[lbo-talk] Re: 14 characteristics of fascism

[andie nachgeborenen]

Our situation is terrible enough without these tedious extended comparisons to the Nazis. The Brits (and we) at their/our ruthless worst weren't a patch on the insane killing machine that Hitler created. They were merely bigoted, self-satisfied, and greedy. The Nazis wanted to turn the lights out all over the world, and came too damn close to doing it too.  Yes, we Americans have an ugly heritage of extermination of the Indians, slavery, persecution of dissidents, lynching, racism, aggressive war, etc. That is one strand in our history. It is an important one and cannot be minimized. But it is not the only one. We also have things to be proud of: the Bill of Rights, Abolitionism, Emancipation, the labor movement, the partly successful struggle for civil liberties and civil rights, . . . . The analogues to our dark side in Nazi Germany's brief history are the best things about the Nazis. (The Autobahn and the VW aside.) The worst things about them -- the Einsatzgruppen, Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, Maidenek, T4 -- have, thank God, no echo in ours. 

 
Btw, the Jews weren't "white" -- they sort of became honorary whites after the war, as it became clear what the extent of the horrors were, and they crawled up the socioeconomic ladder. It's really not till my generation (late boomers, 40-somethings) that Jews become fully white. Not in my parents' generation, which faced Jew quotas at the better schools, the big law firms, Wall Street (yes!), etc. And if you read histories of British India by Indians (which I have), you will not find the Raj treated as a period of Nazi-like terror, even by the Communist historians. Or maybe the Indians are "white" too? After all, they are Ayrans -- maybe the only real ones! But the Brits think that they are wogs and n-words. (Little black Sambo is an Indian, that's why the tiger.)

 
jks

Jon Johanning <jjohanning at igc.org> wrote:
Wojtek wrote:


> But the reason for that is not the supposed "benevolence" of
> "superiority" of the Anglo-Saxon regimes - the inventiors of modern day
> slavery, the genocide, and the concentration camp (the last two titles
> go to the British for their performance in Tasmania and South Africa, as
> well as to the US-ers for their treatment of Native Americans). The
> difference between Nazi Germany on one side, and the Anglo-Saxon
> genocide machine is mainly in the skin color of their victims, and the
> winning of the war. As a result, nazi historu has been written, for the
> most part, by its white skin victims. Had the history of the British
> and US empire been written by its dark skin victims, "democratic
> institutions" you mention in this context would have a similar meaning
> to "Demokratische" in the context of "Deutsche Republik."

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