Why are Nazis left wing? Well was talking to brother in law and it finally made sense

[nadinbrzezinski]

why the right says this

Now let me preface this with the usual Poli Sci definition... fascism is right wing, and communist is left wing.

Ok

To our modern republican party this is not the case. They have rewritten this.

The party, essentially, is anarchist in a way, and for them the extreme right is full and complete anarchy, lack of government. Just slightly to the left of them are our "brave" republican conservatives (This goes to Reagan) Now to the extreme left is any form of authoritarian guv'ment, that means BOTH communist and Fascists are lefties... (head hurts) and just a smidgen to the right of them are the evil liberals.

Now after he s'plained to me what a rightie told him, we both had a light go on... these idiots are NOT using any standard poli sci definition. So when you talk to them about right-left, they are not using any textbook definition

Just offering so you stop being that frustrated, and realize they are busy rewriting poli sci hard wired definitions as well

[Cerridwen]

1. I had an uncle explain it to me once, in a 3 page letter.

It made as much sense as what you said was said to you (did that make any sense? LOL).

I tore up the letter. I wish I'd kept it.

Uncle is a newt gingrich look-alike and wanna be, social climbing, stab you in the back even if you're his family kind of repulsive piece of republican manure married to a woman who damned near jumped into her mother's coffin to get the jewelry that was "owed" her. He spent the entire time at my grandmother's wake (yes, his mother's wake) harrassing me about my liberalism and feminism. Oh yeah, and he reminded me that my cousin had only himself to blame for dying as he did since he participated in "dangerous activities." This was the early 80s. My cousin was gay. He died in one of the early "waves" of AIDs deaths; when reagan and the militant, "religious," neo-cons were telling gays they were being punished by gawwwwwd and refusing to fund research. There's more there. But, I think that's enough of an off topic rant.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. the off topic rant is part of this continuum

and I am sorry for your loss over AIDS... I hate the religious nuts, ironically they are lefty... aka authoritarian

Might bring a smile (Yes, using that logic, head hurts)

[Cerridwen]

24. Thanks.

I think I need a drink for that to make sense. Yeah, the upside-down world. I swear they use "1984" and "Brave New World" as training manuals.

:toast:

LOL

[ColbertWatcher]

51. ?

Authoritarians are "lefty?" The religious nuts that ignored AIDS were "lefty?"

Am I reading that correctly?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. When they pull out that Nazis are socialists like liberals.....

I merely recite a list of how Republicans are identical to Nazis:

1) Repukes (like Nazis) ADORE war
2) Repukes (like Nazis) have no use for the disabled and infirm, the poor, widows, orphans, etc. and feel they're deadbeats on the system
3) Repukes (like Nazis) believe in a huge percentage of the country's budget going to the military
4) Repukes (like Nazis) believe in symbols (flag lapel pins, salutes, flag hanging, "the motherland" etc.), not in truth
5) Repukes (like Nazis) ADORE the death penalty
6) Repukes (like Nazis) believe in dedicating a large part of the budget to encarceration
7) Repukes (like Nazis) believe in shooting first and asking questions later
8) Repukes (like Nazis) have no problem whatsoever with using torture
9) Repukes (like Nazis) believe in attacking foreign nations without cause
10) Repukes (like Nazis) employ faux patriotic propaganda quite adeptly
11) Repukes (like Nazis) find nothing wrong with allowing corporations to profit from the labor of prisoners

ETC. ETC. ETC. and too many more to mention

[dustbunnie]

9. Your points are mostly fine except for #2.

Hitler was generous to the working class poor, the widows and orphans, farmers, etc. Why else do you think the people looked the other way concerning some of the more unsavory policies?

As for the disabled and infirm, those policies that seem so horrific to us today, should be looked at in light of the times. Actually, they aren't all that different from what people who consider themselves progressive would espouse.

#7 is off a little as well. The Nazis didn't necessarily believe in shooting first, asking questions later per se.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

11. Maybe if they were blonde, white Germans?

An elderly Jewish woman friend I had (she passed away), had a nanny in Germany who was from Poland. The woman was a widow. When my friend managed to be sneaked out of Germany when the Third Reich took over, her nanny was left behind, and later on she heard she had starved to death. !!!

