Warning From a Student of Democracy's Collapse

[ironmonk]

[quote name='Phatmasser777' date='Jan 10 2005, 11:36 PM'] [b]Warning From a Student of Democracy's Collapse[/b]

By [i]Chris Hedges[/i]

[i]01/06/05 "New York Times" --[/i] FRITZ STERN, a refugee from Hitler's Germany and a leading scholar of European history, startled several of his listeners when he warned in a speech about the danger posed in this country by the rise of the Christian right. In his address in November, just after he received a prize presented by the German foreign minister, he told his audience that Hitler saw himself as "the instrument of providence" and fused his "racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity."

"Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics," he said of prewar Germany, "but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured his success, notably in Protestant areas."

Dr. Stern's speech, given during a ceremony at which he got the prize from the Leo Baeck Institute, a center focused on German Jewish history, was certainly provocative. The fascism of Nazi Germany belongs to a world so horrendous it often seems to defy the possibility of repetition or analogy. But Dr. Stern, 78, the author of books like "The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology" and university professor emeritus at Columbia University, has devoted a lifetime to analyzing how the Nazi barbarity became possible. He stops short of calling the Christian right fascist but his decision to draw parallels, especially in the uses of propaganda, was controversial.

"When I saw the speech my eyes lit up," said John R. MacArthur, whose book "Second Front" examines wartime propaganda. "The comparison between the propagandistic manipulation and uses of Christianity, then and now, is hidden in plain sight. No one will talk about it. No one wants to look at it."

Dr. Stern was a schoolboy in 1933 when Hitler was appointed the German chancellor. He ran home from school that January afternoon clutching a special edition of the newspaper to deliver to his father, a prominent physician.

"I was young," he said, "but I knew it was very bad news."

The street fighting in his native Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland) between Communists and Nazis, the collapse of German democracy and the ruthless suppression of all opposition marked his childhood, and were images and experiences that would propel him forward as a scholar.

"I saw one of the last public demonstrations against Hitler," he said. "Men, women and children walked through the street and chanted 'Hunger! Hunger! Hunger!' "

His paternal grandparents had converted to Christianity. His parents were baptized at birth, as were Mr. Stern and his older sister. But this did not save the Sterns from persecution. Nazi racial laws still classified them as Jews.

"It was only Nazi anti-Semitism that made me conscious of my Jewish heritage," he said. "I had been brought up in a secular Christian fashion, celebrating Christmas and Easter. My father had to explain it to me."

His schoolmates were swiftly recruited into Hitler youth groups and he and other Jews were taunted and excluded from some activities.

"Many of my classmates found the organized party experience, which included a heavy dose of flag waving and talk of national strength, very exhilarating," said Dr. Stern, who lost an aunt and an uncle in the Holocaust. "It was something I never forgot."

His family fled to New York in 1938 when he was 12. He eventually went to Columbia University intending to study medicine. But his passion for the past, along with questions about what happened to his homeland, caused him to switch his focus to history. He wanted to grasp how democracies disintegrate. He wanted to uncover the warning signs other democracies should heed. He wanted to write about the seductiveness of authoritarian movements, which he once described in an essay, "National Socialism as Temptation."

"There was a longing in Europe for fascism before the name was ever invented," he said. "There was a longing for a new authoritarianism with some kind of religious orientation and above all a greater communal belongingness. There are some similarities in the mood then and the mood now, although also significant differences."

HE warns of the danger in an open society of "mass manipulation of public opinion, often mixed with mendacity and forms of intimidation." He is a passionate defender of liberalism as "manifested in the spirit of the Enlightenment and the early years of the American republic."

"The radical right and the radical left see liberalism's appeal to reason and tolerance as the denial of their uniform ideology," he said. "Every democracy needs a liberal fundament, a Bill of Rights enshrined in law and spirit, for this alone gives democracy the chance for self-correction and reform. Without it, the survival of democracy is at risk. Every genuine conservative knows this."

Dr. Stern, who has two children from a previous marriage, is married to Elizabeth Sifton, a book publisher. They live in New York. He is writing a book called "Five Germanys I Have Known," a combination of memoirs and reflections that looks at Weimar, Nazi Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, East Germany and unified Germany. He is widely read in Germany and has won its highest literary prize.

"The Jews in Central Europe welcomed the Russian Revolution," he said, "but it ended badly for them. The tacit alliance between the neo-cons and the Christian right is less easily understood. I can imagine a similarly disillusioning outcome."

Correction: January 7, 2005, Friday:

The Public Lives profile yesterday, about Fritz Stern, the scholar of European history who has recently warned of the danger of the rise of the Christian right in the United States, misspelled his wife's given name. She is Elisabeth Sifton, not Elizabeth.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) [/quote]
Hitler was not Christian.

Hitler was into the Norse gods and occult type astrology. One of his top henchmen was some 'wizard' or something like that.


The ignorance of the left kills me.


God Bless,
ironmonk

[ironmonk]

[quote name='Phatmasser777' date='Jan 11 2005, 09:01 PM']
You can, Pius XI was just very short-sighted. [/quote]
Wrong.


God Bless,
ironmonk

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

Tis true. Hitler was into astrology and the occult.
[quote]You can, Pius XI was just very short-sighted.[/quote]
What do you know that Pope Pius XI did not?

