General Wesley C. Clark and his bizarre apologists.

Marx, Engels, Clark, Hitler, Mussolini: At least the USA stopped one of them without bloodshed.

Way back on 15 June 2003, retired General Wesley C. Clark let spew forth this gem whilst chatting with Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press:

The Bush tax cuts weren't fair. The people that need the money and deserve the money are the people who are paying less, not the people who are paying more. I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation. In other words, it's not only that the more you make, the more you give, but proportionately more because when you don't have very much money, you need to spend it on the necessities of life.

One 'funny' thing about this quote is it was one of the only 2003 video clips of General Clark that is not available on the internet today.  If you search for video with Wesley Clark from 2003, you get all sorts of interesting crap that New World Order conspiracy theorists love, and a little FOX News bashing, but nothing on this, although the quote above is all over the place.  I was unable to find the transcript on the NBC website too, but that might just be me.

So, retired General Clark thinks that this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation?  Seriously? Eugene Volokh made a great response at the time:

Somehow I slept through the class session in American History where they explained just how the country was founded "on a principle of progressive taxation." "No Taxation Without Progressivity," was that the big slogan? (Thanks to Dan Gifford to the pointer; I should also note that columnist Walter Williams also made the same observation shortly after the Clark speech, and I'm sure many others did, too.)

Although I like both Volkh's and Williams' responses, I had a decidedly different reaction.  General Clark was spewing the Communist Manifesto and labeling it USA founding principles.  Progressive taxation has been item two in the handy list Marx and Engels included in the Communist Manifesto since its publication in February, 1848.  It is also addressed as a tax on business and investment income in both Mussolini's Fascist Manifesto and in the German National Socialist's 25 Points of 1920, and in the current American Nazi Party.

While trying to find the video, or just the audio, of Clark's 15 AUG 2003 Meet the Press appearance, I cam across this bit of humor by one Nathan Newman (note, all of the links to his evidence are broken):

September 18, 2003
Volokh Gets It Wrong
US Founded on Progressive Taxation

Eugene Volokh is accusing Wesley Clark of being historically ignorant.

The complaint?

Clark attacked Bush's tax cuts as a betrayal of America's progressive history:

The people that need the money and deserve the money are the people who are paying less, not the people who are paying more. I thought this country was founded on a principle of progressive taxation.Volokh snidely dismisses Clark by saying, "Somehow I slept through the class session in American History where they explained just how the country was founded'on a principle of progressive taxation.'"

But it's Volokh who has his history wrong.

For those of us for whom this country was founded in the "New Birth of Freedom" that ended slavery and completed the Constitution with the post-Civil War Amendments, the United States WAS founded on progressive taxation.

In fact, the first progressive income tax was in 1862 to fund the Union troops. From the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA):

It was a "progressive" tax in that it initially levied a tax of 3 percent on annual incomes over $600 but less than $10,000 and a tax of 5 percent on any income over $10,000. In 1864 the rates increased and the ceiling dropped so that incomes between $600 and $5,000 were taxed at 5 percent, with a 10 percent rate on the excess over $5,000. Passed as an emergency measure to finance the Union cause in the Civil War, the first income tax generated approximately $55 million in government revenues during the war. Paying the taxes was viewed as part of the patriotic war effort, and the whole country was proud when the merchant prince A. T. Stewart paid $400,000 in taxes on an income of $4 million.So yes, pride in a progressive income tax is EXACTLY what this country was founded upon.

It's worth noting that the Congress assumed it had the power to pass an income tax on that basis and revived it in the 1890s, only to have a rightwing Supreme Court strike the income tax down. This led to passage of the 16th Amendment, further ratifying progressive taxation as a founding principle of our constitutional system.

One thing that conservatives don't understand about America-- liberty was not founded in 1776. It's been a continual process with each generation having to refound this country in struggle -- a little bit of revolution periodically in Thomas Jefferson's phrase. But there is little question that our modern constitutional system was only established with the Civil War, and progressive taxation was at the heart of that effort.

Posted by Nathan at September 18, 2003 05:37 PM

Today I did attempt to respond to this load of crap thusly, but Nathan Newman's website redirected to a "page not found" message:

Okay, in what universe can you possibly read the US Constitution and glean that before the ratification of the 16th Amendment that an income tax was constitutional?  The Congress attempts all sorts of laws outside their powers that they know full well are outside of their powers.

The only way a "right wing" Supreme Court excuse fits is in the same way that Howard Dean criticized the Kelo v. New London decision on eminent domain was decided by a "right-wing Supreme Court": he lied about it.  Maybe he got the idea from you, since that happened a couple of years after you made this post.

