They just don't get it. Never will.

re: #1 song_and_dance_man

The left left Sanity Gardens a good while back.

They're now in Anti-Semitic Sewer.

Paul Craig Roberts is a blithering idiot who has spend the last few years defending suicide bombings - as long as they are done against Jews. I used to email Newsmax to ask them to get rid of him. They finally have. The man may even be sicker than Pat Buchanan and that says a lot!

Sheesh

Yeah, it was because of his viewpoint, all right...

So far right he's left.

re: #7 Kragar (Proud to be Kafir)

So far right he's left.

The far right and far left meet at populism.

"Jew-hatred trumps everything else." Yep, that about says it all.

OK. People who are far left and far right should be called "around back" or something.

re: #8 Sharmuta

AT POPULISM? Sharmuta! Oh ... darn I have to get off now. Later.

re: #8 Sharmuta Hi Sharm! You mentioned to me that justiceforall was getting - quite properly, I'm sure - dinged down a few threads back.
I still haven't figured out how the spy thing works to show ding downs - do y'all remember which thread?

re: #10 Catttt

OK. People who are far left and far right should be called "around back" or something.

Behind the woodshed is a most appropriate place...

re: #12 realwest

Hi Sharm! You mentioned to me that justiceforall was getting - quite properly, I'm sure - dinged down a few threads back.
I still haven't figured out how the spy thing works to show ding downs - do y'all remember which thread?

Africa.

re: #10 Catttt

OK. People who are far left and far right should be called "around back" or something.

I think the old standby of "Asshole" still fits

re: #14 debutaunt

No, no- the huffpo thread.

Shit! Too bad. I think this is the guy that had some pretty savvy things to say about the US and the global economy....

misjudged that one. (sigh) nothing is as it seems anymore...

re: #15 ploome hineni
and we though the Clintons stealin' the Whitehouse china in 2000 was bad......

re: #17 Sharmuta Thanks!

re: #10 Catttt

OK. People who are far left and far right should be called "around back" or something.

I like it.

re: #17 Sharmuta

No, no- the huffpo thread.

Right! #171

How long before anti-Semitism becomes something tolerated in polite company, and not just on fringe websites?
Obama's connections ("suspended' now) with the church and with NOI makes those groups somewhat more acceptable. If he's elected, we'll heare more open anti-Semitism. And if Obama rejoins the church, and has Farrahkan meet him (somewhat unlikely, I admit), they'll become respectable.

Would an Obama administration stand up to Arab-owned US businesses that had a political test for employees? No Jews or at least no Israel-supporting Jews?

Meanwhile, he'd really lean on Israel to have them stop expanding existing towns, so Jews would have no where to go.

Ok so both "sides" have Anti-Semitic loons (what else is new?). This is one of the hallmarks of Anti-Semitism, that it is not just one party and it is for all reasons (ie: they hate Jews because they are poor, and Jews are hated for having all the money, they are hated for being cheap, yet are hated for using their money and influence (ie: spending), etc. etc. etc.

I am not sure why a great site like LGF would give this guy another platform to spew his hatred of Jews, etc., though.

911 Troofer...... says it all

re: #17 Sharmuta

No, no- the huffpo thread.

He was only smarmy on the Africa thread.

oh hell! I'm so sick of seeing that McGovernite gaping suck Beckel on Fox!

GO AWAY ALREADY!

re: #23 Kosh's Shadow

This might be insane but....Kosh, Jews are going back to Israel eventually. We have been given the opportunity to go back freely for about 100 years or so, we haven't. Instead we have choosen the assimilated lifestyle in Gulus that we had in Germany before WW2.

Thread alert -- Charles -- THIS deserves a thread of its own. I don't give hoot about the Bush connection -- even if it is there -- this is simply WRONG!

Thanks Ploome

re: #15 ploome hineni

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE

we have the obamination running for POTUS and now this

Indicted Saudi Gets $80 Million US Contract
The Financier Has Been Indicted For His Alleged Role in a Scandal Costing US Taxpayers $1.7 billion
By GRETCHEN PETERS
June 4, 2008—

re: #8 Sharmuta

The far right and far left meet at populism fascism.

