4 ms·

And the same was true of the United States, pre-WWII. While I certainly heard a lot in school about our victorious rescue of Europe from the claws of the Nazis,

And the same was true of the United States, pre-WWII. While I certainly heard a lot in school about our victorious rescue of Europe from the claws of the Nazis, little was I told about our cultivation of eugenics and scientific racism. Or anti-Semitic industrialists like Henry Ford allying themselves with Hitler. The turning away of Jewish refugees. Charles Lindbergh and the American Nazi Party. How would the US be different today if we understood our own complicity in fomenting fascism ideology in the aftermath of WWII?

digi_owl 10y ago
There are times it feels like outside of the USSR's involvement, WW2 was a battle between various fascist interpretations.
- flexie 10y ago
  Communism shared the totalitarianism, militarism and racism (incl antisemitism) of fascism. Communist art looked a lot like nazist art. Flags and banners too. So did the way their soldiers marched. The way individuals just didn't matter. When you go to the far right you end up at the far left, and vice versa.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
    Yes, for example the far left "anti-fascists" in the US are the ones that are assaulting people for their beliefs and using violence to suppress free speech. However, because they are leftists, the left has not unconditionally condemned their actions. Remember, that both the far left and the far right are dangerous. For all the talk currently about fascism, it was Communism in the 20th century that produced the most death, suffering, and misery.
    - mannykannot 10y ago
      The count of bodies and misery on both sides - if there were really two distinct ideological sides - is so appalling that making an issue of the difference ends up looking like you are excusing the side with the lesser.
    - mnyary 10y ago
      The Great War (WWI) was a 20th century event?
      - jt2190 10y ago
        Yes. Confusing as it is, the first digits of the current year (2017) don't align with the current century (21st) because we started counting centuries at one, not zero. e.g. 1 A.D. / 1st, 100 A.D. / 2nd, 1000 A.D. / 11th, etc.
    - ue_ 10y ago
      >Remember, that both the far left and the far right are dangerous. For all the talk currently about fascism, it was Communism in the 20th century that produced the most death, suffering, and misery. The idea that regimes claiming to be Communist or even Socialist killed many does not lend credibility to your claim that the far-left is dangerous; you seem to be taking issue more with the tactics that were employed, and furthermore teetering on the edge of a 'golden middle' fallacy - of course the extremes are dangerous, we should just stay in the middle which has always been fine, right? Centrism has this strange tendency to throw out valid complaints from either "side" (if we really must classify political thought into left and right) in favor of maintaining the status quo. Centrism supports capitalism, which is why as a Communist I'm against it.
    - mschuster91 10y ago
      > Yes, for example the far left "anti-fascists" in the US are the ones that are assaulting people for their beliefs and using violence to suppress free speech. No. Antifascists primarily protect those unprotected by the state from being assaulted by those claiming the "supreme white master race". We protect the democracy because fascists will use the institutions of democracy to dismantle it - look at Hitler for what already happened, and look at Breitbart for what happens now. What Steve Bannon is calling for is, essentially, the destruction of the state. There is no worth in trying to discuss with outright fascists, they will not stop unless they are stopped. And for the most radical of the bunch, like Spencer, yes, this includes violent solutions.
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    I think things make a lot more sense if fascism is recognised as a far-left ideology: the notion that it's "far right" doesn't really make any sense when examined and so we should really just question if it's been misclassified - possibly deliberately. Mussolini himself said that fascism was basically a form of socialism, and his beef with socialism was more that - at one time - it had an internationalist and interventionist outlook. That didn't last long before "Socialism in one country" came along though and at that point the distinction between fascism and socialism largely disappears. After all, what are the characteristics of the right? I'd say a preference for free markets over state intervention, a reverence for tradition, desire for a strong military, a leaning towards democracy and localism, and a general sense that government should do less. Would a far-right society then not be something like anarcho-capitalism? Whereas under Mussolini about 75% of Italian industry was state controlled and arguably fascism is about the fusion of the state and industry into a single whole (hardly distinct from bulk nationalisation). I'm not sure there are any examples of far right societies in the 20th century, although perhaps Victorian England and the early years of the independent USA could be described that way.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      Attempts to affiliate fascism with the far-left and the far-right are among the oldest tricks in the rhetorical book. Better to see fascism as what it is, sui generis: militant, centralized, starkly authoritarian governments animated by populist nationalism. Since most of what defines fascism are points along a different axis than the distributive effects of an economy, I think it's a good idea to be suspicious of people who attempt to use fascism as an argument about economic systems.
      - flexie 10y ago
        Communist societies had less redistribution than many modern social democratic countries and even less than the US. They distributed to the party elite, sure, and kept everybody else poor. Forget about ideological differences. Talk is cheap. Instead look at how the societies actually played out: almost the same way. Your list of what defines fascism describes communism as well, except maybe for nationalism. And I am not even sure about that.
  - ue_ 10y ago
    This is simply rubbish; it's based on some circular view of politics in which you just go round in a circle if you go in any one direction. It's silly and ahistorical to think this way. And a horshoe-theory like truism doesn't make your point valid. Yes, Stalinism shared many elements with fascism, but saying "Communist art looked the same" doesn't really add to your point, and just makes me suspect the credibility of your point. I'm interested in what you see as the racism existing in the USSR (I'm being charitable and assuming you are referring to the USSR rather than Communism in general, as Communism in general is not a racist ideology). I have to admit that I know very little about racism in the USSR. How does Communism share totalitarianism in general? It is the very process of advocating the abolition of the state and all unjust hierarchies. It is anarchistic by nature. >The way individuals just don't matter In what way? Drawing these parallels is nothing more than saying "fascists and Communists both drink water, that means that they're the same". Please provide some evidence or credibility to your claims about Communism other than a very restricted view of the political continuum.
    - pmoriarty 10y ago
      "I'm interested in what you see as the racism existing in the USSR ... I have to admit that I know very little about racism in the USSR." See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Uni... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14018908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14018908

digi_owl 10y ago

There are times it feels like outside of the USSR's involvement, WW2 was a battle between various fascist interpretations.

