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George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

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Re: George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

#121

Post by spikels »

adventured wrote: post #36
BugBrother wrote: post #2

I assume this is posted and up voted now because of the similarities to Putin? Anyway, let me recommend "Down and out in Paris and London". It taught me more about the human condition, and why you want to stamp out poverty and let everyone to be able to have a humane life, than most any book I ever read. Also, imho after learning a bit about Eastern Europe after 1945, I put "Animal farm" along "1984". It is a master…

Putin is almost entirely lacking the cult of personality, the movement, around him that Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Fidel, etc. all had. He wasn't a revolutionary, he's primarily a gangster, and historically those are relatively short-lived and weak political types. Putin has more in common with Capone than Hitler, he leads a cult of money and theft. Even Putin's attempts at nationalistic projection have been remarka…

I thought of Putin too when I first saw this posted a day ago for the reason that Putin has indicated many time that he would like to reestablish the USSR. If he ends up invading Ukraine and other former Soviet states (he already took a test drive through Georgia), we were all forewarned and did nothing to prevent it - much as Hitler's clear statements were ignored. I hope Putin has more foresight as this could be an enourmous disaster.

"The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century." - Putin 2005

Re: George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

#122

Post by tomjen3 »

Theodores wrote: post #19

Has anyone here actually read Mein Kampf? Doing so is probably banned in Germany and I am not sure what there is other than kiddie porn or some al-qaeda training manual that you totally would not want in your browsing history. There could come a time when no living person has read Mein Kampf and nobody would know first hand why it is wrong.

I read it as part of a school project.

You can easily find the English edition online.

Re: George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

#123

Post by AimHere »

orionblastar wrote: post #71
lisper wrote: post #28

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...

Correct me if I am wrong, but conservatism doesn't have the social programs that Hitler had. Conservatism doesn't send people to concentration camps and then mass murder them. I think this thread has reached a Godwin level. Both may be right-wing but: Hitler supported abortion, gun control, big government, and other things the conservatives claim to be against. To simply say conservatives = Hitler because both are ri…

Firstly, Hitler liberalised German's gun laws slightly. He actually removed some of the restrictions and allowed Germans even to own some types of gun without a permit. Of course, Jews were banned from owning guns entirely, but in Nazi Germany, Jews were obviously a special case. The story that Hitler was a big supporter of gun control is just some bullshit propaganda by modern NRA types.

Secondly, you're conflating modern American ideas of what a Conservative is with what it would have meant in the 1930s or earlier. In the 19th century, conservatives would have been the guys in favour of protectionism and big government intervention in business, compared to the liberals of the day who'd have been more in favour of laissez-faire economics. By the 1940s, laissez-faire had been discredited by the Great Depression and nobody was too enthusiastic about the free market.

As for concentration camps, they were invented by the Conservative British government during the Boer war. (The six or seven death camps in Poland were an unprecedented phenomenon, so far unique to Nazi Germany, of course).

Political ideas change over time. You're trying to impose modern political ideas inappropriately onto what happened in the past.

Re: George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

#124

Post by vixen99 »

Intermernet wrote: post #99
orionblastar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I am wrong, but conservatism doesn't have the social programs that Hitler had. Conservatism doesn't send people to concentration camps and then mass murder them. I think this thread has reached a Godwin level. Both may be right-wing but: Hitler supported abortion, gun control, big government, and other things the conservatives claim to be against. To simply say conservatives = Hitler because both are ri…

I agree with you that this argument has little to do with conservatism vs. liberalism, but to state "Conservatism doesn't send people to concentration camps" is ignoring some glaring realities, unless you want to be really selective about the definition of a concentration camp. Is Gitmo a concentration camp? How about Manus Island? Azouli Prison? These "detention centers" are full of people put there by both conserva…

You should detail the logical relationships between theses and people acting on them because -isms don't send anyone anywhere, people do. To say they do without offering a road map is loose thinking.

Re: George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

#125

Post by icelancer »

ehmorris wrote: post #70
scrollaway wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unrelated to the matter but since you work at genius, can you talk to the geniuses (sic) who thought that hijacking text highlight was a good idea? A lot of us speed readers use text highlight to read along. It is easier on the eyes and the brain. So please don't hijack it.

For technical reasons: we want to allow users to annotate arbitrary segments of text, so what better (or other) way is there than adding an annotate button to highlighted text? For philosophical reasons: genius is about annotating text, and as a result, about close reading. We'd rather optimize for a close read than a speed read.

Highlight-read is done by a lot of non-speed readers for chunking. I am one of them. Please move the annotation.

Re: George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

#126

Post by icelancer »

judk wrote: post #58
anigbrowl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm continually astonished at the ultraconservative meme that Hitler was left-wing (which seems to originate with a book called 'Liberal Fascism' by Jonah Goldberg, although it has doubtless been floating around for much longer). Point out that one of the very first things that Hitler did on attaining power was have all the trade unionists arrested, and you might as well be talking to the air.

It's almost as though "left" and "right" are meaningless terms that are just use to split the people into two camps for battle against each other.

As long as "authoritarian" is part of both sides, the state is generally pleased to have both debate meaningless things.

Re: George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

#127

Post by girvo »

scrollaway wrote: post #49
ehmorris wrote: post #7

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.)

Unrelated to the matter but since you work at genius, can you talk to the geniuses (sic) who thought that hijacking text highlight was a good idea? A lot of us speed readers use text highlight to read along. It is easier on the eyes and the brain. So please don't hijack it.

I'm a text highlighter too, I do it across most articles and the like. Genius on the other hand, I use that for close analysis of lyrics and text, so I only highlight to annotate something, so it's never annoyed me like it has you. I also really like the website, so I guess we differ there, but hey different strokes and all that!

Re: George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

#128

Post by girvo »

pdonis wrote: post #103
lisper wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Conservatism doesn't send people to concentration camps Doesn't it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...

Last I checked, none of those things were due to conservatives alone, nor have they been any better, on balance, when liberals control the government than when conservatives do. (Israel's methods of dealing with Gaza probably come closest to being "run by conservatives", but even there the same things tend to happen when more moderate Israeli governments are in power.)

I'm certainly not an American, but from where I've been standing I haven't seen a liberal in your administration since I've been alive?

Re: George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

#129

Post by chris_j »

robryan wrote: post #100
andrewfong wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not Belgium, but consider eastern Ukraine.

And the Russia of today in relative terms is weaker than WW2 Germany militarily. The US is looking to disengage as much as possible from global conflicts. I think that they would be extremely reluctant to be pulled into a head on war against Russia/ China over a lot of 3rd countries.

Do not forget that, whatever the strength of Russia's conventional forces, Russia also possesses nuclear weapons. For that reason, it would be unthinkable for the West to fight a head on war against Russia.

Re: George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940)

#130

Post by everydaypanos »

mikeyouse wrote: post #59

From a timing perspective, this was published in March, 1940. Some other noteworthy events with their dates: * Germany invades Poland (September, 1939) * Britain, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany (September, 1939) * Soviets invade Poland, which is later split (October, 1939) * Nazis begin euthanasia of ill and disabled in Germany (October, 1939) * Soviets attack Finland (November, 1939…

How did Italians take Greece? This was a great moment for the West because Mussolini invaded Greece from the North and he was repelled. The first moment where the Axis forces showed weakness-it showed that Hitler's forces where just humans and that resistance is possible-organized well it could mean victory.
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