the neoliberal vision of the future

[SpineyNorman]

That is an interesting theory. I see how it may seem like I need to "humanize" the Nazis in order to "lump you in with them" as you say, but I really don't. My lumping you in the same fundamental category as the Nazis requires no apologies or "humanization" of Nazism. Even if there had been complete video documentation of every second of the gassing along with graves of millions of Jews filled with Zyklon B in their lungs, and detailed plans of doing so dating all the way back to 1933 or sooner, it still wouldn't make me "unlump" you. The reason is that you have massive evidence at your disposal (far, far, far more overwhelming than the evidence for the gassing of the Jews) that proves without a shred of doubt that socialism is destructive and lethal and that capitalism is life-saving and life-giving. The fact that you deliberately choose to deny this overwhelming evidence, thereby indirectly contributing to the deaths of thousands of people every single day, places you in the same category as Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao and Pol Pot.

Fuck off, seriously, you're really getting on my tits now. It's obvious this was exactly what you were doing. And then for you to lump us in with those people, AGAIN, when YOU have justified Pinochet's crimes just takes the biscuit. You are probably THE most worthless piece of shit I've ever encountered.

 

[rekil]

I wonder what his next blog post will be about.

Gas chamber roof holes. There's no business like shoah business. Any of the usual holocaust canards.

 

[butchersapron]

It doesn't really matter. Madagascar was one of the options considered for a while. In the end, industrial-scale gassing was the course of action chosen. Perhaps that course of action would not have been chosen in the same way had it not been for the war. Who knows, and who cares? Nazi racial theory justified the inhuman treatment of untermenschen, whether they be Jews, Slavs or Gypsies. That's the important point to me.

It's very important. Are you replying to the wrong person?

 

[onarchy]

He's prepared to look again. What other areas might you be equally in need of correction onar?

I'm sure there are many things, I have many times in my life had to review my position on many topics, and I am always vigorously trying to remove any errors. That is what being objective implies. I do, however, find that there are different levels of errors, starting with the most shalllow ones (spelling errors, simply data errors), to slightly more serious errors (factual errors), to even more serious errors (theoretical errors) down to the most grave errors (philosophical errors). My experience is that I very rarely have theoretical or philosophical errors, but I sometimes have factual errors and quite often need to correct data errors. Rationality is not perfect (in the platonic sense of the word) but it IS self-correcting.

 

[Idris2002]

I'm on about the intentionalists vs functionalists argument. If it was latent or produced I don't know.

Now I need to ask you for a reference - obv. not as a dig, but because I need to know more about this. By 'functionalist' do people mean that genocide emerged out of the way the institutions of the Nazi state interacted with each other?

 

[butchersapron]

Now I need to ask you for a reference - obv. not as a dig, but because I need to know more about this. By 'functionalist' do people mean that genocide emerged out of the way the institutions of the Nazi state interacted with each other?

On the crudest of levels yes.

 

[SpineyNorman]

No need to apologise, you're allowed a different opinion!

I apologised for being wrong and incorrectly claiming it was you who was wrong, not for disagreeing.

 

[8ball]

So do you approve of Hitler's murder of non-Jewish socialists, trade unionists, etc., as you approved of Pinochet?

I think that would depend on whether the contract was put out to tender.

 

[onarchy]

Fuck off, seriously, you're really getting on my tits now. It's obvious this was exactly what you were doing. And then for you to lump us in with those people, AGAIN, when YOU have justified Pinochet's crimes just takes the biscuit. You are probably THE most worthless piece of shit I've ever encountered.

I have not justified all of Pinochet's actions, and I have clearly stated so. SOME of his actions were justified, and directly caused by the criminal activity of Allende. (Nationalizations etc.)

 

[Blagsta]

I'm sure there are many things, I have many times in my life had to review my position on many topics, and I am always vigorously trying to remove any errors. That is what being objective implies. I do, however, find that there are different levels of errors, starting with the most shalllow ones (spelling errors, simply data errors), to slightly more serious errors (factual errors), to even more serious errors (theoretical errors) down to the most grave errors (philosophical errors). My experience is that I very rarely have theoretical or philosophical errors, but I sometimes have factual errors and quite often need to correct data errors. Rationality is not perfect (in the platonic sense of the word) but it IS self-correcting.

Individualism is quite a big philosophical error.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

@ butchers

You're talking about the process that led to the holocaust, and the fact that it didn't appear as a fully formed idea at the start of that process, but rather 'emerged' later on after the process of rounding up the Jews had started. But all you are saying there is that the Nazis started rounding up the Jews before they had finally decided what to do with them. As far as I know, that's an entirely uncontentious point.

 

[DotCommunist]

My experience is that I very rarely have theoretical or philosophical errors

Thats why your batshit btw.

 

[onarchy]

p.s. nice example of your empathetic capacity in bold.

Well, actually yes. I empathize greatly with the victims of socialism, and I'm not talking about the victims of Stalin but of the thousands of innocent people who die everyday TODAY due to socialism and other anti-capitalist regimes and policies. While not exactly gassed, their deaths could easily be prevented, but the solution to saving their lives is actively being sabotaged by anti-capitalist intellectuals all over the world.

