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2021-03-16 -Great Cultural Revolution

[PaulHJossey] The Nazis were leftists. This statement is blasphemy to the academic-media complex. Everyone knows the Nazis were degenerate right-wingers fueled by toxic capitalism and racism. But evidence Hitler’s gang were men of the left while debatable is compelling. The dispute on Nazi origins has surfaced through the confluence of brawling alt-right and antifa fringe movements and recent alternative histories by Dinesh D’Souza and others. The vitriol and lack of candor this debate produces by supposedly fact-driven academics and media is disturbing if unsurprising. They stifle dissent on touchy subjects to maintain narrative and enforce cultural hegemony.
National Socialists
However uncomfortable to opinion shapers, alternative views of the Third Reich exist and were written by the finest minds of their time. Opinions of the period perhaps carry more weight because they are unburdened by the aftermath of the uniquely heinous Nazi crimes. ’The Road to Serfdom’ by FA Hayek is one such tract. Published in 1944 it remains a classic for young people on the political right discovering their intellectual roots. A sort of academic ’1984,’ it warns of socialism’s tendency toward planned states and totalitarianism.

But one aspect of the book can shock the conscience. Hayek describes Nazism as a "genuine socialist movement" and thus left wing by modern American standards. Indeed, the Austrian-born Hayek wrote the book from his essay ’Nazi-Socialism’ that countered prevailing opinion at the London School of Economics where he taught. British elites regarded Nazism as a virulent capitalist reaction against enlightened socialism — a view that persists today.

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Would that Socialism were actually enlightened instead of bringing out the worst in individuals and society.

The shock comes from academic and cultural orthodoxy on National Socialism. From the moment they enter the political fray, young right-wingers are told ’you own the Nazis.’ At best, the left concedes it owns communism. This comforts little because even if far higher in body count, communism supposedly rebukes the scourge of racism. But it’s all a lie.

The instant problem this debate incurs is from ideological labels themselves.

They are malleable and messy and partisans constantly distort them. They change over time. Trump’s particular political brand muddies the scene further, in rhetoric if less in policy. "Conservative" and especially "liberal" have changed over time and have different meanings in the US and Europe. Hayek himself, who had a more European view of conservatism, was wary of labels. He spurned both "conservative" and "libertarian" and dedicated his most famous book to "the socialists of all parties."

CURRENTLY ACCEPTED POLITICAL DEFINITIONS PLACE THE NAZIS FIRMLY ON THE LEFT
For precision, I refrain from using "conservative" or "liberal" unless through quotation and use ’left’ and ’right’ as generally accepted in modern America.

The right consists of free-market capitalists, who think the individual is the primary political unit, believes in property rights, and is generally distrustful of the administrative state and government solutions to social problems. They view family and civil institutions such as church as needed checks on state power.

These people don’t think government should force a business to provide employee birth control or think law should coerce bakers to make cakes against their conscience. They think the solution to bad speech is more speech; the solution to gun violence is more guns. These people talk about "freedom" — the method individual decisions. (The counterexample might be gay marriage but that is a positive right (give me something) instead of a negative right (leave me alone)).

The left believes the opposite. These people are distrustful of the excesses and inequality capitalism produces. They give primacy to group rights and identity.

They believe factors like race, ethnicity, and gender compose the primary political units. They don’t believe in strong property rights. They believe it is the government’s responsibility to solve social problems. They call for public intervention to "equalize" disparities and render our social fabric more inclusive (as they define it). They believe the free market has failed to solve issues like campaign finance, income inequality, minimum wage, access to healthcare, and righting past injustices. These people talk about "democracy" — the method of collective decisions.

