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This picture links to a You tube piece and I post it here especially for Hap who seems to think that socialism has some moral virtue still, the sad deluded fool….
Oh and others of the leftist persuasion would benefit from this reminder as well.
Filed under: Leftism, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, World Events
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Against my better judgement, this ’sad deluded fool’ will give you a brief response.
I have not actually indicated anywhere that I am socialist, much less Stalinist. In any case, pinching you tube propaganda videos of Bolt’s blog doth not an argument make.
Stalinist Russia is no more representative of ‘the leftist persuasion’ than Nazism is representative of all right-wing politics.
Perhaps you should give more consideration to your own blinkered ideology. I’m not sure that the millions around the world starving whilst you type are as enamoured of globalised capitalism as you seem to be.
Still, I guess it’s flattering that you have taken the time to name-drop me. Should I expect cyber-stalking and threateening emails in the near-future, or is this just a one-off thing?
Hap,
Dont you know that both socialism and Stalinism equate to the collective ‘leftism’ in Iain’s black-and-white mind?
I mean asking Iain to distinguish Stalinism from the rest of left wing politics is like asking a dog to distinguish between a bone of pork and a bone of beef! Except without the drooling. Maybe.
my bad! lol…
Hap I have read some of your barely ledgible blog, black on red is not at all reader friendly, but you certainly sprout the usual leftist line despite your claim not be a socialist.
I see a blog as being like a conversation Hap and I like to address particular posts to various individuals.
My argument with Jeremy Sear would have been over a very long time ago had there not been a cardre of fellow travellers who just keep stirring this possum…
Nazi Part = Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
Nazism is a leftist ideology.
Nazi Part = Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
Nazism is a leftist ideology.
Goodness me – read a few to many conservative denialists have we Elijah? The nazis are always referred to as being of ‘the far right’.
Perhaps you think there is no such thing as a far right, hmmm?
Maybe you reckon if you go too far to the right, you simply cross some political Date/Time line and end up on the far left????
My argument with Jeremy Sear would have been over a very long time ago had there not been a cardre of fellow travellers who just keep stirring this possum…
LOL!!!! Of course you would never stir the possum would you Iain? No, just a tea-cup hey?
The sad thing is you probably DO genuinly believe you do nothing to ’stir the possum’…don’t ya?
PKD
Of course I have hit back when attacked; my point is that it is rather like Israel and the Palestinians I make peace with one faction and another decides to have a go at me. So we end up with an unending cycle of snark.
Oooooh now I see, you’re the unwitting victim of multiple enemies, all vindictively having a crack at you. All your doing is defending your honour from these unscrupulous people, maintaining the moral high ground all the while!!!
Oh well, thats enough of the fairy tales!
Elijah, once you’ve learnt to read, you may wish to read Robert O. Paxton’s ‘Anatomy of Fascism’.
He demonstrates very clearly that, whilst the Nazis drew support from workers, they were in no way a ‘left’ party, and very clearly attacked the left, both rhetorically, and physically, at every turn.
In fact, the Nazis only came to power in Germany as, lacking a popular majority, the right-wing conservatives did power-sharing deals with them to keep the left out of power. The fact that they have ’socialist’ in their name does not make them ’socialists’ any more than Australia’s Liberal party is actually ‘liberal’.
Incidentally, whilst I don’t endorse Stalinism at all, if it weren’t for the Soviets, the Nazis would have had a much tighter grip on Europe. In the end, the dirty commies you so despise made as many sacrifices as anyone in the struggle against fascism. These sorts of things probably aren’t in your history books.
‘I see a blog as being like a conversation Hap and I like to address particular posts to various individuals.’
Good to hear, Iain. If you are sincere, perhaps you may wish to take off your ass hat and reconsider your ill-conceived posts in future. Equating leftists with mass-murderers may win debating points with the right-wing extremists, but it hardly promotes conversation or healthy debate. If you wish to take issue with comments I’ve made at my blog, then you might be best advised to address this at my blog.
