tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post115265557728213991..comments2024-03-13T03:13:59.610+01:00Comments on the beatroot: Was John Paul II a Marxist?beatroothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11242716221133886807noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-52054680838116726572012-02-15T23:01:58.675+01:002012-02-15T23:01:58.675+01:00Surely, the dude is absolutely fair.Surely, the dude is absolutely fair.www.tabletpc-shop.infohttp://www.tabletpc-shop.infonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1153468261352939522006-07-21T09:51:00.000+02:002006-07-21T09:51:00.000+02:00Lets calm down and not be so naughty.Lets calm down and not be so naughty.beatroothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11242716221133886807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1153137031127150982006-07-17T13:50:00.000+02:002006-07-17T13:50:00.000+02:00lunaticI am very disappointed. I wouldn't let anyb...<I>lunatic</I><BR/><BR/>I am very disappointed. I wouldn't let anybody insult you like that on my blog, Beatroot... I would intervene.soniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938174968325568608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1153113778422099722006-07-17T07:22:00.000+02:002006-07-17T07:22:00.000+02:00Ignacy,your idea of truth is really, really offWha...Ignacy,<BR/><BR/><I>your idea of truth is really, really off</I><BR/><BR/>What exactly is 'off' ? The Daniel Ortega sexual abuse scandal ? It was in all the papers.... It's a well-known fact... The only reason he wasn't persecuted was because he was protected by immunity and his fellow Sandinistas refused to lift that immunity... Now, it is possible that his stepdaughter was lying, is that what you are suggesting ?soniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938174968325568608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1153091659204033282006-07-17T01:14:00.000+02:002006-07-17T01:14:00.000+02:00Well, Sonia, that last post of yours does it for m...Well, Sonia, that last post of yours does it for me. Sorry. but your idea of truth is really, really off. I'm surprised now that you didn't try to pin Romero's death on "the Communists." Then again, maybe you just didn't get around to it. Sorry.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1153081396404600592006-07-16T22:23:00.000+02:002006-07-16T22:23:00.000+02:00Ignacy,Well, thank you for providing precise data ...Ignacy,<BR/><BR/>Well, thank you for providing precise data to confirm what I wrote. According to your own figures, 'death squads' got 58% of the vote, while the Communists always between 34.0% and 39.7%. Your votes tallies for ARENA, btw, are misleading. There are other right wing parties in El Salvador as well. All together, 'fascist' vote has always been above 50%....<BR/><BR/>Steppx,<BR/><BR/><I>when you support torture of children in front of their parents....they you have crossed an moral border from which nobody really returns</I> <BR/><BR/>Don't project your sins on me. You are the one supporting Communism, not me. It's the Communists who torture, exploit and sexually abuse children in Central America, not anti-Communists... Daniel Ortega, the Communist leader of Nicaragua, sexually abused his underage stepdaughter for many years...<BR/><BR/>I suspect that everything you ever read about death squads was a lie. Those crimes really were committed, but by Communist rebels... As long as you continue to believe those lies, you'll foam at the mouth every time someone tries to point out the truth to you...soniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938174968325568608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1153054742250869022006-07-16T14:59:00.000+02:002006-07-16T14:59:00.000+02:00Those numbers you presented, Sonia, seem to obscur...Those numbers you presented, Sonia, seem to obscure more than they reveal. <BR/><BR/>From Wikipedia:<BR/><BR/>In the legislative elections, held on March 16, 2003, the FMLN won 34.0% of the popular vote and 31 out of 84 seats in the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, becoming the political party with the most assembly members. ARENA won 32.0% of the popular vote and 27 out of 84 seats in the Legislative Assembly.<BR/><BR/>In the March 12, 2006 legislative election, the FMLN won 39.7% of the popular vote and 32 out of 84 legislative assembly seats. ARENA won 39.4% of the popular vote and 32 out of 84 seats.The FMLN also retained the mayor's seats in the largest cities of El Salvador, San Salvador and Santa Tecla, as well as hundreds of other municipalities throughout the country.<BR/><BR/>ARENA's successful candidate in El Salvador's 2004 presidential election was Tony Saca. On March 21, 2004, Saca defeated Schafik Handal (a CPer), the candidate of the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, by a margin of 58% to 36% with 70% turnout.