flexie 10y ago
Communism shared the totalitarianism, militarism and racism (incl antisemitism) of fascism. Communist art looked a lot like nazist art. Flags and banners too. So did the way their soldiers marched. The way individuals just didn't matter. When you go to the far right you end up at the far left, and vice versa.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y ago
  Yes, for example the far left "anti-fascists" in the US are the ones that are assaulting people for their beliefs and using violence to suppress free speech. However, because they are leftists, the left has not unconditionally condemned their actions. Remember, that both the far left and the far right are dangerous. For all the talk currently about fascism, it was Communism in the 20th century that produced the most death, suffering, and misery.
  - mannykannot 10y ago
    The count of bodies and misery on both sides - if there were really two distinct ideological sides - is so appalling that making an issue of the difference ends up looking like you are excusing the side with the lesser.
  - mnyary 10y ago
    The Great War (WWI) was a 20th century event?
    - jt2190 10y ago
      Yes. Confusing as it is, the first digits of the current year (2017) don't align with the current century (21st) because we started counting centuries at one, not zero. e.g. 1 A.D. / 1st, 100 A.D. / 2nd, 1000 A.D. / 11th, etc.
  - ue_ 10y ago
    >Remember, that both the far left and the far right are dangerous. For all the talk currently about fascism, it was Communism in the 20th century that produced the most death, suffering, and misery. The idea that regimes claiming to be Communist or even Socialist killed many does not lend credibility to your claim that the far-left is dangerous; you seem to be taking issue more with the tactics that were employed, and furthermore teetering on the edge of a 'golden middle' fallacy - of course the extremes are dangerous, we should just stay in the middle which has always been fine, right? Centrism has this strange tendency to throw out valid complaints from either "side" (if we really must classify political thought into left and right) in favor of maintaining the status quo. Centrism supports capitalism, which is why as a Communist I'm against it.
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    > Yes, for example the far left "anti-fascists" in the US are the ones that are assaulting people for their beliefs and using violence to suppress free speech. No. Antifascists primarily protect those unprotected by the state from being assaulted by those claiming the "supreme white master race". We protect the democracy because fascists will use the institutions of democracy to dismantle it - look at Hitler for what already happened, and look at Breitbart for what happens now. What Steve Bannon is calling for is, essentially, the destruction of the state. There is no worth in trying to discuss with outright fascists, they will not stop unless they are stopped. And for the most radical of the bunch, like Spencer, yes, this includes violent solutions.
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  I think things make a lot more sense if fascism is recognised as a far-left ideology: the notion that it's "far right" doesn't really make any sense when examined and so we should really just question if it's been misclassified - possibly deliberately. Mussolini himself said that fascism was basically a form of socialism, and his beef with socialism was more that - at one time - it had an internationalist and interventionist outlook. That didn't last long before "Socialism in one country" came along though and at that point the distinction between fascism and socialism largely disappears. After all, what are the characteristics of the right? I'd say a preference for free markets over state intervention, a reverence for tradition, desire for a strong military, a leaning towards democracy and localism, and a general sense that government should do less. Would a far-right society then not be something like anarcho-capitalism? Whereas under Mussolini about 75% of Italian industry was state controlled and arguably fascism is about the fusion of the state and industry into a single whole (hardly distinct from bulk nationalisation). I'm not sure there are any examples of far right societies in the 20th century, although perhaps Victorian England and the early years of the independent USA could be described that way.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Attempts to affiliate fascism with the far-left and the far-right are among the oldest tricks in the rhetorical book. Better to see fascism as what it is, sui generis: militant, centralized, starkly authoritarian governments animated by populist nationalism. Since most of what defines fascism are points along a different axis than the distributive effects of an economy, I think it's a good idea to be suspicious of people who attempt to use fascism as an argument about economic systems.
    - flexie 10y ago
      Communist societies had less redistribution than many modern social democratic countries and even less than the US. They distributed to the party elite, sure, and kept everybody else poor. Forget about ideological differences. Talk is cheap. Instead look at how the societies actually played out: almost the same way. Your list of what defines fascism describes communism as well, except maybe for nationalism. And I am not even sure about that.
- ue_ 10y ago
  This is simply rubbish; it's based on some circular view of politics in which you just go round in a circle if you go in any one direction. It's silly and ahistorical to think this way. And a horshoe-theory like truism doesn't make your point valid. Yes, Stalinism shared many elements with fascism, but saying "Communist art looked the same" doesn't really add to your point, and just makes me suspect the credibility of your point. I'm interested in what you see as the racism existing in the USSR (I'm being charitable and assuming you are referring to the USSR rather than Communism in general, as Communism in general is not a racist ideology). I have to admit that I know very little about racism in the USSR. How does Communism share totalitarianism in general? It is the very process of advocating the abolition of the state and all unjust hierarchies. It is anarchistic by nature. >The way individuals just don't matter In what way? Drawing these parallels is nothing more than saying "fascists and Communists both drink water, that means that they're the same". Please provide some evidence or credibility to your claims about Communism other than a very restricted view of the political continuum.
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    "I'm interested in what you see as the racism existing in the USSR ... I have to admit that I know very little about racism in the USSR." See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_Uni... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14018908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14018908