 

[butchersapron]

That strikes me as an unimportant technicality, butchers. Or worse, a meaningless philosophical point that isn't really proved by the facts either way.

You're talking about the process that led to the holocaust, and the fact that it didn't appear as a fully formed idea at the start of that process, but rather 'emerged' later on after the process of rounding up the Jews had started. But all you are saying there is that the Nazis started rounding up the Jews before they had finally decided what to do with them. As far as I know, that's an entirely uncontentious point.

Are you fucking kidding -the central interpretative/comparative/heuristic point of academic work on Germany/Nazism for the last 30s years is a technicality?

Do yourself a favour here, read up. Don't do an onar.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I have not justified all of Pinochet's actions, and I have clearly stated so. SOME of his actions were justified, and directly caused by the criminal activity of Allende. (Nationalizations etc.)

No, you claimed that it was necessary to rid Chile of the scourge of communism. It was only the dog-rape you weren't prepared to justify. Killing communists is fine.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well, actually yes. I empathize greatly with the victims of socialism, and I'm not talking about the victims of Stalin but of the thousands of innocent people who die everyday TODAY due to socialism and other anti-capitalist regimes and policies. While not exactly gassed, their deaths could easily be prevented, but the solution to saving their lives is actively being sabotaged by anti-capitalist intellectuals all over the world.

Could you please substantiate these rather wild claims with some evidence?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Are you fucking kidding -the central interpretative/comparative/heuristic point of academic work on Germany/Nazism for the last 30s years is a technicality?

Do yourself a favour here, read up. Don't do an onar.

I edited out the first bit. But how is the second bit wrong. The Holocaust was a logical conclusion to the process given the Nazi ideology. it wasn't, however, a fully formed idea until quite a long way into the process. That's all.

I am going mostly on what I remember from Kershaw here, but what more is there to it?

And don't compare me to Onar, please. It's hardly worthy of you.

 

[8ball]

Individualism is quite a big philosophical error.

Only if you see individuals as having no moral worth whatsoever.
Otherwise it's a matter of emphasis.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Well, actually yes. I empathize greatly with the victims of socialism, and I'm not talking about the victims of Stalin but of the thousands of innocent people who die everyday TODAY due to socialism and other anti-capitalist regimes and policies. While not exactly gassed, their deaths could easily be prevented, but the solution to saving their lives is actively being sabotaged by anti-capitalist intellectuals all over the world.

You're confusing human empathy with misplaced smugness on a bulletin board. It is pitiful watching your needy attempts at self-justification; what new depth below holocaust denial will we be treated to in your misanthropic quest?

Louis MacNeice

 

[8ball]

Well, actually yes. I empathize greatly with the victims of socialism, and I'm not talking about the victims of Stalin but of the thousands of innocent people who die everyday TODAY due to socialism and other anti-capitalist regimes and policies. While not exactly gassed, their deaths could easily be prevented, but the solution to saving their lives is actively being sabotaged by anti-capitalist intellectuals all over the world.

Shut up about gas chambers you big meanies!!!

Yay for technology.

 

[Blagsta]

Only if you see individuals as having no moral worth whatsoever.
Otherwise it's a matter of emphasis.

No.

We depend on other people to be conceived, to be born, to develop personalities, language etc. We depend on other people for food, housing, fuel, sanity, everything.

Collectivism Vs Individualism is a false dichotomy. It makes no sense to talk about one without locating it as dependent on the other. A dialectic, if you like, both forming a unitary whole.

 

[butchersapron]

I edited out the first bit. But how is the second bit wrong. The Holocaust was a logical conclusion to the process given the Nazi ideology. it wasn't, however, a fully formed idea until quite a long way into the process. That's all.

I am going mostly on what I remember from Kershaw here, but what more is there to it?

And don't compare me to Onar, please. It's hardly worthy of you.

Kershaw is, like me, someone that isn't an intentionalist. What more is there? a 30 year historical debate that accepts that both sides have genuine points, but that they both exist, both have sound evidenced arguments and support - neither as far as i know, take the position, yeah but it's all the same in the end. That both sides exist?

If you want to talk about this, do some work.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Don't be so arrogant. What evidence is there to the contrary, and what exactly is the 'intentionalist' position? You haven't outlined it.

Your 'I've read more books on this than you so shut up' position is worthless. All you've done so far is appeal to authority – how about coming up with some concrete statements?

I edited out the bit in my post that you seem to be railing most hard against because I realised that it was not justified. You might acknowledge that rather than launching into personal attacks.

 

[sihhi]

And he's saying that it's ok to allow the physical evidence to disappear, because it has already been so well recorded and corroborated, that it's not really needed any more. The holocaust is now firmly embedded in history, without need to be checked against primary evidence.

Yes.

