Thursday, April 4, 2013
Friday, February 1, 2013
Tyrants Never Learn!
Prof. Tim Congdon, an economist of 40 years in public policy studies has published an analysis of Britain's position in the EU. He brought the matter down to two essentials: 1. the continental collective state culture versus liberty philosophy rooted in individualism prevailing in the Anglo-Saxon world, and 2. the relative costs versus the benefits. The second question boiling down to the question: ‘Do we want a centralist, top down, federal state or a free trade club of independent nations?’
Friday, January 25, 2013
A Time of Universal Deceit...
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act. ~~George Orwell
Hat Tip: @VictorSterren
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Obama Vs Roark: You Didn't Build That!
 |
| Left: Howard Roark's Speech in The Fountainhead (vid) Right: Barack Obama: "You didn't build that" |
But here's the catch. Men are not equally deserving for what they are, but because they are essentially nothing. Obama's now infamous quote "You didn't build that!" perfectly sketches this implied tenet of Egalitarianism.
If you have a brain, a will, some skills, knowledge, character, desires, money, power, any ability or attribute, you were lucky, that's all. The actual producer is the state in the name of the collective.
And since the bottom is by definition made up of losers, equality can only be reached by cutting down the top. Egalitarians hold that for everone to end up with a fair share of zero, those leading the race should have their legs broken: "We must cut down the high flyers," animal rights wingnut, Peter Singer has stated.
Egalitarianism is sheer evil: strip man of all the attributes that make him an individual and the achievements that distinguish him from any other, and all men become equal. But what is left is an empty shell, in essence a zombie: the ghost of a human being.
The root of the ideology is Kantian Nihilism. The elevation of nothing to something. The zombie demands the sacrifice of the living man. The walking dead as moral man is the philosophy that rules the pOmo world!
Since there is so much unfairness, egalitarians dispense with a rational system and priorities. They compensate with swiftness and affirmative action wherever a case of perceived inequality presents itself. They are proud of their achievements, but in fact it is racist and evil.
Since egalitarians are ardent collectivists the first duty of government is overall redistribution and compensation. The moral standard is not man's life, happiness or the pursuit of it, but fairness, the elimination of nature's random inequalities.
The vehicle for compensation and redistribution is identity politics. Women seek to address sexism, the elderly ageism, the handicapped ableism, the ugly looksism, multicults imperialism, animal rights lunies speciesism. Competition is evil. There are no winners, no losers: everyone gets a prize, whether deserving or not. All demands are meritous, regardless of merit.
Egalitarianism is so detached from reality (perception as well as conception), most adherents do not even bother validating it. Equality is simply a moral axiom, an end in itself, a floating abstraction. This load of crap is ruling our world; it is the mental suicide of civilization.
The evil of Egalitarianism has come home in Environmentalism. For some reason no one has been able to explain inanimate nature has the same status as man. Therefore it has equal rights
and we must stop defining better as richer, bigger, faster, more.
Watermelons (reds in a green jacket) is a charming idea, but it's inaccurate. The flag of environmentalism is not red or green, but the black of death.
Evil consequences are irrelevant to this ideology: intent is everything, so the ethics are infallible, regardless of the outcome.
Watermelons (reds in a green jacket) is a charming idea, but it's inaccurate. The flag of environmentalism is not red or green, but the black of death.
Evil consequences are irrelevant to this ideology: intent is everything, so the ethics are infallible, regardless of the outcome.
While Marxism still had a vision of a better world, Egalitarianism is a postmodern construct to rescue the Socialist notion of equality (see flow chart Evolution of Socialist Strategies To Rescue Socialism From Failure); but it does so by a strategy of scorched earth: in death all men are equal. Man is a moral monster that deserves no better.
This all puts abortion and 'the right to die' in a somewhat less humanitarian light.
Related:
- Leonard Peikoff's "The DIM Hypothesis"
- Peikoff on the Election of Barack Obama
This all puts abortion and 'the right to die' in a somewhat less humanitarian light.
Related:
- Leonard Peikoff's "The DIM Hypothesis"
- Peikoff on the Election of Barack Obama
- Think about this: is democracy Egalitarianism applied to government?
