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Thread: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

  1. #61
    Morticia Iunia Bruti's Avatar Praeses
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    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    My rant theme of the week:

    Whiny anglo-american upperclass conservatives, which declare themself as the true target of Nazism like Bernhard Simms book "Hitler - a global biography" is suggesting.

    According to Simms, a professor of international relations at Cambridge University, the Nazi dictator was “preoccupied” with the rise of “Anglo-American” capitalism. Hitler saw Great Britain and the U.S. as a single global empire. The Nazi leader was particularly impressed by America’s rapid geographic and economic expansion which he believed was due to its ruthless policy of eradicating indigenous peoples and a legal system mandating white supremacy.
    Simms contends that Hitler initially formed these beliefs as a German soldier in the last years of World War I. As a private on the front lines, he encountered a powerful, well-equipped American army manned by tall, well-fed soldiers; they presented a startling contrast with the exhausted, underfed Germany army. Hitler was particularly confounded by some captured Americans who were immigrants from Germany. To him, they represented a key reason for Germany’s decline: it was losing many of its most productive citizens.
    After Germany’s surrender in November 1918, Hitler concluded that the only way Germany could rise to become a global power was to adopt the “American model” of geographic expansion and white racial supremacy.

    Although Hitler publicly railed against “Jewish bolshevism,” Simms asserts that in ordering the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, his primary goal was not to destroy communism, but rather to secure resources for Germany that could be used to fight the Anglo-American enemy.

    Simms states, “Hitler targeted the Soviet Union not so much for what it was (ideologically) as for where it lay (geographically). There was, so to speak, nothing personal about it.”

    https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174196

    In my opinion such a hypothesis, which is contra historical facts, eg the infamous by Hitler initiated "Kommissarbefehl" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissar_Order ), is the logical consequence of such aberrational beliefs like "Nazism = Communism" and "the morally superior anglo-american culture is the lighttower of the world".

    Obviously all you need to earn fame in Cambridge today is being white, male, upperclass, rich...
    Cause tomorrow is a brand-new day
    And tomorrow you'll be on your way
    Don't give a damn about what other people say
    Because tomorrow is a brand-new day


  2. #62
    Cookiegod's Avatar CIVUS DIVUS EX CLIBANO
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    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    I'm somewhat humoured by the origins of the thread - a banned troll with a secondary account named "wanderwegger" going wild and insisting on such a thread, because the "liberals" got one - even though the anti liberals got that thread to stop their threadspam.
    But that's just an aside and ok.

    My second, and larger issue with this thread just as with the other one is this false dichotomy, which is awfully pervasive given how it doesn't make much sense at all. "THE right" doesn't exist, just like "THE left" doesn't either; and because of that I observe an awful lot of people thinking they have some gotcha moment over the other side by citing some particularly toxic example of them. E.g. the toxic feminist saying stupid things, the deranged islamist terrorist cutting someones head off, the antifa/right wing dude doing something nasty, all supposedly being an example for feminism/islamism/left wing/right wing as a whole. Which then immediately and absolutely justifiably gets thrown out of the window by those considering themselves as feminist/muslim/left/right as simply a toxic outlier which any very loosely defined group with a large enough number of people is inevitably going to have plenty of. Except of course when they either get baited into defending that person/act or it all descends into whataboutism.

    Maybe a grain of truth would be that anyone should strive to do some housekeeping, or at least try to keep their own hands and tongues clean when it comes to the toxicity, which again any movement is going to have. Yes, any movement is bound to have some valid points, otherwise they wouldn't likely have any following. That shouldn't be an excuse for the toxic part of it. Especially since, when you let those fester, they absolutely will wreck the image of your cause, and also likely are opportunists in the first place.

    Remember when a couple of years ago we had this feminist thing going, with Anita Sarkeesian, Star Wars, and the likes? No one likes to talk much about that anymore. Maybe other things became more pressing after that, but I don't think that to be the only reason. I genuinely believe that that well got poisoned too much. Sarkeesian for example got rich for ridiculously little effort, a couple of billion dollar franchises (Gillette, LucasFilms) got all the attention their marketing departments desperately craved, but the actual cause lies trampled and dead by the wayside.

    Same goes for the other stuff as well. Hey, remember when liberalism wasn't about doxxing and shaming people and trying to ruin their lives for having opinions you disagreed with? When progressive values didn't entail a regression into a mob mentality trying to crush any dissent with virtual pitchforks and torches? When we used to rely on the judiciary if necessary to identify what speech is acceptable and which falls under libel laws or incitement of violence (Popper's tolerance paradoxon)?

    Or remember when conservativism was about conserving stuff? It boggles my mind how the environment and society as a whole doesn't classify as worthy of conservation. I remember well how my father (who's now been dead for exactly 6 years and a day) used to say that he used to be a conservative, and that he didn't change his views, but the conservatives did. The conservative heroes of the US, UK and Germany of today are "Star Wars" Reagan with his absolutely moronic taxation policy, "Iron lady" Thatcher, who ultimately put the seeds for most of the problems the UK faces today, including Scottish nationalism, or Germany's Konrad Adenauer, who originally wanted to secede with the Rheinland from the rest of Germany and who's ultimately to blame for 40 years of German separation.

    I could bring more examples, but I'm tired and cynical. Point being that all movements start out genuine and then get destroyed by the opportunist fakers. BLM included.

    If you care about your cause, please call enough to stop the hypocrites who're just in it to rip you off. This is where your energy would be much better spent than in bashing the other side. Which, for the reasons mentioned before, absolutely goes nowhere.
    Today we have Trumpsters fighting Bidenfans, and I'm astonished by the length both sides are willing to go to protect their leader. Nooo, Biden being bribed by an Ukrainian oligarch isn't a big deal. Nooo, Trump isn't to blame for mishandling the "Chinavirus", even though he absolutely and unquestionably did. And whilst both camps pretend the end of the world is nigh if the other side wins, with either Communism or Fascists taking over, the reality is that both candidates are exactly the same. Both are pro fracking. Both are irredeemably corrupt. Both are liars. The anti-war movement is dead in both sides. Corporatism and mindboggling inequality rules suppreme and will always continue to do so.

    So that's my rant. You are all welcome.
    Last edited by Cookiegod; October 27, 2020 at 11:35 AM.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cookiegod View Post
    From Socrates over Jesus to me it has always been the lot of any true visionary to be rejected by the reactionary bourgeoisie
    Qualis noncives pereo! #justiceforcookie #egalitéfraternitécookié #CLM

  3. #63
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    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cookiegod View Post
    The conservative heroes of the US, UK and Germany of today are "Star Wars" Reagan with his absolutely moronic taxation policy
    If you check the tax rate of Nordic countries which are widely regarded as socialist, the tax rate is not too dissimilar except it's much more progressive in US while in Nordic countries tax ratio for average working people is considerably higher, for both of income and spending.

    Either way both sides have failed miserably, not realizing all ideas should be asymmetric and hypocritical. The only policies I would support is the kind that benefits me at the cost of others, for example, promoting expensive green energy in India, raising minimal salary in China to the point their shops fire everyone, and asking other people to eat worms and tree leaves, keeping quality beef at home.

  4. #64

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Nazism attempted to reconcile conservative, nationalist ideology with a socially radical doctrine. In so doing, it became a profoundly revolutionary movement—albeit a largely negative one. Rejecting rationalism, liberalism, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and all movements of international cooperation and peace, it stressed instinct, the subordination of the individual to the state, and the necessity of blind and unswerving obedience to leaders appointed from above. It also emphasized the inequality of men and races and the right of the strong to rule the weak; sought to purge or suppress competing political, religious, and social institutions; advanced an ethic of hardness and ferocity; and partly destroyed class distinctions by drawing into the movement misfits and failures from all social classes. Although socialism was traditionally an internationalist creed, the radical wing of Nazism knew that a mass base existed for policies that were simultaneously anticapitalist and nationalist. However, after Hitler secured power, this radical strain was eliminated.