<BR/><BR/>___ Looks to me like El Salvador will soon enough be on that list of countries that W lost while bogged down in Iraq. W's handlers no doubt knew they had to hold this one down, though, after all the other losses to the left in other South American countries over the past few years. And from all I've seen, the evidence is that D'Aubuisson acted more like Kim Sr. and now Junior than the folk on the left. AND, maybe the CP would have less power in the FMLN if Reagan and his successors were a little more in tune with reality. Then again, if you want to save me some time, I'm willing to look over any other information that presents an alternative viewpoint if some urls are served up.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152997975317833692006-07-15T23:12:00.000+02:002006-07-15T23:12:00.000+02:00I'm going to have to admit that I am not as knowle...I'm going to have to admit that I am not as knowledgeable about El Salvador as I'd like to be. But I am very doubtful about your prediction, Sonia, that the guerilla movement there, if it had come to power, would have established a situation similar to North Korea. I'd like to guess that there was some viable political alternative but I must admit that I need to look into it further. And I will after I finish reading Gross's _Fear_ which I just picked up today.<BR/><BR/>About Iraq being better off... it just doesn't look like there's any choice between the lesser of evils there. And the situation has now worsened throughout the middle east.<BR/><BR/>I also find it difficult, just jumping around again, when assessing the quality of life people have a chance to pursue, to speak solely in terms of this country doing better economically that that country. Like JP2, I think the common good is an important consideration.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152976987569118812006-07-15T17:23:00.000+02:002006-07-15T17:23:00.000+02:00And incidentally, in all democratic elections in S...And incidentally, in all democratic elections in Salvador since the end of the civil war there, right-wing governments associated with death squads always get 50-55% of the vote (while post-rebel coalitions never get more than 40%)...<BR/><BR/>Peiople of El Salvador also know how to choose the lesser evil...soniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938174968325568608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152976797253859362006-07-15T17:19:00.000+02:002006-07-15T17:19:00.000+02:00Ignacy,why defend and even support governments tha...Ignacy,<BR/><BR/><I>why defend and even support governments that mobilize death squads?</I> <BR/><BR/>Because I believe (I might be wrong) that if it wasn't for those death squads, Salvador would now look like North Korea (Salvadoran rebels made Castro look like a bourgeois capitalist). Again, I could be wrong, and I am not defending or supporting any killings, I am just exercising some moral relativism (just like our friends on the left who claim that Iraq would have been better off if Saddam stayed in power)...soniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938174968325568608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152968775345199092006-07-15T15:06:00.000+02:002006-07-15T15:06:00.000+02:00Steppx wrote: how was I hurt you ask? Huh?? I'll ...Steppx wrote: how was I hurt you ask? Huh?? I'll try not to take that as patronizing as it sounds. <BR/><BR/>Steppx: I didn't ask if you were hurt, I surmised you were/are by your posts. You don't feel persecuted and hurt by the Church? I hope I wasn't patronizing, but admittedly I have become weary of your constant one-sided barrage of fault finding and villianization of the Church. <BR/>Re. your queries, I wish the Vatican took (and will take) stronger measures to deal with the likes of Pinochet and Franco and D'Aubussion (in the future). I would take issue in regard to your characterization as to the extent that the Vatican "supported" the South American fascists you note above. And while I can't figure to whom you're referring when you write of Blowtorch Bob, my guess is that I would again share many of your concerns. I also think I made it clear that we stand on much the same ground (albeit not completely I'd guess) re. many of JP's pronouncements about sex/sexuality. Be that all as it may or may not be...<BR/><BR/>Sonia: So you don't hate Communists, you don't want to kill them, you just want to see them cured? Or you just accept that they are incurable? Then why defend and even support governments that mobilize death squads? I'm sorry but I just don't get it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152954843467950292006-07-15T11:14:00.000+02:002006-07-15T11:14:00.000+02:00American Rootophile - compliments will get you eve...American Rootophile - compliments will get you everywhere! We are a motley bunch, arn't we?