Media ownership and political bias

[Kingsofclutch]

Just remember that your mate Adolph was a socialist.
He is more your ideology than mine.

I’ll get the popcorn out and await your feeble attempt to deflect that one.

Bwahahahaaaa is that what naziwannabe.com told you? Hitler was for himself and used whatever philosophy/policy got the job done, narcissistic megalomaniacs don't tend to have ideologies outside of their own drive for power! Man the far right has played you for a lemon.

[David]

Just remember that your mate Adolph was a socialist.
He is more your ideology than mine.

I’ll get the popcorn out and await your feeble attempt to deflect that one.

In case you're being serious and actually believe that:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/ ... ocialists/

The Nazi regime had little to do with socialism, despite it being prominently included in the name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The NSDAP, from Hitler on down, struggled with the political implications of having socialism in the party name. Some early Nazi leaders, such as Gregor and Otto Strasser, appealed to working-class resentments, hoping to wean German workers away from their attachment to existing socialist and communist parties. The NSDAP’s 1920 party program, the 25 points, included passages denouncing banks, department stores and “interest slavery,” which suggested a quasi-Marxist rejection of free markets. But these were also typical criticisms in the anti-Semitic playbook, which provided a clue that the party’s overriding ideological goal wasn’t a fundamental challenge to private property.

Instead of controlling the means of production or redistributing wealth to build a utopian society, the Nazis focused on safeguarding a social and racial hierarchy. They promised solidarity for members of the Volksgemeinschaft (“racial community”) even as they denied rights to those outside the charmed circle.

Additionally, while the Nazis tried to appeal to voters across the spectrum, the party’s founders and initial base were small-business men and artisans, not the industrial proletariat of Marxist lore. Their first notable electoral successes were in small towns and Protestant rural areas in present-day Thuringia and Saxony, among voters suspicious of cosmopolitan, secular cities who associated both “socialism” and “capitalism” with Jews and foreigners.

[...]

National Socialism preserved private property, while also putting the entire resources of society at the service of an expansionist and racist national vision, which included the conquest and murderous subjugation of other peoples. It makes no sense to think that the sole, or even the primary, negative aspect of this regime was the fact that it used state power to allocate financial resources. It makes as little sense to suggest that using state power to allocate some financial resources today will automatically result in the same dire consequences.

Historical “gotcha” threatens to reduce our political conversations to meaninglessness, and we should resist it. Debates over the proper role of the state in protecting citizens against the negative exigencies of the market are necessarily complex. Finding the proper balance of interests within a democratic political order depends on the measurement of results, not on the power of magic words to devalue competing ideas.

[Magpietothemax]

Your obsession with working class vs ruling class is bordering on ridiculous and it is clouding your ability to be impartial and able to understand that not everything is about the classes.
You can dismiss capitalism all you like but just remember that socialism is the system that more people have fled in the last 100 years than any other.

Anti semitism is not about classes. It’s about the historical hatred of Jews.
Don’t make up bull$!@t!!!

Modern anti-Semitism, regardless of your opinion, is totally bound up with the growth of the working class throughout europe and the growth of socialist ideas in the labour movement - regardless of what your opinion is, I am afraid. The Tsarist regime in Russia responded to the revolutionary socialist movement in the working class by inciting the most horrific pogroms against the Jewish population. Likewise, anti-Semitism was fomented by the ruling classes in France, Austria and then in Germany. The development of socialism within the working class was viewed by a mortal threat by the capitalist class, and it sought to mobilise the most ignorant and backward layers of the middle class against the Jewish population, and as a battering ram against the organisations of the working class. Hitler hated the Jews not due to some abstract innate hatred of Jews, but because they occupied such prominent positions within the leadership of the labour movement. And he hated the labour movement because it fought for genuine social equality for all, in opposition to his nightmarish vision of the superiority of the Aryan race and the German nation.
Regardless of what you think, every historical phenonomen has its basis in classes and their struggle.
If you view this as BS, so be it. You can also declare the law of gravity to be BS if you like. You have a right to your views, even if they are not based on reality.
Finally, there is every right to dismiss capitalism as a failed system. The governments which once ruled in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union were the antithesis of socialism. They were Stalinist dictatorships, which fraudulently claimed the name of socialism to justfiy themselves politically. Genuine socialism, as fought for by Trotsky and the Left Opposition in 1923, has not yet been established.

Have you ever lived under socialism?

No, because as I just explained above, it has not ever been established.

[Magpietothemax]

Genuine socialism, as fought for by Trotsky and the Left Opposition in 1923, has not yet been established.

There's probably a good reason for that, it would only work in theory if everyone was like minded.

You're clearly a very passionate socialist, I won't disparage your views regardless what I think of them, and I'll be limiting my responses to you as there's clearly no point. Your view is fixed and any attempt at debate is futile.

I'm not sure how you manage to support yourself in a Capitalist Democracy, but good luck with it.

....well if it were a genuine democracy, there should be no difficulty in supporting myself.

[Magpietothemax]

Just remember that your mate Adolph was a socialist.
He is more your ideology than mine.

