Goldberg and the documentary made the familiar argument that others have challenged; namely, that fascism is not a doctrine of the Right, but one that emerged from the Left. The film showed in particular rarely seen footage of playwright and influential Fabian Socialist George Bernard Shaw, extolling for the camera the virtues of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s Fascist dictator. The film could have proceeded to make the point — one missed by those who put it together — that Shaw later became an equal fan and supporter of Joseph Stalin. They could also have pointed to the story of famed New York Times newsman Herbert Matthews, who made Fidel Castro into a worldwide hero. Matthews held exclusive interviews in the mountains with Castro during his guerrilla war against Fulgencio Batista, and was taken in by Castro’s staged actions to make it appear he had a strong guerrilla group, rather than a defeated ragtag army. Decades earlier Matthews gained fame as a correspondent who supported the Loyalists during the Spanish Civil War, which made him a hero to the Left. Yet few know that Matthews too started his journalistic career as a supporter of Mussolini and as a journalist who backed the Italian dictator’s invasion of Ethiopia.
Had Beck or his researchers known about it, it might have been more effective for American audiences to hear the words of the founder of the American labor movement, Samuel Gompers, who in the journal of the American Federation of Labor praised Mussolini and the doctrine of Fascism as a model for American workers to emulate and to build upon in the United States. The example of Gompers would, I think, have been far more effective in revealing how Mussolini’s economic and political doctrines received wide support in the United States from those like Gompers who normally would be considered on the Left of the political spectrum.
Alan Wolfe singled out for criticism the section of the film that mentioned Hitler had instituted a program of health care, as well as a nation-wide public works programs which quickly helped Germany out of the depression and that was widely popular among the populace. Wolfe commented that “Nazi Germany was not evil because of their economic program,” but was “evil because it aimed at the extermination of European Jewry.”
Of course, the film made rather clear that the enormity of the Holocaust was the single most evil thing about Nazi Germany. The script did not say that its domestic programs were evil. For example, most people do not know that Hitler’s regime was the first to start a massive public campaign against smoking, which it correctly argued caused cancer. In fact, historian Robert Proctor wrote an entire book about it. Proctor reveals that the program was in fact quite laudable, and was the most aggressive state run effort to curb people from smoking. The Amazon.com review makes the following points about it:
The Nazi doctors fought their war against cancer on many fronts, battling environmental and workplace hazards (restrictions on the use of asbestos) and recommending food standards (bans on carcinogenic pesticides and food dyes) and early detection (“men were advised to get their colons checked as often as they would check the engines of their cars…”). Armed with the world’s most sophisticated tobacco-disease epidemiology–they were the first to link smoking to lung cancer definitively–Nazi doctors were especially passionate about the hazards of tobacco. Hitler himself was a devout nonsmoker, and credited his political success to kicking the habit. Proctor does an excellent job of charting these anticancer efforts–part of what he terms “the ‘flip side’ of fascism”–and, along the way, touches on some unsettling issues. Can an immoral regime promote and produce morally responsible science? Or, in Proctor’s words, “Do we look at history differently when we learn that … Nazi health officials worried about asbestos-induced lung cancer? I think we do. We learn that Nazism was a more subtle phenomenon than we commonly imagine, more seductive, more plausible.”
The point is relevant to Beck’s documentary: The Nazi war on cancer did not make the regime any less evil. The same leaders who tried to save the lives of its so-called Aryan population did everything it could to kill Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, Communists, trade unionists and socialists. Above all, Hitler devoted the regime to first and foremost cleansing Europe entirely of all living Jews, and his death squads exterminated them even before the gas ovens were built in the various concentration camps.
Nor do I think the film suggested that because the Nazis had such programs, similar ones in America means that the United States is moving towards a form of Nazism. Yet, I do think the point made as criticism by Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin has great validity. Kazin is quoted as saying that he saw the documentary as “a classic piece of anti-Communist propaganda,” which from my point of view, does not make it inaccurate and is not necessarily a bad thing. Kazin then points to a major element of the story that Glenn Beck’s film leaves out. He writes, accurately, that “‘the first anti-Communists were democratic socialists and anarchists like Emma Goldman” or that “socialists in Europe after 1945 were allies of the U.S. against the USSR.”
Kazin is correct. His point is further illustrated by the following. A major anti-Communist operative during the years of the Cold War was Jay Lovestone, head of the AFL-CIO’s international apparatus, which he singlehandedly transformed into an active organization fighting the Communists in Italy, Germany, Japan and elsewhere. When some supporters of Senator Joe McCarthy attacked his outfit as working with leftists, Lovestone responded that “they don’t understand that the Social-Democrats are our best allies in the fight against the Communists.” Beck does not seem to comprehend that the socialists were in fact our most dependable friends in the worldwide fight against the Soviet Union and Europe’s Communists. He may disagree with those who want America to move towards a European style social-democratic welfare state. But his viewers would not comprehend how these same socialists were our allies, if they ever came across this fact elsewhere.
It would have helped give more perspective and understanding to the story if Beck had in fact showed just that point, and perhaps obtained interviews with surviving participants of the old anti-Communist wars from people active in the labor and social-democratic movements. As for Kazin’s claim that Beck only wants to expose “inhumanity on the left,” why then did the film deal with Hitler and Nazism, which certainly Kazin does not see as a force on the Left?
Finally, on this point, I agree with the argument offered by Lee Edwards, the conservative activist now at the Heritage Foundation, and chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Edwards says that Beck “is thoughtful and interested in history. How many journalists in cable, print or whatever have this kind of interest in giving you a historical context. I think he should be commended for that.” And Nick Gillespie adds: “Beck may be a strange mix of comedy and pathos, but he’s also bringing substantive discussion to cable news and creating arguments that can be engaged, refuted or amended.”
I would only add one caveat, and that is, on certain issues, Beck speaks up before he thoroughly understands an issue. I will deal in particular with his treatment and discussion of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the next installment of my blog.
“Kazin is correct. His point is further illustrated by the following. A major anti-Communist operative during the years of the Cold War was Jay Lovestone, head of the AFL-CIO’s international apparatus, which he singlehandedly transformed into an active organization fighting the Communists in Italy, Germany, Japan and elsewhere. When some supporters of Senator Joe McCarthy attacked his outfit as working with leftists, Lovestone responded that “they don’t understand that the Social-Democrats are our best allies in the fight against the Communists.” Beck does not seem to comprehend that the socialists were in fact our most dependable friends in the worldwide fight against the Soviet Union and Europe’s Communists. He may disagree with those who want America to move towards a European style social-democratic welfare state. But his viewers would not comprehend how these same socialists were our allies, if they ever came across this fact elsewhere.”