[dustbunnie]

19. The brown and raven-haired ones too, but yes, the Germans.

Lots of people starved to death in the later stages of the war, when it all fell apart. Or died of disease, what have you. But the original intention, in the early days of Leni Reifenstahl's Triumph of the Will, was to ensure that the people were taken care of.

[newspeak]

40. there was a very informative PBS documentary

a couple of years ago about the elimination program of germans who were deemed mentally deficient, by the government and psychiatric community. Those in sanitariums began disappearing--not just those who were born with mental handicaps, but those who were adults that had mental breakdowns. Hitler began a campaign, first directing it at the universities, to eliminate those the government deemed undesirable--using films showing the mentally disabled (probably some of the more handicapped) as "things" with no feelings or mental capacity (lighting and shadowing was implemented in the filming to make the handicapped look more sinister). The government explained that they were spending so much money on these people who didn't even have any awareness and that they could be using the money for homes for young families. One witness, a child at the time, was with a group of children who were brought to a room and instructed to take off their clothes, she refused. One of the nurses asked her if she could count to ten-she did-she was saved from death--the other children were put to death. This went on until family members started noticing mommy and daddy were missing after going in for depression or a simple nervous breakdown--with numerous complaints being directed to the government-Hitler suspended his program, but the psychiatric community secretly continued. Makes you wonder who were really the mental.

Hitler was no liberal--one of his first priorities, while spouting to the public his admiration for labor-was to destroy labor unionists. I believe he had a love affair with American industrialists and some of them had a love affair with him. He was a conservative who hated modernistic art, music, and contrary what some believe about his occultism, he was very much a catholic. Love the quote, "Who says God is not on my side." (or something like that). And, with the group of psychotic thugs that surrounded him, he instilled a fear in some of the German people--those who resisted, were squashed, like the brother and sister who formed the White Rose Society. Others, were just as crazy as their leader or indeed, very apathetic.

[dustbunnie]

41. I'm not arguing most of what you're saying at all.

I believe also, that what was at first intended to be some kind of "angel of mercy" policy quickly turned into hellish madness once the injured soldiers began arriving from the front. Beds were needed, as well as all available resources (nurses, doctors, etc) and medicine. So, the elderly, the disabled, the dying were eliminated to make room for them. I was just remarking on someone's post regarding Hitler's policies toward widows and orphans. These were quite generous in the early days.

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. The eugenics program at hospitals started WELL BEFORE September of 1939

just an FYI

As to the care of war widows and orphans, it did happen, in major cities and limited form. It was a propaganda exercise and those who mostly benefited were party members,

Plenty of literature on this

[dustbunnie]

48. Thanks nadinb, I've read a fair bit.

Plus we're one of those odd families with both Germans and Jews who lived through it, though they're getting quite on in years... but I've heard lots of first-hand accounts from both sides.

[newspeak]

45. wrong, this is before the war

this happened in the early days. The German people should have gotten rid of Hitler when he had his own brownshirts murdered. They helped put him in power and he, in coldblood, murdered those who helped him attain power. One of the professors, who survived the holocaust, explained how Hitler gained so much power-he said about 25% per cent were solid followers, 25% were against Hitler and the rest were apathetic. But, he stated Hitler's 25% were so without conscience (extremely violent) against the 25% against Hitler's government--they destroyed, viciously, those opposing the regime. The apathetic were like sheep--all they had to do is instill fear.

[dustbunnie]

46. I know it started happening before the war.

Same as the eugenics program here. And I believe the same misguided principles applied.

I meant it really started to spiral out of control later on. I posted my opinion a little earlier, so I won't regurgitate it. But again, I'm not professing any love for Hitler or his policies. I was just clarifying Hitler's position regarding the working class poor, women, orphans, etc.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

52. B "the people" is meant Nazi's white, blue-eyed, blonde, "Master Race"

The rest could die of hunger or anything else.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

13. Also, there are plenty of stories about Nazis flinging babies in the air and skeet shooting them

Many stories of such savagery

[dustbunnie]

22. That's nonsense. nt

[newspeak]

42. what's nonsense?

there are films of Hitler's final solution before they found the gas chamber more productive. Those "undesirables", men, women and children digging a huge whole, facing the whole, and being shot--falling into the hole they dug. Mass burials. When some of our (mostly right wing congresscritters) demanded proof of Hitler's genocide--they knew, they knew before the chambers were built. We had fascist lovers in congress during that time-some admired Mussolini, Hitler--hell, some were doing business with Hitler--some just loved his ideology.

