I recently blogged on Hannah Arendt's discussion of Jews' cooperation with the German National Socialists in their own mass murder through the Judenraten, the Jewish Councils that assisted the Nazis in facilitating an orderly movement of Jews into concentration camps. While Hannah Arendt attributes their cooperation to the moral decline associated with National Socialism, I claim that socialism per se, national socialism, socialism in one country or of any other variety, contributes to obedience to authority that in turn leads to collaboration with tyranny. Glenda McGee recently forwarded my blog to a left wing activist (and published poet) in the Village of Woodstock, NY who briefly responded to my blog and I respond to his comments.
The founding fathers, especially the Anti-Federalists, viewed private ownership of guns and the ability of private citizens to constitute a militia as crucial to defense against tyranny. English history is full of instances of taxation and tax revolts, and as well, other forms of tyranny such as religious suppression. But the founding fathers, although some like Hamilton were in fact socialists, could never have envisioned a system as horrific as the socialism that was conceptualized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries nor the mass murders to which socialism led in Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, China, Germany and worst of all, the USSR.
The respondent writes:
>Yes, we (human beings) are almost always complicit, to a greater or lesser degree, in our victimization at the hands of other human beings. This is not news. Native Americans allowed themselves to be used as scouts by the U.S. Army in its brutal campaigns against the Indians in the mid- to late-19th century. Closer to our time and more apropos of the behavior of Jewish councils in World War II, the French notoriously collaborated with the Nazis (the "Resistance" was much, much smaller in number than postwar myth makes it out to be), as did citizens in every country the Nazis invaded (think of Quisling in Norway, whose name has become synonymous with treachery to one's own people). To posit that this very widespread human tendency to save one's own skin at the expense of others has something to do with an ingrained "tribal socialism" is misleading.
>Also, unless I'm mistaken, the Jewish councils were mostly composed of upstanding members of the community — the more well-to-do, the upper class. These people did not have socialist ideals; they had vested interests in maintaining the status quo. And we should note, too, that as far as Hitler was concerned, there was not a lot of difference between socialists (or communists) and Jews; they were all fodder for the ovens.
My response:
>Do upper class American Jews like George Soros and half of Hollywood have socialist or capitalist ideals? Since Soros was a prime backer of Obama, as was Warren Buffett, might we conclude that socialism and upper class socioeconomic status go hand in hand? And why would it have been different in the 1940s?
The leading Jewish Progressives in pre-World War II America included: Walter Lippmann, Walter Weyl, Bernard Baruch and Robert Moses. All were German Jews from upper class backgrounds and all were socialists or bordering on it (Progressive/corporatists like Moses or Baruch). Likewise, the leading WASP socialists of the pre World War I period were often trained in German universities, which were the source of Progressivism in America. The reason that Progressivism grew so rapidly in the US was the large number of upper class US graduate students who went to Germany for graduate school in the post Civil War era, the Gilded Age, at a time when only 5% of the population attended college. The graduates came back advocating the same socialism that upper class Jews of German ancestry like Walter Weyl advocated when he taught at Wharton.
It was the upper class that was most strongly socialist and this was true in the US going back to Alexander Hamilton, who advocated a socialist (government owned) manufacturing industry. The Whigs were the upper class, more socialist party in America between 1830 and 1856. Thereafter, the Republicans were the more socialist/upper class of the two parties (they were basically the same as the Whigs) until 1932, when the Democrats adopted Whig socialism cloaked in Jacksonian rhetoric, which has always been a lie. Of course, the socialism of Hamilton would not have repealed private property rights or fostered tyranny to the degree that the Marxist advocates of socialism in one country or the National Socialists of Germany did.
In America, socialism was advocated most strongly by the patrician Theodore Roosevelt and his advisers, Herbert Croly and George Perkins, president of International Harvester and adviser to JP Morgan before TR's patrician cousin, FDR, picked up the mantle. Socialism by its own nature favors the upper class because they can more flexibly implement their whims when all of the nation is forced to live at their mercy. Hence, the segment of the upper class with strongly developed power needs (Kennedy, Soros) have always been socialist leaders.