My main issue with this argument of socialists being great allies defeating other socialists is the same as when to rapist work together to corner a victim and they refuse to share… thus one kills the other and kazin’s argument is that just because he now rapes the victim doesn’t make him any less of a hero is a bit retarded.
Socialists/collectivists seek power and control… so it only makes sense they fight with other collectivists since they are a threat to their collective.
Lets also add in that socialism is a fantasy of high ideals that always leads to ruin. Those high ideals can do good things as long as they are prevented from gaining to much control… hitler, stalin and all socialists have these high ideals and as long as they don’t have the power to act on these ideals then they often can be seen as good.
“It would have helped give more perspective and understanding to the story if Beck had in fact showed just that point, and perhaps obtained interviews with surviving participants of the old anti-Communist wars from people active in the labor and social-democratic movements. As for Kazin’s claim that Beck only wants to expose “inhumanity on the left,” why then did the film deal with Hitler and Nazism, which certainly Kazin does not see as a force on the Left?”
I think everyone knows based on science that hitler was leftwing… he was a socialist, an authoritarian and a collectivist… all traits of the leftwing. The only ppl who who argue that hitler was rightwing are the ppl that only see ppl as socialist and don’t believe that things like capitalism even exist.
Having watched Becks show and being a historical buff myself, I found nothing to disagree with. Beck and ALL his guests were factually correct. There is no difference between Nazism,Fascism and Communism. All are brutal,murderous forms of governance that deem common man are too stupid to have self-governance. And will use the force of the state to impose there will. The so-called “academics” are often just as bad as Stalin,Hitler,Che, Pol Pot,Mao,etc., by being enablers. Walter Durantey of the NY Slimes was a huge enabler of Stalin, denying numerous times Stalin was engaged in starving millions of Ukrainians to death. For a true reading of the evils of communism ask those who survived it, men like Vaclav Hamel,Vlalev Klaus and the current Ukranian president Daveydenko. Listening to “academics” who have nothing but admiration for murdering filth like Stalin and Mao is worse than an excedrin headache.
The one thing that I think Beck (and many others that look at this) missed to establish that the Nazis were socialist is that the name of the party “National Socialists”, was never raised.
How much more proof do you need?
Robert Fuller
Hopewell, NJ
I applaud Glenn Beck.
he has brought more to the discussions then any other single person.
one hour hardly scratches the surface of this issue. those who are familiar with some of the horrors of socialism/marxism/collectivism know that history has been hidden and ignored.
Kazin then points to a major element of the story that Glenn Beck’s film leaves out. He writes, accurately, that “‘the first anti-Communists were democratic socialists and anarchists like Emma Goldman’ or that ‘socialists in Europe after 1945 were allies of the U.S. against the USSR.’”
Ahm. Technically speaking, it was Churchill who made speeches against Lenin back in 1918, so lets put things in perspective. And lets not forget that Emma Goldman was ostracised by the socialists after she dared to critisize the Soviet regime. Moreover, lets not forget NYT fawning reviews of Stalin, their reporting on Ukranian Holocaust in 1929-1932 (they said nothing happened) and got the Pulitzer prize for this (they did not return it). If anything, very few socialists were against Stalin-Mao-Ho Chi Minh without being ostrasized by the liberals (think Orwell).
And before I forget – Che Guevara teeshirts were popular in Obama’s campaign headquaters. Does this surprise anyone?
Lastly, check out FDR’s opinion about Stalin – the poor chap trusted him completely.
The “socialists” fought the “communists”? So the thieves had a falling out over the degree of control required to implement their programs. What of it? Socialists will, over time, enact “progressive” laws that will eventually pave the way for totalitarianism. There’s always a Stalin in waiting. How often do we need to see it happen to believe it will happen? The US constitution is a work of genius designed to limit this mission creep and preserve individual rights and freedoms against ALL forms of tyranny.
One of the strange things about Hitler is everyone’s obsession with the Holocaust as the sum total of the evil he perpetrated. Yes, he killed Jews, millions of them. Yes it was evil for him to do it. But that doesn’t mean that invading most of the rest of Europe, unprovoked, was a good thing. If he’d stayed within Germany’s borders and killed Jews, the crime involved would have been monstrous, but much less wide-spread in its impact. Much more than half the Jews Hitler killed were from Poland and points east. If on the other hand he’d not killed the Jews, but invaded Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, and the Soviet Union, I don’t think we’d be telling each other what a great guy he was.
I haven’t read Goldberg’s book. I know you can come across various writers (Shaw, Bertrand Russel, others) praising Mussolini (“He made the trains run on time.”, or some such quotation) and even occasionally Hitler, but by the late ’30s there was a very obvious rift between Fascists/Nazis on the one hand and Socialists/Communists on the other. Most of this division occurred because of the rise of Hitler in Germany (whatever else Hitler was, he absolutely *hated* Communists, jailed them, fought them all of his life, killed those he could get to) and because of the Spanish Civil War. That war ended, everyone united to gang up on Hitler, and then we started the Cold War, and things got a little weird. One of my favorite incidents was Dashiell Hammett, (who definitely was a Marxist, if not certainly a Leninist or Stalinist) being classified by the FBI as a “premature anti-Fascist”. What this means apparently is that if you opposed Hitler prior to some event (his invasion of Poland, or perhaps his declaration of war against the U.S.) you were suspect, because most of the other people who objected to Kristallnacht were Communists or “fellow travelers”. So a Jew who didn’t like Hitler prior to Pearl Harbor was potentially “suspect”.
Are there differences between Communism and Fascism? In theory, yes, there are, but they’re subtle and difficult to see. In practice, both wind up being authoritarian governments where the rulers soon lose sight of the ideals they trumpeted to get themselves into power. Once that happens, everything becomes a naked threat to kill dissidents, feather your own nest, and keep power for as long as you live.
In that respect, anyway, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, Castro, and a whole list of other 20th Century tyrants are essentially interchangeable. Where they differ is in how many of their citizens, and those of other countries, they felt it necessary to kill in order to preserve that power. On that score, Castro *is not* Hitler. Not a nice man, either, we’re not nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize or anything, but he didn’t kill millions in neighboring countries in some sort of scheme to make himself more relevant or powerful. The real mass murderers of the 20th Century: Hitler, Mao, Stalin, perhaps Pol Pot, stand in a group by themselves. We can only hope they have a members-only section in Hell.
You’d have to have the IQ of a potted plant to not see the parallel between Obamaism and socialism.
God help us if Obama isn’t a one term president.
Dear Sir,
It seems to me as clear as day, that fascism is of the Left: surely the phrase National Socialism says it all.
I have lived in the UK and experienced the contrast between Thatcher and the current, what I DO call the national socialist regime of New Labour.