I think this fits a little better.

re: #23 Kosh's Shadow

It's going hand in hand with the active re-writing of history. It will become 'acceptable' over time once again, I fear, just as it was in the past. We've survived the Wilsonian fascists, the FDR / America First fascists, and now we're facing a new set of progressive fascists. There are fewer of us left to fight this new set of fascists.

re: #36 ploome hineni

Ok, I guess you are right. It is out there. People should know. I would just hate to make this nutjob with a keyboard famous.

Charles, I love that "crossover loon."

re: #34 song_and_dance_man

The Political Quiz Show

40

Damn, am I clingy or what?

I feel like it is open season on jews with the "good people of Seattle" not even being able to convict the man who attacked the jewish center who shot six and killed one.

re: #41 pgold1

I feel like it is open season on jews with the "good people of Seattle" not even being able to convict the man who attacked the jewish center who shot six and killed one.

I posted a link earlier....

One jurors opinion.
We should be outraged at how Haq got the guns...

Moron.

re: #11 hermeneutics

Yes- at populism. But don't be completely fooled by this link- nazism and fascism are left-wing, progressive movements.

re: #28 WrathofG-d

This might be insane but....Kosh, Jews are going back to Israel eventually. We have been given the opportunity to go back freely for about 100 years or so, we haven't. Instead we have choosen the assimilated lifestyle in Gulus that we had in Germany before WW2.

When my wife and I visited Israel a few years ago, we both felt we'd be living there at some point.
Don't know when, yet.

Citing Wikipedia is ignorant alright. Interestingly, Wikipedia refers to this article by Meg Laughlin. And she in turn writes that the agreement not to testify here--which supposedly should have got Sami Al-Arian off the hook--is a matter of public record.

I have neither access to nor time to research the court transcripts, but checking it should be easy: clearly someone here is not telling the truth. As I understand it, an agreement to cooperate with prosecutors is the norm in similar cases; if remaining silent about his pals were important to Al-Arian, his lawyers should have made a record of it.

Either way, it seems there's some very poor journalism here. If Laughlin and the St. Petersburg Times got it wrong, of course they should be called to the carpet for it along with Roberts. Of course, if the paper is right....

BTW, calling Roberts a loon (crossover or otherwise) is lots of fun, but how does it further rational debate?

re: #44 song_and_dance_man

I got a 35

I didn't some of the questions with the either or option.

I go to USF and once every while the campus paper "The Oracle" puts a nice pic of Sami or his family on the front page to remind us how innocent he is.

re: #43 Sharmuta

Yes- at populism. But don't be completely fooled by this link- nazism and fascism are left-wing, progressive movements.

Come again?

FYI, no serious student of totalitarian regimes would place Nazism and Facism together in the political spectrum. Although the left-right dichotomy may be of some use in domestic politics, it's largely useless to understanding the international scene. Nevertheless, if forced to pick, most scholars would place Facism on the left and Nazism on the right. Ditto their contemporary analogues.

re: #47 jcm

I didn't some of the questions with the either or option.

I skipped some questions and got a 26, but that's because the "either/or" didn't have the option I wanted.

it's interesting that no matter whether you're heading far right or far left, all roads eventually lead to Loonville.

re: #51 redc1c4

Yeah, kinda touching in a way; Right-wing loonies can be as looney-tunes as Left-wing loonies. In 'Toon Town, we CAN just get along! ('Cuz we're all crazy.)

re: #51 redc1c4

it's interesting that no matter whether you're heading far right or far left, all roads eventually lead to Loonville.

Only in America...is this a great country or what?

/sarc

re: #51 redc1c4

That's a keeper...mind if I save that one, with attribution?

FYI, no serious student of totalitarian regimes would place Nazism and Facism together in the political spectrum.

