Communists and Nazis

Is it just me or is there a growing trend? I have noticed more and more conservative right-wing spokesmen (talk show hosts FOX/News people, radio guys...) calling anyone even remotely liberal a communist or a Nazi.

#1

Your question reminds me of the nationally-televised shouting match during the 1968 Democratic Convention, when Gore Vidal called William F. Buckley Jr a "crypto-Nazi." :-)

I don't watch much Fox, so didn't know that conservatives have adopted Nazi as a label for the opposition. Used to be that communist and fascist/Nazi were used as labels for people on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Was just watching Keith Olbermann last night, and apparently he (oops! by 'he' I mean Bill O'Reilly!) has been comparing 'progressive' blogs with KKK and Fascist ones. And then of course, there is Limbaugh.

Since communism is no longer fashionably bad, they had to start using something else to tar us with. It was exactly this sort of thing that drove me to STUDY communism in the first place, contrarian that I am. And therein lies a tale...

This conversation reminds me of those who object strenuously to casual use of terms like nazi and communist. Reminding me that both nazis and communists during their most powerful moments were murdering millions of people, ripping folks out of their homes in the middle of the night and taking them away, never to be heard from again. Last time I looked no one in my neighborhood has been dragged off to a concentration camp.

I think some reasonable discussion of whether the US government is showing some signs of totalitarian behavior, and whether current administration policies on detaining people might border on previous regimes' crimes, is appropriate. But calling political points of view Nazi, fascist, communist, bolshevik, and whatever nasty words come to mind - is just name calling.

I think it is called "rabel rousing" and yes, I think it is past time for concern about the methods being used by the present administration of secretive, divisive manipulation. The slim "majority" of democrates seem to be trying to uncover what has happened, but I don't see much support for them in the "news". The Bush admin appointed great numbers of Bushites to the courts in the very beginning of his 1st term and now we are seeing the widespread outcome of the take over of jurisdiction by a polictical machine. What is the quote; first they came for the Jews, and I did nothing, then the Poles, then me? I watch Keith Olbermann and have not heard him using inflammatory names except in quotes from "right-wingers".

As usual, I agree with Maggie - it`s unhelpful in the extreme to use those words unless they are actually merited.

In the UK, as far as I know, there isn`t the same casual use of that kind of language. There is a more insidous trend of a similar nature, where the right-wing media put forward propositions that we are all vicims of `political correctness`.

I find that among `ordinary people` there`s no great consensus as to what that means, and indeed I cannot imagine many people using the term in day-to-day conversation. I think, however, the general idea may influence people more than they realise. My elderly father often comments that "people ain`t got no freedom now", although as far as I can tell, he does not know of any actual freedoms that have been lost, or of anyone who`s lost them. Similarly, when I worked in a minor area of law enforcement, people constantly complained that they `lived in a police state` or some such, simply because they`d had a minor penalty imposed. I`ve known people who have lived in a police state, and there`s no comparison !

I would take mild exception to the assumption that all `communists` are by implication totalitarian. In the city I come from, a Communist had the casting vote on the city council. (you can find his books on Abe - his name was John Peck ) I knew him personally, and he was a fine man, a decorated war hero and if anything rather too idealistic and gentle-natured for his own good. I`ve also known people who fought (sometimes physically fought) within the old Communist Party of Great Britain (which in fact was always democratically run internally) for the pro-democracy cause.

I don`t really want to bang on about that as it`s not really my problem - I`ve never been a communist and Marxism for me is at most a vehicle for understanding society and not a source of solutions, but I thought I`d mention it.

>2 myshelves:,3,4

Oops, I goofed up above. I was apparently watching Olbermann's video in my head while I was writing the post, and forgot to mention who he was talking about. Bill O'Reilly, of course.

Poke needles in my eyes! Oh, the shame! (bwahahah)

Just to clarify a point, the John Peck I was referring to is probably not the one that`s ended up Touchstoned.

I`ve left it in place regardless, the John Peck who has come up might be glad of the free plug, you never know !