    The history of Nazism after 1934 can be divided into two periods of about equal length. Between 1934 and 1939 the party established full control of all phases of life in Germany. With many Germans weary of party conflicts, economic and political instability, and the disorderly freedom that characterized the last years of the Weimar Republic (1919–33), Hitler and his movement gained the support and even the enthusiasm of a majority of the German population. In particular, the public welcomed the strong, decisive, and apparently effective government provided by the Nazis. Germany’s endless ranks of unemployed rapidly dwindled as the jobless were put to work in extensive public-works projects and in rapidly multiplying armaments factories. Germans were swept up in this orderly, intensely purposeful mass movement bent on restoring their country to its dignity, pride, and grandeur, as well as to dominance on the European stage. Economic recovery from the effects of the Great Depression and the forceful assertion of German nationalism were key factors in Nazism’s appeal to the German population. Further, Hitler’s continuous string of diplomatic successes and foreign conquests from 1934 through the early years of World War II secured the unqualified support of most Germans, including many who had previously opposed him.

    https://www.britannica.com/event/Nazism
    It’s certainly en vogue to draw rhetorical parallels to European Imperialism or to the Trump Administration, but there’s an explicitly communist regime whose ultra-nationalist, expansionist, murderous state-run corporatocracy is a more fitting model for comparison, both in terms of its totalitarian evil and its ascendant threat to the entire world.

    Spoiler for Totalitarian Control in Nazi Germany and Communist China


    Orwell's principal models were Nazi Germany and, more especially, the Soviet Union. The Newspeak of Nineteen Eighty-Four was his imaginative extension of the officially approved language of those societies (cf. Steinhoff 1976). But in the very year in which the novel was published, there came into existence a society in which the control of language was even more comprehensive - the People's Republic of China. There, more determined attempts were made to extend the use of politicized language into people's private lives, and to turn the whole population into 'thought police' who monitored words to detect 'incorrect' thought.1 These attempts reached their peak in the last ten years of Mao Zedong's rule, during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. China was the laboratory in which Mao conducted easily the biggest experiment in linguistic engineering in world history, and perhaps the most rigorously controlled.2 It is an
    ideal case study for scholars who are interested in the practice of linguistic engineering, and who wish to examine its effects on people's beliefs and ways of thinking.

    In a loose sense, the term 'linguistic engineering' can be applied to any attempt to change language in order to affect attitudes and beliefs. In this sense, linguistic engineering probably exists in all societies. Its current manifestations in the English-speaking world include new coinages and new applications of old words, as well as attempts to eradicate usages which are believed to underpin 'offensive' attitudes. So governments gloss over and excuse the deaths of civilians in war by describing them as 'collateral damage'; black Americans draw attention to their heritage by insisting that they be called 'African Americans'; those who have disabilities raise their status by becoming people with 'different abilities'; homosexuals escape medical/psychiatric definition and celebrate their lifestyle by becoming 'gays'; prostitutes assert the legitimacy of their way of making money by referring to themselves as 'sex workers'; and feminists demand a whole battery of changes to 'man made language', including stopping the use of 'man' as a generiC term for human beings. In all these cases, linguistic innovation is intended to affect attitudes through what Deborah Cameron (1995) has called 'verbal hygiene'. In the case of disadvantaged minorities the goal is, more specifically, to introduce language which affords them respect, defined in their own terms, and to elevate their social status. As Dale Spender (1985, 6) says on their behalf, 'Investing the language with one's own different and positive meanings is a priority for all oppressed groups ... the language and its
    use has to be changed; there is no alternative if one seeks to throw off one's oppression.'

    This type of linguistic engineering is worth serious study, but it is less far-reaching than the linguistic engineering which is the subject of this thesis. Even the feminist attack on sexist language is modest in its scope and minor in its consequences compared with the changes made by Mao Zedong and the Communist Party in China. Linguistic engineering in non-totalitarian societies is not under the control of the state, and even when it has political backing people are free to criticise it and usually to ignore it. Linguistic change is effected almost entirely by persuasion and social pressure, not by coercion, and it is often accompanied by heated debate and the persistence of rival usages. Attempts to tamper with language often fail, as with the many reforms
    proposed by the General Semantics movement (e.g. Korzybski 1933, Chase 1943), and even when attempts succeed they are frequently not adopted universally.

    In China, by contrast, linguistic engineering was directed by Mao and the Communist Party, except during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution when Mao dispensed with the Party. The changes in the Chinese language were immense, people were compelled to adopt them in all public contexts, and there were increasingly strenuous attempts to politicize private life and enforce the use of politicized language there as well.

    https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/35464081.pdf


    In the early 1940s, a few years before Orwell began to write Nineteen Eighty-Four, Victor Klemperer, a romance language scholar and professor, wrote a diary about his experiences as a Jewish man living in Nazi, Germany. In his diary, titled I Will Bear Witness, he argues that in order to eradicate the Nazi power, “It isn't only Nazi actions that [have] to vanish, but also the Nazi cast of mind, the typical Nazi way of thinking, and its breeding ground: the language of Nazism.” According to Klemperer, language was the foundation for implementing large-scale Nazi conditioning techniques, and it was the hatchery for the Nazi ideologies that initiated the Holocaust. After years of seeing how the Nazis utilized propaganda and language, Klemperer began to see the types of rhetoric used to maintain power: “The basic principle of the whole language of the Third Reich became apparent to me: a bad conscience; its triad: defending oneself, praising oneself, accusing – never a moment of calm testimony” (“I Will Bear Witness”). The language of the Third Reich is accusatory, condescending, and above all else, self-promoting.

    The language of the Third Reich mirrors how Newspeak functions in Nineteen Eighty-Four and furthers the parallels between Oceania and Nazi Germany. One example is of a semantic shift in the word “organisieren,” which was originally translated to mean organizing an event or to arrange something in a particular order. In A New German-English dictionary for General Use Containing an Exhaustive Vocabulary of the Colloquial and Literary English and German Languages, as Well as a Great Many Scientific, Technical and Commercial Terms and Phrases and Preceded by a Study of the German Pronunciation by F.C. Hebert and L. Hirsch, which was published in 1926, the word “organisieren” directly translates to the English word “organize” (517). However, roughly ten years later, Nazism really began to take form under the dictatorial power of Adolf Hitler, and the language of the Third Reich really began to materialize, and the word began to be used differently. According to Klemperer, the Nazi party altered the meaning of the word and spun it in a way that attached a bias to it. This is the opposite of what the Inner Party does with the B words, but it is just as effective as a rhetorical modification. However, it slowly discredited other synonyms which mirrors the abolishment of vocabulary words that occurred during the transition into Newspeak. “Organisieren” came to replace words meaning “to work”, “to carry out”, “to do”, or “to make”. In Robert Michael and Karin Doerr’s Nazi- Deutsch/Nazi-German: An English Lexicon of the Language of the Third Reich the definition of the word “organisieren” is “meaning to procure items that were only available through connections. In soldiers’ slang, to steal; in concentration camps, to find or trade for material to survive” (305). For the Nazi soldiers who were attempting to control and exterminate Jewish people, they used the word to mean larceny or theft; however, the Jews used it to mean the acquiring of a material in order for survival. This definition sets up a contrast between not only how the word was used by the aggressor and the oppressed, but it also shows how language connotation was used to twist the truth.

    The words were used by the Reich to develop a clear binary between Aryans and non-Aryans. A 1942 Race and Settlement head office pamphlet stated that the “hands, feet and a kind of brain, with eyes and mouth” are the only way that non-Aryans were biologically related to the master race, and that the Jews are nothing more than a creature that shares a similar face to the Aryans. The pamphlet continued to say, “For all that bear a human face are not equal,” which projects the subhuman treatment of Non-Aryans as justifiable on a completely biological level (Michael and Doerr 408). The language used in this pamphlet demonstrates how language is used in Nazi Germany to portray and promote a particular ideology: an ideology that feeds off of fear and instills hate within its constituents.

    https://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/cgi/viewc...243&context=ur


    Spoiler for Lebensraum in Nazi Germany and Communist China


    The theme of the Congress is: Remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind, hold high the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, strive for the great success of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era, and work tirelessly to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

    Never forget why you started, and you can accomplish your mission. The original aspiration and the mission of Chinese Communists is to seek happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation. This original aspiration, this mission, is what inspires Chinese Communists to advance. In our Party, each and every one of us must always breathe the same breath as the people, share the same future, and stay truly connected to them. The aspirations of the people to live a better life must always be the focus of our efforts. We must keep on striving with endless energy toward the great goal of national rejuvenation.

