Arguing with Stupid Leftists

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sandman
Compare that to the German plans for Russia and Eastern Europe. They planned to exile 50 million Slavs to Siberia, and keep the rest as slaves for German settlers, as a part of Hitler's plans for a 'new order of ethnographical relations'. Such plans would be extraordinarily expensive, even with slave labour.

Imperialism is always expensive, and when looked at from the standpoint of the state, it never really makes sense. This was something Hobson (not a Marxist) noted in the very first systematic study of imperialism. Lenin was the first to point out that it only makes economic sense when you look at it from a perspective of which groups in the imperialist society benefit.

While it would have been very costly from the standpoint of Germany, German capital would have made a lot of money off of transporting Slavs, rounding them up for work camps, creating the necessary infrastrcutre for eastern colonization, selling all those products to growing markets, etc.

Today, we would call it corporate welfare, i.e., the state subsidizing business ventures.

[GePap]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Imperialism is always expensive, and when looked at from the standpoint of the state, it never really makes sense. This was something Hobson (not a Marxist) noted in the very first systematic study of imperialism. Lenin was the first to point out that it only makes economic sense when you look at it from a perspective of which groups in the imperialist society benefit.

While it would have been very costly from the standpoint of Germany, German capital would have made a lot of money off of transporting Slavs, rounding them up for work camps, creating the necessary infrastrcutre for eastern colonization, selling all those products to growing markets, etc.

Today, we would call it corporate welfare, i.e., the state subsidizing business ventures.

Except that corporate welfare exists because the business elite run the government, and give their buddies a handout.

That businessmen would in theory get rich from contracts to enslave and eradicate the slavs is an incidental benefit, just as business making money from hurricane relief is an incidental benefit, unless you want to say businesses caused the Hurricane.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by GePap



What Mussolini and HItler wrote were their own political tracts, with very clear goals and intentions. Most people in Germany never thought the Nazi's would actually go to war, but anyone who had read Mein Kampf would have known war was coming, because Hitler spells it out.

Yes, he does. But that doesn't mean that reading the crap that passed for political philosophy in the book will explain the real nature of the beast. I have my copy of Mein Kampf right here. Here's a sample:

"Without suspecting it, the bourgeois world itself was inwardly infected with the deadly poison of Marxist ideas and it's resistance often sprang more from the competitor's envy of ambitious leaders than from a fundamental rejection of adversaries determined to fight to the utmost. In these long years there was only one who kept up an imperturbable, unflagging fight, and this was the Jew. His Star of David rose higher and higher in proportion as our people's will for self-preservation vanished."

(edit: back to GePap)

Its incredably funny to see any communist talk about how one needs to look from the outside to know the true intentions...you might as well just conceded then to the people who view communism as nothing more than gulags and forced labor and lack of good toilet paper, because, newsflash, that's how it evolved, the policies that were enacted in communist states.
The irony is in fact too massive to miss.

You shouldn't jump to any conclusions.

NO, if you want to understand a complex and actually not too very well fleshed out political ideology, you have to, first of all, read those works seminal to that ideology. Nothng else comes even close to being as important. Again, you might as well claim that instead of reading Marx and Engels when I want to learn about Marxism, I should isntead read what William F buckley wrote about it, cause heck, its obvious, from all the debates that have come up over history, that was Marx wrote was confusing and misleading.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be read, rather that believing these books explain the true nature of fascism is like believing a spam message that tells you you've just won a million dollars.

Don't lecture me on Marxism, you liberal.

And yet to think you can lecture ANYONE on fascism!?!?

Fair enough.

Wrong. There were deep and fundamenatal differences between the German and Italina forms of fascism, and no, there has been no Chilean form. I think the whole race war and extermination of the weak should be a dead giveaway about some fundamental differences between the Italians and the German forms of fascism.

HIlter was not an elite, he was a shlub from Vienna who never rose further than a sargent in WW1. Mussolini was no elite either. Elites looked down at the clowns and lower class dolts who made up the Nazi leadership, and they certainly viewed Mussolini as a clown.

To call those that formed the fascists and nazi parties elite is strenching that word rather stunningly.