<BR/><BR/>Step: Oslo? What are you doing there?<BR/><BR/>Sonia is the nudist pantomime villain (boo, hissss) and consequently priceless.beatroothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11242716221133886807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152949033173908942006-07-15T09:37:00.000+02:002006-07-15T09:37:00.000+02:00Well, however unresolved the readers of this blog ...Well, however unresolved the readers of this blog may be about communism, fascism, evangelical, fundementalist humanist libertarianism, the true position of JP2, etc., on two things I hope we can all agree: a) any blog that can assemble such a motley and diverse band of smart, opinionated people must truly be great -- Hooray Beatroot! b) any country, the discussion of which (or the discussion of whose sons) can raise such important issues, must truly be fascinating -- Hooray Polska!<BR/><BR/>(Sorry for being an interloper, for disrupting the yelling, and for the ass-kissing... I just felt that ~50 posts of insults was getting to be too much.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152934694953905242006-07-15T05:38:00.000+02:002006-07-15T05:38:00.000+02:00I hope and pray that you and your parents can find...<I>I hope and pray that you and your parents can find a manner of reconciliation</I> <BR/><BR/>Thank you, Ignacy, but I reconciled with my parents when I understood the true nature of Communism (a disease). I wouldn't hate my parents if they suffered from malaria neither...<BR/><BR/><I>weird form of Electra complex</I><BR/><BR/>Very funny, Beatroot...soniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938174968325568608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152930802498415172006-07-15T04:33:00.000+02:002006-07-15T04:33:00.000+02:00Let's me see if I can follow your logic, Sonia. Y...Let's me see if I can follow your logic, Sonia. You're comparing Romero to Saddam's victims. To continue the analogy, you're comparing the Salvadorean death squads to Saddam and his attack dogs. But you would have preferred to maintain the Salvadoran death squads knowing that they would have continued to murder people like Romero, like this nun, that nun and more. And removing Saddam from power, according to you, was and is a no brainer. And the assassination of Romero was indeed a tragic necessity. Is that your position? Also did you ever consider the consequences of taking the risk of getting rid of Saddam? Like what's escalating now in the middle east? Hardly the stability that was anticipated and promised.<BR/><BR/>In case you'd like to explore further what Romero stood, spoke out, lived his life, and died for, see:<BR/> http://www.justpeace.org/romero.htm<BR/><BR/>Maybe you'll just conclude, if you haven't already, that Romero was just another variety of fanatical zombie.<BR/><BR/>In any event, I hope and pray that you and your parents can find a manner of reconciliation.<BR/><BR/>Beat: Just consider that some, not necessarily all, risks may not be worth the costs. Human beings should weigh the relative pros and cons of possible consequences before taking certain risks. Isn't that a better approximation of what Rifkin is arguing? <BR/><BR/>And hey, I still just don't get how you can say you are a fundamentalist Christian evangelist who is at the same time a humanist and a libertarian.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152920962065953512006-07-15T01:49:00.000+02:002006-07-15T01:49:00.000+02:00Sonia: this communist hating thing is starting to ...Sonia: this communist hating thing is starting to look like a weird form of Electra complex….<BR/><BR/>Ignacy: Rifkin wrote that book Who Should Play God?...my answer to which I would have thought was obvious! <BR/><BR/>We play god because we invented Him. <BR/><BR/>We are the only higher power we have evidence of. That’s the humanist position. The alternative is obscurantism, something that is becoming all too fashionable today. <BR/><BR/>The wiki link you provide says that Rifkin is responsible for the EU’s ruinous ‘precautionary principle’…something which again is typical of this conservative age. Basically it’s saying that if there is a minute risk of something then we should not do it.<BR/><BR/>Progress is based on experimentation. And experimentation involves risk. Risk is necessary to progress. Period.beatroothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11242716221133886807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152913055110484142006-07-14T23:37:00.000+02:002006-07-14T23:37:00.000+02:00Ignacy,You misunderstood.I was comparing Romero wi...Ignacy,<BR/><BR/>You misunderstood.<BR/><BR/>I was comparing Romero with Saddam's victims.