    The Chinese nation is a great nation; it has been through hardships and adversity but remains indomitable. The Chinese people are a great people; they are industrious and brave; and they never pause in the pursuit of progress. The Communist Party of China is a great party; it has the courage to fight and the mettle to win.

    The wheels of history roll on; the tides of the times are vast and mighty. History looks kindly on those with resolve, with drive and ambition, and with plenty of guts; it won't wait for the hesitant, the apathetic, or those shy of a challenge.

    All of us in the Party must work hard and live simply, guard against arrogance and impetuosity; and lose no time in progressing along the long march of the new era.
    We must conscientiously safeguard the solidarity and unity of the Party, maintain the Party's deep bond with the people, and strengthen the great unity of the Chinese people of all ethnic groups and the great unity of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation at home and abroad. We must unite all the forces that can be united and work as one to progress toward the brilliant future of national rejuvenation.

    https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/...t_34115212.htm


    China has been pursuing expansionist designs for a long time now. Being a communist country, analysts believe expansionism is crucial to its ideology. To support their view, they cite the instance of the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) overwhelming all its neighbours into submission. Though China claims to have resolved its borders with all its neighbours except two, but in view of its expansionists tendencies, China has border disputes with all its neighbours, be those the land or marine jurisdictions.

    Interestingly, China uses ‘Salami-slice’ strategy to expand its boundaries. It is a divide and conquer process through threats and alliances to overcome opposition. The term ‘Salami-tactics’ was coined in the 1940s by the Stalinist Communist Mátyás Rákosi to explain how the Hungarian Communist Party rose to absolute political power. He claimed to have destroyed the non-Communist parties by ‘cutting them off like slices of salami’. The process eliminates political opposition ‘slice by slice’ until it realises, usually too late, there was nothing left to retrieve.

    China has finessed this deception to effective military use to expand its territories quietly. Continuously nibbling at neighbours’ land, at times even claiming an entire area on some dubious historicity, it successively builds up its military control over areas vital to its overall strategic designs. The annexation of Aksai Chin in the 1950s and repeated Chinese incursions into Indian territory are the executions of the same strategy.

    http://www.indiandefencereview.com/n...c-perspective/


    Until 1949, Tibet was an independent Buddhist nation in the Himalayas which had little contact with the rest of the world. It existed as a rich cultural storehouse of the Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings of Buddhism. Religion was a unifying theme among the Tibetans -- as was their own language, literature, art, and world view developed by living at high altitudes, under harsh conditions, in a balance with their environment.
    The Dalai Lama, an individual said to be an incarnation of the Buddha of Compassion, had been both the political and spiritual leader of the country. The current Dalai Lama (the 14th) was only 24 years old when this all came to an end in 1959. The Communist Chinese invasion in 1950 led to years of turmoil, that culminated in the complete overthrow of the Tibetan Government and the self-imposed exile of the Dalai Lama and 100,000 Tibetans in 1959.
    Since that time over a million Tibetans have been killed. With the Chinese policy of resettlement of Chinese to Tibet, Tibetans have become a minority in their own country. Chinese is the official language. Compared to pre-1959 levels, only 1/20 monks are still allowed to practice, under the government's watch. Up to 6,000 monasteries and shrines have been destroyed. Famines have appeared for the first time in recorded history, natural resources are devastated, and wildlife depleted to extinction. Tibetan culture comes close to being eradicated there.
    Peaceful demonstrations/protests/speech/writings by nuns, monks, and Tibetan laypeople have resulted in deaths and thousands of arrests. These political prisoners are tortured and held in sub-standard conditions, with little hope of justice. Unless we can all take part and recognize Tibet's loss as our own, the future looks grim.
    http://www.umass.edu/rso/fretibet/education.html


    Lebensraum (German for "habitat" or literally "living space") served as a major motivation for Nazi Germany's territorial aggression. In his book, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler detailed his belief that the German people needed Lebensraum (for a Grossdeutschland, "Greater Germany," or land and raw materials), and that it should be taken in the East. It was the stated policy of the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian, and other Slavic populations, whom they regarded as Untermenschen ("inferior peoples"), and to repopulate the land with reinrassig ("pure breed") Germanic peoples. The entire urban population was to be exterminated by starvation, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and allowing their replacement by a German upper class.

    https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Lebensraum


    Spoiler for Socio-Ethnic Engineering in Nazi Germany and Communist China


    In 1949 the CCP took control over the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a region located in the Northwest, sharing a border with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan. As a result, the population balance, which was once predominantly Muslim, shifted with the resettlement of Han Chinese making the Muslim populations the minority in the region.

    These actions, along with the restrictions on other religions and their adherents, for example, Tibetan Buddhists, House Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners are part and parcel of the CCP’s policy of sinicization, whereby the government interferes with religious and cultural activities so that traditions and doctrines conform to CCP objectives.155 A pivotal moment in the region occurred in 1996 when the CCP launched ‘strike hard’ campaigns to stop what they said were illegal religious activities.

    It is believed that there are ‘in the hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions’ of Uyghurs in prison. The overflow from these prisons has resulted in the transfer of Uyghurs throughout the PRC according to PRC police officers, speaking anonymously.16

    “The Tribunal’s members are certain - unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt - that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.”

    In regard to the Uyghurs the Tribunal had evidence of medical testing on a scale that could allow them, amongst other uses, to become an ‘organ bank’. The world is already watching their interests and their geographical location – although very large - may render it possible to lend them support more easily than for the Falun Gong who are dispersed throughout the country.

    Governments and international bodies must do their duty not only in regard to the possible charge of Genocide but also in regard to Crimes against Humanity, which the Tribunal does not allow to be any less heinous. Assuming they do not do their duty, the usually powerless citizen is, in the internet age, more powerful than s/he may recognise. Criminality of this order may allow individuals from around the world to act jointly in pressurising governments so that those governments and other international bodies are unable not to act.

    https://chinatribunal.com/wp-content...March_2020.pdf


    FINAL SOLUTION (of the Jewish question ; Ger. "Endlö-sung der Judenfrage "), the Nazi plan for the extermination of the Jews. Rooted in 19th-century antisemitic discourse on the "Jewish question," "Final Solution" as a Nazi cover term denotes the last stage in the evolution of the Third Reich's anti-Jewish policies from persecution to physical annihilation on a European scale. Currently, Final Solution is used interchangeably with other, broader terms that refer to German extermination policies during World War ii (Holocaust, Shoah), as well as more specifically to describe German intent and the decision-making process leading up to the beginning of systematic mass murder.

    https://www.encyclopedia.com/religio...final-solution


    As for the moral equivalence between fascism and communism, I think this article provides a decent anecdotal synopsis:
    Who was the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world? Most people probably assume that the answer is Adolf Hitler, architect of the Holocaust. Others might guess Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who may indeed have managed to kill even more innocent people than Hitler did, many of them as part of a terror famine that likely took more lives than the Holocaust. But both Hitler and Stalin were outdone by Mao Zedong. From 1958 to 1962, his Great Leap Forward policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people – easily making it the biggest episode of mass murder ever recorded.

    The basic facts of the Great Leap Forward have long been known to scholars. Dikötter’s work is noteworthy for demonstrating that the number of victims may have been even greater than previously thought, and that the mass murder was more clearly intentional on Mao’s part, and included large numbers of victims who were executed or tortured, as opposed to “merely” starved to death. Even the previously standard estimates of 30 million or more, would still make this the greatest mass murder in history.

    While the horrors of the Great Leap Forward are well known to experts on communism and Chinese history, they are rarely remembered by ordinary people outside China, and have had only a modest cultural impact. When Westerners think of the great evils of world history, they rarely think of this one. In contrast to the numerous books, movies, museums, and and remembrance days dedicated to the Holocaust, we make little effort to recall the Great Leap Forward, or to make sure that society has learned its lessons. When we vow “never again,” we don’t often recall that it should apply to this type of atrocity, as well as those motivated by racism or anti-semitism.