Also, the Supreme Court did not overturn the Civil War Income Taxes, the Grant administration successfully lobbied Congress to do so.

Wesley Clark was engaged in the same sort of retread falsehoods as Ted Kennedy did on 12 AUG 1980 speaking on progressive taxation. He engaged in fabrication. Kennedy may not have known that progressive taxation is item two in the list at the end of "Chapter II. Proletarians and Communists" in the Communist Manifesto, but he should have at least known that Progressive RINO Teddy Roosevelt did not invent it and it sure did not originate in the USA. BTW, a progressive tax on capital is the first item under Finance in Mussolini's 1919 Fascist Manifesto and similar can be found in the 1920 German National Socialist 25 Points.

Seeing a General express these bizarre notions is no surprise. After 30 years of service, I became surprised when I met a fellow officer *without* a natural leaning to Commu-Fascism.

 I didn't realize until after reading that my response sounds like Dr. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory.

Socialist Speak

If mass murder is Right Wing, why do Liberals wear these guys on their t-shirts?

I have finally deciphered a key bit of Socialistspeak, as it will be called in Would You Like Borders With That Socialism.

It does not matter how Left a Socialist regime was, if they were not Stalinists they are labeled Right Wing.  I know, I have said that before right here on this blog, but it deserves repeating.

When Castro eliminated unions, it was ignored.  Yet another thing in the memory hole.  Noticing a pattern yet?  When Mao Nationalized/Socialized unions (consolidated all into one union under Mao), it was hailed.  When the All-China Federation of Trade Unions was abolished in 1966, well good luck finding any comments, especially negative, online about that.  When Mussolini and his Parliament instituted milder measures, this is what is said about it now?

The trade unions were also deprived of any independence and were integrated into what was called the "corporative" system. The aim (never completely achieved), inspired by medieval guilds, was to place all Italians in various professional organizations or "corporations", all of which were under clandestine governmental control.

Is it the "clandestine" part that makes National/Yellow Socialist Mussolini  "Right Wing?"  You will never get a Socialist to admit that.  They just recite, as if their school teachers were infallible deities, that "Mussolini was a Fascist!" with the expectation that everybody agrees the Fascist party was "Right Wing."

The fact of the matter is, any provable measure used to call National Socialists "Right Wing" are all Socialist, authoritarian, totalitarian measures that are common among all Socialists, Red or Yellow.  It is also the opposite of laissez-faire/free-market measures.

Seriously, this is shaping up to be a mental disorder and Liberal Arts departments around the world are spreading the disease.  Witness what passes to be a scholarly critique of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism (order from link at the left), by none other than the George Mason University History News Network.  Full article at the link, I will examine one little bit here:

Professor Robert Paxton

Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 14:27
The Scholarly Flaws of "Liberal Fascism"

Robert Paxton is emeritus professor of history at Columbia University. His latest book is Anatomy of Fascism (Vintage, 2005). 

Jonah Goldberg knows that making the Progressives, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and FDR the creators of an American fascism – indeed the only American fascism, for George Lincoln Rockwell and other overt American fascist or Nazi sympathizers are totally absent from this book – is a stretch, so he has created a new box: Liberal Fascism.

National Socialist George Lincoln Rockwell

True, Jonah left George Lincoln Rockwell out of his book (taking this on faith, my copy is not here with me at Starbucks at least GLR is not in the index), but I will not be leaving him out of my book.  It appears that Professor Paxton has written at least one book, so he should know that there is not an infinite amount of room to include every instance and example into one volume.  Current National Socialists are indeed Socialist, so was Rockwell, and they are open and proud about this fact, just as Hitler was.  Just listen to Hitler in this subtitled video:

The article really deserves a Fisking, but I will not bore you with that here.  A complete book on the topic of Yellow/National Socialism being a true flavor of Socialism could be written just off of this article.  Here is the main part I wanted to talk about here:

Communists voted with me, not against me.

Goldberg simply omits those parts of fascist history that fit badly with his demonstration. His method is to examine fascist rhetoric, but to ignore how fascist movements functioned in practice. Since the Nazis recruited their first mass following among the economic and social losers of Weimar Germany, they could sound anti-capitalist at the beginning.

Which is what they were throughout their existence. Which is why the Red Socialists (Communists) voted with them, on orders from Stalin.  Goldberg actually does go into NS policies at length, especially the health-food craze and their anti-smoking jihad.  I do not see how it is possible to read the book and miss this.