Monday, August 13, 2012
The Philosophies of Coercion
Introduction
What is subjectivism?
The most rational one is, that universals (objectives, essences, concepts) do not exist, or are unattainable since cognition is filtered through the individual's fallible mind and senses. What we take for 'real' are actually as many different perspectives of 'reality' as there are human beings. In this theory man exists, but not man-ness.
All those individual perspectives are the basis for the magic approach to subjectivism, which posits that thought itself creates reality: reality, (the object), is thus dependent on human consciousness, (the subject), for its existence. A thinker does not need to concern himself with the outside facts to acquire knowledge of it.
The mind, containing raw percepts and emotions, unfiltered and unprocessed by reason (the pool called the subconscious) has the power to create 'reality' in conformity with the thinker's wishes. Pathos, emotions and will take the place of reason as the primary tool of 'cognition' (evidently we can't speak here of a 'cognition process' as such).
Iconically Albert Einstein once asked a subjectivist, "do you really think the universe is not there when you aren't watching it?" A subjectivist might legitimately ask, "If I die overnight, will the sun rise tomorrow?" Here we can see that the fallacy rests on failing to separate the man-made from the metaphysical.
To the third uptake on subjectivism the individual approach is utter nonsense, but on the macro or group level, it is entirely acceptable. Groups can perform change on the ground in conformity with their 'common will'. One might object that it is one man's mind that has a will and there is no such thing as a 'group will'. Try explain that to educated people who 'know' that groups even take 'decisions' (a matter of very sloppy identification: what they actually mean is, that a certain interchange has taken place, that has led to a specific (unconscious) effect).
Political philosophy
This group subjectivism is the most pernicious of the three, since it has momentous conquences for political philosophy. It is the basis of racism, ethnic nationalism, polylogism, and multiculturalism. From there it is but one step to gulags, psychiatric asylums and Socialist concentration camps (meaning, all Left and Right variations: Marxism, Fascism, ethnic nationalism and National Socialism).
When the Western Left abandoned the ambition of reaching Utopia through violent revolution, they embraced democratic principles and even usurped Liberalism, debasing it to a form of moral and social laissez faire. This temporarily halted the coercive tendency, but it resurfaces now that the Left is reverting back to its origins rooted in the Counter-Enlightenment.
The latter is a rather loose collection of ideologies that may be Rightist (Heidegger) or Leftist (Marx et al), and which - in various degrees - is subjectivist; they reject morality and man's ability to acquire knowledge, and deny there is a meaning to life to the point of nihilism. They are always collectivist. Their purpose is to break down reason, capitalism and free-markets, and deconstruct their values. Being statists they love strong states and strong men, and have a (latent) contempt for democracy which they see as a dictatorship of the middle class, which they hate too. On the other hand, they have fully embraced radical egalitarianism.
The substance of the subjectivist mind
Subjectivists do not engage in cognitive processes in any exact sense of the word. An object - say a banana - isn't perceived externally (what is the form, the color, its smell, etc.?), but the question is rather, how does the banana 'strike' the observer emotionally. A subjectivist sits in reception how the banana 'comes across', what emotion will the banana trigger in him, the mind functioning as a sounding board or a radio receiver, if you will.
The received signal translates into a pleasant or an unpleasant percept. The passive, 'open mind' approach opens the field wide to (auto) suggestion, free association, and projection. This may run wild, even resulting in psychosis, since it goes unchecked by sobering logic and reason. Subjectivists are ardent manipulators of perception. Read also "When Reason Fails".
Where do they get it?
The basis for this improper method of 'cognition' is the Kantian notion that the mind is locked up inside the skull, forever separated from outside reality. It has become a place of smoke and mirrors, with loosely floating memes and particles of ideas that are only a ghostly form of the actual thing; the real object (the universal: man-ness) is localized in some parallel universe, unbreachable by the human mind (if not denied altogether).
This originally Platonic belief allows subjectivists to manipulate facts, and pick and choose among data to reach any conclusion they like. Reality becomes pliable, facts floating memes that can be one thing on Monday evening, but quite another on Tuesday morning, according to one's nightly experience or (political) expediency.
Their ethics program leads them to reach only collectivist and altruistic conclusions.