What is written and recorded at the time of events by direct participants are primary sources. There are masses of primary sources about the Holocaust. Secondary sources are produced by non-participants subsequently, often relying on primary oral evidence - there's plenty of that aswell - much of it in the form of families who can relate the story of how X was transported in 1941 but never returned.

History is a recreation in the present from those sources. History happens now.
History in 2011 has seen A-B becoming a tourist site endowed with some special power to communicate, whilst other sites relating to other genocides [the Armenian genocide in Anatolia or the Mayan 'Silent Holocaust' in Guatemala] are not given prominence. Since 2005 15,000 pupils from Britain have been sent on government funded-H.E.T. trips to visit Auschwitz- Birkenau. In participating schools, 2 per secondary school per year.

To have bodies and organisations fund the preservation of remnants of Birkenau's gas buildings [destroyed by the Germans dynamiting them as they retreated] can be counterproductive, since the 'revisionists' [Islamic and Western] point to the imbalance of funds for 'the real mind-benders'/'ZOG' versus funds for 'revisionists', seeing this funding as a special effort by current 'ZOG' to indoctrinate populations.

The buildings were processed as primary sources in the 1940s. Visiting what is there adds virtually zero to rational understanding.

If once the survivors have died, the place was to slowly be covered in grass then there would be no need for the Polish government to ban Iranian historians from visiting it, because there would be nothing left to visit.

The whole sideshow of 'no working gas chambers exist' might be easier laid to rest. Similarly stopping state imprisonment for 'revisionists' like Ernst Zundel would seriously weaken the concept of 'ZOG' silencing the truth.

 

[butchersapron]

Don't be so arrogant. What evidence is there to the contrary, and what exactly is the 'intentionalist' position? You haven't outlined it.

Your 'I've read more books on this than you so shut up' position is worthless. All you've done so far is appeal to authority – how about coming up with some concrete statements?

You want refs on something that's a technicality? I take it you've put the relevant terms into google? I'm not here to patch up your ego. You go it wrong. No worries, not your area. But the idea that this is some technicality is mental.

 

[8ball]

Collectivism Vs Individualism is a false dichotomy.

Where did I mention or posit any kind of dichotomy?

Though that makes more sense than 'individualism is a philosophical error'.
Anyway, I think we've had this argument before - it went on for a bit but I think in the end it centred on the definition of individualism.

We're having enough trouble over the definitions of words in this thread - I'll stick roughly with the Wikipedia entry on what it means and if you want it to mean something more akin to 'sociopathy' I'm happy to go with your conclusions

Additional:

If what you meant by 'individualism is a philosophical error' was 'Onarchy's elevation of individualism as something simple and distinct, with a black/white dualistic relationship with 'collectivism' with one being the source of all that is good and life-enhancing and the other being evil and the source of all unnecessary suffering in the world <breathes in> - is philosophically barmy', then I agree.

 

[onarchy]

Could you please substantiate these rather wild claims with some evidence?

There is a whole host of evidence but quantitatively a lot of it is summarized in the following graph:

This shows a correlation between GDP and economic freedom. Granted, neither GDP nor economic freedom are perfect measures, and this graph alone does not prove causality and which direction it goes, but it does visibly summarize the effect of economic freedom (or the lack thereof) on national wealth. What it shows (in conjunction with all the available evidence) is that the more economically free a nation is, the wealthier it is. Or put negatively: the more it deviates from capitalism, the less wealthy it is. It is not in the near-capitalist societies that people are dying of malnutrition and disease. This happens in the poor, anti-capitalist countries. Thus, anyone who is promoting anti-capitalism is partially responsible for the deaths in anti-capitalist countries, because they contribute to the spreading of false, murderous ideas.

Now, you can of course now answer that this is bullshit, that this graph proves nothing, but consider what I am accusing you of: contributing to the deaths of thousands of innocent people every day. If *I* was accused of something like that I would have to pretty darn certain before dismissing it as bullshit. In fact, consider an analogous case: suppose there is a baby food producer, and several customers reported to you that there was something horribly wrong with the food that was making their children really sick. Suppose further that the baby food producer dismissed the complaints as bullshit and that their complaints prove nothing, and then proceeding to not do ANYTHING to test the food to see if there was anything wrong with it. What would your view of such a baby food producer be? I know that *I* would view him with contempt and hold him criminally responsible for deaths and illness caused by the baby food. Now, apply that same logic to yourself in the case of capitalism and see where that leaves you.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You want refs on something that's a technicality? I take it you've put the relevant terms into google? I'm not here to patch up your ego. You go it wrong. No worries, not your area. But the idea that this is some technicality is mental.

I'll say it again, I edited out that bit. However, given that you agree with the only historian I'm properly familiar with on the subject, and I've very briefly outlined how he believes it happened, you could briefly state where the current controversy lies.

It's not about my ego. I fully accept that I am no expert on this. Anyway fuck it. Respond how you like.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Where did you get that graph from, onar? Do you have a link to a place that explains the criteria it used.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Where did you get that graph from, onar? Do you have a link to a place that explains the criteria it used.

It's from here and here bless.

Louis MacNeice