The constant raining down of new laws to control people – to the extent recently, where a bunch of frustrated lesbians in the Gov. set up a group called “Pink Stinks”, to stop little(or big)girls liking and wearing pink!
Not setting up a “Stop abusing children” group, because they love all that, but taxpayer-funded nazi-style control-freakery.
I had to leave a job I loved, teaching, because it was more to do with Gov. propaganda.
Here’s my point, Ron: why should we be supporting socialists of any stripe when our country was founded to promote the freedom and liberty of the individual vis-a-vis the state?
The Mockumentary was not only FALSE and LIES … but Goebbels-esque in the way it spun and perverted history.
Beck the college dropout and ex alcoholic, must have been wearing his Mormon magical underwear too tight. Then again, I’m sure he’s waiting for Jesus to return to Missouri. (haha)
David:
Communists were quite tolerant for naziism starting with the time of Hitler-Stalin pack in 1939 and ending with Hitler’s invasion of the USSR. A premature anti-fascist mean a communist who did not follow the party line and was against the nazis during these years.
P.S. Official Soviet documents at the time blamed France and Britain for the start of WW2. Hitler wanted peace, but Western imperialists rejected his offer. And only on June 22, 1941 the communists and their sympathisers changed their mind.
P.P.S. In 1939-1941, the communists in Europe and USA were officially against the rearmement of the West against naziism.
Nevertheless, Mr. Radosh’s point about Socialists as useful allies against the Soviet Communism is correct. It’s not a question of supporting Socialists as Socialists, but the enemy-of-my-enemy.
Practically speaking, the point is to siphon off support from Communists. You cannot expect to blunt the appeal of Communism’s campaign promises with appeals to King and Country, but you can expose Soviet-sponsored Communism’s brutality and imperial intent and then let the voter/citizen support the native, basically patriotic bread-&-jobs Socialism.
That’s why the CIA supported the anti-Kremlin Socialist party in Italy and France prior to the 1947/48 elections – can you imagine if while the Eastern Bloc was being set up, France and Italy also went Communist? Gee, think the NKVD would’ve had trouble engineering a “right-wing coup” in order to justify the entrance of the Red Army? Or, with the Communists in power, would they even have needed to? Probably not.
It is a mistake to regard Soviet Communism as simply a political ideology. Above all, it was an international conspiracy orchestrated from the Kremlin and carried out by the world’s – by far – largest, most sophisticated secret services.
That’s why the Obama/Soviet parallel doesn’t really work (the fact that he is the creature of the Comintern is a subject for another post). If anything, in my opinion Obama is set to fail – he’s here to pursue his little idiot fairy tales, the same ones all my Ivy League and State College friends learned, and therewith to expose and blind the USA to strategic attacks while weakening it from within. But Obama doesn’t intend to set up a Reich or a World Revolution. Well maybe a World Revolution, but not a real one – he’s too much of a mama’s boy.
To 13. dan
I agree with the idea of the enemy-of-my-enemy is my friend but it should be more viewed as using a slightly less toxin on an arrow vs without. Socialism/collectivism/etc is a dangerous poison. Putting the lighter safer version on our arrows and spears can be very effective… however one can not only cut ones self but one can because lazy in aiming the arrow under the belief that the poison will kill even with a minor cut…
The rather strange relationship between some European (especially) and American socialists and the communists is important, and probably should have been dealt with, although it does raise complexities and nuances in the problem. Perhaps Beck should read and digest the recently-published English translation of Jean-Francois Revel’s Last Exit to Utopia: The Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era, which deals with some of this in passing.
The relationship between communism and fascism is also very complex, and something the left has been absolutely unwilling to confront. Revel is very good on this.
The part that I like the most was when Anita Dunn-Obama’s Propaganda(communication)Queen says that she admires Mao and Mother Teresa….wow! from one extreme to the other…one kiled millions, the other saved millions, one did not beleive in G-d, the other worshiped G-d….anyways, it just shows you how much of a dumasses the Obama people are….
I agree with Gillespie’s quoted observation – and of course I’m commenting with BECK on in the background. Beck’s partly my hero because he does raise important issues. But making 28 million during one of the worst economic years since the depression also has something to do with it.
Ultimately I see Beck as an entertainer, much more Walter Winchell than Walter Conkite. While his books have done great it’s the viz aids and facial contortions that make him a hit(along with an excellent corp of writers).
The ’90′s carried over a growing lit market of polemics into this century. Lots of authors made money on both the left and the right – although arguably the right made a lot more – if for no other reason than Regnery proving that there was such a huge market where as in the past the left pretty much owned the whole enchalada.
Sure the great William Buckley cultivated such – but the difference between the 50′s-70′s and the 80′s to date is quite extroidinary.
Likewise FOX has altered the cable universe – definately the biggest game changer since C-Span. I remember when Drudge tried to translate his then new-found fame onto late-night TV. Neither his conservatism nor his overt geekness sold well. He was gone in what amounted to 60 seconds. Maybe he might have found a niche if he’d come after Fox had established itself.
Conversely, Beck has been refinning his act for twenty some years. Timing is everything – and his timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The left has Maher and now we on the right have Beck.
Where as Maher once was open to discussion and somewhat libertarian, around ’05 with Bush’s unexpected re-election REAL TIME just slid into outright Bush Derangement shrill hysterics.
Sometimes I just cringe when Beck tacks on some outrageous line or a some campy gag to underscore his argument. But I did the same often reading Ann Coulter as well. Liberal friends do the same with Maher.
I remember how the liberals kept on insisting during the latter days of Bush’s first term that we were such a divided people politically. Yet I was a child in ’68, and remembered a whole lot more divisivness after Nixon, during Reagan and even Clinton than just Bush II.
I don’t think it’s any different when it comes to Beck or Maher or anyone else on prime time today. These are extreme partisan times in the media, and, we are a very – thus far intellectually only – divided country when it comes to our politics.
It’s more a funciton of MARKETSHARE than it is ideology in my view. In some ways it’s even more pronounced (and hense a bit more spooky) because unlike the 60′s, 70′s, ’80′s or even the 90′s, the new world is dominated by C-Span & Cable – rather than the written word.
In the future Ron it won’t be folks looking back on little influential rags like RAMPARTS or COMMENTARY, it’ll be archives more like the Dick Cavett Hour – digging up visual rather than written work.
13. dan:
Nevertheless, Mr. Radosh’s point about Socialists as useful allies against the Soviet Communism is correct. It’s not a question of supporting Socialists as Socialists, but the enemy-of-my-enemy.
IT WAS A FAILURE. why did the allies help Stalin ???? he had his pact with Hitler. The British knew that Hitler was going to attack Russia.
why ?
why ?
why ? did they help Stalin ? the history books say it kept Hitler busy so that the allies could get their sh!t together.