Justification for coercion
Cut off from reason, the duty of altruism, which is at the core of Kantian ethics (deontology), tends to demand force since that is the only means of ensuring that everyone complies with the ultimate moral duty to sacrifice self to the whole. This reinforces the subjectivist default position of coercion, but the ultimate source lies in anti-reason: in absence of objective knowledge, might makes right (Pragmatism), which is further enhanced by the absolute morality that forcing the 'good' on people is for their own good and to the benefit of all concerned.
The absurdity of this ethics system is illustrated by the contradiction that it delegitimizes at the same time doing good, if this is done with a particular purpose in mind (any). But worse, it forbids self-defense and telling a lie, even to prevent a murder from taking place! If a company or a person advertises as "conforming to the highest 'ethical' standards", rest assured they mean Kantian ethics!
The 'soft' alternatives
* Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) replaces subjective thought with subjective (body)language. Instead of thought, it is here mostly language that serves as a tool for the creation of reality.
When you aren't being Nudged or NLP'd, you're probably being Delphied into compliance. These and rhetorical equivocations are fairly easy methods to make unsuspecting people comply with the ideology. Political correctness is another method by which group pressure is used to place someone - or his actions - outside the realm of moral respectability: no one wants to be called a bigot, a racist or a Fascist.
Why a debate with a subjectivist is not possible
There are two ways for getting people's cooperation: by a process of persuasion, such as a debate, or by some form of coercion. As we shall see, the chasm between the two schools on the nature of thought, is wide and cannot be overcome: objectivism and subjectivism are mutually exclusive. Debate doesn't work where subjectivists are involved; objectivists cannot be cajoled into taking some arbitrary position by coercion.
Let's have a look at the peaceful option: parley. This works fine among objectivists who reach truth through a process of dialogue. Such a process is impossible with subjectivists, since you cannot have a proper debate with someone who is convinced that anything you say is just ... well, your personal opinion. In the eyes of the subjectivist, in the absence of objective standards to truth - the outcome of such 'conversations' is always one arbitrary, personal taste pitted against another. Hence the shouting matches, the expletives, the ad hominems and all the other Postmodern 'debating techniques' that are also at the heart of the Alinsky tactics for radicals: it's intimidation, pure and simple.
On the other hand it is also very hard to agree to diagree with a subjectivist since he's convinced himself that your 'arbitrary' position is sheer ill will: you're out to hurt him and the superior, altruistic, collectivist causes he aspires to. At this point a process of psychological projection has long set in and he'll accuse you of whatever he's engaged in himself.
One could temporarily appease him, but that would only feed the bully. He'll be back for more since his strategy has obviously worked. He'll explain appeasement as a sign of weakness, and will be back for more before you know it. One cannot negotiate with bullies.
Coercion does not work for those who stubbornly cling to reason. The problem here is that human minds can be silenced or destroyed, but they cannot be forced to accept something they know to be untrue.
But to the subjectivist any position is morally interchangeable with any other: the subjectivist reels in frustration with the intransigence of the objectivist's absolutism.
Means of control
As Ayn Rand has pointed out, it is not possible to foist a lie on rational people by force: A = A even under the most vile circumstances. Therefore tyrants resort to immobilizing their subjects' minds by forms of oppression like irrational and contradictory laws, what in Soviet times was termed cynicly, "the truth of the day". Such stories have become world literature through the books of the author, Franz Kafka.
Leonard Peikoff in "The Ominous Parallels" makes the case that the Nazi death camps were actually controlled experiments in mass mind control: what do absurd situations, that bear no relation whatsoever with known reality, do to the human mind? ... The absurd, as in the surrealism of Viennese walzes accompanying people to the gas chambers? It's an intriguing suggestion.
Dutch pop artist @HenkWestbroek recently illustratied rather well where the perversion of subjectivism might lead to: his solution for world peace would be to take away man's free will. As this happens to be the seat of morality, this particular suggestion speaks volumes of the unethical nature of coercion that justifies itself through its own ethics: any demagogue would have been proud as a peacock of such a Faustian proposition.
One can see how idealists and Utopians can become ruthless capos, and cultured peoples end up producing the most toxic ideologies.