You should read the new book Liberal Facism by Jonah Goldberg. He argues precisely this, and persuasively.

re: #55 OregonMuse

Yes, that's a great book, and he argues very persuasively for putting Nazism and Facism together.

re: #49 snowtravel

Have you ever read the nazi platform? You do realize both nazism and fascism are socialist endeavorsof a nationalist variety? There is nothing classically liberal about either- and frankly- nazism is just a racist bastardization of fascism. They are progressive, socialist, nationalist movements of the left. The only thing remotely right-wingish about them is they're to the right of communism/marxism.

For obvious (and justifiable) reasons, Americans during WWII grouped the axis powers—Germany, Italy and Japan—together as “fascists.” As a result the term has come to lose almost all meaning: if your opponent employs objectionable means or goals, he’s a “fascist.” In any event almost everyone since has grouped both Fascists and Nazis together on the “right.” Work like Goldberg’s is a relatively recent phenomenon (and sure, I’ll read it when I can).

In fact Nazis and Fascists have some affinity: both were totalitarian dictatorships with all the usual features of such regimes: masculine protest, propaganda, militarism, and of course most prominently nastiness and hate. You can focus on these if you want to, but to ignore all the difference is, well, ignorant. Also, ignoring philosophy is to ignore clues to future conduct. It’s like trying to understand “terrorism” without knowing jihad. (Don’t make the mistake, by the way, of confusing study with admiration: the Biblical admonition to “know they enemy” is not without wisdom.) Had Europeans bothered to take seriously Hitler’s aspirations as expressed in Mein Kampf, much suffering might have been avoided.

Fundamentally the Nazis were racists whose philosophy centered upon a Nietzschean ideal of a “master race” composed of mythical “Aryans” who had been betrayed by Jews, especially in WWI. For Germans to regain their lost glory and fulfill their destiny as the one race capable of true culture required a Fuhrer, a leader capable of expressing the historic will of the Germanic people and leading it to victory over racial inferiors. The simplistic Nazi “platform,” Sharmuta, consisted almost exclusively of suppressing and ultimately murdering the supposedly culture-destroying, socialist Jews who had conspired to “stab in the back” the German people, and whom the Nazis regarded as unworthy of life let alone privilege or property. Germans would achieve these ends by seizing territory for “lebensraum” that was rightly German all along, creating a Jew-free Europe and maintaining supremacy under one leader for a thousand years. Private property and independent business enterprise were permitted (and encouraged) as long as they served Nazi ends, e.g., military production. Under Hitler, Germany flourished for years and, by the outset of WWII, was stronger than ever.

Most of Nazi thought was antithetical to paradigmatic Italian fascism. Class struggle rather than racial conflict was the centerpiece of Fascist thought. Mussolini, for his part, was an intellectual who authored volumes, a dedicated Marxist who believed deeply in a Hegelian dialectic that would see worldwide socialism as matter of predictable if not inevitable human progress. (Hitler in contrast hated the socialists, concerned himself mainly with Europe and, although a gifted speaker, was probably incapable of writing and only produced Mein Kampf with help (from Hess, as I recall).) Like Lenin, Mussolini believed that the revolution had been subverted by capitalists (not Jews), and sought to use the instruments of power to force the “dictatorship of the proletariat” on Italy with the ultimate aim that it would whither away as Marx had predicted. Almost all the features of Leninist “pragmatism” are here. Most prominently, despite giving lip service to private property early on, Fascists increasingly (and predictably given classic socialist thought of the time) nationalized property and economic enterprise as a matter of course. Italy didn’t do well at all under this system, though the Jews fared better than most of Europe until the Germans entered and began their usual pattern of deportations and butchering. BTW, Mussolini hated Hitler.

Now, you guys tell me: which one’s "right" and which one’s "left?"

re: #58 snowtravel

Here is the 25 point program of the nazis.

Here is the doctrine of the Italian fascists.

WTF? You add racism to fascism and suddenly it's right wing to you?! There is no difference between nazism and fascism except the racism. And to call the nazi platform "simplistic" is a gross distortion, and quite offensive.