Goldberg makes a big thing of the early programs of the Nazi and Italian Fascist Parties, and publishes the Nazi Twenty-five Points as an appendix. A closer look would show that the Nazis’ anti-capitalism was a selective affair, opposed to international capital and finance capital, department stores and Jewish businesses, but nowhere opposed to private property per se or favorable to a transfer of all the means of production to public ownership.

Any honest look at the National Socialist Worker's Party Twenty-five Points shows that the party aims at taking the decision making in the means of production out of the hands of private ownership and have the government run things.  After they were elected, they delivered on those promises.  All National Socialist movements, then and now, promise to take the profits from private businesses and have the government tell the owners how to run them.  Hillary Rodham Clinton said the same things in her campaign against Barack Hussein Obama, and Obama delivered National Socialism to the energy, automobile and healthcare industries.

Note what The National Socialist German Worker's Party says about the arms industry in that very document.  It is the same thing that Mussolini said in his manifesto and it is a condensed version of Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party Platform.  This is not to say that it isn't full of racism and bigotry, it has that in spades too.  However, nobody can point to a free market item in the Twenty-five Points nor in Hitler's government.

He belongs on t-shirts next to Lenin

Here is another gem:

Having headlined the violent history of “liberalism,” Goldberg soft-pedals that of fascists, especially Mussolini. There are the ritual references to Auschwitz, but he denies that racial extermination is integral to Nazism by noting how many Progressive reformers fell for Eugenics in the early twentieth century.

NO! Goldberg never asserted any such thing, but it reveals the Leftist writer's bias of Professor Paxton. Goldberg, in print and on the stump, said that if you want to focus on genocide, then call that "Hitlerism" or something else, (I am comfortable with calling it Naziism myself) because the Nazis and the Vici were the only National Socialists (some call them fascists) doing that.  Yes, it had its roots in the earlier Eugenics movement, but the Italians and Spanish did not partake in it.  I will add that neither did the Greeks or Portuguese.  Maybe Professor Paxton regularly confuses Franco with Mussolini with Hitler with whomever was running Vici France.  Also, Goldberg addresses the Progressives as pre-fascist, he does not ignore it a bit.

His Mussolini – that lifelong “man of the left – is seen largely through the eyes of his many foolish American admirers. Che Guevara killed more people than Mussolini, he asserts (p. 194). This is possible only if one leaves out of the picture the murder of over a thousand Italian citizens by the squadristi who brought Mussolini to the brink of power in 1922, or of the Italians’ use of poison gas, forced displacement into camps, and aerial strafing against the populations of Libya and Ethiopia.

Finally, a detail I can use in my book that I was unaware of, but the pissing contest over who was a worse despot is pretty petty.  The throngs of Left Liberals who sport Che t-shirts should be evidence enough that murder is indeed a Liberal value.  Liberal Leftist Socialist Mussolini did it, and I will concede to Paxton that Che tried to eclipse it.  How is this any evidence at all that Mussolini was not a creature of the Left?

Soviet ally Nasser of Egypt used chemical weapons in Yemen throughout the 1960s and into 1970s, a history that is still easy to find.  Does that make the Soviets National Socialists of the 'Right Wing?'  Lenin murdered more people than Mussolini, Che and Fidel combined.  Is that what makes Lenin a person of the Left, his murders?  So Hitler murdered more than all for of the just mentioned people and Stalin beat that in just Ukrainians while Mao beat them all.  Seriously, the Leftists need to stop bringing up any murders in their 'evidence' against Yellow Socialism.

Face it Leftists, Mussolini and Hitler belong to you, not us.

National Socialists Are Keynesian

Sexy Nazi

The title should be no surprise to anybody who knows what National Socialists are or what Keynesian Economics is all about.

Let me qualify that a bit. The Italian and German National Socialists rose to power with the use of Keynesian Economics before John Maynard Keynes finished explaining his vision of the economic world. Of course, as with all massive government programs, the Nazis and Fascists took off in completely different directions from any that resembled what brought them to power. Here is Hitler in his own words via the American Nazi Party:

As you can read in the subtitles, Hitler tells corporations that they will be left alone as long as they play along and do as they are told. Don't take my word for it, look for yourself.  Everything in his speech is Keynesian and Socialistic.  If you think the Hitlerian National Socialists of today are any different, guess again.