By these definitions the Nazis were firmly on the left. National Socialism was a collectivist authoritarian movement run by "social justice warriors." That this brand of "justice" benefited only some based on immutable characteristics perfectly aligns with the modern brand. The Nazi ideal embraced identity politics based on the primacy of the people or "volk" and invoked state-based solutions for every possible problem. It was nation-based socialism — the nation being especially important to those who bled in the Great War.
long read but worth it

Posted by Beavis 2021-03-16 00:04|| || Front Page|| [11136 views ] Top

Posted by Fearing Squat5199 2021-03-16 03:28|| 2021-03-16 03:28|| Front Page Top

#2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCkyWBPaTC8

Posted by BernardZ 2021-03-16 06:50|| 2021-03-16 06:50|| Front Page Top

#3 Arguing whether Nazism is a "right-wing" or "left-wing" project with people who believe murder of innocents (abortion) is "choice" or self-defense (killing someone who is trying to kill you) is race hatred driven murder is a fool's errand.

Posted by M. Murcek 2021-03-16 07:16|| 2021-03-16 07:16|| Front Page Top

#4 Fascism was "right wing" only if the center of your political spectrum is Stalin.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2021-03-16 08:29|| 2021-03-16 08:29|| Front Page Top

#5 I've never seen a right wing group that would put Socialist in their name.

Posted by rjschwarz 2021-03-16 10:23|| 2021-03-16 10:23|| Front Page Top

#6 Any 'isms that promote concentration and centralization of power and believe the proles exist for the policies of those who run the state are of the Left. It's like an athletic league, different color outfits all playing the same game.

Posted by Procopius2k 2021-03-16 10:30|| 2021-03-16 10:30|| Front Page Top

#7 /\ It's like an athletic league, different color outfits all playing the same game.

....same post-game assembly at the neighborhood pub. It was only a game. Tomorrow you may win.

Posted by Besoeker 2021-03-16 10:47|| 2021-03-16 10:47|| Front Page Top

#8 Seems to me there are basically two kinds of 'isms' that cover human interactions: Individualism and Collectivism. The latter includes socialism, national socialism, communism, fascism, and almost all centralized government.

Posted by Glenmore 2021-03-16 11:52|| 2021-03-16 11:52|| Front Page Top

#9 Don't forget totalitarianism. Big government, no freedom. I think it's safe to say that Nazism and Communism both come under that umbrella. And when they take your money with their taxes, that's the same as taking your freedom.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2021-03-16 12:30|| 2021-03-16 12:30|| Front Page Top

#10 Nazism and communism grew from the same soil: the late-19c European dissatisfaction with and rejection of classical "liberalism" i.e. competition and free markets applied to politics, economics and ideas.

That rejection came from Marx on the left and from philosophers and cultural thinkers such as Nietzsche, Lagarde and DeMaistre on the right. All of them opposed to the atomizing effects of liberal capitalism, i.e. how it reduced communities into rootless, self-seeking individuals motivated only by "utility."

Lots of parallels with our own era's conflicts between liberal one-world globalists and populists of both left and right.

Posted by Elmatle Elmilet7658 2021-03-16 12:42|| 2021-03-16 12:42|| Front Page Top

#11 /\ Instructive to remember Hitler and Stalin started out as allies (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact).

Posted by Besoeker 2021-03-16 12:47|| 2021-03-16 12:47|| Front Page Top

#12 ^Allies of convenience because they certainly didn't dig each other before Ribb/Molo pact.

Posted by Unosh Hupinelet8756 2021-03-16 12:52|| 2021-03-16 12:52|| Front Page Top

#13 Hitler was as racist toward Slavs as he was toward Jews. Racism and nationalism were big differences between Hitler's Nazi party and Stalin's Communist party. That could be why so many of today's liberals call Trump supporters Nazis. They call you a racist if you want a secure border. They call you a racist or a Nazi if you disagree with them about anything. It has nothing to do with economics. It's not a valid argument. It's a crutch for crippled minds.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2021-03-16 13:17|| 2021-03-16 13:17|| Front Page Top

#14 Soviet Communists under Stalin were also ethnic-nationalists. They were as hostile to the Poles as the Germans were.