I don’t buy it.
but the Soviets had spies in the British intelligence agencies since 1930 (if not before) so that may have been a way to influence the British.
well history does show it was a huge mistake to help Stalin
Glenn Beck is not a scholar, at least not in a formal sense, but he is a dedicated student of history, and any of us who earnestly follow their curiosity wherever it may lead can relate to his own pursuit of the facts. Regardless of possible quibbles on the scholarly merit of his documentary, it still provides a timely illustration of the perils of our time.
Even if Glenn Beck’s thesis was wrong, and there was nothing sinister about the ramifications of the utopian ambitions of today’s advocates of regulated social justice, Glenn Beck’s documentary would still have the precious merit of offering an earnest dissent from the grandiloquent but soporific ideological folklore of the last half-century. If there are legitimate and cogent refutations, let’s hear them.
Anyone who was young in the sixties can afford the luxury of a good look in the rearview mirror, and perhaps reorganize one’s thoughts. Anyone who is young today can become intrigued by what actually happened some two generations earlier, if their curiosity was not destroyed by addiction to video games.
Anyone who argues that leftist and even communist propaganda is not pushed as objective history on most college campuses is either ill-informed or knowingly lying. As Mr. Radosh pointed out, the evidence is there for the asking.
“I would only add one caveat, and that is, on certain issues, Beck speaks up before he thoroughly understands an issue. I will deal in particular with his treatment and discussion of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the next installment of my blog.”
Glenn Beck candidly admits that he is a work in progress—and that’s why he invites legitimate criticism. He does not pretend to know it all. I have taken the liberty to email Beck a link to this article. Will he actually read it? I can only hope for the best because he does not know me from Adam. We will see.
I have done my own research on Martin Luther King, Jr. It is my adamant opinion that he did an enormous amount of harm after he jumped onto the socialist bandwagon. The general public was also losing its infatuation with him. The Harris Poll found that King was no longer among the top ten most admired Americans by the time of his murder.
Amusing to see liberals objecting to the use of a documentatary to advance political objectives… I think many of them are so far gone, they are only able to fool themselves, but they do so completely.
Then there was the journalist who got a pulitzer for cheerleading Stalin even though he had personal knowledge that the collectivization was starving millions to death. Had he reported that, no pulitzer…
In Mr. Becks defense there was only about 40 minutes of actual programming time. Got to pay the bills.
Hopefully Mr. Beck will continue to add more information to the discussion with the good advice of those like Mr. Radosh et al. You could spend all day with just the historical facts never mind the opinions and discussion.
Goldberg’s book is loaded with all of his sources for the material he uses and is well worth the read.
The Beck documentary was very well done for such a short piece. The Left definitely needs to be exposed for all of their not so wonderful deeds and should never be allowed to crawl back in their holes. They are out for good now, to be destroyed on the battle field of truth and justice.
In some respects I’ve always viewed the political spectrum as a circle, or perhaps even a solid sphere as opposed to a striaght line. As a self proclaimed “porcupine” libertarian (I depart from most libertarians on the issue of defense and the war on islamofacists), I’ve been in very heated arguments on right wing (newsbusters) blogs about personal liberty issues like drugs and prostitution, and many more on left wing (guardian) blogs about. . . well, pretty much everything else PLUS drugs and prostitution.
Are/were the facists, nazis, and communists diffeent? In theory the facists and particularly the nazis were nationalist movements while the communists professed to be an internationalist movment. In practical terms the only difference was the calbre of bullets they used to kill those they could not control. The pathological need/drive to dominate others and force them to a particular way of living seems to infect roughly 1/3 of humans, and they tend to self identify with the monikar (left or right) that they think gives them the best chance and/or excuse to advance their “better way.”
Beck can get too silly to listen to sometimes, but the fact that he is a proponent of ideology vs being a propagandist for a particular political party is refreshing. I hope to see the documentary in the future.
Regards,
I was particularly interested in the analogy of the political spectrum as a circle. I have advocated that view for some time now. To a rather small audience. In other words, if you place a point on the circle to designate a free society (democracy, constitutional republic, etc.) and move far enough in either direction, you will eventually reach the same destination on the opposite side; i.e. totalitarianism.
It is easy to attack Glenn Beck. But, unfortunately for his attackers he is often right.
I enjoyed this article. Americans are dangerously ignorant of history; fairly recent history at that.
Knotacommie: “There is no difference between Nazism,Fascism and Communism.”
There is one VERY big difference. Nazism is tribal, ethnocentric; Communism is inclusive (at least in theory). This is the main reason why Nazism was short-lived and never really spread and why Communism spread and is harder to kill than a cockroach.
The information that Mr. Radosh includes about the Nazi attempts to fight the negative health effects of smoking reveals what I think is the great danger of portraying Nazism as a caricature of evil rather than as a real ideology which had an appeal to people who were not inherently evil. A caricature can be dismissed as somewhat unreal and not to be taken as seriously nor guarded against as assiduously.
One of the things I got growing up amongst socialists is how underplayed the post-WWI schisms inside the socialist/communist circles was, particularly in the US but also in the 1918-19 turmoil in Germany. The German SPD by taking part in the wartime government effectively created off-shoots against it and they had already started to divide up due to the OCT 1917 revolution in Russia. It was in the hothouse of divided democratic socialist groups that would bring into being the national socialist parties that would, to some extent, serve as a temporary agreement point amongst the factions to get any sort of socialist party in power.
That didn’t happen in the US due to the pre-existing two party system and the general weakness of the socialists here. Such schisms between variants of belief (which texts you followed, which particular set of authors you endorsed, etc.) that served to dissipate the overall movement. With that said there was cross-communications, particularly in Italy and Spain between the minor US socialists and not only the fascists, but the anarcho-syndicalists as well.
Fascinating what the modern left doesn’t want to learn… but growing up in the environs I did gave me the first hand accounts from those who participated in the groups that were involved in the goings-on, and how socialists, communists, fascists and anarcho-syndicalists viewed each other. Luckily the small size of the movement in the US would keep things peaceful, while in Germany the fights between factions could be quite lethal as they killed each other to try and gain an upper hand. And once you got to power it was often your own supporters that became a liability…
There is much merit to the enemy of my enemy is my friend theory.
What is often overlooked still is that nationalism/racism is much more potent than political ideology.
Post-War until the USSR collapse, Russians were generally hated in Eastern Europe by their “fraternal socialist allies”…who in turn were treated with contempt by the Russians.
The Russians constantly had border shoot-em-ups with their “fraternal socialist allies”…the Chinese.
The Chinese looted war supplies, crossing China, provided by the Soviets for their “fraternal socialist allies”…the North Vietnamese. This why Hyphong Harbour was so necessary to the Soviets/North Vietnamese to have secure supply.