John Maynard Keynes

As far as the German National Socialists go, what did they do when they took over the country?  They started big public works monuments to government, like the Autobahn.  Here is a WikiPedia passage that highlights a few of them:

Nazis came to power in the midst of the Great Depression. When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of close to 30%.[18] Before World War II, Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht, a former member of the German Democratic Party, as President of the Reichsbank in 1933 and Minister of Economics in 1934. [18]

At first, Schacht continued the economic policies introduced by the government of Kurt von Schleicher in 1932 to combat the effects of the Great Depression. These policies were mostly Keynesian, relying on large public works programs supported by deficit spending — such as the construction of the Autobahn network — to stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment. There was major reduction in unemployment over the following years, while price controls prevented the recurrence of inflation. The economic policies of the Third Reich were in the beginning the brainchildren of Schacht, who assumed office as president of the central bank under Hitler in 1933, and became finance minister in the following year. Schacht was one of the few finance ministers to take advantage of the freedom provided by the end of the gold standard to keep interest rates low and government budget deficits high, with massive public works funded by large budget deficits.[18] The consequence was an extremely rapid decline in unemployment—the most rapid decline in unemployment in any country during the Great Depression.[18] Eventually this Keynesian economic policy was supplemented by the boost to demand provided by rearmament and swelling military spending.

The last sentence in that passage is quite misleading.  Military spending is government spending and really is just part of a Keynesian framework, especially in an era where the Left found militarism appealing.

Socialist Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini

So, what of the Italian National Socialists, Mussolini's Fascists?

The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill. (p. 280)  - Mussolini, Benito. My Autobiography. New York: Scribner’s, 1928 (via econlib.org)

Remember, whenever anybody tries to tell you that National Socialists are/were something other than  collectivist socialists, they are lying.

The same folk will try to tell you that it was the 'corporations' dishing out the power to Mussolini and Hitler.  Think for a moment, just who had the police power?  Mussolini or Fiat?

What Do Mussolini, Hitler, Obama and Newt Gingrich Have In Common?

What Do Mussolini, Hitler, Obama and Newt Gingrich Have In Common?

They loved FDR, in the beginning.

They all praised Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a great President with great policies.  Yes, it is true, Mussolini and Hitler praised FDR  in the same way that Progressive Newt Gingrich does today.  As George F. Will wrote on December 2, 2011 of Gingrich:

Gingrich, who would have made a marvelous Marxist, believes everything is related to everything else and only he understands how. Conservatism, in contrast, is both cause and effect of modesty about understanding society’s complexities, controlling its trajectory and improving upon its spontaneous order. Conservatism inoculates against the hubristic volatility that Gingrich exemplifies and Genesis deplores: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.”

As any thinking person knows, there is precious little difference between Marxism and the other Socialisms, beyond marketing.  "Progressive" is just the latest relabeling of National Socialism, an authoritarian system of government that began as Yellow Socialism in France, but did not catch on in Europe after it was made popular in the USA by Theodore Roosevelt, his cousin FDR, and Woodrow Wilson.

If that is not enough, just read this: Newt Gingrich Praised SEIU Head Andy Stern's Forward-Looking Vision. If you have been following this blog, you will know that Andy Stern is a Socialist who endorses the latest crony capitalism/central planning developments in Red China.  The Huffington Post quotes Gingrich as saying this in his book Real Chance: From the World That Fails to the World That Works:

Andy Stern, the head of the Service Employees International Union, is the union leader who probably best understands the challenge of the world market and the need to make American union members productive in the face of world competition. Sadly, he is a distinct minority among union leaders.

The thing that divides Progressives like Newt Gingrich from libertarians like Ron Paul is freedom, especially the freedom for the consumer to chose in a free market. The sad thing is, Gingrich can play the nomination game better than the Ron Pauls of the world.

How Fast and Furious 2011 is like the Reichstag Fire 1933

"It's like ATF created or added to the problem so they could be the solution to it and pat themselves on the back," says one law enforcement source familiar with the facts. "It's a circular way of thinking."

German Reichstag Fire, 1933

Followup story here: Left vs. Libertarian on Fast and Furious

Answer to title: Both events were attempts by the political classes to grab power in their respective republics.

In the case of the Reichstag* Fire (Reichstagsbrand), the National Socialists of Germany succeeded in scaring the public into thinking they needed more National Socialists and fewer International Socialists to protect them, along with bestowing more power on an already wildly popular Chancellor Hitler.  However, nobody died in the Reichstagsbrand.

Chancellor Obama?

How is the US federal government "Fast and Furious" operation similar to the Reichstagsbrand?  The latest news indicates that it was an effort by the Obama administration to infringe upon Amendment II to the United States Constitution.  While nobody died in the Reichstag fire, Agent Brian Terry's death is the direct result of operation Fast and Furious.

Via CBS News - Documents: ATF used "Fast and Furious" to make the case for gun regulations

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

"Bill - can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks."

On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as "(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue." And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: "Bill--well done yesterday... (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case."

