What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

George, without wading in on this now repetitive argument, do you truly believe that what a person writes of his own thoughts and beliefs and opinions can give us no clue about what the person really thinks?

I would be the first to say that people can write and say all sorts of things to divert attention from their true convictions or to curry favor and good press.

But do you honestly believe Hitler was doing that with Mein Kamf?

Not at all. However, when confronted with contradictions between what an ambitious but then obscure political figure wrote to gather support in his quest for power and what he actually did after he achieved it - I am inclined to rely more on what he did in power than what he wrote or said during his ascent to it in estimating his real thoughts and beliefs.

I certainly don't know what Hitler was doing or intended when he wrote Mein Kamf - or for that matter when he gave his many speeches assuring his European neighbors he had no territorial ambitions towards Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia or Poland. His subsequent actions revealed many of his previous utterances to have been lies. Do you believe otherwise??

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@Walter Hinteler,

Thank you very much, Walter.

1 Reply

@High Seas,

Allzeit bereit! Wink

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Danke

OK - I'm going to make one last effort to make Okie see reason: Okie, do you see what's humorous in this blog from The Economist?
http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2009/08/the_hitlereconomist_connection.cfm

Quote:

Most of them were angry but sane. But the Lyndon LaRouche fans had a poster showing Barack Obama's face with a Hitler moustache. ...To make matters worse, the LaRouchies had incorporated a recent cover of The Economist into their Obama-bashing collage. It was the one showing the president in a doctor's garb, with a horribly big syringe and the headline "This is going to hurt". It was originally intended to advertise a rather thoughtful leader on health reform. The LaRouchies were using it to make the point that Mr Obama is a Nazi who wants to eliminate those he considers undesirable.

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@okie,

Walter has pointed out some the origins of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. Other posters have pointed out the circle around the Strasser brothers, the „left wing“ of the party, which operated in Berlin and which developed a platform that differed in many points from the political ideology of the Munich group. None of that should be a surprise.

If that's the entire point you wanted to make, that's fine with me.

Hitler later changed the party program which, in 1920, had been proclaimed as „unchangeable“. When pressed to explain the program, Hitler denied on multiple occasions that the point about expropriating private business owner for the good of the community meant that the NSDAP was in favour of collective ownership. When he eventually wrote those changes into the party program, he didn't change the point to „advocate confiscation of property only in some instances“, but to advocate confiscation of property specifically if the owner was Jewish. I doubt that you'll find other socialist manifestos that only advocate collective ownership of the means of production as long as the former owners are Jews. You still ignore the fact that Hitler personally ordered the purge of the „Bolsheviks“ from the NSDAP. You still ignore that these changes in party ideology led the „socialists“ around Strasser to leave the party in 1930. You still ignore the charges they brought forward against Hitler about betraying the original ideas of the party, of having ties to industrialists, of pandering to capitalists, of ignoring the working class, of failing to stand up against the bourgeoisie, of failing to propagate nationalist goals if those had a socialist society as a precondition, of compromising and forming coalitions with conservatives and of threatening and enacting the expulsion of all socialist-revolutionary party members. How do those charges that accused Hitler of betraying socialist ideals figure into your claim that Hitler really was a socialist?

Faced with evidence that contradicts your claims, you fall back to arguing that maybe the points that you've made out to be socialist in nature in the original DAP program really are evidence for what Hitler secretly thought, whereas statements he personally made about the NSDAP firmly standing on the side of private ownership of property, that he wasn't insane to destroy the economy by nationalizing private businesses and that describing certain points in the program as socialist was defamatory propaganda by his opponents maybe meant that he really wanted to institute socialism, at some later point. So far, that's a conspiracy theory you have. Why don't you provide some evidence that Hitler really was in favour of overthrowing the bourgeoisie, of destroying the capitalist model of production and of collective ownership of the land and the means of production by the proletariat?

