I read an article today (it has been circulating around for months I guess) from the AP about some village in Germany where neo-nazis have pretty much taken over. As scary as that as, I was really bugged by the article's writer constantly pointing out that nazis (or national socialism) is a "far right" ideology. Well, no it isn't. Not at all. National socialists are...socialist. Which is a leftist progressive ideology. But it doesn't end there, so leftists can disown them too. National socialists hate communism, which is the "leftist utopia" of political systems. And they hate capitalism, which is the "rightist utopia" of market systems. And they just really hate...a lot. So where, really, does national socialism fall in the political/ideological spectrum? It seems to me that it, as well as fascism, falls into its own little group of nutjobs. They aren't really bible-thumping conservatives, and they aren't exactly leftist hippies either. They are down right scary, and, I think, just really really confused and angry at the world. But this made me think about political and ideological terminology. Take the term "liberal", for example. In the modern age, this is used to describe the ideologies of leftist political parties. But there couldn't be anything less leftist than liberalism, which is a rightist ideology based on liberty and individualism. Leftists, more accurately, are progressives, which is a more collectivist ideology. And modern "conservatives" aren't conservative at all. They are liberal, in the purest meaning of the word. Except the religious right that is, who also aren't quite conservative, but more a mix of liberal and theocratic than any thing. This is all just so confusing. :shrug:
did you really whip out the well socialist is in the name argument about Nazism. really just I can't believe people are still trotting out that idiocy posing as a cogent argument
The Nazis broke the unions, persecuted leftist political groups, ensconced private capitalistic corporations (Bayer, Krupp, et al) at the center of governmental influence and backed them with State power, emphasized personal wealth and ownership, formed their major alliances with industrial barons and powerful capitalists like Joseph Bush in the US, found ther major enemies among the leftists and socialists everywhere. They were no more socialist than Pinochet's regime in Chile. The were socialist the same way the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was democratic - for the PR value of the adjective.
Well to the degree that the majority of Vietnamese were anti-imperialist one could say that the inception of the republic was indeed 'democratic', if its based on its original adjectives such as 'popular', 'representative' and favoring social equality. As for the Nazi's, one man's democracy is another man's tyranny.
Those "original adjectives" (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean) miss the basic definition of "democracy," which is that power is derived from the people. The key feature is equal access to power - that is, explicitly political equality, not just social equality. Populism is not the same thing as democracy. To count as a democracy, the people have to actually make the decisions, not just happen to approve of them. A popular, benevolent dictatorship is no more a democracy than an unpopular, repressive dictatorship. Only if at least one of those men is a fool or a liar.
The word for that latter ideology is "libertarianism," these days. I see little point in insisting on some historical definition of "liberalism." Yeah, not really useful either. The term "progressive" is somewhat hollow in the modern context. Unless you can offer some coherent definition of "progressive?" They aren't liberal in the classic sense, or even particularly in the libertarian sense (mostly). What they are is reactionary. The term "conservative" is a nice way of saying "I want to keep my unearned privileges - and change is scary!" Nothing liberal about them either, in any sense of the word. Kind of baffling that you'd even suggest that, given that all senses of the word are directly contradictory to theocracy. There may well be politico-religious groups out there that are liberal in some sense, but they aren't the religious right.
What the fuck do you mean by what the fuck? I mean really man, what the fuck does that mean?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What you are describing is 'democracy' not 'democratic' and since the Vietnamese government does not consider their system a democracy I think they knew exactly in which vein they were using the word 'democratic'. "I am convinced that the French could not win the war because the internal political situation in Vietnam, weak and confused, badly weakened their military position. I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bao Dai was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for. As one Frenchman said to me, "What Vietnam needs is another Syngman Rhee, regardless of all the difficulties the presence of such a personality would entail." Source: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-56 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Compnay, Inc., 1963), p. 372 What is it that you deny the Nazi's were voted in democratically? Or that Germany was a democracy? Or that the democratically elected party turned tyrannical?
National Socialism is one of those oddball ideologies that doesn't fit neatly into a left-right spectrum. The Nazis did some things that were undeniably right-wing, but also had some left-wing policies. My observation has been that partisan left-wingers accuse the Nazis of being right-wing and the model for the GOP and that partisan right-wingers accuse the Nazis of being left-wing and the model for the Democrats.
Yes. Infact Nationalist Socialists are deffenitly a far far right idealogy. Perhaps not in the sence of capital econamics, but rather in the terms of fascism which is a far right ideals. And NAZIs arent just confused angry people... They are a group of hateful indivisuals in which I have no tolerance or patience for... Like The Tea Party Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!. Which often remind me of NAZIs. All wearing their nations uniforms, yelling about homosexuals and picking a group to blame all their problems on... Yeah. I just said it.
I'd think you should provide a link to prove that the Tea Party says and dresses like you say they do for I've never seen any of them dressing alike.
I cant right now. Damn school computers lock everything. But it was more of a joke. My bad. I was refering to all the people in red white and blue jumpsuites and the such.
When joking use a Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! or Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! to show us your kidding, that way we can tell the difference otherwise we can't.
Gottcha. I forget you cant hear tone over computers Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!.
There I was speaking of NAZIs. I think that is pretty self explanatory. And as for the tea party, wanna start a thread? Perhaps a debate between you and I? Because this is getting very off topic.
Way to split hairs. Maybe you should become a barber. Indeed - the "blatant lying for PR purposes" vein, as already noted. There was no point at which Germany was both a democracy and a dictatorship. The Nazis were tyrannical from their inception, managed to gain power through certain democratic means (along with a lot of very undemocratic ones), and then quickly subverted said democracy into a dictatorship. At no point was there any serious confusion as to the nature of Germany's government.
Only if you believe in blatant Nazi propaganda. People who deal in reality have a pretty easy time seeing that the Nazi's were radically right-wing. How is a corporatist dictatorship that systematically uses slave labor, openly allies with Fascists, initiates suicidal total war against Communists, crushes trade unions, etc. difficult to place on the left-right axis? That's true of every right-wing movement, ever. To the extent that much of anything the Nazis did looks "left-wing," it's more that certain elements of what we call "capitalism" conflicted with the totalitarian impulse to control all aspects of society. It was not authentically socialist in any meaningful sense. Which isn't to say that certain Nazi ideologues didn't drink the Kool-Aid about the whole socialist thing, but they tended to get repressed by the leadership pretty quickly. Naziism's appeal to the actual working classes was never significant - it was firmly pro-business and bourgeoise, and drew its base of political support accordingly. Sure, but one of those claims is a lot more credible than the other. As far as that goes, I've rarely found a right-winger that can coherently explain what Naziism/fascism even consists of. Typically they confuse it with totalitarianism, or get hung up on the use of the word "socialist" and associated propaganda. And it's a common - one might even say, characteristic - tactic of the modern American right to seek to pervert discourse on sensitive questions like that. People can't notice the fascism if they spend all they're time confusing fascism with socialism.