By the way, it’s a little passive-aggressive, (and melodramatic) to behave as you have, and then invoke the Isreali-Palestinian conflict.
BTW – to get back on topic, I note your You Tube film is ‘A Tribute to Communism’ which you are holding up as an example to try and shame all lefties of the futility of their cause. (I see Hap is converting to right wing conservatives even as we speak!
)
So perhaps you’d like to tell us how well we’re doing at defeating the scourge of Chinese communism Iain? Just how close ARE we doing to eradicating communism from its last bastion?
Take your time now….!
Have I said that PKD? It takes two sides to make war and I have never claimed moral perfection in my fight with the fellow travellers. However I have tried on many occasions to sue for peace and rather like the war on terror if I can’t negotiate for peace it then has to be take no prisoners time.
This is as far as I’m prepared to discuss this matter on thread so drop it now OK?
At the risk of sounding a little immodest Hap I do know how the Israeli’s feel to be surrounded by enemies; at last count there are seven or eight attack blogs out there having a go at Moi. So mine was a rather apt analogy.
Don’t for one minute think that I am not familiar with the history of WW2 my family come from London and I grew up on the stories of that war from those who lived through it, not just what you can read in books.
No I don’t care if Nazism is dubbed the ‘far-right’. It’s a misnomer. Moreover, PKD, I form my own opinions and not simply jump on any definitions of things willy nilly. You on the other hand seem to demonstrate the opposite by immediately appealing to antiquity and authority. While parties may in one effect or another be opposing forces, nowhere doesn’t this say the manner, structure and composition of these forces must be different.
Socialism is, in the majority of its implementations, a statist ideology and simply differs on exactly what policies it supports. Nazism itself had classical socialist policies, such the nationalisation of industries. Krupp and Rheinmetall are good examples of this.
Additionally, Socialism is about the policy the transformation of society, whatever that end is. It is not about its support base. Just because the Nazi party didn’t draw the support of the workers doesn’t make any less socialist.
On your point about, the Nazi’s “right-wing” alliances making the Nazis right-wing, this argument is totally flawed. Your basic argument then is that Nazism was right-wing because it was in alliance with right-wing parties. Well in that case the Allies allying themselves were Communists /Stalinists because they allied themselves with them. Or perhaps it’s the other way around, yes?
In the end, the dirty commies you so despise made as many sacrifices as anyone in the struggle against fascism.
Great. Exchanging one form of totalitarianism for another.
However, “dirty commies”, if by that you mean the Russians et alii, did not fight for the ideology. If you take a look at Stalin’s propaganda you will see he appeals to traditional values, id est conservative values. So the “dirty commies” were not at all commies. As far as I see it, Russians et alii were the ones that helped defeat fascism, not communists.
Well put Elijah
It was certainly the case that in the defence of the soviets against the Nazi’s it was all about doing it for “mother Russia” rather than for comrade Lenin.
Get a grip, Elijah, you have little understanding of what you’re discussing. Nazi economists did not “nationalise” the economy. Almost all businesses in Nazi Germany remained privately owned, including Krupp and Rheinmetall, which you falsely claim were owned by the state. Then you argue that you don’t have to have or claim the support of the workers to be socialist, which is a ridiculous suggestion. Nazism and fascism are right-wing totalitarian regmies, the mirror image of left-wing totalitarian regimes, despite your deceitful line of argument and Iain’s unthinking acceptance of it.
Also, let’s not forget the Nazi/Soviet pact, which had our glorious Communist dock-”workers” trying to block supplies to our troops in New Guinea.
The appeal of Communism is eternal because it is the appeal of the family. The family itself is run on communist principles. Small tribes of people can and are run on communist principles (a modern day example is the Kibutz in Israel).
The problem is that the “family” principle of organisation does not work in larger groups. The coordination necessary for a large group to function is of a different order, and that’s where free market principles come in, even though they may be less cozy and appealing than the idea of everyone being part of a big family with nice Uncle Joe guiding the way.