You're not listening, er reading. I said the elites were afraid a socialist takeover, threw their democratic values overboard, and "jumped in with the ultra right, who promised to save them..." I did not say the ultra right WAS the elite. So you need to read more carefully.

This is the pattern for all fascist takovers. The elite (or big business, etc.) fearing a socialist takeover that can't be stopped by normal democratic means, abandons democracy and seeks a saviour amoung ultra rightists, who they had previously ignored. This could be a fascist party or right wing army officers. The elite provide the support which allows the ultra right to seize power. This is then followed by arrests and murders of the left, including political and trade union leaders and anyone else who opposes the new regime. The new government crushes independent labor and sustains capital.

Lots of variations in the particular circumstances occur. There could be an external factor, like the CIA. There are different styles, different methods, and different ideologies, but the underlying pattern is consistent.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by GePap
Except that corporate welfare exists because the business elite run the government, and give their buddies a handout.

And the Nazis were buddies of Germany's business elites.

That businessmen would in theory get rich from contracts to enslave and eradicate the slavs is an incidental benefit,

That's rather irrelevent. If there was no profit in the colonization of Russia, it wouldnt' have happened, at least not without bringing down the Nazi state.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
well, the spanirds were quite bad, but, actually they thought the indians were humans, they married indians, and the continent is largely mestizo nowadays-

The nazis thought slavs were subhuman, and I dont think they would have mixed with the slavs.

I'm not exactly sure that the Spanish who actually did the colonizing shared the views of the Church and Isabella.

[RGBVideo]

Pointless semantic arguments

IMHO you're all wasting your lifetime here. Just agree to disagree and move along. I can understand Imran's eagerness to debate even from the most obscure things since he's brushing up his lawyer skills, but others... pointless.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by GePap


That businessmen would in theory get rich from contracts to enslave and eradicate the slavs is an incidental benefit, just as business making money from hurricane relief is an incidental benefit, unless you want to say businesses caused the Hurricane.

Hurricanes are natural events. Wars are not. They are deliberate, planned, human directed events. They are entered into deliberately, and for concrete reasons.

So it's not incidental. Wars are not driven by books. They are driven primarily by greed. Why can't you see the link between the attempt to seize land, labour and capital in Eastern Europe, which directly benefitted German business, and their support for the Nazi's?

[GePap]

Originally posted by techumseh


Hurricanes are natural events. Wars are not. They are deliberate, planned, human directed events. They are entered into deliberately, and for concrete reasons.

So it's not incidental. Wars are not driven by books. They are driven primarily by greed. Why can't you see the link between the attempt to seize land, labour and capital in Eastern Europe, which directly benefitted German business, and their support for the Nazi's?

Because the German business eleite no more expected war than the general German public. The guys running business in Germany already had the same experience of war all germans had, and that experience had been a bad one. Germany was poorer in 1920 than 1913. Why would any German industrialist be jumping up and down for war? re-armament, fine, money to be made. But actual WAR?

And HItler's wars were not driven by simple greed-they were driven by megalomania and a biological imperative.

That's my point. Not everything is driven by material concerns. Hitler didn't want war for the sake of getting rich. He wanted war for its own sake. If war came and swallowed the German people and left them in ruins and dead, that was fine for Hitler in so far as the German getting what they deserved for being weak and unworthy.

The business elite backed Hitler because he promised to squelsh communism and Marxism, which to tbe business elite in their own greed was all that mattered-he was the best one to keep the damned Communist in line. He was that BECAUSE he lead a mass movement, because his supporters were lower middle classes and not just the top elite who could get swept aside. HItler lead a popular national movement, a movement he parcelled together out of a lot of contradictory motives-I doubt most Germans did have a clue- I doubt most Nazi's had a clue. BUt the elites needed Hitler because he was leading a popular mass movement, and only a rightwing mass movement could keep a left-wing mass movement in check.

None of that means that Hitler had any love for the elite. He hated the elite. It was that elite that had lead to defeat in WW1. The old men in top hats had done nothing of note for Germany. They were useful allies, just as all the Prussian Junkers types in the Army that looked at Hitler with little more than utter contempt could be momentary allies.

