ext_306469 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
paft.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
talkpolitics2010-05-14 12:17 pm
paft.livejournal.com) wrote in talkpolitics2010-05-14 12:17 pm
How Did We Get Here?
Maybe it was Pat Buchanan saying that we didn't need any more Jews on the Supreme court. Maybe it was Lewis Black's hilarious takedown of Glenn Beck's Nazi meme. Maybe it was both things things, combined with the Roger Ebert/Caleb Howe incident, the latest example of the insane, right wing dehumanization which has been becoming more and more "normal." Maybe it's the fact that Arizona has banned ethnic studies in its public schools. Maybe it's the fact that "empathy" is now treated as a dirty word by many right wingers.
Whatever, the reason, I felt the urge this morning to rummage back among my files and find an essay I wrote about a decade ago, about a new mantra I'd begun encountering online -- the too-ridiculous-to-even-refute claim that Hitler was a leftist.
It's worth posting again, and worth reading again, keeping in mind that it was originally written in the summer of the year 2000:
Hitler Was a Leftist": The New Revisionism
Did you know that Hitler was a Leftist? That Africans have been scientifically proven to be inherently less intelligent than Europeans? That Al Gore once said, "Democrats understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child"?
If not, you haven't spent time in the world of Internet Discussion boards, where can be found the arguments, the ideas, and the beliefs that drive much of the predominantly white and young online community. While it is difficult to gauge how seriously the reader is intended to take many of these messages, it is not difficult to see that ideas once considered discredited for good are being repeated online as if they were new and exciting theories. Add to this a disturbing trend towards historical revisionism, and the result is a situation that warrants cautious attention.
When we hear the word "revisionism" most of us think of Holocaust Revisionism. The most extreme reaches of the far right were among the first to understand the usefulness of the Internet as a resource, and as a result it's easy to become distracted by the number of hate groups who have made themselves conspicuous online. Worse, it's easy to ignore the seemingly minor examples of outright untruth that crop up. Next to a statement like "the Holocaust never happened", a statement like "The Holocaust happened, but Hitler was a leftist" seems relatively sane, even harmless.
Repeated once, and on its own, it might be. Repeated often, and at the same time as certain other statements on race, heredity, and political freedom, it is neither. And the claim that Hitler was a creature of the left rather than the right is being repeated often, alongside claims that black Americans are inferior in intelligence to white Americans, the "underclass" is inferior in intelligence to the "elite," and the blacklisting bully tactics of the McCarthy era were warranted.
The most commonly cited origin for the claim of Hitler as a leftist is Austrian economist Friedrich Von Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom." Published fifty years ago, "The Road to Serfdom" rejected the idea that Fascism is capitalistic, and lumped both Stalinism and Nazism together as "collectivism". While "The Road to Serfdom" was well-received by some conservatives, the idea of Hitler as a leftist does not seem to have caught on then, perhaps because both the Third Reich and the years leading up to it were still well within living memory. There were living right-wingers who had to cope with the embarrassment of having embraced Hitler in the 1930s as a fellow enemy of Communism, and living leftists who could look back with pride on having recognized Hitler as a danger long before many other Americans did. The memory of the Nazis flirting with Socialism in the 1920s -- mainly as a ploy to attract workers into the party -- was not outweighed by the memory of Hitler's suppression of unions and hatred of leftists.
This has changed. In a decade or two, the Second World War is going to seem as distant to young Americans as the Civil War seemed to my generation, the issues and debates that surrounded it just as antiquated, the truth just as slippery. Online discussions about Hitler's Germany these days often deteriorate into a wrangle over the significance of the Nazi Party platform from the 1920s with someone who seems less appalled by Nazi mass murder than by the fact that the Nazis incorporated the word "Socialist" into their party name. Discussion of the Social Darwinism, the racism, and the hatred of liberals and leftists that were the hallmarks of Nazism, is successfully avoided.
It can be argued that whether or not Hitler was a leftist is beside the point. Mass murder is mass murder, and leftists in this century have proven themselves to be as willing to commit it as right-wingers. But when the statement "Hitler was a leftist" appears at the same time as other, more familiar untruths, it comes across less as an interesting bit of historical revisionism than an attempt to divorce the name "Hitler" from some of the very theories that inspired his crimes. If Hitler's brutality can be associated, not with racism and Social Darwinism, but with the fact that the early Nazi Party gave lip service to Socialism, then a large hurdle in reintroducing white supremacy and eugenics into the mainstream of political thought will be overcome.
This is not to claim that there is an organized effort afoot to revive these ideas. There does, however, seem to be a disorganized effort. Perhaps, much of what we see on the Internet is merely the product of youth, inexperience, and ignorance, and will evaporate harmlessly as the Internet population ages and mature. But while people do and should have a right to post whatever crazy theory they have on the Internet, it's a good idea to keep track of those crazy theories, and to counter them, at least occasionally, with reason and facts.
Otherwise, we could wake up one morning appalled to discover what has been accepted as the truth, and what has been rejected.
Whatever, the reason, I felt the urge this morning to rummage back among my files and find an essay I wrote about a decade ago, about a new mantra I'd begun encountering online -- the too-ridiculous-to-even-refute claim that Hitler was a leftist.
It's worth posting again, and worth reading again, keeping in mind that it was originally written in the summer of the year 2000:
Hitler Was a Leftist": The New Revisionism
Did you know that Hitler was a Leftist? That Africans have been scientifically proven to be inherently less intelligent than Europeans? That Al Gore once said, "Democrats understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child"?
If not, you haven't spent time in the world of Internet Discussion boards, where can be found the arguments, the ideas, and the beliefs that drive much of the predominantly white and young online community. While it is difficult to gauge how seriously the reader is intended to take many of these messages, it is not difficult to see that ideas once considered discredited for good are being repeated online as if they were new and exciting theories. Add to this a disturbing trend towards historical revisionism, and the result is a situation that warrants cautious attention.