Sharmuta, there's no need to ask if you've read any primary sources: the answer is obvious.

Citing to Wikipedia is not very persuasive, especially so in a thread that sees the author of the article in the OP take his opponent to task for—wait for it, wait for it!—citing to Wikipedia, a silliness the same author describes as “inappropriate even for an English 101 undergrad class.” There’s only one reason why you’d embarrass yourself this way, and that’s because you never bothered to read the thing.

Still more embarrassing, it's clear you haven't even read your own source, or you'd realize (as anyone fond of truth or history would already know) that Hitler largely usurped the original Nazi program, a fact that may explain your confusion over use of “Socialismus” to describe a movement that was rabidly anti-socialist. Historical hint for the uninitiated: Hitler invaded Soviet Russia, stupidly but not without rationale.

Regarding the much earlier historical irony of Hitler’s involvement with “socialist” Nazi precursors—and quoting from your linked article (with citations omitted):

Hitler refused to allow any discussion of the party program after 1925. Ostensibly, Hitler claimed that no discussion was necessary because the program was "inviolable" and did not need any changes. At the same time, however, Hitler never voiced public support for the program and many historians argue that he was in fact privately opposed to it. Hitler did not mention any of the planks of the National Socialist Program in his book, Mein Kampf, and only talked about it in passing as "the so-called program of the movement". Henry A. Turner holds that many of the program's vague calls for economic reform and pro-labor legislation, as well as its endorsement of democratic politics, went directly contrary to Hitler's own social Darwinist views and dictatorial ambitions. Furthermore, he noted that the program's calls for land reform and anti-trust legislation threatened the interests of the big business tycoons whose support and funding Hitler was trying to acquire (though his efforts in this direction proved largely unsuccessful). Since he could not abolish the program entirely without causing a stir among the party's voters, Hitler chose to ban all discussion of it instead and hoped it would be largely forgotten.

Given Hitler’s oft-stated aspirations and consistent, unabashed cruelty, I stand firmly by my statement that the Nazi “platform,” as you would have it, was highly simplistic, involving almost exclusively a bizarre explanatory text meant to justify the annihilation of European Jewry and—increasingly as Hitler consolidated his power and abolished all semblance of democracy—strict enforcement of the “Fuhrerprincip.” Too bad that some among us won't recognize it if it comes around again, which it surely will if ignorance like yours prevails. Heck, as long as you can call it “right,” you’ll be all for it, won’t you Sharmuta?

(continued...)

Finally, just as you fail to comprehend Nazism with its profound linguistic and historical ironies, you mischaracterize my position as one that “add[s] racism to fascism and suddenly it's right wing.” This particular instance of the “straw man” fallacy distorts in two ways: I compare and contrast Fascism and Nazism, never “add racism to fascism.” (The latter error, my dear Sharmuta, is actually yours entirely.) Rather, I stated that the two movements were alike in some ways but different in many others, differences that explain both their temporary successes and ultimate failures, which themselves were correspondingly unique. (It’s no historical accident, for instance, that Hitler and his mistress killed themselves in a bunker while Mussolini and his hung by their heels in a public square.) Likewise, I never called Nazism “right wing,” though I recognize that others do. As my last two posts make clear, I reject the ridiculous “left vs. right” dichotomy, especially when it comes to international political phenomena. It’s an enormous barrier to real understanding.

re: #61 snowtravel

I think the real barrier here is your condescension, ignorance of fascism, arrogance, and obfuscation. But don't let me stop you from continuing to call the nazi platform "simplistic". I invite you to share this thought on a more active thread someday, and we'll see who's comprehension of nazism is faulty and whose isn't.

Thanks Sharmuta, I accept your invitation, though really there's no need. Your resort to miscitation, straw men and other fallacies and errors—"Have you ever read the nazi platform?"—proves all anyone needs to know about your ahistorical imaginings.

And thanks too for the compliments.