Then the Chinese invaded their “fraternal socialist allies”…the North Vietnamese, who had earlier invaded THEIR “fraternal socialist allies”…the Cambodians.
Anyhoo….back from the “fraternal socialist allies”…tangeant.
In the post-WW2 period the west greatly utilized former Nazi personel, against the Soviets.
Even convicted War Criminal, Gen Kurt Meyer, incarcerated in Canada, was used as a useful tactical mentor by NATO.
It is likely fairly accurate that most social-democrats were not just anti-communist but “semi-reformed” Nazis.
All Germans hated the Russians….on both sides of THE WALL. Russians were paranoid of all Germans….on both sides of THE WALL.
Just my opinion…..
I was pleased with the depth and humanity of Beck’s piece, given he’s seemed quite shaky to me on lots of pieces like this that were smaller and less of a production. He often seems to be thinking of something other than what he’s talking about.
Being pre-recorded, on this show, had its advantages.
THat said, I am no scholar or historian, just an average joe with a deep interest in this country and in how the history of the world has played out. I do believe, as does anyone with experience, that history repeats itself… or to put it another way, that people make the same mistakes for the same reasons from generation to generation.
America really does represent an anomaly, a departure from the human norm of power struggles and competitiveness and pain. It’s lasted a lot longer than I would have thought, if I’d been privileged to look at its beginning in the light of history until that moment.
But it went without real defenders for most of th 20th century, as leftism and Marx and collectivism all sang their songs to the ‘wise’. Reagan was the first national voice to re-declare the wisdom of our founding fathers and to oppose, in spirit and truth, the depredations of leftism. Others simply varied by degree. Reagan was PRINCIPALLY opposed to it.
We need another one. Beck isn’t it, but I”m very glad he’s getting such attention for doing what he does.
Marks argued that “no one in their right mind is going to defend Stalin or Mao or Che Guevara.” Evidently Prof. Marks has not seen or heard about Steven Soderbergh’s …
Er, the operative words: in their right mind
Marks didn’t argue that “no one in their left mind…”
“There is one VERY big difference. Nazism is tribal, ethnocentric; Communism is inclusive (at least in theory).”
To 28. Sadistic Eristic
Nazism and communism are both collectivists ideologies. The “theory” of communism is about as based on science as as space balls the movie. Its a complete fantasy. When ever someone tries to argue pro-commie they always turn to the “theory” and claim how no one has done it “right”… the problem is that stalin did do it right and he got the result that anyone sane person knew would happen.
Collectivism is all “inclusive” to what it wants to be… hitlers nazism was all inclusive as well…
In the Burkean sense, fascism and national socialism are both “liberal” doctrines because they are based on a priori assumptions on how the entire world must be run. Conservatism is about maintaining the traditions and customs of a society and reforming them only to achieve the goals the traditions and customs intended to achieve, reactionaries want to revert to the old customs and traditions because they believe they are better than the reforms.
#28 “There is one VERY big difference. Nazism is tribal, ethnocentric; Communism is inclusive (at least in theory). This is the main reason why Nazism was short-lived and never really spread and why Communism spread and is harder to kill than a cockroach.”
Technically speaking, all successful comunistic revolutions led to tribal ethnocentric regimes, which discriminated against some ethnic/religious groups. Check out USSR, China, Vietnam, Cambodia. In real life, the worst always get on top in the totalitarian regime, and the turn to the nationalistic fever is unevoidable. In real life, naziism is what mature, experienced communist movement becomes after it holds on to power long enough.
“We need another one. Beck isn’t it, but I”m very glad he’s getting such attention for doing what he does.”
Glenn Beck freely admits that he is something of a johnny come lately to the study of history. He forced himself to read Ronald J. Pestritto’s, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism. He initially found it very boring—but knew that he had to invest some time and effort to obtain a clearer understanding of the Progressive movement. Beck is not an ego tripping whack job!
I have not seen the documentary referenced here. I have studied communism most of my life. I graduated from SF State Univ in the sixties. In other words, I went to school with communists. I worked with communists. I was privy to their tactics and methods of “community organization”, lies, deceit, etc., etc.
I applaud anyone who exposes communism/fascism/socialism or any other social evil. Thank you Mr. Beck.
Using my experience and in my opinion, a communist was elected as Commander and Chief of the USA November 2008.
A good read is J. Edgar Hoover’s, Masters of Deceit, 1958.
Socialists/collectivists seek power and control… so it only makes sense they fight with other collectivists since they are a threat to their collective.
Nobody hated social-democrats as much as the Communists did. They felt that somehow the SDs were heretics who’d fallen just a little away from the True Church, while the right-wingers were just Neanderthals who’d never know any better. Even the peasant-Communists like Tito (who’d learned his leftist gospel in the Soviet Union) were savagely hated by the proletarian-Communists like Stalin for not being extreme enough against their own countrymen.
But if one examines the preachings and the lovey-warm-fuzzy collectivist goals of Socialists and Communists, those goals are not far distant from each other. They cheerfully begin their path together, feathering their nests by cooperative seizures of capitalist goods and auto factories and bankers’ bonuses, and pretend to puzzlement when their economies quit working. Really, they only get savage when some of the lower orders, or unintellectual redneck un-elites, get sore about giving up a cow or an unpaid weekend for the good of the order and beat up a Commissar or two. Then the word ‘Counter-revolution’ is heard, and the US gets demonized, and the ensuing deaths ‘to encourage the others’ don’t end until the real Boss Man is installed to hand down the non-negotiable Word from his fortress.
Wonder if Obama’s street ‘security’ army (to be funded at parity with the US military) is still waiting for its stimulus funds to get rolling…
Mr. Radosh — “I would only add one caveat, and that is, on certain issues, Beck speaks up before he thoroughly understands an issue.”
Inane statement. No one ‘thoroughly’ understands any issue. Life is too complex.
Hank — The Mockumentary was not only FALSE and LIES … but Goebbels-esque in the way it spun and perverted history.
Beck the college dropout and ex alcoholic, must have been wearing his Mormon magical underwear too tight. Then again, I’m sure he’s waiting for Jesus to return to Missouri. (haha)
Stupid statement. If that’s all you can contribute, please troll elsewhere.
Radosh says:
Yeah, us proles need you smart folks from Academia to keep us from making mistakes. We are not ‘nuanced’ enough to understand history or do research.
/snark off
This is why academics get a bad name, Radosh. We do have the ability to understand. Otherwise good review. Beck does more than 1000 academics to highlight the problems with the Statists currently infesting the Republic. Why? He has an audience. A big one. Why not find a way to help?