[dustbunnie]

50. Skeet-shooting babies is nonsense. nt

Please don't feel the need to educate me. :)

[Sarah Ibarruri]

53. Oh Lordy - sorry, not in the mood for Holocaust denying and other such nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. The first victims of the eugenics laws were not Jews, or Russians, but

German disabled kids at hospitals

[Cerridwen]

31. In Germany. I think the first victims were here in the US?

I'm too lazy right this second to go get links. But I though hitler followed "our" lead with forced sterilization, for example?

Please, do not misunderstand, I'm in no way trying to lessen what happened in Germany. But I swear I've read hitler took cues from "our" own US eugenics movement.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. You read correctly and our reservation system as well

And no I am too lazy to look for links right now as well

Eugenics was not just limited to the Germans, it was VERY POPULAR in the US and the UK

Hell, Darwin's grand son still believed in it in the 1950s... the NPR series reran his I believe essay from those years the weekend before last, and my blood ran cold

[dustbunnie]

35. You are correct. I'm too lazy to look it up too, but that's where that saying came from...

"they're beating us at our own game."

[dustbunnie]

33. The Germans learned what they knew about Eugenics from us.

Not sure how eugenics would affect disabled children, since the idea was to keep certain people from procreating? How would that affect those already born?

As far as disabled kids go, today women routinely abort children with Down's syndrome, or those with such terrible defects they won't be viable, or would endure lives of constant suffering. Difference?

They practiced euthanasia yes, but bear in mind the medical advances we take for granted, versus what people endured back then. Cancer meant that people suffered horrible, pain-filled deaths. In many cases, it was a blessing to get that one peace-giving shot of morphine. Hitler's own mother died a terrible cancer death which apparently affected him all his life. Also, it wasn't really all that unusual for people to "allow" certain children with terrible birth defects to perish, or helped them along, as the families couldn't support them. Village life has its upsides and downsides.

[Mr Rabble]

43. Actually that isnt the case.

You can have a look at what laws were implemented in 1930's Germany and it becomes pretty apparent that they were crushing the middle and working classes. They destroyed unions often by violence. They gave tax breaks to the wealthy.

The propaganda was what enabled the leadership to gain the passive support of the population, as well as the rabid devotion of the war class.

There really is no question about this.

[DJ13]

3. The Republicans are easily swayed by labels

Hitler's political party, "the National Socialist German Workers Party", was neither socialist, nor for workers.

But the right here in the US sees that party's label and thats all it takes for them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Goes beyond the label, if you define authoritarian government as left

well the nazis were authoritarian

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. It's a strange anarchist indeed who glorifies the police forces and the military establishment

They have a completely incoherent political philosophy

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. Anarchist is not a true analogy of their philosophy

Unless you take the CNN view of what an Anarchist is.

They thrived on Chaos and wanted Chaos
it gives them power. Totalitarism.

[applegrove]

5. The textbook on how to argue in GOP forums told Repukes and Freepers to call Hitler left wing.

It is a meme they are trained to spread. It is bullshit obviously.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. It is BS, but when taken in their world view it makes "sense"

and why we can argue until the cows come home

Or even post standard poli sci definitions, will not matter... after all it was them libbies who wrote them and obviously they are wrong.

This is a religion... and like proving the existence or non existence of god, it is a fools errand

[applegrove]

16. Tell them they are full of bullshit if you are on a mixed board. I've come across freepers

who didn't know they were peddling bullshit and just needed the facts explained to them. Really I have.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. I have as well

oh the AOL boards, they were bad... but I got better... mixed boards, not any more

I avoid the Taliban these days... to a point we have better things to do than deal with them, like the 1930s they have managed to become a small, if very vocal minority

[applegrove]

36. I had quite a few good "discussions" with freepers on a mixed board. But I find it too

painful to deal with some who are cold & heartless, or whose actions are cold & heartless because they are naive. I just didn't want to have to fight all the time. So I came here in 2005. Maybe I'll get the bug and try and straighten out some freepers some day. But for now I don't have the stomach for it. Plus I've had to fight for my life outside of the internet and am tired of fighting. I need to build up some strength.