When we hear the word "revisionism" most of us think of Holocaust Revisionism. The most extreme reaches of the far right were among the first to understand the usefulness of the Internet as a resource, and as a result it's easy to become distracted by the number of hate groups who have made themselves conspicuous online. Worse, it's easy to ignore the seemingly minor examples of outright untruth that crop up. Next to a statement like "the Holocaust never happened", a statement like "The Holocaust happened, but Hitler was a leftist" seems relatively sane, even harmless.
Repeated once, and on its own, it might be. Repeated often, and at the same time as certain other statements on race, heredity, and political freedom, it is neither. And the claim that Hitler was a creature of the left rather than the right is being repeated often, alongside claims that black Americans are inferior in intelligence to white Americans, the "underclass" is inferior in intelligence to the "elite," and the blacklisting bully tactics of the McCarthy era were warranted.
The most commonly cited origin for the claim of Hitler as a leftist is Austrian economist Friedrich Von Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom." Published fifty years ago, "The Road to Serfdom" rejected the idea that Fascism is capitalistic, and lumped both Stalinism and Nazism together as "collectivism". While "The Road to Serfdom" was well-received by some conservatives, the idea of Hitler as a leftist does not seem to have caught on then, perhaps because both the Third Reich and the years leading up to it were still well within living memory. There were living right-wingers who had to cope with the embarrassment of having embraced Hitler in the 1930s as a fellow enemy of Communism, and living leftists who could look back with pride on having recognized Hitler as a danger long before many other Americans did. The memory of the Nazis flirting with Socialism in the 1920s -- mainly as a ploy to attract workers into the party -- was not outweighed by the memory of Hitler's suppression of unions and hatred of leftists.
This has changed. In a decade or two, the Second World War is going to seem as distant to young Americans as the Civil War seemed to my generation, the issues and debates that surrounded it just as antiquated, the truth just as slippery. Online discussions about Hitler's Germany these days often deteriorate into a wrangle over the significance of the Nazi Party platform from the 1920s with someone who seems less appalled by Nazi mass murder than by the fact that the Nazis incorporated the word "Socialist" into their party name. Discussion of the Social Darwinism, the racism, and the hatred of liberals and leftists that were the hallmarks of Nazism, is successfully avoided.
It can be argued that whether or not Hitler was a leftist is beside the point. Mass murder is mass murder, and leftists in this century have proven themselves to be as willing to commit it as right-wingers. But when the statement "Hitler was a leftist" appears at the same time as other, more familiar untruths, it comes across less as an interesting bit of historical revisionism than an attempt to divorce the name "Hitler" from some of the very theories that inspired his crimes. If Hitler's brutality can be associated, not with racism and Social Darwinism, but with the fact that the early Nazi Party gave lip service to Socialism, then a large hurdle in reintroducing white supremacy and eugenics into the mainstream of political thought will be overcome.
This is not to claim that there is an organized effort afoot to revive these ideas. There does, however, seem to be a disorganized effort. Perhaps, much of what we see on the Internet is merely the product of youth, inexperience, and ignorance, and will evaporate harmlessly as the Internet population ages and mature. But while people do and should have a right to post whatever crazy theory they have on the Internet, it's a good idea to keep track of those crazy theories, and to counter them, at least occasionally, with reason and facts.
Otherwise, we could wake up one morning appalled to discover what has been accepted as the truth, and what has been rejected.
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
The internment of Japanese and Germans was all FDR's idea. Now argue that FDR was centrist or right-winger so as to not undercut your point.
Re: Wait, what?
I ask because, see, the left actively went on record as opposing right wing acts of racism like lynchings, cross burnings, Jim Crow, etc.
So was the right just as opposed to FDR's Internment of the Japanese?
And did that internment involve torturing and murdering the internees, like the Klan did black Americans, union organizers, etc?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Of course whether or not a given political movement went on record as opposing racism and racist acts is "germane to the point" of how racist that political movement is.
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
The entire time that the lynchings were going on you had things like an anarchist successfully setting off a car bomb in Times Square, another anarchist killing President McKinley, you had the massive unrest caused by the rather more militant Populist and Socialist movements leading up to the Battle of Blair Mountain, you had the string of bombings that gave rise to the phrase Bomb-Throwing Anarchist.
If the Right is to be held responsible for the actions of the White League and the Jim Crow governments, the Left should be made to answer for encouraging the assassination of an American President and actually pulling off a car bombing.
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
In 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation stated that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership".[12] Over $1.6 billion in reparations were later disbursed by the U.S. government to Japanese Americans who had either suffered internment or were heirs of those who had suffered internment
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Now, please answer my questions.
Was that 1988 apology opposed by liberals? What right wing political movement inspired the drive for this apology?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Has the right wing?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
I'm sorry, but can you cite some examples of this and indicate how it qualifies as "racism?"
u: and the typical Leftist condescension to backwards peoples who didn't "progress" in lock-step with Leftist Orthodoxy.
And you're equating that with the klan?
Ridiculous.
Re: Wait, what?
Given that Mao and Stalin used this as a direct excuse to open mass murder of millions (albeit Mao did it unintentionally).....yes.
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
Re: Wait, what?
leftists, throughout most of the 20th century, have actively opposed racism.
Re: leftists, throughout most of the 20th century, have actively opposed racism.
Please cite some examples of vicious leftist racist terrorism in 20th century America that compare with the crimes of the KKK and other right wing terrorists.
Re: leftists, throughout most of the 20th century, have actively opposed racism.
Re: leftists, throughout most of the 20th century, have actively opposed racism.