Tom : Hopefully you will join the conversation more regularly in the future. Your comments were very informative. And reading words of someone who has seen Spain under Fascist rule has value all of its own. The issues of the political past never die, when you think about it, because one set of meanings educate those who follow and who make old causes into new ones since at least some of the issues carry over into another era. But as an historian you would suppose I would say something like this, so it is necessary to admit to a certain amount of self interest. How to define political causes has its own fascination and I have worked on that subject now and then for a number of years. But you are correct, no-one likes to admit that their own political cause can possibly devolve into something which is seriously bad or extreme. Yet it must be done for the sake of honesty and as a necessary caution against hubris. There are other extremes that could have been mentioned but I was trying to keep things simple. The KKK is a rightist extreme, after all, and in our era leftist extremes include a variety of causes that cannot pass muster among thinking people, like what may be called "Africanism," that form of Afro-Centrism which derives from Fanon and which ascribes all human invention and discovery to events and great people from Africa. While there is no political movement of consequence which has come of this form of fantasy history, its ideas can be seen in parts of the "Black Left." For that matter, also in parts of the Black Right. There is also the phenomenon of borrowing so much from one's political opposite that parties become mirror images of what they once were. Most anti-Semitism these days is on the Left, not the Right, and the strong free trade views of the Democrats of yore are now found among Republicans. Much more to discuss. I will send you some material , off list, in case some additional ideas might be of interest to you. Thanks again for your thoughtful comments. Billy R. =================================================== message dated 1/15/2011 5:36:56 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes: I usually just read what is on this site and don't comment but..well Billy, credit where credit is due. This is one of the finest, brief descriptions of this very varied political system that I have ever read. However you will receive much criticism from many both on the American right and others who are closer to center right. I have seen that already. In part this is because we have the luxury of isolation among other things, which allows us to redefine world political to our own specifications and conveniences. I suppose this is why when we speak of liberal and conservative to peoples of other countries we more often than not run in to a kind of communication breakdown. Much of the confusion IMO results from the fact that the Right (especially here in the US) does not want to be associated with the terms Fascism, NAZI and above all we do not want to be associated with the name Hitler, in any way shape or form. That unfortunately is impossible, just as it is for those on the left to make any effort to disassociate themselves from Communism and despots like Stalin or the other Eastern European and Asian leftest leaders who destroyed their own societies for power and personal gain . I lived under Francisco Franco's regime for its last seven years and so experienced Spanish Fascism directly. The term itself is difficult to define because the "big four" regimes we classify as Fascist, while having some things in common were all quite different. One point they all shared in common was some form or another of corporatism. In none of the four was private industry discouraged. The founder of Fascism, Benito Mussolini, several times rued the fact that he had called his system Fascism and complained that he should have called it what it really was; corporatism. He was seen by big business all over the world in a very positive light until he joined Hitler's Germany in a failed alliance. Had he refused Hitler's entreaties he might be looked upon today as a hero rather than a villain. Though we may not like to say it, Benito Mussolini was a quite intelligent man. Unfortunately he was a poor judge of character and didn't seem to know how to make friends that would benefit him. But before we throw corporatism to the dogs as a form of Fascism we must say that that system has done well by and for the USA until it spun out of control and became multi-nationalist corporatism. While this happened or at least became evident under the administration lead by George W Bush we should be careful (and I am no friend, politically speaking, of GWB, not to blame his administration totally because this was happening long before he became the head of state. It simply has become more evident to the public during the past ten years In truth, Hitler's National Socialist Germany was about as socialist as communist East Germany's, German Democratic Republic as democratic. Certainly there were elements of socialism in all four of those regimes; Hitler's Third Reich, Mussolini's Fascist Italy, Franco's Falangist Spain and Japan's pre-war and wartime government controlled by the industrialist of Japan commonly referred to as the Zaibatsu. But then again we certainly have plenty of socialist elements in our government and those, long before Obama took over. We really have just touched on this subject which I see will go deeper as comments come in. But I'll stop here for the moment. Again I thank you, Billy for your concise and fine outline of the subject. Tom Sorensen
--- On Thu, 1/13/11, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: [RC] [ RC ] When is a "Socialist" actually a Socialist ? To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Date: Thursday, January 13, 2011, 2:35 AM Words and Politics : When is a "Socialist" actually a Socialist ? When is a "democracy" actually a democracy ? Here we go again. If you --anyone-- has Marx in mind then there is no such animal as a Nationalist who is also a Socialist. Marxism, by definition , and repeated ad nauseum in all kinds of Communist writings, is avowedly and vehemently Internationalist. That's point # 1. Point # 2 is that what a group calls itself, or a state, may have just about nothing to do with reality. I seriously doubt that when you think back to the Cold War that you regard all the "people's democracies" of eastern Europe as democracies at all. Point # 3 is that the structural / fundamental difference between R and L concerns property. Either L or R can be authoritarian OR democratic. Maybe you are not exactly keen about Sweden or Norway but Socialist or not, they were always democratic. And while you think well of Capitalism you've got to admit that there can be dictatorships which feature private enterprise --just about every country in Latin America