Are far out leftist, communist agitator propagandist types, who by some quirk of fate have a Professor in front of their names, and use it as a hammer to bang leftist ideology into students’ minds to be trusted and quoted when discussing Glenn Beck? I don’t think so.
They disagree with the words of a TV program that exposes communism for the killing machine
it’s been for the last ll5 years? And we’re supposed to take them at their word?
I think not.
In my book, that’s like asking Hitler what he thinks about a history channel documentary about the Holocaust.
Incidentally, these professors thoroughly and slobberingly love Obama’s Alinsky-esque version of history and the anti-free-enterprise direction this nation is headed. And hate Scott Brown and everything he stands for.
People, how many realize that the Scott Brown victory was the equivalent of dodging a lethal bullet to the heart of Uncle Sam?
I hope we learned a lesson. Never vote for a miscreant who wants to destroy every ideal this country was founded upon. In case anybody
has any doubts, let me make something perfectly clear. From my point of view, President (and I use that term loosely) Barack Obama has no concern for the health, wealth, or well being of this great Republic and its people.
In fact, in my opinion, Obama, in complicity with his henchmen, henchwomen and hench-homos has tried to inject this country with a lethal injection of assorted poisons which, but not for the people of Massachusetts, may, I’m sorry to say, have done us all in.
But Obama isn’t giving up. In his upcoming State of the Union Speech, our own anointed minister of propaganda is going to try to poison our minds once again.
Focus group testing, (they don’t trust their own judgment {and neither do I}) has shone that Americans are uncomfortable, no, hate, the ludicrous 3.5 trillion dollar spending spree (under the guise of “stimulus and bailouts) that Obama has engaged in.
Since it’s coming close to bankrupting us, and since the American people recognize it for what it is, in his State of the Union Speech, Obama’s going to announce a SPENDING FREEZE.
Don’t let the words fool you. Obama has thousands of tax money accounts in the bank. All this means is that three of those accounts, amounting to one tenth of one percent of our tax money, will be frozen. This slight of hand gesture is just a head fake. For spending is Obama’s middle name and spending us to death is his end game.
In the state of the union speech, TeleBabama will tell you that the almost four trillion dollars that he’s spent so far has saved us from a catastrophic depression (another 899,000 Frequent Liar Miles that goes directly into Obama’s personal Cayman Island account). He’ll also brag about the millions of jobs he’s saved. (What’s a saved job?) America is still pondering that question.
And how does Obama save so many jobs when the unemployment rate has gone from 7 to 10.5% under his watch? Is he on socialist time? Or is it simply a case of Obama Math? Is he smarter than a 5th grader? Or does he just have a Kevin Jennings in his administration that is rumored to know how gullible 5th graders think? Think I’m kidding? I’m not.
Obama will also brag about his other wonderful accomplishments.
Perfecting fifty different ways, while on foreign soil, to apologize to third world tyrants and mass murderers for the evils of America.
Letting Black Panther voter-intimidator felony crime offenders get off scott free after they don’t even show up for their court date.
Mistaking a solid oak locked door for CNN broadcasted transparency.
Throwing Poland and the Czech Republic under the Russian bus by taking away their promised missile defense system.
Spending millions on lawyers to defend terrorists rather than millions on weapons systems to kill them.
Hardly questioning the shoe shine Christmas Day bomber, and giving the sub-human the rights of a United States citizen.
Meanwhile, I’ve gotta mention Obama’s speech technique of creating the straw man and knocking him down. I can hear Obama saying in the front
of his big speech.
“Thirty million uninsured children mean something to me. A heath care system that steals your coverage because of a pre-existing
condition means something to me. Bankers that take your tax money to save their jobs and then award 20 million in bonus money means something to me. Bla bla bla and on and on and on.
Let’s face it, Obama is a Barry Barry bad President.
With one socially redeeming factor. He’s a great teleprompter reader. When it comes to reading a speech from
a teleprompter he can be as electrifying as a nuclear power plant. But don’t let that fool you. When it comes to the no earmark promise, he’s a liar. When it comes to the promise to put us down the road of energy independence, he should be arrested for driving without a license. When it comes to keeping this country strong and safe, he’s on a mental vacation in Hawaii; completely asleep at the switch. Or flat out guilty of national moral turpitude.
Obama’ll say he’d rather be a one term President than not do what’s right for America. What he really means is that he’s out to redistribute wealth, kill the American dream, neuter our military and stick our grandchildren with a 25 trillion dollar debt by the time he’s done.
But that’s not all.
Obama wants desperately to amend the constitution to be a multi term President. That’s what he wants. He never defined the change he promised except to say he was out to transform America.
Folks, what he’s out to do is destroy it. Make it look like it’s been in a horrible fiery crash so it’s unrecognizable.
Make no mistake about it. Obama’s hands are in both your pockets. His eyes are reading out of the Saul Alinsky playbook. His speechwriters, as we speak, are out to make fools of us all.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. When Barack obama took the oath of office on that fateful January Day, if he was hooked up
to a lie detector, that truth needle would be jumping back and forth like a man on a fuzzy tree.
Obama wears a mask of words. It’s
time we all mentally removed it and saw the man underneath for what he really is.
Not the anointed one. But evil incarnate.
#34 and #35, robotech master and Hyphenated American,
please allow me to clarify my remarks about the big difference between Nazism and Communism.
The ethnocentric nature of Nazi ideology, i.e. Teutonics are the master race and destined to rule the world, means that every other ethnic and racial group will oppose it, usually in an immediate, knee-jerk fashion. How could anyone, for instance, go to China and convince the Chinese to adopt Nazism and work to place Teutonics in a position of dominance above all others, including the Chinese? Wouldn’t happen. Communism, on the other hand, can be marketed to Chinese peasants just as well as to peasants anywhere else and the politically ambitious in China are just as likely to see Communism as a vehicle for their own ambitions as the politically ambitious anywhere else.
The sales pitch of Communism works in almost any society. The sales pitch of Nazism, eh, not so much.
Of course, facism does have a more general appeal, but doesn’t have the hook of promising the poor masses a much better life.
26. JustAl:
“In some respects I’ve always viewed the political spectrum as a circle, … as opposed to a striaght line.”
27. Bob Gilkison:
“I was particularly interested in the analogy of the political spectrum as a circle. I have advocated that view for some time now.”
The usual model of laying the political spectrum out on a straight line is obviously a failure. A better model is to replace:
Communism ——————————– Fascism
with:
Statism ———————————- Individualism
The revised model properly crowds Fascism and Communism together with Communism as slightly more extreme. Also, it is much easier to draw the above model than to try to draw an ascii circle and label it.
39. rachel peepers:
“Are far out leftist, communist agitator propagandist types, who by some quirk of fate have a Professor in front of their names, …”
Sadly, it is no quirk of fate. Placing ideological soulmates in positions of influence in Universities as well as in other areas of society is a key goal of marxists. They place particular emphasis on putting sympathizers on faculty search committees and tenure committees. There is nothing random about it.
