Saturday, December 27, 2008

The Fascist Shell Game

In the early 1920s in Italy, the Fascists and the Communists were rival socialist movements. During the same period in Germany, the Communists and the Nazis were also contenders for socialist revolutionary dominance. The difference between the Communists and the Fascists/Nazis was that the former advocated a world revolution — on behalf of the international proletariat and without regard for national boundaries — whereas the latter proposed to institute socialism for the sole benefit of the Italian and German people, respectively.

To the fascists and the Nazis, Communism was an enemy alien, imported from Soviet Russia and directed by Moscow. But from a doctrinal standpoint, national and international socialism were in broad agreement: it was necessary for a “revolutionary vanguard” to seize control of the government to effect a socialist revolution; there should be state ownership of the means of production to benefit the workers; citizens were obliged to work for the common good under the direction of the state; control of speech and the media was required to serve the aims of the revolution and protect the populace from counter-revolutionary propaganda.

In other words, Nazis, Fascists, and Communists were close competitors in a hard market.

So, eighty years later, it’s no surprise that the “anti-fascists” are functionally indistinguishable from Nazis and Fascists. Once again they represent a vaguely international form of socialism, and much of their doctrinal material and iconography is drawn from the Red Nostalgia archives of their predecessors. The “fascism” that they fight, however, is largely imaginary. The epithet is indiscriminately applied to any organized political resistance to the Marxist agenda advocated by the new bully-boys of the Left.

Concerning the fascistic tactics of the “anti-fascist” squads, consider this article from The Jerusalem Post. I missed the story when it first appeared, just after the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Thanks to Reinhard of FOMI for pointing it out:

German kids, activists destroy anti-Nazi exhibit

Roughly 1,000 pupils and left-wing activists who unlawfully occupied Humboldt University (HU) and some of whom destroyed an anti-Nazi exhibition on Wednesday were reacting to the university’s close ties to Israel, the university president has said.

Christoph Markschies told The Jerusalem Post that one of the protesters in the lobby of the university said “Damn Israel” when asked by another student to “stop” vandalizing the exhibit “Betrayed and Sold,” about the plundering of Jewish businesses under the Nazis.

“Friendship with Israel is part of the HU’s identity,” said Markschies, adding that “no one can tell me that the exhibit was damaged because it was a mistake.”

Markschies had to barricade himself in his office to escape what he called “the mob.” He said that “HU was directly targeted” because of its solid partnership with Israel.
- - - - - - - - -
The university is repairing the damaged displays and plans to remount the exhibition.

HU, which frequently mounts exhibits documenting the persecution of German Jewry in its lobby, has close ties with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and scholars from the Albert Einstein Center of the Hebrew University were at an HU-sponsored symposium in Berlin last week.

Markschies charged the pupils and a group of hardcore leftists known as the “Black Block,” a group that terms itself anti-fascist, with disguising their anti-Semitism as anti-Zionism.

With the appearance of the Black Bloc, we once again encounter our anti-fascist friends (a.k.a. Antifa, AFA, or the Autonomer). These are the anarchist youths who pull black hoods over their faces and take to the streets to combat “racism” — meaning any political opinion that does not advocate an anarchist or socialist revolution.

Malmo demo

We’ve seen the Black Bloc in action previously in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Malmö, and Stockholm. Its preferred tactics include threats, intimidation, vandalism, arson, and general violence, all in the name of combating “fascism”.

Lee Hielscher, a spokesman for a pupil association that participated in the demonstration in Berlin, told the Post that he is currently investigating the eyewitness reports from the protest and was unable to confirm the statement “Damn Israel.”

He said the vandalism and alleged statement were not driven by anti-Semitism, but that the expression “Damn Israel” highlights the “problems of the State of Israel.”

[…]

When asked about the “Damn Israel” statement, Wuchenauer said the statement is not anti-Semitic and simply means it “would it have been more meaningful if the UN had not created two states in 1947 and had integrated the Jews into one state.”