It seems that when people run out of rational arguments they turn to name calling. Just like in grade school they reach out for the most hurtful names. What is more hurtful than the damage done by hateful an murderous regimes?

Hello, I dont watch TV, heck my wife and I dont even own one :) Although I really do like the essence of your questio at heart. Is there an overwhelming sense of labalization of dissent? This, throughout history, has of course been something of a defense mechanism acted out against dissent...even the most rational. I would argue to such a statement either:

1. Why do you call dissenter's Nazis? Are their beleifs paralell or the same to the Nazi party of past and present neo-Nazis?
2. Why do you call dissenter's Communists? Are their beleifs paralellor the same to the Communist's beleifs?
and of course WHY would this be considered in such connotation alluded to...bad?

** I think the last question in (2) is obvious according to Nazism, but as to the original ideals and beleifs of a Socialist system...is it really that bad compared to our present state of "Un-democracy" :)

Cheers all!

Ezekiel J. (Z)

As no-one else has come in on that point, it is worth looking at.

My understanding is that Marx did not have totalitarian sympathies (though he did envisage a temporary `dictatorship of the proletariat`, which he apparently assumed was unproblematic !!!) . However, he assumed that the working class (i.e. the industrialised proletariat) would be his agent of change. Tony Wright in Socialisms quite reasonably assumes this was a largely philosophical assumption, and points out that Marx had little experience of organising working people in the service of left-wing causes.

Lenin, however, had to face the fact that `the workers` don`t in fact automatically become socialists spontaneously. He soon adopted the belief that a vanguard of political activists would be needed to guide the masses in the `correct` direction. Inevitable, `the vanguard` became `the party`, which created the one party state.

I don`t doubt that his successors had little or no interest in such matters anyway, but the framework they inherited was created with those ideas in mind.

The other main failing of Communism as I see it, was the assumption that democratic institutions had no validity as they represented nothing more or less than the interests of the capitalist class.

In the UK, we saw many of the institutions of the old `post-war consensus` dismantled by the right, not the left, and I cannot imagine how the old left never realised that in the real world that was what would happen.

It is quite funny, though, to recall how all the old Trots and Tankys (Stalinists) rushed to defend the existing state that they`d previously vilified, all quite bewildered by the failure of the masses to act according to script.

I often wonder how different Communism would be if Lenin had not been the first 'successful' (ha-ha) practitioner of it. It's pretty clear from his pre-revolutionary career that he would NEVER have relinquished power during his lifetime; he simply didn't think anyone was competent for the job. To gather and keep this power he engineered a criminal takeover of Russia from a legitimate (albeit shaky) government; upon taking power he was fully complicit in all the atrocities of the Civil War, and he set up or condoned all the apparatus of oppression later used so 'successfully' by Stalin.

Lenin's sheer arrogance ensured that all further attempts at practical Marxism were doomed to totalitarianism. Keep in mind, Communism was a 'world' revolution; parties in other countries would lose prestige and support if they criticized the policies of the acknowledged leader of that revolution. Such dependency crippled the Chinese Revolution repeatedly, with the result that Mao became just as arrogant and greedy for power as Stalin.

The perception that all Communist movements were Leninist or Stalinist later poisoned relations between Vietnam and the US, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. This fatal misunderstanding corrupted the politics of the Vietminh to the point where they found themselves committing the same crimes and allying themselves with distasteful allies in order keep their movement together. At least the Vietnamese had a clear and presumably noble purpose: kicking the colonial powers out of their country.

So I guess we have yet to see a real Marxist government (and I'm not sure I want to see one). I don't think Communist opposition parties are a good measuring stick, since you can never tell what a political faction will do once it is in power. By leaving the door open for a 'dictatorship of the proletariat', Marx demonstrated his naivete; few can give up power once they have it.

you say, "you can never tell what a political faction will do once it is in power". I know it is oversimplification however the cliche seems obvious, "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely". I am not aware of any benign dictatorship that really succeeded in not falling into ultimatel oligarchical corruption. Are there some examples where this did not happen?