This revelation angers gun rights advocates. Larry Keane, a spokesman for National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group, calls the discussion of Fast and Furious to argue for Demand Letter 3 "disappointing and ironic." Keane says it's "deeply troubling" if sales made by gun dealers "voluntarily cooperating with ATF's flawed 'Operation Fast & Furious' were going to be used by some individuals within ATF to justify imposing a multiple sales reporting requirement for rifles."

Here is some email between the the ATF and a licensed gun dealer.
Email 1

Email 2

ATF's group supervisor on Fast and Furious David Voth assures the gun dealer there's nothing to worry about. "We (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into detail."

Two months later, the same gun dealer grew more agitated.

"I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys. I guess I am looking for a bit of reassurance that the guns are not getting south or in the wrong hands...I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents (sic) safety because I have some very close friends that are US Border Patrol agents in southern AZ as well as my concern for all the agents (sic) safety that protect our country."

"It's like ATF created or added to the problem so they could be the solution to it and pat themselves on the back," says one law enforcement source familiar with the facts. "It's a circular way of thinking."

More at the CBS website.
This latest That revelation comes from the same administration that has nationalized a large segment of the automobile industry without any Congressional approval and  has nationalized the health care industry during a period of same-party domination of both houses of Congress.  National Socialism?  Yes.

Update 9 DEC 2011 from The Daily Caller:

Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson accused the tea party movement and the National Rifle Association of creating an “manufactured” controversy over Operation Fast and Furious Thursday.

Johnson’s comments came during an interview with The Daily Caller outside the House Judiciary Committee hearing room. Attorney General Eric Holder was testifying before the committee about Fast and Furious — a Justice Department program where Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents facilitated the sale of about 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels.

“I think this is another manufactured controversy by the second amendment, NRA Republican tea party movement,” Johnson said.

Bolding mine.
This is growing to be identical to what the National Socialists pulled in 1933.

Before anybody assumes (since I have not mentioned it on this blog before this) that I am comparing the Obama administration's actions to the 1938 German Weapons Act at all.  That act deserves a post of its own, since the 1938 German Weapons Act bears more similarities to Wilsonian and FDR era gun restrictions targeting race: Jews were forbidden from the manufacturing or ownership of firearms and ammunition. (page 22)  Otherwise, the much misstated Hitler-era German law expanded citizens rights to be armed.


More On Obama And His Fast And Furious National Socialists

*German Parliament of the Weinmar Republic

Firing Line: A Distinction Between Left And Liberal By Malcolm Muggeridge, Plus Other Buckley Videos

William F. Buckley, Jr. talks with Malcolm Muggeridge about the distinction between Left and Liberal. Bonus, how Mrs. Roosevelt did more damage than Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler, i.e, how Liberalism is bad. Strikes me as similar to how Libertarians view things.

Here (sorry, no embed), Buckley talks about Getting it Right just after its release in 2003.  His introduction to the book is great, covering "the conservative scene" of the 1950s.  During question time, an audience member from AP informs him that Daniel Patrick Moynihan has died and asks Buckley for a few words.

Added bonus. William F. Buckley objects to being called a "crypto-Nazi" by Gore Vidal and threatens to hit him so hard that he will "stay plastered." Over the years Buckley's phrasing has been twisted into "stay stoned."

Gore Vidal: As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of pro-crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself.

William F. Buckley: Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in your god damn face and you'll stay plastered.

Only included because I have been looking for this clip for years and finally found it.

Still looking for a speech Buckley gave about how "the Left has won" in our society.

Coming soon to a gun show near you!

Was Hitler Really That Bad?

Yes, of course he was.  Now that I have your attention, the real question is: How can anybody think that Lenin, Stalin and Mao were not bad, or even half bad?  It has to do with marketing, called propaganda when it comes from the government.

Hitler bad

As I have mentioned before in Socialists and Marketing, the Socialist is under the impression that every consumer choice is made due to some marketing campaign.  An additional thought now is that Socialists, and Leftists in general, are particularly susceptible to advertising.  It does explain the actions of the Bloombergs, Obamas, and Ayers of the world quite nicely.  Whatever they decide is right and proper is always accompanied by a massive marketing blitz, along with attempts to silence any opposition to their "we are doing it for you" do-goodery.

Stalin not so bad?