<BR/><BR/>The analogy goes like this -<BR/><BR/>A Western liberal opposed to Iraq War would say: 'I feel sorry for Saddam's victims, but I am against removing Saddam from power'.<BR/><BR/>I say: 'I feel sorry for Romero, but I am against removing Salvadoran death squads from power...'<BR/><BR/><I>have your parents changed their views from the days when they were Communists (or maybe they still are)?</I> <BR/><BR/>They still are. Why do you think I hate Communism so much ? It's like a mental disease, taking over rational individuals and turning them into fanatical zombies...soniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938174968325568608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152912027487691512006-07-14T23:20:00.000+02:002006-07-14T23:20:00.000+02:00Beatroot, some clarification from you, too...Have ...Beatroot, some clarification from you, too...<BR/><BR/>Have you ever read Jeremy Rifkin's The Biotechnology Century or any of his other stuff? <BR/><BR/>For reference, see:<BR/><BR/>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Rifkin<BR/><BR/>Is he one of the Luddites, in your estimation?<BR/><BR/>How about Ray Kurzweil, on the other hand?<BR/><BR/>See: <BR/><BR/>http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=1<BR/><BR/>One of my favorite junk reads over the past year is Greg Iles's The Footprints of God which is based on Kurzweil's predictions about the future.<BR/><BR/>How fundamentalist evangelistic Christianity fits into any of this boggles my mind.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152910567437344132006-07-14T22:56:00.000+02:002006-07-14T22:56:00.000+02:00Sonia: So you're somehow equating Romero and Sadd...Sonia: So you're somehow equating Romero and Saddam, seeing Romero's assassination as a tragic necessity? I don't want to speak for you. I'm just seeking some clarification.<BR/><BR/>Out of curiousity, too, have your parents changed their views from the days when they were Communists (or maybe they still are)?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152902687934677082006-07-14T20:44:00.000+02:002006-07-14T20:44:00.000+02:00Ignacy,sexually-frustrated American intelligence o...Ignacy,<BR/><BR/><I>sexually-frustrated American intelligence operative having some jollies on the internet</I><BR/><BR/>Close, but no cigar. It was actually my father who worked for the intelligence services, but not American ones but Soviet...<BR/><BR/><I>you think it was just fine and dandy to assassinate Romero</I><BR/><BR/>'Fine and dandy' are not words I would use. I would describe it as 'tragic' or 'sad' (or any other word usually used by Western liberals to describe Saddam Hussein's crimes, for example), while immediately adding (just like liberal do with Saddam) that the West doesn't have the right to intervene in foreign conflict, etc. etc. Just throwing the hypocrisy back in your face! <BR/><BR/><I>you think JP2 mollycoddled Castro just by visiting Cuba and for such he was deserving of another bullet?</I> <BR/><BR/>Hardly. It was actually Castro who caved to JP2, not the other way around. Cuba isn't North Korea... far from it (and it would be quite hypocritical of me because I visited Cuba 4 times - the only Communist country I visited since I left the Soviet Union in 1983)...soniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938174968325568608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152899780427178112006-07-14T19:56:00.000+02:002006-07-14T19:56:00.000+02:00Sonia and steppx:I guess we’re all counterbalancin...Sonia and steppx:<BR/><BR/>I guess we’re all counterbalancing in one way or another.<BR/><BR/>I'd like to think I can understand, at least partly, how you have been hurt and why you are so full of disdain for the Church and JP2, steppx.<BR/><BR/>And, Sonia, I think I can understand part of the hateful antagonism you evince towards how Marxist/Communist ideology has for the most part played itself out (although still doubting, I can’t help but wonder if you’re not actually a rotund, aging, sexually-frustrated American intelligence operative having some jollies on the internet. And not being an enthusiast of “adults-only” blogs, please don’t try to direct me to yours again with a hyperlink for any explanation on your part. I'm perfectly content with discussing stuff with you as non-embodied cyber entity). Nonetheless, while your most recent post concerning definitions of fascism was pretty much reasonable, much in your previous posts that make me believe that you think it was just fine and dandy to assassinate Romero were, well, pukey. Maybe you think JP2 mollycoddled Castro just by visiting Cuba and for such he was deserving of another bullet?