"Nazi"

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Many thanks indeed Nasu for your great post. I do speak up, and often, but only where I feel it's appropriate, or when I feel the other person might be receptive (hence why I post here - because all you guys are receptive). Perhaps that's playing it safe, and I'd readily plead guilty to that. I'm just not very good at confrontation!

I'm definitely with you on the issue of gadgets and technology. Fascination became addiction, now I feel there's a slide towards absolute dependence on them. What's worse (especially in the young) is their reliance in, and trust of, all that diseased social media and music pouring into their minds. They're plugged into that junk day and night like an I.V. line. Very troubling. One can only hope and pray the madness will soon be at an end. I feel it has to, or we just ain't gonna make it!

[Foxie Loxie]

Did all the "hippies" grow up & become mature adults?!

[Caliban]

Posted by Dennis Leahy (here)

Posted by Star Mariner (here)
... The radical far-left has almost nothing of note to argue with anyway, so when cornered, it reverts to name-calling.

The "radical far left" in the US is the teeny-tiny fractured leftovers of anti-war activists, anti-corporatist and anti-globalist activists, and environmental activists. The group you're talking about is the democrats. The democrat duopoly gang are pro-war, in or aspiring to be the investment class (that waltzes and beds with corporatists and globalists), and displays sociopathically depraved indifference to ecocide. There is honestly nothing about the democrat gang that even remotely fits any colloquial use of the word "left."

So true. The "radical" left fizzled out a long time ago in terms of political energy. Some of those people went into the Environmental areas and movements. Remember they tried to paint Obama as some commie loving fellow traveler? What a joke. Without the "radical left" the V. war might've gone on and on, like some recent other wars. Most of them got absorbed into the money mind consciousness of America. (Happy 4th ) Yeah, what you got now are some sad sounding soulless talkers mouthing enervated pablum for Rachel Maddow and the other teary eyed millionaires to gorge on.

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? (Or Bernie ?)

[Ernie Nemeth]

Denis:

Same thing with the word "fascist", which has become an adjective of desperation (like "f-bombs") to describe someone considered horrible. (If you go by Mussolini's definition, fascism is the marriage of "corporate" and "state", which I see as synonymous with "corporatism".

I'm pretty sure that fascist is an Italian word or derivative. My guess would be that the word as we know it was probably first coined by Mussolini or one of his crowd.
Fascist means bundle of sticks. From the idea that one stick snaps easily, but ten bound together is much more difficult to break.

Foxie:

Did all the "hippies" grow up & become mature adults?!

Not me!

[AutumnW]

The current trajectory in American culture and politics is highly fascist. And Nazis, contrary to the common meathead interpretatation were not so much socialist as fascist.

So, in some case the term Nazi is highly appropriate. To call Trump a Nazi, for example is okay, although most Nazi (fascists) are pro-Nationalists. Trump is pro-himself and is going to kick his supporters to the curb, first opportunity he gets.

[boolacalaca]

Posted by Star Mariner (here)
Politics is becoming more and more divisive and vitriolic, to the point where I have often felt it was better to keep silent than speak up, just to keep the peace. That disturbs me. It shouldn't be like this.

Thank you for your post - as others have noted, it's very well thought out and written. I wonder, though, in the long run how wise or effective it is to keep silent in order to keep the peace. Does keeping silent really keep the peace or only push the issue off until an even more contentious future? Perhaps if good people spoke their truth, regardless how apoplectic of a tantrum it might evoke from the fringe radicals, the preponderance of reasonable thought would take the spotlight off the triggered snowflakes. If you yield the field of battle to them constantly, who do you expect to prevail?

Given that the popular vote tally in the last US presidential election demonstrates that tens of millions in the US do not agree with those who use knee-jerk slurs like "Nazi" or "Fascist", perhaps staying silent is counterproductive. A child will continue with its tantrum until it sees that it is not having the intended reaction. Since one of the child-radical purposes lately is to control the narrative, then ultimately keeping the peace in the long run means responding to the tantrum like adults, thus not giving the child the thing it shouldn't have and showing the child that the tantrum is powerless to direct things. Giving the child what it wants will only embolden it to its tactics and ensure more severe tantrums in the future.

[turiya]

Posted by boolacalaca (here)

Posted by Star Mariner (here)
Politics is becoming more and more divisive and vitriolic, to the point where I have often felt it was better to keep silent than speak up, just to keep the peace. That disturbs me. It shouldn't be like this.