Objectivist ethics
In Ayn Rand's philosophical theory of Objectivism the initiation of force is evil, but self-defense is a moral obligation. Refraining from it would be tantamount to being an accomplice to evil. Retaliation is also warranted against an irrational enemy, which repudiates the Bush doctrine of preemptive strike. This is because these enemies themselves allow only such methods. This is not 'stooping to their level', but on the contrary, preventing them from using it against you or any other innocent victim.
While Liberals and Postmodernists have reached the suicidal, relativist conclusion that since there is no absolute good or evil but only so many equally valid perspectives, Objectivism offers a real ethics program based on reason. The good fosters life, evil does not. While there may be grey areas, it is safe to state that dictators proposing mass murder - even if justified by a Sorelian myth of victimhood - is pure, unadulterated evil.
To appease such a man, has the effect of the appeaser becoming an accomplice. This is the real Faustian dilemma. In absolute terms, the good has nothing - repeat nothing - to gain from evil since there is no good in absolute evil. You cannot bargain with men like Hitler, Stalin, Lenin and Ahmadinejad about the amount of victims they might make. You can only destroy them to prevent harm to the innocent.
They never learn, do they?
Prejudice, bigotry and absolutes
A popular imperative among subjective thinkers is not to pass moral judgment on others. But, as we have seen, since opponents through lack of objective standards can't find truth through debate, this imperative is thrown to the wind as the opponent is demonized in the foulest possible matter. The Left simply needs its demons and scapegoats. Read also: "The Spiral of Hatred".
Person and ideas have become merged into one inseparable caricature of reality. Neither a motivation nor a clarification is necessary! They fail to realize what dangerous ground they're on. The next step is active card carrying membership of the local Storm Troopers. It's no wonder they sound like Fascists! That is because they use the same philosophical tools: the talking points have reached the status of absolute dogma while its inherent morality justifies coercion; the method of implementation is pragmatism, an act of the will.
Regretably examples of such positions are everywhere, but to mention just one for clarity: Marx's Socialist theory is true (dogma), because we believe it (pragmatism, because we say so). All should embrace this belief because it is in everyone's best interest (moral altruism). Once embraced by the gatekeepers as admissable, the same mechanism can be used on any other subject, an individual or a collective: no further questions or motivation is required. That is how collectivists roll!
Related articles
- American Thinker: "The Left's Sexual Terrorism", by Robin of Berkeley"
- PJM: "Klavan on the Culture: "Shut Up"
Related
- "Blurring the Border between Reality and Perception" (media bias - series)
- "When Reason Fails" (series)
Related dossiers
- "The Dystopia of Paradise"
- "The Political Pathology Asylum"
- "Assault of the New Storm Troopers"
- "The Urban Guerilla"
- "The Unholy Alliance"
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Sexual Terrorism, a New Weapon for Global Jihad - The West 3/3
Koran verse 2:223Continued from Part 2 - India
Your wives are a tilth for you, so go into your tilth when you like, and do good beforehand for yourselves, and be careful (of your duty) to Allah, and know that you will meet Him, and give good news to the believers.
Hat Tip: Keizers & Kleren
"Love" or "reproductive jihad", or "Romeo jihad" is the grooming of girls for marriage with a view of conversion, industrial scale child bearing for demographic dominance or sexual exploitation for financial gain. Young Muslim boys and men reportedly target school and college girls for conversion to Islam by feigning love.
Whatever the tactical aim, the crimes have a psychological effect of terrorism on the minorities and the women involved. In the realm of Islam it's perpetrated on minorities, in the West the victims are local girls, as we shall see in the last instalment of the series. The women themselves are mere objects and in themselves insignificant. On a strategic level the purpose is cultural and psychological pressure on local populations.
How the politically correct classes in the West are dealing with these cases is simply appalling and a deep disgrace! Not to mention the mainstream media and the judiciary that abuse the cases to further than own amoral political and multicultural agenda. One case in the UK stands out particularly (details - GRAPHIC!).
Read here how utterly despicable a severe crime is treated as a 'social problem' in the UK. A case is made by an evil hate pomo that the perpetrators should be excused on the grounds that oral and anal sex is taboo in their cultures...and we need to talk about it.
