Against Fascism and the Police State
The Agitator (Radley Balko)
Chip Berlet
Cryptome.Org
Cop Watch
Cyberjournal
Cyberjournal Newslog
cyberjournal forum
Green Panthers
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Lobster: Journal of Parapolitics, Intelligence and State Research
Harmonization (Richard K. Moore)
Frank Morales
Javelin Press (Boston T. Party)
Memory Hole (Russ Kick alt. news site)
Orcinus (David Neiwert)
Pro Libertate (William Grigg)
PublicEye.Org
Real ID Rebellion
Rigorous Intuition (R.I. Version 2.0)
Chip Berlet
Cryptome.Org
Cop Watch
Cyberjournal
Cyberjournal Newslog
cyberjournal forum
Green Panthers
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Lobster: Journal of Parapolitics, Intelligence and State Research
Harmonization (Richard K. Moore)
Frank Morales
Javelin Press (Boston T. Party)
Memory Hole (Russ Kick alt. news site)
Orcinus (David Neiwert)
Pro Libertate (William Grigg)
PublicEye.Org
Real ID Rebellion
Rigorous Intuition (R.I. Version 2.0)
posted by Kevin Carson | 10:48 PM
7 Comments:
Chip Berlet may be against fascism, but he's not against a police state. Fascism, in his view, is only a result of classical liberalism. People like Attlee and Stalin and Roosevelt could never, ever bring us to fascism simply by definition: they are on the left, and the left can never, ever be on the right, which is where fascism is. He just cannot be bothered with little facts like Mussolini's socialist upbringing and mutual admiration with Lenin, the socialist roots of nazism, the fact that Hitler and Stalin were allied before they were enemies, or that Hitler dragged Mussolini into war with Stalin.
Thanks for the input on Berlet. I disagree with a lot of his alarmist take on the militia movement and constitutionalist types, but he does have some very good investigative material on the national security state and the intelligence community.
Eric H
You are right about some of what you say, but neither fascism nor nazism grew out of socialism, perhaps you should look into the actual history of the Nazis party, like when they attacked the socialists and communists and when they launched a failed Putsch in 1923 lead by Ludendorff or when they happily allied with the conservative elites who actually gave them power.
Kevin - I agree with you about Chip's take on the security state and intelligence community. Shouldn't you also include in this category The Agitator blog, Radley Balko's documentation of the militarization of police forces, no-knock raids, accidental police shootings, police retaliation, etc.? I almost hate to read it because I end up pissed off and depressed, but I think he deserves wider recognition for his work.
Actually, anonymous, I have extensive files on the history of National Socialism. You can read much of the pro-socialism in Mein Kampf, in which Hitler (not always carefully) differentiates between Socialism and Marxists. In most references to strict socialism (when he is not conflating with Marxism), he speaks positively of it. Hitler's philosophy was primarily anti-semitic, not anti-socialist; he hated communists only because they were associated with Jews (and not incidentally happened to be rivals for the same type of party member: young, disaffected, and prone to violence). In fact, he often spoke of Marxist communism and Manchester liberalism as being two sides of the same Jewish scheme. But Hitler was no original thinker: much of the Nazi philosophy was handed down from German Romanticism by way of people who either influenced, or were themselves, avowed socialists and even Marxists. I recommend a glance at Rohan Butler's philosophical history of the Nazism.
As to whether "the conservative elites who actually gave them power" is a true statement, you must confront the fact that the Nazis won elections at the local level. I suggest Brustein's The Logic of Evil for reference. From our post-WWII perspective, we can say that the Nazis were an obviously bad choice, but to the people of that era (prior to 1933), they didn't offer a program radically different from the mainstream left or right parties. Given the percentage of the vote they were winning after Hitler's release from prison through 1932, they arguably *were* the mainstream. It was a program that was pro-family, pro-German, pro-artisan (small entrepreneur), pro-big business, and pro-working class, much as the generic Republocrat platforms of today are (nationalistic, pro-family, anti-crime, and mostly vague platitudes). The Fuhrer principle was not radically different from what Mussolini, Roosevelt, or Lenin and Stalin were preaching at the time: stop debating, start acting, create a central master plan to fix everything and then enforce that plan.
You might also read something about Mussolini's personal pre-fascist history. He was named after three famous socialists by a father who was a member of the International, he rose within the Italian Socialist party and edited their house organ paper, and admired Lenin. Fascism began as a "Socialism of states", to make states equal with one another, which Mussolini felt was necessary before socialism of men could be successful (he was deeply affected by his experience with WWI). The slide into fascism was all too easy. Joshua Muravchik's Heaven on Earth is a good introduction, and Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is a good companion.
You might also look into how the Freikorps were allowed the freedom that made the Putsch possible, and how the conspirators escaped harsh punishment in a country with a predominantly socialist central government. Hint: who was Rosa Luxemburg?
Unfortunately, too many people seem to believe that Socialism sprung whole and immutable from Karl Marx and is therefore inseparable from what was said about it in Anti-Duhring (the part that became Socialism: Scientific and Utopian). This prevents meaningful dialog about and understanding of the actual roots of fascism, nazism, and communism. Personally, I blame public schooling. Seriously. Teach the kids to fear both socialism (Stalin!) and fascism (Hitler!) as if those were the true and only opposites. I don't believe there is a conspiracy there, but rather there is little encouragement of truly critical thinking.
You're right, Eric, I should add Balko to the links.
Eric H
Screw it I was gonna try and argue this but I can't be bothered. Bottom line Hitler and the Nazis had little socialist influence, in any meaningful use of the word they were its very antithesis.
They were always friendly with the conseravite elites from the beginning, they marched alongside Ludendorff for gods sake and they only came to power because Von Papen and Schliecher managed to persuade Hindenburg to create a conservative gov't with them in charge.
There were strange "socialistic" elements in some of the Nazis leaders purged in the night of the long knives but nothing socialist about Hitler, as long as you use socialist in a way most socialists would of course.
The Nazis were not left-wing. They used socialist and communist rhetoric (as Lenin used anarchist rhetoric) but was being backed by the German bourgeoisie. Wilhelm Reich's "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" is the best analysis I've yet read.
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