I understand that, once he was convinced that his own form of socialism had failed in Tanzania, Julius Nyerere admitted it`s failings and stood down voluntarily (at that time, an unheard-of step for an African leader of his generation). That he did so is a tribute to his personal integrity, but doesn`t alter the fact that his project failed.

I imagine something similar applies in the case of Ghana`s Jerry Rawlings.

There are, of course, examples where the legacy is not all bad - Cuba under Castro increased literacy levels and reduced infant mortality, though that doesn`t mean I`d endorse everything they`ve done.

And of course, there have been examples where democratically elected regimes have simply been prevented from showing what they`d do due to outside (normally US) interference - Nicaragua in the `80s, Allende`s Chile.

Having said that, I`m more interested to know, why , in the West, movements adopting a `third way` (neither state centralism or social democracy) never seem to prosper (so far) - one thinks of the UK`s `post-war consensus`, which lasted only a trivial time in historical terms. Or the various parties that have taken such a stance - J B Priestley`s short-lived Common Wealth Party is one such case. Today`s Socialist Party of Great Britain, inheritor`s of the William Morris tradition, though well-respected, achieved humiliatingly bad results in a Scottish by-election recently.

Anyway, I digress (again) , but it is interesting.

I think it is an excellent and timely question. The US of A is desperately in need of more than just the current, in power, two political parties. There is so much more available in political theory, philosophy, methods, etc. The legal system is slowly but surely including mediation. There are third ways.

Very much in agreement with you there.

>14 nickhoonaloon:,15

We sure are. But what?

A lot of the problem, it seems to me, is that there is so much geographic diversity in the members of the two parties: a California Republican bears very little resemblance to a Virginia one, for instance, and ditto for the Democrats.

If you were to compare Arnold Schwarznegger and Hillary Clinton, for instance, you would find that their differences on most issues are trivial, and in fact the Governator is considerably to the left of Clinton on most social issues.

Likewise, in Oregon and Washington it would be almost impossible to elect a rabidly fundamentalist Christian as governor or senator, but in the Deep South this a prerequisite for a successful Republican run.

Any third party is going to have to overcome these regional differences, if only because the elections are so heavily controlled by the states: the most successful non-aligned candidates of the century HAD no organized party, nor had any luck forming them.

Hmm. Make me wonder if something similar could happen in the US. Perhaps some 'balkanization', at least politically? Not that I think political separatism would solve any of our problems.

Isn't the situation in Wales moving this way, also? And how big of a problem (i.e. the autonomy of Scotland and Wales etc.) is it, actually? Does this more left-leaning party in Scotland participate in Labour side coalitions in Parliament, or not?

Uggh. So it is bad. Sounds a lot like the situation within the US Democratic party; it took a royal f__-up on the part of the Republicans in order to give them whatever traction they have now.

Is there any help in the House of Lords on this situation? In the US, the Senate usually counter-balances the influence of regional bias, and I was wondering if there is any analogous mechanism in the UK? Do the Scots and Welsh have extra influence as units in government, or did they vote that away with their autonomy?

So what is the long-term prognosis then, at least as far as left-leaning parties are concerned? Are Scotland and Wales marginalizing themselves because of this, or are they performing a more useful function by giving the Labour party an ideological fall-back position?

This is more or less the role of the Green party in the US right now; they've drawn a line in the sand with some of the more definite liberal issues, and though their voting base is microscopic, a large fraction of Dems would vote for their platform if it had any chance of winning. And if the Right didn't keep using various scare tactics to keep the more wishy-washy segment of the electorate on their side.

Many progressives in the US think that we would be better off if third parties could win proportional representation; but it is unrealistic to think that such a change could be accomplished, and there must be a down-side to such a change.

#19 BGP

I don`t want to sidetrack the main debate, but just to address two misconceptions here.

The (UK) Labour Party of today certainly doesn`t identify itself as a democratic socialist party. That might change under Brown, but I doubt it myself.

"There are very few people..." You would not have to walk far where I live to find people who would, in fact, say exactly that.

This is not necessarily the place to discuss UK politics in any detail, but I`ll just say that, leaving aside the allegations of corruption and nepotism that have dogged them in recent years, in general Labour as it is today is perfectly competent to deal with questions to which social democracy provides an answer. Where it doesn`t, they have been totally at sea.