What does this have to do with Hitler?  Everything, actually.  With one edict, Stalin turned his Socialist kinsman, atheist Germanic Pagan, vegetarian, cigarette hating, industry nationalizing, frustrated artist into a Right-Winger.  Stalin's order, that Communism was "Left" and everything else was "Right" went out to the Communist true-believers in the "commanding heights of society" to echo for centuries.  In 1928, not even Social Democrats were "Left" enough for Stalin:

Hence the tasks of the Communist Parties:

Firstly, to wage an unceasing struggle against Social-Democratism in all spheres -- in the economic and in the political sphere, including in the latter the exposure of bourgeois pacifism with the task of winning the majority of the working class for communism.

Secondly, to form a united front of the workers of the advanced countries and the labouring masses of the colonies in order to stave off the danger of war, or, if war breaks out, to convert imperialist war into civil war, smash fascism, overthrow capitalism, establish Soviet power, emancipate the colonies from slavery, and organise all-round defence of the first Soviet Republic in the world.

Such are the principal problems and tasks confronting the Sixth Congress.

These problems and tasks are being taken into account by the Executive Committee of the Comintern, as you will easily see if you examine the agenda of the Sixth Congress of the Comintern.

An adorable Mao?

Stalin was in a squabble about Socialist competition and a few years later, he was executing folks like Trotsky, not because they were free-market capitalists, but because they were not Communist enough, especially as their followings grew.  Note the beginnings of the conflagration of fascist.  Stalin lumped the Fascists of Italy in with the Nazis of Germany, whirled the red blender and they became one-in-the-same for the rest of Leftwing history.

Any lie was fine after that, like this one: Not until Germany’s tanks were on the borders of England and France did those governments ‘switch’ sides: now it was their imperialist domination being threatened.  Bolding mine, least anybody miss the detail of absurdity that Socialists toss about.

In their attempts to draw a distinction between the "real" Socialists and those fake National Socialists, the Communist hive came up with a neat little checklist aimed at the National Socialists.  One little problem with that, it describes the Soviet system to perfection.  Quoting just the first point here, the rest is just as comical.

There are several fundamental characteristics of fascism, among them are:

1. Right Wing: Fascists are fervently against: Marxism, Socialism, Anarchism, Communism, Environmentalism; etc – in essence, they are against the progressive left in total, including moderate lefts (social democrats, etc). Fascism is an extreme right wing ideology, though it can be opportunistic.

Meanie Mussolini?

Sure, all of these leftist parties are rivals with each other, the same way Republicans and Democrats in America.  The same way that allies Hitler and Mussolini faced off against each other in France, at the beginning. But National Socialists (fascists in the text) are anti-Environmentalism vs. Communists/Socialists as grand stewards of the earth?   Sounds good on paper, but in reality the Soviet Union, and later China, North Korea, Haiti and Cuba, all destroyed the environment they controlled in rates and volumes unparalleled in all of human history.  Meanwhile, the German National Socialists institutionalized their Environmentalist Movement before and during WWII, called Reichsnaturschutzgesetz (RNG, Reich Nature Protection Law).

Of course, the marketing campaign that only a Socialist could fall for does not end there and what has been referenced above does not explain why Hitler, a murderer of 12 million people can overshadow Stalin, a murderer of 20 million, or for that matter Mao, a murderer of 77 million as the worst human in history.  Arguably, the runner up behind Hitler should be Lenin, with his Cheka murders knocking off about 0.5 million and intentional famine starving millions more. They are all bad, all horrible pieces of disgusting human filth.  But not to the Left, who like to sport t-shirts with images like this:

Heroes of the Left have the highest body counts.

It all goes back to Stalin's Third Period Declaration of 1928.  Once the Socialists get an order, the large portion who take their marching orders from Moscow directly or indirectly, they follow it to any extreme.  After Hitler and Mussolini were declared "bad", for being more popular internationally than Stalin and nothing else, the professors, and other writers populating the commanding heights of society, set to work with a "Stalin good/Hitler bad" narrative that continues today.

Still not convinced?  Ever hear of Alexander Solzhenitsyn?  He was a Gulag survivor who wrote a few good books.  However, not until Soviet leader Khrushchev made a secret speech could his books about the Gulag could be published.  At least the speech was supposed to be a secret.  Israeli intelligence furnished the US Central Intelligence agency a copy, they in turn furnished the New York Times a copy and it was published.  Immediate howling ensued from the true believers of Soviet Socialism, they likened any criticism of Stalin to "spots on the sun", partly because the news came from somewhere besides Moscow.  Eventually Moscow did own up to it, but the speech was either ignored or used as evidence by Western Communists that Khrushchev destroyed communism.

No, Hitler's reputation as "worst ever" certainly has nothing to do with genocide, murder, or intentional starvation.  The people of Finland, the Balkan States and Taiwan can attest that it has nothing to do with "totalitarianism" either.  It is due to marketing of the worst kind.