Thank you for your post - as others have noted, it's very well thought out and written. I wonder, though, in the long run how wise or effective it is to keep silent in order to keep the peace. Does keeping silent really keep the peace or only push the issue off until an even more contentious future? Perhaps if good people spoke their truth, regardless how apoplectic of a tantrum it might evoke from the fringe radicals, the preponderance of reasonable thought would take the spotlight off the triggered snowflakes. If you yield the field of battle to them constantly, who do you expect to prevail?

Given that the popular vote tally in the last US presidential election demonstrates that tens of millions in the US do not agree with those who use knee-jerk slurs like "Nazi" or "Fascist", perhaps staying silent is counterproductive. A child will continue with its tantrum until it sees that it is not having the intended reaction. Since one of the child-radical purposes lately is to control the narrative, then ultimately keeping the peace in the long run means responding to the tantrum like adults, thus not giving the child the thing it shouldn't have and showing the child that the tantrum is powerless to direct things. Giving the child what it wants will only embolden it to its tactics and ensure more severe tantrums in the future.

With regard to your analogy, the end result of a child throwing a tantrum, is the child ends up quietly falling asleep.

The tantrum is, in fact, a symptom of the child needing to sleep. When a parent attempts to quiet the child, the child understands that the tantrum is working to gain the attention of the adult. This is, in effect, works as a reward for the child throwing the tantrum. Paying attention - i.e. reacting to the tantrum - ensures that the tantrum will only happen again. IMO

The Babies Are Growing Up... And They're Gettting Cranky



"...and now the babies are growing restless. The babies are growing cranky. The old lullabies aren’t keeping them asleep anymore..."

• JUL 5, 2018 11:05 PM

[turiya]

Posted by Dennis Leahy (here)
I think trump is an outrageous fool for not clearly distancing himself from the nazis.

That would be the way of the politically correct politician. For Trump, it had nothing to do with him. So, why provide any reaction, especially to the MSM who was asking the question. He simply denied that he knew anything about who David Duke was, or what he represented.

It was a total attempt, by the Main Stream Media, to make up a hit-piece on Trump by having him comment on David Duke's support for his candidacy.

Posted by Dennis Leahy (here)
Nazis aren't trumps "base", they are a tiny fraction.

Nazis & white supremacists simply attempted to ride on the back of Trump's successful run for president. The media played a big role in blowing that way out of proportion. Like they did with a lot of other issues - the travel ban, immigrant children being separated from their parents, Stormy Daniels, the Iran nuke deal, Russia collusion, on & on & on.

Posted by Dennis Leahy (here)
His base is composed of corporatists and militarists, nationalists, the investor class, some overt racists*, some "American" exceptionalists*, die-hard political partisans that happen to be republicans, zionists, some light-skinned people of European decent that say they are not racist but just want to be surrounded by the white-dominant culture that Leave It To Beaver taught them,... and some people that heard trump say something true - such as saying to hillary, "You are a criminal!", or such as pointing out "fake news!", or such as saying he was going to expose 9/11, or that he was going to "drain the swamp", or that he was going to "MAGA", which is sweet nectar to anyone who has watched as US manufacturing corporations moved to where the slaves work cheaper and no one bothers you about releasing massive toxins.

I think you left out the working middle-class, the apathetic, those that haven't voted in decades (like me) & those that live & work in fly-over America. As the following Breitbart article reports on the rest of the middle-class America is just recently picking up on...

Young White Men Abandon Democrats,
Flock to Trump’s Economic Nationalism
July 3, 2018

President Trump’s reshaping of the GOP from being aligned to the Chamber of Commerce to a party serving the interests of America’s working and middle class is winning over young white American men en masse.

Posted by Dennis Leahy (here)
...It's not a trump thing or a republican thing, it is a duopoly thing. It's actually more xenophobic than racist...

Xenophobia is the fear and distrust of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange - Wikipedia

That which is deemed foreign or strange - foreign or strange - because what politician in the last 50 years has had the guts to stand up to the criminals in charge? Who had on the day of his inauguration declared war on those that are part of the Deep State...

Yes - xenophobic - because the D's on the left & R's on the right have fear & distrust in a president that they have no control over. Yes, that's xenophobia alright. Fear & distrust is a symptom of moving into the unknown. And, that's where the career establishment politicians are going to. They don't know where they are going to end up!

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by boolacalaca (here)
I wonder, though, in the long run how wise or effective it is to keep silent in order to keep the peace. Does keeping silent really keep the peace or only push the issue off until an even more contentious future?

