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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)

#231

Post by pdonis »

lisper wrote: post #215
pdonis wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, everybody calls them liberals; they even call themselves liberals (when they're not calling themselves progressives, which is an even stronger code word for "left-wing"). If your argument is that they aren't "true" liberals, then who are the "true" liberals?

George McGovern. Walter Mondale. Lyndon Johnson. Franklin Roosevelt. William O. Douglas. Thurgood Marshall. There are liberals in the government today, but they are a minority and wield very little power. Here's an interesting historical perspective of the Supreme Court: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_leanings_of_U.S._Su... And a contemporary analysis of Congress: http://thatsmycongress.com/house/ http://th…

I'm skeptical of anyone's "analysis" of the positions of political figures because the analyst's biases always color the analysis. That's obvious from both of the links you give: the "That's My Congress" link is obviously biased liberal just from their naming of the categories, and both of your links only analyze positions on a one-dimensional scale, which assumes that no other dimensions are relevant. That just increases the skepticism of someone (like me) who thinks both major parties in the US are seriously off the rails on some issues (for example, the war on drugs).

As for your list of "true" liberals, McGovern is the only one who strikes me as consistently furthering "liberal" positions (by which I mean "liberal" by the definition you appear to be using--see below). Mondale didn't strike me as consistently furthering much of anything. Johnson got us deep into Vietnam. FDR got us into World War II (by which I don't just mean he was President when it started, I mean he consistently took actions, often covert ones, that were calculated to get us into the war). Douglas voted with the majority in Korematsu v. United States (his positions did change over time, so, for example, he wrote the majority opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut; but that just points up the fact that he wasn't always consistent). Marshall did win Brown v. Board of Education, but while education in the US is more integrated today than it was then, I question whether it is any more equal, unless it's in the sense that it's more equally bad. (To be fair, Marshall was pretty consistently liberal in his opinions as a Supreme Court Justice.)

Of course, from your point of view, this just makes the case stronger that "true" liberals have very little power in the US. But from my point of view, it makes the case stronger that your definition of the word "liberal" is not a useful or historically accurate one.

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

#232

Post by azernik »

scrollaway wrote: post #82
ehmorris wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The annotate button covers the highlighted text. And I don't just highlight text when I speed read, I do it all the time because it is easier on the eyes - it is just a habit common to speed readers as that's where most people pick it up. Moreover you actually break selection pretty badly along with it. There are other ways to annotate than to pop crap up every time a user highlights text. I'm in no mood of solving U…

So perhaps the more specific ask here is "don't have your pop-up on highlighted text cover other text."

Would this bother you as much if the "Annotate" pop-up was off in the margin?

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

#233

Post by deciplex »

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…

Gitmo isn't a concentration camp because there is no 'concentration'. That is, the Gitmo prison is clearly not part of an effort to take some population of people and stick them all in one place. Nominally everyone there is a prisoner of war - they are not there because they a member of some Afghan minority, or homosexual or disabled or whatever the hell else. Neither is it a death camp, although it seems most everyone still there, will die there. Probably the most accurate label is that it's an internment camp.

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

#234

Post by rangibaby »

mtdewcmu wrote: post #225
rangibaby wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Hitler had just left Stalin alone the latter would have been happy to let the capitalists destroy each other, and Germany could have conquered all of western Europe. The USSR was initially part of an anti-fascist pact but made amends with Germany after the western allies' betrayal of Czechoslovakia.

It's interesting to speculate on what would have happened if Hitler hadn't betrayed Stalin. Hitler had reasons for doing so (I can't remember what they were), and they probably had some validity -- but the Soviets were certainly uneasy allies with the US and Britain, so perhaps the Soviets could have been kept out of the war, at least for a while. If Germany was weakened, though, Stalin might have seen an opportunity…

Hitler's reasons for invading the USSR were batshit insane. He wanted to wipe the Slavs out, and thought he could do it before winter set in.

If Germany hadn't broken their agreement with the USSR the Soviets probably would have stayed out of the war - remember that they had just been humiliated by the Finns.

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

#235

Post by prawn »

jokoon wrote: post #189
prawn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we're safe from politicians exploiting fear and selfishness to push dangerous policy at all.

well I guess we're more wary

I don't think we are. I bet that a modern Hitler could slowly exploit the same reactions in the general population and have the same arguments against opponents as used before.

It already happens where I live where we have what I'd consider a mean government in power, winning the vote based on fears over financial position and terrorists and Muslims and whatever else.

I think the belief that we're more wary and would "see it coming next time" is quite dangerous.

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

#236

Post by waps »

mpyne wrote: post #212
waps wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, here is the Nazi's public face : http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.... Read it, then tell me if you still don't understand why these people might get classified as left-wing. They implemented quite a few of these points too, by the way. You can say whatever you want about Nazi's but they are by far the most successful leftist party in history, and quite a few "left-wing" r…

You'll note, however, that many of those platform points were polar opposites to policies enacted in practice once the Nazis came to power. War profits continued (indeed, Nazis who tried to actually push for getting rid of the profit motive were quickly removed from their posts and marginalized). "Unearned" income continued. The Nazis even maintained the gold standard for international trade long after the other majo…

Your making the point that because they weren't outright communist, they must have been right-wing. I agree that they weren't communists, I disagree with the conclusion you draw from that.