As far as Hitler, not only did he not mind socialism, he was an aggressive socialist himself. Prior to Hitler, the Nazi Party had been called the German Worker's Party. Its 25 point program was socialist and included advocacy of expansion of national health insurance. "'The German Workers' Party name was changed by Hitler to include the term National Socialist. Thus the full name was the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) called for short, Nazi." Note that the terms "national socialist" that Hitler adopted and "socialism in one country" that Stalin adopted are logically equal. As a result, left-wing historians prefer to incorrectly call Hitler "fascist".
Nazism was very much socialist in operation. Hitler's government oversaw and directed industry. Germany's was a socialist, centrally planned economy.
Without socialism the Jews would have been much more able to resist. For instance, if they had owned guns and had private property rights resistance would have been much easier. Who favors gun control today, socialist Jews or the Tea Party? In other words, American Jews continue to advocate the holocaust accomodation that killed the Jews in Germany. They call themselves "progressives" in doing so.
Nazism was financed through the same Keynesian economics that Jewish progressives and neo-conservatives advocate today. Nazism was very much liked by progressive Democrats of the World War II era, such as Joseph Kennedy, who advocated appeasement and lost his job as ambassador to Britain because he said that Germany was the new progressive model and democracy was finished.
As well, the Swedish socialist economist Gunnar Myrdal was an open supporter of Hitler and the Nazis during the 1930s. The socialist Swedes were officially neutral but quietly admired and supported Hitler (including his anti-Semitism, according to some) through the war.
It seems evident that the socialist impulse toward belief in collectivism; toward belief in the justice of unlimited majority power; opposition to individual rights such as the right to bear arms and the right of private property; belief in the right of the state to monopolize money and redirect its value into the hands of the military and banking elite all militate toward holocaust risk to this day. Socialists believe that the collective ought to have authority over the individual. Where in socialist ideology is there emphasis on the right of the individual to resist forcible tyranny of the collective? People who trust in the authority of the state are more, not less, likely to trust in the authority of the Nazi state, or of some future tyrannical state.
Even today, the increasing power of the United States is viewed as tyrannical by Jewish libertarians, but viewed with ardor by Jewish socialists. In their eyes, the state can do no wrong. So where would the Jews of Europe have found the intellectual resources to resist the Nazi state? Where in the socialist imagination would such resistance reside?
Milton Friedman made similar arguments in Capitalism and Freedom, and he was right. The Jews have been their own worst enemies. The current positions of the majority of Jews are exactly the same as those that were widespread in Germany between 1880 and 1920 and that are directly linked to the rise of Nazism.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Repeated Betrayals by the Media, GOP Leadership
Members of the freedom movement will have to create their own leadership from scratch and must never trust media sources. Someone posted a complaint that I have unfairly questioned Glenn Beck. Actually, if anyone thinks that Glenn Beck is trustworthy or that he should not be questioned, rather than reading my blog please pick up a subscription to the New York Times, because trust is for suckers.
The freedom movement has no, I repeat no, representative on the national level. If you favor big government, then trust Mitt Romney and Sarah Pailin.
As far as Beck goes, when the chips were down, he favored the bailout. We will see if he continues to favor pro Wall Street candidates like Rick Perry or Mitt Romney. I have yet to hear of Beck proposing an alternative to the Federal Reserve system. This might include competitive money supplies, repeal of the legal tender law, or advocacy of the gold standard or other commodity basis for money. Unless government's and Wall Street's ability to expand the money supply at your expense is curtailed, government will continue to grow and you will continue to become poorer.
If you want to be loyal to a TV personality, pick someone with credibility, like Mickey Mouse or the Three Stooges. My favorite was always Curly. In news and politics, I have no reason to believe in anyone at this point in history. If you want a savior, go to church, don't watch TV news.
The freedom movement has no, I repeat no, representative on the national level. If you favor big government, then trust Mitt Romney and Sarah Pailin.
