other and help the poor. By emphasizing Hitler's essential socialist world-view, I am attempting to point out to them the historic association they have with Hitler, who is their own chosen model for Most Evil.

But between us, yes, of course. Hitler was a neophyte in the arts of mass murder. For one thing, his regime was doomed to failure. It was like totalitarianism on meth-amphetamine. Could not possibly have lasted.

Communism, on the other hand, is still murdering large numbers of people today (N Korea) and would still be a global force if it hadn't been for the USA, led by the Ronald the Great.

[risk]

100% agreement! However, I think with Isalmism we may have discovered a new strain of Nazism that can sustain itself. It's like this self-replicating concept (meme) from hell.

[CaptIsaacDavis]

Excellent point! The tally is 36MM (1972-2002) dead so far. And this is not even including all the other casualties of cultural warfare (the crime wave, diseases resulting from open borders and certain behaviors, etc., etc.). All told we are looking at 40MM dead in what Balint Vasonyi has called America's 30 Year War (1968-1998), now 35 I see. This also does not include what might have been -- making up for the lost, but adding more if we did not have such high tax rates, and increases in basic costs of living (home/car+) caused by the credit bubble -- families could afford to have more kids. I see not only mass graves with 40MM, but the ghosts of what could have been -- another 20MM or so strong, beautiful, and bright American kids. The GenX and GenY groups are the first to know what it means to live through genocide. Indeed, that is why such a historically large % of white kids are very radicalized (conservative/nationalist) these days.

By the way, Stalin and Lenin were among the first in the world to promote abortion. Bolshevik Russia had a lot of firsts -- communist propaganda for "free love," even eliminating marriage!, went along with abortion rights (all to destroy the "bourgeois" family structure). I don't think any of them ever imagined being able to destroy an entire civilization through abortion, which is the thesis of Buchanan in Death of the West. Stalin didn't turn anti until WW2 (to achieve the end described).

What we face in America is historically unprecedented in terms of the scale and depth. What can one say about a Liberal culture that the Pope has called the "Culture of Death." Pure evil...

[Bonaparte]

" I can't believe we have any disputes over that material."

I am not concerned with what you believe, only what you can prove.

[Bonaparte]

BTW, how can you say what you said in 59 after reading what I wrote in 26? Just wondering.

[Bonaparte]

"I'm going to differ with you both here again. In a fascist state, the owner of the timber would have a cozy deal with the government. The loggers would work for him or another conglomerate (or Zaibatsu). As much logging as was required for the state's interests would be conducted, but the individual owner would naturally have a personal preference for doing what the state preferred -- as those in power have by definition, like minds."

The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism

[risk]

BTW, how can you say what you said in 59 after reading what I wrote in 26? Just wondering.

Maybe because I wasn't convinced that you don't see fascist animism as being unique. Communists have referred to the spirit of the people and such, but it is primarily an atheistic political ideology.

However, the Nazi and Bushido political grounding has significant elements of nature-oriented, animist spirituality. This core difference is enough to prove that communism is not fascism. Here are some useful quotes:

From nazi.org:

Our world faces a choice between a humanist system and a naturalist one. Humanism currently benefits the social, industrial and political interests which profit from humankind's lack of direction. Consequently, naturalism is demonized, despite its inherent tendency to focus more on heroic goals than the fear of negativity that generates mass reaction and, consequently, profit.

From Mein Kampf:

Over against all this, the völkisch concept of the world recognizes that the primordial racial elements are of the greatest significance for mankind. In principle, the State is looked upon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of mankind. Therefore on the völkisch principle we cannot admit that one race is equal to another. By recognizing that they are different, the völkisch concept separates mankind into races of superior and inferior quality. On the basis of this recognition it feels bound in conformity with the eternal Will that dominates the universe, to postulate the victory of the better and stronger and the subordination of the inferior and weaker. And so it pays homage to the truth that the principle underlying all Nature’s operations is the aristocratic principle and it believes that this law holds good even down to the last individual organism. It selects individual values from the mass and thus operates as an organizing principle, whereas Marxism acts as a disintegrating solvent. The völkisch belief holds that humanity must have its ideals, because ideals are a necessary condition of human existence itself. But, on the other hand, it denies that an ethical ideal has the right to prevail if it endangers the existence of a race that is the standard-bearer of a higher ethical ideal.

From the Epigrams in The Soul of Japan An Exposition of Japanese Thought,

There are, if I may so say, three powerful spirits, which have, from time to time, moved on the face of the waters, and given a predominant impulse to the moral sentiments and energies of mankind. These are the spirits of liberty, of religion, and of honor.