I still do think the question of why third parties haven`t prospered so far is one that should concern us, and I`d like to know what others think about that.

#25

I also don't want to sidetrack it either, but I must challenge your assertion that the Labour Party of today doesn`t identify itself as a "democratic socialist" party. The words were first included in the revised Party constitution adopted in 1994 and are on the back of membership cards. Of course, many people from varying political standpoints don't think that the Labour Party is socialist in essence, depending on how one interprets the word socialism, but the Labour Party identifies itself as such.

on the substantive point of this thread, it's far too simple for people on various points on the political spectrum to label their opponents as communists or nazis or whatever and there are elements on both left and right who resort to such tactics.

In #25 Nickhoonaloon said,

"This is not necessarily the place to discuss UK politics in any detail,. . ."

LT is swimming with places to discuss US politics. I'm rather enjoying the discussion of British politics and would like to see it continue, somewhere. Please create a group for British politics and see what happens.

Well that`s very kind of you.

There was an attempt to start such a thing in one of the Brits groups, but last time I looked it hadn`t generated much interest, which surprised me.

I`ll have a look and report back.

I did at one point have the idea of a topical debate group separate to this in which people from both left, right and non-aligned could mull things over to their heart`s content, but no-one seemed interested (so far !).

.... it was the `Brits` (as distinct from `Bits for Brits` ) group and nothing much has stirred on that thread lately.

However, our new friend BGP has started a group called Social Democrats and Democratic Socialists, and there is a UK-related thread there which may develop.

28> Must concur here. As an American I am interested in the differences between our institutions and politics and those in the UK, and there are other threads devoted to strictly US politics already. But the original thread is getting lost, for sure.

31> Would any discussion of the Green Party be well-attended? I have to admit that the Greens are where my heart lies (except when the 'pendulum of disgust' swings and I become a libertarian for a few days). I am as much interested in the international Green movement as the US one, though. Would such a thread be viable?

#32

"The original thread is getting lost."

More of a problem with big questions like `fostering democracy` I`d have thought. As far as this threads concerned, we`ve more or less reached a consensus on political mud-slinging, and moved on to broader questions, which seems fair enough"

# "would such a thread be viable"

Something like that would be good. Either a thread on third parties, or one on the green movement in general, or both.

>33 nickhoonaloon:

Yes, 'third parties' sounds like a better idea; if noone else starts one in a few days, I'll go ahead with it.

I`ll keep an eye out for it.

While we`re comparing notes UK/US, maybe someone could clarify something else for me.

I see numerous references in this group to American theocracy.

Nominally, as you probably know, Britain is not only Christian, but a specific form of Christian, i.e. C of E. I don`t think I`ll offend anyone if I say that`s meaningless to most British people.

Have I got it right that America is technically a secular state ? If so, has this secularism ever been more than skin deep ? I ask for all the obvious reasons - "in God we trust" etc.

Leaving aside the de facto situation, do people favour a secular state, or some other approach ?

Having not thought long or hard about this, I can make a couple of observations. I think most "americans" think that everybody should believe in God, and probably a Christian god, with a little bit of tolerance for Jewish god. The rest are more or less seen as foreign but tolerated by polite society. Not so tolerated are atheists who are seen as negative, militant (about atheism), and generally unpleasant people. Agnostics I think are most ignored but if one really gave everybody "the religion test" I'm guessing most people are agnostic, just unwilling to make a big deal about it. Polite people do not talk about sex, politics, religion, or how much money you make. Sad huh? Many a good conversation forgone.

As for people's attitude towards government, I think they hope government is run by good god-fearing people, at minimum ethical. But they suspect its probably not true.

>35 nickhoonaloon:/36 The founding fathers' intentions were at least pretty clear. All of them were god-fearing men, but the 'separation of church and state' and Jefferson's avowal to resist 'tyranny over the mind of man' (and yes, he was talking about the clergy) demonstrate that they at least intended to create a secular state.