    The fact that Mao’s atrocities resulted in many more deaths than those of Hitler does not necessarily mean he was the more evil of the two. The greater death toll is partly the result of the fact that Mao ruled over a much larger population for a much longer time. I lost several relatives in the Holocaust myself, and have no wish to diminish its significance. But the vast scale of Chinese communist atrocities puts them in the same general ballpark. At the very least, they deserve far more recognition than they currently receive.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...rderer-his-due
    Of these facts there cannot be any shadow of doubt: for instance, that civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions; that in the strength of that renewal the human race was lifted up to better things-nay, that it was brought back from death to life, and to so excellent a life that nothing more perfect had been known before, or will come to be known in the ages that have yet to be. - Pope Leo XIII

  5. #65

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    The only state that is currently implementing racial policies on a large scale is Communist China, so the whole "communism is different from national-socialism because of racial element in the ideology" argument is beyond false.

  6. #66

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by Abdülmecid I View Post
    That's demonstrablu false, though, as the Nazis and their allies did not target undesirable classes, but undesirable ethnicities.
    Appeal to semantics if you will. Both Lebensraum and dekulakization were centrally-planned thefts intended to facilitate state control over food production in eastern Europe; both policies relied upon the systemic vilification of their victims (who were classified as undesirable persons); and both policies resulted in the exile, enslavement or death of millions of persons.

    Most of these claims have already been disproven in my previous comment that was left unanswered, but there are still some inaccuracies I would like to address. Most of it is based on the fallacy of correlation, but even the aforementioned fallacy is based on factually wrong assumptions. For example, as already explained, Hitler described himself as a social Darwinist in economic affairs and only opposed laissez-faire economics, which conflicted with his mercantilistic views. Moreover, Communism and Nazism didn't emerge simultaneously. Communism was firstly established in the 19th century and firstly prevailed in sovereign states after World War I. Nazism, on the other hand, was created in the 1920s from digruntled right-wingers, but only rose to prominence in the 1930s, following the 1929 Great Depression that ruined the lower segments of the middle-class.
    That Bolshevism and National Socialsim did not emerge and/or develop in precise synchrony or under identical conditions does not render the aforementioned general observations about time, place and circumstance either false or irrelevant (it remains accurate to claim that both parties secured power in the interwar period and that they took advantage of the transformed political landscape created by the First World War). It also remains accurate to characterize both parties as radical, collectivist, utopian, totalitarian, anti-democratic and anti-capitalist.

    This is an unsubstantiated assertion, on which you need to ellaborate. As a matter of fact, Nazism, contrary to the Communist Party, attracted a disproportionately lower number of workers in its ranks. It clashed with Communists, because opposition to Marxism and to "Judeo-Bolshevism" was fundamental to its core beliefs.
    The NSDAP repressed other socialist movements and independent trade unions for the same reason that the Bolsheviks repressed other socialist movements and independent trade unions. Contrary to my interlocutor's suggestion, there is no reason to assume that the degree of animosity which exists between competing movements is proportional (or even related) to the extent to which they diverge ideologically. I introduced the example of the warring imperial Christian powers to illustrate that point.


    In fact, Nazism was the only right-wing movement that succeeded in acquiring a mass following. This was of tremendous importance to business magnates and conservative politicians, who had previously consistently failing in surpassing the capabilities of Communists in assembling large, popular protests. As I described previously, Italian fascists were the first example in Biennio Rosso, but capitalists and the moderate right also endorsed Nazis in Germany to use them against a Communist revolution and the syndicalism of leftist trade unions. If you are interested in the subject, I recommend "The Anatomy of Fascism" by Robert Paxton (2005) and especially the pages 102-130
    That the established elite aligned themselves with fascism is evidence only that they found Nazism less distasteful than the communist alternative. Hitler's alliance with the industrialists and Prussian military class was as cynical as their alliance with him; the former's obsessive attitude toward rapid rearmament necessitated such an accord and precluded the possibility of a "renovation" on the scale that was undertaken in Russia. Whether the NSDAP would have formulated a more coherent domestic economic policy had they won the war is a matter of speculation.

    Overall, if we are to draw modern analogies, I would argue that Nazism shares a worryingly large number of similarities with the modern revival of right-wing extremism, which encompass pretty much everything in the spectrum between the alt-right and populist conservatives. Their views on capitalism are almost the same, as the origins of the vitriolic attacks against "woke" enterprises, globalisation, liberal establishment and cosmopolitan are eeringly similar to Hitler's railings over treacherous Jewish bankers. Soros and Gillette are the Shylocks of the 21st century. Other similarities include the somewhat paranoid aversion to anything to the left of Reagen and Thatcher and the scornful dismissal of intellectuals. The latter is mainly the result of tribalism, but also of the demographics of the 2016 presidential elections, as the choice between Hillary and Donald was more determined by education than wealth.
    Trump is indeed, literally Hitler.



  7. #67

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    When we argue about the alleged similarities of different policies, it is usually important to define and describe them accurately. Call it semantics, if you wish.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    The NSDAP repressed other socialist movements and independent trade unions for the same reason that the Bolsheviks repressed other socialist movements and independent trade unions. Contrary to my interlocutor's suggestion, there is no reason to assume that the degree of animosity which exists between competing movements is proportional (or even related) to the extent to which they diverge ideologically. I introduced the example of the warring imperial Christian powers to illustrate that point.
    That's false, though. As the pages I cited explain, Hitler specifically targeted socialists, in a disproportionately more vicious manner than the rest of the political activists. This is because the liquidation of Marxists, Socialists and Judeo-Bolsheviks was a core tenent of Nazism's doctrine. The assertion that Hitler forbade trade unions, because of his authoritarianism, is also factually mistaken. As I again have explained more than once, Hitler had promised to eliminate syndicalism, in order to gain the support of the industrialist establishment. Not to install a totalitarian regime, but in order to completely destroy any means the workers possessed to promote their interests. As he very eloquently phrased it, private enterprise can no more flourish in a liberal democracy. Keep also in mind that Hitler's hostility against trade unions was not an opportunist move to gain the endorsement of German magnates. He opposed them from the beginning, as an instrument of class division, which therefore sabotaged the racial unity of the Arian nation. For references (Nicholls, David, 2000, Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion, p. 268 and Tooze, Adam, 2009, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, p. 99-100):
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



    Even before Poland was invaded, the Third Reich increased the working hours of German workers, while reducing their monthly wage. Your comparison with the Christian monarchies was indeed very weak. As already been established numerous times, Hitler had formulated his Lebensraum theory on ideological and secondarily economic grounds. The primary motive was the extermination of Jews, Bolsheviks and inferior people, in general, a policy he enacted almost immediately during the first days of Operation Barbarossa. Such a policy was financially and strategically counter-productive, damaging Germany's fortunes in both the long and the short term, but the Nazis proceeded nonetheless, because the ideological factor played a crucial role.
    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    Trump is indeed, literally Hitler.
    I didn't say that though, so the fallacy of ridicule is a bit irrelevant, here. I raised several similarities, all of which remain unchallenged, between the talking points of Nazis and contemporary right-wingers and nationalists, some of whom actually oppose Trump. If said group finds the common elements of their anti-intellectualism and demonisation of unpatriotic, liberal establishment of globalisation with Mein Kamp offensive, then it would be more productive to reconsider their beliefs, instead of adopting the ostrich attitude.
    Quote Originally Posted by Morticia Iunia Bruti View Post
    Whiny anglo-american upperclass conservatives, which declare themself as the true target of Nazism like Bernhard Simms book "Hitler - a global biography" is suggesting.
    Indeed, it's a relatively recent phenomenon that has accelerated since the '90s, when reactionarism became trendy again. It usually originates from radical centrists, who ascribe to the scientifically baseless horseshoe theory. The problem is that they employ an intentionally faulty methodology, in order to promote their political narrative, which is utterly unethical, from a professional perspective. Watson is a typical case of politics meddling into academia, but Simms is a proud imitator. Some, like Robert Conquest, actually admit their bias, a frankness which honestly worries me a bit. Their favourite tactic is selective use of primary sources, which is very easy, given their abundance for contemporary history, and which can appear very convincing to a wider audience, who is not familiar with the nuances and intricacies of the scientific field. Richard Evans, who is actually a historian, unlike Simms, wrote a great review of Simm's manifesto.