Wuchenauer stressed that the demonstrator was expressing the opinion that creating the State of Israel was a bad decision.

[…]

The ostensible aim of the protest — to increase funding for the educational system — turned into an orgy of political violence.

Several days ago, Germany commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht. Directly across from HU is Bebel Square, the site of an infamous Nazi book-burning spectacle in 1933, when university students at the former Frederick William University, which was renamed Humboldt after World War II, burned the books of Jewish authors.

[…]

Markschies charged the pupils with playing down the violence of the demonstration and invoking a cheap excuse to justify the destruction of the exhibit.

Belinda Cooper, who taught at Humboldt University and is now a fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York, told the Post that, “I think they did a good job of proving their point. If schoolchildren can be so ignorant, they really do need a better educational system.”

Unfortunately, the educational system is merely a reflection of the culture at large. Rioting “pupils” are an expression of the Zeitgeist.

Why Israel? Even if I were to concede the fascist nature of the state of Israel — which I don’t — why is it singled out for absolute censure? What about Iran, China, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia? Why are the blackhoods uninterested in them?

If you believe the party line, this focus on Israel has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. The fact that the tiny nation of Israel is the world’s only Jewish state is mere coincidence. The idealistic anarchists are simply out there combating fascism, which for some reason always has Israel at its center.

It’s no surprise that AFA’s struggle against the twin evils of the United States and Israel lines up perfectly with the ideology of radical Islam. The mujahideen and the anarchists are making common cause against their mutual enemies all across Europe.

Jews in general are targets because they’re associated with Israel. And Israel’s right to existence is denied because of the “legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people”.

European Jews, take note: you’re firmly in the crosshairs. It’s 1938 all over again.

16 comments:

Mystery Meat said...

Adolf Hitler: "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions"
(From a May Day speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland, 1976)

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

I know Christoph Markschies from my time in Germany. He's a brilliant scholar.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

Homophobic Horse said...

The blackhoods are demonic. People feel less responsible for their actions when they're anonymous becase they can't be brought to account for them. Their collective intelligence declines an animal level. Carl Jung noted that several decades ago.

babs said...

“would it have been more meaningful if the UN had not created two states in 1947 and had integrated the Jews into one state.”

I think the result would have been the same. That is that those of Jewish lineage would have exceeded the others in achievement. That is the rub.

Can someone name one society where the Jewish lineage has been allowed to compete freely where it did not exceed the others?
I have a friend that claims the Jews are the "chosen people." In that she means that they are ment to suffer. I counter that they are the chosen people in that they are ment to succeed; they have a superior gene pool, superior culture and a superior educational asperation... People that are programmed to come out on top never go down well with others. Just think about the inborn hatred to those that consistantly succeed. That is the Jews. It is hard to refute that the Jewish state has more nobel laureates, more patents and more technological advances per capita than any other country on the face of the earth.
Everyone hates a winner (if we are to be honest here). The Jews, being such a small percentage of the world population, and basically into taking care of their own business, are the perfect targets for so many disgruntled groups. As they are driven out of European countries, the rest of that society will suffer.
The "Palestinian Territories" are bordered on three sides by Islamic nations; Syria, Jordan and Egypt. When was the last time you heard that a Palestinian was injured and rushed to a hospital in one of those countries? No, they are always sent to a hospital in Israel... The Muslims have had 60 years to build the Palestinian state yet, they have refused to do so. Flush with oil money, the Muslims could have brought education, health care and industry to the Palestinians yet, they refused to do so. Even so, the Palestinians still cling to the politics of the Muslim middle east. I guess they have no where else to go considering how reviled they are by the Islamic states and the west at the same time.
The fantasy that they will someday occupy Israel is just that. Israel is not just bricks and morter, it is the Jewish people doing amazing things in the face of adversity. Muslims would never be able to equal that based on their societal norms. The very fact that other very wealthy Muslim nations choose to do nothing to help these people speaks volumns. Kind of like an abandoned child that still loves his parents.
I am an Irish Catholic and I recognize this.

babs said...