Luckily for us, Christians can only temporarily agree on principles and tactics; and I wouldn't discount the more exotic religions, such as Islam, Buddhism, and good old Yankee contrariness to keep us above water.

The Terrorist Next Door is a great book on the very definite ties between fundamentalism, the Right, and tax revolt; readers in the UK may find it a bit unnerving to discover just how deep the theocratic tendency goes.

As for *why* it is so persistent... there are theories.

I belong to one of the smallest Christian minorities in the US. I am a Christian and a democrat (shhhh, don't let deniro know!) although I think the future of the US relies more on the center retaking control from the far right and moderately far left.

I believe that if Jesus was here today, He would be a liberal before He would be a conservative. Most "Christians" believe otherwise though.

I cannot recommend heartily enough John Dean's Conservatives without Conscience for a thorough analysis of this situation. The religious right sees God as the ultimate authoritarian, while liberal Christians see God as a merciful, forgiving God. These two views, while not incompatible are made incompatible by authoritarians. My God or Hell. They are wrong.

38> As a lapsed Catholic my view of Jesus has always been a little remote (all that bloody cross stuff is a bit scary); but I think he definitely would have been a burnt-out crazy hippy guru of some sort; the nice, calm dude that always says something to make you feel better.

Needless to say, this creeps the fundies out no end.

>37 wyrdchao:

Many key founding fathers were actually Deists, and, while the did not like to speak about this in public (for the saw how the public reacted reacted to Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, and other short deistic works), the were quite firm (in their personal correspondence) on the fact that, as they were Deists, they were not Christians. The most famous example is Thomas Jefferson, who actually went out of his way to cut out all of the religious elements of the New Testament to create a text of parables on ethics for him to use as he saw fit. This text was not published during his lifetime, but is now widely read as The Jefferson Bible (a text which was heartily embraced by Unitarians, and is used by all members of Congress who do not bring their own text when they take their oath of office).

>38 geneg: Don't worry, geneg, the relatively far left (be it the militant pacifists, the Greens--as apposed to greens--and the straightforward democratic left) have absolutely no chance of taking power of the party, let alone the nation (all three factions spend more time arguing within their own respective factions and with each other than they do on practical politics). Before that can happen, the general populace has to honestly reeducate itself on the meaning and history of liberalism (that is, they have to understand the center before they can move left), and I just don't know if that will happen in our lifetime.*

And, yes, I did just punctate that last sentance with a nip of scotch...

If I were a drinking woman, I would join you in a nip of scotch.

Don't worry, Maggie,

I'll nip for you!

>40 BGP:

I guess I meant that the founding fathers were Christians (of various kinds) in a social sense. Philosophy is a different cup of tea, and it's nice to know that most of them could keep their faith and their politics separate. If only that attitude was more popular now...

Indeed!

Don't worry BGP, I was working on my second glass of bouron when I read it. Made perfect sense to me.

40> BGP, do the Greens there in Eugene really consider themselves an important part of the national organization? When I was there (late 80's) there was an awful lot of 'talk' (and the Greens didn't really exist at that time) but they seldom went off campus. There were some fringe elements that were chaining themselves up in BLM offices and such. Couldn't be bothered to VOTE, tho...

Hopefully they've developed some more sophisticated tactics, since then.

I'm sure that they certainly consider themselves to be an important part of regional politics (and see region as playing an extremely important role in the national party), but they do not have any practical political victories to champion. The Green movement is by no means tied to campus (that is, they do tend to come out of the woodwork when there is a particular ballot measure that they support), but their collective influence is minor outside of the South Eugene area (and there it's influence is mainly cultural).

That's too bad; not much has changed then. Of course, few students stay around there (what with the state of Oregon higher ed. and the employment situation) after graduation (*dig-dig*). But it doesn't lend much credibility to their message, either; makes it easy for the locals (and the state) to ignore them.

Rats.

This IS a serious problem in Oregon and Washington (the East vs. West thing); you would not believe the talking I had to do to get a GSL for UO (1987). The stigma attached to moving to Eugene was a shock, and probably moved me on my way to dropping my 'genetic' conservatism.