Rather than sticking to the truth wherever it may lead, indicting Islam as the case may be, completely innocent minorities are lumped with zealots and terrorists so as not to offend Islam. It marks the end of the rule of law and the beginning of a subjective, corrupt justice system. This is death of the state. Tolerating, aiding and abetting evil, it has become an accomplice of evil.
The "Asian community" rightly reacted with due indignation!
These isn't an isolated case by any stretch of the imagination. Systematic serial gang rape and sexual abuse by Muslim men is happening all over the Western world, but it disappears into the crime statistics as simple vice or rape cases. Meanwhile the epidemic in Norway and Sweden has become notorious.
Rape with a view to intimidation: in the video below a gruesome Afghan rape marathon in a Swedish refugee camp and the reaction to it by an evil, Socialist, policor pomo. Never mind the victims. This is the price exacted for the blessings of peace and multiculturalism. In a few hundred years Islam will have caught up with us, and we'll live happily ever after, is the logic behind their inhumanity. There is however no good reason why Islam would have an evolution that is similar to that of Christianity. Given its world view that is in fact highly unlikely.
Read the series on Readlist
Updates on pOmoLanD
Friday, May 18, 2012
Sexual Terrorism, a New Weapon for Global Jihad - India (2/3)
Koran verse 2:223Continued from Part 1 - Pakistan
Your wives are a tilth for you, so go into your tilth when you like, and do good beforehand for yourselves, and be careful (of your duty) to Allah, and know that you will meet Him, and give good news to the believers.
Hat Tip: Keizers & Kleren
"Love" or "reproductive jihad", or "Romeo jihad" is the grooming of girls for marriage with a view of conversion, industrial scale child bearing for demographic dominance or sexual exploitation for financial gain. Young Muslim boys and men reportedly target school and college girls for conversion to Islam by feigning love.
Whatever the tactical aim, the crimes have a psychological effect of terrorism on the minorities and the women involved. In the realm of Islam it's perpetrated on minorities, in the West the victims are local girls, as we shall see in the next instalment. The women themselves are mere objects and in themselves insignificant. On a strategic level the purpose is cultural and psychological terrorist pressure on local populations.
If statistics are to be believed, in 29 years from now, France will be a Muslim country. Author Frans Groenendijk, blogging on Keizers & Kleren calculates that if one in 20 Muslims (men and women) marries a non Muslim, and the non Muslims convert to Islam, the Muslim population doubles in just a few centuries. The effect of a high birthrate and the pressure on apostates is not included in this estimate.
The term 'love jihad' has been used to describe the activity in India, mostly in the southern state of Kerala. Many believe that the menace has already spread to other adjoining states. Muslim organisations in Kerala have denied the allegations. Officials in India have taken concerns seriously and investigations were launched in 2009 in Kerala and Karnataka, but to date no organized activity of the sort has been proved.
Following are the tactical purposes:
1. To stifle the growth rate of the local population.
2. To increase the Muslim population.
3. After bearing enough children, victims may be deployed in terrorist organizations.
4. Some of them are used as suicide bombers.
5. Young men do good deeds for Islam while making a buck off it too; they are rewarded for successful operations by Muslim organisations.
6. Girls used in the sex trade bring in money from the marketing of porn films, off which big money is to be made in the Gulf countries.
7. Some of the girls are transported to the rich Gulf countries and sold as sex slaves. The price of virgin girls is extremely high on the slave markets.
The crime is not a new one. During the Muslim rule in India, that lasted for nearly seven centuries, Muslim rulers, creating an environment of fear and terror, used to loot treasure and valuables along with the women. According to the Koran, the women were treated as spoils of war. They converted them to Islam by torture and used them as sex-slaves, or sold them in the slave markets
The inspiration of today’s 'love jihad' serves a similar purpose. Young Muslim men are provided with a mobile phone and paid 200 ryals a day for this purpose. Other successful suitors are given motor bikes or even cars.
