8 ms·

The history of the original Antifa and its founder Ernst Thälmann is also well worth a read. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2018/10/how-left-enabled

The history of the original Antifa and its founder Ernst Thälmann is also well worth a read. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2018/10/how-left-enabled-fascism https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2018/10/how-left-e...

the-dude 6y ago
The article touches on the 'moderate left', which was seen as a bigger threat than the right ( were the Nazi's rightwing? I dare to question ). However, since the fall of the USSR, the 'moderate left' in Western Europe seemingly have lost interest in the classic ideals, bowed to neo-liberalism and found alternative ideals. So maybe he was not wrong after all. edit: posted under wrong parent before. I deleted and reposted.
- 4ggr0 6y ago
  Why would the Nazis not be rightwing?
  - gerland 6y ago
    Depends how you define right wing. Were the nazis totalitarian? Yes, but so was the CCCP. Were they socialists. Definetely yes. Were they catholic, or even christian. Not at all. If you say that the republicans are right wing, then it's hard to put nazis on the same plate. The meaning of the term right-wing changed a lot in the last 100 years. If you trace back to Spain during the Franco reign, then you will quickly realize, that a lot of the people fighting for republic were in fact far left (including notably some anarchists). Basically the whole republic concept was considered to be a lef-wing thing (and it was for the time). Were nazis right-wing? At that time yes. Are nazis right-wing in the modern meaning of right-wing? Definitely not, those two have nothing in common.
    - 4ggr0 6y ago
      https://www.quora.com/Was-Hitlers-Nazi-party-left-wing-or-right-wing https://www.quora.com/Was-Hitlers-Nazi-party-left-wing-or-ri... https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-needs-stop-falsely-claiming-that-nazis-were-socialists/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-need...
      - gerland 6y ago
        Have you even read this quora answer? It pretty much tells outright that the nazi party was not right wing. Edit: I would recommend less Twitter and Netflix and more L. Wittgenstein.
        kgarten 6y ago
        In the top rated answer : "The Nazis were a far right party" Don't read Wittgenstein if you have trouble with simple sentences. Right wing politics from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics "right-wing politics represents the view that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,[1][2][3] typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, or tradition." If you define yourself as master race ... hmmm ... natural hierarchies pretty much. Also why do they have such a big following under the right extremists and white supremacists in the US? Edit: I would recommend Hitler's Mein Kampf and Marx and Engels "A Manifest of a Communist Party" for you.
        gerland 6y ago
        You're just a troll, right? There is no way you could write stuff like that otherwise. The most upvoted comment is the one from [Bill Bradley, Design Engineer]. The one you are referring to is from [Alexander Nachaj, PhD Candidate, Lecturer, and Digital Marketing Specialist], which you can see if you scroll some way down. You pretty muich chose the comment that fits your narrative. Talking about a confirmation bias. Don't put words in my mouth you stupid fuck. Go strawman people somewhere else. I will not recommend you to read anything, since you clearly have problems reading.
  - candiodari 6y ago
    https://aeon.co/ideas/fascism-was-a-right-wing-anti-capitalist-movement https://aeon.co/ideas/fascism-was-a-right-wing-anti-capitali... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_People%27s_Welfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_People%27s_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front "The Nazi social welfare provisions included old age insurance, rent supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, old-age homes and interest-free loans for married couples, along with healthcare insurance, which was not decreed mandatory until 1941.[8] One of the NSV branches, the Office of Institutional and Special Welfare, was responsible "for travellers' aid at railway stations; relief for ex-convicts; support for re-migrants from abroad; assistance for the physically disabled, hard-of-hearing, deaf, mute, and blind; relief for the elderly, homeless and alcoholics; and the fight against illicit drugs and epidemics".