Originally Posted by Ollie Garchy

Actually, communism and fascism were essentially the same phenomenon.

A good argument: "According to Hannah Arendt, the only identifiable purpose of the fascist and the Bolshevik revolutions was the "radical destruction of every creed, value, and institution". Unlike the American and French revolutions, these "revolutions" had no program or purpose. Arendt identifies five distinctive traits of totalitarianism and finds all of them exemplified in both the Nazi and Bolshevik regimes. The five are: 1 / replacement of rational persuasion by violence and terror; 2 / an anti-bourgeois rhetoric and sentiment; 3 / a devotion to the mass man as opposed to class, region, or élite; 4 / a reliance on internal terror as an instrument of social order; 5 / the absence of any goals or policies. She tells us that "the practical goal of the movement is to organize as many people as possible within its framework and to set and keep them in motion; a political goal that would constitute the end of the movement simply does not exist"."

[Communists will not like this argument and call me a fascist because I refuse to accept their binary argumentation. For me, communism is actually worse than fascism because it continues to mobilize killing squads and support the extraordinary repression that made it so famous. Lenin was only smart in exactly the same way as Hitler. Lies work]

We are back to comparing apples and oranges.

Fascism is a polital concept, communism is an economic concept. Certainly there is "cross pollenation' as politccal theories find economic expression and economic systems find political expression. But there are fundemental differences between economic and political systems.

At the academic/theoretical level, it is possible to concieve of a democratic - communist system where the collective leadership vote to determine a course of action. And you could create a theoretical oligarichal - capitalist model.

Economic systems, other than organized crime, seldom give rise to killing squads.

I think you underestimate the "cross pollination" aspect. So did Gorbatchev in the 80s. He thought he could make communism sustainable by abandoning 70 years of mind control policy and giving people back elementary rights. After all thats not an essential part of communism right... communism's about collective work for the good of all. You know what happened... the chinese communists did the other way round and stayed in power.

Also, the defining attributes of facism are antidemocratic, antiliberal, anticommunist, two of which are pronounced economical statements.

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@Ollie: Interesting post, what book is that quote from?

Fascism was a POLITICAL construct. Communism is a POLITICAL construct. While communists believe that economic factors determine human actions, and nazis believed that biological factors determine human actions, both ideologies looked at the world in the same way....namely through pseudo-scientific lenses. The evidence for both political systems was and is extremely weak. Both systems however offered ways of explaining society and used science to forecast a utopian future. The communists believed that the victory of the working class was inevitable. The nazis believed that the victory of the master race was inevitable. Same shit. Different pile. The usual "apples" and "oranges" distinction will not work, sorry.

Western democratic society has demonized nazism and uses the symbol of Hitler to justify all of their actions and the system itself. Hitler's worldviews are totally distorted by the mass media and this distortion literally feeds the modern consciousness. In other posts, I have tried to raise the issue that nazism was not a major aberration in human political thought...only the logical and frightening extension of modernist concepts. There is only one reason why western society (and the rest of the world) mobilizes the image of Hitler for their own purposes. Hitler was German. And, Anglo-Saxon society demonized Germany long before Hitler. This demonization was a product of Empire and not a response to any "evil". It had more to do with Anglo-Saxon apocalyptic religious fervour than with a rational analysis of the world.

What does this mean for this thread? Simple. The attempt to distinguish between communism and nazism is a farce. The whole exercise is dependent on an utterly contrived racist image of Germany. This image is built on fantasy. Quite frankly, I am getting sick and tired of living in a world that uses a crude anti-German and utterly racist metaphor to justify whatever it wants. We are living in the nightmare world of Orwell's 1984. History is written and rewritten to justify all political actions. When an atrocity is committed, he fall back on the old dogma: "it is at least not as bad as Hitler". Watch out for the Hitler bogeyman, children. Here are a few Nietzsche quotes:

(1) Morality is herd instinct in the individual.

(2) The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

(3) He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.

[The quote in the previous post was an article that cited Hannah Arendt]

Originally Posted by Ollie Garchy

There is only one reason why western society (and the rest of the world) mobilizes the image of Hitler for their own purposes. Hitler was German.

Well I think there are plenty of other good reasons why Hitler and nazism are referred to so often in politics and the media:
- Nazi-Germany committed the mother of all genocides.
- Hitler started a war that lead to many developments of global relevance, i.e. the collapse of France and Britain's colonial empires, the sudden global presence of communism, the cold war, a general quantum leap in warfare, the development of the nuclear bomb, ...
- Nazi Germany is the most drastic example of how easily educated, supposedly "civilized" people can be mislead to become compliable aides of a totalitarian regime.

However I agree anti-german sentiments are part of it too. Apart from politics and education, they are probably the only relevant reason altogether. Just take british tabloids, whenever Germany is covered you'll find the same jovially-nationalist language, full of nazi metaphors and innuendo. When Benedikt II. became pope a year ago, the most important aspect of his biography seemed to be the two years he spent in Hitler youth - compulsive at that time - as an 8 year old. Innumerable WW2 flicks show us what a bunch of petty-minded, soulless subhumans zee germans are, while the british and americans are allways a potpourri of congenial individualists, rugged, daredevils and womanizers yet all brave and determined when it matters. For postwar plots, east-german commie-nazis where a favourite cast for the bad-guy as well. In the 007 series east-germans are usually way more evil than any russian wretch.

Originally Posted by Ollie Garchy

And, Anglo-Saxon society demonized Germany long before Hitler. This demonization was a product of Empire and not a response to any "evil".

I just read an article that covers a bit of what you say, regarding english-german relations and how they deteriorated with the formation of a unified german empire and its economic dominance: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFr...59-534,00.html

Originally Posted by loki

I just read an article that covers a bit of what you say, regarding english-german relations and how they deteriorated with the formation of a unified german empire and its economic dominance

A good article. It demonstrates an important shift in modern historiography that was long overdue. I disagree with your use of words in describing Nazism, however. The old paradigm likes to hammer away using that type of vocabulary, but other non-Nazi examples bring up serious contradictions. The mother of all genocides was Rome. Every good Christian knows about the Hebrew extirpation of Palestine. In fact, I argue that the Holocaust was only the logical extension of widely accepted concepts. Before you go all pale on me, I should point out that Roosevelt and Churchill both agreed that the genocide of the North American Indian was a good thing. This genocide, later used as a classic example of social-darwinism, helped form Hitler's worldview. The Armenian genocide was another example. The Holocaust was hardly original. Zyklon B was original...but most Jews were shot by the Einsatzgruppen using the standard methods found in most genocidal actions.

All of this is too brutal for me, today. It is Mother's Day, afterall. I want to get this evil stuff out of my head. I would like to hear what you guys think about the issue, however.