Thanks boolacalaca. In another post, I said I didn't really like confrontation, as in clashing with those who aren't open to another point of view. I have tried broaching certain topics on occasion. But they're so entrenched in their own positions it's quite pointless. I guess that's the reason why.

It's the same reason I don't bring up UFO's very much either - to friends, colleagues, family etc. At worst, it ends up in ridicule. The best I can hope for is the challenge, "Prove it then." Which I can't, and that ends the discussion.

[Foxie Loxie]

Personal opinion here.....I would say that the state of affairs we find ourselves in today, here in the U.S., is directly due to so many keeping silent for SO many years & not being involved in politics at all.

[amor]

Dear dear Dennis: Thank you for a perfect piece and for the hearty laugh it gave me in spots. I needed that.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

This has to stop. It's eroding the fabric of society.

Says Paul Joseph Watson.

As the liberal hard-left grows ever more militant and (ironically) intolerant, relationships, friendships, even families themselves, are being torn apart.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9SR3GhM2eUc

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Posted by Baby Steps (here)
The following graphic may help, unfortunately I do not fully agree with it as it places NAZISM in the extreme right/authoritarianism whereas in truth the Nazism of Hitler was Socialist nationalist authoritarianism in that it was not hostile to state owned economic activities, although it was hostile to unions.

This needs to be taught in schools in both Europe and America:

"Right" and "left" do not mean the same thing in the United States as they do in Europe.

The terms "right-wing" and "left-wing" come from the French Revolution which, if you remember, began around the exact same time that the United States Constitution was being ratified and the US government created for the first time.

In the French Revolution, the conservatives (monarchists) sat on the right side of the Assemble Nationale (no accent marks, sorry), and the more radical Jacobins and other proto-Marxists and mobsters sat on the left side.

In the United States, conservatism is associated with Thomas Jefferson and Jeffersonianism, which is based on limited government and has nothing to do with monarchy. This was the predominant political theory of the early republic after Jefferson defeated Adams and inaugurated the "Era of Good Feelings" when Jeffersonians ruled for a total of 24 straight years, 6 straight presidential terms, and whose underlying philosophy has been foundational to United States federal politics ever since.

In Europe, Napoleon is considered "right-wing." In the US, he is simply a dictator -- and violates the principles of Jeffersonianism in nearly every way possible.

The modern left in both the United States and Europe has become obsessed with Marxism in economics and identity politics in social discussions, so explaining the original "left-wing" is irrelevant. In America, it originally represented a king of Enlightenment radicalism which no longer exists, but to which Jefferson could also be said to have been involved. (This is why both Republicans and Democrats claim Jefferson as their own, though Jefferson himself disdained party politics.)


(And in Brazil, the capitalists are the left-wingers! Imagine the confusion that could cause in international discussions!)

If one is a centrist, like me, one needs to remind leftists, that the enemy is really authoritarianism, because, as history demonstrates, authoritarian socialism AKA communism is responsible for as many horrors as any other model.

I agree with everything except "as many...as." I believe it's more like "more than any other model known to man." Fascism has never killed anything approaching 100 million people like communism has, and pretending that isn't true is a form of communist brainwashing in and of itself. I see it all the time though. It's the same complex as elevating Hitler's atrocities over those of Stalin and Mao for purely ideological reasons. Some figures put Mao at 50 million or more people massacred in China. The facts and emotional hype, for political reasons, are completely manipulated and out of all relation with who is truly the murderous monster throughout modern history.

It's almost as if people are thinking, "Sure, Mao may have killed more than 10 times as many people as Hitler, but Hitler's pride in his own people disgusts me so much, and Marxism sounds so nice in theory, that Mao probably wasn't that bad after all and certainly not as bad as Hitler."

Maybe I'm off but I strongly feel there is some kind of social programming going on like this, even if unconsciously, in most of these radicals' heads when they are spouting off about being communist or socialist and actually look like they have pride in themselves for saying it. That, along with the old favorite, "but that wasn't REAL communism...."

If one is a right-oriented libertarian, one needs to counter leftist arguments with the point that individual liberties being protected CAN BE a tool against crony capitalism, corruption and environmental destruction.

One critique I have grown to appreciate of libertarianism: it has no defense mechanism against identity politics, or any other form of collectivized politics. Many libertarians have even supported the liberal open border policies that have led to the beginnings of Shariah Law in Canada and Europe, with the criminalization of religious "hate speech" being construed now as any form of criticism of Islamic practice. So ironically they begin by supporting free speech and end by helping its elimination.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Posted by Rahkyt (here)
While i agree with many of the same issues as many here regarding the ills and depradations of the Deep State I am not convinced that Mr. Trump has mine or my family's best interests at heart. So i cannot support him. I have ny suspicions about QAnon and the military implications as well and the storm that they want to occur, as I watch the Civil Rights movement in the USA being eviscerated while many here stay silent about it or overtly approve it.