  8. #68

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    It is important to understand that the only groups that deny the functional equality of fascism and communism are... fascists and communists. Latter explicitly uses faulty logic in order to force a rather contemporary narrative of being about "equality" despite the fact that racial and nationalist rhetoric was common for both communists in mid-XX century as well as current marxist regimes, such as the one in China.
    The reality is that Western marxists are simply denying this reality for partisan reasons, hence why they claim their ideology has "equality", despite the fact that is simply not there. Sadly, with the far-left's infiltration of academia and media, this narratives is being desperately maintained, ironically kinda like religious dogma, despite the fact that it objectively false.
    Hitler specifically targeted socialists, in a disproportionately more vicious manner than the rest of the political activists.
    By that logic so did Lenin and Stalin, when time came to purge the possible competition for power.

    . The primary motive was the extermination of Jews, Bolsheviks and inferior people, in general, a policy he enacted almost immediately during the first days of Operation Barbarossa.
    Very similar to many other revolutionary marxist regimes such as the one in China today.
    increased the working hours of German workers, while reducing their monthly wage.
    Communist regimes in Russia and China murdered workers and peasants by the millions and starved even more. I'd hardly call a slave in a modern Chinese sweatshop privileged either. Modern Western marxist left advocates for mass-immigration, which reduces value of labor and hurts the working class of their nation. So again, the factual disregard for actual conditions of working class is a common trait among revolutionary marxist regimes such as the one of NSDAP or the one in USSR... or the one in modern China.
    between the talking points of Nazis and contemporary right-wingers and nationalists,
    One can cherry-pick his way to similarity between any individuals or groups. If I had free time I could easily present Bernie Sanders as AnCap and AOC as a fascist.
    Last edited by Heathen Hammer; October 27, 2020 at 03:48 PM.

  9. #69

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by Abdülmecid I View Post
    When we argue about the alleged similarities of different policies, it is usually important to define and describe them accurately. Call it semantics, if you wish.
    The policies were described accurately; you chose (and continue to choose) to evade the substance of the comparison.

    That's false, though. As the pages I cited explain, Hitler specifically targeted socialists, in a disproportionately more vicious manner than the rest of the political activists. This is because the liquidation of Marxists, Socialists and Judeo-Bolsheviks was a core tenent of Nazism's doctrine. The assertion that Hitler forbade trade unions, because of his authoritarianism, is also factually mistaken. As I again have explained more than once, Hitler had promised to eliminate syndicalism, in order to gain the support of the industrialist establishment. Not to install a totalitarian regime, but in order to completely destroy any means the workers possessed to promote their interests. As he very eloquently phrased it, private enterprise can no more flourish in a liberal democracy. Keep also in mind that Hitler's hostility against trade unions was not an opportunist move to gain the endorsement of German magnates. He opposed them from the beginning, as an instrument of class division, which therefore sabotaged the racial unity of the Arian nation.
    The purpose of the repression perpetrated by both the Bolsheviks and the NSDAP was to secure and/or maintain and/or further the monopolization of power by their respective parties (or in some cases particular factions within said parties). This general observation is not falsified by appeals to ideological specifics; the responses of both parties to threats or perceived threats were, broadly speaking, functionally equivalent* (consider the comparable fates of Röhm and Trotsky, for instance). Notwithstanding, the claim that Hitler's opposition to unions was not an extension of his totalitarian attitude but merely a method by which the workers could be disenfranchised is self-refuting; a rejection of pluralism is a prerequisite of totalitarian governance.

    *See post #68.

    Spoiler for On Soviet repression
    What made Soviet state terror distinctive was its scale. Based just on the size of its population, the Soviet Gulag system – comprising regular and special prisons, filtration camps, POW camps, corrective labor colonies,special settlements, and scientific prisons – was about twenty-five times larger than its counterpart in Nazi Germany. This population included both political and criminal inmates, the former of whom were typically convicted under Article 58 of the Soviet penal code.

    In force between 1927 and 1961, Article 58 established a broad class of“counter-revolutionary” crimes, including treason, insurrection, terrorism,espionage, industrial sabotage, contacts with foreign states, propaganda,agitation, and a failure to report any of the above. Most of these crimes carried mandatory minimum sentences, from six months to ten years. Some offenses, like espionage and treason, were potentially punishable by death.The range of activities that fell under Article 58 was so wide that even mildly critical or heterodox political statements could become cause for arrest – or concern among others that they could be arrested for failing to report. By creating strong incentives to inform, Soviet authorities drew local communities directly into the repression process. As many inmates landed in the camps following accusations from neighbors, co-workers and family members, the space for public and even private expression of political preferences gradually shrank.

    Between 1921 and 1953, the Soviet state convicted 3.8 million people under Article 58. A typical case began with a person’s detention, interrogation and (forced) confession, often followed by an expedited trial and conviction by a “special troika” – comprising an NKVD officer,party secretary and prosecutor – and transfer to a labor camp. According to one report, of 1.5 million individuals the NKVD arrested in 1937-1938, troikas convicted 85.4 percent.

    Beyond their punitive function, Gulags served an economic purpose, as a source of cheap labor that the state regularly mobilized for large construction works, gold, metal and coal mining, logging and other engineering projects. At its peak, the Gulag accounted for two percent of all laborers in the Soviet Union. These 12-14 hour daily heavy labor shifts, combined with harsh climate and malnutrition,contributed to a very high mortality rate. In 1937-1938, average life expectancy in the Gulag was between two and five years, despite an average length of sentence of 10-25 years.

    Those fortunate enough to survive the Gulag returned to a life of permanent political disenfranchisement and social alienation. Some of these long-term costs also extended to family members, especially if the latter did not originally report the crime. The wives, children and siblings of those convicted as ‘traitors of the Motherland’ were subject to prosecution and imprisonment under Article 58. Children of the repressed lost voting rights, paid higher taxes, and had difficulty obtaining university education and professional advancement in most industries.

    For the disenfranchised, rehabilitation was a long and uncertain process.It involved multiple redemptive steps, including engaging in “socially useful labor” and demonstrating loyalty to the regime. Even then, rehabilitation was neither automatic nor irreversible. Some were disenfranchised and reinstated multiple times, and even those wrongly deprived of rights had to formally appeal. Some forms of collective punishment of kin (e.g.exile of Kulaks’ families) concluded in the late 1930s. Other policies, like internment of children in special settlements, continued until 1954.

    Stalin’s Terror and the Long-Term Political Effects of Mass Repression, Yuri M. Zhukov and Roya Talibova, 2017 pp. 6-7.


    For references (Nicholls, David, 2000, Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion, p. 268 and Tooze, Adam, 2009, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, p. 99-100)
    I'm familiar with Tooze's work and have cited it previously.

    Even before Poland was invaded, the Third Reich increased the working hours of German workers, while reducing their monthly wage. Your comparison with the Christian monarchies was indeed very weak.
    The reference to Christian monarchies was unrelated to the state of working conditions in Hitler's Germany. Its purpose was to show that likeminded regimes can, and often do, come into conflict.

    As already been established numerous times, Hitler had formulated his Lebensraum theory on ideological and secondarily economic grounds. The primary motive was the extermination of Jews, Bolsheviks and inferior people, in general, a policy he enacted almost immediately during the first days of Operation Barbarossa. Such a policy was financially and strategically counter-productive, damaging Germany's fortunes in both the long and the short term, but the Nazis proceeded nonetheless, because the ideological factor played a crucial role.
    Setting aside your selective views on the significance of ideological concerns in geopolitical decision making, it has not been claimed that the theory of Lebensraum (much like dekulakization) was uninformed, or even secondarily informed, by party dogma. That said, the economic cannot be so easily separated from the ideological: autarky through conquest was the means by which Aryan dominance was to be achieved (see my prior comment on the war being Hitler's economic policy).