But the old oligarchs and the Junkers hardly had much of a future in the real dream of Hitler's Germany.

[techumseh]

Here's an interesting account: (apologies to anyone who thinks any documentation is just one sided and irrelevent) http://reformed-theology.org/html/bo...chapter_07.htm

Hitler expounded his political views to the assembled businessmen in a lengthy two-and-one-half hour speech, using the threat of Communism and a Communist take-over to great effect:

"It is not enough to say we do not want Communism in our economy. If we continue on our old political course, then we shall perish .... It is the noblest task of the leader to find ideals that are stronger than the factors that pull the people together. I recognized even while in the hospital that one had to search for new ideals conducive to reconstruction. I found them in nationalism, in the value of personality, and in the denial of reconciliation between nations ....

Now we stand before the last election. Regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat, even if the coming election does not bring about decision, one way or another. If the election does not decide, the decision must be brought about by other means. I have intervened in order to give the people once more the chance to decide their fate by themselves ....

There are only two possibilities, either to crowd back the opponent on constitutional grounds, and for this purpose once more this election; or a struggle will be conducted with other weapons, which may demand greater sacrifices. I hope the German people thus recognize the greatness of the hour." 24

After Hitler had spoken, Krupp von Bohlen expressed the support of the assembled industrialists and bankers in the concrete form of a three-million-mark political fund. It turned out to be more than enough to acquire power, because 600,000 marks remained unexpended after the election.

[Guynemer]

Imagine my surprise as I check this thread for the first time and find a debate about Hitler.

[GePap]

Originally posted by techumseh
"Without suspecting it, the bourgeois world itself was inwardly infected with the deadly poison of Marxist ideas and it's resistance often sprang more from the competitor's envy of ambitious leaders than from a fundamental rejection of adversaries determined to fight to the utmost. In these long years there was only one who kept up an imperturbable, unflagging fight, and this was the Jew. His Star of David rose higher and higher in proportion as our people's will for self-preservation vanished."

That quote is not too hard to interpret, and its a common right-wing complaint.

The point there is that the masses become infected with the class divisions of the Marxists ideas, and you start seeing all these socialists and others splitting the nation and the people with stupid concerns and petty arguements. That people sometimes fought off these new and dangerous ideas had more to do with them hating the messanger than the message.

Yet one kind of people you never saw doidng this, being devided by class and so forth, the Jews. They "stuck together", you have the Rothschilds raising money for their lower class buddies, and the Jews always clung to their idendity, even as the masses allowed theirs to be sapped by these stupid class distinctions.

That idea that somewho the Jews always keep their own identity separate and intact and avoid the same problems others do is a common "fault" that those people obssesed with identity have. They point and ask "why aren;t the Jews falling on each other like we are?""Must be because they are devious, and in fact they are at fault for weakening us-its all part of their devious plan".

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be read, rather that believing these books explain the true nature of fascism is like believing a spam message that tells you you've just won a million dollars.

There is a difference between theory and practice. If we want to undertand why anyone would be a fascist, then these books are crucial. To study how fascism can come into being into the cold hard real world, then we opbviously need other sources, smoe with more detanchment than those form people liable to make excuses about their failures.

You're not listening, er reading. I said the elites were afraid a socialist takeover, threw their democratic values overboard, and "jumped in with the ultra right, who promised to save them..." I did not say the ultra right WAS the elite. So you need to read more carefully.

This is the pattern for all fascist takovers. The elite (or big business, etc.) fearing a socialist takeover that can't be stopped by normal democratic means, abandons democracy and seeks a saviour amoung ultra rightists, who they had previously ignored. This could be a fascist party or right wing army officers. The elite provide the support which allows the ultra right to seize power. This is then followed by arrests and murders of the left, including political and trade union leaders and anyone else who opposes the new regime. The new government crushes independent labor and sustains capital.

Lots of variations in the particular circumstances occur. There could be an external factor, like the CIA. There are different styles, different methods, and different ideologies, but the underlying pattern is consistent.