at one time or another in the past, for instance. But the Left always is public property centered, and the right is always private property centered. Always, 100% of the time. Krupp was never taken over by the Nazi state , nor was any other corporation. Quite the opposite, at least while it lasted, German corporations did quite well in the Third Reich. Labor Unions, on the contrary , were sham unions, basically house unions, or neutered unions. That is typical of the Right, not the Left, although this is not quite as clear cut as the issue of property. On the Left there is such a thing as "streets and sewers socialism," the modus operandi of the Wisconsin wing of the SPUSA for a long time , in the past. Call it public works socialism if you prefer, that is, putting public property at the center of their politics. That sort of emphasis was also typical of the USSR, albeit under a dictator. One thing to admit, the Berlin wing of the Nazi Party was, for a while, pro-labor and at least semi-Socialist. But that was never true in Vienna in Hitler's crowd and the Beliners did not prevail. Goebbels, a Berliner, was seduced by Hitler and became his perfect sycophant and the Strassers didn't do too well, one brother killed and the other escaping into exile in Canada. That ended any vestige of Leftism among Nazis except for their retention of the word "Socialist." By the theory of absolute meaning of words, BTW, mind telling me why hard core fundamentalists refuse to consider Mormons as Christians ? After all, they use the word of themselves. Or is it the fact that words may mask reality or mislead people ? There are, to put it this way, con artists in politics not only in sales. The Nazis were as far Right as it is possible to get, just as the Soviet Communists under Stalin or the Chinese communists under Mao were as far Left as possible. Which brings up point # 4. There are extremes to all political systems. An extremist of the Libertarian persuasion is an Anarchist. An extremist of the democratic persuasion is a tyrant who uses mob rule to govern. And so on and so forth for all systems. We are all susceptible to the dangers of the extremes of any political philosophy we favor. This will remain true as long as "original sin" remains true. Which we need to always be wary of, to escape another sin, identified by Aristotle as hubris. My humble opinion for today Billy ============================================================ message dated 1/12/2011 9:15:56 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes: Hitler to me is a confirmation, not a contradiction of him being on the left. National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP, Nazi for short) doesn't sound that conservative or "right" to me. Unless you want to tell me that ALL Socialist Workers Parties are on the right. :-) David "I don't understand why the same newspaper commentators who bemoan the terrible education given to poor people are always so eager to have those poor people get out and vote."--P. J. O'Rourke On 1/12/2011 9:54 PM, [email protected]_ (http://us.mc306.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]) wrote: How can anyone figure out that guy ? He is a lunatic. To say the least, he is inconsistent in what / who he admires. Atlas Shrugs ran a series of short articles that claim he is a Lefty. After all, Marx is one of his idols. Trouble is, so is Hitler. You can find Libertarian ideas also, but just as easily you can find authoritarian ideas. Sounds to me like -just a wild guess-- Ernie lives in California. My sister also lives in the Peoples Republic. When she was visiting a month ago she said a few choice things about the Tea Party consisting of folks with guns, the idea being that the movement is a militia in everything but name. Wonder where she got that idea. I'm 100% certain that it has nothing at all to do with the fact that all the media she has access to is located in the Bay Area and that her friends in San Francisco are, like the city, 3/4ths Leftist Democrats Anyway, now I know, from direct experience, what was clear enough to me many months ago, that the Tea Party consists of little old ladies with attitude, older gentlemen tired of being pushed around by elitists, and an assortment of various and many others who are best described as the kind of folks who you would meet in a local neighborhood corner cafe almost anywhere in the USA except big cities and university enclaves. Average people but with a fire lit under their chairs who are motivated to do something real in their communities. For their troubles the Left demonizes them as a " threat." One word that comes to mind which is far more accurate, is that they are "populists." OK, to be technical, maybe "neo-Populists" might be more clinically descriptive, we are long past the era of farmers with pitchforks, but that is the tradition. Which is OK with me. No-one can accuse them of apathy. Billy ======================================================== message dated 1/12/2011 7:26:21 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected]_ (http://us.mc306.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]) writes: No one has any evidence of that at all. In fact, he had previously met the congresswoman back in 2007 and had a file in his house on her. He didn't need to be incited, he was doing a good enough job of "inciting" all by himself. David "I don't understand why the same newspaper commentators who bemoan the terrible education given to poor people are always so eager to have those poor people get out and vote."--P. J. O'Rourke On 1/12/2011 8:52 AM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote: Has anyone found *any* evidence that he was at all aware of and/or influenced by Tea Party rhetoric? I assume not, but nobody on either side seems to have even asked that question... -- Ernie P. On Jan 11, 2011, at 9:55 PM, David R. Block wrote: _http://www.investors.com/image/RAMclr-011211-murdereribd-f.jpg.cms_ (http://www.investors.com/image/RAMclr-011211-murdereribd-f.jpg.cms) <moz-screenshot.png> -- "I don't understand why the same newspaper commentators who bemoan the terrible education given to poor people are always so eager to have those poor people get out and vote."--P. J. O'Rourke -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]_ (http://us.mc306.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]) > Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community _<[email protected]>_ (http://us.mc306.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]) Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community _<[email protected]>_ (http://us.mc306.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]) Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community _<[email protected]>_ (http://us.mc306.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]) Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