    The timing of Barbarossa was a product of calculated military strategy and circumstance rather than blind fanaticism. The Germans assessed that delaying the offensive would have given the Soviets more time to organize militarily, recover from the Stalinist purges and strengthen their territorial position (see the invasion of Finland and the annexations of the Baltic states, Bessarabia and northern Bukovina). They further supposed that postponing the invasion increased the probability that the US would intercede directly at an inopportune moment, facilitated British resistance and left open the possibility of a two-fronted war.

    Spoiler for On Barbarossa
    When planning the blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union, Hitler largely assumed that the commanding staff of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (RKKA) and Red Navy (RKKF) was weak and that this weakness was clearly demonstrated during the Soviet-Finnish War from November1939 to March 1940. He believed the Red Army had been weakened by Stalin’s repressions in 1937 and 1938, thinking it would need another several years to recover.

    Hitler’s calculations of the damage these repressions had done to the combat capabilities of the Soviet Army and Navy were not unfounded.Repressions against senior- and medium-level commanders had reached an enormous scale in 1937 and 1938. This was demonstrated in particular by the fact that 78 of the 85 members of the Military Council of the People’s Commissariat of Defense of the USSR were subjected to repressions,and 68 of these 78 commanders were executed (including three of the first five marshals of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Alexander Yegorov and Vasily Blucher). Many dozens of senior commanders and commanders of armies and fleets, as well as thousands of lower-level commanders, including those who knew the would-be enemy, Hitler’s Wehrmacht, perished in the repressions.

    These repressions led to multifaceted consequences, affecting the morale and psychological climate in the Soviet armed forces and lowering the quality of the intellectual component of military affairs in the USSR,among other things.

    The repressions inflicted serious damage on Soviet military and political intelligence (especially strategic intelligence), which lost many qualified officers who had worked in the central staff and in stations abroad.

    The pogroms perpetrated by Stalin’s repressive apparatus in the Soviet intelligence agencies had a particularly negative impact on the analytical capabilities of these agencies, dramatically reducing their ability to identify and weed out disinformation. The same went for the diplomatic service of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, which was hit by severe repressions during those years.

    Had there been no repressions of 1937, “the war of 1941 might have not happened at all,” according to Alexander Vasilevsky, who served as chief of the General Staff of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Vasilevsky also noted that “Hitler’s assessment of the extent to which our military personnel had been crushed played a major role in his decision to start the war in 1941.”

    The German Blitzkreig Against the USSR, 1941, Andrei A. Kokoshin, 2016, pp. 7-8.


    I didn't say that though, so the fallacy of ridicule is a bit irrelevant, here. I raised several similarities, all of which remain unchallenged, between the talking points of Nazis and contemporary right-wingers and nationalists, some of whom actually oppose Trump. If said group finds the common elements of their anti-intellectualism and demonisation of unpatriotic, liberal establishment of globalisation with Mein Kamp offensive, then it would be more productive to reconsider their beliefs, instead of adopting the ostrich attitude.
    The banal culture war rhetoric aside (fringe elements of the US political arena are not analogous to Hitler's Germany), the contemporary entity most worryingly comparable with the the Third Reich is red China*. It is an ultra-nationalist, totalitarian, increasingly militarist, expansionist and genocidal global power which pursues anticompetitive, state-controlled, corporatocratic economic policies. It is also (once again, not coincidentally) the international standard bearer of communism and the result of a century's worth of revolutionary "progress". One might say it almost single-handedly proves my thesis regarding the common Marxist ancestry of both fascism and communism.

    See post #64.
    Last edited by Cope; October 28, 2020 at 12:09 PM.



  10. #70
    alhoon's Avatar Comes Rei Militaris
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    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cookiegod View Post
    I'm somewhat humoured by the origins of the thread - a banned troll with a secondary account named "wanderwegger" going wild and insisting on such a thread, because the "liberals" got one - even though the anti liberals got that thread to stop their threadspam.
    But that's just an aside and ok.
    Nope. The origins of this thread are based on a different banned troll: Basil II that showed the way: Instead of a hundred tiny rant-posts about more or less how bad Progressives are, or in this case the alt-right / far-right/ right wings are... you get one nice big thread for people to blow up steam.


    "THE right" doesn't exist, just like "THE left" doesn't either
    And that's why I mention rightwings and conservatives on the title and split it up to more things in the opening post, giving definitions for them.


    Which then immediately and absolutely justifiably gets thrown out of the window by those considering themselves as [Something] as simply a toxic outlier which any very loosely defined group with a large enough number of people is inevitably going to have plenty of
    Bingo!!!
    And that's why this thread exists. This thread is not to discuss the inherent problems of a large and diverge group. It is a thread to rant about Bob_of_the_right_33 (That may not even fit the usual definition of rightwing). Examples:
    - Does Alex Jones represents the majority of the Rightwings in USA? Nope. So, rant about him here.
    - Does Duterte represents the majority of rightwings in Phillipines? Nope. In fact, he's center-left! But he's conservative so rant about him here.
    - Do Bolsonaro's thugs (the militias he backs to fight the other militias) represent the majority of the people that voted for this nationalist butthole? Nope. So rant about his bloodthirsty approach here.

    I could bring more examples, but I'm tired and cynical.
    That's what this thread is for too. Come here and blow steam and be cynical. About the Conservative stuff that is. The other stuff about femi-nazism and mob mentality by progressives are rants for the other thread.


    So that's my rant. You are all welcome.
    Good enough for a first effort, but you should post the left-based rant on the other thread.
    alhoon is not a member of the infamous Hoons: a (fictional) nazi-sympathizer KKK clan. Of course, no Hoon would openly admit affiliation to the uninitiated.
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  11. #71
    alhoon's Avatar Comes Rei Militaris
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    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    It is important to understand that the only groups that deny the functional equality of fascism and communism are... fascists and communists.
    And virtually everyone else.
    Far-right, right, center-right, center, center-left, left, far-left + Fascists, authoritarians, moderate authoritarians, center, moderate liberals, liberals, anarchists... you name it.
    ~90% of the people agree that Communism and Fascism are different.
    alhoon is not a member of the infamous Hoons: a (fictional) nazi-sympathizer KKK clan. Of course, no Hoon would openly admit affiliation to the uninitiated.
    "Angry Uncle Gordon" describes me well.
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  12. #72

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by alhoon View Post
    And virtually everyone else.
    Far-right, right, center-right, center, center-left, left, far-left + Fascists, authoritarians, moderate authoritarians, center, moderate liberals, liberals, anarchists... you name it.
    ~90% of the people agree that Communism and Fascism are different.
    Not really. I'm somewhat in-between center-right and conservative libertarianism and I don't see how fascism and communism are different, even the race issue, as it was just demonstrated, was rather frequently present in typically communist regime's ideologies (both in mid-XX century and today) as well as Marx's own take on race (his rants on Slavs and Jews may have inspired a certain austere Austrian painter, as Wall Street Journal would call him).
    The main factor behind common misconception of some fundamental difference between two ideologies existing are claims of contemporary Western marxists, who obviously don't want to be associated with fascism and intend to whitewash communism for political reasons. However that sentiment is not academic and is 100% political. Ironically if you go on fascist subreddits or forums, you'll see fascists repeating same arguments, ironically proving the initial statement about functional equity of communism and fascism.
    Last edited by Heathen Hammer; October 28, 2020 at 11:00 AM.