[9] The Office of Youth Relief, which had 30,000 branch offices by 1941, took the job of supervising "social workers, corrective training, mediation assistance" and dealing with judicial authorities to prevent juvenile delinquency.[10]" Nazi's are the source of many of todays social accomplishments. They may not have been the originators of old age pensions, but they were the first to bring them in on a large scale. Pensions for disabled, same. Rent-control, social housing, ... And while the NSV was disbanded and recreated from scratch (it still unofficially exists, especially outside of Germany), this is not true for various social welfare organisations in Europe, who find their origins ... with the Nazis and were never disbanded due to lack of alternative (lack of alternative because the Nazis disbanded every other welfare organisation whenever they got a chance, but still. Also the Nazis disbanded welfare organisations by making them part of the NSV and absorbing them into that organisation. If one is truly honest, this was generally an improvement until 1943 or so. And while European states were keen to take control of their local single welfare organisation, they weren't keen on splitting it up again). It doesn't stop there. As is well known, the Nazi state was not friendly, at all, to capitalists (in fact this was one of the main supposed problems with the Jews. Early on the enemy was "Jews and Bankers". Not exactly laissez-faire rhetoric ...) Currently the general explanation is that when it comes to extremes, extreme-left and extreme-right aren't actually that different. It is moderate left and moderate right that have a big gulf between them. (extreme and moderate by 1940's standards, not today's) Unfortunately while the Nazis were an unparalleled evil in history, the world isn't so simple that that means they only did bad things. One might even say that both the war and the endlosung were, at least, partially driven by desperation on part of the Nazi government. Desperation, because their social welfare state was fast collapsing. Nothing can justify the choices they made after that (to, for instance, kill off the "worst" of the disabled, even children, as a cost-saving measure). But if you want to build an argument that they were forced into those choices, it's not going to be very hard. WW2 and the Holocaust kept Nazi's in power for 5 years or so longer than they would otherwise have been. It was a choice between war and atrocities or losing the state that was providing food, loding, and everything for close to half the population. Obviously the modern left does not like to call attention to that USSR and Nazi (and other) atrocities happened, in some small part, to enable social welfare. It may not be a reasonable criticism of today's policies, but anyone can see too many people will see it that way. I shudder to think how Trump would use this argument. And we all know, if it was the least bit popular, he would.
  - jonhohle 6y ago
    * cancel culture * eugenics * totalitarianism * anti-free market capitalism * gun control
- gerland 6y ago
  The problem with far left (or far right) formations, is that their biggest oponent is not the far right. It's the moderate left. Almost no one from far left starts outright supporting far right, but a lot of people "seep in" to more certer oriented views as they age. Also the only way to get into places of power in a "attention economy" is to be more radical than all the rest. Most people do not have any political views at all. The "silent majority" is a myth. Those are people that will just bend to anything that is mainstream, while complaining about this at home. The reason for that is that they do not have an integrated political view that is sufficienty important. It's just a third rate thing, while for the radicals it's the most important thing in the world. Political environment is developing based on movement. If there is no shift, there is no place for people to make careers, that's why no one who is seriuous about being a politician will stick to defending the center. An attack position will always yield better result than a defensive one. You do not have to have answers to all the possible problems, in reality you do not have any answers at all, just prove that your oponent does not have answers to SOME problems. It's a game that we cannot avoid playing and a game that makes everyone lose in the end.