Ian – just got back from viewing your disgusting taunting of Jeremy over his divorce at AWH.
It really doesn’t come much lower than that old son. Lefty criticises a political position and you respond with a personal attack about his divorce.
You are a sad, bitter and pathetic man.
“Goodness me – read a few to many conservative denialists have we Elijah? The nazis are always referred to as being of ‘the far right’.”
Always refereed to that way by deluded lefties. yeah. You got that right.
No, the industries in Nazi Germany were completely controlled by the state apparatus. Targets, quotas, prices, what to produce, when to produce it, was controlled by the government (this was even before the war). The former owners were kept on as figureheads but they had no real control.
That was the difference between the German and Russian forms of Socialism. The Russians executed the owners. The Germans were/are smarter.
Elijah, if you ever want to put up posts in Crusader Rabbit, please drop me or MK a line, ok?
Moreover, PKD, I form my own opinions and not simply jump on any definitions of things willy nilly. You on the other hand seem to demonstrate the opposite by immediately appealing to antiquity and authority.
So Elijah, Nazis arent far right becuase…..you reckon they’re socialists. Sounds good to me – what was I thinking, listening to my HIstory teachers and taking in every text book I could mention on the subject.
Mondo
The place to chide me about comments made at AWH, is not surprisingly, AWH. . Is the fact that you come here to have a go at me indicative of some fear that the chaps over there will not treat you as well as I do? The way that I chose to return fire to some one who has just posted a personal attack upon me was entirely proportionate. In any case the thread was about the nature of the family so there was some relevance any way.
Brett, I’m afraid that’s mostly baloney. German industrialists retained considerable control over what they produced and how they produced it. Reich economics did not involve mass nationalisation of industry; most businesses remained privately-owned and profits flowed back to owners and shareholders, not the state (the case of Oskar Schindler is a fair example of how this worked). If you wanted your company to receive lucrative state contracts (or, in some cases, to benefit from slave labour) then you did the government’s bidding. However that’s regulation by incentive and disincentive, not by coercion or nationalisation. Nazi policy had more in common with Keynesian economics than with any brand of socialist economics, all of which have managed economics and the abolition of private capital as their central tenet.
Really Mark whether the direction was by coercion and incentive or by direct control effectively the entire economic capability of Germany was at the disposal of the Nazi regime. Now if Hitler or his government asked you for some thing to say no was to sign your own death warrant.
Basically what I’m saying is that you are splitting hairs here in an effort to protect the virtue of the left by dissociating it from the stench of the Nazis. Sadly for you, it won’t work.
Mark L.
The Nazis practically socialized the economy, but not nominally. So in essence is was socialized just not formally. They were never owned by the state, but they were controlled by the state.
Then you argue that you don’t have to have or claim the support of the workers to be socialist, which is a ridiculous suggestion.
How about explaining why this is the case, instead of pretending it is self-evident.
Nazism and fascism are right-wing totalitarian regmies, the mirror image of left-wing totalitarian regimes…
Yes, that’s why Mussolini was a socialist…
Socialism is a vehicle, not the destination. Strip your wing qualifiers and they are the same. They are totalitarian. They both push a “party line”. They both nationalise industry. They both have a dictator. What in terms of freedom differs from the two?
Yes, MarkL, the “owners” were allowed to retain some level of authority – they became the managers of the plants (and that was the key to the relative success of the German versus Soviet model). But managers are not owners.
Both capitalist and communist systems employ managers, but it is the (real) owner who ultimately decides the what, when, and how much of a company’s activity.
In the case of the Reichstag the ones who decided all these things were the government bureaucrats – whether or not they were called the owners, and whether or not there were private shareholders.
The Nazi system was government control of industry – it was Socialism.
Elijah & Brett
SNAP!!