Smoking Nazis vs. Anti-Smoking Nazis

A smoking Nazi

The term "smoking Nazi" is more accurate than most Americans realize. We, the smokers, when using the term "smoking Nazi" are generally speaking of the annoying busybodies who use the police power of the government to eliminate locations where we can smoke, no matter what the location owner has to say about it.  Side note, in modern discourse, the "anti" prefix seems to be affixed to all sorts of things that are already anit.  "Smoking Nazi" means the same as "Anti-Smoking Nazi" these days.  Another artifact of leftists destroying the English language to a set of meaningless words.

Anti-Smoking Nazi

The bans now extend to homes in Belmont, CA, a far cry from the "protecting workers in the workplace" argument, or even the "smoke is offensive" argument, that the American equivalent of National Socialists in both major parties began with in their assault on individual rights.Yes, smoking anything is an individual right.  Any argument against that notion that smoking anything is an individual right is pure bullshit.

Just how accurate is the invective "Smoking Nazi"?  Read for yourself (do not limit yourself to the WikiPedia article, look up the references too):

A German National Socialist Party Anti-Smoking ad.

The Nazi anti-tobacco campaign included banning smoking in trams, buses and city trains,[6]promoting health education,[12] limiting cigarette rations in the Wehrmacht, organizing medical lectures for soldiers, and raising the tobacco tax.[6] The National Socialists also imposed restrictions on tobacco advertising and smoking in public spaces, and regulated restaurants and coffeehouses.[6] The anti-tobacco movement did not have much effect in the early years of the Nazi regime and tobacco use increased between 1933 and 1939,[13] but smoking by military personnel declined from 1939 to 1945.[14] Even by the end of the 20th century, the anti-smoking movement in postwar Germany had not attained the influence of the Nazi anti-smoking campaign.[13]

Ernst Rohm: Openly Homosexual Nazi and Cured Smoker

Another side note, the depiction of the German military smoking cigarettes all of the time in movies and such, when the National Socialist Worker's Party took over with single party rule, that habit was seriously frowned upon.  Images of German soldiers smoking cigarettes can be found, but they are rare compared to other armies of the time, although German soldiers smoking pipes are common.  Also, the term "Nazi Soldier" is technically wrong, since members of the Wehrmacht were banned from political party affiliation.  However, in short order, after all Parties but the National Socialist German Workers Party were banned, the German military had high percentages of Nazi party members running things.  At any rate, the popular culture image of cigarette smoking German soldiers, Airmen and Sailors is exaggerated.  Also, Adolph Hitler is rumored to be an ex-smoker, adding even more fuel to the irony of the Smoking Nazi image.

Today in the USA, the Nazis are winning almost every battle against individual choice.  Even in California, where as mentioned above local communities can ban tobacco smoking in the home, it is may be illegal soon to prevent marijuana smoking in a business, if it is not illegal already.

As with all arguments from Leftist Socialists, their heart-string pulling arguments go up in smoke as soon as they get their way.  The war on tobacco was never about people damaging their lungs over a period of decades, it was about someone making money off of a legal product.  It was all a smokescreen to take down another segment of profitable industry.

If the evidence is too muddy, then consider this.  It is never healthy to fill your lungs with smoke, no matter the composition of the smoke.  When nicotine can be delivered with harmless water vapor, the Smoking Nazis are still against it.

Oddly (not really) the marihuana advocates do have a limit to what is acceptable for supplying the legal pot user market: profits.  Yes, the folks who will use any (unneeded) Trojan Horse to bring marijuana into mainstream acceptance, including medical use, have a fit if anybody makes any money off of the deal.  Jacob Sullum points out they hysterical objection to profit making here.

Obama Fried Chicken: Beijing

For some reason, the Socialist Left does not mind Red China making a profit off of solar panels, at least not as long as Red China continues to be a Communist regime ruling over one billion slaves.  Stay tuned for that tune to change.  The only serious objection against Red China's crony capitalistic adventure seems to be against popular fast food franchises.

This is not rocket surgery.  All you have to do is listen to what the Socialists say and you will know where they are going.

Hank Williams Jr. vs the Illiberal Left

Hank Williams Jr. has a response to ESPN and FOX news.  For those unfamiliar, about one week ago Hank Jr. was on Fox and Friends where he had this exchange:


As you saw and heard after the 1:31 mark, Hank Williams Jr. never called Obama Hitler.  He compared the "golf summit" between Obama and Bonner to a meeting between mortal enemies.  Somehow, this became translated into Hank calling B. Hussein Obama "Hitler".  Oddly, this construct is the very thing that is joked about the most on SAT tests, and a bunch of pundits who like to use SAT scores as bragging or bashing rights did not get it.  Actually, they probably got it and they just don't think you could possibly understand it due to their core arrogance driven biases.