Also, in regard to the evidence that Hitler formed coalitions with conservative, right-wing and nationalist parties while maligning and denigrating Social Democrats, agitating against Marxism and villainising Communists, you have argued that this was done by the Nazis as "a means to seize power from those that stood in their way". This doesn't answer the question why, if Hitler was a socialist, it would have been Communists, Marxists and Social Democrats who stood in his way. Why didn't conservatives stand up against Hitler? Why did right-wing parties form coalitions with the NSDAP? Isn't socialism a lot more threatening to conservatives than it is to Communists? And what power, exactly, did the KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Communist Party of Germany) hold that Hitler wanted to seize? Again, you're offering a conspiracy theory and then utterly fail to come up with evidence to support it.

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@Foxfyre,

Kampf, too. Btw, I hadn't realized how fashionable Hitler has lately become, not just on posters >

http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:SI7-Svsutjj60M:http://thecynicaleconomist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/change-hitler-obama-lenin.jpg

> but also in new couture collections: boots with everything (including long dresses, which is just plain ugly) leather everything, coats with military cuts and buttons, even hats with large pins looking like decorations! OK, better go and earn some money to pay for my new outfits - bye Smile

1 Reply

@High Seas,

Yes. One of my many flaws is my tendency to write what I see rather than spell checking it.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

George, without wading in on this now repetitive argument, do you truly believe that what a person writes of his own thoughts and beliefs and opinions can give us no clue about what the person really thinks?

I would be the first to say that people can write and say all sorts of things to divert attention from their true convictions or to curry favor and good press.

But do you honestly believe Hitler was doing that with Mein Kamf?

Not at all. However, when confronted with contradictions between what an ambitious but then obscure political figure wrote to gather support in his quest for power and what he actually did after he achieved it - I am inclined to rely more on what he did in power than what he wrote or said during his ascent to it in estimating his real thoughts and beliefs.

I certainly don't know what Hitler was doing or intended when he wrote Mein Kamf - or for that matter when he gave his many speeches assuring his European neighbors he had no territorial ambitions towards Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia or Poland. His subsequent actions revealed many of his previous utterances to have been lies. Do you believe otherwise??

I agree that nobody can know what is in the mind or heart of another and we can do little more than speculate on anybody's motivation to do anything. And--please note my disclaimer here--while I am NOT comparing Barack Obama to Hitler, for instance, Obama has certainly not governed in a way consistent with the speeches and promos he used to get the job.

There was little truth in much of his campaign rhetoric or in many of the promises he made. Did he know he didn't believe those things when he said them? Or was he trying to convince himself?

Did Hitler believe what he said in his self-promoting speeches? Or was he trying to convince himself?

But there are clues in Obama's writings and in some impromptu 'slips of the tongue' as to his view of the world. There are clues in his inability to see Trinity UCC and Jeremiah Wright for the kinds of institutions and people they were despite intimate association for more than 20 years. There are clues in his previous activities and associations, the people he surrounded himself with, the people he used to rise to power, and probably in what he doesn't want us to know about himself in his world view--such clues as to who he really is and how he might be suspected to govern.

It has been so long since I read a translation of Mein Kampf, I don't pretend to remember much of it. (And I didn't enjoy the experience enough the first time to endure repeating it without a very good reason to do so.) But I wonder if there aren't clues as to how Hitler might govern there?

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Here we have the very avatar of what this thread has become. Initially, Okie just wanted to smear all people whom he considered leftists (which is a considerable portion of humanity). Now, however, this has become a poignantly crucial plea on the part of the reactionaries--or would be if it were not pathetic and hilarious at once.

They now want to show that Mr. Obama is Hitler-like. They are denied the gratification of simply dismissing him for his race, they are denied the claim that Mr. Obama is just going to rob the whites in order to benefit the blacks. So they fell back on an accusation to the effect that he is a socialist. That, however, did not inspire sufficient alarm in the populace, so now they've moved on to the National Socialists. Mr. Obama is Hitler redux in this version. The use of fear to motivate the electorate was, or seemed to have been, effective when it was Mr. Bush's handlers attempting to whip up panic among the electorate about the so-called "war on terror." They can't do that with Mr. Obama, and they can't play the race card, so they attempted socialist, and that didn't work, either.