  13. #73
    alhoon's Avatar Comes Rei Militaris
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    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    Not really. I'm somewhat in-between center-right and conservative libertarianism and I don't see how fascism and communism are different, even the race issue, as it was just demonstrated, was rather frequently present in typically communist regime's ideologies (both in mid-XX century and today) as well as Marx's own take on race (his rants on Slavs and Jews may have inspired a certain austere Austrian painter, as Wall Street Journal would call him).
    The main factor behind common misconception of some fundamental difference between two ideologies existing are claims of contemporary Western marxists, who obviously don't want to be associated with fascism and intend to whitewash communism for political reasons. However that sentiment is not academic and is 100% political. Ironically if you go on fascist subreddits or forums, you'll see fascists repeating same arguments, ironically proving the initial statement about functional equity of communism and fascism.
    - You are not center-right. When you look around you and 90% of the people on the street are further left than you, you're not center-right.
    - That you don't agree that Fascism is very different from Communism, based on very specific criteria doesn't mean the academic consensus agrees with you or your criteria.
    - Fascists in the interwar era were killing Marxists and vice versa based on ideological reasons so the divide is not "contemporary western".
    - That Fascists repeat some of the arguments that put them apart from Marxists doesn't disprove the validity of those arguments. Marxists, Fascists and everyone in between makes the same arguments because they are true: Fascism is not Communism.
    alhoon is not a member of the infamous Hoons: a (fictional) nazi-sympathizer KKK clan. Of course, no Hoon would openly admit affiliation to the uninitiated.
    "Angry Uncle Gordon" describes me well.
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  14. #74

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by alhoon View Post
    - You are not center-right. When you look around you and 90% of the people on the street are further left than you, you're not center-right.
    - That you don't agree that Fascism is very different from Communism, based on very specific criteria doesn't mean the academic consensus agrees with you or your criteria.
    - Fascists in the interwar era were killing Marxists and vice versa based on ideological reasons so the divide is not "contemporary western".
    - That Fascists repeat some of the arguments that put them apart from Marxists doesn't disprove the validity of those arguments. Marxists, Fascists and everyone in between makes the same arguments because they are true: Fascism is not Communism.
    - That's just like your opinion man. I guess the problem here is that in American media takes far-left as "center", therefore from that perspective centrist liberal Trump is "far-right", while marxist agitators like Sanders and AOC all of a sudden are painted as "centrists", while in reality they are far-left.
    - As it was pointed out above, academic consensus is being largely influenced by politics, where Marxists use positions they infiltrated in Academia for strictly political reasons.
    - Stalin killed more Marxists in 1930s and Mao in 1950s then all fascists of their time put together. Fascists often had their own "purges", i.e. when NSDAP eliminated SA core overnight.
    - I'd say the fact that they use same semantic arguments as the only "proof" of difference between their ideologies is kinda of a give-away at this point.

  15. #75
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    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    The Nazis were not left as they were friends of Big Business:



    And now the longer textform for not US-Far Rights:

    The month after being appointed Chancellor, Hitler made a personal appeal to German business leaders to help fund the Nazi Party for the crucial months that were to follow. He argued that they should support him in establishing a dictatorship because "private enterprise cannot be maintained in the age of democracy" and because democracy would allegedly lead to communism.[58] In the following weeks, the Nazi Party received contributions from seventeen different business groups, with the largest coming from IG Farben and Deutsche Bank.[59] Many of these businesses continued to support Hitler even during the war and even profited from persecution of the Jews. The most infamous being firms like Krupp, IG Farben, and some large automobile manufacturers.[60] Historian Adam Tooze writes that the leaders of German business were therefore "willing partners in the destruction of political pluralism in Germany."[61] In exchange, owners and managers of German businesses were granted unprecedented powers to control their workforce, collective bargaining was abolished and wages were frozen at a relatively low level.[62] Business profits also rose very rapidly, as did corporate investment.[63]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany


    The "Adi Industrial Fanboys Fund" :

    The Adolf Hitler Fund of German Trade and Industry ("Adolf-Hitler-Spende der deutschen Wirtschaft") was a donation from the German employers' association and the "Reichsverband" of German industry, which was established on June 1, 1933, to support the NSDAP. It was named after the Führer of the NSDAP Adolf Hitler and was meant for the "national reconstruction" ("nationaler Wiederaufbau").

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_...e_and_Industry

    Good relations between Ford and GM even in Time of WW II:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-sr...nazicars30.htm


    Sure, sure, Nazis were clearly left and anglo-american business its main target.
    Last edited by Morticia Iunia Bruti; October 28, 2020 at 01:11 PM.
    Cause tomorrow is a brand-new day
    And tomorrow you'll be on your way
    Don't give a damn about what other people say
    Because tomorrow is a brand-new day


  16. #76

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    I guess Soviets were not left either, since they had no problem with big capitalist business:
    Engineers were invited from abroad, many well-known companies, such as Siemens-Schuckertwerke AG and General Electric, were involved in the work and carried out deliveries of modern equipment, a significant part of the equipment models produced in those years at Soviet factories, were copies or modifications of foreign analogues (for example, a Fordson tractor assembled at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant).
    In February 1930, between Amtorg and Albert Kahn, Inc., a firm of American architect Albert Kahn, an agreement was signed, according to which Kahn's firm became the chief consultant of the Soviet government on industrial construction and received a package of orders for the construction of industrial enterprises worth $2 billion (about $250 billion in prices of our time). This company has provided construction of more than 500 industrial facilities in the Soviet Union.[22][23][24]
    A branch of Albert Kahn, Inc. was opened in Moscow under the name "Gosproektstroy". Its leader was Moritz Kahn, brother of the head of the company. It employed 25 leading American engineers and about 2.5 thousand Soviet employees. At that time it was the largest architectural bureau in the world. During the three years of the existence of Gosproektroy, more than 4 thousand Soviet architects, engineers and technicians who have studied the American experience passed through it. The Moscow Office of Heavy Machinery, a branch of the German company Demag, also worked in Moscow.
    The firm of Albert Kahn played the role of coordinator between the Soviet customer and hundreds of Western companies that supplied equipment and advised the construction of individual objects. Thus, the technological project of the Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant was completed by Ford, the construction project by the American company Austin Motor Company. Construction of the 1st State Bearing Plant in Moscow, which was designed by Kahn, was carried out with the technical assistance of the Italian company RIV.
    The Stalingrad Tractor Plant, designed by Kahn in 1930, was originally built in the United States, and then was unmounted, transported to the Soviet Union and assembled under the supervision of American engineers. It was equipped with the equipment of more than 80 American engineering companies and several German firms.
    American hydrobuilder Hugh Cooper became the chief consultant for the construction of the DneproGES, hydro turbines for which were purchased from General Electric and Newport News Shipbuilding.[25]
    The Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant was designed by the American firm Arthur G. McKee and Co., which also supervised its construction. A standard blast furnace for this and all other steel mills of the industrialization period was developed by the Chicago-based Freyn Engineering Co.[26]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indust...gn_specialists
    Almost makes one wonder why did so many children of Soviet general secretaries all ended up staying in capitalist countries.

  17. #77
    pacifism's Avatar see the day
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    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    A German spy who uses German funding to stage a violent coup now benevolently wants to sign a peace treaty with Germany? Imagine my shock.
    The reality is that Brest was hardly a testament to bolshevistic pacifism, given how reds incited civil war within Russia and pretty much violently conquered all of its territories minus areas surrendered to the Germans and even tried to take over Poland.
    So Reds had no problem making war for ideological justifications, just like Germans under NSDAP.
    First of all, Lenin wasn’t a German spy. Nothing about him would make one think he would ever work for the intelligence services of the Kaiser. He saw WWI as a war of imperialist capitalism. Second of all, I’m not saying the Lenin and the Bolsheviks were pacifists, I’m saying they treated those non-Russian Slavs a teensy bit differently than the Nazis. The Bolsheviks also renounced claims of the exact territories that the Nazis would invade and kill millions of people in.

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    In 1941 and 42 Germany failed to take Moscow and lost more men in few months then all other theaters put together in first 2 years of the war. Propaganda remained optimistic, but the brass mast have realized that they were in deep , at least as per the memoirs of the generals like Huderian.
    Actually just like NSDAP, Lenin introduced NEP - New Economic Policy, which pretty much replaced "war communism" with market economy and private ownership which lasted Dzhugashvili's collectivization and some of its aspects remained even after, such as "artels" that functioned even after WW2.
    So both regimes were socialistic, but had to resort to market capitalism to keep their economies afloat.
    I think overall it is fair to point out that "goals" of such regimes were largely irrelevant. It is simply pointless to try and say that Reds massacring thousands of innocents in Russia were better then when Germans did it. At the very least Hitler targeted non-Germans, while majority of victims of Lenin and Stalin were Russian working class, the very people they claimed to protect and support.
    I didn’t say one was better than the other. I said that one was different from the other. The fact is that Hitler expanded privatization and partnered with big businesses in his country, while Lenin nationalized industries and shrank the influence of businesses in his country, regardless of the occasional foreign contracting work.