<BR/><BR/>A bit more on Wills’s take on Kolbe:<BR/><BR/>This is the actual quote (that you significantly reinterpreted, steppx) that Wills took from Commonweal (a “liberal” US bi-weekly lay Catholic magazine of which he has been associated in various ways over the years):<BR/><BR/>“Of Kolbe himself, the Catholic magazine Commonweal wrote: ‘Although Maximillian Kolbe was by no means the violent anti-Semite his accusers suggest, there is no denying the anti-Semitic character of some of his beliefs and remarks. Plainly and simply, Kolbe was a believer in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and in the existence of a Communist-Freemason-Zionist conspiracy to subvert and destroy Christianity.’ ”<BR/><BR/>First, Wills’s footnoting just plain sucks. He attributes the quote to a secondary source, leaving no immediate primary source citation to Commonweal. <BR/><BR/>Second, I already acknowledged exactly such as the bit expressed in Commonweal but noted that this was pretty much a common perspective in the historical framework of the 1920s among Roman Catholics and many other Europeans and that the presence of sin does not disqualify a person from being "sainted."<BR/> <BR/>Then, of course, it should be noted in the interest of counterbalance that Wills neglects to mention in Papal Sin that Warren Green, director of the St. Louis Center for Holocaust Studies, along with Professor Daniel Schlafly of Saint Louis University insisted that the "charge that Father Kolbe was associated with 'rabid racist anti-Semitism' is false." In a letter to the editor of the New York Review of Books, to which Wills is a frequent contributor, they further objected to a book review by Jan Gross, in which he stated that Kolbe "kept up a relentless anti-Semitic campaign" by opinioning that Kolbe’s “image of the Jews, as of all who did not share his faith, was of people who were prisoners of error, not objects of hatred." <BR/><BR/>Be all that as it may, I also think JP2 well enuff long ago answered Wills’s rather convoluted diatribe against Kolbe in noting that Kolbe had not merely saved one man but showed many other doomed men how to die. Quite enuff for sainthood in the Church, I’d say. Again, saints ain’t sinless. <BR/><BR/>Bottom line, too, I’d ask as did Father Bernard Geiger:<BR/><BR/>"Would an anti-Semite urge a woman of the neighborhood to help the war-impoverished Jews who came begging at her door? A somewhat anti-Semitic woman had actually asked Father Kolbe whether it was 'all right' to do this. Kolbe patiently reassured her, responding: ‘Indeed we must do it because every man is our brother.’<BR/><BR/>"Would an anti-Semite have graciously welcomed 1500 Jewish refugees into his friary, shared his living space and meager food supplies with them, gone out begging additional supplies for them from the neighborhood, and thoughtfully organized a New Year's party for them to cheer them up? Kolbe and his friars did.<BR/><BR/>>>> Here I have to inject a mea culpa that I was as lazy as Wills in his terrible footnoting when in an earlier post I used a 2000 estimate for the number of Jews he helped at Niepolkalanow at the turn of 1939. I have no clue as to the actual number.<<< <BR/><BR/>"Would an anti-Semite have befriended a 13 year old Jewish boy in the genocidal, anti-Semitic atmosphere of Auschwitz, taken him into his arms like a mother hen, wiped away his tears, shared his food with him, restored his faith in God? Kolbe did."<BR/><BR/> A MUCH BIGGER POINT I’d like to make, though, is that many Jews would probably and probably have denounced Commonweal as anti-Semitic, especially given the penchant of its editors and contributors to be sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians.<BR/><BR/>And nowadays, I read in the far left Counterpunch that Zionists are controlling American foreign policy. And I read how many Jews view the far left as anti-Semitic and even are going out of their way to blacklist and harass other Jews who criticize Israel’s militaristic posture towards the Palestinians.<BR/> <BR/>BTW, aren’t Palestinians Semitic?<BR/><BR/>Where does Wills stand on any of this? I have never read anything by him critical of anything Israel has done. Why doesn’t he speak out more clearly and forcefully? Similar to Kolbe perhaps, a man of his time and place? A man ultimately to be judged by a merciful, loving, and just God.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152888616992792092006-07-14T16:50:00.000+02:002006-07-14T16:50:00.000+02:00Michael,Now let's see..."A philosophy or system of...Michael,<BR/><BR/>Now let's see...<BR/><BR/>"A philosophy or system of government that is marked by stringent social and economic control, a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator, and often a policy of belligerent nationalism."<BR/><BR/>This definition doesn't apply to Franco or Pinochet. Their systems were free-market, with very little government control. It does apply perfectly, however, to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim, Castro or Saddam Hussein.