Posted by Angairt Thager4678 2021-03-16 13:38|| 2021-03-16 13:38|| Front Page Top

#15 Before his timely death in 1953, Stalin had plans to make Russia Judenfrei.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2021-03-16 13:46|| 2021-03-16 13:46|| Front Page Top

#16 Whatever side one puts these totalitarians (Nazi and Socialist), they are both freedom-squelching.

Posted by JohnQC 2021-03-16 14:52|| 2021-03-16 14:52|| Front Page Top

#17 The Left calls everyone Nazis because it is just about the only universally accepted metaphor for evil. They call everyone racists because they are, in fact, racists and it's less of a stigma when everyone else is racist too.

Posted by Angstrom 2021-03-16 15:59|| 2021-03-16 15:59|| Front Page Top

#18 Trump had to be destroyed because he was the first national politician to put together a serious populist alliance of working- and middle-class voters from all demographics (except the overeducated).

What shocked the globalists was not his manners but his pull. He attracted people who voted twice for Obama. He attracted Bernie Bros. Thanks to his administration's stunning economic success, Trump started to pull large numbers of blacks and Latinos away from the Democrats.

If not for media suppression, Pfizer's delay of the stunning good news of its vaccine trial results, voter intimidation and outright fraud, Trump would have won going away.

Trump was on track to effect the biggest realignment in American politics since 1932. He was a nuclear warhead aimed at the elites of both parties. Trump had to be taken down, by all available means, if the old order was to be preserved.

Posted by Marilyn Turkeyneck8607 2021-03-16 16:11|| 2021-03-16 16:11|| Front Page Top

#19 "Allies of convenience because they certainly didn't dig each other before Ribb/Molo pact. "

The Comintern was "anti-war" (pro-Hitler) globally until Hitler invaded the USSR. For disliking each other, they had each other's backs.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2021-03-16 20:05|| 2021-03-16 20:05|| Front Page Top

#20 @ #14 - Indeed, and I should think the skirmish ca. 1919-1920 between Pilsudski's Poland and the young Soviet Union surely didn't help.

Posted by Clem 2021-03-16 21:00|| 2021-03-16 21:00|| Front Page Top

#21 Before the first world war, there was the Socialist International, which included all kinds of Socialists, of many different varieties and many different countries.
It was against participation in WWI, which caused splits in most countries between patriots and pacifists among the socialists.
Mussolini, for example was the editor of the mainSocialist journal in Italy but broke with the International when he supported Italy joining Britain and France in the was, against the Central Powers of German and Austria-Hungary.
After WWI the 'Majority' or Bolsheviks of the Social Internation became the Communist Party.
To many Europeans Socialism is by definition good, capitalism bad, and the distinction between right and left is that between nationalist and internationalist.
However both Fascists and Communists believed in complete government control of the economy, and control of the government by a small elite group, either the Grand Council of Fascism, or the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
Politics actually looks more like a circle than a straight line. One one end is human freedom, and the other complete government control, and the European concept of left and right are almost indistinguishable on the totalitarian side of that ring.
In America we tend to draw a different straight line from the European one, and consider one end to be totalitarian government control, and the other to be complete human freedom. Capitalism is nearer the opposite end to Communism or Fascism.
Unfortunately, our Democrats sound more and more like Fascists these days, than like democrats or republicans or believers in human freedom..

Posted by daniel 2021-03-16 21:12|| 2021-03-16 21:12|| Front Page Top

#22 Well summarized, daniel.

Posted by trailing wife 2021-03-16 21:41|| 2021-03-16 21:41|| Front Page Top

#23 I believe #21 captured it.

Posted by Besoeker 2021-03-16 22:06|| 2021-03-16 22:06|| Front Page Top

08:52 Matt
08:38 Gleng Whaick2262
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08:24 Matt
08:20 SteveS
07:43 Procopius2k
07:42 BrerRabbit
07:42 Procopius2k
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07:36 Procopius2k
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07:34 trailing wife
07:31 Procopius2k
07:30 NN2N1
07:22 NN2N1
07:18 trailing wife
07:14 Richard Aubrey
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07:09 Besoeker