Please forgive the spelling errors. I did not run my comment thru spell check...
In addition, Israel is now also bordered by a 4th Muslim state, that of Southern Lebanon. Again, anyone in need of medical attention by Israel's border is sent to an Israeli hospital. What was once a Christian nation, Lebanon, is now infected with the worst kind of Muslim extremism. Note that living conditions have only gotten worse, not better, under the Muslim Hezbolah regieme... Try as they might to blame this on Israel, it is the Islamic mind set of not caring for the people that has brought such degredation to the country of Lebanon. Can someone please name a Hezbolah medical facility equal to the worst medical facility in Israel? I don't think you can. Lebanon is now a failed state...
What a neighborhood!

Afonso Henriques said...

And me was already ready to divagate about Nazism - Fascism - Socialism - Corporativism - and it's relation to pré-1960s America...

I'll only answer a question.

"Why Israel? Even if I were to concede the fascist nature of the state of Israel — which I don’t — why is it singled out for absolute censure? What about Iran, China, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia? Why are the blackhoods uninterested in them?"

It's simple. It's not Anti-Semitism. It really is not.

What happens is that a substantial part of the Jews come from Europe. And are to some degree more or less European in many, many ways.
And as such, they met the same standards of disaproovement as the other peoples of Europe.
Israel is seen as the last colony of Europe, and they see Israel as more European - or Western, if you prefer - than the others.

So, the thing is not Anti-Semitism but anti-Europeienism, "anti-white" sentiment. It's easy, imagine the Jews were white...

... because to many, they are. When they hit Israel, usually, they are trying to hit Europe. Israel is just the temporary Crusade state.

babs said...

Afonso - Talk about a new twist on things... So Israel is reviled because it reminds the Muslim states of Europe?
That really is a stretch.
Israel is reviled because it is so successful. Israel is hated by the Muslim world because they were able to carve a homeland out of a swamp and desert and make it flourish. More than flourish; they have been able to present the greatest technological achievements per capita of mankind even though they are under constant attack.
Israel is everything the Muslim world is not. That makes everyone angry.

laine said...

I disagree that it is mere envy driving the Palestinian derangement at having Jews in close quarters (though it may have been the case in Germany). It is something even more intractable than that - their religion and their definition of honor.

The Koran has many examples of Mohammed's commands to ostracize and even kill Jews as a result of bitterness at his documented failure to woo the Jews of Medina to his "new improved" religion at a time when he felt weak and vulnerable.

Arab "honor/shame culture" is also poorly understood in the West and surprisingly by Israel. The surrounding Arab countries were so sure they would overwhelm the new apparently weak kid on the block, that they instructed Arabs to depart Israel's borders "temporarily". The humiliation of being beaten by what Mohammed made clear are their inferiors can only be wiped clean by wiping out Israel, not signing pacts with her. Any pacts signed are mere takiya, lying to gain strategic advantage for Allah. Meanwhile, Israel may have won the war, but has lost the PR battle that ensued as Arabs purposely left Palestinian refugees to fester with the collusion of the UN.

Palestinians have evinced no desire to emulate the Israeli standard of living so it's not just a matter of envying the "Joneses". Handed the financial goldmine of Jewish greenhouses by Californian donors as Gaza was turned over to the Palestinians, they reduced them to rubble rather than continue to run them. They have less interest in handing their children clean water and education than a neighborhood free of Jews. They indoctrinate their pre-school age children in Jew hatred with Sesame Street type programming.

Unless Mohammed himself makes a reappearance and says he got it wrong the first time, Arabs and Muslims will continue to consider Jews a burr in their side to be eliminated.

If Jews had realized the intractability of this belief system, they would surely have had second thoughts about moving into an exclusively Muslim and Arab neighborhood. Now the situation is impossible.

