The political spectrum and its relevance

[Saint Frankenstein]

Oh I didn’t know that. I guess only seeing black and white footage would not make it obvious

Yeah, it can be hard to tell. But he had piercing light blue eyes. I remember reading the quote of someone who met him describing them.
https://i.insider.com/5798b33488e4a779638baa6e?width=1100&format=jpeg&auto=webp

 

[Secret Chief]

I find myself morbidly curious with Hitler’s reign, even as it repulses me.

I don't know what you may have read, but I highly recommend Ian Kershaw's two volume biography - Hubris and Nemesis.

 

[SomeRandom]

I don't know what you may have read, but I highly recommend Ian Kershaw's two volume biography - Hubris and Nemesis.

Oh sounds interesting

 

[Secret Chief]

Oh sounds interesting

Very substantial books! I see he's done a single volume biography too.

 

[SomeRandom]

Very substantial books! I see he's done a single volume biography too.

Oh nice.
I have Young Hitler by Paul Ham and the Dark Charisma of Adolph Hitler by Laurence Rees. And Travellers during the Third Reich. About random “tourists” in Germany during the era and their perceptions. But I’m always keen to add to my collection.

 

[SomeRandom]

Very substantial books! I see he's done a single volume biography too.

Oh so I’m on Book Depository now. He’s the guy who wrote To Hell and Back: Europe 1914 - 1949. I thought the name sounded familiar. My history buff Uncle has most if not all of his books.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Nazis persecuted and exterminated communists and socialists, Nazis are far right, you can't rewrite history and claim that they are leftists.

Not arguing that Nazis are anything (apart from bad news) but plenty of left wing organisations have persecuted other left wing organisations.
Consider Stalin's Great Purge.

It's more about political and physical opposition, and how far you're willing to go to remove it.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

The problem with that quiz is that it was clearly devised by a left-leaning person and quite a few of the questions that are supposed to identify 'right' are abysmally biased

For example:

"If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations"

Most right wing people believe that business serves the interest of humanity via the creation of wealth, goods and services.

The whole test will skew many people to the left of where they would be if the questions were worded fairly.

I agree with this.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

The ideas are generally laudable. The problems come with the execution. And the reason for this is the same across the full ideological spectrum: the people who want to do the implementing are exactly the people who will abuse that responsibility, if they get it. Those who want to "lead" are exactly those who should never be allowed to do so. And humanity still has not managed to fully realize this, and correct our systems of governance, accordingly.

How we judge leadership is pretty horrendous, actually.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

comes from the latin word fascii [or fasces] meaning a bundle of sticks [arrows] banded together which is more powerful than one stick alone.....washington displays them all over in the legislative buildings.

Yeah, but the literal meaning requires context.
Fasces were a symbol of magisterial power in Ancient Rome (although the use of this predates Rome).
The Fasces, along with the Swastiki, were adopted by the Axis Powers in WW2, with The Italian Fascist Party name coming from that association.

The use of the fasces as a symbol by the Italian fascists is where the whole context comes from. The stick in and of themselves are not fascist (much as the Swastika is not), but reducing the term 'fascist' back to it's root base is completely backwards.

In terms of them being around Washington...the fasces symbol managed to survive being linked to Fascism, despite it's use by them, and continues as a symbol of it's original magisterial context. The Swastika obviously is more problematic in terms of display.

The Fascist symbology wasn't as simple and identifiable as the Nazi swastika, and for all their faults, Italian Fascists aren't generally seen as being 'as bad' as Nazis.

Here the Fascist Party symbol, with the eagle clutching a fasces...

Spoiler

Incidentally, the term 'Axis powers' literally refers to the axe often contained within a Roman fasces, as well as linking Rome and Berlin in a central 'Axis' in term of pivot. Mussolini was pretty good at the messaging stuff and commonly used linkages to Rome, unsurprising for an Italian demagogue.

Italian aircraft in WW2 had the symbol below, which I guess many people know. But some don't realise each of the lines is a fasces...

Spoiler

 

[Tambourine]

Yes. Many members of the SA were more socialist in their economic leanings, as they were predominantly drawn from the working class. Yes, they had gay members like their leader, Ernst Rohm. Their killings weren't really about them being gay as that wasn't a secret.