I’ll get the popcorn out and await your feeble attempt to deflect that one.

You need to change your diet, because popcorn is not a brain food.
Claiming that Hitler was "socialist" is vile, and is similar to your defamatory claims that some posters here are "anti-Semitic".
Hitler's fundamental aim was to extirpate socialism from the planet. This is what animated his war of annihilation against the ex-Soviet Union.

[stui magpie]

^

So you're either a professional Uni student or a shop steward. In either case, adding no value to anything.

[Magpietothemax]

^

So you're either a professional Uni student or a shop steward.

Wrong on both counts. But just so you know, the unions today are totally corporate entities which enforce the wage cuts and shocking workplace conditions (not sure that you would actually realise this, because your comments suggest that you are caught in a time warp).

In either case, adding no value to anything.

Don't think you have the right to judge that. But you seem a bit of a judgemental guy.

[slangman]

Modern anti-Semitism, regardless of your opinion, is totally bound up with the growth of the working class throughout europe and the growth of socialist ideas in the labour movement - regardless of what your opinion is, I am afraid. The Tsarist regime in Russia responded to the revolutionary socialist movement in the working class by inciting the most horrific pogroms against the Jewish population. Likewise, anti-Semitism was fomented by the ruling classes in France, Austria and then in Germany. The development of socialism within the working class was viewed by a mortal threat by the capitalist class, and it sought to mobilise the most ignorant and backward layers of the middle class against the Jewish population, and as a battering ram against the organisations of the working class. Hitler hated the Jews not due to some abstract innate hatred of Jews, but because they occupied such prominent positions within the leadership of the labour movement. And he hated the labour movement because it fought for genuine social equality for all, in opposition to his nightmarish vision of the superiority of the Aryan race and the German nation.
Regardless of what you think, every historical phenonomen has its basis in classes and their struggle.
If you view this as BS, so be it. You can also declare the law of gravity to be BS if you like. You have a right to your views, even if they are not based on reality.
Finally, there is every right to dismiss capitalism as a failed system. The governments which once ruled in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union were the antithesis of socialism. They were Stalinist dictatorships, which fraudulently claimed the name of socialism to justfiy themselves politically. Genuine socialism, as fought for by Trotsky and the Left Opposition in 1923, has not yet been established.

Have you ever lived under socialism?

No, because as I just explained above, it has not ever been established.

Ahhhh, right on cue you drop in that old chestnut!!
Keep deflecting with your blind naïveté.


Tens of Millions of people who lived under socialism would beg to differ but let’s not allow reality to get in the way of your stupidity.
Socialism is a race to the bottom system which explains why you gravitate to it.

[slangman]

Just remember that your mate Adolph was a socialist.
He is more your ideology than mine.

I’ll get the popcorn out and await your feeble attempt to deflect that one.

In case you're being serious and actually believe that:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/ ... ocialists/

The Nazi regime had little to do with socialism, despite it being prominently included in the name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The NSDAP, from Hitler on down, struggled with the political implications of having socialism in the party name. Some early Nazi leaders, such as Gregor and Otto Strasser, appealed to working-class resentments, hoping to wean German workers away from their attachment to existing socialist and communist parties. The NSDAP’s 1920 party program, the 25 points, included passages denouncing banks, department stores and “interest slavery,” which suggested a quasi-Marxist rejection of free markets. But these were also typical criticisms in the anti-Semitic playbook, which provided a clue that the party’s overriding ideological goal wasn’t a fundamental challenge to private property.

Instead of controlling the means of production or redistributing wealth to build a utopian society, the Nazis focused on safeguarding a social and racial hierarchy. They promised solidarity for members of the Volksgemeinschaft (“racial community”) even as they denied rights to those outside the charmed circle.

Additionally, while the Nazis tried to appeal to voters across the spectrum, the party’s founders and initial base were small-business men and artisans, not the industrial proletariat of Marxist lore. Their first notable electoral successes were in small towns and Protestant rural areas in present-day Thuringia and Saxony, among voters suspicious of cosmopolitan, secular cities who associated both “socialism” and “capitalism” with Jews and foreigners.

[...]

National Socialism preserved private property, while also putting the entire resources of society at the service of an expansionist and racist national vision, which included the conquest and murderous subjugation of other peoples. It makes no sense to think that the sole, or even the primary, negative aspect of this regime was the fact that it used state power to allocate financial resources. It makes as little sense to suggest that using state power to allocate some financial resources today will automatically result in the same dire consequences.

Historical “gotcha” threatens to reduce our political conversations to meaninglessness, and we should resist it. Debates over the proper role of the state in protecting citizens against the negative exigencies of the market are necessarily complex. Finding the proper balance of interests within a democratic political order depends on the measurement of results, not on the power of magic words to devalue competing ideas.

Just remember that Hitler wasn’t a capitalist.
If would be great if you deflectors would just acknowledge the truth instead of spinning bulldust to protect your ideology.
It was the National Socialist Party.

[stui magpie]

^

So you're either a professional Uni student or a shop steward.