[Benedict]

Did Pius XI wear glasses?

[Colleen]

[quote name='Benedict' date='Jan 11 2005, 11:28 PM'] Did Pius XI wear glasses?

[/quote]
Yes.

[img]http://www.vaticanhistory.de/pb_m_r/B_Pius_XI1.jpg[/img]

[Phatmasser777]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jan 11 2005, 08:48 PM'] Would you care to explain why, or do you just want to dis this Pope? [/quote]
The only reason why Pius XI, and the Church (if it does today) think such things of socialism, is because of the carp scenerio of certain Eastern European countries, however Socialism, isnt the same as Communism (which I despise), Socialism merely means NO CLASSES, No One is Higher or Better than anyone else, they all work towards one goal. Of course if your a Pope, you'd be against this, since Socialism destroys your 'prestige' position, and makes you a 'commoner'.

[Paladin D]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jan 11 2005, 02:08 PM'] This is one of the Left's oldest tricks. If you don't like someone's ideas, call them Nazis, fascists, or something similar. This prevents the need to actually rationally discuss facts and ideas and defend one's beleifs.

If you're a conservative, you're a Nazi, you're evil, and therefore no further discussion is needed.
(And this also helps the liberal ego by making their stance appear heroic - they're not just fighting with conservatives they disagree with - they're fighting against Nazism and Fascism, man!) [/quote]
Right on target man, couldn't agree more.

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

[quote name='Phatmasser777' date='Jan 12 2005, 12:43 PM'] Socialism merely means NO CLASSES, No One is Higher or Better than anyone else, they all work towards one goal. [/quote]
That is not [url="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=socialism"]socialism[/url].
[quote]Of course if your a Pope, you'd be against this, since Socialism destroys your 'prestige' position, and makes you a 'commoner'.[/quote]
The Pope is prestigious. He is the Vicar of Christ.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Phatmasser777' date='Jan 12 2005, 11:43 AM'] The only reason why Pius XI, and the Church (if it does today) think such things of socialism, is because of the carp scenerio of certain Eastern European countries, however Socialism, isnt the same as Communism (which I despise), Socialism merely means NO CLASSES, No One is Higher or Better than anyone else, they all work towards one goal. Of course if your a Pope, you'd be against this, since Socialism destroys your 'prestige' position, and makes you a 'commoner'. [/quote]
This is a load of horse dung!

Pope Pius XI was extraordinarily far-sighted, speaking against socialism at a time when most "intellectuals" saw it as the "wave of the future"!

No good has ever come out of socialism. Socialism is wrong because it disregards man's right to property and places control over people's material goods and means of production in the hands of the State. It is by definition tyranny. It fails at both the moral and practical/economic levels.

How is this goal of "no classes" acheived? By the actions of a tyrannical government which meddles where it has no business, confiscating the rightful property of citizens. IN a socialist society it is the State, and those with connections to the State, which wields power and prestige over others, creating a more privileged and powerful tyranny than that which it supposedly existed to destroy.

Communism is simply the purest form of socialism. It has created a hell on earth wherever it has been practiced. Nazism (National Socialism) was another form of socialism.

Scoialism leads to economic failure at best, and horrific tyranny and atrocity at worst. All the world's most evil and tyrannical governments were socialist.

Edited January 12, 2005 by Socrates

[Phatmasser777]

[quote name='thedude' date='Jan 12 2005, 04:27 PM'] That is not [url="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=socialism"]socialism[/url].

The Pope is prestigious. He is the Vicar of Christ. [/quote]
Ive got different meanings in my dictionary. Its always classified with class struggle, but since you used that site, I better swap from my meaning to that one.

[Phatmasser777]

[quote]Communism is simply the purest form of socialism. [/quote]

Communism is anti-religion. Socialism isnt.

The only people against Socialism are corporate thugs and rich buggers.

[Benedict]

[quote]Communism is anti-religion. Socialism isnt.[/quote]
Socialism is only the stepping stone from capitalism to communism.

[quote]The only people against Socialism are corporate thugs and rich buggers. [/quote]
Ahh the old "if you don't agree with me you must be a doody-head" argument.

[Phatmasser777]

[quote]Socialism is only the stepping stone from capitalism to communism.
[/quote]

No its one GIANT Step away from Todays Corporate Corruption

[quote]Ahh the old "if you don't agree with me you must be a doody-head" argument.[/quote]

When you use UR HEAD, you'll see its quite true, who are the most to lose from a socialist society? Corps, rich and high-class.

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

Socialism is free from corruption and "rich buggers"?

[Socrates]

[quote name='Phatmasser777' date='Jan 13 2005, 01:06 AM']
Communism is anti-religion. Socialism isnt.

The only people against Socialism are corporate thugs and rich buggers.

[/quote]
This is more complete nonsense.

I'm definitely not rich nor a "corporate thug," but I'm totally against socialism, as are millions of thinking people who aren't taken in by socialist nonsense.

"The only people for socialism are burnt-out brain-dead pot-head hippies and mindless commie thugs!"

See, anyone can call names. I have yet to see any examples of good coming out of socialism.

I haven't heard a shred of rational argument from you, only name-calling and slogan-slinging.