The more socialist-leaning Strasser faction had always be marginal within the NSDAP and did not have substantial input in the party's actual political positions despite the Strasser brothers being the authors of the party's initial program. Due to their very public anti-socialist stance and their ties to German industrialists and the old Imperial bureaucracy, the socialist elements of NSDAP ideology would always be downplayed and only come out to play when they were (unsuccessfully) trying to attract working class voters. So the "working class" stylings were never more than an aesthetic, as the German industrial workers during the Weimar years were firmly in the camp of SPD and KPD (one reason why the NSDAP was always so hostile to the - mostly socialist - labor unions).

Most of the members of the NS came from petite bourgeoisie and middle class backgrounds, with bureaucrats, landlords, and small shop owners being generally overrepresented. Martin Heidegger, a professor of Philosophy, was one of the party's most prominent members in its early years.

 

[Lyndon]

Yeah, there really wasn't anything socialist about National Socialism.

 

[Tambourine]

hmmm...context m8
which was indicated...."both basically the same for the poor mokes who have to live under the rule of these street gangs.
idealism and reality are 2 different things???? right? or are you saying something else is possible?
besides, why throw mud at me..... kind of focusing on an unknown quality of the messenger now, isn't that bro?
what a kind soul

You know, I really dislike that kind of political position. It's essentially revelling in one's own ignorance, which only makes one vulnerable to be picked up by the first rat catcher that comes along to "make them pay" or "drain the swamp".

 

[MNoBody]

You know, I really dislike that kind of political position. It's essentially revelling in one's own ignorance, which only makes one vulnerable to be picked up by the first rat catcher that comes along to "make them pay" or "drain the swamp".

well, people are angry, and misinformed and raised in a culture of pass the buck and find a scapegoat.
trained by the media to "identify" the social pariah's [convenient scapegoats] .
divide and conquer, since the people, fight amongst themselves, while the ones who set it up wait till the people hammer each other senseless, then they swoop in and take the prize.
history repeating.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

The more socialist-leaning Strasser faction had always be marginal within the NSDAP and did not have substantial input in the party's actual political positions despite the Strasser brothers being the authors of the party's initial program. Due to their very public anti-socialist stance and their ties to German industrialists and the old Imperial bureaucracy, the socialist elements of NSDAP ideology would always be downplayed and only come out to play when they were (unsuccessfully) trying to attract working class voters. So the "working class" stylings were never more than an aesthetic, as the German industrial workers during the Weimar years were firmly in the camp of SPD and KPD (one reason why the NSDAP was always so hostile to the - mostly socialist - labor unions).

Most of the members of the NS came from petite bourgeoisie and middle class backgrounds, with bureaucrats, landlords, and small shop owners being generally overrepresented. Martin Heidegger, a professor of Philosophy, was one of the party's most prominent members in its early years.

This is all debatable, but I disagree. I think socialist economics of a sort were popular among the SA, especially. It sounds like you're looking at this from a Marxist perspective. NS isn't really capitalist or socialist, but Hitler was pragmatic in some ways when it came to business. (I'm unsure if it's possible for a totalitarian society to truly be capitalist, in terms of free market capitalism.)

 

[Tambourine]

This is all debatable, but I disagree.

It's not really debatable that industrial workers were underrepresented among NSDAP membership. They were not a worker's party, and the German workers indeed didn't really seem to think the Nazis had a lot to offer to them, which was true.

Nazism, like many authoritarian ideologies, was held strongest among people who were already familiar with authoritarianism and hierarchies - bureaucrats, policemen, and ex-soldiers.

These people were sympathetic to Hitler's cause from the very beginning, and were crucial to engineer his rise to the top: A pro-Nazi judge allowed Hitler to avoid charges of high treason after a coup attempt; police and local administrations refused to engage SA in their regular battles against socialists and Jewish civilians, allowing the Nazis to effectively control the streets in many larger cities; industrialists like Krupp and Porsche were showering the NSDAP with donations that allowed them to unfurl an unprecedented volume of political propaganda using (what was, back then) high tech methods such as radio speeches or (very popular) surprise visits by airplane.