Muslim organisations in Kerala have denied the allegations. Here's one Muslim leader in the usual denial and evasion mode:
To be continued in Part 3 the West
Related
- Faith Freedom: "LOVE JIHAD IN INDIA – Hindu and Christian girls lured and converted to Islam"
- Jihad Watch: "The "love jihad": false romance and forced conversions in India"
Read the series on Readlist
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Sexual Terrorism, a New Weapon for Global Jihad - Pakistan (1/3)
Koran verse 2:223
Your wives are a tilth for you, so go into your tilth when you like, and do good beforehand for yourselves, and be careful (of your duty) to Allah, and know that you will meet Him, and give good news to the believers.
Hat Tip: Keizers & Kleren
A frightened young Hindu woman called Rinkle Kumari is requesting the bench to be taken to her mother, but the judge illegally sends her in police custody in Sukkur Women's Police Station.
Prior to this decision the Meerpur Mathelo town was cordoned off by police, which made the Court inaccessible to Rinkle's family and the Hindu community at large. Finally only four family members were allowed on the premises and only two in the courtroom. Mian Mitho's sons grabbed Rinkle by the neck and arm. The men loudly chanted Allahu Akbar inside the court, the open display of weapons a clear message to the court and judges, who failed to order them out.
While in police custody Rinkle - surrounded by Mithu's men - answered a few questions from the press. A Bluetooth mobile device stuck in her right ear, she tried hard to satisfy questioning journalists but forgot what inspired her to embrace Islam. 'Sura Eeklus', she tried to pronounce Sura Ikhlaas twice, unsuccessfully though. When asked about the meaning of the Sura Ikhlas, she was dumbstruck and was forcibly guided off the premises by Mithu Junior.
Media also learned in this press conference that Rinkle actually did not even know Naveed Shah, the man who she was supposed to have married just hours after her abduction at 5 in the morning of February 24. Mithu had declared that if Rinkle would be denied him, he would set the town ablaze.
In an article in Friday Times the courageous Pakistani journalist Marvi Sirmed fiercefully criticises the "sheer weakness of the system of justice, moral bankruptcy in our institutions, our collective hypocrisy and helplessness of the highest state authorities to reign in the rogue elements of the society" (...)
"It has been decades now that Hindu girls have been abducted and forcibly converted. We hear little or no voice at all against this oppression," said Amar Lal, counsel to Rinkle Kumari's family. Notwithstanding the support that media and civil society demonstrated for Rinkle, the state response remains an enigma. The Chief Justice of Supreme Court opened a long pending constitutional petition against forced conversions, filed in 2007 by Pakistan Hindu Council, and contained the names of three relatively recent cases of forced conversions including Rinkle Kumari.
In the next part we shall see a pattern emerging of forcible conversions, abductions and sexual exploitation emanating from the Dar-Al-Islam in every direction of the wind. The forcible 'marriage' of Rinkle Kumari is merely a cover for a even more sinister plot: sexual terrorism.
Continued in Part 2 - India
Related
LETTER FROM DR RAJ KUMAR, MATERNAL UNCLE OF RINKLE KUMARI
The Times of India: "Forced conversion of Hindus in Pakistan jolts US out of slumber"
"In a sharply-worded letter to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, Congressman Brad Sherman urged him to take action to ensure the return of Rinkel Kumari to her family, pursuant to reports that she had been abducted with the help of a Pakistan People's Party (PPP) lawmaker. In a case that has been widely reported in the liberal Pakistani media, Rinkel, who was abducted on February 24, was forced to marry one Naveed Shah and convert to Islam."
Let Us Build Pakistan: "Mian Mithu is innocent and is in dire need of further State cover"Read the series on Readlist
"Why did Asha, (an alleged kidnapee) a girl of 15 yrs, chose to go with a Muslim man twice her age and already with a wife and four grown-up children than with her parents when allowed to decide for herself? If this is not love then what is?"
Monday, May 7, 2012
Left and Right Fascism: Reposting of The German Revolution
With everyone watching with utter fascination the ascent to parliament of the Greek fascist party, Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) with 6 percent of the vote, the time is ripe to set matters straight on some issues. That's why we are reposting an item today dating back to November 11, 2008, fresh as ever, on the forgotten German Revolution, its lessons and why it is important to be aware. For more introduction to this posting read "Fascism: the Secret Lessons of History Revealed" on pOmoLanD.
On Monday, 11th November 1918, delegates from the new Social Democratic government of Germany officially signed the armistice, ending Germany's part in the Great War 1914-1918. The Kaiser moved to comfortable exile in The Netherlands.