A lot of the policies, like Affirmative Action, were bad ideas to begin with and aren't even effective. Remember, the Civil Rights movement came to a head under a guy (LBJ) who is quoted as not only saying terrible things about black people, but openly admitting that he was expanding the welfare state to make blacks addicted to government benefits so they would in turn become dependent on the Democratic party.

So I understand you might think gutting these programs is bad for the black community, but the record-low black unemployment rate should be a clue that barriers are being taken down rather than put back up. Think of all the single mothers on welfare, popping out as many babies as possible for the benefits, while the dads are all locked up for failing to pay child support. Think of all those kids growing up without father figures, with selfish mothers who essentially only had them as a career, and what that has done to the black community over successive generations. Because those are the policies you're talking about, that came out of the Civil Rights era, if not with FDR. Cities have been devastated by these policies for decades. And Democrats still win those same inner cities, every single time. And every single time they get elected, things just get worse.

Posted by Baby Steps (here)
Not to belittle the problem, is the 'Nazi' definition of any relevance today?

Well, what did they stand for then?

- corporate tyranny
- The concept of one race being superior to another (scientific racism)
- The concept that the superior race should have power over the inferiors
- The concept that a nation has a racial identity and, if it consists of the superior race, then the Nation is superior, and should have power over racially inferior nations
- The concept that certain racially defined groups in Germany were a source of problems, and required a solution.

You know, Israel is considering a law that would officially make it a Jewish nation, even though 20% of its population is Arabic. Also, Jewish is legally recognized as an ethnicity in Israel, not only a religion. Only ethnic Jews recognized by state-sponsored officials can get married in Israel, no one else. A Jew can't marry a Christian, etc.; it's forbidden under Israeli law.

Why would Israel declare itself an explicitly Jewish country if 20% of its population is Arab? That'd be like the US calling itself a white country even though 15% of the population is black, right? So could your definition of a Nazi regime apply to Israel?

Would be ironic, wouldn't it?

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Posted by Dennis Leahy (here)
die-hard political partisans that happen to be republicans, zionists, some light-skinned people of European decent that say they are not racist but just want to be surrounded by the white-dominant culture that Leave It To Beaver taught them,...

According to white privilege theory, you can't complain about others living in predominantly white neighborhoods unless you yourself live primarily in a ethnic-majority neighborhood. Do you live in a primarily ethnic-majority neighborhood? Because if not, you are lending credibility to those who would claim that you are only seeking to signal your virtue to other members of your society for self-serving reasons, and without actually making any commitments to improve the lives of minorities yourself and showing that you truly believe what you say. If you aren't committing to doing the work you're preaching to others then you're hurting the cause by diminishing its credibility. Move into an ethnic community first, at least over 50% minority, and begin volunteering and helping them there in their own communities, and then you will have credibility to attack others for not doing the same, and can't be accused of virtue signaling.

and some people that heard trump say something true - such as saying to hillary, "You are a criminal!", or such as pointing out "fake news!", or such as saying he was going to expose 9/11, or that he was going to "drain the swamp", or that he was going to "MAGA", which is sweet nectar to anyone who has watched as US manufacturing corporations moved to where the slaves work cheaper and no one bothers you about releasing massive toxins.

And those countries you are referring to, of which China, Vietnam, and Mexico are prominent examples, are all far-left/communist, and as you correctly point out, have much, much worse working environments. People work hard for virtually nothing in these systems, and effectively are slaves, just like you say. I think it's important to remember this context, when we are comparing where companies are moving out of, and into, because it helps explain these movements.

[Deborah (ahamkara)]

Hatred and fear are strong, deep, primal emotions. The degree of social manipulation and control of these emotions via technology is unprecedented. People are caught up in highly emotional conflict over blatantly contrived situations- put forth and stoked by a real time flow of Big Data. We continue to add listening devices into our lives at an alarming rate, AI that gets smarter. Emotionally loaded words like "Nazi",or "racist" are now used with the vehemence formally reserved for racial epithets or gender slurs. This is calculated to shut down rational thought by triggering powerful emotion. Our addiction to technology feeds nicely into our addiction to pure "feeling" - be it hatred, rage or fear. It is helpful to step back from the labels and the conflicts we are herded towards and remember to observe rather than react.