So, they've gone to the next extreme . . . Heil Obama . . . what a laughable, absurd, pathetic, despicable group . . .

1 Reply

@Setanta,

The most amazing thing, is that repeated attempts on the part of their ideological brethren who are less wedded to the idea of smearing their political opponents have completely been ignored, or in many cases, derided.

These posters absolutely, positively cannot admit that they or their ideas are wrong; no matter how much evidence is presented countering their ideological position. It's like they are immune to facts and logic.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Yes, indeed. Asherman, who, while he was actively posting, was the "Grand Old Man" of the right here, came into this thread early on to point out how flawed Okie's thinking was. O'George has consistently attempted to get through to Okie on this one.

They have wasted their time. This is not simply a case of being so wedded to a delusion that one cannot give it up, it is now become Chicken Little writ large: Obama's a Nazi! Obama's a Nazi! . . .

They not only have no sense of proportion, they have no shame . . .

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

George, without wading in on this now repetitive argument, do you truly believe that what a person writes of his own thoughts and beliefs and opinions can give us no clue about what the person really thinks?

I would be the first to say that people can write and say all sorts of things to divert attention from their true convictions or to curry favor and good press.

But do you honestly believe Hitler was doing that with Mein Kamf?

Not at all. However, when confronted with contradictions between what an ambitious but then obscure political figure wrote to gather support in his quest for power and what he actually did after he achieved it - I am inclined to rely more on what he did in power than what he wrote or said during his ascent to it in estimating his real thoughts and beliefs.

I certainly don't know what Hitler was doing or intended when he wrote Mein Kamf - or for that matter when he gave his many speeches assuring his European neighbors he had no territorial ambitions towards Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia or Poland. His subsequent actions revealed many of his previous utterances to have been lies. Do you believe otherwise??

Okay, if I have this correct, here is where the debate stands. I am wrong because I have used information from Mein Kampf as perhaps a primary or the primary source of determination of Hitler's beliefs, because it was all a bunch of falsehoods about what he believed. Also, the 25 points of the Nazi Party mean nothing, because supposedly Hitler governed completely the opposite way. Is that now the argument held forth here by those that disagree with me, even including you, George?

I somehow find it totally incredible that a document, or a book for example, written by a politician is totally discounted, written off, as meaning nothing. And also the original platform of the party that the politician belonged to is also totally written off as meaning nothing, because supposedly the politician governed totally differently. I am curious, is that the belief of historians in general, that Mein Kampf and the Nazi Party 25 points mean absolutely nothing in regard to what Hitler believed, or is that just an abberation of this forum?

I do know that Hitler was a pathological liar, but personally I do not think he chose Mein Kampf as a vehicle to intentionally write lies, I actually think he wrote alot of the stuff in there that he did believe, George, after all, alot of it does more than hint at the hatreds and biases that he held. I do think it was a lousy piece of literary work, as he was not that much of a genius, but that does not discount what he wrote as being intentionally false.

2 Replies

@okie,

okie, That's because something written before they become the head of state changes, and political pressure is the reality of politics. That should be evident from the politics at home where the candidates rarely keep any of their promises made during the campaign. Maybe, you still haven't noticed this phenomenon.

How old are you?

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@okie,

okie wrote:

Okay, if I have this correct, here is where the debate stands. I am wrong because I have used information from Mein Kampf as perhaps a primary or the primary source of determination of Hitler's beliefs, because it was all a bunch of falsehoods about what he believed. Also, the 25 points of the Nazi Party mean nothing, because supposedly Hitler governed completely the opposite way. Is that now the argument held forth here by those that disagree with me, even including you, George?

No !