Wrong on both counts. But just so you know, the unions today are totally corporate entities which enforce the wage cuts and shocking workplace conditions (not sure that you would actually realise this, because your comments suggest that you are caught in a time warp).

In either case, adding no value to anything.

Don't think you have the right to judge that. But you seem a bit of a judgemental guy.

I'm not the one caught in a time warp. I'm fully aware BTW that unions today are corporate entities, but suggestion that they "enforce" wage cuts and "shocking workplace conditions" is a bit rich.

[think positive]

Calling Hitler someone’s mate is beyond repulsive. Grow the **** up.

[slangman]

Calling Hitler someone’s mate is beyond repulsive. Grow the **** up.

Beyond repulsive is deflecting the true nature of socialism.

Maybe “mate” was the wrong word to use but they still share similar ideologies.

[David]

Just remember that Hitler wasn’t a capitalist.
If would be great if you deflectors would just acknowledge the truth instead of spinning bulldust to protect your ideology.
It was the National Socialist Party.

I thought the link and excerpt I posted would provide a helpful explanation, but I’m not sure if you bothered to read it. I’ll try to put it more simply:

From the outset, fascism took elements from socialism (big government, regulations on business) and elements from far-right nationalism, hence the concept of "national socialism". There were high-ranking people in Hitler’s party from the beginning who supported this ideological cocktail, but Hitler wasn’t one of them; he was anti-capitalist in some senses (e.g. against free trade) but also staunchly anti-Marxist. It was primarily the nationalism side of the national socialist equation that drew him to the party. Upon coming to power, he quickly purged the "red-brown" party members, shifted the party towards a more pro-big-business orientation and abolished trade unions. So Nazi Germany was not remotely socialist, other than in the "big government" orientation that is characteristic of most fascist states.

Fascism isn’t capitalism, and it isn’t socialism either, whatever names fascist parties over the years have taken (you may also be surprised to learn that the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea isn’t all that democratic ). You’re entitled to hold any view you like about socialism and to argue it on its merits, but I’m sorry to say that calling Hitler a socialist is a bit of a dunce move and signals a poor understanding of history. That’s not my opinion; it’s just how it is.

[pietillidie]

^Here's a deranged early Goebbels' tract on the very topic, at pains to show how much they hated socialism and saw it as a Jewish con. They purposely appropriated some of the terminology to enable them to popularise their fruitcake racist nationalism:

https://research.calvin.edu/german-prop ... i-sozi.htm

Shudder. Even more disconcerting is how readily far-right leaders default to this sort of whacko discourse and rhetorical strategy, particularly Trump. Birds of a feather. Notice how they continually appropriate existing ideas and criticisms of themselves to wrongfoot meaning? It's how the far right posts and argues on the internet, even. Very creepy.

[Magpietothemax]

Just remember that Hitler wasn’t a capitalist.
If would be great if you deflectors would just acknowledge the truth instead of spinning bulldust to protect your ideology.
It was the National Socialist Party.

I thought the link and excerpt I posted would provide a helpful explanation, but I’m not sure if you bothered to read it. I’ll try to put it more simply:

From the outset, fascism took elements from socialism (big government, regulations on business) and elements from far-right nationalism, hence the concept of "national socialism". There were high-ranking people in Hitler’s party from the beginning who supported this ideological cocktail, but Hitler wasn’t one of them; he was anti-capitalist in some senses (e.g. against free trade) but also staunchly anti-Marxist. It was primarily the nationalism side of the national socialist equation that drew him to the party. Upon coming to power, he quickly purged the "red-brown" party members, shifted the party towards a more pro-big-business orientation and abolished trade unions. So Nazi Germany was not remotely socialist, other than in the "big government" orientation that is characteristic of most fascist states.

Fascism isn’t capitalism, and it isn’t socialism either, whatever names fascist parties over the years have taken (you may also be surprised to learn that the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea isn’t all that democratic ). You’re entitled to hold any view you like about socialism and to argue it on its merits, but I’m sorry to say that calling Hitler a socialist is a bit of a dunce move and signals a poor understanding of history. That’s not my opinion; it’s just how it is.

Very good reply David. I take issue with one statement though: Fascism isn’t capitalism This is not correct. Fascism is absolutely capitalism. It is capitalism unmasked: its true nature, in which the extraction of surplus value from living labour as the fundamental priority, is entirely exposed. The economy of Germany during World War 2 was entirely based on capitalist property relations. "Big government" has nothing to do with socialism. Socialism implies that the proletariat has taken political power and therefore overturned capitalist property relations. This has happened only once in human history: in October 1917. Hitler did not touch capitalist property relations, but instead defended them with murderous criminality. This is why Hitler was bankrolled by the German capitalist class (there is ample evidence of this.) German capitalists made big profits from supplying the gas for Auschwitz etc.
Fascism is the essence of capitalism, and it is where all capitalist governments are heading right now. When living standards are being decimated, so that the capitalists can pour billions into funding war, and profits depend on ever increasing levels of explloitation (as happened in the 1930's) so it is happening once again.