But mob rule reigned Germany. Leftist leader Emil Eichhorn, self-appointed chief of the People's Revolutionary Berlin Police Department - personally freed 650 prisoners from police headquarters at the head of a mob. Others seized newspaper offices, government buildings, stores, and telegraph offices.
The demobilising army agreed not to oppose the government, in exchange for a free hand in quelling the revolutionary unrest. The government took the responsibility and the blame for the humiliating surrender, while simultaneously delegating political power - the state's monopoly of force - to Rightist officers.
As the army demobilised in Berlin, all moral constraint melted away. Here's an account of artist George Grosz: "The city was dark, cold and full of rumours. The streets were wild ravines haunted by murderers and cocaine peddlers ... People denied all knowledge but whispered about secret manoeuvres by the Black Reichswehr or a newly formed Red Army." Bursts of machine-gun fire and hand-grenade explosions were common. Grosz: "Inhabitants (...) went up on the roof to shoot pigeons and people. Their sense of proportion (...) got misplaced."
Three hundred people perished each day from influenza alone. Demobilised soldiers started selling their weapons on the streets. Those who held on to their arms followed their unit commanders into Mafia-style, loosely connected militias, known as the Freikorps (Free Corps), a proto type of the later Waffen SS, but originally consisting of volunteers in the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon in 1813-1815.
It was more than just the Red menace which motivated the Freikorps, their originators being the ancestors of all guerilla fighters and revolutionary insurgents of the next century. An even earlier connection identified them with the Teutonic Knights. They were anxious to proof themselves worthy of the medieval battles in the East against Poles and Tartars.
Despite their symbolism and ancestry the Freikorps did not succeed in turning the tide of the Whites against the Reds and descended on a city in chaos, armed to the teeth, wreaking havoc on the new republic.
The revolutionary neighbourhoods were attacked without restraint. The front was brought to civilian society. This maintained the fantasy that the war had not really ended. Unarmed civilians had become the enemy. It "was a lesson in local brutality and cold-bloodedness that prepared many of them for work as storm troopers or concentration-camp guards in the years to come."
A footnote provides an important psycho-pathological context: "Many returning soldiers, no matter their political disposition, would display signs of sociopathy. Homicides and rapes became commonplace in postwar Berlin, brutal acts committed by men with no previous criminal record (...)"
"The panic evoked in Germany by the fate of Russia drove so deep into the psyche of ordinary Germans that they could not see that the forces of the new Right were equally hostile to bourgeois values like law, order and moral restraint. The Freikorps ethic, every bit as revolutionary as that of the Bolsheviks, masqueraded behind a false aura of conservatism and pacification.
Real conservatives believed in the value of traditions, but the Freikorps believed exactly the opposite - for them, the Great War had proved that the morality and social structure of peacetime were corrupt and meaningless. The politics behind the war had been a fraud, but the fighting had been real, and in this reality, the 'New Man' of the Right-wing revolution was born."
Author of 'Storm of Steel' and 'Battle As Inner Experience' Ernst Jünger hailed the 'storm soldier': "the coming of a whole new race, smart, strong and filled with will, to save Europe from its liberal delusions". "For this New Man, as for the Red revolutionaries, the legal and moral foundations of society were mere bourgeois squeamishness. At the front, only the fundamental values of bravery, ruthlessness, and camaraderie mattered - and the fundamental precept of Freikorps ideology: all society is the front."
The more the Freikorps suppressed the revolution, the faster it spread. Bolshevik cells and councils (Soviets) sprang up in towns and cities across Germany. The Munich Soviet was led by a former mental patient who wrote threatening letters to the Pope and declared war on Switzerland for failing to provide a shipment of locomotives.
In April 1919 the Bolshevik triumvirate led by Lenin associates made an attempt to launch Red Terror. Bourgeois and local aristocrats (every locale was supposed to have one, in the absence of which the village headmaster was supposed to volunteer) were jailed, property was confiscated, opposition presses smashed and schools shut down - "though this was not a real Red Terror but more of Red Terror manqué. But in the event of insufficient ruthlessness on the part of the German Left, the German Right was only too happy to fill the void."