I think socialist economics of a sort were popular among the SA, especially. It sounds like you're looking at this from a Marxist perspective. NS isn't really capitalist or socialist, but Hitler was pragmatic in some ways when it came to business. (I'm unsure if it's possible for a totalitarian society to truly be capitalist, in terms of free market capitalism.)

The Nazis oriented their model of the state along the way German businesses were run: as a small or medium scale proprietary business with an owner-entrepreneur on top of it all. The Führerprinzip is essentially the image of this sole-proprietor leader writ large and transposed onto an entire society.

Nazist conceptions of society and economics were only collectivist inasmuch as they came from a clear separation between the "leader" or "great man" and the masses, with the latters' function being a tool for the former's superior will and intellect. In many ways, Nazism and Fascism can be interpreted as twisted, industrialized versions of Absolute Monarchism.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

It's not really debatable that industrial workers were underrepresented among NSDAP membership. They were not a worker's party, and the German workers indeed didn't really seem to think the Nazis had a lot to offer to them, which was true.

Nazism, like many authoritarian ideologies, was held strongest among people who were already familiar with authoritarianism and hierarchies - bureaucrats, policemen, and ex-soldiers.

These people were sympathetic to Hitler's cause from the very beginning, and were crucial to engineer his rise to the top: A pro-Nazi judge allowed Hitler to avoid charges of high treason after a coup attempt; police and local administrations refused to engage SA in their regular battles against socialists and Jewish civilians, allowing the Nazis to effectively control the streets in many larger cities; industrialists like Krupp and Porsche were showering the NSDAP with donations that allowed them to unfurl an unprecedented volume of political propaganda using (what was, back then) high tech methods such as radio speeches or (very popular) surprise visits by airplane.


The Nazis oriented their model of the state along the way German businesses were run: as a small or medium scale proprietary business with an owner-entrepreneur on top of it all. The Führerprinzip is essentially the image of this sole-proprietor leader writ large and transposed onto an entire society.

Nazist conceptions of society and economics were only collectivist inasmuch as they came from a clear separation between the "leader" or "great man" and the masses, with the latters' function being a tool for the former's superior will and intellect. In many ways, Nazism and Fascism can be interpreted as twisted, industrialized versions of Absolute Monarchism.

Yeah, you're definitely coming at this from a Marxist viewpoint. That is not how National Socialists saw themselves or what their ideology promoted.

 

[Tambourine]

Yeah, you're definitely coming at this from a Marxist viewpoint. That is not how National Socialists saw themselves or what their ideology promoted.

The Nazis saw themselves as the force that would purge Jewish "degeneration" from Germany and remove the influence of the Jewish race from the world. Do you actually want to argue from that point of view?

 

[Stevicus]

This is all debatable, but I disagree. I think socialist economics of a sort were popular among the SA, especially. It sounds like you're looking at this from a Marxist perspective. NS isn't really capitalist or socialist, but Hitler was pragmatic in some ways when it came to business. (I'm unsure if it's possible for a totalitarian society to truly be capitalist, in terms of free market capitalism.)

I think there were some nationalists of the 19th and 20th centuries who might have favored some measure of socialism for their own citizenry, while taking a "screw everybody else" attitude when it came to those outside of their home country. Some of it may have been politically practical, as those who had colonial ambitions or dreams of global conquest would have tried to keep the home folks happy.

Marxism tends to take a more internationalist viewpoint, so in that sense, it's incompatible with nationalism. That doesn't mean that a nationalist regime can't run a socialist economy within their own country, but it wouldn't necessarily be totally socialist.

In a practical sense, considering that Hitler was anxious to get started with building up his war machine, some measure of socialism to get the country on a war footing was likely necessary.

 

[Tambourine]

In a practical sense, considering that Hitler was anxious to get started with building up his war machine, some measure of socialism to get the country on a war footing was likely necessary.

One of the first thing the Nazis did after outlawing the SPD and shutting down socialist labor unions, was to reduce social welfare and encourage private charity in its stead. But I grant you that it is easy to see socialist elements in Nazi propaganda if you take their rhetoric at face value and never look at the policies they implemented.