    Quick aside, but did you seriously just say “at the very least Hitler targeted non-Germans”? Hitler targeted plenty of Germans too, but that’s nothing compared to drawing a moral distinction in who someone kills based on the victim’s nationality.

    Another quick aside, but Moscow was still threatened up to the end of 1942. The Nazis began losing the Eastern front in early-to-mid 1943 after the inconclusive Rzhev battles and outright defeats in Stalingrad and Kursk. After that, the Soviets were pretty much always on the initiative.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    It is worth commenting upon the fact that Hitler's Lebensraum was, in practice, remarkably similar to Stalin's dekulakization programme. Both were centrally planned efforts to forcibly appropriate, and then redistribute, eastern European lands from "undesirable" classes; both occurred within (roughly) a decade of one another; and both were responsible for the exile, enslavement and/or deaths of millions of civilians.
    It is worth commenting that what made people undesirables were completely different.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    There is a growing consensus, particularly among people on the left, that Leninism was not Marxist (reasoning which is agreeable to the extent that no form of utopianism can be actualized)
    I’m pretty sure they’re just contractually obliged to say that now.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cope View Post
    The ideological undercurrents of National Socialism and Bolshevism were more familiar than they were divergent. It is no coincidence that these radical, collectivist, utopian, anti-democratic, anti-capitalist and totalitarian movements emerged at the same point in history, on the same continent and as consequence of defeat of the same war (the First World War). Nor is it a coincidence that the founders of these parties were self-described socialists who understood, and presented their respective movements as, socialist.
    When people nowadays say socialism, they almost always mean Marxist socialism.
    The Nazis were national socialists. They were anti-Marxist.
    It is misleading to simply call the Nazis socialists because people will think you mean Marxist socialism.

    According to our conventional understanding of right- and left-wing politics, the USSR’s commitment to internationalism, equality, reform, and action places it in far-left authoritarianism. Obviously, they didn’t do a very good job at achieving their goals. The Nazis values of nation, race, tradition, and reaction are why it is widely seen as far-right authoritarianism. You’re trying to frame them as similar because they were both against the general capitalist liberal democracy status quo. But it’s silly to do that because they were also opposed to each other. A common enemy is only a very basic similarity. They were for completely different things and were authoritarian to pursue completely different things.


    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    Not really. I'm somewhat in-between center-right and conservative libertarianism and

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    That's just like your opinion man. I guess the problem here is that in American media takes far-left as "center", therefore from that perspective centrist liberal Trump is "far-right", while marxist agitators like Sanders and AOC all of a sudden are painted as "centrists", while in reality they are far-left.
    - As it was pointed out above, academic consensus is being largely influenced by politics, where Marxists use positions they infiltrated in Academia for strictly political reasons.
    Uh oh.
    Last edited by pacifism; October 28, 2020 at 02:59 PM. Reason: what's up with apostrophes?
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  18. #78

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by pacifism View Post
    First of all, Lenin wasn’t a German spy. Nothing about him would make one think he would ever work for the intelligence services of the Kaiser. He saw WWI as a war of imperialist capitalism. Second of all, I’m not saying the Lenin and the Bolsheviks were pacifists, I’m saying they treated those non-Russian Slavs a teensy bit differently than the Nazis. The Bolsheviks also renounced claims of the exact territories that the Nazis would invade and kill millions of people in.
    Lenin was a German spy. He accepted money from German government and acted on its behalf. He saw WW1 as an opportunity to gain power, nothing more, since he was an imperialist himself. He murdered a lot of Slavs via both red Terror and famines, Cheka acting in the exact same way SS would a few decades later during Barbarossa. Lenin also targeted elite of Russian society, basically mainly educated people, which does qualify as genocide. Lenin hated Russians and openly supported ethnic cleansing of Russian population in regions that were annexed to non-Russian "republics" despite the fact that they were populated by Russians for centuries. Also his regime literally invaded Poland so the "renounced claims" part is simply false.
    I didn’t say one was better than the other. I said that one was different from the other. The fact is that Hitler expanded privatization and partnered with big businesses in his country, while Lenin nationalized industries and shrank the influence of businesses in his country, regardless of the occasional foreign contracting work.

    Quick aside, but did you seriously just say “at the very least Hitler targeted non-Germans”? Hitler targeted plenty of Germans too, but that mistake is nothing compared to drawing a moral distinction in who someone kills based on the victim’s nationality.

    Another quick aside, but Moscow was still threatened up to the end of 1942. The Nazis began losing the Eastern front in early-to-mid 1943 after the inconclusive Rzhev battles and outright defeats in Stalingrad and Kursk. After that, the Soviets were pretty much always on the initiative.
    Germany lost more people in a few months of Barbarossa then it in other theaters in same period of time - they were on the offensive, but its costs were much higher, and that must have been obvious to its leadership by the end of 1941.
    Again, Soviets begun committing genocide as soon as they gained power - at the very least Hitler didn't commit "brown terror" against his own nation on the same scale as Lenin did with Red Terror (including using poison gas on anti-communist peasants and sending them to concentration camps, rings any bells?). My post above shows how Stalin had no problems dealing with big business, while Lenin himself was a German agent.

  19. #79
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    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    Lenin was a German spy. He accepted money from German government and acted on its behalf. He saw WW1 as an opportunity to gain power, nothing more, since he was an imperialist himself.
    Source each independent clause of what you just wrote.

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    He murdered a lot of Slavs via both red Terror and famines, Cheka acting in the exact same way SS would a few decades later during Barbarossa. Lenin also targeted elite of Russian society, basically mainly educated people, which does qualify as genocide. Lenin hated Russians and openly supported ethnic cleansing of Russian population in regions that were annexed to non-Russian "republics" despite the fact that they were populated by Russians for centuries. Also his regime literally invaded Poland so the "renounced claims" part is simply false.
    You said the Nazis had identical policies as Lenin. Lenin was dead when the Soviets invaded Poland, and his mummy probably didn't lead the charge on that one.

    Also, for the umpteenth time, I'm aware of the secret police and mass executions in the USSR. I'm not saying it was good or less bad than the Nazis. I'm saying they were ideologically different from each other. Do you just not understand what I'm even saying?

    Quote Originally Posted by Heathen Hammer View Post
    Germany lost more people in a few months of Barbarossa then it in other theaters in same period of time - they were on the offensive, but its costs were much higher, and that must have been obvious to its leadership by the end of 1941.
    That's more a testament of the unexpected success the Germans had in invading the rest of Europe up to that point, particularly France. I can actually say "rest of Europe" now, because Britain doesn't count anymore.
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  20. #80

    Default Re: Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

    Quote Originally Posted by pacifism View Post
    Source each independent clause of what you just wrote.
    Lenin being a German spy is a conventional fact to everyone except for communists themselves, who still attempt to rekindle the old Soviet propaganda myth of October "revolution" being somehow organic and popular, despite the fact that shortly before October coup Lenin's party lost the elections.
    You said the Nazis had identical policies as Lenin. Lenin was dead when the Soviets invaded Poland, and his mummy probably didn't lead the charge on that one.

    Also, for the umpteenth time, I'm aware of the secret police and mass executions in the USSR. I'm not saying it was good or less bad than the Nazis. I'm saying they were ideologically different from each other. Do you just not understand what I'm even saying?
    Lenin was very well alive when Battle of Warsaw happened. Its funny how you claim to have good knowledge of early USSR and just demonstrated that you were not even aware of Soviet invasion of Poland during Russian Civil War and actually used "but at least Soviets didn't try to take over Poland" as an argument unironically.
    Ideological differences are, as demonstrated above, subjective and irrelevant. Functionally both regimes were the same, which is the point.
    That's more a testament of the unexpected success the Germans had in invading the rest of Europe up to that point, particularly France. I can actually say "rest of Europe" now, because Britain doesn't count anymore.
    Strategic and tactical ineptitude of Western Allies doesn't change the fact that by then end of 1941 German brass was well aware that they were in a very bad situation, as resources dwindled while Soviet war economy was relocated to the East out of reach of Luftwaffe. Its just that tactical defeats are more evident then strategic ones.
    Last edited by Heathen Hammer; October 28, 2020 at 03:54 PM.

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