As an addendum, Jews in the West are primarily left wing and have strongly aided the establishment of multicult allowing the recent flood of Muslim immigrants.

Another bad miscalculation.

babs said...

Laine - I think you summed it up way better than I might have. The question is where do we go from here? Other than wiping the Gaza and the West Bank off the face of the map, I really don't see a solution. Do you?
I have hoped for many years that "Allah" in the guise of the Saudis would come to the table and offer a solution, the likes of total aid to the Palestinians by fellow Muslims. By that I mean jobs and health care, enforced stability of their gov't, etc. It just doesn't seem to be happening. I don't think any western brokered settlement will have an enforceability... In the final analysis, I guess I believe that only a Muslim power broker will be able to solve this, not the west. And that seems rather unlikely. Maybe if oil drops below $10/barrel will the Arabs be willing to do something about this. I know, it seems strange that I might peg negotiations to oil but I think the lower oil goes the more willing Arab nations might be to entering into a settlement of the Israel/Palestinian problem.
I'm not sure about much of what I say, I only am sure about the fact that this will not be solved by westerners. I don't care how many times Condi or Hillary charge over there, only the Muslim nations will be able to solve this.

Anonymous said...

Let me take this opportunity to again promote Jonah Goldberg's excellent book Liberal Fascism.

Henrik R Clausen said...

For the ideology that drives Hamas etc., I suggest reading the booklet The Nazi roots of Palestinian Nationalism and Islamic Jihad (long title :). It traces the ideological roots of anti-Israeli sentiment (and warfare) to the Third Reich.

The infamous Grand Mufti of Jerusalem plays a key role here - also in deciding that the Arab response to Israeli independence was to be war, not tolerance. Which, in turn, created the refugee problem that the United Nations so merrily has kept alive for 60 years.

You may also want to grab the movie Relentless (online version at Google Video).

It is about anti-Semitism. Believe it or not - I used to consider that sentiment eradicated in May 1945...

Shotgun Ed said...

I hate those auto numbskulls

Afonso Henriques said...

Sorry, but I keep believing I am right.

If you can cease to see the world through an European/American worldview, Israel will not look that singular.

Try to encarnate the muslims and what will stand out is that Israel is the last colony of Europe, and it is - the greatest heresy of all - the reencarnation of the Crusade State on the Holly Land.
Do you think the average muslim, especially in Palestine, cares about what happened between Jews and Europeans?

While Europeans were leaving Africa, Asia and being swallowed demographically in America, "Europeans" or "Westerners" - the Jews - were conquering the Holly Land and kicking every muslim ass.

That's why muslims hate Israel and, right or wrong, I think it is comprehensible.

After the demise of Europe and decolonisation, the Islamic Civilisation was the one that came out more powerfull, even with some altivity - look to Dubai. However, they are the ones who cannot take off that finger stuck right in the eye that Israel is.

AND FUNNY, FUNNY, IS THE SILENCE OF PRESIDENT HUSSEIN.

Profitsbeard said...

Tyrants always march behind a noble sounding name.

But their intolerant tactics always betray them.

Anonymous said...

Laine, Jews did not move into a Muslim & Arab neighborhood, we took back our homeland with force. Nothing was given to us. Then as now the observant Jews understand what is necessary to win in war, as well as the nature of our enemies. Which is why the largely religious pre-state resistance group Lechi was ruthless whereas the Haganah practiced "havlagah" restraint.

As for Jews in the West being Left-wing and having some major part in setting up the current multi-cult insanity, while it may make people feel better to blame the jews. The West was only too happy to destroy itself regardless of the Jews.

See Sweden a country with almost no Jews and yet possibly the most suicidal in the West.

Anonymous said...

Ennio Flaiano, famous Italian screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist and drama critic, wrote: “In Italy, fascists divide themselves into two categories: fascists and antifascists”.