Iain, have you ever considered retracting your moronic statements? To summarise thus far:
1. You made a silly post with a pathetic an ill-informed attempt to bait me, and make nonsense generalisations about ‘any other leftists out there’.
2. Your intellectually disfigured far-right cheersquad have popped up with their shameless revisionism (i.e. Nazis + Socialists). This assertion is demonstrably false, has not a shred of evidence to support it, and is only spouted by braind-dead right wing wankers or paid propagandists.
3. In response to your childish name calling (’sad’, deluded’) I and others rightfully questioned your attempts at reaching moral high-ground, by drawing attention to your own sordid history in cybersphere. This was met with histrionic denials and attempts to change the subject.
4. You believe that you are somehow like Israel, which only shows how little you know about Israel. You claim that there are 7-8 attack blogs – I think last week the number was 5-6. Where are these attack blogs? I only know of one.
Your efforst today seem to be little more than a cheap stunt to draw traffic to your site. I see no evidence that you are willing to engage in any kind of rational or civil debate. As a concluding note, I suggest that, if you want people to move beyond your dubious past, perhaps you should take the lead by issuing a few apologies to the relevant parties and demonstrating some manners and maturity on the internet.
He doesn’t sound very Happy, Iain.
Ok, so any time someone disagrees with you HR it’s “revisionism”? Perhaps you fail to take into consideration that people actually develop their knowledge, understand concepts deeper, and see connections that were not evident before.
It happens in science all the time.
But for you, the same tired hole-filled ideas, are the Supreme Truth even though There Is No Truth. Please try to defend your ideas logically…
‘Ok, so any time someone disagrees with you HR it’s “revisionism”? Perhaps you fail to take into consideration that people actually develop their knowledge, understand concepts deeper, and see connections that were not evident before.
It happens in science all the time.’
Er, history isn’t science, at least, not a science like physics, and rewriting history so that Nazis are ‘leftists’ is revisionism.
The Nazi economy was not free-trade liberalism, but was definitely not communist either.
Nazis explicitly rejected any notions of equality and believed in a kind of eugenic superiority.
Nazis fought relentlessly with the real leftists, and as I said above, did pwer sharing deals with the right to keep the left out. This ultimately resulted in Hitler being made Chancellor.
Hitler despised Marx and anything related to Marxist philosophy. He thought communism and socialism were Jewish plots.
So your assertions are clearly revisionist and false, not because they disagree with me, but because they disagree with logic and fact. Sadly Elijah you are beginning to sound like those Hillsong type wankers, who revise the New Testament so that it carries the message that Jesus was a free-market capitalist…
I’m using science as an example. History can be a science although there is some debate on the form of this science. Von Ranke concentrated on empiricist methods similar to science.
rewriting history so that Nazis are ‘leftists’ is revisionism.
Really, that’s irrelevant, apart from differentiating with the type not form. A Commodore Sedan isn’t a Falcon Sedan, but they are both Sedans.
Again irrelevant, although it’s still unfair discrimination of one group over another. One just chose a class the other chose a race.
1/
This post was an excuse to post a link to the you tube piece which makes some very cogent points about your brand of political thought.
2/
The fact of the matter is that both communist and fascist regimes both play lip service to being for the greater good of either the volk or for the workers Both have produced vile totalitarian governments who flippantly murder and kill their own populace.
3/
I am well used to my history being questioned and it will be no surprise that I am rather bored by Johnny come lately’s blindly accepting the oppinions of my critics without considering the possibility that they are being rather fast and loose with the truth.
4/
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m109/niceperson907/attackblogs1.jpg
Not wishing to promote the attack blogs the most you will get from me is the screenshot from my links menu.
Ten Sites here who have made attacking me a focus of their blogging some are now inactive some are worse than others but they do exist.
I am much more polite than the majority of commentators on your side of the fence Hap why the way you characterise conservatives at your own blog is some what more harsh that the way I refer to you in this post.