the-dude 6y ago

The article touches on the 'moderate left', which was seen as a bigger threat than the right ( were the Nazi's rightwing? I dare to question ). However, since the fall of the USSR, the 'moderate left' in Western Europe seemingly have lost interest in the classic ideals, bowed to neo-liberalism and found alternative ideals. So maybe he was not wrong after all. edit: posted under wrong parent before. I deleted and reposted.

4ggr0 6y ago
Why would the Nazis not be rightwing?
- gerland 6y ago
  Depends how you define right wing. Were the nazis totalitarian? Yes, but so was the CCCP. Were they socialists. Definetely yes. Were they catholic, or even christian. Not at all. If you say that the republicans are right wing, then it's hard to put nazis on the same plate. The meaning of the term right-wing changed a lot in the last 100 years. If you trace back to Spain during the Franco reign, then you will quickly realize, that a lot of the people fighting for republic were in fact far left (including notably some anarchists). Basically the whole republic concept was considered to be a lef-wing thing (and it was for the time). Were nazis right-wing? At that time yes. Are nazis right-wing in the modern meaning of right-wing? Definitely not, those two have nothing in common.
  - 4ggr0 6y ago
    https://www.quora.com/Was-Hitlers-Nazi-party-left-wing-or-right-wing https://www.quora.com/Was-Hitlers-Nazi-party-left-wing-or-ri... https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-needs-stop-falsely-claiming-that-nazis-were-socialists/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-need...
    - gerland 6y ago
      Have you even read this quora answer? It pretty much tells outright that the nazi party was not right wing. Edit: I would recommend less Twitter and Netflix and more L. Wittgenstein.
      - kgarten 6y ago
        In the top rated answer : "The Nazis were a far right party" Don't read Wittgenstein if you have trouble with simple sentences. Right wing politics from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics "right-wing politics represents the view that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,[1][2][3] typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, or tradition." If you define yourself as master race ... hmmm ... natural hierarchies pretty much. Also why do they have such a big following under the right extremists and white supremacists in the US? Edit: I would recommend Hitler's Mein Kampf and Marx and Engels "A Manifest of a Communist Party" for you.
        gerland 6y ago
        You're just a troll, right? There is no way you could write stuff like that otherwise. The most upvoted comment is the one from [Bill Bradley, Design Engineer]. The one you are referring to is from [Alexander Nachaj, PhD Candidate, Lecturer, and Digital Marketing Specialist], which you can see if you scroll some way down. You pretty muich chose the comment that fits your narrative. Talking about a confirmation bias. Don't put words in my mouth you stupid fuck. Go strawman people somewhere else. I will not recommend you to read anything, since you clearly have problems reading.
- candiodari 6y ago
  https://aeon.co/ideas/fascism-was-a-right-wing-anti-capitalist-movement https://aeon.co/ideas/fascism-was-a-right-wing-anti-capitali... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_People%27s_Welfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_People%27s_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front "The Nazi social welfare provisions included old age insurance, rent supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, old-age homes and interest-free loans for married couples, along with healthcare insurance, which was not decreed mandatory until 1941.[8] One of the NSV branches, the Office of Institutional and Special Welfare, was responsible "for travellers' aid at railway stations; relief for ex-convicts; support for re-migrants from abroad; assistance for the physically disabled, hard-of-hearing, deaf, mute, and blind; relief for the elderly, homeless and alcoholics; and the fight against illicit drugs and epidemics".[9] The Office of Youth Relief, which had 30,000 branch offices by 1941, took the job of supervising "social workers, corrective training, mediation assistance" and dealing with judicial authorities to prevent juvenile delinquency.[10]" Nazi's are the source of many of todays social accomplishments. They may not have been the originators of old age pensions, but they were the first to bring them in on a large scale. Pensions for disabled, same. Rent-control, social housing, ... And while the NSV was disbanded and recreated from scratch (it still unofficially exists, especially outside of Germany), this is not true for various social welfare organisations in Europe, who find their origins ... with the Nazis and were never disbanded due to lack of alternative (lack of alternative because the Nazis disbanded every other welfare organisation whenever they got a chance, but still. Also the Nazis disbanded welfare organisations by making them part of the NSV and absorbing them into that organisation. If one is truly honest, this was generally an improvement until 1943 or so. And while European states were keen to take control of their local single welfare organisation, they weren't keen on splitting it up again). It doesn't stop there. As is well known, the Nazi state was not friendly, at all, to capitalists (in fact this was one of the main supposed problems with the Jews. Early on the enemy was "Jews and Bankers". Not exactly laissez-faire rhetoric ...) Currently the general explanation is that when it comes to extremes, extreme-left and extreme-right aren't actually that different. It is moderate left and moderate right that have a big gulf between them. (extreme and moderate by 1940's standards, not today's) Unfortunately while the Nazis were an unparalleled evil in history, the world isn't so simple that that means they only did bad things. One might even say that both the war and the endlosung were, at least, partially driven by desperation on part of the Nazi government. Desperation, because their social welfare state was fast collapsing. Nothing can justify the choices they made after that (to, for instance, kill off the "worst" of the disabled, even children, as a cost-saving measure). But if you want to build an argument that they were forced into those choices, it's not going to be very hard. WW2 and the Holocaust kept Nazi's in power for 5 years or so longer than they would otherwise have been. It was a choice between war and atrocities or losing the state that was providing food, loding, and everything for close to half the population. Obviously the modern left does not like to call attention to that USSR and Nazi (and other) atrocities happened, in some small part, to enable social welfare. It may not be a reasonable criticism of today's policies, but anyone can see too many people will see it that way. I shudder to think how Trump would use this argument. And we all know, if it was the least bit popular, he would.
- jonhohle 6y ago
  * cancel culture * eugenics * totalitarianism * anti-free market capitalism * gun control
gerland 6y ago
The problem with far left (or far right) formations, is that their biggest oponent is not the far right. It's the moderate left. Almost no one from far left starts outright supporting far right, but a lot of people "seep in" to more certer oriented views as they age. Also the only way to get into places of power in a "attention economy" is to be more radical than all the rest. Most people do not have any political views at all. The "silent majority" is a myth. Those are people that will just bend to anything that is mainstream, while complaining about this at home. The reason for that is that they do not have an integrated political view that is sufficienty important. It's just a third rate thing, while for the radicals it's the most important thing in the world. Political environment is developing based on movement. If there is no shift, there is no place for people to make careers, that's why no one who is seriuous about being a politician will stick to defending the center. An attack position will always yield better result than a defensive one. You do not have to have answers to all the possible problems, in reality you do not have any answers at all, just prove that your oponent does not have answers to SOME problems. It's a game that we cannot avoid playing and a game that makes everyone lose in the end.