Most trusts were nationalized, just nazi style : their management was replaced or forced to obey party rule, mostly by threats. Yes that doesn't technically qualify as nationalization, but for all practical intents it boils down to the same thing. It is most definitely not a laissez-faire policy.

> Most of the "left wing" economic policies that were enacted were emulated using good old standard "right wing" methods

We're talking about the introduction of pensions, scholarships, unemployments payment increases, job guarantees, ...

> Chemical plants that were absolutely essential for the Reich's strategic needs were contracted to companies like IG Farben with profit guarantees and profit sharing agreements, methods that would be perfectly accept to almost any right-wing economist.

You left out the part where the party threatened to imprison (or worse) management if they did any orders that weren't for the government. Frankly, if a party with a thorough reputation for excessive use of violence that is in control of the government threatens prison if you don't sign a contract ... would you consider that free enterprise or laissez-faire ?

I agree that the methods used were not full-blown communist. The state was in absolute control, that was the goal, the means and what happened on the ground. Calling this right-wing policy is lunacy.

The way I see left, right, far left, and far right is this :

left: communist-lite policies. Try to achieve the same aims as communists, trying to avoid the worst inefficiencies of that by having market-based policies, with judicious application of direct government intervention and regulation. Example: Obamacare.

right: laissez-faire policies. Try to achieve (mostly) the same aims as communists, doing as little as possible to achieve those aims. If something needs to be done at all, don't let the government do it itself.

far left: outright communist policy. Put the government in direct control of everything, and have a direct reporting chain into the government for everything that happens. Government intervention is the only thing allowed to exist.

far right: don't try to achieve anything at all using the state. Anarchism.

On this scale, Nazis fall under "far left". They never had the time to really get to full-blown communism but they made great progress in that direction.

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

#237

Post by mpyne »

waps wrote: post #236
mpyne wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll note, however, that many of those platform points were polar opposites to policies enacted in practice once the Nazis came to power. War profits continued (indeed, Nazis who tried to actually push for getting rid of the profit motive were quickly removed from their posts and marginalized). "Unearned" income continued. The Nazis even maintained the gold standard for international trade long after the other majo…

Your making the point that because they weren't outright communist, they must have been right-wing. I agree that they weren't communists, I disagree with the conclusion you draw from that. Most trusts were nationalized, just nazi style : their management was replaced or forced to obey party rule, mostly by threats. Yes that doesn't technically qualify as nationalization, but for all practical intents it boils down to…

> Your making the point that because they weren't outright communist, they must have been right-wing.

That wasn't the point I was trying to make.

And after re-reading, I'm pretty sure that wasn't the point I actually made. In fact I tried to make it pretty clear with the last sentence.

But perhaps it would be simpler to note that the Nazis were not simply a left wing group without confusing substantiation.

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

#238

Post by lisper »

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…

Heh, this is timely. Just showed up on Reddit:

http://www.vice.com/read/undercover-in-americas-privitised-p...

The money quote:

"I didn’t believe that a “concentration camp” could exist in America until, in Phoenix, Arizona, I saw one with my own eyes."

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

#239

Post by the_af »

waps wrote: post #236
mpyne wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll note, however, that many of those platform points were polar opposites to policies enacted in practice once the Nazis came to power. War profits continued (indeed, Nazis who tried to actually push for getting rid of the profit motive were quickly removed from their posts and marginalized). "Unearned" income continued. The Nazis even maintained the gold standard for international trade long after the other majo…

Your making the point that because they weren't outright communist, they must have been right-wing. I agree that they weren't communists, I disagree with the conclusion you draw from that. Most trusts were nationalized, just nazi style : their management was replaced or forced to obey party rule, mostly by threats. Yes that doesn't technically qualify as nationalization, but for all practical intents it boils down to…

I think your definition of the left-right axis is almost designed to make the Nazis belong in the far left, which is still (thankfully!) a fringe opinion.

Populism alone is not left-wing.

Your definition of left/right doesn't include aspects of the far right such as anti-labor measures (while calling themselves a "worker's party", the Nazis actually destroyed worker rights, which made them appealing to the industrial elite), and extreme racism. The Nazis also used the power of the state in a distinctly right-wing way: as a way to safeguard business and the property rights of the wealthy.

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

#240

Post by the_af »

maxxxxx wrote: post #207
waps wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, here is the Nazi's public face : http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.... Read it, then tell me if you still don't understand why these people might get classified as left-wing. They implemented quite a few of these points too, by the way. You can say whatever you want about Nazi's but they are by far the most successful leftist party in history, and quite a few "left-wing" r…

Sure, they had some left-wing traits. And they had some right wing traits too: The belief that Germany is a special country is pretty similar to today's conservatives belief that the US is exceptional and blessed by God. My point was that by figuring out whether the Nazis were left or right wing nothing is learned. There are left wing and right wing democracies and there are left and right wing dictatorships. Left wi…

Don't forget center-wing (is that a word?) governments, which have also killed a lot of people.
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