To 40. Sadistic Eristic
Nazism put the whites up front however another form of fascism puts another race or group up front. Fascisms and collectivists as a whole are very self diluted and not wholly based on science, logic, facts or sanity.
As for
“The usual model of laying the political spectrum out on a straight line is obviously a failure. A better model is to replace:
Communism ——————————– Fascism
with:
Statism ———————————- Individualism
The revised model properly crowds Fascism and Communism together with Communism as slightly more extreme. Also, it is much easier to draw the above model than to try to draw an ascii circle and label it.”
Thats is leftwing propaganda… straight line bars are the best because in ideology you have polar opposites(ie right and left).
The core bar is
Collectivism(leftwing) vs individualism(rightwing). This is the core battle of ideologies.
This bar breaks into 2 overall bars. Economic and government.
Economic is Socialism(collectivist economic ideologies/leftwing) vs Capitalism(individualist economic ideologies/rightwing).
On the government side you have Authoritarian(collectivist government ideologies/leftwing) vs Anarchy(individualist government ideologies/rightwing).
The overriding factor in everything is the “base bar”(collectivist v individualist). A collectivists can not and will not believe in capitalism because capitalism is an individualist ideology.
Fascism is a collectivist ideology. We know this based on the fact they are racists among other things. They demand Authoritarian control of the government and they demand Socialistic control of the economic area…
Fascism unlike communism however is what one could call a “transition” ideology. If covers many different flavors and can heavily change over time.(both short or long periods) This also fits in with a well known quote “socialism’s goal is communism”. Fascism being a form of socialism will almost always move toward communism. By 1945 germany was pushing closer and closer into full blown communism. If it had been around for another 10 year it my well have become a communist country.
Fascism has many broader aspects to it which is why some can argue that it is a very centrist ideology(and many forms of fascism are centrist hitler’s election platform was very centrist). The end run is that fascism is collectivism though and that means that is a centrist to leftwing ideology… once again depending on the flavor and time scale.
The idea that fascism is right wing is not based on science it is simply based on propaganda and poor education.
It amazes one to realize the extent to which this silly country is susceptible to such blatant propaganda as spewed forth on a Daily basis by FOX Noise.
These are the days of America’s ultimate doom. When a clueless thought Nazi like Glenn Beck is able to hijack America political conversation, it only proves beyond a wisp of a doubt that America has swallowed the fatal capsule of its own demise.
Seriously, did you ever, in your weirdest, stupidest fantasies think your country would fall as low as it has? It kinda makes you wonder.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
WRT Goldberg’s book: its central thesis is NOT that fascism/nazism is a movement of the “left”. (And I take note that Ron Radosh does not claim as much.) It is sufficient to look at the index to see that 6 out of 10 chapters are devoted to the American “left”, which would be strange in a book devoted to a thesis about fascism. (Yes, I have read the book and the index is accurate!)
It is more accurate to say that the book is devoted to the historical and ideological relationship between fascism/nazism and the specifically American “left”. Fascism and Nazism also have relationships to European Marxism, to European nationalism, and to British socialism, but those relationships are so complex that they would require separate books. Just to show how complex: it would be a serious mistake to say that, in Europe, socialism and Marxism have always, or even mostly, been associated with the “left”. It would also be a mistake to say that European nationalism was always considered part of the “right”.
Beck does great work but he gets sloppy. He ended the show talking about the left’s desire for Nirvana. Utopia maybe, but Nirvana is not on their minds. Glen, get it together, you have to be precise in your language or you expose yourself as a fool.
Adding to Robotech: In the early days of contract reforestation in British Columbia (1970′s) there were a number of attempts to share earnings equally among the treeplanters instead of paying by the number of trees one planted. Like, sharing is where it’s at, right? Very high minded in theory, but in practice some high ballers harassed the low ballers while others resented them openly. Other planters found this a great opportunity to be drunk or stoned all day. Not a happy scene. Most of these attempts lasted one season. The best of the bunch fell apart when their highballers left to become independent capitalist contractors. Such “cooperatives” were actually run by a handful of hardworking idealists. They carried a lot of loafers who demanded every perk available from the collective, while avoiding the volunteer work that made it happen. And these were voluntary collectives. Forced collectivization is what the Democrats have in mind for us. After all, it worked so well in the Soviet Union and Mao’s China.
Beck fuzzed out the horror in the pictures shown, and he failed to give the psychopathic sadism in Ché’s games played with his 472 personally murdered victims.
But he’s the only one in 40 years that I have seen try.
Are we lost or not?
Well Beck is an autodidact, so he goes in directions people haven’t considered, then against as a young graduate student, you were on of the
ones trying to cast doubt on Lovestone, and Brown’s enterprise in Western
Europe, that the likes of Al McCoy and later Chomsky used as the source
of an indictment of anticommunism.
Everything Beck said is true, but it was enormously superficial. I understand that TV requires superficiality, but there are things he could have done much better (like use more of Jonah Goldberg.)
So much has been written – and known – about the affinity of the Reds and the Nazis that Beck could easily have made his case unassailable. Joachim Fest’s famous history of Hitler (Fest is a German) makes it perfectly clear who the early Nazis were and what their affiliation with the Communists was (until the Communists lost out. Then they went looking for the next totalitarian and found Hitler.)And one need look no further than Robert Conquest (The Great Terror; The Harvest of Sorrow) and Whitaker Chambers to get the relevance of Stalinists to Obamanists. Or try the Venona Papers.
Woodrow Wilson admired Mussolini and advocated eugenics. Bill Ayers is a communist and a mentor of Obama. There is a straight line from one to the other. Beck could have done much better.
Beck does not seem to comprehend that the socialists were in fact our most dependable friends in the worldwide fight against the Soviet Union and Europe’s Communists.
Goldberg developed his thesis based on “Modern Fascism” by Gene Veith. I highly recommend both books as essential background for socialism and the modern progressive movement. Both authors make the case that the modern liberal movement is descended from and based upon the socialist movement of the late 1800′s.
Both authors also explicitly make the point that Hitler fought Stalin not because they were philosophically opposed, but because they were both competing – as it were – for the same territory. Only one version of socialism could exist in the world: fascism or communism. Communism seems to have won that round, but fascism is making a comeback.
If you look at what Soderbergh’s movie Che brought in at the box office then it is very likely that the professor didn’t see it and or know about it since it bombed big time. Seems only Soderbergh’s family and close friends actually saw the movie.
I simply can’t understand how reasonably intelligent people – like posters on this site – can argue that Obama is a great orator – when he is reading off the teleprompters. His constant bouncing back and forth between left teleprompter and right teleprompter is maddeningly annoying and very distracting. For me, the message gets lost.