The Freikorps attacked Munich as if it were a foreign city. The Reds held the town for three days, at the end of which more than a thousand were shot, including seminary students.
"Finally, the major disturbances ended, though street battles and small uprisings continued to break out in towns across the fatherland. In the spring of 1921" as the protagonist of "The Orientalist" crossed the border into Germany, the country had fallen into uneasy quiet ...
- More excerpts from Tom Reiss' "The Orientalist" on the history of the two Socialist movements in next posts.
- Up next: Both Sir Winston S. Churchill in "Memoirs of the Second World War" and Tom Reiss' in "The Orientalist" touch on one of the most colourful people of the interbellum, Hitler's Master of Ceremonies.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Nations Are Rebelling Against EU Dictats: Will the Euro Survive?
The #FisCom is the Euro elites' final hope against the collapse of the common currency. It formalizes what was part of the Maastricht Treaty, that laid the foundation of the euro zone. It stipulated deficits must be no more than three percent of GDP. France and Germany were the first to jettison the requirement in the early naughties. Now it has come back to haunt them.
But now the entire EU appears to be rebelling against Frau Merkel's fiscal policy. Italy and Greece had their governments's replaced by EU technocrat hacks, the governments of the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Romania fell over austerity measures, while key country France seems set to replace Nic Sarko with the socialist Hollande. This is the overall status in various countries:
Greece - The new paradigm in the run up to the general elections on May 6 is the anti versus the pro bailout narrative running across the political spectrum. It leaves the main stream socialist party (PASOK) isolated. Greece looks set to elect a majority of parties against the bailout. The leader of the leading right-wing New Democracy Party has always refused to sign the troika's loyalty declaration, which is why Samaras' actions are eyed suspiciously.
Italy - Mario Monti, the troika-dropped techno bankster had this to say to journalists last week: "While budget discipline was needed, it must be accompanied by policies that drive economic demand". Fully on board the austerity drive, is Super Mario.
Ireland - Ireland, like Greece a bailout country. The last budget complies with the Fiscom rules. Neverthess Ireland is having a referendum on 31st May. So Merkel's 'consensus' of 25 government leaders could become 24. The latest poll bears out this scenario. The exit of a member state was always to be avoided at all cost. It was unthinkable even a few months ago.
Spain - Spain's independent provinces are giving the newly elected conservative Rajoi government a very hard time. Centralization would trigger a national revolt against the government in Madrid. Rajoi has already told Merkel where to stick the austerity targets. So he is negotiating about the ability to negotiate with the Fiscom.
France - Merkel's partner, Nic Sarko looks set to lose the presidential elections on May 6. His rival, Monsieur Hollande says he won’t join the FisCom unless Merkel agrees to set growth targets as well as austerity targets. So he will be negotiating the scope of the FisCom.
Netherlands - After the right-wing minority coalition lost support of Geert Wilders following an austerity drive to get the country to comply with the FisCom, the rump cabinet joined forces with left-leaning red/greens to agree on an a package that does. It combines higher taxation without reforming the extensive subsidy program. Apart from a VAT hike set for October 1, nothing may come of the agreement, whose sole purpose seemed satisfying the Fiscom regulations. Elections will be held om September 12.The new coalition may well set other priorities.
Czech Republic - Like Britain the country has opposed the Fiscom from the get go. Nevertheless, the center right party in power has struggled in the face of repeated confidence votes, delaying reforms aimed at cutting deficits and debt. The austerity drive has angered Czechs and sent the cabinet's approval rating to an all-time low of 16 percent. The government did not survive last Friday's confidence vote.
Romania - Romania's left-leaning opposition will try to form a new government after torpedoing the centre-right cabinet in a confidence vote on Friday, the latest collapse of an austerity-minded ruling coalition in Europe.
Germany - There are calls for a referendum on the Fiscom and ESM and failing that, a constitutional challenge. The official situation is like this: the final vote in parliament #ESM and the FisCom is expected mid-June, shortly before the ESM is taking effect.
More on pOmoLand:
- "#EUSSR: THe eURo iS SinKIng & sO Is tHE reST of EUroPE"
- "#EUSSR: Welcome in the Fiscal Compact #FU"
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