--HALAM, Europe in the Middle Ages.

a chapter called Sources of Bushido:

What Buddhism failed to give, Shintoism offered. in abundance. Such loyalty to the sovereign, such reverence for ancestral memory, and such filial piety as are not taught by any other creed, were inculcated by the Shinto doctrines, imparting passivity to the otherwise arrogant character of the samurai. Shinto theology has no place for the dogma of "original sin." On the contrary, it believes in the innate goodness and Godlike purity of the human soul, adoring it as the adytum from which divine oracles are proclaimed. Everybody has observed that the Shinto shrines are conspicuously devoid of objects and instruments of worship, and that a plain mirror hung in the sanctuary forms the essential part of its furnishing. The presence of this article is easy to explain: it typifies the human heart, which, when perfectly placid and clear, reflects the very image of the Deity.

From Japan: an Attempt at Interpretation by L. Hearn we find this: The Ancient Cult:

That is to say, gods in the oldest Greek and Roman sense. Be it observed that there were no moral distinctions, East or West, in this deification. "All the dead become gods," wrote the great Shintô commentator, Hirata. So likewise, in the thought of the early Greeks and even of the late Romans, all the dead became gods. M. de Coulanges observes, in La Cité Antique: "This kind of apotheosis was not the privilege of the great alone. no distinction was made. . . . It was not even necessary to have been a virtuous man: the wicked man became a god as well as the good man,--only that in this after-existence, he retained the evil inclinations of his former life." Such also was the case in Shintô belief: the good man became a beneficent divinity, the bad man an evil deity,--but all alike became Kami. "And since there are bad as well as good gods," wrote Motowori, "it is necessary to propitiate them with offerings of agreeable food, playing the harp, blowing the flute, singing and dancing and whatever is likely to put them in a good humour." The Latins called the maleficent ghosts of the dead, Larvae, and called the beneficent or harmless ghosts, Lares, or Manes, or Genii, according to Apuleius. But all alike were gods,--dii-manes; and Cicero admonished his readers to render to all dii-manes the rightful worship: "They are men," he declared, "who have departed from this life;-consider them divine beings. . . ."

[Spartano]

Yes, we need to add the people who have died from the usage of the so-called recreational drugs, violence from the drug trade, and AIDS. I agree with Pat Buchanan. I can't imagine how many Einsteins, Mozzarts, Bachs, Newtons, etc... we have aborted; and don't mention all the missing tax payers. Since 1973 millions of inmigrants have come into America to take the jobs of those aborted.

[Polybius]

I agree that left and right are different depending on the political milieu. But it doesn't change the historic fact that within the nations we are discussing, left meant communist and right meant Nazi.

In history written through the prism of current political dialogue, "left meant communist and right meant Nazi".

If you go to period sources, Americans would speak of "Americanism" vs. "Totalitarianism". Both Bolshevism and National Socialism were considered manifestations of the same European political cesspool.

If you go to "Mein Kampf", Hitler outlines his political evolution at the very beginning of his book in the chapter "Years of Study and suffering".

Hitler states that, in his younger days, he supported "Socialism" and "Social Democracy" (which he writes were identical ideas to him) because they advocated changes that would bring down the Habsburg monarchy. That is classic "Left" in the original meaning of the word. His particular hatred of the Habsburg monarchy was that he saw the monarchy as preventing the union of the German-speaking people.

Hitler later speaks of the disillusionment he discovered when faced with membership in "Social Democrat" trade unions. The fact that the flavor of Socialism offered to Germans promoted strength in number with solidarity with Slavic Socialists and Jews did not agree with his sense of German racial superiority.

Hitler then lashes out at the bourgeoisie for their greed and "their resistance to remedy all social abuses" and their "lack of a sense and justice and fairness" in regards to their workers. Faced with such a situation, Hitler goes on, " it is not only the right but even the duty of their employees to protect the interests of all against the avarice and the unreasonableness of the individual".

That political journey is classic economic socialism. It was virulently anti-monarchy, anti-bourgeoisie and claimed the right to change society for the benefit of the worker.

It differs from Marxism in that Marxism included the untermenchen while Hitler's version of Socialism was exclusively tailored to the German racist.

National Socialism, like Trotskyism, may have been the mortal enemy of the Communists at the Kremlin but there is little difference between their economic arguments as compared to what was, in the 1930's, called "Americanism".

The massacre of the kulaks demonstrated that the Soviet Communists were just as capable as the National Socialists of designating their own untermenchen.

National Socialism and Communism are still on the same side of the political spectrum no matter which arbitrary French Revolutionary "Left/Right" labels they are now given by political writers with ideological axes to grind.

[sergeantdave]

Balint Vazsonyi, in his essay “Socialism: The Ultimate Evil,” reminds us that communism and fascism are two branches on the tree called Marxism. He makes that point in many of his works.

In his essay he writes that “Technically speaking, Communism is simply the final phase, the ultimate goal of socialism. So is what we call Nazism. ‘Nazi’ is short for National Socialism, merely another variant of socialism. Stalin ordered Nazis to be referred to as “Fascists” only to avoid the obvious analogy with Soviet Socialism. Germans never were ‘Fascists’ - the Third Reich was ruled by the National Socialist German Workers Party.