FOX and others keep mischaracterizing  what was said, just Google "Hank Williams compares Obama to Hitler" and see all of the articles written by people who never saw the exchange, or chose to lie about it.

Also, Williams also endorses Herman Cain at the 2:00 mark.

Now, for the Hank Williams Jr. response -(video first, then audio)


Audio only version of Keep the Change:  

LYRICS: 

I'll keep my freedom
I'll keep my guns
Try to keep my money
And my religion too

Try to keep on workin'
Try to keep on smilin'
I will keep my Christian name and y'all can keep the change

I will keep my heroes
Pictures on the wall
I'll keep my family safe
You bluff when I call
I'm gonna keep my big V8
Keep my friends the same
Keep the government outta my business
And y'all can keep the change

This country sure as hell been goin' down the drain
We know what we need
We know who to blame
United Socialist States of America
How do ya like that name?
I'll keep the USA and y'all can keep the change

So FOX and friends
Wanna put me down
Ask for my opinions
Then twist it all around
Supposed to be talkin' about my father's new CD
Well two can play that "Gotcha' Game" just wait and see
Don't tread on me

This country sure as hell been goin' down the drain
We know what we need
We know who to blame
United Socialist States of America
Don't ya just LOVE that name?
I'll keep the USA and y'all can keep the change

I'll keep the USA and y'all can keep the change

Yeah, you can keep FOX and friends and ESPN outta your homes too
Cuz Bocephus and all his rowdy friends and his song is outta there!

Yessir!

Conventions

I have always taken issue with fascism and National Socialism being used interchangeably. The biggest problem comes in speech, when one says Fascism but they mean fascism, Yellow Socialism, or National Socialism It is similar to the confusion between an asymmetrical airfoil and a symmetrical airfoil. Using symmetrical and non-symmetrical clears that up nicely. So does using National Socialism for what it is, Socialism with a nationalistic marketing plan, no matter if it is Germans, Israelis, Italians, Spaniards, or Americans doing it and leave the Fascism to Mussolini era Italians.

One thing this convention does is it removes a bad rhetorical 'weapon' from the Socialists who want to confuse the issue. For example, when they call people fascists when they mean Nazi. Now, no member of the National Socialist Worker's Party ever called himself a fascist and no Italian Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF) member would ever call himself a Nazi, and neither would sit still to be called one either. However, every member of each group is in fact a Socialist and a National Socialist. Similarly, the International Socialists are Communists, be they Leninist, Stalinist, Marxist, or any of the others. Trotskyites do seem to fall in the National Socialist camp of the Marxists, for now.

The Socialists get a bit irate when one lumps them together. Similar to when various members of religious factions are misidentified. The Communist takes offense at the label Nazi, even though they were allied and voted with each other in the German parliament (Bundestag). Also quite similar to an American baseball Cincinnati Reds fan who takes offense at being called a Boston Red Sox fan. In fiction, the Monty Python players captured this in their film, The Life of Brian, through the use of political satire.

In my upcoming book, Would You Like Borders With That Socialism? I try to stick with the convention of a fascist being a Fascist of Italy, and a Nazi being a member of the National Socialist German Worker's Party. All are National Socialists and all Socialists. The differences appear to be with their marketing strategy and body count.

So you think gays in the military is new?

Ernst Julius Röhm and the Hitler gang did it long before Clinton and Obama.

A couple of notes here.  The article has a good timeline on when the events pertaining to the SA, the Brown Shirts, who were a mostly homosexual paramilitary organization.  Think of them as Hitler's Leather Men, armed to the teeth with a passion for cracking skulls.

The article falls short in falling for the utter nonsense that Hitler was not a Leftist.  He joined the National Socialists when he was supposed to be infiltrating them because he liked what they had to say, agreed with destroying capitalism and expanding social handouts.  He did get support from large corporations, the corporations that wanted to continue their existence and had little problem sucking up to the new sheriff in town.

Additionally, Hitler used groups cast to the fringe for his advantage before throwing them under the bus.  The same as Obama did his own grandmother.  Some historians wish to hold the party line that the homosexual makeup of the SA is some modern Right wing fantasy, even though Ernst Röhm was openly gay and that is well documented.  Röhm was arrested in bed, with his younger male lover, by Hitler and executed ten days later.  At the time, Röhm was one of the only people who could challenge Hitler for leadership of the National Socialist German Worker's Party and that was certainly not coincidental to his execution.