Yeah, but in that explination lies the problem. You are not differentiating between what group of right wingers the elite are willing to jump to to save them. The actions you mention, political repression and the destruction of any means of political opposition, would be taken by any group looking to eliminate any political competition.

The arguement here is whether some Junta of Generals can be labelled fascists. Pinochet is a murderous bastard, but he was a bulkward of old conservative values tacking reactionary policies against the revolutionaries. He is akin to Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel, NOT Hilter or Mussolini. Pinochet wanted to keep the old Chile, the backwards, God fearing, unequal Chile. He did nothing revolutionary whatsoever.I doubt General Pinochet ever had an original thought in his mind.

Mussolini and HItler were also bastards, but they were bastards with a mission, dreams, grand ambitions. They had radical views about reshaping their countries in radical ways. They held on to some of the very old values, but they were still seeking radical change.

The Elites backed them not because either of these men were like them or shared any real dreams with them, but because they were men with strong popular movements who happened not to be communists and who had strong disagreements, or outright hate, of communism. BUt in the end the Elites were expecting nothing more than bafoons. Men of charism, but no real ambition. The Elites were wrong, and paid for their mistakes.

[GePap]

Originally posted by techumseh
Hitler expounded his political views to the assembled businessmen in a lengthy two-and-one-half hour speech, using the threat of Communism and a Communist take-over to great effect:

"It is not enough to say we do not want Communism in our economy. If we continue on our old political course, then we shall perish .... It is the noblest task of the leader to find ideals that are stronger than the factors that pull the people together. I recognized even while in the hospital that one had to search for new ideals conducive to reconstruction. I found them in nationalism, in the value of personality, and in the denial of reconciliation between nations ....

Now we stand before the last election. Regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat, even if the coming election does not bring about decision, one way or another. If the election does not decide, the decision must be brought about by other means. I have intervened in order to give the people once more the chance to decide their fate by themselves ....

There are only two possibilities, either to crowd back the opponent on constitutional grounds, and for this purpose once more this election; or a struggle will be conducted with other weapons, which may demand greater sacrifices. I hope the German people thus recognize the greatness of the hour." 24

After Hitler had spoken, Krupp von Bohlen expressed the support of the assembled industrialists and bankers in the concrete form of a three-million-mark political fund. It turned out to be more than enough to acquire power, because 600,000 marks remained unexpended after the election.

Thanks for the quote. Lets examine it:
Not a single mention of private enterprise. No praise of capital or big business. Look at what Hilter views as the greatest values I found them in nationalism, in the value of personality, and in the denial of reconciliation between nations. Agressive nationalism, international dischord, the cult of personality. These are the things Hitler was speaking to to a bunch of big business wigs. Of course he would court these men in an importan election. But even here, in a private election rally to a bunch of rich fat men, even here he is talking about having to do things violently if need be.

Given that the Socialists and Communist were such big parties, who else were the rich fat elite supposed to back given their fear of Bolshevism?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Guynemer
Imagine my surprise as I check this thread for the first time and find a debate about Hitler.

Yes - definitely an interesting turn of events.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by GePap


Thanks for the quote. Lets examine it:
Not a single mention of private enterprise. No praise of capital or big business. Look at what Hilter views as the greatest values I found them in nationalism, in the value of personality, and in the denial of reconciliation between nations. Agressive nationalism, international dischord, the cult of personality. These are the things Hitler was speaking to to a bunch of big business wigs. Of course he would court these men in an importan election. But even here, in a private election rally to a bunch of rich fat men, even here he is talking about having to do things violently if need be.

Given that the Socialists and Communist were such big parties, who else were the rich fat elite supposed to back given their fear of Bolshevism?

What is your obsession with the ideology? The point of the quote is to show that German big business financed Hitler's rise to power because he promised to save them from Communism. That's all!

[GePap]

Originally posted by techumseh


What is your obsession with the ideology? The point of the quote is to show that German big business financed Hitler's rise to power because he promised to save them from Communism. That's all!

That may have been your point, yes. I have every right to point out how that quote supports my contention. And my contention is that you can;t label Pinochet a fascist because Pinochet was not a fascist.