41–50 of 252 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The annotated version is legal, the unannotated version is illegal.
What's the difference between the two editions? I can't imagine what these added annotations are about that make the book legal. Is it the occasional "Editor's note: genocide is very naughty"?
People did not want struggling at the time. After the Great depression created by the banks bubble and having everything they could produce taken by countries like France as payment for WWI GERMANS WERE ALREADY STRUGGLING.
Germans were dying in winter because the coal was sent to France as payment. And this is not like winter in Morocco. In Germany you have no energy in winter, with 30 Celsius degrees under zero you die.
Not only they were struggling, but having all what they could make confiscated to pay debts created a very dangerous situation, there was NO HOPE.
They had become slaves. Romans already measured that a slave worked way less than half what a free man did.
So Hitler brought hope. He stopped paying the debt(default), the military occupied the coal areas back for Germany and brought hope.
Is not that he promised suffering, but that he promised that suffering will end.
He also made suffering more tolerable making it social. Hitler created social programs for workers that let them travel and meet other people.
It is probably hard to understand for Westerns, but there are millions of people in Africa or India that are happier than people from the West, even while being very poor, because money is not everything, there are friends, for example, that people from Africa have more than isolated westerns.
Today the world is in Great Depression number II. Countries are over indebted, and we have the same problem they had: economies had stop to a halt and will be there until bad debts are cleaned, and defaults are issued.
This sent chills down my spine: "He [Hitler] had crushed the German labor movement and for that the property-owning classes were willing to forgive him almost anything. Both left and right concurred ... that National Socialism was merely a version of Conservatism. Plus ca change...
The funny thing is that many conservatives think National Socialism was "socialism", when in fact it was just their very own hard right conservatism. Tea Party and Republican candidates are where the Hitlers of the future will probably arise from.
> Down with immigration! Up with capital! Be a real American!
Welcome to the past.
Edit: I see the fascists have discovered my comment. Down vote away. It doesn't change history.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> He was a communist for a long time, then got disenchanted because of Stalin (he wrote 1984 in this period). This is wrong. It's hard to succinctly characterize Orwell's political views[1], but it's simply incorrect that he was "a communist" for any length of time. An uncharitable reading of your comment might be simply that you think democratic socialism and communism are the same thing, in which case it might be v…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> He was a communist for a long time, then got disenchanted because of Stalin (he wrote 1984 in this period). This is wrong. It's hard to succinctly characterize Orwell's political views[1], but it's simply incorrect that he was "a communist" for any length of time. An uncharitable reading of your comment might be simply that you think democratic socialism and communism are the same thing, in which case it might be v…
I don't think in the context of Spain, at least, the various versions of libertarian socialism saw themselves as that clearly distinguished. POUM had people who described themselves as "communist", "socialist", and "anarchist", some of whom were the same people. They specifically dissociated themselves from the Soviet Union (and more specifically from Stalin), but were largely supportive of some kind of non-authorita…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I always thought he was against totalitarianism What he writes, does not imply that he is pro-totalitarianism. He only says, that the concept to give people something to hope for, to fight for, to give their life for a "higher meaning" is a more sound psychological concept as "hey, have a good time ... and just live for the next gadget"
The notion that the people are there for you to give them something to hope for is somewhat totalitarian by itself.
I think Orwell was wrong, but not for the obvious reasons.
As an observation, it's impossible to argue with the suggestion that humans need more than comfort. Humans have been creating crusades, pogroms, holy wars, riots, race riots, and revolutions since almost forever.
But I don't think he understood what made Nazi fascism so extreme - which is the way it turned war, patriotism, and death into ends in their own right, rather than means to an end.
There was no pretence at higher purpose or salvation. The entire German political system became a suicide and death cult, and swallowed itself whole.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think in the context of Spain, at least, the various versions of libertarian socialism saw themselves as that clearly distinguished. POUM had people who described themselves as "communist", "socialist", and "anarchist", some of whom were the same people. They specifically dissociated themselves from the Soviet Union (and more specifically from Stalin), but were largely supportive of some kind of non-authorita…
Technically, the difference is the power structure. They have sort of the same economic system as a goal, but social democratism is reversible, since it's based on democratic voting while right-out communism is more autocratic. Most social democrat parties are just capitalist redistributionists at this point, though.
But it's pretty hard to call POUM "social democratic" or even "democratic socialist" either. By modern standards they are far too radical-left to fit into a "respectable" socialist or social-democratic party. Could you imagine them standing for Labour, or the Parti Socialiste or SPD? Waving a red flag and declaring that the time is ripe for the socialist revolution...
This is a great reminder that at one time Hitler was not the caricature of pure evil that he is now. He was real and nobody knew what the future held. Amazing snapshot into that time.
If you guys know a lot about the period, I just transcribed it on Genius and I'd appreciate some help annotating it: http://history.genius.com/George-orwell-review-of-mein-kampf... (full disclosure I work at Genius.)
So please don't hijack it.
This sent chills down my spine: "He [Hitler] had crushed the German labor movement and for that the property-owning classes were willing to forgive him almost anything. Both left and right concurred ... that National Socialism was merely a version of Conservatism. Plus ca change...
> How was it that he was able to put this monstrous vision across? It is easy to say that at one stage of his career he was financed by the heavy industrialists, who saw in him the man who would smash the Socialists and Communists.