Almost all politics is ‘a form of societal transformation’. I think we can all agree that both Stalinism and Nazism are extremely brutal regimes. Nonetheless, this does not make Nazism ‘leftist’. You can ignore all of the evidence to the contrary if you like, if you think it is ‘irrelevant’.
I would go so far as to saw that Nazism/fascism is somewhat separate from right-wing ideologies, in that it is not conservative, and did, in the past, draw (partly) from a mass-mobilised base. Unfortunately, the right/conservatives have bent over backwards to accommodate fascist dictators. The original 9/11 (Chile, 1973) is a case in point. Ignoring the facts won’t make them go away.
You cannot refute ‘leftism’ by invoking Godwin’s law. Consider rational argument instead. As for your other points:
Grods and Random Brainwave hardly have Hall-bashing as their raison d’etre.
Whilst I may be fairly new as a blogger, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t been observing the blogosphere for some time. In any case, much of the shameful paper-trail is there for all to see. I am entitled to draw my own conclusions as to what I have seen, and do not need to ‘accept blindly’ anybody else’s opinions.
There are some quite reflective, sincere and intelligent conservative bloggers around. I am yet to be convinced that you are one of them. I agree that you are generally more polite than some of the more rabid rightards on the internet. Unfortunately, you still employ personal attacks, baseless generalisations and ad hominem routinely, and I’ve yet to see you actually modify a single position of yours, irrespective of how indefensible it is. Add to this your recent comments about Lefty (at AWH) and your behaviour in relation to Mikey C, Bruce, et. al., and it doesn’t paint a very flattering picture.
Hap you are getting all upset about what is essentially a semantic point because you see socialism as having innate virtue where as we conservatives believe that it is innately pernicious when taken beyond the level of the family in to the realm of larger political structures.
WTF??? You spit on the graves of all who died at the WTC with such a comparison.
‘Hap you are getting all upset about what is essentially a semantic point because you see socialism as having innate virtue where as we conservatives believe that it is innately pernicious when taken beyond the level of the family in to the realm of larger political structures.’
This is getting rather tiresome. Some brief points:
There are many different family structures in different societies. I am not aware of any in mainstream Australian society that could be called ’socialist’.
This is not merely a semantic point – the likes of you and Bolt are all too happy to smear opponents with accusations of Nazism. This includes the Greens. The fact remains, whilst many regimes have been murderous and brutal, the Nazis were in no way ‘leftist’. You will need to conjure up a new smear.
Finally, I’m sure that if you look up the history of Chile’s 9/11, you will find an egregious example of rightards supporting a murderous dictatorship. I haven’t actually mentioned the WTC. So when you say:
‘WTF??? You spit on the graves of all who died at the WTC with such a comparison.’
I can only respond by saying – Please return to your padded cell, yeast pants.
WTF??? You spit on the graves of all who died at the WTC with such a comparison.
Over 3,000 were killed during the Chilean coup of 9/11/73; and a further 30-40,000 disappeared or were killed extra-legally under the subsequent Pinochet regime. I think you just spat on an awful lot of graves – although I guess to you American lives are worth more Chilean ones.
Mondo
Provide me with a working Email address if you want further comments to escape moderation
Hap
The fact that both the Nazi’s and the Greens see nature in an almost animist way is a reasonable justification for drawing a parallel .
I haven’t actually mentioned the WTC. So when you say:
Rubbish; to invoke “9/11″ is to talk about the WTC
Mark L
A coup even by some one as vile as Pinoichet is somewhat different to hijacking for domestic Airliners and flying them into buildings.
Now I was actually unaware that the coup in Chile took place on the date that you cite. And as I implied in my previous comment in common parlance “9/11″ is now and forever more related to new York and Washington in the same way that Pearl Harbour is forever more than just a seaport in Hawaii since that day in December 1942.
[...] out the rent-seekers. Harry Clarke documents a particularly egregious example. Iain Hall has a sobering YouTube vid to share (visit his place to see it; at the moment Troppo is eating YouTube vids posted by everyone [...]
