There are some things that are predictable but every so often there is a huge surprise.
Most Democratic Presidents eventually get around to being called Socialist/Communists because if their inclination to have more government benefits and corporate regulations. Every time they move in this direction, even a tiny, tiny bit, people scream Socialism!!!
Most Republican Presidents eventually get around to being called Fascist/Nazis because of their inclinations toward an increased sense of nationalism, increases in defense, and a proclivity toward law and order. Every time they move in this direction, even a tiny, tiny big, people cry out Nazi!
Socialism and Fascism are often seen as the opposite ends of the political spectrum. If you move a person extremely to the left, they become a Socialist; extremely to the right and they become a Fascist. People do quibble with this for a variety of reasons, but there are some solid rationales behind this.
Barack Obama has, predictably, been called a Socialist. Government bailouts, stimulus money, the health care plan, etc., have all been labeled Socialist. This is fairly predictable and moves in, at least, the correct direction on the political spectrum. I am not sure where socializing something turns into Socialism, but that might be another question. There is even an incredibly offensive ‘cartoon’ of Obama with a white face and the red paint of the diabolically evil Joker from Batman. Using this caricature of any American President in light of the pure evil of that character in the movie is, frankly, offensive. But people see no fault in being offensive, I guess.
Interestingly enough he has now been called a Nazi and Hitler. There is a new caricature out of Obama as Hitler, little mustache and all.
One can make an argument about the absurdity of this because it would seem to indicate that Obama has managed to be an extremist on the polar opposites of the political spectrum. To confuse Fascism/Nazism with Socialism/Communism is to have little to no grasp of political philosophy. People often try to argue that the Nazi Party’s official name was the National Socialist Worker’s Party had the word ‘Socialist’ in it, but Hitler was staunchly anti-Socialist and anti-Communist. He loathed Karl Marx ( who was Jewish) and the philosophy of Marx. Loathed it. LOATHED it. Nazism had a strong sense of corporatism which was a movement seeking to have shared wealth but not at the expense of business. The name, which evolved from the Latin word “Corpus,” or “body” was designed to allow people, government, and businesses to work in partnership and cooperation with each other. In and of itself, corporatism is not a bad thing at all-----in many ways part of what we have in the United State is a sense of this in the best sense of the word when everyone does work in cooperation with one another.
But the Nazis were more than about that.
In fact, Hitler laid it all out. He argued that Nazism had 25 Points----Together which made up the spirit of the Nazi Party:
1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.
2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations; and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.
3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.
4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of Creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.
5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.
6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the State shall belong only to citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen.
We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby men are appointed to posts by favor of the party without regard to character and fitness.
7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should not be possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.
8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately.
9. All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.
10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all.
Therefore we demand:
11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.
14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.
17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.
18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of Creed or race.
19. We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist ordering of the world, be replaced by German common law.
20. In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.
21. The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.
22. We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a national (folk) army.
23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press, we demand:
(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.
(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State. They must not be published in the German language.
(c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich.
Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand legal action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.
24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.
The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about from within on the principle:
COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD
25. In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.
The formation of professional committees and of committees representing the several estates of the realm, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority shall be carried out by the federal states.
The leaders of the party undertake to promote the execution of the foregoing points at all costs, if necessary at the sacrifice of their own lives.
Hitler, as we know, lived these out. Europe was devastated. Six million Jewish people were murdered for the simple crime of being Jewish. Millions of others were murdered for a large variety of bogus reasons. The murders were cold, calculated, and efficient.
People, as they were herded into Concentration Camps were stripped of their clothing, and their possessions. Upon their deaths teeth were pulled for ivory and precious metals.
In 1942 after a brutal German Commander was killed in the modern day Czech Republic, the village of Lidice was seized. All the men over the age of 16 were executed, all the women and children were shipped to Concentration Camps, and the village was burned to the ground. It no longer existed.
All media was controlled and regulated by the state. If you expressed any criticism, you died.
Clergy were killed by the thousands. Any hint in a sermon that Jesus was greater than Hitler was a death sentence.
Barack Obama is not a Nazi. Not even close. As much as I think George W. Bush was a poor President who didn’t protect people’s right as much as I think he should have, Bush was not a Nazi. Not even close. No American President has come even close to being a Nazi. To call any American President a Nazi, or even hint at it, is an atrocity in and of itself. It, on so many levels, dishonors those who were victimized by the Nazis. It dishonors the nation of Germany that has faced its history with great courage and has worked to move beyond it.
Shame on those who use the name of these horribly evil people from a different era on those they disagree with. And shame on us when we don’t challenge it.
2 comments:
Very well written, John. I see our viewpoints are almost exactly the same.
The town hall phenomenon is a wake up call for our nation. Once you've called someone you disagree with a Nazi, a criminal, or a fool, what's left to discuss?
The next move is only a deeper step down the sewer.
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