As far as Beck goes, when the chips were down, he favored the bailout. We will see if he continues to favor pro Wall Street candidates like Rick Perry or Mitt Romney. I have yet to hear of Beck proposing an alternative to the Federal Reserve system. This might include competitive money supplies, repeal of the legal tender law, or advocacy of the gold standard or other commodity basis for money. Unless government's and Wall Street's ability to expand the money supply at your expense is curtailed, government will continue to grow and you will continue to become poorer.
If you want to be loyal to a TV personality, pick someone with credibility, like Mickey Mouse or the Three Stooges. My favorite was always Curly. In news and politics, I have no reason to believe in anyone at this point in history. If you want a savior, go to church, don't watch TV news.
How Limousine Liberals Support the Rich
I just sent this letter to the editor of my local newspaper, the Olive Press. I have been writing to them each month:
A number of Olive residents have questioned my claim that limousine liberals favor the wealthy, i.e., themselves. The financial elite has often been called the military industrial complex (MIC) but is more accurately a nexus of real estate, Wall Street and commercial banking with the MIC and so I will refer to it as the banking elite.
Gabriel Kolko in his Triumph of Conservatism shows that the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank was part of a larger movement, Progressivism, that reflected the banking elite's interests. This followed three decades of cumulative politicization of the economy by the Mugwumps and Populists of the 1880s and 1890s. One fruit of these movements, the 1890 Sherman Anti-trust Act, supported increasing concentration of industry. Martin J. Sklar provides detailed documentation in his Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism 1890-1916. The Federal Reserve Act in 1913 further enhanced the banking elite's domination, which was accelerated in 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt abolished the gold standard and confiscated all privately held gold.
The way that the Federal Reserve Bank helps the banking elite at the expense of the average American is that it increases the number of dollars in circulation, distributing them to the banking system. The banking system takes the reserves that the Fed gives it and expands the reserves further through fractional reserve banking. Briefly, when the fractional reserve banking system receives a Federal Reserve deposit (created out of thin air) of one dollar, it can expand the number of dollars by ten. Thus, the Federal Reserve Bank, which the banking system legally owns, can create deposits (reserves) out of thin air and then the banks can lend up to ten times the reserves also out of thin air. In other words, the Fed and the banking system cheapen the dollars that you own.
Economists, who are on the banking elite's payroll through consultancies, endowed chairs, and appointments to the Federal Reserve Bank staff, serve as an important propaganda source. They claim that the reserves are distributed evenly throughout the economy. Of course, this claim is absurd. Limousine liberals like William Greider (author of Secrets of the Temple) claim: (a) the Federal Reserve Bank helps the middle class but (b) the Federal Reserve Bank gives hundreds of billions of dollars to Bunker Hunt, Wall Street speculators and recipients of foreign investment. Limousine liberals never question how it might be possible to give hundreds of billions to Wall Street banks and at the same time help the average American.
Thus, at the foundation of big government is big subsidy to the banking elite. But that's the least of big government's subsidy to limousine liberals. A bigger way is the Fed's bloating of the stock market. The way the Fed's monetary expansion bloats the stock market is by reducing interest rates. Low interest rates mean higher stock prices. The present value of future dividend payments are higher at a lower interest rate. Since stocks are present value indicators of a firm's future profits, lower interest rates reduce the discount factor and raise stock prices.
The income inequality about which limousine liberals shed crocodile tears is due to the system which they put in place: by keeping interest rates low, stock prices are buoyed and wealthy limousine liberals like George Soros and Warren Buffett become richer. The way that interest rates are kept low is by the Fed's and the banking system's increasing the amount of money. The increasing amount of money leads to higher prices (inflation). Higher prices mean the average American becomes poorer. Thus, the inflation adjusted wages of workers are reduced while stock prices are increased and the wealthy become wealthier. No source has advocated this system more aggressively or for longer than the New York Times.