Yes a coup is “somewhat different” than hijacking and crashing aircraft – but is it worthy of less commemoration, which is what you implied? I would suggest that a coup that overthrows a democratically elected government and replaces it with a murderous militaristic junta is somewhat worse than a terrorist attack, because for Chileans the killing didn’t end at about 10.30am on their 9/11.
Forgot to ask… was Pinochet a socialist too?
Oh, Mark & HR. Ye who miss the forest for the trees. You are approaching the taxonomy at a far too granular level.
Let me put it to you this way.
Socialism is partially, a disjoint union of Nazism and Communism.
Why?
The ideologies both say:
a)there is an inherent, incompatible, contradictory “wrong” that must be addressed.
b)in order to eliminate it this “wrong” in there exists a need for transformation of the entire social order to achieve.
c)Generally, these transformation methods are lacking in analysis that takes into account human psychology wholly or in part.
Not conservatism. It’s about maintenance of traditional values that have been shown empirically to work, as opposed to the disastrous results of those social engineering experiments so made famous by leftist ideology. Hell there’s even Christian Socialism, which in the end only differs in it’s end from “normal” socialism.
Elijah, I don’t dispute most of that. Comparing Nazism with communism (or rather Stalinism or Maoism, which are its 20th century manifestations) brings up several political and organisational similarities. The transformative motive you mention above is one of them. The debate above concerns economic aspects, which I maintain were fundamentally different because Nazism, though it regulated the economy to some extent, did not remove capital or property from private ownership.
In response Elijah, where is this empirical evidence that conservatism ‘works’? Is Franco’s Spain (a conservative regime) a case in point? Or England before the child-labour laws were introduced by those evil unions trying to subvert the natural order?
Considering, England enacted those child-labour laws under Conservative governments (even the Whigs were right of the current crop in Australia) that example is a false analogy.
In fact if anything, England at this time showed conservative values working. These conservative governments did more to solve social ills rather than any other country (notably France with its thriving socialist scene).
Additionally, look at any western democracy pre 60s and you will see just how well they worked.
Now, Franco’s Spain is far more interesting. He didn’t have an ideology. He united the Falangists (a Fascist movement) with the Carlists (Catholics and Monarchists).
However, you will note that by the time of Franco’s death Spain’s economy was far better off than it was when he took over.
But he was a dictator, and his intrusiveness made him a pinko. Again, his methods of coercion had more in common with leftist models rather than Conservative licence with restriction.
Before we continue, let me say part of conservatism is mechanisms for change and debate.
Mondo
By asking for a working email I am not asking for your name and address so grow up and loose the paranoia or go away.
Don’t take it out on me because the guys at a Western Heart gave you the arse.
Paranoia and leftism go together like butter and bread.
Oh and HR FYI Libertarianism isn’t such a new concept in Christian Theology;
“For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force… it is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasion. We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice.”
-St. John Chrysostom “The Golden-Mouthed” (347 – 407 A.D.), Archbishop of Constantinople
Well, one more time. One can imagine the fate of an “owner” of a business under the Nazis who thumbed his nose at the directives coming from Berlin? I don’t think it would have been a happy fate. Control is Ownership. Ownership is Control.
It was a pretty transparent ploy at the time. “Oh, no. We’re not taking the company from you. It’s still your company”. You think we’d be just a little bit more alive to it with the benefit of hindsight.
Oh, and no, Pinochet was not a socialist. In the end Milton Friedman managed to turn him into something of a free marketeer, much to the benefit of the Chilean economy.
But then Pinochet’s party never called itself “socialist”.
Pinochet is one of those dictators who seems to be more about being the Caudillo rather than any substantive vision of of a Greater Chile.
Possibly. Pinochet certainly started as the classic right wing “strong man” authoritarian. What makes me think there was a bit more to him was the way Milton Friedman was able to convince him to move toward Laissez Faire, Laissez Passer.