“Yes, Stalin and Hitler, the prize disciples of Lenin, were twins. So were communism and Nazism. In Budapest, when the Gestapo left, the NKVD (then GPU) did not even bother to change the building in which the tortures and murders took place. They kept the building and the personnel.

“Rather than enemies, Nazism and Communism were the ultimate competitors. Each wanted to conquer and rule,” wrote Vazsonyi.

I have no trouble at all grouping communism and fascism together as two extreme left wing movements. Both controlled people’s money, property, liberty and lives. The only glaring difference is that communism owned the property and means of production, while fascism allowed free enterprise and capitalism as long as property owners carried out the will of the state.

“There are to be no more private Germans,” said Freidrich Sieburg, a Nazi writer in the 1930s. “Each is to attain significance only by his service to the state, and to find complete self-fulfillment in his service.”

Walter Darre, who held the posts of Reich Peasant Leader and Agriculture Minister, assumed an important role in controlling private property in the Reich. He instituted land use plans, organic farming and clean soil programs.

Robert Proctor, in his book “Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis,” writes that....”the Nazis were health fanatics who banned cigarette smoking, promoted vegetarianism and organic gardening, engaged in abortion and euthanasia, frowned on all capital excess and even promoted animal rights. They were environmentalists who locked up the land to promote paganism.”

All this control was carried out by a massive Reich bureaucracy that had no respect for private property. Rather than thinking that all Germans willingly went along with the fascist program - I’m sure many did - others were forced to obey when the Reich told them to act “for the common good” or face brutal state action. Many people - business owners and private property owners - saw what happened to those who disobeyed and left Germany.

[risk]

I want to end this portion of the debate by posting a humorous FAQ describing an ettiquette of discussing fascism and nazis from the USENET days. It seems that when people reach the end of their tethers, they often resort to calling each other nazis, appropriately or not. That truism is summarized by Godwin's Law, which states that the longer a given thread of discussion, the probability that a comparison of someone or something will be made to Nazis approaches one. (In other words, it almost always happens on long threads.) I think this is a function of angry people wanting to find the worst insult they can imagine, and throwing the label of nazi at them. I think we can all agree that they could be resorting to calling each other communists, but even today there are people walking around with holier than thou looks who are proud to say they are part of a movement partly responsible for the deaths of at least 100,000,000 people.

I realize you're all making a serious point that totalitarianism ends up with more similarities than differences, but I still think it's appropriate to offer some levity after so many strong opinions (all in virtual agreement that Nazis and Communists are both vile).

Here's the introduction:

One of the most famous pieces of Usenet trivia out there is "if you mention Hitler or Nazis in a post, you've automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in". Known as Godwin's Law, this rule of Usenet has a long and sordid history on the network - and is absolutely wrong. This FAQ is an attempt to set straight as much of the history and meaning of Godwin's Law as possible, and hopefully encourage users to invoke it a bit more sparingly. Of course, knowing Usenet, it won't do an ounce of good...

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Hi risk.

I've learned over time this topic always solicits lively debate. It should.

[Rummyfan]

Bump for later read.

[Spartano]

In perspective, the abortion of the 36 millions babies is equivalent to the extermination of all the population of Canada, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/1198865.stm

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Campus Marxists are a funny bunch--until they end up running your country ***Both of my grandfathers were exterminated by Stalinist terror. My father and mother both barely escaped the Gulag. But here I am, with PhD students, being treated to a one-hour discussion about "homophobia" on campus. My colleagues are agonizing about how "Homophobia-Free Zone" pink stickers must be put on every door in the university. "But what if a professor or a teaching assistant refuses to have one put on his door?" one of them asks indignantly. After a few seconds of silence, another answers, "Well, then a committee might just have to be set up where these people will be taken to account." Serious head-nods follow. ***

[samtheman]

I think with Isalmism we may have discovered a new strain of Nazism that can sustain itself. It's like this self-replicating concept (meme) from hell.

I agree with you. I was already thinking about the meme aspect of Islam. The problem with talking about memes is that the definition tends to quickly expand in any conversation (or theory) to include all of human thought.

This is my opinion of memes:

1. Not all human thoughts are memes.

2. Memes, by definition, are bad, since they are antithetical to individual human thought.

3. Islam is the classic example of a meme.

[risk]

Interesting! So the urge to be free is not a meme because it's inborn. Value for American style representative could still be considered a meme, though, couldn't it? Why would *all* memes have to be bad? Pro American war propaganda from WWII and the Cold War elicited memes, didn't they? Yet the purpose of instilling a willingness to resist the Axis and the threat of communism was effective in preserving our freedom from *bad* memes.

I'll have to think about this and continue exchanging thoughts with you.

[samtheman]

It is an interesting subject. For me, the problem with the subject is, it's too easy to label things as memes that aren't memes. Not all widely accepted ideas are memes.