The period of the Fed's greatest power began in 1971 and continues today. During this 39 year history, American workers' wages began to stagnate in the early to mid 1970s. They continue to stagnate today. American workers today earn per hour what they earned in 1971. Prior to 1971, real hourly wages increased 2% per year. The post 1971 period saw massive increases in stock prices and increasing income inequality. All of this is due to the policies of limousine liberals, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who abolished the gold standard, and Richard M. Nixon, who declared "We are all Keynesians now."
Sincerely,
Mitchell Langbert
A number of Olive residents have questioned my claim that limousine liberals favor the wealthy, i.e., themselves. The financial elite has often been called the military industrial complex (MIC) but is more accurately a nexus of real estate, Wall Street and commercial banking with the MIC and so I will refer to it as the banking elite.
Gabriel Kolko in his Triumph of Conservatism shows that the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank was part of a larger movement, Progressivism, that reflected the banking elite's interests. This followed three decades of cumulative politicization of the economy by the Mugwumps and Populists of the 1880s and 1890s. One fruit of these movements, the 1890 Sherman Anti-trust Act, supported increasing concentration of industry. Martin J. Sklar provides detailed documentation in his Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism 1890-1916. The Federal Reserve Act in 1913 further enhanced the banking elite's domination, which was accelerated in 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt abolished the gold standard and confiscated all privately held gold.
The way that the Federal Reserve Bank helps the banking elite at the expense of the average American is that it increases the number of dollars in circulation, distributing them to the banking system. The banking system takes the reserves that the Fed gives it and expands the reserves further through fractional reserve banking. Briefly, when the fractional reserve banking system receives a Federal Reserve deposit (created out of thin air) of one dollar, it can expand the number of dollars by ten. Thus, the Federal Reserve Bank, which the banking system legally owns, can create deposits (reserves) out of thin air and then the banks can lend up to ten times the reserves also out of thin air. In other words, the Fed and the banking system cheapen the dollars that you own.
Economists, who are on the banking elite's payroll through consultancies, endowed chairs, and appointments to the Federal Reserve Bank staff, serve as an important propaganda source. They claim that the reserves are distributed evenly throughout the economy. Of course, this claim is absurd. Limousine liberals like William Greider (author of Secrets of the Temple) claim: (a) the Federal Reserve Bank helps the middle class but (b) the Federal Reserve Bank gives hundreds of billions of dollars to Bunker Hunt, Wall Street speculators and recipients of foreign investment. Limousine liberals never question how it might be possible to give hundreds of billions to Wall Street banks and at the same time help the average American.
Thus, at the foundation of big government is big subsidy to the banking elite. But that's the least of big government's subsidy to limousine liberals. A bigger way is the Fed's bloating of the stock market. The way the Fed's monetary expansion bloats the stock market is by reducing interest rates. Low interest rates mean higher stock prices. The present value of future dividend payments are higher at a lower interest rate. Since stocks are present value indicators of a firm's future profits, lower interest rates reduce the discount factor and raise stock prices.
The income inequality about which limousine liberals shed crocodile tears is due to the system which they put in place: by keeping interest rates low, stock prices are buoyed and wealthy limousine liberals like George Soros and Warren Buffett become richer. The way that interest rates are kept low is by the Fed's and the banking system's increasing the amount of money. The increasing amount of money leads to higher prices (inflation). Higher prices mean the average American becomes poorer. Thus, the inflation adjusted wages of workers are reduced while stock prices are increased and the wealthy become wealthier. No source has advocated this system more aggressively or for longer than the New York Times.
The period of the Fed's greatest power began in 1971 and continues today. During this 39 year history, American workers' wages began to stagnate in the early to mid 1970s. They continue to stagnate today. American workers today earn per hour what they earned in 1971. Prior to 1971, real hourly wages increased 2% per year. The post 1971 period saw massive increases in stock prices and increasing income inequality. All of this is due to the policies of limousine liberals, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who abolished the gold standard, and Richard M. Nixon, who declared "We are all Keynesians now."
Sincerely,
Mitchell Langbert
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