You are assuming there can be only two possibilities here; (1) Mein Kampf was either totally deceitful in terms of Hitler's beliefs at the time he wrote it, or (2) It was totally accurate. The truth is none of us knows for sure what he really believed when he wrote it. The gross contradictions between many of his very serious assurances & statements and what he actually did, strongly suggest that some of it was intentionally deceitful, but we can't be sure what.

Equally importantly, you steadfastly ignore the known actions he took (and didn't take) when he exercised power, and the many contradictions between them and specific portions lifted out of context from his book.

What was Hitler? Do you mean the author of the words you lift out of context? Or the real person whose actions are well known? Most historians (and most of us) give priority to the known actions of historical figures, as opposed to things they wrote or said - particularly those taken out of the context in which they were created.

okie wrote:

I somehow find it totally incredible that a document, or a book for example, written by a politician is totally discounted, written off, as meaning nothing. And also the original platform of the party that the politician belonged to is also totally written off as meaning nothing, because supposedly the politician governed totally differently. I am curious, is that the belief of historians in general, that Mein Kampf and the Nazi Party 25 points mean absolutely nothing in regard to what Hitler believed, or is that just an abberation of this forum?

You are again hiding behind absolutes, perhaps as a means of defending the indefensible. I don't think any of your critics here has suggested that Hitler's writings should be "totally discounted, written off..." as you described. Instead they took note of his real actions and gave primacy to them. With respect to the "platform of the party", history is pretty clear that Hitler used the NDSP to acquire power, and more or less cast it aside once he got it. Indeed he had a fairly large number of Party leaders imprisioned or killed.

okie wrote:

I do know that Hitler was a pathological liar, but personally I do not think he chose Mein Kampf as a vehicle to intentionally write lies, I actually think he wrote alot of the stuff in there that he did believe, George, after all, alot of it does more than hint at the hatreds and biases that he held. I do think it was a lousy piece of literary work, as he was not that much of a genius, but that does not discount what he wrote as being intentionally false.

You are selecting, distorting and ignoring facts to fit your preconceived conclusions. Reread what you wrote above. Hitler was a pathological liar, but sometimes he spoke the truth. Though he was no genius and Mein Kamph is a lousy piece of literary work, the suggestion that it was intentionally false is necessarily wrong.

All illogical, self-contradictory nonsense !

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@georgeob1,

georgeob, I like your explanations over mine, because your's speak directly to the issues that should be addressed concerning Mein Kampf's as a political text vs his actual actions once in office. okie has the bad habit of seeing everything by his myopic lens without considering the global picture of any reality. He's unable to see all the in-between from the writing to the actual actions taken and arrives at extreme conclusions nobody else sees.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

All illogical, self-contradictory nonsense !

George, I respect your opinions, so I admit to being surprised at your opinion here. I reject your accusation of being illogical and contradictory. I think that you and others are bordering on contradictory here, and nonsensical.

First of all, everyone knows Hitler was a liar and one mixed up person, but lying is generally done at times of necessity, and I do not believe it naturally follows that Hitler had to lie in Mein Kampf. I would not claim he did not lie at all, but I do not think it was a total collection of intentional lies at all, I believe he actually thought it was a brilliant piece of work to express his beliefs about the political world and how it could be fixed. Never mind that it was not, at least in my opinion, I think it was written in a very disorganized fashion, almost childish in my opinion, but that does not discount its importance as a document. In fact, I think it offers one of the most credible sources to try to figure out what was going in the man's mind.

So I reject your assertion that because an action, or a few or of his actions supposedly contradict what he wrote, that it means the document has little importance in regard to telling us what the man thought. I think that is a ridiculous statement on its face. I believe it tells us a tremendous amount about what motivated him, his hatreds and biases, and his beliefs. And in regard to his actions, I would need more specific examples or proof that he did contradict what he wrote as a pattern of behavior, to convince me that the document is next to useless. I just do not think that is a reasonable argument at all, it is totally illogical, the very thing you are accusing me of.