[Radical Activist]

7. It's simpler than that: projection.

The talk radio crowd ALWAYS accuses liberals of doing what the right wing is most guilty of doing. As the right veers closer toward fascism it was inevitable that they would accuse liberals of being like Nazis. Then the press can say, "both sides make the accusation" and it's a wash.

[G_j]

8. anywhere else in the world the "right" are the nazi/fascists

here they turn everything on it's head.

fundamentalists here, think they are the "good guys"
while fundamentalists elsewhere are terrorists.

etc..

[mykpart]

17. Years ago, I heard Rev Jesse Jackson say,

"Hitler was an anti-communist." (Doesn't quite fit in here, but I grab every opportunity to use this quote!)

[Still Sensible]

18. Yep, revisionist bullshit

Nazis are right wing on the spectrum, and hell, if they can redefine that, they can redefine anything.

[Ichingcarpenter]

21. " Revisionist History" is the Obama word for the Day

That is the point that he made today.

Now if the media would discuss that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. xactly... and they have

and right now they are trying hard to redefine the New Deal, well that has been a LONG project, but now its on overdrive

Now that one we have to fight

[The Straight Story]

20. I think one can say it applies to both sides

When it goes to the extreme of controlling others via law. Just look here on DU where we see some people wanting to limit number of kids, outlawing the ownership of guns, what you do in your own home, whittling away your choices until the only ones you have left are the ones a select few see as the best for you and the earth/country.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Not talking about those extremes, but how the RIGHT was redefined

pretty standard, hard wired, poli sci definitions

As to population control, which is a whole different kettle of wax... I happen to think that we may need to do this, as a world wide policy... then again... the end of oil will do that just fine. The Malthusian curve is not just theory. Did I mention will not be pretty?

[aquart]

26. So the Republicans want all countries to be Somalia?

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Close to Somalia

but the extreme right, does. Not quite there, there are a couple things they still believe is a proper guv'ment role... aka the military.

After that... not really

They might be willing to make an exception for police and fire though

[KharmaTrain]

27. National Socialism Was A Perverted Title

It was a deliberate distortion of the name as Socialism was popular in Germany during the 20's and the name was chosen to fool people into thinking that the party was to use government as an "for the people"...of course that mean authoritarianism, but what's in a name? And that's where I see a lot of right wingers get lost in their goofy analogies.

I used to joke that Soviet Communism was a mirror image of our society, yet backward. The more to the "left" you were, the more repressive or authoritarian...or as once was said it was a "dictatorship" of the people. Either case, it's extremism and that's where the similaries are, but end.

[conscious evolution]

30. They do like fucking with language

Good catch.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. We were talking about a smidgen of a discussion I had with a GOP rep in Sacramento

and how all is solved through tax cuts... and then he explained what somebody pretty right (a friend of this rep I guess) explained to him, poor libby that didn't get it.

I went... hallelujah, now it finally makes sense... .Orwell would be proud indeed...

It is all in a frame

[LoZoccolo]

37. The book "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" by Gary Allen is an early example of this.

It was written in 1971. Basically a John Birch Society member rewriting definitions, as you say, among other things. The notion probably circulated around that crowd before then, but I remember reading the back of the book and it saying that it was a groundbreaking idea, this redefinition of the political spectrum.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. book to add to readying list?

thanks

[NAO]

39. Right is for big STATE, Left is for big GOVERNMENT

State Power vs.Government Protection

Government provides services and protection to people...

State exercises coersion and violence...

This distinction has NEVER been more profound than with Bush. He was a clear example of an anti-government, pro-state leader the world has ever seen. Slash social spending, balloon military spending. Slash consumer protection regulations, grant immunity to corporations via 'tort reform.

[leftofthedial]

47. they not only do not use any accepted definitions,

they use no perceptible logic whatsoever

modern Amurkan "conservatism" is a religious cult, based purely on beliefs that rest on nothing but thin air.

[baldguy]

49. Nazis are socialists, because they're "National Socialists"

But then, the people who think that don't know what the fuck a socialist is.

"National Socialism" is socialism for corporations & capitalism for everyone else - pretty much like the modern GOP.