Did you ever notice that he NEVER focuses on his audience? (I can’t wait till the State of the Union speech!)
4 million viewers on Friday at 5 pm.
Nuff said.
For a one hour primer, I thought that Beck did a wonderful job. I hope that it will inspire many of the show’s viewers to pick up history books and re-visit this period that has been so thoroughly revised where it has been eliminated from textbooks.
Another significant feature of the period that has disappeared from textbooks is the tyranny of Imperial Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Marks thought Beck was trying to hint at a resemblance of contemporary liberals to figures like Hitler and Stalin.
Well, more than a few folks who are or who have been inside of/close to this current administration, Mark Lloyd, Anita Dunn, Van Jones, (eugenicist) John Holdren, Robert Reich, Harold Koh, (Ill go out on a limb and say Cass Sunstein, his wife Samantha Power, UN ambassador
Susan Rice…) each in his or her way, have expressed far more appreciation for the ideas & thinking of such men than they have for the founding principles of American governance.
The film showed in particular rarely seen footage of playwright and influential Fabian Socialist George Bernard Shaw, extolling for the camera the virtues of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s Fascist dictator.
Shaw was also on camera advocating the development of some nice, user friendly poison to dispense (humanely, how generous of him) with those individuals who consume more than they produce or aren’t too bright & therefore who really, you know, shouldn’t be allowed to continue drawing breath.
Who decides, George ? I wondered about Shaw’s own Usefulness, as a writer, and how he might have been assessed according to his own parameters.
Today, in real time, Obama’s science advisor John Holdren seems to have a lot in common with Shaw’s thinking, though Holdren maintains such ideas were part of his past, not his present. I see hints of such thinking in the recommendations of Rahm’s brother, Dr. Zeke, in his “healthcare” writings.
Ron, I too didn’t learn much I didn’t, was taught and written about for decades. I was able to respond to Mike on his blog, in detail. Although, I do nor consider Beck a “right” person, he claims independent status. But, when history is considered “right or left”, we are moving in the wrong direction. Truth is truth, no matter the story.
The “socialists” fought the “communists”? So the thieves had a falling out over the degree of control required to implement their programs. What of it? Socialists will, over time, enact “progressive” laws that will eventually pave the way for totalitarianism. There’s always a Stalin in waiting. How often do we need to see it happen to believe it will happen? The US constitution is a work of genius designed to limit this mission creep and preserve individual rights and freedoms against ALL forms of tyranny.
My thought exactly, Thomas #7.
I find it problematical, delicately assessing how each ideological group was, allegedly, positioned/poised at which point in history.
The tendency of any such group, once it gains the power/notoriety, is always to morph along lines that it may not have represented itself as in the first place.
I’m sure those crying out here for more detail are ready to stay glued to the tube for a week straight.
Glenn Beck would never claim to be a scholar or an intellectual trailblazer. But give him his due: he has solid American values, he knows where he stands, and he speaks candidly and without fear about what matters to him.
The current strength of the movement against Obamunist social fascism and back toward freedom is largely due to America’s popular conservative / libertarian commentators. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Larry Elder, and others cut from the same cloth have done America a great service. We owe them more than we know…in some cases, more than we care to admit.
Comments that do not violate PM guidelines routinely get blocked from this site. Any site that refuses to allow debate is pathetic.
After reading the documentary critique and every one of these responses, 2 things become clear.
1. Left wingers know NOTHING about their own philosophy nor add anything valuable to a conversation about it.
2. I need to read much much more about all these lefty philosophies.
When the USSR collapsed, Chairman of the American Communist Party, Gus Hipp, said the failure in the Soviet Union was because the USSR was not an example of “real communism.”
So, under the same logic that “the socialists were our allies” would we have to count the American Communist Party as being an ally against the Evil Empire?
For my part I thought Beck did a pretty good job but I also think the audience would be served well if he or someone would broadcast the entire “The Soviet Story.” In May, 2008, The Soviet Story premiered in the European Parliament from which nearly 95% of the funding for the film came.
There is so much to say about The Soviet Story and why it is worthy of our attention and should be shown to audiences everywhere. So much of 20th Century history has been forgotten, ignored and has or is being rewritten. It is important to see things seldom talked about and see how events tie together that are seldom, if ever, tied together – - events that have significant relevance to the current world situation.
As has been mentioned here several times the documentary illustrates the close philosophical and political similarities and collaboration between the Nazi and Soviet systems in the years leading up to and during WWII, (as the war began and started to spread, the Axis Powers included the Soviet Union), the crimes of the Soviet Union, as well as, the impact of the Soviet legacy on modern day Europe. The film shows recently uncovered archive documents revealing how the Soviet Union helped Nazi Germany instigate the Holocaust.
Through interviews with western and Russian historians, members of the European Parliament and victims of Soviet terror, the film goes into shocking detail and uncovers new information about the following events: the Great Purge, the Great Famine, Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Katyn massacre, Gestapo-NKVD collaboration, Soviet mass deportations and medical experiments in the GULAG. Edvins Snore’s research is thorough, his presentation precise and documented. So, though official Russia has tried to discredit the film, the Kremlin has no genuine facts to counter The Soviet Story. The reality remains that Russia needs to come to terms with its past. Not doing so retards its governance, diminishes its people and makes honest and open relations with its neighbors a very slippery slope.
Everyone should see The Soviet Story. No serious student of history or public official facing the complex dimensions of current international affairs can afford not to do so.
Is it just me, or has anybody else noticed that almost all of the left-of-center posts here are devoid of fact and filled with ad-hominem attacks.
Yes Glenn Beck is a bit ‘Flighty’. He is also more right than wrong. Beck is proud to be a college dropout and ex alcoholic (I’m pretty sure he would insist that he is an alcoholic, not an ex alcoholic). Hank, are you proud of being an ass hole. (This is just to prove facts and ad hominem attacks can be mixed.)
Didn’t Howard Zinn just pass away? Betcha all the profs who dissed Beck’s effort were heavily influenced by the man, more’s the pity. Interesting how both Nazis and Communists copied Margaret Sanger’s concentration camp idea. Ironically for us, both left-wing variants of the same policy insisted that they were progressive and scientific. If all Beck did was to get progressives to stop calling anyhone who disagrees with them right-wing fascists we should all be grateful. I’ve seen a clip of The Soviet Story at Creative Minority Report and it looks great. Good to see a second endorsement. Surprised it made it on PBS – or maybe I got that wrong?
The fact so many people are having such great conversations about everything he talked about,is the best result you could ask for.
Please, deprogramming people takes time and it gets done by little bites made clear.
I know I was one of them.