You also accuse me of lifting his words out of context, I am sorry but I think some words speak pretty clearly, they provide their own context. They stand as stark examples of what he said. I would have to ask you to cite specific examples of how you think I have distorted the meaning of what was said, as I don't think I have done that.

Now in regard to the Nazi 25 points. You claim he only used this party to rise to power, then cast it aside. But you are missing one of the most important points here, perhaps I have not emphasized it enough, we are not just talking about Hitler, although I think he was clearly a leftist, but one of the assertions I made is that leftist politics provides the most fertile ground for ruthless dictators to arise out of, and this is the fertile ground that existed when he rose to power. Ican has pointed this out numerous times, as have I, that one of the central beliefs of this party was "COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD." It is plain and clear as day that this is leftist in philosophy if compared to the left right scale as seen today, at least here, and I have been clear this is the context I was using.

The "COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD" is but one of many proofs of what the Nazi Party was all about. Sheesh, are you going to now try to say this has no bearing on Hitler at all, he did exactly the opposite? Perhaps he never believed it either? I think you are running yourself out on a pretty long limb, George, when you try to make that argument.

As to Hitler imprisoning or executing a large number of party leaders, I don't believe that was due altogether to big disagreements in left or right leaning policy as much as it was the elimination of people that saw how dangerous he was and began to provide some resistance to it, don't you think?

I don't know where we can go from here if we throw out Mein Kampf and the Nazi Party 25 points. Sure, I am interested to hear how his actual policies indicate he was a right winger, but I haven's seen much yet. Actually, if you want to get right to the core of it, Hitler was all about the "common good" of Germany, hey thats why he set about to get rid of millions of individuals, he could not have cared less about individuals, it was all about him and Germany. And the man believed in centralization, not local authority, or smaller government, no way. I think he instituted price controls, not a conservative idea in my opinion. Public works was also big, wasn't it? Not exactly a conservative bastion of activity, in fact FDR stands as the icon of public works in the history of the U.S., and Obama's idea of stimulating the economy is much along this same line, in opposition to right wing or conservative policy.

And I think, George, this is a key point in my argument, Hitler may have blamed the troubles of Germany on the Jewish capitalists? Capitalism and Jewry was linked in his mind. From what I have read, I think he hated them both. Actually, who comes to mind in the last few years right here in our own country that has been caught on tape railing against the evils of capitalism and Jews? Obama's own minister and mentor, the very Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

1 Reply

@okie,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1194194/Has-historian-finally-real-reason-Hitlers-obsessive-hatred-Jews.html

1 Reply

@okie,

You make post after post claiming that Hitler was a leftist and a socialist, ignore any evidence to the contrary, and then you yourself come up with an article that says Hitler hated the Jews because he blamed them for the Russian revolution, for Bolshevism, for their role in the revolution that led to the Munich Republic of Councils... and because he hated Leon Trotsky, Karl Marx and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin?

Look, nobody is claiming that Hitler was a free-market libertarian, but doesn't this at all kind of make you doubt your earlier assessment that he was a leftist?

1 Reply

@old europe,

oe, I have always recognized from the very beginning that Hitler fought the communists and that his brand of politics was divergent from theirs. I have simply argued that given a spectrum of left vs right, Hitler falls to the left side. He was not as far left as the purely socialist or communist way of state ownership of all industry and production, but that does not indicate him to be a right winger or conservative at all. I believe Hitler advocated a nationalistic form of socialism, wherein some private enterprise was allowed, but only to be highly regulated and directed by the State, for the "common good." And other functions were only to be handled and administered by the State. Sort of a hybrid of the two, which cannot place Hitler to the right of a conservative right wing free market society at all. Perhaps you have misunderstood this debate from the very beginning? I do not believe I have been inconsistent in this explanation at all.

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@okie,

Trying to modify your stance, okie? LOL

Now, let's see; you called Obama a hitler and socialist. There's a problem now, isn't there?

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