<BR/><BR/>"A social and political ideology with the primary guiding principle that the state or nation is the highest priority, rather than personal or individual freedoms."<BR/><BR/>Again, it applies to Hitler (though not to Communists), but definitely not to Franco or Pinochet. On the other hand, Saddam Hussein's Iraq (destroyed by that 'fascist', George W. Bush)or the Argentinian military junta (defeated by another 'fascist', Margaret Thatcher and supported by the Soviet bloc during the Falkland Wars) fits that definition perfectly.<BR/><BR/>"a totalitarian political system led by a single dictator who allows no opposition, promoting an aggressive nationalism and often racism."<BR/><BR/>This definition perfectly fits Communism from Stalin until Brezhnev (as well as Hitler, of course). <BR/><BR/>"A system of government that promotes extreme nationalism, repression, anticommunism, and is ruled by a dictator."<BR/><BR/>That's the only definition that might apply to the likes of Pinochet or Franco. But to describe Hitler that way would be ridiculously mild. <BR/><BR/>My point is that Hitler has far more in common with Stalin than with the likes of Franco or Pinochet (not to mention the likes of Trujillo or Somoza)... And the definitions you have provided prove my point.soniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938174968325568608noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152887787724137722006-07-14T16:36:00.000+02:002006-07-14T16:36:00.000+02:00I don’t like using the word fascism in the current...I don’t like using the word fascism in the current political context. When people do they end up like dear old Chris Hitchens, who described 9/11 as “fascism with an Islamic face”. <BR/><BR/>This has now been shortened, of course, by neo-cons to ‘Islamo-fascism’.<BR/> <BR/>But if bin Laden an Islamo-fascist then Franco was a Christian-fascist. But he was not – he was just a fascist. (Though there was much collusion between the Vatican, Hitler and Franco then, as there was between Franco and Hitler). <BR/><BR/>Therefore bin Laden would not be an Islamo-fascist he would just be a fascist. Which he is not. He’s a new thing. A new category. <BR/><BR/>But let’s not mess about here – anyone who blesses the go ahead of a mass dedicated to Hitler – as Franco did in 1968 (see Mark Kurlansky’s great book <I>1968: the year that rocked the world</I>) – obviously belongs to that weird bunch of freaks who in the 1960’s still thought Hitler was a good egg. He was not: like Franco he was a prize piece of sh*t (PPS)– doesn’t matter what political category you use. <BR/> <BR/>May be the PPS political catagory could bring together Hitler, Stalin, Franco, bin Laden theoretically? <BR/><BR/>Ha - a new political school is born!beatroothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11242716221133886807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152878788982547872006-07-14T14:06:00.000+02:002006-07-14T14:06:00.000+02:00Let's look at some definitions of fascim (via goog...Let's look at some definitions of fascim (via google):<BR/><BR/>"A philosophy or system of government that is marked by stringent social and economic control, a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator, and often a policy of belligerent nationalism."<BR/><BR/>"A social and political ideology with the primary guiding principle that the state or nation is the highest priority, rather than personal or individual freedoms."<BR/><BR/>"a totalitarian political system led by a single dictator who allows no opposition, promoting an aggressive nationalism and often racism."<BR/><BR/>"A system of government that promotes extreme nationalism, repression, anticommunism, and is ruled by a dictator."<BR/><BR/>Now, just how does Hitler not qualify?<BR/><BR/>If you want to claim that Adolf wasn't a fascist, the please give us the Sonia definition. In the meantime, put on the hat already.michael farrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10232229721381140090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13112593.post-1152876585378675672006-07-14T13:29:00.000+02:002006-07-14T13:29:00.000+02:00Michael,those terms aren't mutually exclusive Yes,...Michael,<BR/><BR/><I>those terms aren't mutually exclusive</I> <BR/><BR/>Yes, they are. Communism is an ideology devoted to the extermination of religious identities. Under Communism, there wouldn't be any Poles or Israelis, Jews or Catholics. There would only be obedient slaves marching together towards a brighter future. <BR/><BR/>And those who would refuse to march would be denounced as 'fascists' and exterminated...<BR/><BR/><I>put on a hat</I> <BR/><BR/>Sorry, but that arguments fails to convince me that Hitler was a 'fascist'...<BR/><BR/>Try another one...soniahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00938174968325568608noreply@blogger.com